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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20403-8.txt b/20403-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c68cf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/20403-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6060 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories, by +William D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories + +Author: William D. Howells + +Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20403] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY + +AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +WILLIAM D. HOWELLS + +AUTHOR OF "THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK," "THE UNDISCOVERED +COUNTRY," ETC. + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + +BOSTON +JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY +1881 + + +_Copyright, 1881,_ +BY W. D. HOWELLS. + +_All rights reserved._ + +UNIVERSITY PRESS +JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + +A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY 1 + +AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE 165 + +TONELLI'S MARRIAGE 209 + + + + +A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. + + +I. + +Every loyal American who went abroad during the first years of our great +war felt bound to make himself some excuse for turning his back on his +country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen Elmore sailed, no one +else seemed to think that he needed excuse. All his friends said it was +the best thing for him to do; that he could have leisure and quiet over +there, and would be able to go on with his work. + +At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narrative, I am obliged to +confess that the work of which Elmore's friends spoke was a projected +history of Venice. So many literary Americans have projected such a work +that it may now fairly be regarded as a national enterprise. Elmore was +too obscure to have been announced in the usual way by the newspapers as +having this design; but it was well known in his town that he was +collecting materials when his professorship in the small inland college +with which he was connected lapsed through the enlistment of nearly all +the students. The president became colonel of the college regiment; and +in parting with Elmore, while their boys waited on the campus without, +he had said, "Now, Elmore, you must go on with your history of Venice. +Go to Venice and collect your materials on the spot. We're coming +through this all right. Mr. Seward puts it at sixty days, but I'll give +them six months to lay down their arms, and we shall want you back at +the end of the year. Don't you have any compunctions about going. I know +how you feel; but it is perfectly right for you to keep out of it. +Good-by." They wrung each other's hands for the last time,--the +president fell at Fort Donelson; but now Elmore followed him to the +door, and when he appeared there one of the boyish captains shouted, +"Three cheers for Professor Elmore!" and the president called for the +tiger, and led it, whirling his cap round his head. + +Elmore went back to his study, sick at heart. It grieved and vexed him +that even these had not thought that he should go to the war, and that +his inward struggle on that point had been idle so far as others were +concerned. He had been quite earnest in the matter; he had once almost +volunteered as a private soldier: he had consulted his doctor, who +sternly discouraged him. He would have been truly glad of any accident +that forced him into the ranks; but, as he used afterward to say, it was +not his idea of soldiership to enlist for the hospital. At the distance +of five hundred miles from the scene of hostilities, it was absurd to +enter the Home Guard; and, after all, there were, even at first, some +selfish people who went into the army, and some unselfish people who +kept out of it. Elmore's bronchitis was a disorder which active service +would undoubtedly have aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to +be of use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. Failing such an +appointment, he submitted to expatriation as he best could; and in Italy +he fought for our cause against the English, whom he found everywhere +all but in arms against us. + +He sailed, in fine, with a very fair conscience. "I should be perfectly +at ease," he said to his wife, as the steamer dropped smoothly down to +Sandy Hook, "if I were sure that I was not glad to be getting away." + +"You are _not_ glad," she answered. + +"I don't know, I don't know," he said, with the weak persistence of a +man willing that his wife should persuade him against his convictions; +"I wish that I felt certain of it." + +"You are too sick to go to the war; nobody expected you to go." + +"I know that, and I can't say that I like it. As for being too sick, +perhaps it's the part of a man to go if he dies on the way to the field. +It would encourage the others," he added, smiling faintly. + +She ignored the tint from Voltaire in replying: "Nonsense! It would do +no good at all. At any rate, it's too late now." + +"Yes, it's too late now." + +The sea-sickness which shortly followed formed a diversion from his +accusing thoughts. Each day of the voyage removed them further, and with +the preoccupations of his first days in Europe, his travel to Italy, and +his preparations for a long sojourn in Venice, they had softened to a +pensive sense of self-sacrifice, which took a warmer or a cooler tinge +according as the news from home was good or bad. + + +II. + +He lost no time in going to work in the Marcian Library, and he early +applied to the Austrian authorities for leave to have transcripts made +in the archives. The permission was negotiated by the American consul +(then a young painter of the name of Ferris), who reported a mechanical +facility on the part of the authorities,--as if, he said, they were used +to obliging American historians of Venice. The foreign tyranny which +cast a pathetic glamour over the romantic city had certainly not +appeared to grudge such publicity as Elmore wished to give her heroic +memories, though it was then at its most repressive period, and formed a +check upon the whole life of the place. The tears were hardly yet dry in +the despairing eyes that had seen the French fleet sail away from the +Lido, after Solferino, without firing a shot in behalf of Venice; but +Lombardy, the Duchies, the Sicilies, had all passed to Sardinia, and the +Pope alone represented the old order of native despotism in Italy. At +Venice the Germans seemed tranquilly awaiting the change which should +destroy their system with the rest; and in the meantime there had +occurred one of those impressive pauses, as notable in the lives of +nations as of men, when, after the occurrence of great events, the +forces of action and endurance seem to be gathering themselves against +the stress of the future. The quiet was almost consciously a truce and +not a peace; and this local calm had drawn into it certain elements that +picturesquely and sentimentally heightened the charm of the place. It +was a refuge for many exiled potentates and pretenders; the gondolier +pointed out on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Chambord, the +Duchess of Parma, and the Infante of Spain; and one met these fallen +princes in the squares and streets, bowing with distinct courtesy to any +that chose to salute them. Every evening the Piazza San Marco was filled +with the white coats of the Austrian officers, promenading to the +exquisite military music which has ceased there forever; the patrol +clanked through the footways at all hours of the night, and the lagoon +heard the cry of the sentinel from fort to fort, and from gunboat to +gunboat. Through all this the demonstration of the patriots went on, +silent, ceaseless, implacable, annulling every alien effort at gayety, +depopulating the theatres, and desolating the ancient holidays. + +There was something very fine in this, as a spectacle, Elmore said to +his young wife, and he had to admire the austere self-denial of a people +who would not suffer their tyrants to see them happy; but they secretly +owned to each other that it was fatiguing. Soon after coming to Venice +they had made some acquaintance among the Italians through Mr. Ferris, +and had early learned that the condition of knowing Venetians was not to +know Austrians. It was easy and natural for them to submit, +theoretically. As Americans, they must respond to any impulse for +freedom, and certainly they could have no sympathy with such a system as +that of Austria. By whatever was sacred in our own war upon slavery, +they were bound to abhor oppression in every form. But it was hard to +make the application of their hatred to the amiable-looking people whom +they saw everywhere around them in the quality of tyrants, especially +when their Venetian friends confessed that personally they liked the +Austrians. Besides, if the whole truth must be told, they found that +their friendship with the Italians was not always of the most +penetrating sort, though it had a superficial intensity that for a while +gave the effect of lasting cordiality. The Elmores were not quite able +to decide whether the pause of feeling at which they arrived was through +their own defect or not. Much was to be laid to the difference of race, +religion, and education; but something, they feared, to the personal +vapidity of acquaintances whose meridional liveliness made them yawn, +and in whose society they did not always find compensation for the +sacrifices they made for it. + +"But it is right," said Elmore. "It would be a sort of treason to +associate with the Austrians. We owe it to the Venetians to let them see +that our feelings are with them." + +"Yes," said his wife pensively. + +"And it is better for us, as Americans abroad, during this war, to be +retired." + +"Well, we are retired," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"Yes, there is no doubt of that," he returned. + +They laughed, and made what they could of chance American acquaintances +at the _caffès_. Elmore had his history to occupy him, and doubtless he +could not understand how heavy the time hung upon his wife's hands. They +went often to the theatre, and every evening they went to the Piazza, +and ate an ice at Florian's. This was certainly amusement; and routine +was so pleasant to his scholarly temperament that he enjoyed merely +that. He made a point of admitting his wife as much as possible into his +intellectual life; he read her his notes as fast as he made them, and he +consulted her upon the management of his theme, which, as his research +extended, he found so vast that he was forced to decide upon a much +lighter treatment than he had at first intended. He had resolved upon a +history which should be presented in a series of biographical studies, +and he was so much interested in this conclusion, and so charmed with +the advantages of the form as they developed themselves, that he began +to lose the sense of social dulness, and ceased to imagine it in his +wife. + +A sort of indolence of the sensibilities, in fact, enabled him to endure +_ennui_ that made her frantic, and he was often deeply bored without +knowing it at the time, or without a reasoned suffering. He suffered as +a child suffers, simply, almost ignorantly: it was upon reflection that +his nerves began to quiver with retroactive anguish. He was also able to +idealize the situation when his wife no longer even wished to do so. His +fancy cast a poetry about these Venetian friends, whose conversation +displayed the occasional sparkle of Ollendorff-English on a dark ground +of lagoon-Italian, and whose vivid smiling and gesticulation she +wearied herself in hospitable efforts to outdo. To his eyes their +historic past clothed them with its interest, and the long patience of +their hope and hatred under foreign rule ennobled them, while to hers +they were too often only tiresome visitors, whose powers of silence and +of eloquence were alike to be dreaded. It did not console her as it did +her husband to reflect that they probably bored the Italians as much in +their turn. When a young man, very sympathetic for literature and the +Americans, spent an evening, as it seemed to her, in crying nothing but +"Per Bácco!" she owned that she liked better his oppressor, who once +came by chance, in the figure of a young lieutenant, and who unbuckled +his wife, as he called his sword, and, putting her in a corner, sat up +on a chair in the middle of the room and sang like a bird, and then told +ghost-stories. The songs were out of Heine, and they reminded her of her +girlish enthusiasm for German. Elmore was troubled at the lieutenant's +visit, and feared it would cost them all their Italian friends; but she +said boldly that she did not care; and she never even tried to believe +that the life they saw in Venice was comparable to that of their little +college town at home, with its teas and picnics, and simple, easy social +gayeties. There she had been a power in her way; she had entertained, +and had helped to make some matches: but the Venetians ate nothing, and +as for young people, they never saw each other but by stealth, and their +matches were made by their parents on a money-basis. She could not adapt +herself to this foreign life; it puzzled her, and her husband's +conformity seemed to estrange them, as far as it went. It took away her +spirit, and she grew listless and dull. Even the history began to lose +its interest in her eyes; she doubted if the annals of such a people as +she saw about her could ever be popular. + +There were other things to make them melancholy in their exile. The war +at home was going badly, where it was going at all. The letters now +never spoke of any term to it; they expressed rather the dogged patience +of the time when it seemed as if there could be no end, and indicated +that the country had settled into shape about it, and was pushing +forward its other affairs as if the war did not exist. Mrs. Elmore felt +that the America which she had left had ceased to be. The letters were +almost less a pleasure than a pain, but she always tore them open, and +read them with eager unhappiness. There were miserable intervals of days +and even weeks when no letters came, and when the Reuter telegrams in +the Gazette of Venice dribbled their vitriolic news of Northern +disaster through a few words or lines, and Galignani's long columns were +filled with the hostile exultation and prophecy of the London press. + + +III. + +They had passed eighteen months of this sort of life in Venice when one +day a letter dropped into it which sent a thousand ripples over its +stagnant surface. Mrs. Elmore read it first to herself, with gasps and +cries of pleasure and astonishment, which did not divert her husband +from the perusal of some notes he had made the day before, and had +brought to the breakfast-table with the intention of amusing her. When +she flattened it out over his notes, and exacted his attention, he +turned an unwilling and lack-lustre eye upon it; then he looked up at +her. + +"Did you expect she would come?" he asked, in ill-masked dismay. + +"I don't suppose they had any idea of it at first. When Sue wrote me +that Lily had been studying too hard, and had to be taken out of school, +I said that I wished she could come over and pay us a visit. But I don't +believe they dreamed of letting her--Sue says so--till the Mortons' +coming seemed too good a chance to be lost. I am so glad of it, Owen! +You know how much they have always done for me; and here is a chance now +to pay a little of it back." + +"What in the world shall we do with her?" he asked. + +"Do? Everything! Why, Owen," she urged, with pathetic recognition of his +coldness, "she is Susy Stevens's own sister!" + +"Oh, yes--yes," he admitted. + +"And it was Susy who brought us together!" + +"Why, of course." + +"And oughtn't you to be glad of the opportunity?" + +"I _am_ glad--_very_ glad." + +"It will be a relief to you instead of a care. She's such a bright, +intelligent girl that we can both sympathize with your work, and you +won't have to go round with me all the time, and I can matronize her +myself." + +"I see, I see," Elmore replied, with scarcely abated seriousness. +"Perhaps, if she is coming here for her health, she won't need much +matronizing." + +"Oh, pshaw! She'll be well enough for _that_! She's overdone a little at +school. I shall take good care of her, I can tell you; and I shall make +her have a real good time. It's quite flattering of Susy to trust her +to us, so far away, and I shall write and tell her we both think so." + +"Yes," said Elmore, "it's a fearful responsibility." + +There are instances of the persistence of husbands in certain moods or +points of view on which even wheedling has no effect. The wise woman +perceives that in these cases she must trust entirely to the softening +influences of time, and as much as possible she changes the subject; or +if this is impossible she may hope something from presenting a still +worse aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the letter from +the table: "If she sailed the 3d in the City of Timbuctoo, she will be +at Queenstown on the 12th or 13th, and we shall have a letter from her +by Wednesday saying when she will be at Genoa. That's as far as the +Mortons can bring her, and there's where we must meet her." + +"Meet her in Genoa! How?" + +"By going there for her," replied Mrs. Elmore, as if this were the +simplest thing in the world. "I have never seen Genoa." + +Elmore now tacitly abandoned himself to his fate. His wife continued: "I +needn't take anything. Merely run on, and right back." + +"When must we go?" he asked. + +"I don't know yet; but we shall have a letter to-morrow. Don't worry on +my account, Owen. Her coming won't be a bit of care to me. It will give +me something to do and to think about, and it will be a pleasure all the +time to know that it's for Susy Stevens. And I shall like the +companionship." + +Elmore looked at his wife in surprise, for it had not occurred to him +before that with his company she could desire any other companionship. +He desired none but hers, and when he was about his work he often +thought of her. He supposed that at these moments she thought of him, +and found society, as he did, in such thoughts. But he was not a jealous +or exacting man, and he said nothing. His treatment of the approaching +visit from Susy Stevens's sister had not been enthusiastic, but a spark +had kindled his imagination, and it burned warmer and brighter as the +days went by. He found a charm in the thought of having this fresh young +life here in his charge, and of teaching the girl to live into the great +and beautiful history of the city: there was still much of the +school-master in him, and he intended to make her sojourn an education +to her; and as a literary man he hoped for novel effects from her mind +upon material which he was above all trying to set in a new light before +himself. + +When the time had arrived for them to go and meet Miss Mayhew at Genoa, +he was more than reconciled to the necessity. But at the last moment, +Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What these attacks were I find +myself unable to specify, but as every lady has an old attack of some +kind, I may safely leave their precise nature to conjecture. It is +enough that they were of a nervous character, that they were accompanied +with headache, and that they prostrated her for several days. During +their continuance she required the active sympathy and constant presence +of her husband, whose devotion was then exemplary, and brought up long +arrears of indebtedness in that way. + +"Well, what shall we do?" he asked, as he sank into a chair beside the +lounge on which Mrs. Elmore lay, her eyes closed, and a slice of lemon +placed on each of her throbbing temples with the effect of a new sort of +blinders. "Shall I go alone for her?" + +She gave his hand the kind of convulsive clutch that signified, +"Impossible for you to leave me." + +He reflected. "The Mortons will be pushing on to Leghorn, and somebody +_must_ meet her. How would it do for Mr. Hoskins to go?" + +Mrs. Elmore responded with a clutch tantamount to "Horrors! How could +you think of such a thing?" + +"Well, then," he said, "the only thing we can do is to send a _valet de +place_ for her. We can send old Cazzi. He's the incarnation of +respectability; five francs a day and his expenses will buy all the +virtues of him. She'll come as safely with him as with me." + +Mrs. Elmore had applied a vividly thoughtful pressure to her husband's +hand; she now released it in token of assent, and he rose. + +"But don't be gone long," she whispered. + +On his way to the caffè which Cazzi frequented, Elmore fell in with the +consul. + +By this time a change had taken place in the consular office. Mr. +Ferris, some months before, had suddenly thrown up his charge and gone +home; and after the customary interval of ship-chandler, the California +sculptor, Hoskins, had arrived out, with his commission in his pocket, +and had set up his allegorical figure of The Pacific Slope in the room +where Ferris had painted his too metaphysical conception of A Venetian +Priest. Mrs. Elmore had never liked Ferris; she thought him cynical and +opinionated, and she believed that he had not behaved quite well towards +a young American lady,--a Miss Vervain, who had stayed awhile in Venice +with her mother. She was glad to have him go; but she could not admire +Mr. Hoskins, who, however good-hearted, was too hopelessly Western. He +had had part of one foot shot away in the nine months' service, and +walked with a limp that did him honor; and he knew as much of a consul's +business as any of the authors or artists with whom it is the tradition +to fill that office at Venice. Besides he was at least a +fellow-American, and Elmore could not forbear telling him the trouble he +was in: a young girl coming from their town in America as far as Genoa +with friends, and expecting to be met there by the Elmores, with whom +she was to pass some months; Mrs. Elmore utterly prostrated by one of +her old attacks, and he unable to leave her, or to take her with him to +Genoa; the friends with whom Miss Mayhew travelled unable to bring her +to Venice; she, of course, unable to come alone. The case deepened and +darkened in Elmore's view as he unfolded it. + +"Why," cried the consul sympathetically, "if I could leave my post I'd +go!" + +"Oh, thank you!" cried Elmore eagerly, remembering his wife. "I couldn't +think of letting you." + +"Look here!" said the consul, taking an official letter, with the seal +broken, from his pocket. "This is the first time I couldn't have left my +post without distinct advantage to the public interests, since I've been +here. But with this letter from Turin, telling me to be on the lookout +for the Alabama, I couldn't go to Genoa even to meet a young lady. The +Austrians have never recognized the rebels as belligerents: if she +enters the port of Venice, all I've got to do is to require the deposit +of her papers with me, and then I should like to see her get out again. +I _should_ like to capture her. Of course, I don't mean Miss Mayhew," +said the consul, recognizing the double sense in which his language +could be taken. + +"It would be a great thing for you," said Elmore,--"a _great_ thing." + +"Yes, it would set me up in my own eyes, and stop that infernal clatter +inside about going over and taking a hand again." + +"Yes," Elmore assented, with a twinge of the old shame. "I didn't know +you had it too." + +"If I could capture the Alabama, I could afford to let the other fellows +fight it out." + +"I congratulate you, with all my heart," said Elmore sadly, and he +walked in silence beside the consul. + +"Well," said the latter, with a laugh at Elmore's pensive rapture, "I'm +as much obliged to you as if I _had_ captured her. I'll go up to the +Piazza with you, and see Cazzi." + +The affair was easily arranged; Cazzi was made to feel by the consul's +intervention that the shield of American sovereignty had been extended +over the young girl whom he was to escort from Genoa, and two days later +he arrived with her. Mrs. Elmore's attack now was passing off, and she +was well enough to receive Miss Mayhew half-recumbent on the sofa where +she had been prone till her arrival. It was pretty to see her fond +greeting of the girl, and her joy in her presence as they sat down for +the first long talk; and Elmore realized, even in his dreamy withdrawal, +how much the bright, active spirit of his wife had suffered merely in +the restriction of her English. Now it was not only English they spoke, +but that American variety of the language of which I hope we shall grow +less and less ashamed; and not only this, but their parlance was +characterized by local turns and accents, which all came welcomely back +to Mrs. Elmore, together with those still more intimate inflections +which belonged to her own particular circle of friends in the little +town of Patmos, N. Y. Lily Mayhew was of course not of her own set, +being five or six years younger; but women, more easily than men, ignore +the disparities of age between themselves and their juniors; and in Susy +Stevens's absence it seemed a sort of tribute to her to establish her +sister in the affection which Mrs. Elmore had so long cherished. Their +friendship had been of such a thoroughly trusted sort on both sides that +Mrs. Stevens (the memorably brilliant Sue Mayhew in her girlish days) +had felt perfectly free to act upon Mrs. Elmore's invitation to let Lily +come out to her; and here the child was, as much at home as if she had +just walked into Mrs. Elmore's parlor out of her sister's house in +Patmos. + + +IV. + +They briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss Mayhew's voyage, and +her journey to Genoa, and came as quickly as they could to all those +things which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the town and its +people. "Is it much changed? I suppose it is," she sighed. "The war +changes everything." + +"Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss Mayhew. "But Patmos _is_ +gay,--perfectly delightful. We've got one of the camps there now; and +_such_ times as the girls have with the officers! We have lots of fun +getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops on the parade-ground at the +camp, and going out to see the prisoners,--you never saw such a place." + +"The prisoners?" murmured Mrs. Elmore. + +"Why, _yes_!" cried Lily, with a gay laugh. "Didn't you know that we had +a prison-camp too? Some of the Southerners look real nice. I pitied +them," she added, with unabated gayety. + +"Your sister wrote to me," said Mrs. Elmore; "but I couldn't realize it, +I suppose, and so I forgot it." + +"Yes," pursued Lily, "and Frank Halsey's in command. You would never +know by the way he walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he can't +dance, though, poor fellow. He's pale, and he's perfectly fascinating. +So's Dick Burton, with his empty sleeve; he's one of the recruiting +officers, and there's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't think +how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the old college buildings used +for barracks. Dick says it's much livelier than it was when he was a +student there." + +"I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the professor. "Does he find +plenty of volunteers?" + +"Well, you know," the young girl explained, "that the old style of +volunteering is all over." + +"No, I didn't know it." + +"Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, and they do say that it +will come to the draft very soon, now. Some of the young men have gone +to Canada. But everybody despises _them_. Oh, Mrs. Elmore, I should +think you'd be _so_ glad to have the professor off here, and honorably +out of the way!" + +"I'm _dis_honorably out of the way; I can never forgive myself for not +going to the war," said Elmore. + +"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody feels that way about it +_now_! As Dick Burton says, we've come down to business. I tell you, +when you see arms and legs off in every direction, and women going about +in black, you don't feel that it's such a romantic thing any more. There +are mighty few engagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets off; +no presentation of revolvers in the town hall; and some of the widows +have got married again; and that I don't think _is_ right. But what can +they do, poor things? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs. Elmore?" + +"Tom Friar's _widow_! Is Tom Friar _dead_?" + +"Why, of course! One of the first. I think it was Ball's Bluff. Well, +_she's_ married. But she married his cousin, and as Dick Burton says, +that isn't so bad. Isn't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing _all_ her +boys,--all five of them? It does seem to bear too hard on _some_ +families. And then, when you see every one of those six Armstrongs going +through without a scratch!" + +"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at a standstill. The streets +must look rather dreary." + +"_Business_ at a standstill!" exclaimed Lily. "What _has_ Sue been +writing you all this time? Why, there never was such prosperity in +Patmos before! Everybody is making money, and people that you wouldn't +hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and inviting the old +college families. You ought to see the residences and business blocks +going up all over the place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now. +You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore?" + +"Mr. Haskell's clerk?" + +"Yes. Well, he's made a fortune out of an army contract; and he's going +to marry--the engagement came out just before I left--Bella Stearns." + +At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright,--the only posture in which the +fact could be imagined. "Lily!" + +"Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in America," triumphed the young +girl. She now put her hand to her mouth and hid a yawn. + +"You're sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. "Well, you know the way to your room. +You'll find everything ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You +shall commence being at home at once." + +"Yes, I _am_ sleepy," assented Lily; and she promptly said her +good-nights and vanished; though a keener eye than Elmore's might have +seen that her promptness had a color--or say light--of hesitation in it. + +But he only walked up and down the room, after she was gone, in +unheedful distress. "Gay times in America! Good heavens! Is the child +utterly heartless, Celia, or is she merely obtuse?" + +"She certainly isn't at all like Sue," sighed Mrs. Elmore, who had not +had time to formulate Lily's defence. "But she's excited now, and a +little off her balance. She'll be different to-morrow. Besides, all +America seems changed, and the people with it. We shouldn't have noticed +it if we had stayed there, but we feel it after this absence." + +"I never realized it before, as I did from her babble! The letters have +told us the same thing, but they were like the histories of other times. +Camps, prisoners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden gains, +social upheavals,--it is the old, hideous story of war come true of our +day and country. It's terrible!" + +"She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. "I don't know exactly +what we shall do with her. Of course, she can't expect the attentions +she's been used to in Patmos, with those young men." + +Elmore stopped, and stared at his wife. "What do you mean, Celia?" + +"We don't go into society at all, and she doesn't speak Italian. How +shall we amuse her?" + +"Well, upon my word, I don't know that we're obliged to provide her +amusement! Let her amuse herself. Let her take up some branch of study, +or of--of--research, and get something besides 'fun' into her head, if +possible." He spoke boldly, but his wife's question had unnerved him, +for he had a soft heart, and liked people about him to be happy. "We can +show her the objects of interest. And there are the theatres," he added. + +"Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Elmore. "We can both go about with her. I +will just peep in at her now, and see if she has everything she wants." +She rose from her sofa and went to Lily's room, whence she did not +return for nearly three quarters of an hour. By this time Elmore had got +out his notes, and, in their transcription and classification, had +fallen into forgetfulness of his troubles. His wife closed the door +behind her, and said in a low voice, little above a whisper, as she sank +very quietly into a chair, "Well, it has all come out, Owen." + +"What has all come out?" he asked, looking up stupidly. + +"I knew that she had something on her mind, by the way she acted. And +you saw her give me that look as she went out?" + +"No--no, I didn't. What look was it? She looked sleepy." + +"She looked terribly, terribly excited, and as if she would like to say +something to me. That was the reason I said I would let her go to her +room alone." + +"Oh!" + +"Of course she would have felt awfully if I had gone straight off with +her. So I waited. It _may_ never come to anything in the world, and I +don't suppose it will; but it's quite enough to account for everything +you saw in her." + +"I didn't see anything in her,--that was the difficulty. But what is +it--what is it, Celia? You know how I hate these delays." + +"Why, I'm not sure that I need tell you, Owen; and yet I suppose I had +better. It will be safer," said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the +last, enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its effect upon +her husband. "I suppose you will think your troubles are beginning +pretty early," she suggested. + +"Is it a trouble?" + +"Well, I don't know that it is. If it comes to the very worst, I dare +say that every one wouldn't call it a trouble." + +Elmore threw himself back in his chair in an attitude of endurance. +"What would the worst be?" + +"Why, it's no use even to discuss that, for it's perfectly absurd to +suppose that it could ever come to that. But the case," added Mrs. +Elmore, perceiving that further delay was only further suffering for her +husband, and that any fact would now probably fall far short of his +apprehensions, "is simply this, and I don't know that it amounts to +anything; but at Peschiera, just before the train started, she looked +out of the window, and saw a splendid officer walking up and down and +smoking; and before she could draw back he must have seen her, for he +threw away his cigar instantly, and got into the same compartment. He +talked awhile in German with an old gentleman who was there, and then he +spoke in Italian with Cazzi; and afterwards, when he heard her speaking +English with Cazzi, he joined in. I don't know how he came to join in at +first, and she doesn't, either; but it seems that he knew some English, +and he began speaking. He was very tall and handsome and +distinguished-looking, and a _perfect_ gentleman in his manners; and she +says that she saw Cazzi looking rather queer, but he didn't say +anything, and so she kept on talking. She told him at once that she was +an American, and that she was coming here to stay with friends; and, as +he was very curious about America, she told him all she could think of. +It did her good to talk about home, for she had been feeling a little +blue at being so far away from everybody. Now, _I_ don't see any harm in +it; do you, Owen?" + +"It isn't according to the custom here; but we needn't care for that. Of +course it was imprudent." + +"Of course," Mrs. Elmore admitted. "The officer was very polite; and +when he found that she was from America, it turned out that he was a +_great_ sympathizer with the North, and that he had a brother in our +army. Don't you think that was nice?" + +"Probably some mere soldier of fortune, with no heart in the cause," +said Elmore. + +"And very likely he has no brother there, as I told Lily. He told her he +was coming to Padua; but when they reached Padua, he came right on to +Venice. That _shows_ you couldn't place any dependence upon what he +said. He said he expected to be put under arrest for it; but he didn't +care,--he was coming. Do you believe they'll put him under arrest?" + +"I don't know--I don't know," said Elmore, in a voice of grief and +apprehension, which might well have seemed anxiety for the officer's +liberty. + +"I told her it was one of his jokes. He was very funny, and kept her +laughing the whole way, with his broken English and his witty little +remarks. She says he's just dying to go to America. Who do you suppose +it can be, Owen?" + +"How should I know? We've no acquaintance among the Austrians," groaned +Elmore. + +"That's what I told Lily. She's no idea of the state of things here, and +she was quite horrified. But she says he was a perfect gentleman in +everything. He belongs to the engineer corps,--that's one of the highest +branches of the service, he told her,--and he gave her his card." + +"Gave her his card!" + +Mrs. Elmore had it in the hand which she had been keeping in her pocket, +and she now suddenly produced it; and Elmore read the name and address +of Ernst von Ehrhardt, Captain of the Royal-Imperial Engineers, +Peschiera. "She says she knows he wanted hers, but she didn't offer to +give it to him; and he didn't ask her where she was going, or anything." + +"He knew that he could get her address from Cazzi for ten soldi as soon +as her back was turned," said Elmore cynically. "What then?" + +"Why, he said--and this is the only really bold thing he _did_ do--that +he must see her again, and that he should stay over a day in Venice in +hopes of meeting her at the theatre or somewhere." + +"It's a piece of high-handed impudence!" cried Elmore. "Now, Celia, you +see what these people are! Do you wonder that the Italians hate them?" + +"You've often said they only hate their system." + +"The Austrians are part of their system. He thinks he can take any +liberty with us because he is an Austrian officer! Lily must not stir +out of the house to-morrow." + +"She will be too tired to do so," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"And if he molests us further, I will appeal to the consul." Elmore +began to walk up and down the room again. + +"Well, I don't know whether you could call it _molesting_, exactly," +suggested Mrs. Elmore. + +"What do you mean, Celia? Do you suppose that she--she--encouraged this +officer?" + +"Owen! It was all in the simplicity and innocence of her heart!" + +"Well, then, that she wishes to see him again?" + +"Certainly not! But that's no reason why we should be rude about it." + +"Rude about it? How? Is simply avoiding him rudeness? Is proposing to +protect ourselves from his impertinence rudeness?" + +"No. And if you can't see the matter for yourself, Owen, I don't know +how any one is to make you." + +"Why, Celia, one would think that you approved of this man's +behavior,--that _you_ wished her to meet him again! You understand what +the consequences would be if we received this officer. You know how all +the Venetians would drop us, and we should have no acquaintances here +outside of the army." + +"Who has asked you to receive him, Owen? And as for the Italians +dropping us, that doesn't frighten me. But what could he do if he did +meet her again? She needn't look at him. She says he is very +intelligent, and that he has read a great many English books, though he +doesn't speak it very well, and that he knows more about the war than +she does. But of course she won't go out to-morrow. All that I hate is +that we should seem to be frightened into staying at home." + +"She needn't stay in on his account. You said she would be too tired to +go out." + +"I see by the scattering way you talk, Owen, that your mind isn't on the +subject, and that you're anxious to get back to your work. I won't keep +you." + +"Celia, Celia! Be fair, now!" cried Elmore. "You know very well that I'm +only too deeply interested in this matter, and that I'm not likely to +get back to my work to-night, at least. What is it you wish me to do?" + +Mrs. Elmore considered a while. "I don't wish you to do anything," she +returned placably. "Of course, you're perfectly right in not choosing to +let an acquaintance begun in that way go any further. We shouldn't at +home, and we sha'n't here. But I don't wish you to think that Lily has +been imprudent, under the circumstances. She doesn't know that it was +anything out of the way, but she happened to do the best that any one +could. Of course, it was very exciting and very romantic; girls like +such things, and there's no reason they shouldn't. We must manage," +added Mrs. Elmore, "so that she shall see that we appreciate her +conduct, and trust in her entirely. I wouldn't do anything to wound her +pride or self-confidence. I would rather send her out alone to-morrow." + +"Of course," said Elmore. + +"And if I were with her when she met him, I believe I should leave it +entirely to her how to behave." + +"Well," said Elmore, "you're not likely to be put to the test. He'll +hardly force his way into the house, and she isn't going out." + +"No," said Mrs. Elmore. She added, after a silence, "I'm trying to +think whether I've ever seen him in Venice; he's here often. But there +are so many tall officers with fair complexions and English beards. I +_should_ like to know how he looks! She said he was very +aristocratic-looking." + +"Yes, it's a fine type," said Elmore. "They're all nobles, I believe." + +"But after all, they're no better looking than our boys, who come up out +of nothing." + +"Ours are Americans," said Elmore. + +"And they are the best husbands, as I told Lily." + +Elmore looked at his wife, as she turned dreamily to leave the room; but +since the conversation had taken this impersonal turn he would not say +anything to change its complexion. A conjecture vaguely taking shape in +his mind resolved itself to nothing again, and left him with only the +ache of something unascertained. + + +V. + +In the morning Lily came to breakfast as blooming as a rose. The sense +of her simple, fresh, wholesome loveliness might have pierced even the +indifference of a man to whom there was but one pretty woman in the +world, and who had lived since their marriage as if his wife had +absorbed her whole sex into herself: this deep, unconscious constancy +was a noble trait in him, but it is not so rare in men as women would +have us believe. For Elmore, Miss Mayhew merely pervaded the place in +her finer way, as the flowers on the table did, as the sweet butter, the +new eggs, and the morning's French bread did; he looked at her with a +perfectly serene ignorance of her piquant face, her beautiful eyes and +abundant hair, and her trim, straight figure. But his wife exulted in +every particular of her charm, and was as generously glad of it as if it +were her own; as women are when they are sure that the charm of others +has no designs. The ladies twittered and laughed together, and as he +was a man without small talk, he soon dropped out of the conversation +into a reverie, from which he found himself presently extracted by a +question from his wife. + +"We had better go in a gondola, hadn't we, Owen?" She seemed to be, as +she put this, trying to look something into him. He, on his part, tried +his best to make out her meaning, but failed. + +He simply asked, "Where? Are you going out?" + +"Yes. Lily has some shopping she _must_ do. I think we can get it at +Pazienti's in San Polo." + +Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. It seemed to him a +sudden advance from the position she had taken the night before in +regard to Miss Mayhew's not going out; but he could not understand his +wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he opposed her going. He +decided that she wished him for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he +said, "I think you'd better walk, if Lily isn't too tired." + +"Oh, _I'm_ not tired at all!" she cried. + +"I can go with you, in that direction, on my way to the library," he +added. + +"Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, discontinuing her +look, and leaving her husband with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed +responsibility. + +"She can step into the Frari a moment, and see those tombs," he said. "I +think it will amuse her." + +Lily broke into a laugh. "Is that the way you amuse yourselves in +Venice?" she asked; and Mrs. Elmore hastened to reassure her. + +"That's the way Mr. Elmore amuses himself. You know his history makes +every bit of the past fascinating to him." + +"Oh, yes, that history! Everybody is looking out for that," said Lily. + +"Is it possible," said Elmore, with a pensive sarcasm in which an +agreeable sense of flattery lurked, "that people still remember me and +my history?" + +"Yes, indeed!" cried Miss Mayhew. "Frank Halsey was talking about it the +night before I left. He couldn't seem to understand why I should be +coming to you at Venice, because he said it was a history of Florence +you were writing. It isn't, is it? You must be getting pretty near the +end of it, Professor Elmore." + +"I'm getting pretty near the beginning," said Elmore sadly. + +"It must be hard writing histories; they're so awfully hard to read," +said Lily innocently. "Does it interest you?" she asked, with unaffected +compassion. + +"Yes," he said, "far more than it will ever interest anybody else." + +"Oh, I don't believe that!" she cried sweetly, seizing the occasion to +get in a little compliment. + +Mrs. Elmore sat silent, while things were thus going against Miss +Mayhew, and perhaps she was then meditating the stroke by which she +restored the balance to her own favor as soon as she saw her husband +alone after breakfast. "Well, Owen," she said, "you've done it now." + +"Done what?" he demanded. + +"Oh, nothing, perhaps!" she answered, while she got on her things for +the walk with unusual gayety; and, with the consciousness of unknown +guilt depressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, subdued, +distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, as he forgot everything +but his history. His wife hated to see him so miserable, and whispered +at the shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, Owen! I didn't +mean anything." + +"By what?" + +"Oh, if you've forgotten, never mind!" she cried; and she and Miss +Mayhew disappeared within. + +It was two hours later when he next saw them, after he had turned over +the book he wished to see, and had found the passage which would enable +him to go on with his work for the rest of the day at home. He was +fitting his key into the house-door when he happened to look up the +little street toward the bridge that led into it, and there, defined +against the sky on the level of the bridge, he saw Mrs. Elmore and Miss +Mayhew receiving the adieux of a distinguished-looking man in the +Austrian uniform. The officer had brought his heels together in the +conventional manner, and with his cap in his right hand, while his left +rested on the hilt of his sword, and pressed it down, he was bowing from +the hips. Once, twice, and he was gone. + +The ladies came down the _calle_ with rapid steps and flushed faces, and +Elmore let them in. His wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, "I +want to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now!" she added, when they +were alone in their own room and she had shut the door, "what do you say +_now_?" + +"What do _I_ say now, Celia?" retorted Elmore, with just indignation. +"It seems to me that it is for _you_ to say something--or nothing." + +"Why, you brought it on us." + +Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not speak, for this passed +all force of language. + +"Didn't you see me looking at you when I spoke of going out in a +gondola, at breakfast?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you suppose I meant?" + +"I didn't know." + +"When I was trying to make you understand that if we took a gondola we +could go and come without being seen! Lily _had_ to do her shopping. But +if you chose to run off on some interpretation of your own, was _I_ to +blame, I should like to know? No, indeed! You won't get me to admit it, +Owen." + +Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, miserable sibillation +between his set teeth. + +"Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never saw in my life!" cried +Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing the subject in her own mind, and leaving +her husband to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her words +were strong, but she did not really look affronted; and it is hard to +tell what sort of liberty it is that affronts a woman. It seems to +depend a great deal upon the person who takes the liberty. + +"That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore quietly. + +"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful candor, "it was." Seeing +that he remained unaffected by her display of this virtue, she added, +"Don't you think he was very handsome?" + +"I couldn't judge, at such a distance." + +"Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want you to think he was +disrespectful at all. He wasn't. He was everything that was delicate +and deferential." + +"Did you ask him to walk home with you?" + +Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. Then she drew a long +breath, and said firmly: "If you won't interrupt me with gratuitous +insults, Owen, I will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will +be ready to do me _justice_. I ask nothing more." She waited for his +contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily +couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria +for them. Then of course the nearest way home was through St. Mark's +Square. I made Lily go on the Florian side, so as to avoid the officers +who were sitting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square and +past San Moïsè, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had never thought of how +the officers frequented the Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most +magnificent creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid officer!' +when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a sort of stop, and bowed very +low, and she whispered, 'It's my officer.' I didn't dream of his joining +us, and I don't think he did, at first; but after he took a second look +at Lily, it really seemed as if he couldn't help it. He asked if he +might join us, and I didn't say anything." + +"Didn't say anything!" + +"_No!_ How could I refuse, in so many words? And I was frightened and +confused, any way. He asked if we were going to the music in the +Giardini Pubblici; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not going into +society in Venice, but was merely here for her health. That's all there +is of it. Now do you blame me, Owen?" + +"No." + +"Do you blame her?" + +"No." + +"Well, I don't see how _he_ was to blame." + +"The transaction was a little irregular, but it was highly creditable to +all parties concerned." + +Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. Indignation and censure +she would have known how to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did +not know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely spoke to him," she +pursued, "and I was very cold. I spoke to him in German." + +"Is German a particularly repellent tongue?" + +"No. But I was determined he should get no hold upon us. He was very +polite and very respectful, as I said, but I didn't give him an atom of +encouragement; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, but I parted +from him very stiffly." + +"Is it possible?" + +"Owen, what _is_ there so wrong about it all? He's clearly fascinated +with her; and as the matter stood, he had no hope of seeing her or +speaking with her except on the street. Perhaps he didn't know it was +wrong,--or didn't realize it." + +"I dare say." + +"What else could the poor fellow have done? There he was! He had stayed +over a day, and laid himself open to arrest, on the bare chance--one in +a hundred--of seeing Lily; and when he did see her, what was he to do?" + +"Obviously, to join her and walk home with her." + +"You are too bad, Owen! Suppose it had been one of our own poor boys? He +_looked_ like an American." + +"He didn't behave like one. One of 'our own poor boys,' as you call +them, would have been as far as possible from thrusting himself upon +you. He would have had too much reverence for you, too much +self-respect, too much pride." + +"What has pride to do with such things, my dear? I think he acted very +naturally. He acted upon impulse. I'm sure you're always crying out +against the restraints and conventionalities between young people, over +here; and now, when a European _does_ do a simple, unaffected thing--" + +Elmore made a gesture of impatience. "This fellow has presumed upon your +being Americans--on your ignorance of the customs here--to take a +liberty that he would not have dreamed of taking with Italian or German +ladies. He has shown himself no gentleman." + +"Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. That's what I thought when +Lily first told me about his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very +much prejudiced against him; but when I saw him to-day, I must say that +I felt that I had been wrong. He is a gentleman; but--he is desperate." + +"Oh, indeed!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under her husband's +sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she pleaded, "can't you see anything +romantic in it?" + +"I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it. I see it from his +standpoint as an adventure, to be bragged of and laughed over at the +mess-table and the caffè. I'm going to put a stop to it." + +Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewildered. "Well, Owen," she +said, "I put the affair entirely in your hands." + +Elmore never could decide upon just what theory his wife had acted; he +had to rest upon the fact, already known to him, of her perfect truth +and conscientiousness, and his perception that even in a good woman the +passion for manoeuvring and intrigue may approach the point at which +men commit forgery. He now saw her quelled and submissive; but he was by +no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, or that she +voluntarily acquiesced. + +"All that I ask is that you won't do anything that you'll regret +afterward. And as for putting a stop to it, I fancy it's put a stop to +already. He's going back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that'll +probably be the last of him." + +"Very well," said Elmore, "if that is the last of him, I ask nothing +better. I certainly have no wish to take any steps in the matter." + +But he went out of the house very unhappy and greatly perplexed. He +thought at first of going to the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was +probably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiar to that hostelry, +and of inquiring him out, and requesting him to discontinue his +attentions; but this course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than +comported with his present mood, and he turned aside to seek advice of +his consul. He found Mr. Hoskins in the best humor for backing his +quarrel. He had just received a second dispatch from Turin, stating that +the rumor of the approaching visit of the Alabama was unfounded; and he +was thus left with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands which +he was glad to contribute to the defence of Mr. Elmore's family from the +pursuit of this Austrian officer. + +"This is a very simple affair, Mr. Elmore,"--he usually said "Elmore," +but in his haughty frame of mind, he naturally threw something more of +state into their intercourse,--"a very simple affair, fortunately. All +that I have to do is to call on the military governor, and state the +facts of the case, and this fellow will get his orders quietly and +_definitively_. This war has sapped our influence in Europe,--there's no +doubt of it; but I think it's a pity if an American family living in +this city can't be safe from molestation; and if it can't, I want to +know the reason why." + +This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and he thanked the consul. +At the same time he felt his own resentment moderated, and he said, "I'm +willing to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon." + +"Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, "if he clears out, that's the end of +it. I'll look in to-morrow, and see how you're getting along." + +"Don't--don't give them the impression that I've--profited by your +kindness," suggested Elmore at parting. + +"You haven't yet. I only hope you may have the chance." + +"Thank you; I don't think _I_ do." + +Elmore took a long walk, and returned home tranquillized and clarified +as to the situation. Since it could be terminated without difficulty and +without scandal in the way Hoskins had explained, he was not unwilling +to see a certain poetry in it. He could not repress a degree of sympathy +with the bold young fellow who had overstepped the conventional +proprieties in the ardor of a romantic impulse, and he could see how +this very boldness, while it had a terror, would have a charm for a +young girl. There was no necessity, except for the purpose of holding +Mrs. Elmore in check, to look at it in an ugly light. Perhaps the +officer had inferred from Lily's innocent frankness of manner that this +sort of approach was permissible with Americans, and was not amusing +himself with the adventure, but was in love in earnest. Elmore could +allow himself this view of a case which he had so completely in his own +hands; and he was sensible of a sort of pleasure in the novel +responsibility thrown upon him. Few men at his age were called upon to +stand in the place of a parent to a young girl, to intervene in her +affairs, and to decide who was and who was not a proper person to +pretend to her acquaintance. + +Feeling so secure in his right, he rebelled against the restraint he had +proposed to himself, and at dinner he invited the ladies to go to the +opera with him. He chose to show himself in public with them, and to +check any impression that they were without due protection. As usual, +the pit was full of officers, and between the acts they all rose, as +usual, and faced the boxes, which they perused through their +_lorgnettes_ till the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs. +Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his notice, instructed him, by +a slow turning of her head, that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After +that he undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation from his +sense of bravado, he enjoyed the last acts of the opera more than the +first. Miss Mayhew showed no disappointment; and she bore herself with +so much grace and dignity, and yet so evidently impressed every one with +her beauty, that he was proud of having her in charge. He began himself +to see that she was pretty. + + +VI. + +The next day was Sunday, and in going to church they missed a call from +Hoskins, whom Elmore felt bound to visit the following morning on his +way to the library, and inform of his belief that the enemy had quitted +Venice, and that the whole affair was probably at an end. He was +strengthened in this opinion by Mrs. Elmore's fear that she might have +been colder than she supposed; she hoped that she had not hurt the poor +young fellow's feelings; and now that he was gone, and safely out of the +way, Elmore hoped so too. + +On his return from the library, his wife met him with an air of mystery +before which his heart sank. "Owen," she said, "Lily has a letter." + +"Not bad news from home, Celia!" + +"No; a letter which she wishes to show you. It has just come. As I don't +wish to influence you, I would rather not be present." Mrs. Elmore +slipped out of the room, and Miss Mayhew glided gravely in, holding an +open note in her hand, and looking into Elmore's eyes with a certain +unfathomable candor, of which she had the secret. + +"Here," she said, "is a letter which I think you ought to see at once, +Professor Elmore"; and she gave him the note with an air of unconcern, +which he afterward recalled without being able to determine whether it +was real indifference or only the calm resulting from the transfer of +the whole responsibility to him. She stood looking at him while he read: + + + MISS, + + + In this evening I am just arrived from Venise, 4 hours afterwards I + have had the fortune to see you and to speake with you--and to + favorite me of your gentil acquaintanceship at rail-away. I never + forgeet the moments I have seen you. Your pretty and nice figure + had attached my heard so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to + see you at Venise. And I was so lukely to speak with you cut too + short, and in the possibility to understand all. I wished to go + also in this Sonday to Venise, but I am sory that I cannot, + beaucause I must feeled now the consequences of the desertation. + Pray Miss to agree the assurance of my lov, and perhaps I will be + so lukely to receive a notice from you Miss if I can hop a little + (hapiness) sympathie. Très humble + + E. VON EHRHARDT. + + +Elmore was not destitute of the national sense of humor; but he read +this letter not only without amusement in its English, but with intense +bitterness and renewed alarm. It appeared to him that the willingness +of the ladies to put the affair in his hands had not strongly manifested +itself till it had quite passed their own control, and had become a most +embarrassing difficulty,--when, in fact, it was no longer a merit in +them to confide it to him. In the resentment of that moment, his +suspicions even accused his wife of desiring, from idle curiosity and +sentiment, the accidental meeting which had resulted in this fresh +aggression. + +"Why did you show me this letter?" he asked harshly. + +"Mrs. Elmore told me to do so," Lily answered. + +"Did _you_ wish me to see it?" + +"I don't suppose I _wished_ you to see it: I thought you ought to see +it." + +Elmore felt himself relenting a little. "What do you want done about +it?" he asked more gently. + +"That is what I wished you to tell me," replied the girl. + +"I can't tell you what you wish me to do, but I can tell you this, Miss +Mayhew: this man's behavior is totally irregular. He would not think of +writing to an Italian or German girl in this way. If he desired +to--to--pay attention to her, he would write to her father." + +"Yes, that's what Mrs. Elmore said. She said she supposed he must think +it was the American way." + +"Mrs. Elmore," began her husband; but he arrested himself there, and +said, "Very well. I want to know what I am to do. I want your full and +explicit authority before I act. We will dismiss the fact of +irregularity. We will suppose that it is fit and becoming for a +gentleman who has twice met a young lady by accident--or once by +accident, and once by his own insistence--to write to her. Do you wish +to continue the correspondence?" + +"No." + +Elmore looked into the eyes which dwelt full upon him, and, though they +were clear as the windows of heaven, he hesitated. "I must do what you +_say_, no matter what you mean, you know?" + +"I mean what I say." + +"Perhaps," he suggested, "you would prefer to return him this letter +with a few lines on your card." + +"No. I should like him to know that I have shown it to you. I should +think it a liberty for an American to write to me in that way after such +a short acquaintance, and I don't see why I should tolerate it from a +foreigner, though I suppose their customs _are_ different." + +"Then you wish me to write to him?" + +"Yes." + +"And make an end of the matter, once for all?" + +"Yes--" + +"Very well, then." Elmore sat down at once, and wrote:-- + + + SIR,--Miss Mayhew has handed me your note of yesterday, and begs me + to express her very great surprise that you should have ventured to + address her. She desires me also to add that you will consider at + an end whatever acquaintance you suppose yourself to have formed + with her. + + Your obedient servant, + OWEN ELMORE. + + +He handed the note to Lily. "Yes, that will do," she said, in a low, +steady voice. She drew a deep breath, and, laying the letter softly +down, went out of the room into Mrs. Elmore's. + +Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax when his wife appeared +swiftly upon the scene. + +"I want to see what you have written, Owen," she said. + +"Don't talk to me, Celia," he replied, thrusting the wax into the +candle-light. "You have put this affair entirely in my hands, and Lily +approves of what I have written. I am sick of the thing, and I don't +want any more talk about it." + +"I _must_ see it," said Mrs. Elmore, with finality, and possessed +herself of the note. She ran it through, and then flung it on the table +and dropped into a chair, while the tears started to her eyes. "What a +cold, cutting, merciless letter!" she cried. + +"I hope he will think so," said Elmore, gathering it up from the table, +and sealing it securely in its envelope. + +"You're not going to _send_ it!" exclaimed his wife. + +"Yes, I am." + +"I didn't suppose you could be so heartless." + +"Very well, then, I _won't_ send it," said Elmore. "I put the affair in +_your_ hands. What are you going to do about it?" + +"Nonsense!" + +"On the contrary, I'm perfectly serious. I don't see why you shouldn't +manage the business. The gentleman is an acquaintance of yours. _I_ +don't know him." Elmore rose and put his hands in his pockets. "What do +you intend to do? Do you like this clandestine sort of thing to go on? I +dare say the fellow only wishes to amuse himself by a flirtation with a +pretty American. But the question is whether you wish him to do so. I'm +willing to lay his conduct to a misunderstanding of our customs, and to +suppose that he thinks this is the way Americans do. I take the matter +at its best: he speaks to Lily on the train without an introduction; he +joins you in your walk without invitation; he writes to her without +leave, and proposes to get up a correspondence. It is all perfectly +right and proper, and will appear so to Lily's friends when they hear of +it. But I'm curious to know how you're going to manage the sequel. Do +you wish the affair to go on, and how long do you wish it to go on?" + +"You know very well that I don't wish it to go on." + +"Then you wish it broken off?" + +"Of course I do." + +"How?" + +"I think there is such a thing as acting kindly and considerately. I +don't see anything in Captain Ehrhardt's conduct that calls for _savage_ +treatment," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"You would like to have him stopped, but stopped gradually. Well, I +don't wish to be savage, either, and I will act upon any suggestion of +yours. I want Lily's people to feel that we managed not only wisely but +humanely in checking a man who was resolved to force his acquaintance +upon her." + +Mrs. Elmore thought a long while. Then she said: "Why, of course, Owen, +you're right about it. There _is_ no other way. There couldn't be any +kindness in checking him gradually. But I wish," she added sorrowfully, +"that he had not been such a _complete_ goose; and then we could have +done something with him." + +"I am obliged to him for the perfection which you regret, my dear. If he +had been less complete, he would have been much harder to manage." + +"Well," said Mrs. Elmore, rising, "I shall always say that he meant +well. But send the letter." + +Her husband did not wait for a second bidding. He carried it himself to +the general post-office that there might be no mistake and no delay +about it; and a man who believed that he had a feeling and tender heart +experienced a barbarous joy in the infliction of this pitiless snub. I +do not say that it would not have been different if he had trusted at +all in the sincerity of Captain Ehrhardt's passion; but he was glad to +discredit it. A misgiving to the other effect would have complicated the +matter. But now he was perfectly free to disembarrass himself of a +trouble which had so seriously threatened his peace. He was responsible +to Miss Mayhew's family, and Mrs. Elmore herself could not say, then or +afterward, that there was any other way open to him. I will not contend +that his motives were wholly unselfish. No doubt a sense of personal +annoyance, of offended decorum, of wounded respectability, qualified the +zeal for Miss Mayhew's good which prompted him. He was still a young +and inexperienced man, confronted with a strange perplexity: he did the +best he could, and I suppose it was the best that could be done. At any +rate, he had no regrets, and he went cheerfully about the work of +interesting Miss Mayhew in the monuments and memories of the city. + +Since the decisive blow had been struck, the ladies seemed to share his +relief. The pursuit of Captain Ehrhardt, while it flattered, might well +have alarmed, and the loss of a not unpleasant excitement was made good +by a sense of perfect security. Whatever repining Miss Mayhew indulged +was secret, or confided solely to Mrs. Elmore. To Elmore himself she +appeared in better spirits than at first, or at least in a more equable +frame of mind. To be sure, he did not notice very particularly. He took +her to the places and told her the things that she ought to be +interested in, and he conceived a better opinion of her mind from the +quick intelligence with which she entered into his own feelings in +regard to them, though he never could see any evidence of the over-study +for which she had been taken from school. He made her, like Mrs. Elmore, +the partner of his historical researches; he read his notes to both of +them now; and when his wife was prevented from accompanying him, he went +with Lily alone to visit the scenes of such events as his researches +concerned, and to fill his mind with the local color which he believed +would give life and character to his studies of the past. They also went +often to the theatre; and, though Lily could not understand the plays, +she professed to be entertained, and she had a grateful appreciation of +all his efforts in her behalf that amply repaid him. He grew fond of her +society; he took a childish pleasure in having people in the streets +turn and glance at the handsome girl by his side, of whose beauty and +stylishness he became aware through the admiration looked over the +shoulders of the Austrians, and openly spoken by the Italian populace. +It did not occur to him that she might not enjoy the growth of their +acquaintance in equal degree, that she fatigued herself with the +appreciation of the memorable and the beautiful, and that she found +these long rambles rather dull. He was a man of little conversation; +and, unless Mrs. Elmore was of the company, Miss Mayhew pursued his +pleasures for the most part in silence. One evening, at the end of the +week, his wife asked, "Why do you always take Lily through the Piazza on +the side farthest from where the officers sit? Are you afraid of her +meeting Captain Ehrhardt?" + +"Oh, no! I consider the Ehrhardt business settled. But you know the +Italians never walk on the officers' side." + +"You are not an Italian. What do you gain by flattering them up? I +should think you might suppose a young girl had some curiosity." + +"I do; and I do everything I can to gratify her curiosity. I went to San +Pietro di Castello to-day, to show her where the Brides of Venice were +stolen." + +"The oldest and dirtiest part of the city! What _could_ the child care +for the Brides of Venice? Now be reasonable, Owen!" + +"It's a romantic story. I thought girls liked such things,--about +getting married." + +"And that's the reason you took her yesterday to show her the Bucentaur +that the doges wedded the Adriatic in! Well, what was your idea in going +with her to the Cemetery of San Michele?" + +"I thought she would be interested. I had never been there before +myself, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to verify a passage +I was at work on. We always show people the cemetery at home." + +"That was considerate. And why did you go to Canarregio on Wednesday?" + +"I wished her to see the statue of Sior Antonio Rioba; you know it was +the Venetian Pasquino in the Revolution of '48--" + +"Charming!" + +"And the Campo di Giustizia, where the executions used to take place." + +"Delightful!" + +"And--and--the house of Tintoretto," faltered Elmore. + +"Delicious! She cares so much for Tintoretto! And you've been with her +to the Jewish burying-ground at the Lido, and the Spanish synagogue in +the Ghetto, and the fish-market at the Rialto, and you've shown her the +house of Othello and the house of Desdemona, and the prisons in the +ducal palace; and three nights you've taken us to the Piazza as soon as +the Austrian band stopped playing, and all the interesting promenading +was over, and those stuffy old Italians began to come to the caffès. +Well, I can tell you that's no way to amuse a young girl. We must do +something for her, or she will die. She has come here from a country +where girls have always had the best time in the world, and where the +times are livelier now than they ever were, with all this excitement of +the war going on; and here she is dropped down in the midst of this +absolute deadness: no calls, no picnics, no parties, no dances--nothing! +We must do something for her." + +"Shall we give her a ball?" asked Elmore, looking round the pretty +little apartment. + +"There's nothing going on among the Italians. But you might get us +invited to the German Casino." + +"I dare say. But I will not do that." + +"Then we could go to the Luogotenenza, to the receptions. Mr. Hoskins +could call with us, and they would send us cards." + +"That would make us simply odious to the Venetians, and our house would +be thronged with officers. What I've seen of them doesn't make me +particularly anxious for the honor of their further acquaintance." + +"Well, I don't ask you to do any of these things," said Mrs. Elmore, who +had, in fact, mentioned them with the intention of insisting upon an +abated claim. "But I think you _might_ go and dine at one of the +hotels--at the Danieli--instead of that Italian restaurant; and then +Lily could see somebody at the table d'hôte, and not simply _perish_ of +despair." + +"I--I didn't suppose it was so bad as that," said Elmore. + +"Why, of course, she hasn't said anything,--she's far too well-bred for +that; but I can tell from my own feelings how she must suffer. I have +you, Owen," she said tenderly, "but Lily has _nobody_. She has gone +through this Ehrhardt business so well that I think we ought to do all +we can to divert her mind." + +"Well, now, Celia, you see the difficulty of our position,--the nature +of the responsibility we have assumed. How are we possibly, here in +Venice, to divert the mind of a young lady fresh from the parties and +picnics of Patmos?" + +"We can go and dine at the Danieli," replied Mrs. Elmore. + +"Very well, let us go, then. But she will learn no Italian there. She +will hear nothing but English from the travellers and bad French from +the waiters; while at our restaurant--" + +"Pshaw!" cried Mrs. Elmore, "what does Lily care for Italian? I'm sure +_I_ never want to hear another word of it." + +At this desperate admission, Elmore quite gave way; he went to the +Danieli the next morning, and arranged to begin dining there that day. +There is no denying that Miss Mayhew showed an enthusiasm in prospect of +the change that even the sight of the pillar to which Foscarini was +hanged head downwards for treason to the Republic had not evoked. She +made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly an impression at the +table d'hôte when she sat down there. Elmore had found places opposite +an elderly lady and quite a young gentleman, of English speech, but of +not very English effect otherwise, who bowed to Lily in acknowledgment +of some former meeting. The old lady said, "So you've reached Venice at +last? I'm very pleased, for your sake," as if at some point of the +progress thither she had been privy to anxieties of Lily about arriving +at her destination; and, in fact, they had been in the same hotels at +Marseilles and Genoa. The young gentleman said nothing, but he looked at +Lily throughout the dinner, and seemed to take his eyes from her only +when she glanced at him; then he dropped his gaze to his neglected plate +and blushed. When they left the table, he made haste to join the Elmores +in the reading-room, where he contrived, with creditable skill, to get +Lily apart from them for the examination of an illustrated newspaper, at +which neither of them looked; they remained chatting and laughing over +it in entire irrelevancy till the elderly lady rose and said, "Herbert, +Herbert! I am ready to go now," upon which he did not seem at all so, +but went submissively. + +"Who are those people, Lily?" asked Mrs. Elmore, as they walked towards +Florian's for their after-dinner coffee. The Austrian band was playing +in the centre of the Piazza, and the tall, blond German officers +promenaded back and forth with dark Hungarian women, who looked each +like a princess of her race. The lights glittered upon them, and on the +brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the Piazza before the caffès; +the scene seemed to shake and waver in the splendor, like something +painted. + +"Oh, their name is Andersen, or something like that; and they're from +Helgoland, or some such place. I saw them first in Paris, but we didn't +speak till we got to Marseilles. That's his aunt; they're English +subjects, someway; and he's got an appointment in the civil service--I +think he called it--in India, and he doesn't want to go; and I told him +he ought to go to America. That's what I tell all these Europeans." + +"It's the best advice for them," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"They don't seem in any great haste to act upon it," laughed Miss +Mayhew. "Who was the red-faced young man that seemed to know you, and +stared so?" + +"That's an English artist who is staying here. He has a curious +name,--Rose-Black; and he is the most impudent and pushing man in the +world. I wouldn't introduce him, because I saw he was just dying for +it." + +Miss Mayhew laughed, as she laughed at everything, not because she was +amused, but because she was happy; this childlike gayety of heart was +great part of her charm. + +Elmore had quieted his scruples as a good Venetian by coming inside of +the caffè while the band played, instead of sitting outside with the bad +patriots; but he put the ladies next the window, and so they were not +altogether sacrificed to his sympathy with the _dimostrazione_. + + +VII. + +The next morning Elmore was called from his bed--at no very early hour, +it must be owned, but at least before a nine o'clock breakfast--to see a +gentleman who was waiting in the parlor. He dressed hurriedly, with a +thousand exciting speculations in his mind, and found Mr. Rose-Black +looking from the balcony window. "You have a pleasant position here," he +said easily, as he turned about to meet Elmore's look of indignant +demand. "I've come to ask all about our friends the Andersens." + +"I don't know anything about them," answered Elmore. "I never saw them +before." + +"Aöh!" said the painter. Elmore had not invited him to sit down, but now +he dropped into a chair, with the air of asking Elmore to explain +himself. "The young lady of your party seemed to know them. How +uncommonly pretty all your American young girls are! But I'm told they +fade very soon. I should like to make up a picnic party with you all for +the Lido." + +"Thank you," replied Elmore stiffly. "Miss Mayhew has seen the Lido." + +"Aöh! _That's_ her name. It's a pretty name." He looked through the open +door into the dining-room, where the table was set for breakfast, with +the usual water-goblet at each plate. "I see you have beer for +breakfast. There's nothing so nice, you know. Would you--would you mind +giving me a glahs?" + +Through an undefined sense of the duties of hospitality, Elmore was +surprised by this impudence into sending out to the next caffè for a +pitcher of beer. Rose-Black poured himself out one glass and another +till he had emptied the pitcher, conversing affably meanwhile with his +silent host. + +"_Why_ didn't you turn him out of doors?" demanded Mrs. Elmore, as soon +as the painter's departure allowed her to slip from the closed door +behind which she had been imprisoned in her room. + +"I did everything _but_ that," replied her husband, whom this interview +had saddened more than it had angered. + +"You sent out for beer for him!" + +"I didn't know but it might make him sick. Really, the thing is +incredible. I think the man is cracked." + +"He is an Englishman, and he thinks he can take any kind of liberty with +us because we are Americans." + +"That seems to be the prevalent impression among all the European +nationalities," said Elmore. "Let's drop him for the present, and try to +be more brutal in the future." + +Mrs. Elmore, so far from dropping him, turned to Lily, who entered at +that moment, and recounted the extraordinary adventure of the morning, +which scarcely needed the embellishment of her fancy; it was not really +a gallon of beer, but a quart, that Mr. Rose-Black had drunk. She +enlarged upon previous aggressions of his, and said finally that they +had to thank Mr. Ferris for his acquaintance. + +"Ferris couldn't help himself," said Elmore. "He apologized to me +afterward. The man got him into a corner. But he warned us about him as +soon he could. And Rose-Black would have made our acquaintance, any way. +I believe he's crazy." + +"I don't see how that helps the matter." + +"It helps to explain it," concluded Elmore, with a sigh. "We can't refer +everything to our being American lambs, and his being a ravening +European wolf." + +"Of course he came round to find out about Lily," said Mrs. Elmore. +"The Andersens were a mere blind." + +"Oh, Mrs. Elmore!" cried Lily in deprecation. + +The bell jangled. "That is the postman," said Mrs. Elmore. + +There was a home-letter for Lily, and one from Lily's sister enclosed to +Mrs. Elmore. The ladies rent them open, and lost themselves in the +cross-written pages; and neither of them saw the dismay with which +Elmore looked at the handwriting of the envelope addressed to him. His +wife vaguely knew that he had a letter, and meant to ask him for it as +soon as she should have finished her own. When she glanced at him again, +he was staring at the smiling face of Miss Mayhew, as she read her +letter, with the wild regard of one who sees another in mortal peril, +and can do nothing to avert the coming doom, but must dumbly await the +catastrophe. + +"What is it, Owen?" asked his wife in a low voice. + +He started from his trance, and struggled to answer quietly. "I've a +letter here which I suppose I'd better show to you first." + +They rose and went into the next room, Miss Mayhew following them with a +bright, absent look, and then dropping her eyes again to her letter. + +Elmore put the note he had received into his wife's hands without a +word. + + + SIR,--My position permitted me to take a woman. I am a soldier, but + I am an engineer--operateous, and I can exercise wherever my + profession in the civil life. I have seen Miss Mayhew, and I have + great sympathie for she. I think I will be lukely with her, if Miss + Mayhew would be of the same intention of me. + + If you believe, Sir, that my open and realy proposition will not + offendere Miss Mayhew, pray to handed to her this note. Pray sir to + excuse me the liberty to fatigue you, and to go over with silence + if you would be of another intention. + + Your obedient servant, + E. VON EHRHARDT. + + +Mrs. Elmore folded the letter carefully up and returned it to her +husband. If he had perhaps dreaded some triumphant outburst from her, he +ought to have been content with the thoroughly daunted look which she +lifted to his, and the silence in which she suffered him to do justice +to the writer. + +"This is the letter of a gentleman, Celia," he said. + +"Yes," she responded faintly. + +"It puts another complexion on the affair entirely." + +"Yes. Why did he wait a whole week?" she added. + +"It is a serious matter with him. He had a right to take time for +thinking it over." Elmore looked at the date of the Peschiera postmark, +and then at that of Venice on the back of the envelope. "No, he wrote at +once. This has been kept in the Venetian office, and probably read there +by the authorities." + +His wife did not heed the conjecture. "He began all wrong," she grieved. +"Why couldn't he have behaved sensibly?" + +"We must look at it from another point of view now," replied Elmore. "He +has repaired his error by this letter." + +"No, no; he hasn't." + +"The question is now what to do about the changed situation. This is an +offer of marriage. It comes in the proper way. It's a very sincere and +manly letter. The man has counted the whole cost: he's ready to leave +the army and go to America, if she says so. He's in love. How can she +refuse him?" + +"Perhaps she isn't in love with him," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"Oh! That's true. I hadn't thought of that. Then it's very simple." + +"But I don't know that she isn't," murmured Mrs. Elmore. + +"Well, ask her." + +"How could _she_ tell?" + +"How could she _tell_?" + +"Yes. Do you suppose a child like that can know her own mind in an +instant?" + +"I should think she could." + +"Well, she couldn't. She liked the excitement,--the romanticality of it; +but she doesn't know any more than you or I whether she cares for him. I +don't suppose marriage with anybody has ever seriously entered her head +yet." + +"It will have to do so now," said Elmore firmly. "There's no help for +it." + +"I think the American plan is much better," pouted Mrs. Elmore. "It's +horrid to know that a man's in love with you, and wants to marry you, +from the very start. Of course it makes you hate him." + +"I dare say the American plan is better in this as in most other things. +But we can't discuss abstractions, Celia. We must come down to business. +What are we to do?" + +"I don't know." + +"We must submit the question to her." + +"To that innocent, unsuspecting little thing? Never!" cried Mrs. Elmore. + +"Then we must decide it, as he seems to expect we may, without reference +to her," said her husband. + +"No, that won't do. Let me think." Mrs. Elmore thought to so little +purpose that she left the word to her husband again. + +"You see we must lay the matter before her." + +"Couldn't--couldn't we let him come to see us awhile? Couldn't we +explain our ways to him, and allow him to pay her attentions without +letting her know about this letter?" + +"I'm afraid he wouldn't understand,--that we couldn't make it clear to +him," said Elmore. "If we invited him to the house he would consider it +as an acceptance. He wants a categorical answer, and he has a right to +it. It would be no kindness to a man with his ideas to take him on +probation. He has behaved honorably, and we're bound to consider him." + +"Oh, I don't think he's done anything so very great," said Mrs. Elmore, +with that disposition we all have to disparage those who put us in +difficulties. + +"He's done everything he could do," said Elmore. "Shall I speak to Miss +Mayhew?" + +"No, you had better let me," sighed his wife. "I suppose we must. But I +think it's horrid! Everything could have gone on so nicely if he hadn't +been so impatient from the beginning. Of course she won't have him now. +She will be scared, and that will be the end of it." + +"I think you ought to be just to him, Celia. I can't help feeling for +him. He has thrown himself upon our mercy, and he has a claim to right +and thoughtful treatment." + +"She won't have anything to do with him. You'll see." + +"I shall be very glad of that," Elmore began. + +"_Why_ should you be glad of it?" demanded his wife. + +He laughed. "I think I can safely leave his case in your hands. Don't go +to the other extreme. If she married a German, he would let her black +his boots,--like that general in Munich." + +"Who is talking of marriage?" retorted Mrs. Elmore. + +"Captain Ehrhardt and I. That's what it comes to; and it can't come to +anything else. I like his courage in writing English, and it's wonderful +how he hammers his meaning into it. 'Lukely' isn't bad, is it? And 'my +position permitted me to take a woman'--I suppose he means that he has +money enough to marry on--is delicious. Upon my word, I have a good deal +of sympathie for he!" + +"For shame, Owen! It's wicked to make fun of his English." + +"My dear, I respect him for writing in English. The whole letter is +touchingly brave and fine. Confound him! I wish I had never heard of +him. What does he come bothering across my path for?" + +"Oh, don't feel that way about it, Owen!" cried his wife. "It's cruel." + +"I don't. I wish to treat him in the most generous manner; after all, it +isn't his fault. But you must allow, Celia, that it's very annoying and +extremely perplexing. _We_ can't make up Miss Mayhew's mind for her. +Even if we found out that she liked him, it would be only the beginning +of our troubles. _We've_ no right to give her away in marriage, or let +her involve her affections here. But be judicious, Celia." + +"It's easy enough to say that!" + +"I'll be back in an hour," said Elmore. "I'm going to the Square. We +mustn't lose time." + +As he passed out through the breakfast-room, Lily was sitting by the +window with her letter in her lap, and a happy smile on her lips. When +he came back she happened to be seated in the same place; she still had +a letter in her lap, but she was smiling no longer; her face was turned +from him as he entered, and he imagined a wistful droop in that corner +of her mouth which showed on her profile. + +But she rose very promptly, and with a heightened color said, "I am +sorry to trouble you to answer another letter for me, Professor Elmore. +I manage my correspondence at home myself, but here it seems to be +different." + +"It needn't be different here, Lily," said Elmore kindly. "You can +answer all the letters you receive in just the way you like. We don't +doubt your discretion in the least. We will abide by any decision of +yours, on any point that concerns yourself." + +"Thank you," replied the girl; "but in this case I think you had better +write." She kept slipping Ehrhardt's letter up and down between her +thumb and finger against the palm of her left hand, and delayed giving +it to him, as if she wished him to say something first. + +"I suppose you and Celia have talked the matter over?" + +"Yes." + +"And I hope you have determined upon the course you are going to take, +quite uninfluenced?" + +"Oh, quite so." + +"I feel bound to tell you," said Elmore, "that this gentleman has now +done everything that we could expect of him, and has fully atoned for +any error he committed in making your acquaintance." + +"Yes, I understand that. Mrs. Elmore thought he might have written +because he saw he had gone too far, and couldn't think of any other way +out of it." + +"That occurred to me, too, though I didn't mention it. But we're bound +to take the letter on its face, and that's open and honorable. Have you +made up your mind?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you wish for delay? There is no reason for haste." + +"There's no reason for delay, either," said the girl. Yet she did not +give up the letter, or show any signs of intending to terminate the +interview. "If I had had more experience, I should know how to act +better; but I must do the best I can, without the experience. I think +that even in a case like this we should try to do right, don't you?" + +"Yes, above all other cases," said Elmore, with a laugh. + +She flushed in recognition of her absurdity. "I mean that we oughtn't to +let our feelings carry us away. I saw so many girls carried away by +their feelings, when the first regiments went off, that I got a horror +of it. I think it's wicked: it deceives both; and then you don't know +how to break the engagement afterward." + +"You're quite right, Lily," said Elmore, with a rising respect for the +girl. + +"Professor Elmore, can you believe that, with all the attentions I've +had, I've never seriously thought of getting married as the end of it +all?" she asked, looking him freely in the eyes. + +"I can't understand it,--no man could, I suppose,--but I do believe it. +Mrs. Elmore has often told me the same thing." + +"And this--letter--it--means marriage." + +"That and nothing else. The man who wrote it would consider himself +cruelly wronged if you accepted his attentions without the distinct +purpose of marrying him." + +She drew a deep breath. "I shall have to ask you to write a refusal for +me." But still she did not give him the letter. + +"Have you made up your mind to that?" + +"I can't make up my mind to anything else." + +Elmore walked unhappily back and forth across the room. "I have seen +something of international marriages since I've been in Europe," he +said. "Sometimes they succeed; but generally they're wretched failures. +The barriers of different race, language, education, religion,--they're +terrible barriers. It's very hard for a man and woman to understand +each other at the best; with these differences added, it's almost a +hopeless case." + +"Yes; that's what Mrs. Elmore said." + +"And suppose you were married to an Austrian officer stationed in Italy. +You would have _no_ society outside of the garrison. Every other human +creature that looked at you would hate you. And if you were ordered to +some of those half barbaric principalities,--Moldavia or Wallachia, or +into Hungary or Bohemia,--everywhere your husband would be an instrument +for the suppression of an alien or disaffected population. What a fate +for an American girl!" + +"If he were good," said the girl, replying in the abstract, "she needn't +care." + +"If he were good, you needn't care. No. And he might leave the Austrian +service, and go with you to America, as he hints. What could he do +there? He might get an appointment in our army, though that's not so +easy now; or he might go to Patmos, and live upon your friends till he +found something to do in civil life." + +Lily began a laugh. "Why, Professor Elmore, _I_ don't want to marry him! +What in the world are you arguing with me for?" + +"Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I oughtn't to let these +considerations weigh as a feather in the balance if you are at all--at +all--ahem! excuse me!--attached to him. That, of course, outweighs +everything else." + +"But I'm _not_!" cried the girl "How _could_ I be? I've only met him +twice. It would be perfectly ridiculous. I _know_ I'm not. I ought to +know that if I know anything." + +Years afterward it occurred to Elmore, when he awoke one night, and his +mind without any reason flew back to this period in Venice, that she +might have been referring the point to him for decision. But now it only +seemed to him that she was adding force to her denial; and he observed +nothing hysterical in the little laugh she gave. + +"Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I'll write now, if you will +give me his letter." + +She put it behind her. "Professor Elmore," she said, "I am not going to +have you think that he ever behaved in the least presumingly. And +whatever you think of me, I must tell you that I suppose I talked very +freely with him,--just as freely, as I should with an American. I didn't +know any better. He was very interesting, and I was homesick, and so +glad to see any one who could speak English. I suppose I was a goose; +but I felt very far away from all my friends, and I was grateful for +his kindness. Even if he had never written this last letter, I should +always have said that he was a true gentleman." + +"Well?" + +"That is all. I can't have him treated as if he were an adventurer." + +"You want him dismissed?" + +"Yes." + +"A man can't distinguish as to the terms of a dismissal. They're always +insolent,--more insolent than ever if you try to make them kindly. I +should merely make this as short and sharp as possible." + +"Yes," she said breathlessly, as if the idea affected her respiration. + +"But I will show it to you, and I won't send it without your approval." + +"Thank you. But I shall not want to see it. I'd rather not." She was +going out of the room. + +"Will you leave me his letter? You can have it again." + +She turned red in giving it him. "I forgot. Why, it's written to you, +anyway!" she cried, with a laugh, and put the letter on the table. + +The two doors opened and closed: one excluded Lily, and the other +admitted Mrs. Elmore. + +"Owen, I approve of all you said, except that about the form of the +refusal. I will read what you say. I intend that it _shall_ be made +kindly." + +"Very well. I'll copy a letter of yours, or write from your dictation." + +"No; you write it, and I'll criticise it." + +"Oh, you talk as if I were eager to write the letter! Can't you imagine +it's being a very painful thing to me?" he demanded. + +"It didn't seem to be so before." + +"Why, the situation wasn't the same before he wrote this letter!" + +"I don't see how. He was as much in earnest then as he is now, and you +had no pity for him." + +"Oh, my goodness!" cried Elmore desperately. "Don't you see the +difference? He hadn't given any proof before"-- + +"Oh, proof, proof! You men are always wanting proof! What better proof +could he have given than the way he followed her about? Proof, indeed! I +suppose you'd like to have Lily prove that she doesn't care for him!" + +"Yes," said Elmore sadly, "I should like very much to have her prove +it." + +"Well, you won't get her to. What makes you think she does?" + +"I don't. Do you?" + +"N-o," answered Mrs. Elmore reluctantly. + +"Celia, Celia, you will drive me mad if you go on in this way! The girl +has told me, over and over, that she wishes him dismissed. Why do you +think she doesn't?" + +"I don't. Who hinted such a thing? But I don't want you to _enjoy_ doing +it." + +"_Enjoy_ it? So you think I enjoy it! What do you suppose I'm made of? +Perhaps you think I enjoyed catechizing the child about her feelings +toward him? Perhaps you think I enjoy the whole confounded affair? Well, +I give it up. I will let it go. If I can't have your full and hearty +support, I'll let it go. I'll do nothing about it." + +He threw Ehrhardt's letter on the table, and went and sat down by the +window. His wife took the letter up and read it over. "Why, you see he +asks you to pass it over in silence if you don't consent." + +"Does he?" asked Elmore. "I hadn't noticed that." + +"Perhaps you'd better read some of your letters, Owen, before you answer +them!" + +"Really, I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the letter was written to +me at all. I thought it was to Lily, and she had got to thinking so too. +Well, then, I won't do anything about it." He drew a breath of relief. + +"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "he asked that so as to leave himself +some hope if he should happen to meet her again." + +"And we don't wish him to have any hope." + +Mrs. Elmore was silent. + +"Celia," cried her husband indignantly, "I can't have you playing fast +and loose with me in this matter!" + +"I suppose I may have time to think?" she retorted. + +"Yes, if you will tell me what you _do_ think; but that I _must_ know. +It's a thing too vital in its consequences for me to act without your +full concurrence. I won't take another step in it till I know just how +far you have gone with me. If I may judge of what this man's influence +upon Lily would be by the fact that he has brought us to the verge of +the only real quarrel we've ever had"-- + +"Who's quarrelling, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore meekly. "I'm not." + +"Well, well! we won't dispute about that. I want to know whether you +thought with me that it was improper for him to address her in the car?" + +"Yes." + +"And still more improper for him to join you in the street?" + +"Yes. But he was very gentlemanly." + +"No matter about that. You were just as much annoyed as I was by his +letter to her?" + +"I don't know about annoyed. It scared me." + +"Very well. And you approved of my answering it as I did?" + +"I had nothing to do with it. I thought you were acting conscientiously. +I'll say that much." + +"You've got to say more. You have got to say you approved of it; for you +know you did." + +"Oh--_approved_ of it? Yes!" + +"That's all I want. Now I agree with you that if we pass this letter in +silence, it will leave him with some hope. You agree with me that in a +marriage between an American girl and an Austrian officer the chances +would be ninety-nine to a hundred against her happiness at the best." + +"There are a great many unhappy marriages at home," said Mrs. Elmore +impartially. + +"That isn't the point, Celia, and you know it. The point is whether you +believe the chances are for or against her in such a marriage. Do you?" + +"Do I what?" + +"Agree with me?" + +"Yes; but I say they _might_ be _very_ happy. I shall always say that." + +Elmore flung up his hands in despair. "Well, then, say what shall be +done now." + +This was perhaps just what Mrs. Elmore did not choose to say. She was +silent a long time,--so long that Elmore said, "But there's really no +haste about it," and took some notes of his history out of a drawer, and +began to look them over, with his back turned to her. + +"I never knew anything so heartless!" she cried. "Owen, this _must_ be +attended to at once! I can't have it hanging over me any longer. It will +make me sick." + +He turned abruptly round, and, seating himself at the table, wrote a +note, which he pushed across to her. It acknowledged the receipt of +Captain von Ehrhardt's letter, and expressed Miss Mayhew's feeling that +there was nothing in it to change her wish that the acquaintance should +cease. In after years, the terms of this note did not always appear to +Elmore wisely chosen or humanely considered; but he stood at bay, and he +struck mercilessly. In spite of the explicit concurrence of both Miss +Mayhew and his wife, he felt as if they were throwing wholly upon him a +responsibility whose fearfulness he did not then realize. Even in his +wife's "Send it!" he was aware of a subtile reservation on her part. + + +VIII. + +Mrs. Elmore and Lily again rose buoyantly from the conclusive event, but +he succumbed to it. For the delicate and fastidious invalid, keeping his +health evenly from day to day upon the condition of a free and peaceful +mind, the strain had been too much. He had a bad night, and the next day +a gastric trouble declared itself which kept him in bed half the week, +and left him very weak and tremulous. His friends did not forget him +during this time. Hoskins came regularly to see him, and supplied his +place at the table d'hôte of the Danieli, going to and fro with the +ladies, and efficiently protecting them from the depredations of the +Austrian soldiery. From Mr. Rose-Black he could not protect them; and +both the ladies amused Elmore with a dramatization of how the Englishman +had boldly outwitted them, and trampled all their finessing under foot, +by simply walking up to them in the reading-room, and saying, "This is +Miss Mayhew, I suppose," and putting himself at once on the footing of +an old family friend. They read to Elmore, and they put his papers in +order, so that he did not know where to find anything when he got well; +but they always came home from the hotel with some lively gossip, and +this he liked. They professed to recognize an anxiety on the part of Mr. +Andersen's aunt that his mind should not be diverted from the civil +service in India by thoughts of young American ladies; but she sent some +delicacies to Elmore, and one day she even came to call with her nephew, +in extreme reluctance and anxiety as they pretended to him. + +The next afternoon the young man called alone, and Elmore, who was now +on foot, received him in the parlor, before the ladies came in. Mr. +Andersen had a bunch of flowers in one hand, and a small wooden box +containing a little turtle on a salad-leaf in the other; the poor +animals are sold in the Piazza at Venice for souvenirs of the city, and +people often carry them away. Elmore took the offerings simply, as he +took everything in life, and interpreted them as an expression, however +odd, of Mr. Andersen's sympathy with his recent sufferings, of which he +gave him some account; but he practised a decent self-denial, here, and +they were already talking of the weather when the ladies appeared. He +hastened to exhibit the tokens of Mr. Andersen's kind remembrance, and +was mystified by the young man's confusion, and the impatient, almost +contemptuous, air with which his wife listened to him. Hoskins came in +at that moment to ask about Elmore's health, and showed the hostile +civility to Andersen which young men use toward each other in the +presence of ladies; and then, seeing that the latter had secured the +place at Miss Mayhew's side on the sofa, he limped to the easy chair +near Mrs. Elmore, and fell into talk with her about Rose-Black's +pictures, which he had just seen. They were based upon an endeavor to +trace the moral principles believed by Mr. Ruskin to underlie Venetian +art, and they were very queer, so Hoskins said; he roughly sketched an +idea of some of them on a block he took from his pocket. + +Mr. Andersen and Lily went out upon one of the high-railed balconies +that overhung the canal, and stood there, with their backs to the +others. She seemed to be listening, with averted face, while he, with +his cheek leaning upon one hand and his elbow resting on the balcony +rail, kept a pensive attitude after they had apparently ceased to speak. +Something in their pose struck the sculptor's fancy, and he made a hasty +sketch of them, and was showing it to the Elmores when Lily suddenly +descended into the room again, and, saying something about its being +quite dark, went out, and left Mr. Andersen to make his adieux to the +others. He startled them by saying that he was to set off for India in +the morning, and he went away very melancholy. + +"Well, I don't know," said Hoskins, thoughtfully retouching his sketch, +"that I should feel very lively about going out to India myself." + +"He seems to be a very affectionate young fellow," observed Elmore, "and +I've no doubt he will feel the separation from his friends. But I really +don't know why he should have brought me a bouquet, and a small turtle +in a box, on the eve of his departure." + +"What?" cried Hoskins, with a rude guffaw; and when Elmore had showed +his gifts, Hoskins threw back his head and laughed indecently. His +behavior nettled Elmore, and it sent Mrs. Elmore prematurely out of the +room; for, not content with his explosions of laughter, he continued for +some time to amuse himself by touching up with the point of his pencil +the tail of the turtle which he had turned out of its box upon the +table. At Mrs. Elmore's withdrawal he stopped, and presently said +good-night rather soberly. + +Then she returned. "Owen," she asked sadly, "did you really think these +flowers and that turtle were for you?" + +"Why, yes," he answered. + +"Well, I don't know whether I wouldn't almost rather it had been a joke. +I believe that I would rather despise your heart than your head. Why +should Mr. Andersen bring _you_ flowers and a turtle?" + +"Upon my word, I don't know." + +"They were for Lily! And your mistake has added another pang to the poor +young fellow's suffering. She has just refused him," she said; and as +Elmore continued to glare blankly at her, she added: "She was refusing +him there on the balcony while that disgusting Mr. Hoskins was sketching +them; and he had his hand up, that way, because he was crying." + +"This is horrible, Celia!" cried Elmore. The scent of the flowers lying +on the table seemed to choke him; the turtle clawing about on the smooth +surface looked demoniacal. "Why----" + +"Now, don't ask me why she refused him, Owen. Of course she couldn't +care for a boy like that. But he can't realize it, and it's just as +miserable for him as if he were a thousand years old." + +Elmore hung his head. "It was all a mistake. But how should I know any +better? I am a straightforward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care +that has been thrown upon me. It's more than I can bear. No, I'm _not_ +fit for it!" he cried at last; and his wife, seeing him so crushed, now +said something to console him. + +"I know you're not. I see it more and more. But I know that you will do +the best you can, and that you will always act from a good motive. Only +_do_ try to be more on your guard." + +"I will--I will," he answered humbly. + +He had a temptation, the next time he visited Hoskins, to tell him the +awful secret, and to see how the situation of that night, with this +lurid light upon it, affected him: it could do poor Andersen, now on his +way to India, no harm. He yielded to his temptation, at the same time +that he confessed his own blunder about the flowers. + +Hoskins whistled. "I tell you what," he said, after a long pause, "there +are some things in history that I never could realize,--like Mary, Queen +of Scots, for instance, putting on her best things, and stepping down +into the front parlor of that castle to have her head off. But a thing +like this, happening on your own balcony, _helps_ you to realize it." + +"It helps you to realize it," assented Elmore, deeply oppressed by the +tragic parallel. + +"He's just beginning to feel it about now," said Hoskins, with strange +_sang froid_. "I reckon it's a good deal like being shot. I didn't fully +appreciate my little hit under a couple of days. Then I began to find +out that something had happened. Look here," he added, "I want to show +you something;" and he pulled the wet cloth off a breadth of clay which +he had set up on a board stayed against the wall. It was a bas-relief +representing a female figure advancing from the left corner over a +stretch of prairie towards a bulk of forest on the right; bison, bear, +and antelope fled before her; a lifted hand shielded her eyes; a star +lit the fillet that bound her hair. + +"That's the best thing you've done, Hoskins," said Elmore. "What do you +call it?" + +"Well, I haven't settled yet. I _have_ thought of 'Westward the Star of +Empire,' but that's rather long; and I've thought of 'American +Enterprise.' I ain't in any hurry to name it. You like it, do you?" + +"I like it immensely!" cried Elmore. "You must let me bring the ladies +to see it." + +"Well, not just yet," said the sculptor, in some confusion. "I want to +get it a little further along first." + +They stood looking together at the figure; and when Elmore went away he +puzzled himself about something in it,--he could not tell exactly what. +He thought he had seen that face and figure before, but this is what +often occurs to the connoisseur of modern sculpture. His mind heavily +reverted to Lily and her suitors. Take her in one way, especially in her +subordination to himself, the girl was as simply a child as any in the +world,--good-hearted, tender, and sweet, and, as he could see, without +tendency to flirtation. Take her in another way, confront her with a +young and marriageable man, and Elmore greatly feared that she +unconsciously set all her beauty and grace at work to charm him; another +life seemed to inform her, and irradiate from her, apart from which she +existed simple and childlike still. In the security of his own deposited +affections, it appeared to him cruelly absurd that a passion which any +other pretty girl might, and some other pretty girl in time must, have +kindled, should cling, when once awakened, so inalienably to the pretty +girl who had, in a million chances, chanced to awaken it. He wondered +how much of this constancy was natural, and how much merely attributive +and traditional, and whether human happiness or misery were increased by +it on the whole. + + +IX. + +In the respite which followed the dismissal of Andersen, the English +painter, Rose-Black, visited the Elmores as often as the servant, who +had orders in his case to say that they were _impediti_, failed of her +duty. They could not always escape him at the caffè, and they would have +left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had +driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances, +instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more +offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem; +he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the +London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of +his compatriots, that we were going to the dogs. + +"What do you really make of him, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore, after an +evening that, in its improbable discomfort, had passed quite like a +nightmare. + +"Well, I've been thinking a good deal about him. I have been wondering +if, in his phenomenal way, he is not a final expression of the national +genius,--the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the tacit denial +of the rights of any people who are at English mercy; the assumption +that the courtesies and decencies of life are for use exclusively +towards Englishmen." + +This was in that embittered old war-time: we have since learned how +forbearing and generous and amiable Englishmen are; how they never take +advantage of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or fail in +consideration for those they imagine their superiors; how you have but +to show yourself successful in order to win their respect, and even +affection. + +But for the present Mrs. Elmore replied to her husband's perverted +ideas, "Yes, it must be so," and she supported him in the ineffectual +experiment of deferential politeness, Christian charity, broad humanity, +and savage rudeness upon Rose-Black. It was all one to Rose-Black. + +He took an air of serious protection towards Mrs. Elmore, and often gave +her advice, while he practised an easy gallantry with Lily, and ignored +Elmore altogether. His intimacy was superior to the accidents of their +moods, and their slights and snubs were accepted apparently as +interesting expressions of a civilization about which he was insatiably +curious, especially as regarded the relations of young people. There was +no mistaking the fact that Rose-Black in his way had fallen under the +spell which Elmore had learned to dread; but there was nothing to be +done, and he helplessly waited. He saw what must come; and one evening +it came, when Rose-Black, in more than usually offensive patronage, +lolled back upon the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, "About +flirtations, now, in America,--tell me something about flirtations. +We've heard so much about your American flirtations. We only have them +with married ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. Elmore +would think of one." + +"I don't know what you mean," said Lily. "I don't know anything about +flirtations." + +This seemed to amuse Rose-Black as an uncommonly fine piece of American +humor, which was then just beginning to make its way with the English. +"Oh, but come, now, you don't expect me to believe that, you know. If +you won't tell me, suppose you show me what an American flirtation is +like. Suppose we get up a flirtation. How should you begin?" + +The girl rose with a more imposing air than Elmore could have imagined +of her stature; but almost any woman can be awful in emergencies. "I +should begin by bidding you good-evening," she answered, and swept out +of the room. + +Elmore felt as if he had been left alone with a man mortally hurt in +combat, and were likely to be arrested for the deed. He gazed with +fascination upon Rose-Black, and wondered to see him stir, and at last +rise, and with some incoherent words to them, get himself away. He dared +not lift his gaze to the man's eyes, lest he should see there some +reflection of the pain that filled his own. He would have gone after +him, and tried to say something in condolence, but he was quite helpless +to move; and as he sat still, gazing at the door through which +Rose-Black disappeared, Mrs. Elmore said quietly:-- + +"Well, really, I think that ought to be the last of him. You see, she's +quite able to take care of herself when she knows her ground. You can't +say that she has thrown the brunt of this affair upon you, Owen." + +"I am not so sure of that," sighed Elmore. "I think I suffer less when I +do it than when I see it. It's horrible." + +"He deserved it, every bit," returned his wife. + +"Oh, I dare say," Elmore granted. "But the sight even of justice isn't +pleasant, I find." + +"I don't understand you, Owen. How can you care so much for this +impudent wretch's little snub, and yet be so indifferent about refusing +Captain Ehrhardt?" + +"I'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know that I did right, but I +don't know that I could do right under the same circumstances again." + +In fact there were times when Elmore found almost insupportable the +absolute conclusion to which that business had come. It is hard to +believe that anything has come to an end in this world. For a time, +death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied expectation, as if +somehow the interrupted life must go on, and there is no change we make +or suffer which is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If +Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo to which he had been +so inexorably relegated, he might only have restored the original +situation in all its discomfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he +did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a hold upon +Elmore's imagination which deepened because he could not discuss the +matter frankly with his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what was +passing in his thoughts, lest some misconception of hers should turn +them into self-accusal or urge him to some attempt at the reparation +towards which he wavered. He really could have done nothing that would +not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating +upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the +incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope +and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the +archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see +these letters again, but he dared not ask for them; and indeed it would +have been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them perfectly well. +Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was characteristic of him, in that safety +from consequences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly +constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her rejected suitor, +whose pain he luxuriously fancied in all its different stages and +degrees. His indolent pity even developed into a sort of self-righteous +abhorrence of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within himself, +and could work no sort of harm. If he never ventured to hint these +feelings to his wife, he was still further from confessing them to Lily; +but once he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well-guarded +generality relating to the different kinds of sensibility developed by +the European and American civilization. A recent suicide for love which +excited all Venice at that time--an Austrian officer hopelessly +attached to an Italian girl had shot himself--had suggested their talk, +and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind. + +"Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer. They don't look at women +as respectfully as we do, and they mix up so much cabbage with their +romance that you don't know exactly how to take them; and yet here you +find this fellow suffering just as much as a white man because the +girl's folks won't let her have him. In fact, I don't know but he +suffered more than the average American citizen. I think we have a great +deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We respect women more than +any other people, and I think we show them more true politeness; we let +'em have their way more, and get their finger into the pie right along, +and it's right we should: but we don't make fools of ourselves about +them, as a general rule. We know they're awfully nice, and they know we +know it; and it's a perfectly understood thing all round. We've been +used to each other all our lives, and they're just as sensible as we +are. They like a fellow, when they do like him, about as well as any of +'em; but they know he's a man and a brother after all, and he's got ever +so much human nature in him. Well, now, I reckon one of these Dutch +chaps, the first time he gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl, +thinks he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl feels just so +about him. Why, it's natural they should,--they've never had any chance +to know any better, and your feelings _are_ apt to get the upper hand of +you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One of 'em goes off and +shoots himself, and the other one feels as if she was never going to get +over it. Well, now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little +business of hers: one of these girls over here would have had her head +completely turned by that adventure; but when she couldn't see her way +exactly clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands by what +you do, as calm as a clock." + +"It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I knew," said Elmore. + +"Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, "and she sees that as well as +you or I do, and she stands by you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's +got a cool head." + +In his soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsistently wished that her heart +were not equally cool; but he only said, "Yes, she is a good and +sensible girl. I hope the--the--other one is equally resigned." + +"Oh, _he_'ll get along," answered Hoskins, with the indifference of one +man for the sufferings of another in such matters. We are able to offer +a brother very little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those unhappy +affairs of the heart which move women to a pretty compassion for a +disappointed sister. A man in love is in no wise interesting to us for +that reason; and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that he +will have better luck next time. It is only here and there that a +sentimentalist like Elmore stops to pity him; and it is not certain that +even he would have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not been the +means of his disappointment. As it was, he came away, feeling that +doubtless Ehrhardt had "got along," and resolved at least to spend no +more unavailing regrets upon him. + +The time passed very quietly now, and if it had not been for Hoskins, +the ladies must have found it dull. He had nothing to do, except as he +made himself occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed on them +the leisure which Elmore could not find. They went everywhere with him, +and saw the city to advantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to +ordinary curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he showed a +pleasure in using such little privileges as his position gave him for +their amusement. He went upon errands for them; he was like a brother, +with something more than a brother's pliability; he came half the time +to breakfast with them, and was always welcome to all. He had the gift +of extracting comfort from the darkest news about the war; he was a +prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in many hours of +despondency they willingly submitted to the authority of his greater +experience, and took heart again. + +"I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins," said Elmore, on one of +those occasions when the consul was turning defeat into victory. +"There's a streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in your +taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, so far as the judgment of +the world goes, our fortunes are at the lowest ebb just now--" + +"Oh, the world is wrong!" interrupted the consul. "Those London papers +are all in the pay of the rebels." + +"I mean that we have no sort of sympathy in Europe; and yet here you +are, embodying in your conception of 'Westward' the arrogant faith of +the days when our destiny seemed universal union and universal dominion. +There is something sublime to me in your treatment of such a work at +such a time. I think an Italian, for instance, if his country were +involved in a life and death struggle like this of ours, would have +expressed something of the anxiety and apprehension of the time in it; +but this conception of yours is as serenely undisturbed by the facts of +the war as if secession had taken place in another planet. There is +something Greek in that repose of feeling, triumphant over circumstance. +It is like the calm beauty which makes you forget the anguish of the +Laocoön." + +"Is that so, Professor?" said Hoskins, blushing modestly, as an artist +often must in these days of creative criticism. He seemed to reflect +awhile before he added, "Well, I reckon you're partly right. If we ever +did go to smash, it would take us a whole generation to find it out. We +have all been raised to put so much dependence on Uncle Sam, that if the +old gentleman really did pass in his checks we should only think he was +lying low for a new deal. I never happened to think it out before, but +I'm pretty sure it's so." + +"Your work wouldn't be worth half so much to me if you had 'thought it +out,'" said Elmore. "It's the unconsciousness of the faith that makes +its chief value, as I said before; and there is another thing about it +that interests and pleases me still more." + +"What's that?" asked the sculptor. + +"The instinctive way in which you have given the figure an entirely +American quality. There was something very familiar to me in it, the +first time you showed it, but I've only just been able to formulate my +impression: I see now that while the spirit of your conception is Greek, +you have given it, as you ought, the purest American expression. Your +'Westward' is no Hellenic goddess: she is a vivid and self-reliant +American girl." + +At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and seemed not to know where to +look. Mrs. Elmore had the effect of escaping through the door into her +own room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. Hoskins followed +each in turn with a queer glance, and sat a moment in silence. Then he +said, "Well, I reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly, +without offering to take leave of the ladies. + +As soon as he was gone, Lily came in from the balcony, and whipped into +Mrs. Elmore's room, from which she flashed again in swift retreat to her +own, and was seen no more; and then Mrs. Elmore came back, with a +flushed face, to where her husband sat mystified. + +"My dear," he said gravely, "I'm afraid you've hurt Mr. Hoskins's +feelings." + +"Do you think so?" she asked; and then she burst into a wild cry of +laughter. "O, Owen, Owen! you will kill me yet!" + +"Really," he replied with dignity, "I don't see any occasion in what I +said for this extraordinary behavior." + +"Of course you don't, and that's just what makes the fun of it. So you +found something familiar in Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did +you?" she asked. "And you didn't notice anything particular in it?" + +"Particular, particular?" he demanded, beginning to lose his patience at +this. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "couldn't you see that it was Lily, all over +again?" + +Elmore laughed in turn. "Why, so it is; so it is! That accounts for +everything that puzzled me. I don't wonder my maunderings amused you. It +_was_ ridiculous, to be sure! When in the world did she give him the +sittings, and how did you manage to keep it from me so well?" + +"Owen!" cried his wife, with terrible severity. "You don't think that +Lily would _let_ him put her into it?" + +"Why, I supposed--I didn't know--I don't see how he could have done it +unless--" + +"He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. Elmore. "We saw it all +along, but he never 'let on,' as he would say, about it, and we never +meant to say anything, of course." + +"Then," replied Elmore, delighted with the fact, "it has been a purely +unconscious piece of cerebration." + +"Cerebration!" exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more scorn than she knew how +to express. "I should think as much!" + +"Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not +care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is so +very unphilosophical." + +"Oh, not at all!" mocked his wife. "It's philosophical to the last +degree. Be as philosophical as you please, Owen; I shall love you still +the same." She came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm round +his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the head. Then she released +him, and left him with another burst of derision. + + +X. + +After this Elmore had such an uncomfortable feeling that he hated to see +Hoskins again, and he was relieved when the sculptor failed to make his +usual call, the next evening. He had not been at dinner either, and he +did not reappear for several days. Then he merely said that he had been +spending the time at Chioggia, with a French painter who was making some +studies down there, and they all took up the old routine of their +friendly life without embarrassment. + +At first it seemed to Elmore that Lily was a little shy of Hoskins, and +he thought that she resented his using her charm in his art; but before +the evening wore away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long +talk about home, and she took her place at the piano and played some of +the war-songs that had begun to supersede the old negro melodies. Then +she wandered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted over the keys, +and ended with "Stop dat knockin'," in which Hoskins joined with his +powerful bass in the recitative "Let me in," and Elmore himself had half +a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as she struck the keys with +a final crash, but lingered, as his fashion was when he had something to +propose: if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be liked, he +brought it in as if he had only happened to remember it. He now drew out +a large, square, ceremonious-looking envelope, at which he glanced as +if, after all, he was rather surprised to see it, and said, "Oh, by the +by, Mrs. Elmore, I wish you'd tell me what to do about this thing. +Here's something that's come to me in my official capacity, but it isn't +exactly consular business,--if it was I don't believe I should ask _any_ +lady for instructions,--and I don't know exactly what to do. It's so +long since I corresponded with a princess that I don't even know how to +answer her letter." + +The ladies perhaps feared a hoax of some sort, and would not ask to see +the letter; and then Hoskins recognized his failure to play upon their +curiosity with a laugh, and gave the letter to Mrs. Elmore. It was an +invitation to a mask ball, of which all Venice had begun to speak. A +great Russian lady, who had come to spend the winter in the Lagoons, and +had taken a whole floor at one of the hotels, had sent out her cards, +apparently to all the available people in the city, for the event which +was to take place a fortnight later. In the mean time, a thrill of +preparation was felt in various quarters, and the ordinary course of +life was interrupted in a way that gave some idea of the old times, when +Venice was the capital of pleasure, and everything yielded there to the +great business of amusement. Mrs. Elmore had found it impossible to get +a pair of fine shoes finished until after the ball; a dress which Lily +had ordered could not be made; their laundress had given notice that for +the present all fluting and quilling was out of the question; one +already heard that the chief Venetian perruquier and his assistants were +engaged for every moment of the forty-eight hours before the ball, and +that whoever had him now must sit up with her hair dressed for two +nights at least. Mrs. Elmore had a fanatical faith in these stories; and +while agreeing with her husband, as a matter of principle, that mask +balls were wrong, and that it was in bad taste for a foreigner to insult +the sorrow of Venice by a festivity of the sort at such a time, she had +secretly indulged longings which the sight of Hoskins's invitation +rendered almost insupportable. Her longings were not for herself, but +for Lily: if she could provide Lily with the experience of a masquerade +in Venice, she could overpay all the kindnesses that the Mayhews had +ever done her. It was an ambition neither ignoble nor ungenerous, and it +was with a really heroic effort that she silenced it in passing the +invitation to her husband, and simply saying to Hoskins, "Of course you +will go." + +"I don't know about that," he answered. "That's the point I want some +advice on. You see this document calls for a lady to fill out the bill." + +"Oh," returned Mrs. Elmore, "you will find some Americans at the hotels. +You can take them." + +"Well, now, I was thinking, Mrs. Elmore, that I should like to take +you." + +"Take me!" she echoed tremulously. "What an idea! I'm too old to go to +mask balls." + +"You don't look it," suggested Hoskins. + +"Oh, I couldn't go," she sighed. "But it's very, very kind." + +Hoskins dropped his head, and gave the low chuckle with which he +confessed any little bit of humbug. "Well, you _or_ Miss Lily." + +Lily had retired to the other side of the room as soon as the parley +about the invitation began. Without asking or seeing, she knew what was +in the note, and now she felt it right to make a feint of not knowing +what Mrs. Elmore meant when she asked, "What do _you_ say, Lily?" + +When the question was duly explained to her, she answered languidly, "I +don't know. Do you think I'd better?" + +"I might as well make a clean breast of it, first as last," said +Hoskins. "I thought perhaps Mrs. Elmore might refuse, she's so stiff +about some things,"--here he gave that chuckle of his,--"and so I came +prepared for contingencies. It occurred to me that it mightn't be quite +the thing, and so I went round to the Spanish consul and asked him how +he thought it would do for me to matronize a young lady if I could get +one, and he said he didn't think it would do at all." Hoskins let this +adverse decision sink into the breasts of his listeners before he added: +"But he said that he was going with his wife, and that if we would come +along she could matronize us both. I don't know how it would work," he +concluded impartially. + +They all looked at Elmore, who stood holding the princess's missive in +his hand, and darkly forecasting the chances of consent and denial. At +the first suggestion of the matter, a reckless hope that this ball might +bring Ehrhardt above their horizon again sprang up in his heart, and +became a desperate fear when the whole responsibility of action was, as +usual, left with him. He stood, feeling that Hoskins had used him very +ill. + +"I suppose," began Mrs. Elmore very thoughtfully, "that this will be +something quite in the style of the old masquerades under the Republic." + +"Regular Ridotto business, the Spanish consul says," answered Hoskins. + +"It might be very useful to you, Owen," she resumed, "in an historical +way, if Lily were to go and take notes of everything; so that when you +came to that period you could describe its corruptions intelligently." + +Elmore laughed. "I never thought of that, my dear," he said, returning +the invitation to Hoskins. "Your historical sense has been awakened +late, but it promises to be very active. Lily had better go, by all +means, and I shall depend upon her coming home with very full notes upon +her dance-list." + +They laughed at the professor's sarcasm, and Hoskins, having undertaken +to see that the last claims of etiquette were satisfied by getting an +invitation sent to Miss Mayhew through the Spanish consul, went off, and +left the ladies to the discussion of ways and means. Mrs. Elmore said +that of course it was now too late to hope to get anything done, and +then set herself to devise the character that Lily would have appeared +in if there had been time to get her ready, or if all the work-people +had not been so busy that it was merely frantic to think of anything. +She first patriotically considered her as Columbia, with the customary +drapery of stars and stripes and the cap of liberty. But while holding +that she would have looked very pretty in the dress, Mrs. Elmore decided +that it would have been too hackneyed; and besides, everybody would have +known instantly who it was. + +"Why not have had her go in the character of Mr. Hoskins's 'Westward'?" +suggested Elmore, with lazy irony. + +"The very thing!" cried his wife. "Owen, you deserve great credit for +thinking of that; no one else would have done it! No one will dream what +it means, and it will be great fun, letting them make it out. We must +keep it a dead secret from Mr. Hoskins, and let her surprise him with it +when he comes for her that evening. It will be a very pretty way of +returning his compliment, and it will be a sort of delicate +acknowledgement of his kindness in asking her, and in so many other +ways. Yes, you've hit it exactly, Owen; she shall go as 'Westward.'" + +"Go?" echoed Elmore, who had with difficulty realized the rapid change +of tense. "I thought you said you couldn't get her ready." + +"We must manage somehow," replied Mrs. Elmore. And somehow a shoemaker +for the sandals, a seamstress for the delicate flowing draperies, a +hair-dresser for the adjustment of the young girl's rebellious abundance +of hair beneath the star-lit fillet, were actually found,--with the help +of Hoskins, as usual, though he was not suffered to know anything of the +character to whose make-up he contributed. The perruquier, a personage +of lordly address naturally, and of a dignity heightened by the demand +in which he found himself came early in the morning, and was received by +Elmore with a self-possession that ill-comported with the solemnity of +the occasion. "Sit down," said Elmore easily, pushing him a chair. "The +ladies will be here presently." + +"But I have no time to sit down, signore!" replied the artist, with an +imperious bow, "and the ladies must be here instantly." + +Mrs. Elmore always said that if she had not heard this conversation, and +hurried in at once, the perruquier would have left them at that point. +But she contrived to appease him by the manifestation of an intelligent +sympathy; she made Lily leave her breakfast untasted, and submit her +beautiful head to the touch of this man, with whom it was but a head of +hair and nothing more; and in an hour the work was done. The artist +whisked away the cloth which covered her shoulders, and crying, +"Behold!" bowed splendidly to the spectators, and without waiting for +criticism or suggestion, took his napoleon and went his way. All that +day the work of his skill was sacredly guarded, and the custodian of the +treasure went about with her head on her shoulders, as if it had been +temporarily placed in her keeping, and were something she was not at all +used to taking care of. More than once Mrs. Elmore had to warn her +against sinister accidents. "Remember, Lily," she said, "that if +anything _did_ happen, NOTHING could be done to save you!" In spite of +himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the depths of his wonted +studies he found himself pursued and harassed by vague apprehensions, +which upon analysis proved to be fears for Miss Lily's hair. It was a +great moment when the robe came home--rather late--from the +dressmaker's, and was put on over Lily's head; but from this thrilling +rite Elmore was of course excluded, and only knew of it afterwards by +hearsay. He did not see her till she came out just before Hoskins +arrived to fetch her away, when she appeared radiantly perfect in her +dress, and in the air with which she meant to carry it off. At Mrs. +Elmore's direction she paraded dazzlingly up and down the room a number +of times, bending over to see how her dress hung, as she walked. Mrs. +Elmore, with her head on one side, scrutinized her in every detail, and +Elmore regarded her young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as +her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh, which made the others +laugh, recalled him to himself, as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. +He was received in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from one to the +other with his queer, knowing smile, and took in the whole affair +without a word. + +"Isn't it a pretty idea?" said Mrs. Elmore. "Studied from an antique +bas-relief, or just the same as an antique,--full of the anguish and the +repose of the Laocoön." + +"Mrs. Elmore," said the sculptor, "you're too many for me. I reckon the +procession had better start before I make a fool of myself. Well!" This +was all Hoskins could say; but it sufficed. The ladies declared +afterwards that if he had added a word more, it would have spoiled it. +They had expected him to go to the ball in the character of a miner +perhaps, or in that of a trapper of the great plains; but he had chosen +to appear more naturally as a courtier of the time of Louis XIV. "When +you go in for a disguise," he explained, "you can't make it too +complete; and I consider that this limp of mine adds the last touch." + +"It's no use to sit up for them," Mrs. Elmore said, when she and her +husband had come in from calling good wishes and last instructions after +them from the balcony, as their gondola pushed away. "We sha'n't see +anything more of _them_ till morning. Now this," she added, "is +something like the gayety that people at home are always fancying in +Europe. Why, I can remember when I used to imagine that American +tourists figured brilliantly in _salons_ and _conversazioni_, and spent +their time in masking and throwing _confetti_ in carnival, and going to +balls and opera. I didn't know what American tourists were, then, and +how dismally they moped about in hotels and galleries and churches. And +I didn't know how stupid Europe was socially,--how perfectly dead and +buried it was, especially for young people. It would be fun if things +happened so that Lily never found it out! I don't think two offers +already,--or three, if you count Rose-Black,--are very bad for _any_ +girl; and now this ball, coming right on top of it, where she will see +hundreds of handsome officers! Well, she'll never miss Patmos, at this +rate, will she?" + +"Perhaps she had better never have left Patmos," suggested Elmore +gravely. + +"I don't know what you mean, Owen," said his wife, as if hurt. + +"I mean that it's a great pity she should give herself up to the same +frivolous amusements here that she had there. The only good that Europe +can do American girls who travel here is to keep them in total exile +from what they call a good time,--from parties and attentions and +flirtations; to force them, through the hard discipline of social +deprivation, to take some interest in the things that make for +civilization,--in history, in art, in humanity." + +"Now, there I differ with you, Owen. I think American girls are the +nicest girls in the world, just as they are. And I don't see any harm in +the things you think are so awful. You've lived so long here among your +manuscripts that you've forgotten there is any such time as the present. +If you are getting so Europeanized, I think the sooner we go home the +better." + +"_I_ getting Europeanized!" began Elmore indignantly. + +"Yes, Europeanized! And I don't want you to be so severe with Lily, +Owen. The child stands in terror of you now; and if you keep on in this +way, she can't draw a natural breath in the house." + +There is always something flattering, at first, to a gentle and +peaceable man in the notion of being terrible to any one; Elmore melted +at these words, and at the fear that he might have been, in some way +that he could not think of, really harsh. + +"I should be very sorry to distress her," he began. + +"Well, you haven't distressed her yet," his wife relented. "Only you +must be careful not to. She was going to be very circumspect, Owen, on +your account, for she really appreciates the interest you take in her, +and I think she sees that it won't do to be at all free with strangers +over here. This ball will be a great education for Lily,--a _great_ +education. I'm going to commence a letter to Sue about her costume, and +all that, and leave it open to finish up when Lily gets home." + +When she went to bed, she did not sleep till after the time when the +girl ought to have come; and when she awoke to a late breakfast, Lily +had still not returned. By eleven o'clock she and Elmore had passed the +stage of accusing themselves, and then of accusing each other, for +allowing Lily to go in the way they had; and had come to the question of +what they had better do, and whether it was practicable to send to the +Spanish consulate and ask what had become of her. They had resigned +themselves to waiting for one half-hour longer, when they heard her +voice at the water-gate, gayly forbidding Hoskins to come up; and +running out upon the balcony, Mrs. Elmore had a glimpse of the +courtier, very tawdry by daylight, re-entering his gondola, and had only +time to turn about when Lily burst laughing into the room. + +"Oh, don't look at me, Professor Elmore!" she cried. "I'm literally +danced to rags!" + +Her dress and hair were splashed with drippings from the wax candles; +she was wildly decorated with favors from the German, and one of these +had been used to pin up a rent which the spur of a hussar had made in +her robe; her hair had escaped from its fastenings during the night, and +in putting it back she had broken the star in her fillet; it was now +kept in place by a bit of black-and-yellow cord which an officer had +lent her. "He said he should claim it of me the first time we met," she +exclaimed excitedly. "Why, Professor Elmore," she implored with a laugh, +"don't look at me _so_!" + +Grief and indignation were in his heart. "You look like the spectre of +last night," he said with dreamy severity, and as if he saw her merely +as a vision. + +"Why, that's the way I _feel_!" she answered; and with a reproachful +"Owen!" his wife followed her flight to her room. + + +XI. + +Elmore went out for a long walk, from which he returned disconsolate at +dinner. He was one of those people, common enough in our Puritan +civilization, who would rather forego any pleasure than incur the +reaction which must follow with all the keenness of remorse; and he +always mechanically pitied (for the operation was not a rational one) +such unhappy persons as he saw enjoying themselves. But he had not meant +to add bitterness to the anguish which Lily would necessarily feel in +retrospect of the night's gayety; he had not known that he was +recognizing, by those unsparing words of his, the nervous misgivings in +the girl's heart. He scarcely dared ask, as he sat down at table with +Mrs. Elmore alone, whether Lily were asleep. + +"Asleep?" she echoed, in a low tone of mystery. "I hope so." + +"Celia, Celia!" he cried in despair. "What shall I do? I feel terribly +at what I said to her." + +"Sh! At what you said to her? Oh yes! Yes, that was cruel. But there is +so much else, poor child, that I had forgotten that." + +He let his plate of soup stand untasted. "Why--why," he faltered, +"didn't she enjoy herself?" And a historian of Venice, whose mind should +have been wholly engaged in philosophizing the republic's difficult +past, hung abjectly upon the question whether a young girl had or had +not had a good time at a ball. + +"Yes. Oh, yes! She _enjoyed_ herself--if that's all you require," +replied his wife. "Of course she wouldn't have stayed so late if she +hadn't enjoyed herself." + +"No," he said in a tone which he tried to make leading; but his wife +refused to be led by indirect methods. She ate her soup, but in a manner +to carry increasing bitterness to Elmore with every spoonful. + +"Come, Celia!" he cried at last, "tell me what has happened. You know +how wretched this makes me. Tell me it, whatever it is. Of course, I +must know it in the end. Are there any new complications?" + +"No _new_ complications," said his wife, as if resenting the word. "But +you make such a bugbear of the least little matter that there's no +encouragement to tell you anything." + +"Excuse me," he retorted, "I haven't made a bugbear of this." + +"You haven't had the opportunity." This was so grossly unjust that +Elmore merely shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. When it +finally appeared that he was not going to ask anything more, his wife +added: "If you could listen, like any one else, and not interrupt with +remarks that distort all one's ideas"--Then, as he persisted in his +silence, she relented still further. "Why, of course, as you say, you +will have to know it in the end. But I can tell you, to begin with, +Owen, that it's nothing you can do anything about, or take hold of in +any way. Whatever it is, it's done and over; so it needn't distress you +at all." + +"Ah, I've known some things done and over that distressed me a great +deal," he suggested. + +"The princess wasn't so very young, after all," said Mrs. Elmore, as if +this had been the point in dispute, "but very fat and jolly, and very +kind. She wasn't in costume; but there was a young countess with her, +helping receive, who appeared as Night,--black tulle, you know, with +silver stars. The princess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily,--the +Russians always _have_ sympathized with us in the war,--and all the time +she wasn't dancing, the princess kept her by her, holding her hand and +patting it. The officers--hundreds of them, in their white uniforms and +those magnificent hussar dresses--were very obsequious to the princess, +and Lily had only too many partners. She says you can't imagine how +splendid the scene was, with all those different costumes, and the rooms +a perfect blaze of waxlights; the windows were battened, so that you +couldn't tell when it came daylight, and she hadn't any idea how the +time was passing. They were not all in masks; and there didn't seem to +be any regular hour for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper +was, but she thinks it must have been towards morning. She says Mr. +Hoskins got on capitally, and everybody seemed to like him, he was so +jolly and good-natured; and when they found out that he had been wounded +in the war, they made quite a belle of him, as he called it. The +princess made a point of introducing all the officers to Lily that came +up after they unmasked. They paid her the greatest attention, and you +can easily see that she was the prettiest girl there." + +"I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, with magnanimous pride +in the loveliness that had made him so much trouble. "Well?" + +"Well, they couldn't any of them get the hang, as Mr. Hoskins said, of +the character she came in, for a good while; but when they did, they +thought it was the best idea there: and it was all _your_ idea, Owen," +said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride that he knew she must +now be approaching the difficult passage of her narration. "It was so +perfectly new and unconventional. She got on very well speaking Italian +with the officers, for she knew as much of it as they did." + +Here Mrs. Elmore paused, and glanced hesitatingly at her husband. "They +only made one little mistake; but that was at the beginning, and they +soon got over it." Elmore suffered, but he did not ask what it was, and +his wife went on with smooth caution. "Lily thought it was just as it is +at home, and she mustn't dance with any one unless they had been +introduced. So after the first dance with the Spanish consul, as her +escort, a young officer came up and asked her; and she refused, for she +thought it was a great piece of presumption. Afterwards the princess +told her she could dance with any one, introduced or not, and so she +did; and pretty soon she saw this first officer looking at her very +angrily, and going about speaking to others and glancing toward her. She +felt badly about it, when she saw how it was; and she got Mr. Hoskins to +go and speak to him. Mr. Hoskins asked him if he spoke English, and the +officer said No; and it seems that he didn't know Italian either, and +Mr. Hoskins tried him in Spanish,--he picked up a little in New +Mexico,--but the officer didn't understand it; and all at once it +occurred to Mr. Hoskins to say, 'Parlez-vous Français?' and says the +officer instantly, 'Oui, monsieur.'" + +"Of course the man knew French. He ought to have tried him with that in +the beginning. What did Hoskins say then?" asked Elmore impatiently. + +"He didn't say anything: that was all the French he knew." + +Elmore broke into a cry of laughter, and laughed on and on with the wild +excess of a sad man when once he unpacks his heart in that way. His wife +did not, perhaps, feel the absurdity as keenly as he, but she gladly +laughed with him, for it smoothed her way to have him in this humor. +"Mr. Hoskins just took him by the arm, and said, 'Here! you come along +with me,' and led him up to the princess, where Lily was sitting; and +when the princess had explained to him, Lily rose, and mustered up +enough French to say, 'Je vous prie, monsieur, de danser avec moi,' and +after that they were the greatest friends." + +"That was very pretty in her; it was sovereignly gracious," said Elmore. + +"Oh, if an American girl is left to manage for herself she can _always_ +manage!" cried Mrs. Elmore. + +"Well, and what else?" asked her husband. + +"Oh, _I_ don't know that it amounts to anything," said Mrs. Elmore; but +she did not delay further. + +It appeared from what she went on to say that in the German, which began +not long after midnight, there was a figure fancifully called the +symphony, in which musical toys were distributed among the dancers in +pairs; the possessor of a small pandean pipe, or tin horn, went about +sounding it, till he found some lady similarly equipped, when he +demanded her in the dance. In this way a tall mask, to whom a penny +trumpet had fallen, was stalking to and fro among the waltzers, blowing +the silly plaything with a disgusted air, when Lily, all unconscious of +him, where she sat with her hand in that of her faithful princess, +breathed a responsive note. The mask was instantly at her side, and she +was whirling away in the waltz. She tried to make him out, but she had +already danced with so many people that she was unable to decide whether +she had seen this mask before. He was not disguised except by the little +visor of black silk, coming down to the point of his nose; his blond +whiskers escaped at either side, and his blond moustache swept beneath, +like the whiskers and moustaches of fifty other officers present, and he +did not speak. This was a permissible caprice of his, but if she were +resolved to make him speak, this also was a permissible caprice. She +made a whole turn of the room in studying up the Italian sentence with +which she assailed him: "Perdoni, Maschera; ma cosa ha detto? Non ho ben +inteso." + +"Speak English, Mask," came the reply. "I did not say anything." It came +certainly with a German accent, and with a foreigner's deliberation; but +it came at once, and clearly. + +The English astonished her, and somehow it daunted her, for the mask +spoke very gravely; but she would not let him imagine that he had put +her down, and she rejoined laughingly, "Oh, I knew that you hadn't +spoken, but I thought I would make you." + +"You think you can make one do what you will?" asked the mask. + +"Oh, no. I don't think I could make you tell me who you are, though I +should like to make you." + +"And why should you wish to know me? If you met me in Piazza, you would +not recognize my salutation." + +"How do you know that?" demanded Lily. "I don't know what you mean." + +"Oh, it is understood yet already," answered the mask. "Your compatriot, +with whom you live, wishes to be well seen by the Italians, and he would +not let you bow to an Austrian." + +"That is not so," exclaimed Lily indignantly. + +"Professor Elmore wouldn't be so mean; and if he would, _I_ shouldn't." +She was frightened, but she felt her spirit rising, too. "You seem to +know so well who I am: do you think it is fair for you to keep me in +ignorance?" + +"I cannot remain masked without your leave. Shall I unmask? Do you +insist?" + +"Oh, no," she replied. "You will have to unmask at supper, and then I +shall see you. I'm not impatient. I prefer to keep you for a mystery." + +"You will be a mystery to me even when you unmask," replied the mask +gravely. + +Lily was ill at ease, and she gave a little, unsuccessful laugh. "You +seem to take the mystery very coolly," she said in default of anything +else. + +"I have studied the American manner," replied the mask. "In America they +take everything coolly: life and death, love and hate--all things." + +"How do you know that? You have never been in America." + +"That is not necessary, if the Americans come here to show us." + +"They are not true Americans, if they show you that," cried the girl. + +"No?" + +"But I see that you are only amusing yourself." + +"And have you never amused yourself with me?" + +"How could I," she demanded, "if I never saw you before?" + +"But are you sure of that?" She did not answer, for in this masquerade +banter she had somehow been growing unhappy. "Shall I prove to you that +you have seen me before? You dare not let me unmask." + +"Oh, I can wait till supper. I shall know then that I have never seen +you before. I forbid you to unmask till supper! Will you obey?" she +cried anxiously. + +"I have obeyed in harder things," replied the mask. + +She refused to recognize anything but meaningless badinage in his words. +"Oh, as a soldier, yes!--you must be used to obeying orders." He did not +reply, and she added, releasing her hand and slipping it into his arm, +"I am tired now; will you take me back to the princess?" + +He led her silently to her place, and left her with a profound bow. + +"Now," said the princess, "they shall give you a little time to breathe. +I will not let them make you dance every minute. They are indiscreet. +You shall not take any of their musical instruments, and so you can +fairly escape till supper." + +"Thank you," said Lily absently, "that will be the best way"; and she +sat languidly watching the dancers. A young naval officer who spoke +English ran across the floor to her. + +"Come," he cried, "I shall have twenty duels on my hands if I let you +rest here, when there are so many who wish to dance with you." He threw +a pipe into her lap, and at the same moment a pipe sounded from the +other side of the room. + +"This is a conspiracy!" exclaimed the girl. "I will not have it! I am +not going to dance any more." She put the pipe back into his hands; he +placed it to his lips, and sounded it several times, and then dropped it +into her lap again with a laugh, and vanished in the crowd. + +"That little fellow is a rogue," said the princess. "But he is not so +bad as some of them. Monsieur," she cried in French to the +fair-whiskered, tall mask who had already presented himself before Lily, +"I will not permit it, if it is for a trick. You must unmask. I will +dispense mademoiselle from dancing with you." + +The mask did not reply, but turned his eyes upon Lily with an appeal +which the holes of the visor seemed to intensify. "It is a promise," she +said to the princess, rising in a sort of fascination. "I have forbidden +him to unmask before supper." + +"Oh, very well," answered the princess, "if that is the case. But make +him bring you back soon: it is almost time." + +"Did you hear, Mask?" asked the girl, as they waltzed away. "I will only +make two turns of the room with you." + +"Perdoni?" + +"This is too bad!" she exclaimed. "I will not be trifled with in this +way. Either speak English, or unmask at once." + +The mask again answered in Italian, with a repeated apology for not +understanding. "You understand very well," retorted Lily, now really +indignant, "and you know that this passes a jest." + +"Can you speak German?" asked the mask in that tongue. + +"Yes, a little, but I do not choose to speak it. If you have anything to +say to me you can say it in English." + +"I cannot understand English," replied the mask, still in German, and +now Lily thought the voice seemed changed; but she clung to her belief +that it was some hoax played at her expense, and she continued her +efforts to make him answer her in English. The two turns round the room +had stretched to half a dozen in this futile task, but she felt herself +powerless to leave the mask, who for his part betrayed signs of +embarrassment, as if he had undertaken a ruse of which he repented. A +confused movement in the crowd and a sudden cessation of the music +recalled her to herself, and she now took her partner's arm and hurried +with him toward the place where she had left the princess. But the +princess had already gone into the supper-room, and she had no other +recourse than to follow with the stranger. + +As they entered the supper-room she removed her little visor, and she +felt, rather than saw, the mask put up his hand and lift away his own: +he turned his head, and looked down upon her with the face of a man she +had never seen before. + +"Ah, you are there!" she heard the princess's voice calling to her from +one of the tables. "How tired you look! Here--here! I will make you +drink this glass of wine." + +The officer who brought her the wine gave her his arm and led her to the +princess, and the late mask mixed with the two-score other tall blond +officers. + +The night which stretched so far into the day ended at last, and she +followed Hoskins down to their gondola. He entered the boat first, to +give her his hand in stepping from the _riva_; at the same moment she +involuntarily turned at the closing of the door behind her, and found +at her side the tall blond mask, or one of the masks, if there were two +who had danced with her. He caught her hand suddenly to his lips, and +kissed it. + +"Adieu--forgive!" he murmured in English, and then vanished indoors +again. + + +"Owen," said Mrs. Elmore dramatically at the end of her narration, "who +do you think it could have been?" + +"I have no doubt as to who it was, Celia," replied Elmore, with a heat +evidently quite unexpected to his wife, "and if Lily has not been +seriously annoyed by the matter, I am glad that it has happened. I have +had my regrets--my doubts--whether I did not dismiss that man's +pretensions too curtly, too unkindly. But I am convinced now that we did +exactly right, and that she was wise never to bestow another thought +upon him. A man capable of contriving a petty persecution of this +sort--of pursuing a young girl who had rejected him in this shameless +fashion,--is no gentleman." + +"It _was_ a persecution," said Mrs. Elmore, with a dazed air, as if this +view of the case had not occurred to her. + +"A miserable, unworthy persecution!" repeated her husband. + +"Yes." + +"And we are well rid of him. He has relieved _me_ by this last +performance, immensely; and I trust that if Lily had any secret +lingering regrets, he has given her a final lesson. Though I must say, +in justice to her, poor girl, she didn't seem to need it." + +Mrs. Elmore listened with a strange abeyance; she looked beaten and +bewildered, while he vehemently uttered these words. She could not meet +his eyes, with her consciousness of having her intended romance thrown +back upon her hands; and he seemed in nowise eager to meet hers, for +whatever consciousness of his own. "Well, it isn't certain that he was +the one, after all," she said. + + +XII. + +Long after the ball Lily seemed to Elmore's eye not to have recovered +her former tone. He thought she went about languidly, and that she was +fitful and dreamy, breaking from moods of unwonted abstraction in bursts +of gayety as unnatural. She did not talk much of the ball; he could not +be sure that she ever recurred to it of her own motion. Hoskins +continued to come a great deal to the house, and she often talked with +him for a whole evening; Elmore fancied she was very serious in these +talks. + +He wondered if Lily avoided him, or whether this was only an illusion of +his; but in any case, he was glad that the girl seemed to find so much +comfort in Hoskins's company, and when it occurred to him he always said +something to encourage his visits. His wife was singularly quiescent at +this time, as if, having accomplished all she wished in Lily's presence +at the princess's ball, she was willing to rest for a while from further +social endeavor. Life was falling into the dull routine again, and +after the past shocks his nerves were gratefully clothing themselves in +the old habits of tranquillity once more, when one day a letter came +from the overseers of Patmos University, offering him the presidency of +that institution on condition of his early return. The board had in view +certain changes, intended to bring the university abreast with the +times, which they hoped would meet his approval. + +Among these was a modification of the name, which was hereafter to be +Patmos University and Military Institute. The board not only believed +that popular feeling demanded the introduction of military drill into +the college, but they felt that a college which had been closed at the +beginning of the Rebellion, through the dedication of its president and +nearly all its students to the war, could in no way so gracefully +recognize this proud fact of its history as by hereafter making war one +of the arts which it taught. The board explained that of course Mr. +Elmore would not be expected to take charge of this branch of +instruction at once. A competent military assistant would be provided, +and continued under him as long as he should deem his services +essential. The letter closed with a cordial expression of the desire of +Elmore's old friends to have him once more in their midst, at the close +of labors which they were sure would do credit to the good old +university and to the whole city of Patmos. + +Elmore read this letter at breakfast, and silently handed it to his +wife: they were alone, for Lily, as now often happened, had not yet +risen. "Well?" he said, when she had read it in her turn. She gave it +back to him with a look in her dimmed eyes which he could not mistake. +"I see there is no doubt of your feeling, Celia," he added. + +"I don't wish to urge you," she replied, "but yes, I should like to go +back. Yes, I am homesick. I have been afraid of it before, but this +chance of returning makes it certain." + +"And you see nothing ridiculous in my taking the presidency of a +military institute?" + +"They say expressly that they don't expect you to give instruction in +that branch." + +"No, not immediately, it seems," he said, with his pensive irony. "And +the history?" + +"Haven't you almost got notes enough?" + +Elmore laughed sadly. "I have been here two years. It would take me +twenty years to write such a history of Venice as I ought not to be +ashamed to write; it would take me five years to scamp it as I thought +of doing. Oh, I dare say I had better go back. I have neither the time +nor the money to give to a work I never was fit for,--of whose +magnitude even I was unable to conceive." + +"Don't say that!" cried his wife, with the old sympathy. "You will write +it yet, I know you will. I would rather spend all my days in +this--watery mausoleum than have you talk so, Owen!" + +"Thank you, my dear; but the work won't be lost even if I give it up at +this point. I can do something with my material, I suppose. And you know +that if I didn't _wish_ to give up my project I couldn't. It's a sign of +my unfitness for it that I'm able to abandon it. The man who is born to +write the history of Venice will have no volition in the matter: he +cannot leave it, and he will not die till he has finished it." He feebly +crushed a bit of bread in his fingers as he ended with this burst of +feeling, and he shook his head in sad negation to his wife's tender +protest,--"Oh, you will come back some day to finish it!" + +"No one ever comes back to finish a history of Venice," he said. + +"Oh, yes, you will," she returned. "But you need the rest from this kind +of work, now, just as you needed rest from your college work before. You +need a change of standpoint,--and the American standpoint will be the +very thing for you." + +"Perhaps so, perhaps so," he admitted. "At any rate, this is a handsome +offer, and most kindly made, Celia. It's a great compliment. I didn't +suppose they valued me so much." + +"Of course they valued you, and they will be very glad to get you. I +call it merely letting the historic material ripen in your mind, or else +I shouldn't let you accept. And I shall be glad to go home, Owen, on +Lily's account. The child is getting no good here: she's drooping." + +"Drooping?" + +"Yes. Don't you see how she mopes about?" + +"I'm afraid--that--I have--noticed." + +He was going to ask why she was drooping; but he could not. He said, +recurring to the letter of the overseers, "So Patmos is a city." + +"Of course it is by this time," said his wife, "with all that +prosperity!" + +Now that they were determined to go, their little preparations for +return were soon made; and a week after Elmore had written to accept the +offer of the overseers, they were ready to follow his letter home. Their +decision was a blow to Hoskins under which he visibly suffered; and they +did not realize till then in what fond and affectionate friendship he +held them. He now frankly spent his whole time with them; he +disconsolately helped them pack, and he did all that a consul can do to +secure free entry for some objects of Venice that they wished to get in +without payment of duties at New York. + +He said a dozen times, "I don't know what I _will_ do when you're gone"; +and toward the last he alarmed them for his own interests by beginning +to say, "Well, I don't see but what I will have to go along." + +The last night but one Lily felt it her duty to talk to him very +seriously about his future and what he owed to it. She told him that he +must stay in Italy till he could bring home something that would honor +the great, precious, suffering country for which he had fought so nobly, +and which they all loved. She made the tears come into her eyes as she +spoke, and when she said that she should always be proud to be +associated with one of his works, Hoskins's voice was quite husky in +replying: "Is that the way you feel about it?" He went away promising to +remain at least till he finished his bas-relief of Westward, and his +figure of the Pacific Slope; and the next morning he sent around by a +_facchino_ a note to Lily. + +She ran it through in the presence of the Elmores, before whom she +received it, and then, with a cry of "I think Mr. Hoskins is too _bad_!" +she threw it into Mrs. Elmore's lap, and, catching her handkerchief to +her eyes, she broke into tears and went out of the room. The note +read:-- + + + DEAR MISS LILY,--Your kind interest in me gives me courage to say + something that will very likely make me hateful to you forevermore. + But I have got to say it, and you have got to know it; and it's all + the worse for me if you have never suspected it. I want to give my + whole life to you, wherever and however you will have it. With you + by my side, I feel as if I could really do something that you would + not be ashamed of in sculpture, and I believe that I could make you + happy. I suppose I believe this because I love you very dearly, and + I know the chances are that you will not think this is reason + enough. But I would take one chance in a million, and be only too + glad of it. I hope it will not worry you to read this: as I said + before, I had to tell you. Perhaps it won't be altogether a + surprise. I might go on, but I suppose that until I hear from you I + had better give you as little of my eloquence as possible. + + CLAY HOSKINS. + + +"Well, upon my word," said Elmore, to whom his wife had transferred the +letter, "this is very indelicate of Hoskins! I must say, I expected +something better of him." He looked at the note with a face of disgust. + +"I don't know why you had a right to expect anything better of him, as +you call it," retorted his wife. "It's perfectly natural." + +"Natural!" cried Elmore. "To put this upon us at the last moment, when +he knows how much trouble I've----" + +Lily re-entered the room as precipitately as she had left it, and saved +him from betraying himself as to the extent of his confidences to +Hoskins. "Professor Elmore," she said, bending her reddened eyes upon +him, "I want you to answer this letter for me; and I don't want you to +write as you--I mean, don't make it so cutting--so--so--Why, I _like_ +Mr. Hoskins! He's been so _kind_! And if you said anything to wound his +feelings--" + +"I shall not do that, you may be sure; because, for one reason, I shall +say nothing at all to him," replied Elmore. + +"You won't write to him?" she gasped. + +"No." + +"Why, what shall I do-o-o-o?" demanded Lily, prolonging the syllable in +a burst of grief and astonishment. + +"I don't know," answered Elmore. + +"Owen," cried his wife, interfering for the first time, in response to +the look of appeal that Lily turned upon her, "you _must_ write!" + +"Celia," he retorted boldly, "I _won't_ write. I have a genuine regard +for Hoskins; I respect him, and I am very grateful to him for all his +kindness to you. He has been like a brother to you both." + +"Why, of course," interrupted Lily, "I never thought of him as anything +_but_ a brother." + +"And though I must say I think it would have been more thoughtful +and--and--more considerate in him not to do this--" + +"We did everything we could to fight him off from it," interrupted Mrs. +Elmore, "both of us. We saw that it was coming, and we tried to stop it. +But nothing would help. Perhaps, as he says, he _did_ have to do it." + +"I didn't dream of his--having any such--idea," said Elmore. "I felt so +perfectly safe in his coming; I trusted everything to him." + +"I suppose you thought his wanting to come was all unconscious +cerebration," said his wife disdainfully. "Well, now you see it wasn't." + +"Yes; but it's too late now to help it; and though I think he ought to +have spared us this, if he thought there was no hope for him, still I +can't bring myself to inflict pain upon him, and the long and the short +of it is, I _won't_." + +"But how is he to be answered?" + +"I don't know. _You_ can answer him." + +"I could never do it in the world!" + +"I own it's difficult," said Elmore coldly. + +"Oh, _I_ will answer him--I will answer him," cried Lily, "rather than +have any trouble about it. Here,--here," she said, reaching blindly for +pen and paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, "give me the ink, +quick. Oh, dear! What shall I say? What date is it?--the 25th? And it +doesn't matter about the day of the week. 'Dear Mr. Hoskins--Dear Mr. +Hoskins--Dear Mr. Hosk'--Ought you to put Clay Hoskins, Esq., at the top +or the bottom--or not at all, when you've said Dear Mr. Hoskins? +Esquire seems so cold, anyway, and I _won't_ put it! 'Dear Mr. +Hoskins'--Professor Elmore!" she implored reproachfully, "tell me what +to say!" + +"That would be equivalent to writing the letter," he began. + +"Well, write it, then," she said, throwing down the pen. "I don't _ask_ +you to dictate it. Write it,--write anything,--just in pencil, you know; +that won't commit you to anything; they say a thing in pencil isn't +legal,--and I'll copy it out in the first person." + +"Owen," said his wife, "you shall not refuse! It's inhuman, it's +inhospitable, when Lily wants you to, so! Why, I never heard of such a +thing!" + +Elmore desperately caught up the sheet of paper on which Lily had +written "Dear Mr. Hoskins," and groaning out "Well, well!" he added,-- + + + I have your letter. Come to the station to-morrow and say good-by + to her whom you will yet live to thank for remaining only + + Your friend, + ELIZABETH MAYHEW. + + +"There! there, that will do beautifully--beautifully! Oh, thank you, +Professor Elmore, ever and ever so much! That will save his feelings, +and do everything," said Lily, sitting down again to copy it; while Mrs. +Elmore, looking over her shoulder, mingled her hysterical excitement +with the girl's, and helped her out by sealing the note when it was +finished and directed. + +It accomplished at least one purpose intended. It kept Hoskins away till +the final moment, and it brought him to the station for their adieux +just before their train started. A consciousness of the absurdity of his +part gave his face a humorously rueful cast. But he came pluckily to the +mark. He marched straight up to the girl. "It's all right, Miss Lily," +he said, and offered her his hand, which she had a strong impulse to cry +over. Then he turned to Mrs. Elmore, and while he held her hand in his +right, he placed his left affectionately on Elmore's shoulder, and, +looking at Lily, he said, "You ought to get Miss Lily to help you out +with your history, Professor; she has a very good style,--quite a +literary style, I should have said, if I hadn't known it was hers. I +don't like her subjects, though." They broke into a forlorn laugh +together; he wrung their hands once more, without a word, and, without +looking back, limped out of the waiting-room and out of their lives. + +They did not know that this was really the last of Hoskins,--one never +knows that any parting is the last,--and in their inability to conceive +of a serious passion in him, they quickly consoled themselves for what +he might suffer. They knew how kindly, how tenderly even, they felt +towards him, and by that juggle with the emotions which we all practise +at times, they found comfort for him in the fact. Another interest, +another figure, began to occupy the morbid fancy of Elmore, and as they +approached Peschiera his expectation became intense. There was no reason +why it should exist; it would be by the thousandth chance, even if +Ehrhardt were still there, that they should meet him at the railroad +station, and there were a thousand chances that he was no longer in +Peschiera. He could see that his wife and Lily were restive too: as the +train drew into the station they nodded to each other, and pointed out +of the window, as if to identify the spot where Lily had first noticed +him; they laughed nervously, and it seemed to Elmore that he could not +endure their laughter. + +During that long wait which the train used to make in the old Austrian +times at Peschiera, while the police authorities _viséd_ the passports +of those about to cross the frontier, Elmore continued perpetually +alert. He was aware that he should not know Ehrhardt if he met him; but +he should know that he was present from the looks of Lily and Mrs. +Elmore, and he watched them. They dined well in waiting, while he +impatiently trifled with the food, and ate next to nothing; and they +calmly returned to their places in the train, to which he remounted +after a last despairing glance around the platform in a passion of +disappointment. The old longing not to be left so wholly to the effect +of what he had done possessed him to the exclusion of all other +sensations, and as the train moved away from the station he fell back +against the cushions of the carriage, sick that he should never even +have looked on the face of the man in whose destiny he had played so +fatal a part. + + +XIII. + +In America, life soon settled into form about the daily duties of +Elmore's place, and the daily pleasures and cares which his wife assumed +as a leader in Patmos society. Their sojourn abroad conferred its +distinction; the day came when they regarded it as a brilliant episode, +and it was only by fitful glimpses that they recognized its essential +dulness. After they had been home a year or two, Elmore published his +Story of Venice in the Lives of her Heroes, which fell into a ready +oblivion; he paid all the expenses of the book, and was puzzled that, in +spite of this, the final settlement should still bring him in debt to +his publishers. He did not understand, but he submitted; and he accepted +the failure of his book very meekly. If he could have chosen, he would +have preferred that the Saturday Review, which alone noticed it in +London with three lines of exquisite slight, should have passed it in +silence. But after all, he felt that the book deserved no better fate. +He always spoke of it as unphilosophized and incomplete, without any +just claim to being. + +Lily had returned to her sister's household, but though she came home in +the heyday of her young beauty, she failed somehow to take up the story +of her life just where she had left it in Patmos. On the way home she +had refused an offer in London, and shortly after her arrival in America +she received a letter from a young gentleman whom she had casually seen +in Geneva, and who had found exile insupportable since parting with her, +and was ready to return to his native land at her bidding; but she said +nothing of these proposals till long afterwards to Professor Elmore, +who, she said, had suffered enough from her offers. She went to all the +parties and picnics, and had abundant opportunities of flirtation and +marriage; but she neither flirted nor married. She seemed to have +greatly sobered; and the sound sense which she had always shown became +more and more qualified with a thoughtful sweetness. At first, the +relation between her and the Elmores lost something of its intimacy; but +when, after several years, her health gave way, a familiarity, even +kinder than before, grew up. She used to like to come to them, and talk +and laugh fondly over their old Venetian days. But often she sat +pensive and absent, in the midst of these memories, and looked at Elmore +with a regard which he found hard to bear: a gentle, unconscious wonder +it seemed, in which he imagined a shade of tender reproach. + +When she recovered her health, after a journey to the West one winter, +they saw that, by some subtile and indefinable difference, she was no +longer a young girl. Perhaps it was because they had not met her for +half a year. But perhaps it was age,--she was now thirty. However it +was, Elmore recognized with a pang that the first youth at least had +gone out of her voice and eyes. She only returned to arrange for a long +sojourn in the West. She liked the climate and the people, she said; and +she seemed well and happy. She had planned starting a Kindergarten +school in Omaha with another young lady; she said that she wanted +something to do. "She will end by marrying one of those Western +widowers," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"I wonder she didn't take poor old Hoskins," mused Elmore aloud. + +"No, you don't, dear," said his wife, who had not grown less direct in +dealing with him. "You know it would have been ridiculous; besides, she +never cared anything for him,--she couldn't. You might as well wonder +why she didn't take Captain Ehrhardt after you dismissed him." + +"_I_ dismissed him?" + +"You wrote to him, didn't you?" + +"Celia," cried Elmore, "this I _cannot_ bear. Did I take a single step +in that business without her request and your full approval? Didn't you +both ask me to write?" + +"Yes, I suppose we did." + +"Suppose?" + +"Well, we _did_,--if you want me to say it. And I'm not accusing you of +anything. I know you acted for the best. But you can see yourself, can't +you, that it was rather sudden to have it end so quickly--" + +She did not finish her sentence, or he did not hear the close in the +miserable absence into which he lapsed. "Celia," he asked at last, "do +you think she--she had any feeling about him?" + +"Oh," cried his wife restively, "how should _I_ know?" + +"I didn't suppose you _knew_," he pleaded. "I asked if you thought so." + +"What would be the use of thinking anything about it? The matter can't +be helped now. If you inferred from anything she said to you--" + +"She told me repeatedly, in answer to questions as explicit as I could +make them, that she wished him dismissed." + +"Well, then, very likely she did." + +"Very likely, Celia?" + +"Yes. At any rate, it's too late now." + +"Yes, it's too late now." He was silent again, and he began to walk the +floor, after his old habit, without speaking. He was always mute when he +was in pain, and he startled her with the anguish in which he now broke +forth. "I give it up! I give it up! Celia, Celia, I'm afraid I did +wrong! Yes, I'm afraid that I spoiled two lives. I ventured to lay my +sacrilegious hands upon two hearts that a divine force was drawing +together, and put them asunder. It was a lamentable blunder,--it was a +crime!" + +"Why, Owen, how strangely you talk! How could you have done any +differently under the circumstances?" + +"Oh, I could have done very differently. I might have seen him, and +talked with him brotherly, face to face. He was a fearless and generous +soul! And I was meanly scared for my wretched little decorums, for my +responsibility to her friends, and I gave him no chance." + +"We wouldn't let you give him any," interrupted his wife. + +"Don't try to deceive yourself, don't try to deceive _me_, Celia! I know +well enough that you would have been glad to have me show mercy; and I +would not even show him the poor grace of passing his offer in silence, +if I must refuse it. I couldn't spare him even so much as that!" + +"We decided--we both decided--that it would be better to cut off all +hope at once," urged his wife. + +"Ah, it was I who decided that--decided everything. Leave me to deal +honestly with myself at last, Celia! I have tried long enough to believe +that it was not I who did it!" The pent-up doubt of years, the +long-silenced self-accusal, burst forth in his words. "Oh, I have +suffered for it! I thought he must come back, somehow, as long as we +stayed in Venice. When we left Peschiera without a glimpse of him--I +wonder I outlived it. But even if I had seen him there, what use would +it have been? Would I have tried to repair the wrong done? What did I do +but impute unmanly and impudent motives to him when he seized his chance +to see her once more at that masquerade--" + +"No, no, Owen! He was not the one. Lily was satisfied of that long ago. +It was nothing but a chance, a coincidence. Perhaps it was some one he +had told about the affair--" + +"No matter! no matter! If I thought it was he, my blame is the same. And +she, poor girl,--in my lying compassion for him, I used to accuse her of +cold-heartedness, of indifference! I wonder she did not abhor the sight +of me. How has she ever tolerated the presence, the friendship, of a man +who did her this irreparable wrong? Yes, it has spoiled her life, and it +was my work. No, no, Celia! you and she had nothing to do with it, +except as I forced your consent--it was my work; and, however I have +tried openly and secretly to shirk it, I must bear this fearful +responsibility." + +He dropped into a chair, and hid his face in his hands, while his wife +soothed him with loving excuses for what he had done, with tender +protests against the exaggerations of his remorse. She said that he had +done the only thing he could do; that Lily wished it, and that she never +had blamed him. "Why, I don't believe she would ever have married +Captain Ehrhardt, anyhow. She was full of that silly fancy of hers about +Dick Burton, all the time,--you know how she used always to be talking +about him; and when she came home and found she had outgrown him, she +had to refuse him, and I suppose it's that that's made her rather +melancholy." She explained that Major Burton had become extremely fat, +that his moustache was too big and black, and his laugh too loud; there +was nothing left of him, in fact, but his empty sleeve, and Lily was too +conscientious to marry him merely for that. + +In fact, Elmore's regret did reflect a monstrous and distorted image of +his conduct. He had really acted the part of a prudent and conscientious +man; he was perfectly justifiable at every step: but in the retrospect +those steps which we can perfectly justify sometimes seem to have cost +so terribly that we look back even upon our sinful stumblings with +better heart. Heaven knows how such things will be at the last day; but +at that moment there was no wrong, no folly of his youth, of which +Elmore did not think with more comfort than of this passage in which he +had been so wise and right. + +Of course the time came when he saw it all differently again; when his +wife persuaded him that he had done the best that any one could do with +the responsibilities that ought never to have been laid on a man of his +temperament and habits; when he even came to see that Lily's feeling was +a matter of pure conjecture with him, and that so far as he knew she had +never cared anything for Ehrhardt. Yet he was glad to have her away; he +did not like to talk of her with his wife; he did not think of her if he +could help it. + +They heard from time to time through her sister that her little +enterprise in Omaha was prospering, and that she was very contented out +West; at last they heard directly from her that she was going to be +married. Till then, Elmore had been dumbly tormented in his sombre moods +with the solution of a problem at which his imagination vainly +toiled,--the problem of how some day she and Ehrhardt should meet again +and retrieve the error of the past for him. He contrived this encounter +in a thousand different ways by a thousand different chances; what he so +passionately and sorrowfully longed for accomplished itself continually +in his dreams, but only in his dreams. + +In due course Lily married, and from all they could understand, very +happily. Her husband was a clergyman, and she took particular interest +in his parochial work, which her good heart and clear head especially +qualified her to share with him. To connect her fate any longer with +that of Ehrhardt was now not only absurd, it was improper; yet Elmore +sometimes found his fancy forgetfully at work as before. He could not at +once realize that the tragedy of this romance, such as it was, remained +to him alone, except perhaps as Ehrhardt shared it. With him, indeed, +Elmore still sought to fret his remorse and keep it poignant, and his +final failure to do so made him ashamed. But what lasting sorrow can one +have from the disappointment of a man whom one has never seen? If Lily +could console herself, it seemed probable that Ehrhardt too had "got +along." + + + + +AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. + + +As they bowled along in the deliberate German express train through the +Black Forest, Colonel Kenton said he had only two things against the +region: it was not black, and it was not a forest. He had all his life +heard of the Black Forest, and he hoped he knew what it was. The +inhabitants burned charcoal, high up the mountains, and carved toys in +the winter when shut in by the heavy snows; they had Easter eggs all the +year round, with overshot mill-wheels in the valleys, and cherry-trees +all about, always full of blossoms or ripe fruit, just as you liked to +think. They were very poor people, but very devout, and lived in little +villages on a friendly intimacy with their cattle. The young women of +these hamlets had each a long braid of yellow hair down her back, blue +eyes, and a white bodice with a cat's-cradle lacing behind; the men had +bell-crowned hats and spindle-legs: they buttoned the breath out of +their bodies with round pewter buttons on tight, short crimson +waistcoats. + +"Now, here," said the colonel, breathing on the window of the car and +rubbing a little space clear of the frost, "I see nothing of the sort. +Either I have been imposed upon by what I have heard of the Black +Forest, or this is not the Black Forest. I'm inclined to believe that +there is no Black Forest, and never was. There isn't," he added, looking +again, so as not to speak hastily, "a charcoal-burner, or an Easter egg, +or a cherry blossom, or a yellow braid, or a red waistcoat, to enliven +the whole desolate landscape. What are we to think of it, Bessie?" + +Mrs. Kenton, who sat opposite, huddled in speechless comfort under her +wraps and rugs, and was just trying to decide in her own mind whether it +was more delicious to let her feet, now that they were thoroughly warm, +rest upon the carpet-covered cylinder of hot water, or hover just a +hair's breadth above it without touching it, answered a little +impatiently that she did not know. In ordinary circumstances she would +not have been so short with the colonel's nonsense. She thought that was +the way all men talked when they got well acquainted with you; and, as +coming from a sex incapable of seriousness, she could have excused it if +it had not interrupted her in her solution of so nice a problem. +Colonel Kenton, however, did not mind. He at once possessed himself of +much more than his share of the cylinder, extorting a cry of indignation +from his wife, who now saw herself reduced from a fastidious choice of +luxuries to a mere vulgar strife for the necessaries of life,--a thing +any woman abhors. + +"Well, well," said the colonel, "keep your old hot-water bottle. If +there was any other way of warming my feet, I wouldn't touch it. It +makes me sick to use it; I feel as if the doctor was going to order me +some boneset tea. Give _me_ a good red-hot patent car-heater, that +smells enough of burning iron to make your head ache in a minute, and +sets your car on fire as soon as it rolls over the embankment. That's +what _I_ call comfort. A hot-water bottle shoved under your feet--I +should suppose I _was_ a woman, and a feeble one at that. I'll tell you +what _I_ think about this Black Forest business, Bessie: I think it's +part of a system of deception that runs through the whole German +character. I have heard the Germans praised for their sincerity and +honesty, but I tell you they have got to work hard to convince me of it, +from this out. I am on my guard. I am not going to be taken in any +more." + +It became the colonel's pleasure to develop and exemplify this idea at +all points of their progress through Germany. They were going to Italy, +and as Mrs. Kenton had had enough of the sea in coming to Europe, they +were going to Italy by the only all-rail route then existing,--from +Paris to Vienna, and so down through the Simmering to Trieste and +Venice. Wherever they stopped, whatever they did before reaching Vienna, +Colonel Kenton chose to preserve his guarded attitude. "Ah, they pretend +this is Stuttgart, do they?" he said on arriving at the Suabian capital. +"A likely story! They pretended that was the Black Forest, you know, +Bessie." At Munich, "And this is Munich!" he sneered, whenever the +conversation flagged during their sojourn. "It's outrageous, the way +they let these swindling little towns palm themselves off upon the +traveller for cities he's heard of. This place will be calling itself +Berlin, next." When his wife, guide-book in hand, was struggling to heat +her admiration at some cold history of Kaulbach, and in her failure +clinging fondly to the fact that Kaulbach had painted it, "Kaulbach!" +the colonel would exclaim, and half close his eyes and slowly nod his +head and smile. "What guide-book is that you've got, Bessie?" looking +curiously at the volume he knew so well. "Oh!--Baedeker! And are you +going to let a Black Forest Dutchman like Baedeker persuade you that +this daub is by Kaulbach? Come! That's a little too much!" He rejected +the birthplaces of famous persons one and all; they could not drive +through a street or into a park, whose claims to be this or that street +or park he did not boldly dispute; and he visited a pitiless incredulity +upon the dishes of the _table d'hôte_, concerning which he always +answered his wife's questions: "Oh, he _says_ it's beef," or veal, or +fowl, as the case might be; and though he never failed to relish his own +dinner, strange fears began to affect the appetite of Mrs. Kenton. It +happened that he never did come out with these sneers before other +travellers, but his wife was always expecting him to do so, and +afterwards portrayed herself as ready to scream, the whole time. She was +not a nervous person, and regarding the colonel's jokes as part of the +matrimonial contract, she usually bore them, as I have hinted, with +severe composure; accepting them all, good, bad, and indifferent, as +something in the nature of man which she should understand better after +they had been married longer. The present journey was made just after +the close of the war; they had seen very little of each other while he +was in the army, and it had something of the fresh interest of a bridal +tour. But they sojourned only a day or two in the places between +Strasburg and Vienna; it was very cold and very unpleasant getting +about, and they instinctively felt what every wise traveller knows, that +it is folly to be lingering in Germany when you can get into Italy; and +so they hurried on. + +It was nine o'clock one night when they reached Salzburg; and when their +baggage had been visited and their passports examined, they had still +half an hour to wait before the train went on. They profited by the +delay to consider what hotel they should stop at in Vienna, and they +advised with their Bradshaw on the point. This railway guide gave in its +laconic fashion several hotels, and specified the Kaiserin Elisabeth as +one at which there was a table d'hôte, briefly explaining that at most +hotels in Vienna there was none. + +"That settles it," said Mrs. Kenton. "We will go to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth, of course. I'm sure I never want the bother of ordering +dinner in English, let alone German, which never was meant for human +beings to speak." + +"It's a language you can't tell the truth in," said the colonel +thoughtfully. "You can't call an open country an open country; you have +to call it a Black Forest." Mrs. Kenton sighed patiently. "But I don't +know about this Kaiserin Elisabeth business. How do we know that's the +_real_ name of the hotel? How can _we_ be sure that it isn't an _alias_, +an assumed name, trumped up for the occasion? I tell you, Bessie, we +can't be too cautious as long as we're in this fatherland of lies. What +guide-book is this? Baedeker? Oh! Bradshaw. Well, that's some comfort. +Bradshaw's an Englishman, at least. If it had been Baedeker"-- + +"Oh, Edward, Edward!" Mrs. Kenton burst out. "Will you _never_ give that +up? Here you've been harping on it for the last four days, and worrying +my life out with it. I think it's unkind. It's perfectly bewildering me. +I don't know where or what I am, any more." Some tears of vexation +started to her eyes, at which Colonel Kenton put the shaggy arm of his +overcoat round her, and gave her an honest hug. + +"Well," he said, "I give it up, from this out. Though I shall always say +that it was a joke that wore well. And I can tell you, Bessie, that it's +no small sacrifice to give up a joke that you've just got into prime +working order, so that you can use it on almost anything that comes up. +But that's a thing that you can never understand. Let it all pass. We'll +go to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, and submit to any sort of imposition +they've a mind to practise upon us. I shall not breathe freely, I +suppose, till we get into Italy, where people mean what they say. Haw, +haw, haw!" laughed the colonel, "honest Iago's the man _I'm_ after." + +The doors of the waiting-room were thrown open, and cries of "Erste +Klasse! Zweite Klasse! Dritte Klasse!" summoned the variously assorted +passengers to carriages of their several degrees. The colonel lifted his +little wife into a non-smoking first-class carriage, and established her +against the cushioned barrier dividing the two seats, so that her feet +could just reach the hot-water bottle, as he called it, and tucked her +in and built her up so with wraps that she was a prodigy of comfort; and +then folding about him the long fur-lined coat which she had bought him +at Munich (in spite of his many protests that the fur was artificial), +he sat down on the seat opposite, and proudly enjoyed the perfect +content that beamed from Mrs. Kenton's face, looking so small from her +heap of luxurious coverings. + +"Well, Bessie, this would be very pleasant--if you could believe in it," +he said, as the train smoothly rolled out of the station. "But of course +it can't be genuine. There must be some dodge about it. I've no doubt +you'll begin to feel perfectly horrid, the first thing you know." + +Mrs. Kenton let him go on, as he did at some length, and began to +drowse, while he amused himself with a gross parody of things she had +said during the past four days. In those years while their wedded bliss +was yet practically new, Colonel Kenton found his wife an inexhaustible +source of mental refreshment. He prized beyond measure the feminine +inadequacy and excess of her sayings; he had stored away such a variety +of these that he was able to talk her personal parlance for an hour +together; indeed, he had learned the trick of inventing phrases so much +in her manner that Mrs. Kenton never felt quite safe in disowning any +monstrous thing attributed to her. Her drowse now became a little nap, +and presently a delicious doze, in which she drifted far away from +actual circumstance into a realm where she seemed to exist as a mere +airy thought of her physical self; suddenly she lost this thought, and +slept through all stops at stations and all changes of the hot-water +cylinder, to renew which the guard, faithful to Colonel Kenton's bribe, +alone opened the door. + +"Wake up, Bessie!" she heard her husband saying. "We're at Vienna." + +It seemed very improbable, but she did not dispute it. "What time is +it?" she asked, as she suffered herself to be lifted from the carriage +into the keen air of the winter night. + +"Three o'clock," said the colonel, hurrying her into the waiting-room, +where she sat, still somewhat remote from herself but getting nearer and +nearer, while he went off about the baggage. "Now, then!" he cried +cheerfully when he returned; and he led his wife out and put her into a +_fiacre_. The driver bent from his perch and arrested the colonel, as he +was getting in after Mrs. Kenton, with words in themselves +unintelligible, but so probably in demand for neglected instructions +that the colonel said, "Oh! Kaiserin Elisabeth!" and again bowed his +head towards the fiacre door, when the driver addressed further speech +to him, so diffuse and so presumably unnecessary that Colonel Kenton +merely repeated, with rising impatience, "Kaiserin Elisabeth,--Kaiserin +Elisabeth, I tell you!" and getting in shut the fiacre door after him. + +The driver remained a moment in mumbled soliloquy; then he smacked his +whip and drove rapidly away. They were aware of nothing outside but the +starlit winter morning in unknown streets, till they plunged at last +under an archway and drew up at a sort of lodge door, from which issued +an example of the universal gold-cap-banded continental hotel _portier_, +so like all others in Europe that it seemed idle for him to be leading +an individual existence. He took the colonel's passport and summoned a +waiter, who went bowing before them up a staircase more or less +grandiose, and led them to a pleasant chamber, whither he sent directly +a woman servant. She bade them a hearty good morning in her tongue, and, +kneeling down before the tall porcelain stove, kindled from her apronful +of blocks and sticks a fire that soon penetrated the travellers with a +rich comfort. It was of course too early yet to think of breakfast, but +it was fortunately not too late to think of sleep. They were both very +tired, and it was almost noon when they woke. The colonel had the fire +rekindled, and he ordered breakfast to be served them in their room. +"Beefsteak and coffee--here!" he said, pointing to the table; and as he +made Mrs. Kenton snug near the stove he expatiated in her own terms upon +the perfect loveliness of the whole affair, and the touch of nature that +made coffee and beefsteak the same in every language. It seemed that the +Kaiserin Elisabeth knew how to serve such a breakfast in faultless +taste; and they sat long over it, in that sense of sovereign +satisfaction which beefsteak and coffee in your own room can best give. +At last the colonel rose briskly and announced the order of the day. +They were to go here, they were to stop there; they were to see this, +they were to do that. + +"Nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Kenton. "I am not going out at all +to-day. It's too cold; and if we are to push on to Trieste to-morrow, I +shall need the whole day to get a little rested. Besides, I have some +jobs of mending to do that can't be put off any longer." + +The colonel listened with an air of joyous admiration. "Bessie," said +he, "this is inspiration. _I_ don't want to see their old town; and I +shall ask nothing better than to spend the day with you here at our own +fireside. You can sew, and I--I'll _read_ to you, Bessie!" This was a +little too gross; even Mrs. Kenton laughed at this, the act of reading +being so abhorrent to Colonel Kenton's active temperament that he was +notorious for his avoidance of all literature except newspapers. In +about ten minutes, passed in an agreeable idealization of his purpose, +which came in that time to include the perusal of all the books on Italy +he had picked up on their journey, the colonel said he would go down and +ask the portier if they had the New York papers. + +When he returned, somewhat disconsolate, to say they had not, and had +apparently never heard of the Herald or Tribune, his wife smiled subtly: +"Then I suppose you'll have to go to the consul's for them." + +"Why, Bessie, it isn't a thing I should have suggested; I can't bear +the thoughts of leaving you here alone; but as you _say_! No, I'll tell +you: I'll not go for the New York papers, but I will just step round and +call upon the representative of the country--pay my respects to him, you +know--if you _wish_ it. But I'd far rather spend the time here with you, +Bessie, in our cosy little boudoir; I would, indeed." + +Mrs. Kenton now laughed outright, and--it was a tremendous sarcasm for +her--asked him if he were not afraid the example of the Black Forest was +becoming infectious. + +"Oh, come now, Bessie; no joking," pleaded the colonel, in mock +distress. "I'll tell you what, my dear, the head waiter here speaks +English like a--an Ollendorff; and if you get to feeling a little +lonesome while I'm out, you can just ring and order something from him, +you know. It will cheer you up to hear the sound of your native tongue +in a foreign land. But, pshaw! _I_ sha'nt be gone a minute!" + +By this time the colonel had got on his overcoat and gloves, and had his +hat in one hand, and was leaning over his wife, resting the other hand +on the back of the chair in which she sat warming the toes of her +slippers at the draft of the stove. She popped him a cheery little kiss +on his mustache, and gave him a small push: "Stay as long as you like, +Ned. I shall not be in the least lonesome. I shall do my mending, and +then I shall take a nap, and by that time it will be dinner. You needn't +come back before dinner. What hour is the table d'hôte?" + +"Oh!" cried the colonel guiltily. "The fact is, I wasn't going to tell +you, I thought it would vex you so much: there _is_ no table d'hôte here +and never was. Bradshaw has been depraved by the moral atmosphere of +Germany. I'd as soon trust Baedeker after this." + +"Well, never mind," said Mrs. Kenton. "We can tell them to bring us what +they like for dinner, and we can have it whenever _we_ like." + +"Bessie!" exclaimed the colonel, "I have not done justice to you, and I +supposed I had. I knew how bright and beautiful you were, but I _didn't_ +think you were so amiable. I didn't, indeed. This is a real surprise," +he said, getting out at the door. He opened it to add that he would be +back in an hour, and then he went his way, with the light heart of a +husband who has a day to himself with his wife's full approval. + +At the consulate a still greater surprise awaited Colonel Kenton. This +was the consul himself, who proved to be an old companion-in-arms, and +into whose awful presence the colonel was ushered by a _Hausmeister_ in +a cocked hat and a gold-braided uniform finer than that of all the +American major-generals put together. The friends both shouted "Hollo!" +and "_You_ don't say so!" and threw back their heads and laughed. + +"Why, didn't you know I was here?" demanded the consul when the hard +work of greeting was over. "I thought everybody knew that." + +"Oh, I knew you were rusting out in some of these Dutch towns, but I +never supposed it was Vienna. But that doesn't make any difference, so +long as you _are_ here." At this they smacked each other on the knees, +and laughed again. That carried them by a very rough point in their +astonishment, and they now composed themselves to the pleasure of +telling each other how they happened to be then and there, with glances +at their personal history when they were making it together in the +field. + +"Well, now, what are you going to do the rest of the day?" asked the +consul at last, with a look at his watch. "As I understand it, you 're +going to spend it with me, somehow. The question is, how would you like +to spend it?" + +"This is a handsome offer, Davis; but I don't see how I'm to manage +exactly," replied the colonel, for the first time distinctly recalling +the memory of Mrs. Kenton. "My wife wouldn't know what had become of me, +you know." + +"Oh, yes, she would," retorted the consul, with a bachelor's ignorant +ease of mind on a point of that kind. "We'll go round and take her with +us." + +The colonel gravely shook his head. "She wouldn't go, old fellow. She's +in for a day's rest and odd jobs. I'll tell you what, I'll just drop +round and let her know I've found you, and then come back again. You'll +dine with us, won't you?" Colonel Kenton had not always found old +comradeship a bond between Mrs. Kenton and his friends, but he believed +he could safely chance it with Davis, whom she had always rather +liked,--with such small regard as a lady's devotion to her husband +leaves her for his friends. + +"Oh, I'll _dine_ with you fast enough," said his friend. "But why don't +you send a note to Mrs. Kenton to say that we'll be round together, and +save yourself the bother? Did you come here alone?" + +"Bless your heart, no! I forgot him. The poor devil's out there, cooling +his heels on your stairs all this time. I came with a complete guide to +Vienna. Can't you let him in out of the weather a minute?" + +"We'll have him in, so that he can take your note back; but he doesn't +expect to be decently treated: they don't, here. You just sit down and +write it," said the consul, pushing the colonel into his own chair +before his desk; and when the colonel had superscribed his note, he +called in the _Lohndiener_,--patient, hat in hand,--and, "Where are you +stopping?" he asked the colonel. + +"Oh, I forgot that. At the Kaiserin Elisabeth. I'll just write it"-- + +"Never mind; we'll tell him where to take it. See here," added the +consul in a serviceable Viennese German of his own construction. "Take +this to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, quick;" and as the man looked up in a +dull surprise, "Do you hear? The Kaiserin Elisabeth!" + +"_I_ don't know what it is about that hotel," said the colonel, when the +man had meekly bowed himself away, with a hat that swept the ground in +honor of a handsome drink-money; "but the mention of it always seems to +awaken some sort of reluctance in the minds of the lower classes. Our +driver wanted to enter into conversation with me about it this morning +at three o'clock, and I had to be pretty short with him. If you don't +know the language, it isn't so difficult to be short in German as I've +heard. And another curious thing is that Bradshaw says the Kaiserin +Elisabeth has a table d'hôte, and the head-waiter says she hasn't, and +never did have." + +"Oh, you can't trust anybody in Europe," said the consul sententiously. +"I'd leave Bradshaw and the waiter to fight it out among themselves. +We'll get back in time to order a dinner; it's always better, and then +we can dine alone, and have a good time." + +"They couldn't keep us from having a good time at a table d'hôte, even. +But I don't mind." + +By this time they had got on their hats and coats and sallied forth. +They first went to a café and had some of that famous Viennese coffee; +and then they went to the imperial and municipal arsenals, and viewed +those collections of historical bricabrac, including the head of the +unhappy Turkish general who was strangled by his sovereign because he +failed to take Vienna in 1683. This from familiarity had no longer any +effect upon the consul, but it gave Colonel Kenton prolonged pause. "I +should have preferred a subordinate position in the sultan's army, I +believe," he said. "Why, Davis, what a museum we could have had out of +the Army of the Potomac alone, if Lincoln had been as particular as that +sultan!" + +From the arsenals they went to visit the parade-ground of the garrison, +and came in time to see a manoeuvre of the troops, at which they +looked with the frank respect and reserved superiority with which our +veterans seem to regard the military of Europe. Then they walked about +and noted the principal monuments of the city, and strolled along the +promenades and looked at the handsome officers and the beautiful women. +Colonel Kenton admired the life and the gay movement everywhere; since +leaving Paris he had seen nothing so much like New York. But he did not +like their shovelling up the snow into carts everywhere and dumping all +that fine sleighing into the Danube. "By the way," said his friend, +"let's go over into Leopoldstadt, and see if we can't scare up a sleigh +for a little turn in the suburbs." + +"It's getting late, isn't it?" asked the colonel. + +"Not so late as it looks. You know we haven't the high American sun, +here." + +Colonel Kenton was having such a good time that he felt no trouble about +his wife, sitting over her mending in the Kaiserin Elisabeth; and he +yielded joyfully, thinking how much she would like to hear about the +suburbs of Vienna: a husband will go through almost any pleasure in +order to give his wife an entertaining account of it afterwards; +besides, a bachelor companionship is confusing: it makes many things +appear right and feasible which are perhaps not so. It was not till +their driver, who had turned out of the beaten track into a wayside +drift to make room for another vehicle, attempted to regain the road by +too abrupt a movement, and the shafts of their sledge responded with a +loud crick-crack, that Colonel Kenton perceived the error into which he +had suffered himself to be led. At three miles' distance from the city, +and with the winter twilight beginning to fall, he felt the pang of a +sudden remorse. It grew sorer with every homeward step and with each +successive failure to secure a conveyance for their return. In fine, +they trudged back to Leopoldstadt, where an absurd series of +discomfitures awaited them in their attempts to get a fiacre over into +the main city. They visited all the stands known to the consul, and then +they were obliged to walk. But they were not tired, and they made their +distance so quickly that Colonel Kenton's spirits rose again. He was +able for the first time to smile at their misadventure, and some +misgivings as to how Mrs. Kenton might stand affected towards a guest +under the circumstances yielded to the thought of how he should make her +laugh at them both. "Good old Davis!" mused the colonel, and +affectionately linked his arm through that of his friend; and they +stamped through the brilliantly lighted streets gay with uniforms and +the picturesque costumes with which the Levant at Vienna encounters the +London and Paris fashions. Suddenly the consul arrested their movement. +"Didn't you say you were stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth?" + +"Why, yes; certainly." + +"Well, it's just around the corner, here." The consul turned him about, +and in another minute they walked under an archway into a court-yard, +and were met by the portier at the door of his room with an inquiring +obeisance. + +Colonel Kenton started. The cap and the cap-band were the same, and it +was to all intents and purposes the same portier who had bowed him away +in the morning; but the face was different. On noting this fact Colonel +Kenton observed so general a change in the appointments and even +architecture of the place that, "Old fellow," he said to the consul, +"you've made a little mistake; this isn't the Kaiserin Elisabeth." + +The consul referred the matter to the portier. Perfectly; that was the +Kaiserin Elisabeth. "Well, then," said the colonel, "tell him to have us +shown to my room." The portier discovered a certain embarrassment when +the colonel's pleasure was made known to him, and ventured something in +reply which made the consul smile. + +"Look here, Kenton," he said, "_you've_ made a little mistake, this +time. You're not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth!" + +"Oh, pshaw! Come now! Don't bring the consular dignity so low as to +enter into a practical joke with a hotel porter. It won't do. We got +into Vienna this morning at three, and drove straight to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth. We had a room and fire, and breakfast about noon. Tell him +who I am, and what I say." + +The consul did so, the portier slowly and respectfully shaking his head +at every point. When it came to the name, he turned to his books, and +shook his head yet more impressively. Then he took down a letter, +spelled its address, and handed it to the colonel; it was his own note +to Mrs. Kenton. That quite crushed him. He looked at it in a dull, +mechanical way, and nodded his head with compressed lips. Then he +scanned the portier, and glanced round once more at the bedevilled +architecture. "Well," said he, at last, "there's a mistake somewhere. +Unless there are two Kaiserin Elisabeths--. Davis, ask him if there are +two Kaiserin Elisabeths." + +The consul compassionately put the question, received with something +like grief by the portier. Impossible! + +"Then I'm not stopping at either of them," continued the colonel. "So +far, so good,--if you want to call it _good_. The question is now, if +I'm not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth," he demanded, with sudden +heat, and raising his voice, "how the devil did I get there?" + +The consul at this broke into a fit of laughter so violent that the +portier retired a pace or two from these maniacs, and took up a safe +position within his doorway. "You didn't--you didn't--get there!" +shrieked the consul. "That's what made the whole trouble. You--you meant +well, but you got somewhere else." He took out his handkerchief and +wiped the tears from his eyes. + +The colonel did not laugh; he had no real pleasure in the joke. On the +contrary, he treated it as a serious business. "Very well," said he, "it +will be proved next that I never told that driver to take me to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth, as it appears that I never got there and am not +stopping there. Will you be good enough to tell me," he asked, with +polished sarcasm, "where I _am_ stopping, and why, and how?' + +"I wish with all my heart I could," gasped his friend, catching his +breath, "but I can't, and the only way is to go round to the principal +hotels till we hit the right one. It won't take long. Come!" He passed +his arm through that of the colonel, and made an explanation to the +portier, as if accounting for the vagaries of some harmless eccentric he +had in charge. Then he pulled his friend gently away, who yielded after +a survey of the portier and the court-yard with a frown in which an +indignant sense of injury quite eclipsed his former bewilderment. He had +still this defiant air when they came to the next hotel, and used the +portier with so much severity on finding that he was not stopping there, +either, that the consul was obliged to protest: "If you behave in that +way, Kenton, I won't go with you. The man's perfectly innocent of your +stopping at the wrong place; and some of these hotel people know me, and +I won't stand your bullying them. And I tell you what: you've got to let +me have my laugh out, too. You know the thing's perfectly ridiculous, +and there's no use putting any other face on it." The consul did not +wait for leave to have his laugh out, but had it out in a series of +furious gusts. At last the colonel himself joined him ruefully. + +"Of course," said he, "I know I'm an ass, and I wouldn't mind it on my +own account. _I_ would as soon roam round after that hotel the rest of +the night as not, but I can't help feeling anxious about my wife. I'm +afraid she'll be getting very uneasy at my being gone so long. She's all +alone, there, wherever it is, and--" + +"Well, but she's got your note. She'll understand--" + +"What a fool _you_ are, Davis! _There's_ my note!" cried the colonel, +opening his fist and showing a very small wad of paper in his palm. +"She'd have got my note if she'd been at the Kaiserin Elisabeth; but +she's no more there than I am." + +"Oh!" said his friend, sobered at this. "To be sure! Well?" + +"Well, it's no use trying to tell a man like you; but I suppose that +she's simply distracted by this time. You don't know what a woman is, +and how she can suffer about a little matter when she gives her mind to +it." + +"Oh!" said the consul again, very contritely. "I'm very sorry I laughed; +but"--here he looked into the colonel's gloomy face with a countenance +contorted with agony--"this only makes it the more ridiculous, you +know;" and he reeled away, drunk with the mirth which filled him from +head to foot. But he repented again, and with a superhuman effort so far +subdued his transports as merely to quake internally, and tremble all +over, as he led the way to the next hotel, arm in arm with the +bewildered and embittered colonel. He encouraged the latter with much +genuine sympathy, and observed a proper decorum in his interviews with +one portier after another, formulating the colonel's story very neatly, +and explaining at the close that this American Herr, who had arrived at +Vienna before daylight and directed his driver to take him to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth, and had left his hotel at one o'clock in the belief +that it was the Kaiserin Elisabeth, felt now an added eagerness to know +what his hotel really was from the circumstance that his wife was there +quite alone and in probable distress at his long absence. At first +Colonel Kenton took a lively interest in this statement of his case, and +prompted the consul with various remarks and sub-statements; he was +grateful for the compassion generally shown him by the portiers, and he +strove with himself to give some account of the exterior and locality of +his mysterious hotel. But the fact was that he had not so much as looked +behind him when he quitted it, and knew nothing about its appearance; +and gradually the reiteration of the points of his misadventure to one +portier after another began to be as "a tale of little meaning, though +the words are strong." His personation of an American Herr in great +trouble of mind was an entire failure, except as illustrating the +national apathy of countenance when under the influence of strong +emotion. He ceased to take part in the consul's efforts in his behalf; +the whole abominable affair seemed as far beyond his forecast or +endeavor as some result of malign enchantment, and there was no such +thing as carrying off the tragedy with self-respect. Distressing as it +was, there could be no question but it was entirely ridiculous; he hung +his head with shame before the portiers at being a party to it; he no +longer felt like resenting Davis's amusement; he only wondered that he +could keep his face in relating the idiotic mischance. Each successive +failure to discover his lodging confirmed him in his humiliation and +despair. Very likely there was a way out of the difficulty, but he did +not know it. He became at last almost an indifferent spectator of the +consul's perseverance. He began to look back with incredulity at the +period of his life passed before entering the fatal fiacre that morning. +He received the final portier's rejection with something like a personal +derision. + +"That's the last place I can think of," said the consul, wiping his brow +as they emerged from the court-yard, for he had grown very warm with +walking so much. + +"Oh, all right," said the colonel languidly. + +"But we won't give it up. Let's go in here and get some coffee, and +think it over a bit." They were near one of the principal cafés, which +was full of people smoking, and drinking the Viennese _mélange_ out of +tumblers. + +"By all means," assented Colonel Kenton with inconsequent courtliness, +"think it over. It's all that's left us." + +Matters did not look so dark, quite, after a tumbler of coffee with +milk, but they did not continue to brighten so much as they ought with +the cigars. "Now let us go through the facts of the case," said the +consul, and the colonel wearily reproduced his original narrative with +every possible circumstance. "But you know all about it," he concluded. +"I don't see any end of it. I don't see but I'm to spend the rest of my +life in hunting up a hotel that professes to be the Kaiserin Elisabeth, +and isn't. I never knew anything like it." + +"It certainly has the charm of novelty," gloomily assented the consul: +it must be owned that his gloom was a respectful feint. "I have heard of +men running away from their hotels, but I never did hear of a hotel +running away from a man before now. Yes--hold on! I have, too. Aladdin's +palace--and with Mrs. Aladdin in it, at that! It's a parallel case." +Here he abandoned himself as usual, while Colonel Kenton viewed his +mirth with a dreary grin. When he at last caught his breath, "I beg +your pardon, I do, indeed," the consul implored. "I know just how you +feel, but of course it's coming out right. We've been to all the hotels +I know of, but there must be others. We'll get some more names and start +at once; and if the genie has dropped your hotel anywhere this side of +Africa we shall find it. If the worst comes to the worst, you can stay +at my house to-night and start new to-m--Oh, I forgot!--Mrs. Kenton! +Really, the whole thing is such an amusing muddle that I can't seem to +get over it." He looked at Kenton with tears in his eyes, but contained +himself and decorously summoned a waiter, who brought him whatever +corresponds to a city directory in Vienna. "There!" he said, when he had +copied into his note-book a number of addresses, "I don't think your +hotel will escape us this time;" and discharging his account he led the +way to the door, Colonel Kenton listlessly following. + +The wretched husband was now suffering all the anguish of a just +remorse, and the heartlessness of his behavior in going off upon his own +pleasure the whole afternoon and leaving his wife alone in a strange +hotel to pass the time as she might was no less a poignant reproach, +because it seemed so inconceivable in connection with what he had +always taken to be the kindness and unselfishness of his character. We +all know the sensation; and I know none, on the whole, so disagreeable, +so little flattering, so persistent when once it has established itself +in the ill-doer's consciousness. To find out that you are not so good or +generous or magnanimous as you thought is, next to having other people +find it out, probably the unfriendliest discovery that can be made. But +I suppose it has its uses. Colonel Kenton now saw the unhandsomeness of +his leaving his wife at all, and he beheld in its true light his +shabbiness in not going back to tell her he had found his old friend and +was to bring him to dinner. The Lohndiener would of course have taken +him straight to his hotel, and he would have been spared this shameful +exposure, which, he knew well enough, Davis would never forget, but +would tell all his life with an ever-increasing garniture of fiction. He +cursed his weakness in allowing himself to dawdle about those arsenals +and that parade-ground, and to be so far misguided by a hardened +bachelor as to admire certain yellow-haired German and black-haired +Hungarian women on the promenade; when he came to think of going out in +that sledge, it was with anathema maranatha. He groaned in spirit, but +he owned that he was rightly punished, though it seemed hard that his +wife should be punished too. And then he went on miserably to figure +first her slight surprise at his being gone so long; then her vague +uneasiness and her conjectures; then her dawning apprehensions and her +helplessness; her probable sending to the consulate to find out what had +become of him; her dismay at learning nothing of him there; her waiting +and waiting in wild dismay as the moments and hours went by; her +frenzied running to the door at every step and her despair when it +proved not his. He had seen her suffering from less causes. And where +was she? In what low, shabby tavern had he left her? He choked with rage +and grief, and could hardly speak to the gentleman, a naturalized +fellow-citizen of Vienna, to whom he found the consul introducing him. + +"I wonder if you can't help us," said the consul. "My friend here is the +victim of a curious annoyance;" and he stated the case in language so +sympathetic and decorous as to restore some small shreds of the +colonel's self-respect. + +"Ah," said their new acquaintance, who was mercifully not a man of +humor, or too polite to seem so, "that's another trick of those scamps +of fiacre-drivers. He took you purposely to the wrong hotel, and was +probably feed by the landlord for bringing you. But why should you make +yourselves so much trouble? You know Colonel Kenton's landlord had to +send his name to the police as soon as he came, and you can get his +address there at once." + +"Good-by!" said the consul very hastily, with a crestfallen air. "Come +along, Kenton." + +"What did he send my name to the police for?" demanded the colonel, in +the open air. + +"Oh, it's a form. They do it with all travellers. It's merely to secure +the imperial government against your machinations." + +"And do you mean to say you ought to have known," cried the colonel, +halting him, "that you could have found out where I was from the police +at once, before we had walked all over this moral vineyard, and wasted +half a precious lifetime?" + +"Kenton," contritely admitted the other, "I never happened to think of +it." + +"Well, Davis, you're a pretty consul!" That was all the colonel said, +and though his friend was voluble in self-exculpation and condemnation, +he did not answer him a word till they arrived at the police office. A +few brief questions and replies between the commissary and the consul +solved the long mystery, and Colonel Kenton had once more a hotel over +his head. The commissary certified to the respectability of the place, +but invited the colonel to prosecute the driver of the fiacre in behalf +of the general public,--which seemed so right a thing that the colonel +entered into it with zeal, and then suddenly relinquished it, +remembering that he had not the rogue's number, that he had not so much +as looked at him, and that he knew no more what manner of man he was +than his own image in a glass. Under the circumstances, the commissary +admitted that it was impossible, and as to bringing the landlord to +justice, nothing could be proved against him. + +"Will you ask him," said the colonel, "the outside price of a +first-class assault and battery in Vienna?" + +The consul put as much of this idea into German as the language would +contain, which was enough to make the commissary laugh and shake his +head warningly. + +"It wouldn't do, he says, Kenton; it isn't the custom of the country." + +"Very well, then, I don't see why we should occupy his time." He gave +his hand to the commissary, whom he would have liked to embrace, and +then hurried forth again with the consul. "There is one little thing +that worries me still," he said. "I suppose Mrs. Kenton is simply crazy +by this time." + +"Is she of a very--nervous--disposition?" faltered the consul. + +"Nervous? Well, if you could witness the expression of her emotions in +regard to mice, you wouldn't ask that question, Davis." + +At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a moment. Then he +ventured: "I've heard--or read, I don't know which--that women have more +real fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of moral support in +an actual emergency that they wouldn't find in--mice." + +"Pshaw!" answered the colonel. "You wait till you see Mrs. Kenton." + +"Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, and stopping short. +"I've been thinking that perhaps--I--I had better dine with you some +other day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely domestic that +a third person, you know--" + +"Come along!" cried the colonel. "I want you to help me out of this +scrape. I'm going to leave that hotel as soon as I can put my things +together, and you've got to browbeat the landlord for me while I go up +and reassure my wife long enough to get her out of that den of thieves. +What did you say the scoundrelly name was?" + +"The Gasthof zum Wilden Manne." + +"And what does Wildun Manny mean?" + +"The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I suppose,--the Wild Man." + +"Well, I don't know whether it was named after me or not; but if I'd +found that sign anywhere for the last four or five hours, I should have +known it for home. There hasn't been any wilder man in Vienna since the +town was laid out, I reckon; and I don't believe there ever was a wilder +woman anywhere than Mrs. Kenton is at this instant." + +Arrived at the Sign of the Savage, Colonel Kenton left his friend below +with the portier, and mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to +his room. Flinging open the door, he beheld his wife dressed in one of +her best silks, before the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching +her back hair with her hand and twitching the bow at her throat into +perfect place. She smiled at him in the glass, and said, "Where's +Captain Davis?" + +"Captain Davis?" gasped the colonel, dry-tongued with anxiety and +fatigue. "Oh! _He's_ down there. He'll be up directly." + +She turned and came forward to him: "How do you like it?" Then she +advanced near enough to encounter the moustache: "Why, how heated and +tired you look!" + +"Yes, yes,--we've been walking. I--I'm rather late, ain't I, Bessie?" + +"About an hour. I ordered dinner at six, and it's nearly seven now." The +colonel started; he had not dared to look at his watch, and he had +supposed it must be about ten o'clock; it seemed years since his search +for the hotel had begun. But he said nothing; he felt that in some +mysterious and unmerited manner Heaven was having mercy upon him, and he +accepted the grace in the sneaking way we all accept mercy. "I knew +you'd stay longer than you expected, when you found it was Davis." + +"How did you know it was Davis?" asked the colonel, blindly feeling his +way. + +Mrs. Kenton picked up her Almanach de Gotha. "It has all the consular +and diplomatic corps in it." + +"I won't laugh at it any more," said the colonel, humbly. "Weren't +you--uneasy, Bessie?" + +"No. I mended away, here, and fussed round the whole afternoon, putting +the trunks to rights; and I got out this dress and ran a bit of lace +into the collar; and then I ordered dinner, for I knew you'd bring the +captain; and I took a nap, and by that it was nearly dinner-time." + +"Oh!" said the colonel. + +"Yes; and the head-waiter was as polite as peas; they've all been very +attentive. I shall certainly recommend everybody to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth." + +"Yes," assented the wretched man. "I reckon it's about the best hotel in +Vienna." + +"Well, now, go and get Captain Davis. You can bring him right in here; +we're only travellers. Why, what makes you act so queerly? Has anything +happened?" Mrs. Kenton was surprised to find herself gathered into her +husband's arms and embraced with a rapture for which she could see no +particular reason. + +"Bessie," said her husband, "I told you this morning that you were +amiable as well as bright and beautiful; I now wish to add that you are +sensible. I'm awfully ashamed of being gone so long. But the fact is we +had a little accident. Our sleigh broke down out in the country, and we +had to walk back." + +"Oh, you poor old fellow! No wonder you look tired." + +He accepted the balm of her compassion like a candid and innocent man: +"Yes, it was pretty rough. But _I_ didn't mind it, except on your +account. I thought the delay would make you uneasy." With that he went +out to the head of the stairs and called, "Davis!" + +"Yes!" responded the consul; and he ascended the stairs in such +trepidation that he tripped and fell part of the way up. + +"Have you been saying anything to that man about my going away?" + +"No, I've simply been blowing him up on the fiacre driver's account. He +swears they are innocent of collusion. But of course they're not." + +"Well, all right. Mrs. Kenton is waiting for us to go to dinner. And +look here," whispered the colonel, "don't you open your mouth, except to +put something into it, till I give you the cue." + +The dinner was charming, and had suffered little or nothing from the +delay. Mrs. Kenton was in raptures with it, and after a thimbleful of +the good Hungarian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing the +praises of the Kaiserin Elisabeth. + +"The K----" began the consul, who had hitherto guarded himself very +well. But the colonel arrested him at that letter with a terrible look. +He returned the look with a glance of intelligence, and resumed: "The +Kaiserin Elisabeth has the best cook in Vienna." + +"And everybody about has such nice, honest faces," said Mrs. Kenton. +"I'm sure I couldn't have felt anxious if you hadn't come till midnight: +I knew I was perfectly secure here." + +"Quite right, quite right," said the consul. "All classes of the +Viennese are so faithful. Now, I dare say you could have trusted that +driver of yours, who brought you here before daylight this morning, with +untold gold. No stranger need fear any of the tricks ordinarily +practised upon travellers in Vienna. They are a truthful, honest, +virtuous population,--like all the Germans in fact." + +"There, Ned! What do you say to that, with your Black Forest nonsense?" +triumphed Mrs. Kenton. + +Colonel Kenton laughed sheepishly: "Well, I take it all back, Bessie. I +wasn't quite satisfied with the appearance of the Black Forest country +when I came to it," he explained to the consul, "and Mrs. Kenton and I +had our little joke about the fraudulent nature of the Germans." + +"_Our_ little joke!" retorted his wife. "I wish we were going to stay +longer in Vienna. They say you have to make bargains for everything in +Italy, and here I suppose I could shop just as at home." + +"Precisely," said the consul; the Viennese shopkeepers being the most +notorious Jews in Europe. + +"Oh, we can't stop longer than till the morning," remarked the colonel. +"I shall be sorry to leave Vienna and the Kaiserin Elizabeth, but we +must go." + +"Better hang on awhile; you won't find many hotels like it, Kenton," +observed his friend. + +"No, I suppose not," sighed the colonel; "but I'll get the address of +their correspondent in Venice and stop there." + +Thus these craven spirits combined to delude and deceive the helpless +woman of whom half an hour before they had stood in such abject terror. +If they had found her in hysterics they would have pitied and respected +her; but her good sense, her amiability, and noble self-control +subjected her to their shameless mockery. + +Colonel Kenton followed the consul downstairs when he went away, and +pretended to justify himself. "I'll tell her one of these days," he +said, "but there's no use distressing her now." + +"I didn't understand you at first," said the other. "But I see now it +was the only way." + +"Yes; saves needless suffering. I say, Davis, this is about an even +thing between us? A United States consul ought to be of some use to his +fellow-citizens abroad; and if he allows them to walk their legs off +hunting up a hotel which he could have found at the first police-station +if _he had happened to think of it_, he won't be very anxious to tell +the joke, I suppose?" + +"I don't propose to write home to the papers about it." + +"All right." So, in the court-yard of the Wild Man, they parted. + +Long after that Mrs. Kenton continued to recommend people to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth. Even when the truth was made known to her she did +not see much to laugh at. "I'm sure I was always very glad the colonel +didn't tell me at once," she said, "for if I had known what I had been +through, I certainly _should_ have gone distracted." + + + + +TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. + + +There was no richer man in Venice than Tommaso Tonelli, who had enough +on his florin a day; and none younger than he, who owned himself +forty-seven years old. He led the cheerfullest life in the world, and +was quite a monster of content; but when I come to sum up his pleasures, +I fear that I shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very +insipid and monotonous existence. I doubt if even a summary of his +duties could be made attractive to the conscientious imagination of +hard-working people; for Tonelli's labors were not killing, nor, for +that matter, were those of any Venetian that I ever knew. He had a +stated employment in the office of the notary Cenarotti; and he passed +there so much of every working day as lies between nine and five +o'clock, writing upon deeds and conveyances and petitions and other +legal instruments for the notary, who sat in an adjoining room, secluded +from nearly everything in this world but snuff. He called Tonelli by the +sound of a little bell; and, when he turned to take a paper from his +safe, he seemed to be abstracting some secret from long-lapsed +centuries, which he restored again, and locked back among the dead ages +when his clerk replaced the document in his hands. These hands were very +soft and pale, and their owner was a colorless old man, whose silvery +hair fell down a face nearly as white; but, as he has almost nothing to +do with the present affair, I shall merely say that, having been +compromised in the last revolution, he had been obliged to live ever +since in perfect retirement, and that he seemed to have been blanched in +this social darkness as a plant is blanched by growth in a cellar. His +enemies said that he was naturally a timid man, but they could not deny +that he had seen things to make the brave afraid, or that he had now +every reason from the police to be secret and cautious in his life. He +could hardly be called company for Tonelli, who must have found the day +intolerably long but for the visit which the notary's pretty +granddaughter contrived to pay every morning in the cheerless _mezzà_. +She commonly appeared on some errand from her mother, but her chief +business seemed to be to share with Tonelli the modest feast of rumor +and hearsay which he loved to furnish forth for her, and from which +doubtless she carried back some fragments of gossip to the family +apartments. Tonelli called her, with that mingled archness and +tenderness of the Venetians, his Paronsina; and, as he had seen her grow +up from the smallest possible of Little Mistresses, there was no shyness +between them, and they were fully privileged to each other's society by +her mother. When she flitted away again, Tonelli was left to a stillness +broken only by the soft breathing of the old man in the next room, and +by the shrill discourse of his own loquacious pen, so that he was +commonly glad enough when it came five o'clock. At this hour he put on +his black coat, that shone with constant use, and his faithful silk hat, +worn down to the pasteboard with assiduous brushing, and caught up a +very jaunty cane in his hand. Then, saluting the notary, he took his way +to the little restaurant, where it was his custom to dine, and had his +tripe soup and his _risotto_, or dish of fried liver, in the austere +silence imposed by the presence of a few poor Austrian captains and +lieutenants. It was not that the Italians feared to be overheard by +these enemies; but it was good _dimostrazione_ to be silent before the +oppressor, and not let him know that they even enjoyed their dinners +well enough, under his government, to chat sociably over them. To tell +the truth, this duty was an irksome one to Tonelli, who liked far better +to dine, as he sometimes did, at a cook-shop, where he met the folk of +the people (_gente del popolo_), as he called them; and where, though +himself a person of civil condition, he discoursed freely with the other +guests, and ate of their humble but relishing fare. He was known among +them as Sior Tommaso; and they paid him a homage, which they enjoyed +equally with him, as a person not only learned in the law, but a poet of +gift enough to write wedding and funeral verses, and a veteran who had +fought for the dead Republic of Forty-eight. They honored him as a most +travelled gentleman, who had been in the Tyrol, and who could have +spoken German, if he had not despised that tongue as the language of the +ugly Croats, like one born to it. Who, for example, spoke Venetian more +elegantly than Sior Tommaso? or Tuscan, when he chose? and yet he was +poor,--a man of that genius! Patience! When Garibaldi came, we should +see! The _facchini_ and gondoliers, who had been wagging their tongues +all day at the church corners and ferries, were never tired of talking +of this gifted friend of theirs, when, having ended some impressive +discourse or some dramatic story, he left them with a sudden adieu, and +walked quickly away toward the Riva degli Schiavoni. + +Here, whether he had dined at the cook-shop, or at his more genteel and +gloomy restaurant of the Bronze Horses, it was his custom to lounge an +hour or two over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the many +caffès, and to watch all the world as it passed to and fro on the quay. +Tonelli was gray, he did not disown it; but he always maintained that +his heart was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great +difference in persons as to age, which told in his favor. So he loved to +sit there, and look at the ladies; and he amused himself by inventing a +pet name for every face he saw, which he used to teach to certain +friends of his, when they joined him over his coffee. These friends were +all young enough to be his sons, and wise enough to be his fathers; but +they were always glad to be with him, for he had so cheery a wit and so +good a heart that neither his years nor his follies could make any one +sad. His kind face beamed with smiles, when Pennellini, chief among the +youngsters in his affections, appeared on the top of the nearest bridge, +and thence descended directly towards his little table. Then it was that +he drew out the straw which ran through the centre of his long Virginia, +and lighted the pleasant weed, and gave himself up to the delight of +making aloud those comments on the ladies which he had hitherto stifled +in his breast. Sometimes he would feign himself too deeply taken with a +passing beauty to remain quiet, and would make his friend follow with +him in chase of her to the Public Gardens. But he was a fickle lover, +and wanted presently to get back to his caffè, where, at decent +intervals of days or weeks, he would indulge himself in discovering a +spy in some harmless stranger, who, in going out, looked curiously at +the scar Tonelli's cheek had brought from the battle of Vicenza in 1848. + +"Something of a spy, no?" he asked at these times of the waiter, who, +flattered by the penetration of a frequenter of his caffè, and the +implication that it was thought seditious enough to be watched by the +police, assumed a pensive importance, and answered, "Something of a spy, +certainly." + +Upon this Tonelli was commonly encouraged to proceed: "Did I ever tell +you how I once sent one of those ugly muzzles out of a caffè? I knew him +as soon as I saw him,--I am never mistaken in a spy,--and I went with my +newspaper, and sat down close at his side. Then I whispered to him +across the sheet, 'We are two.' 'Eh?' says he. 'It is a very small +caffè, and there is no need of more than one,' and then I stared at him +and frowned. He looks at me fixedly a moment, then gathers up his hat +and gloves, and takes his pestilency off." + +The waiter, who had heard this story, man and boy, a hundred times, made +a quite successful show of enjoying it, as he walked away with Tonelli's +fee of half a cent in his pocket. Tonelli then had left from his day's +salary enough to pay for the ice which he ate at ten o'clock, but which +he would sometimes forego, in order to give the money in charity, though +more commonly he indulged himself, and put off the beggar with, "Another +time, my dear. I have no leisure now to discuss those matters with +thee." + +On holidays this routine of Tonelli's life was varied. In the forenoon +he went to mass at St. Mark's, to see the beauty and fashion of the +city; and then he took a walk with his four or five young friends, or +went with them to play at bowls, or even made an excursion to the main +land, where they hired a carriage, and all those Venetians got into it, +like so many seamen, and drove the horse with as little mercy as if he +had been a sail-boat. At seven o'clock Tonelli dined with the notary, +next whom he sat at table, and for whom his quaint pleasantries had a +zest that inspired the Paronsina and her mother to shout them into his +dull ears, that he might lose none of them. He laughed a kind of faded +laugh at them, and, rubbing his pale hands together, showed by his act +that he did not think his best wine too good for his kindly guest. The +signora feigned to take the same delight shown by her father and +daughter in Tonelli's drolleries; but I doubt if she had a great sense +of his humor, or, indeed, cared anything for it save as she perceived +that it gave pleasure to those she loved. Otherwise, however, she had a +sincere regard for him, for he was most useful and devoted to her in her +quality of widowed mother; and if she could not feel wit, she could feel +gratitude, which is perhaps the rarer gift, if not the more respectable. + +The Little Mistress was dependent upon him for nearly all the pleasures +and for the only excitements of her life. As a young girl she was at +best a sort of caged bird, who had to be guarded against the youth of +the other sex as if they, on their part, were so many marauding and +ravening cats. During most days of the year the Paronsina's parrot had +almost as much freedom as she. He could leave his gilded prison when he +chose, and promenade the notary's house as far down as the marble well +in the sunless court, and the Paronsina could do little more. The +signora would as soon have thought of letting the parrot walk across +their campo alone as her daughter, though the local dangers, either to +bird or beauty, could not have been very great. The green-grocer of +that sequestered campo was an old woman, the apothecary was gray, and +his shop was haunted by none but superannuated physicians; the baker, +the butcher, the waiters at the caffè were all professionally, and, as +purveyors to her family, out of the question; the sacristan, who +sometimes appeared at the perruquier's to get a coal from under the +curling-tongs to kindle his censer, had but one eye, which he kept +single to the service of the Church, and his perquisite of +candle-drippings; and I hazard little in saying that the Paronsina might +have danced a polka around Campo San Giuseppe without jeopardy so far as +concerned the handsome wood-carver, for his wife always sat in the shop +beside him. Nevertheless, a custom is not idly handed down by mother to +daughter from the dawn of Christianity to the middle of the nineteenth +century; and I cannot deny that the local perruquier, though stricken in +years, was still so far kept fresh by the immortal youth of the wax +heads in his window as to have something beauish about him; or that, +just at the moment the Paronsina chanced to go into the campo alone, a +_leone_ from Florian's might not have been passing through it, when he +would certainly have looked boldly at her, perhaps spoken to her, and +possibly pounced at once upon her fluttering heart. So by day the +Paronsina rarely went out, and she never emerged unattended from the +silence and shadow of her grandfather's house. + +If I were here telling a story of the Paronsina, or indeed any story at +all, I might suffer myself to enlarge somewhat upon the daily order of +her secluded life, and show how the seclusion of other Venetian girls +was the widest liberty as compared with hers; but I have no right to +play with the reader's patience in a performance that can promise no +excitement of incident, no charm of invention. Let him figure to +himself, if he will, the ancient and half-ruined palace in which the +notary dwelt, with a gallery running along one side of its inner court, +the slender pillars supporting upon the corroded sculpture of their +capitals a clinging vine, that dappled the floor with palpitant light +and shadow in the afternoon sun. The gate, whose exquisite Saracenic +arch grew into a carven flame, was surmounted by the armorial bearings +of a family that died of its sins against the Serenest Republic long +ago; the marble cistern which stood in the middle of the court had still +a ducal rose upon either of its four sides; and little lions of stone +perched upon the posts at the head of the marble stairway climbing to +the gallery, their fierce aspects worn smooth and amiable by the contact +of hands that for many ages had mouldered in tombs. Toward the canal +the palace windows had been immemorially bricked up for some reason or +caprice, and no morning sunlight, save such as shone from the bright +eyes of the Paronsina, ever looked into the dim halls. It was a fit +abode for such a man as the notary, exiled in the heart of his native +city, and it was not unfriendly in its influences to a quiet vegetation +like the signora's; but to the Paronsina it was sad as Venice itself, +where, in some moods, I have wondered that any sort of youth could have +the courage to exist. Nevertheless, the Paronsina had contrived to grow +up here a child of the gayest and archest spirit, and to lead a life of +due content, till after her return home from the comparative freedom and +society of Madame Prateux's school, where she spent three years in +learning all polite accomplishments, and whence she came, with brilliant +hopes and romances ready imagined, for any possible exigency of the +future. She adored all the modern Italian poets, and read their verse +with that stately and rhythmical fulness of voice which often made it +sublime and always pleasing. She was a relentless patriot, an +Italianissima of the vividest green, white, and red; and she could +interpret the historical novels of her countrymen in their subtilest +application to the modern enemies of Italy. But all the Paronsina's +gifts and accomplishments were to poor purpose, if they brought no young +men a-wooing under her balcony; and it was to no effect that her fervid +fancy peopled the palace's empty halls with stately and gallant company +out of Marco Visconti, Nicolò de' Lapi, Margherita Pusterla, and the +other romances, since she could not hope to receive any practicable +offer of marriage from the heroes thus assembled. Her grandfather +invited no guests of more substantial presence to his house. In fact, +the police watched him too narrowly to permit him to receive society, +even had he been so minded, and for kindred reasons his family paid few +visits in the city. To leave Venice, except for the autumnal +_villeggiatura_ was almost out of the question; repeated applications at +the Luogotenenza won the two ladies but a tardy and scanty grace; and +the use of the passport allowing them to spend a few weeks in Florence +was attended with so much vexation, in coming and going upon the +imperial confines, and when they returned home they were subject to so +great fear of perquisition from the police, that it was after all rather +a mortification than a pleasure that the government had given them. The +signora received her few acquaintances once a week; but the Paronsina +found the old ladies tedious over their cups of coffee or tumblers of +lemonade, and declared that her mamma's reception days were a +martyrdom,--actually a martyrdom, to her. She was full of life and the +beautiful and tender longing of youth; she had a warm heart and a +sprightly wit; but she led an existence scarce livelier than a ghost's, +and she was so poor in friends and resources that she shuddered to think +what must become of her if Tonelli should die. It was not possible, +thanks to God! that he should marry. + +The signora herself seldom cared to go out, for the reason that it was +too cold in winter and too hot in summer. In the one season she clung +all day to her wadded arm-chair, with her _scaldino_ in her lap; and in +the other season she found it a sufficient diversion to sit in the great +hall of the palace, and be fanned by the salt breeze that came from the +Adriatic through the vine-garlanded gallery. But besides this habitual +inclemency of the weather, which forbade out-door exercise nearly the +whole year, it was a displeasure to walk in Venice on account of the +stairways of the bridges; and the signora much preferred to wait till +they went to the country in the autumn, when she always rode to take the +air. The exceptions to her custom were formed by those after-dinner +promenades which she sometimes made on holidays, in summer. Then she put +on her richest black, and the Paronsina dressed herself in her best, and +they both went to walk on the Molo, before the pillars of the lion and +the saint, under the escort of Tonelli. + +It often happened that, at the hour of their arrival on the Molo, the +moon was coming up over the low bank of the Lido in the east, and all +that prospect of ship-bordered quay, island, and lagoon, which, at its +worst, is everything that heart can wish, was then at its best, and far +beyond words to paint. On the right stretched the long Giudecca, with +the domes and towers of its Palladian church, and the swelling foliage +of its gardens, and its line of warehouses--painted pink, as if even +Business, grateful to be tolerated amid such lovely scenes, had striven +to adorn herself. In front lay San Giorgio, picturesque with its church +and pathetic with its political prisons; and, farther away to the east +again, the gloomy mass of the madhouse at San Servolo, and then the +slender campanili of the Armenian convent rose over the gleaming and +tremulous water. Tonelli took in the beauty of the scene with no more +consciousness than a bird; but the Paronsina had learnt from her +romantic poets and novelists to be complimentary to prospects, and her +heart gurgled out in rapturous praises of this. The unwonted freedom +exhilarated her; there was intoxication in the encounter of faces on the +promenade, in the dazzle and glimmer of the lights, and even in the +music of the Austrian band playing in the Piazza, as it came purified to +her patriotic ear by the distance. There were none but Italians upon the +Molo, and one might walk there without so much as touching an officer +with the hem of one's garment; and, a little later, when the band ceased +playing, she should go with the other Italians and possess the Piazza +for one blessed hour. In the mean time, the Paronsina had a sharp little +tongue; and, after she had flattered the landscape, and had, from her +true heart, once for all, saluted the promenaders as brothers and +sisters in Italy, she did not mind making fun of their peculiarities of +dress and person. She was signally sarcastic upon such ladies as Tonelli +chanced to admire, and often so stung him with her jests that he was +glad when Pennellini appeared, as he always did exactly at nine o'clock, +and joined the ladies in their promenade, asking and answering all those +questions of ceremony which form Venetian greeting. He was a youth of +the most methodical exactness in his whole life, and could no more have +arrived on the Molo a moment before or after nine than the bronze +giants on the clock-tower could have hastened or lingered in striking +the hour. Nature, which had made him thus punctual and precise, gave him +also good looks, and a most amiable kindness of heart. The Paronsina +cared nothing at all for him in his quality of handsome young fellow; +but she prized him as an acquaintance whom she might salute, and be +saluted by, in a city where her grandfather's isolation kept her strange +to nearly all the faces she saw. Sometimes her evenings on the Molo +wasted away without the exchange of a word save with Tonelli, for her +mother seldom talked; and then it was quite possible her teasing was +greater than his patience, and that he grew taciturn under her tongue. +At such times she hailed Pennellini's appearance with a double delight; +for, if he never joined in her attacks upon Tonelli's favorites, he +always enjoyed them, and politely applauded them. If his friend +reproached him for this treason, he made him every amend in answering, +"She is jealous, Tonelli,"--a wily compliment, which had the most +intense effect in coming from lips ordinarily so sincere as his. + +The signora was weary of the promenade long before the Austrian music +ceased in the Piazza, and was very glad when it came time for them to +leave the Molo, and go and sit down to an ice at the Caffè Florian. +This was the supreme hour to the Paronsina, the one heavenly excess of +her restrained and eventless life. All about her were scattered tranquil +Italian idlers, listening to the music of the strolling minstrels who +had succeeded the military band; on either hand sat her friends, and she +had thus the image of that tender devotion without which a young girl is +said not to be perfectly happy; while the very heart of adventure seemed +to bound in her exchange of glances with a handsome foreigner at a +neighboring table. On the other side of the Piazza a few officers still +lingered at the Caffè Quadri; and at the Specchi sundry groups of +citizens in their dark dress contrasted well with these white uniforms; +but, for the most part, the moon and gas-jets shone upon the broad, +empty space of the Piazza, whose loneliness the presence of a few +belated promenaders only served to render conspicuous. As the giants +hammered eleven upon the great bell, the Austrian sentinel, under the +Ducal Palace, uttered a long, reverberating cry; and soon after a patrol +of soldiers clanked across the Piazza, and passed with echoing feet +through the arcade into the narrow and devious streets beyond. The young +girl found it hard to rend herself from the dreamy pleasure of the +scene, or even to turn from the fine impersonal pain which the presence +of the Austrians in the spectacle inflicted. All gave an impression +something like that of the theatre, with the advantage that here one's +self was part of the pantomime; and in those days, when nearly +everything but the puppet-shows was forbidden to patriots, it was +altogether the greatest enjoyment possible to the Paronsina. The pensive +charm of the place imbued all the little company so deeply that they +scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly homeward through the deserted +Merceria. When they reached the Campo San Salvatore, on many a lovely +summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to waken a nightingale whose +cage hung from a lofty balcony there; for suddenly, at their coming, the +bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched them all, and +suffused the tender heart of the Paronsina with an inexpressible pathos. + +Alas! she had so often returned thus from the Piazza, and no stealthy +footstep had followed hers homeward with love's persistence and +diffidence! She was young, she knew, and she thought not quite dull or +hideous; but her spirit was as sole in that melancholy city as if there +were no youth but hers in the world. And a little later than this, when +she had her first affair, it did not originate in the Piazza, nor at +all respond to her expectations in a love-affair. In fact, it was +altogether a business affair, and was managed chiefly by Tonelli, who +having met a young doctor, laurelled the year before at Padua, had heard +him express so pungent a curiosity to know what the Paronsina would have +to her dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love with her. So +with the consent of the signora he had arranged a correspondence between +the young people; and all went on well at first,--the letters from both +passing through his hands. But his office was anything but a sinecure, +for while the Doctor was on his part of a cold temperament, and disposed +to regard the affair merely as a proper way of providing for the natural +affections, the Paronsina cared nothing for him personally, and only +viewed him favorably as abstract matrimony,--as the means of escaping +from the bondage of her girlhood and the sad seclusion of her life into +the world outside her grandfather's house. So presently the +correspondence fell almost wholly upon Tonelli, who worked up to the +point of betrothal with an expense of finesse and sentiment that would +have made his fortune in diplomacy or poetry. What should he say now? +that stupid young Doctor would cry in a desperation, when Tonelli +delicately reminded him that it was time to answer the Paronsina's last +note. Say this, that, and the other, Tonelli would answer, giving him +the heads of a proper letter, which the Doctor took down on square bits +of paper, neatly fashioned for writing prescriptions. "And for God's +sake, caro dottore, put a little warmth into it!" The poor Doctor would +try, but it must always end in Tonelli's suggesting and almost dictating +every sentence; and then the letter, being carried to the Paronsina made +her laugh: "This is very pretty, my poor Tonelli, but it was never my +onoratissimo dottore who thought of these tender compliments. Ah! that +allusion to my mouth and eyes could only have come from the heart of a +great poet. It is yours, Tonelli, don't deny it." And Tonelli, taken in +his weak point of literature, could make but a feeble pretence of +disclaiming the child of his fancy, while the Paronsina, being in this +reckless humor, more than once responded to the Doctor in such fashion +that in the end the inspiration of her altered and amended letter was +Tonelli's. Even after the betrothal, the lovemaking languished, and the +Doctor was indecently patient of the late day fixed for the marriage by +the notary. In fact, the Doctor was very busy; and, as his practice +grew, the dower of the Paronsina dwindled in his fancy, till one day he +treated the whole question of their marriage with such coldness and +uncertainty in his talk with Tonelli, that the latter saw whither his +thoughts were drifting, and went home with an indignant heart to the +Paronsina, who joyfully sat down and wrote her first sincere letter to +the Doctor, dismissing him. + +"It is finished," she said, "and I am glad. After all, perhaps, I don't +want to be any freer than I am; and while I have you, Tonelli, I don't +want a younger lover. Younger? Diana! You are in the flower of youth, +and I believe you will never wither. Did that rogue of a Doctor, then, +really give you the elixir of youth for writing him those letters? Tell +me, Tonelli, as a true friend, how long have you been forty-seven? Ever +since your fiftieth birthday? Listen! I have been more afraid of losing +you than my sweetest Doctor. I thought you would be so much in love with +lovemaking that you would go break-neck and court some one in earnest on +your own account!" + +Thus the Paronsina made a jest of the loss she had sustained; but it was +not pleasant to her, except as it dissolved a tie which love had done +nothing to form. Her life seemed colder and vaguer after it, and the +hour very far away when the handsome officers of her king (all good +Venetians in those days called Victor Emanuel "our king") should come to +drive out the Austrians, and marry their victims. She scarcely enjoyed +the prodigious privilege, offered her at this time in consideration of +her bereavement, of going to the comedy, under Tonelli's protection and +along with Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora afterwards +had real qualms of patriotism concerning the breach of public duty +involved in this distraction of her daughter. She hoped that no one had +recognized her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warning from +the Venetian Committee. "Thou knowest," she said to the Paronsina, "that +they have even admonished the old Conte Tradonico, who loves the comedy +better than his soul, and who used to go every evening. Thy aunt told +me, and that the old rogue, when people ask him why he doesn't go to the +play, answers, 'My mistress won't let me.' But fie! I am saying what +young girls ought not to hear." + +After the affair with the Doctor, I say, life refused to return exactly +to its old expression, and I suppose that, if what presently happened +was ever to happen, it could not have occurred at a more appropriate +time for a disaster, or at a time when its victims were less able to +bear it I do not know whether I have yet sufficiently indicated the +fact, but the truth is both the Paronsina and her mother had from long +use come to regard Tonelli as a kind of property of theirs, which had +no right in any way to alienate itself. They would have felt an attempt +of this sort to be not only very absurd, but very wicked, in view of +their affection for him and dependence upon him; and while the Paronsina +thanked God that he would never marry, she had a deep conviction that he +ought not to marry, even if he desired. It was at the same time +perfectly natural, nay, filial, that she should herself be ready to +desert this old friend, whom she felt so strictly bound to be faithful +to her loneliness. As matters fell out, she had herself primarily to +blame for Tonelli's loss; for, in that interval of disgust and ennui +following the Doctor's dismissal, she had suffered him to seek his own +pleasure on holiday evenings; and he had thus wandered alone to the +Piazza, and so, one night, had seen a lady eating an ice there, and +fallen in love without more ado than another man should drink a +lemonade. + +This facility came of habit, for Tonelli had now been falling in love +every other day for some forty years; and in that time had broken the +hearts of innumerable women of all nations and classes. The prettiest +water-carriers in his neighborhood were in love with him, as their +mothers had been before them, and ladies of noble condition were +believed to cherish passions for him. Especially, gay and beautiful +foreigners, as they sat at Florian's, were taken with hopeless love of +him; and he could tell stories of very romantic adventure in which he +figured as hero, though nearly always with moral effect. For example, +there was the countess from the mainland,--she merited the sad +distinction of being chief among those who had vainly loved him, if you +could believe the poet who both inspired and sang her passion. When she +took a palace in Venice, he had been summoned to her on the pretended +business of a secretary; but when she presented herself with those idle +accounts of her factor and tenants on the mainland, her household +expenses and her correspondence with her advocate, Tonelli perceived at +once that it was upon a wholly different affair that she had desired to +see him. She was a rich widow of forty, of a beauty supernaturally +preserved and very great. "This is no place for thee, Tonelli mine," the +secretary had said to himself, after a week had passed, and he had +understood all the waywardness of that unhappy lady's intentions. "Thou +art not too old, but thou art too wise, for these follies, though no +saint"; and so had gathered up his personal effects, and secretly +quitted the palace. But such was the countess's fury at his escape that +she never paid him his week's salary; nor did she manifest the least +gratitude that Tonelli, out of regard for her son, a very honest young +man, refused in any way to identify her, but, to all except his closest +friends, pretended that he had passed those terrible eight days on a +visit to the country village where he was born. It showed Pennellini's +ignorance of life that he should laugh at this history; and I prefer to +treat it seriously, and to use it in explaining the precipitation with +which Tonelli's latest inamorata returned his love. + +Though, indeed, why should a lady of thirty, and from an obscure country +town, hesitate to be enamored of any eligible suitor who presented +himself in Venice? It is not my duty to enter upon a detail or summary +of Carlotta's character or condition, or to do more than indicate that, +while she did not greatly excel in youth, good looks, or worldly gear, +she had yet a little property, and was of that soft prettiness which is +often more effective than downright beauty. There was, indeed, something +very charming about her; and, if she was a blonde, I have no reason to +think she was as fickle as the Venetian proverb paints that complexion +of woman; or that she had not every quality which would have excused any +one but Tonelli for thinking of marrying her. + +After their first mute interview in the Piazza, the two lost no time in +making each other's acquaintance; but though the affair was vigorously +conducted, no one could say that it was not perfectly in order. Tonelli +on the following day, which chanced to be Sunday, repaired to St. Mark's +at the hour of the fashionable mass, where he gazed steadfastly at the +lady during her orisons, and whence, at a discreet distance, he followed +her home to the house of the friends whom she was visiting. Somewhat to +his discomfiture at first, these proved to be old acquaintances of his; +and when he came at night to walk up and down under their balconies, as +bound in true love to do, they made nothing of asking him indoors, and +presenting him to his lady. But the pair were not to be entirely balked +of their romance, and they still arranged stolen interviews at church, +where one furtively whispered word had the value of whole hours of +unrestricted converse under the roof of their friends. They quite +refused to take advantage of their anomalously easy relations, beyond +inquiry on his part as to the amount of the lady's dower, and on hers as +to the permanence of Tonelli's employment. He in due form had Pennellini +to his confidant, and Carlotta unbosomed herself to her hostess; and the +affair was thus conducted with such secrecy that not more than two +thirds of Tonelli's acquaintance knew anything about it when their +engagement was announced. + +There were now no circumstances to prevent their early union, yet the +happy conclusion was one to which Tonelli urged himself after many +secret and bitter displeasures of spirit. I am persuaded that his love +for Carlotta must have been most ardent and sincere, for there was +everything in his history and reason against marriage. He could not +disown that he had hitherto led a joyous and careless life, or that he +was exactly fitted for the modest delights, the discreet variety, of his +present state,--for his daily routine at the notary's, his dinner at the +Bronze Horses or the cook-shop, his hour at the caffè, his walks and +excursions, for his holiday banquet with the Cenarotti, and his formal +promenade with the ladies of that family upon the Molo. He had a good +employment, with a salary that held him above want, and afforded him the +small luxuries already named; and he had fixed habits of work and of +relaxation, which made both a blessing. He had his chosen circle of +intimate equals, who regarded him for his good-heartedness and wit and +foibles; and his little following of humble admirers, who looked upon +him as a gifted man in disgrace with fortune. His friendships were as +old as they were secure and cordial; he was established in the +kindliness of all who knew him; and he was flattered by the dependence +of the Paronsina and her mother, even when it was troublesome to him. +He had his past of sentiment and war, his present of story-telling and +romance. He was quite independent: his sins, if he had any, began and +ended in himself, for none was united to him so closely as to be hurt by +them; and he was far too imprudent a man to be taken for an example by +any one. He came and went as he listed, he did this or that without +question. With no heart chosen yet from the world of woman's love, he +was still a young man, with hopes and affections as pliable as a boy's. +He had, in a word, that reputation of good-fellow which in Venice gives +a man the title of _buon diavolo_, but on which he does not anywhere +turn his back with impunity, either from his own consciousness or from +public opinion. There never was such a thing in the world as both good +devil and good husband; and even with his betrothal Tonelli felt that +his old, careless, merry life of the hour ended, and that he had tacitly +recognized a future while he was yet unable to cut the past. If one has +for twenty years made a jest of women, however amiably and insincerely, +one does not propose to marry a woman without making a jest of one's +self. The avenging remembrance of elderly people whose late matrimony +had furnished food for Tonelli's wit now rose up to torment him, and in +his morbid fancy the merriment he had caused was echoed back in his own +derision. + +It shocked him to find how quickly his secret took wing, and it annoyed +him that all his acquaintances were so prompt to felicitate him. He +imagined a latent mockery in their speeches, and he took them with an +argumentative solemnity. He reasoned separately with his friends; to all +who spoke to him of his marriage he presented elaborate proofs that it +was the wisest thing he could possibly do, and tried to give the affair +a cold air of prudence. "You see, I am getting old; that is to say, I am +tired of this bachelor life in which I have no one to take care of me, +if I fall sick, and to watch that the doctors do not put me to death. My +pay is very little, but, with Carlotta's dower well invested, we shall +both together live better than either of us lives alone. She is a +careful woman, and will keep me neat and comfortable. She is not so +young as some women I had thought to marry,--no, but so much the better; +nobody will think her half so charming as I do, and at my time of life +that is a great point gained. She is good, and has an admirable +disposition. She is not spoiled by Venice, but as innocent as a dove. O, +I shall find myself very well with her!" + +This was the speech which with slight modification Tonelli made over +and over again to all his friends but Pennellini. To him he unmasked, +and said boldly that at last he was really in love; and being gently +discouraged in what seemed his folly, and incredulously laughed at, he +grew angry, and gave such proofs of his sincerity that Pennellini was +convinced, and owned to himself, "This madman is actually +enamored,--enamored,--like a cat! Patience! What will ever those +Cenarotti say?" + +In a little while poor Tonelli lost the philosophic mind with which he +had at first received the congratulations of his friends, and, from +reasoning with them, fell to resenting their good wishes. Very little +things irritated him, and pleasantries which he had taken in excellent +part, time out of mind, now raised his anger. His barber had for many +years been in the habit of saying, as he applied the stick of fixature +to Tonelli's mustache, and gave it a jaunty upward curl, "Now we will +bestow that little dash of youthfulness"; and it both amazed and hurt +him to have Tonelli respond with a fierce "Tsit!" and say that this jest +was proper in its antiquity to the times of Romulus rather than our own +period, and so go out of the shop without that "Adieu, old fellow," +which he had never failed to give in twenty years. "Capperi!" said the +barber, when he emerged from a profound revery into which this outbreak +had plunged him, and in which he had remained holding the nose of his +next customer, and tweaking it to and fro in the violence of his +emotions, regardless of those mumbled maledictions which the lather +would not permit the victim to articulate. "If Tonelli is so savage in +his betrothal, we must wait for his marriage to tame him. I am sorry. He +was always such a good devil." + +But if many things annoyed Tonelli, there were some that deeply wounded +him, and chiefly the fact that his betrothal seemed to have fixed an +impassable gulf of years between him and all those young men whose +company he loved so well. He had really a boy's heart, and he had +consorted with them because he felt himself nearer their age than his +own. Hitherto they had in no wise found his presence a restraint. They +had always laughed, and told their loves, and spoken their young men's +thoughts, and made their young men's jokes, without fear or shame, +before the merry-hearted sage, who never offered good advice, if indeed +he ever dreamed that there was a wiser philosophy than theirs. It had +been as if he were the youngest among them; but now, in spite of all +that he or they could do, he seemed suddenly and irretrievably aged. +They looked at him strangely, as if for the first time they saw that +his mustache was gray, that his brow was not smooth like theirs, that +there were crow's-feet at the corners of his kindly eyes. They could not +phrase the vague feeling that haunted their hearts, or they would have +said that Tonelli, in offering to marry, had voluntarily turned his back +upon his youth; that love, which would only have brought a richer bloom +to their age, had breathed away forever the autumnal blossom of his. + +Something of this made itself felt in Tonelli's own consciousness, +whenever he met them, and he soon grew to avoid these comrades of his +youth. It was therefore after a purely accidental encounter with one of +them, and as he was passing into the Campo Sant' Angelo, head down, and +supporting himself with an inexplicable sense of infirmity upon the cane +he was wont so jauntily to flourish, that he heard himself addressed +with, "I say, master!" He looked up, and beheld the fat madman who +patrols that campo, and who has the license of his affliction to utter +insolences to whomsoever he will, leaning against the door of a +tobacconist's shop, with his arms folded, and a lazy, mischievous smile +loitering down on his greasy face. As he caught Tonelli's eye he nodded, +"Eh! I have heard, master"; while the idlers of that neighborhood, who +relished and repeated his incoherent pleasantries like the _mots_ of +some great diner-out, gathered near with expectant grins. Had Tonelli +been altogether himself, as in other days, he would have been far too +wise to answer, "What hast thou heard, poor animal?" + +"That you are going to take a mate when most birds think of flying +away," said the madman. "Because it has been summer a long time with +you, master, you think it will never be winter. Look out: the wolf +doesn't eat the season." + +The poor fool in these words seemed to utter a public voice of +disapprobation and derision; and as the pitiless bystanders, who had +many a time laughed with Tonelli, now laughed at him, joining in the +applause which the madman himself led off, the miserable good devil +walked away with a shiver, as if the weather had actually turned cold. +It was not till he found himself in Carlotta's presence that the long +summer appeared to return to him. Indeed, in her tenderness and his real +love for her he won back all his youth again; and he found it of a truer +and sweeter quality than he had known even when his years were few, +while the gay old-bachelor life he had long led seemed to him a period +of miserable loneliness and decrepitude. Mirrored in her fond eyes, he +saw himself alert and handsome; and, since for the time being they were +to each other all the world, we may be sure there was nothing in the +world then to vex or shame Tonelli. The promises of the future, too, +seemed not improbable of fulfilment, for they were not extravagant +promises. These people's castle in the air was a house furnished from +Carlotta's modest portion, and situated in a quarter of the city not too +far from the Piazza, and convenient to a decent caffè, from which they +could order a lemonade or a cup of coffee for visitors. Tonelli's +stipend was to pay the housekeeping, as well as the minute wage of a +servant-girl from the country; and it was believed that they could save +enough from that, and a little of Carlotta's money at interest, to go +sometimes to the Malibran theatre or the Marionette, or even make an +excursion to the mainland upon a holiday; but if they could not, it was +certainly better Italianism to stay at home; and at least they could +always walk to the Public Gardens. At one time, religious differences +threatened to cloud this blissful vision of the future; but it was +finally agreed that Carlotta should go to mass and confession as often +as she liked, and should not tease Tonelli about his soul; while he, on +his part, was not to speak ill of the pope except as a temporal prince, +or of any of the priesthood except of the Jesuits when in company, in +order to show that marriage had not made him a _codino_. For the like +reason, no change was to be made in his custom of praising Garibaldi and +reviling the accursed Germans upon all safe occasions. + +As Tonelli had nothing in the world but his salary and his slender +wardrobe, Carlotta eagerly accepted the idea of a loss of family +property during the revolution. Of Tonelli's scar she was as proud as +Tonelli himself. + +When she came to speak of the acquaintance of all those young men, it +seemed again like a breath from the north to her betrothed; and he +answered, with a sigh, that this was an affair that had already finished +itself. "I have long thought them too boyish for me," he said, "and I +shall keep none of them but Pennellini, who is even older than I,--who, +I believe, was never born, but created middle-aged out of the dust of +the earth, like Adam. He is not a good devil, but he has every good +quality." + +While he thus praised his friend, Tonelli was meditating a service, +which when he asked it of Pennellini, had almost the effect to destroy +their ancient amity. This was no less than the composition of those +wedding-verses, without which, printed and exposed to view in all the +shop-windows, no one in Venice feels himself adequately and truly +married. Pennellini had never willingly made a verse in his life; and +it was long before he understood Tonelli, when he urged the delicate +request. Then in vain he protested, recalcitrated. It was all an offence +to Tonelli's morbid soul, already irritated by his friend's obtuseness, +and eager to turn even the reluctance of nature into insult. He took his +refusal for a sign that he, too, deserted him; and must be called back, +after bidding Pennellini adieu, to hear the only condition on which the +accursed sonnet would be furnished, namely, that it should not be signed +Pennellini, but An Affectionate Friend. Never was sonnet cost poet so +great anguish as this: Pennellini went at it conscientiously as if it +were a problem in mathematics; he refreshed his prosody, he turned over +Carrer, he toiled a whole night, and in due time appeared as Tonelli's +affectionate friend in all the butchers' and bakers' windows. But it had +been too much to ask of him, and for a while he felt the shock of +Tonelli's unreason and excess so much that there was a decided coolness +between them. + +This important particular arranged, little remained for Tonelli to do +but to come to that open understanding with the Paronsina and her mother +which he had long dreaded and avoided. He could not conceal from himself +that his marriage was a kind of desertion of the two dear friends so +dependent upon his singleness, and he considered the case of the +Paronsina with a real remorse. If his meditated act sometimes appeared +to him a gross inconsistency and a satire upon all his former life, he +had still consoled himself with the truth of his passion, and had found +love its own apology and comfort; but in its relation to these lonely +women, his love itself had no fairer aspect than that of treason, and he +shrank from owning it before them with a sense of guilt. Some wild +dreams of reconciling his future with his past occasionally haunted him; +but in his saner moments, he perceived their folly. Carlotta, he knew, +was good and patient, but she was nevertheless a woman, and she would +never consent that he should be to the Cenarotti all that he had been; +these ladies also were very kind and reasonable, but they too were +women, and incapable of accepting a less perfect devotion. Indeed, was +not his proposed marriage too much like taking her only son from the +signora and giving the Paronsina a stepmother? It was worse, and so the +ladies of the notary's family viewed it, cherishing a resentment that +grew with Tonelli's delay to deal frankly with them; while Carlotta, on +her part, was wounded that these old friends should ignore his future +wife so utterly. On both sides evil was stored up. + +When Tonelli would still make a show of fidelity to the Paronsina and +her mother, they accepted his awkward advances, the latter with a cold +visage, the former with a sarcastic face and tongue. He had managed +particularly ill with the Paronsina, who, having no romance of her own, +would possibly have come to enjoy the autumnal poetry of his love if he +had permitted. But when she first approached him on the subject of those +rumors she had heard, and treated them with a natural derision, as +involving the most absurd and preposterous ideas, he, instead of +suffering her jests, and then turning her interest to his favor, +resented them, and closed his heart and its secret against her. What +could she do, thereafter, but feign to avoid the subject, and adroitly +touch it with constant, invisible stings? Alas! it did not need that she +should ever speak to Tonelli with the wicked intent she did; at this +time he would have taken ill whatever most innocent thing she said. When +friends are to be estranged, they do not require a cause. They have but +to doubt one another, and no forced forbearance or kindness between them +can do aught but confirm their alienation. This is on the whole +fortunate, for in this manner neither feels to blame for the broken +friendship, and each can declare with perfect truth that he did all he +could to maintain it. Tonelli said to himself, "If the Paronsina had +treated the affair properly at first!" and the Paronsina thought, "If he +had told me frankly about it to begin with!" Both had a latent heartache +over their trouble, and both a sense of loss the more bitter because it +was of loss still unacknowledged. + +As the day fixed for Tonelli's wedding drew near, the rumor of it came +to the Cenarotti from all their acquaintance. But when people spoke to +them of it, as of something they must be fully and particularly informed +of, the signora answered coldly, "It seems that we have not merited +Tonelli's confidence"; and the Paronsina received the gossip with an air +of clearly affected surprise, and a "_Davvero!_" that at least +discomfited the tale-bearers. + +The consciousness of the unworthy part he was acting toward these ladies +had come at last to poison the pleasure of Tonelli's wooing, even in +Carlotta's presence; yet I suppose he would still have let his +wedding-day come and go, and been married beyond hope of atonement, so +loath was he to inflict upon himself and them the pain of an +explanation, if one day, within a week of that time, the notary had not +bade his clerk dine with him on the morrow. It was a holiday, and as +Carlotta was at home, making ready for the marriage, Tonelli consented +to take his place at the table from which he had been a long time +absent. But it turned out such a frigid and melancholy banquet as never +was known before. The old notary, to whom all things came dimly, finally +missed the accustomed warmth of Tonelli's fun, and said, with a little +shiver, "Why, what ails you, Tonelli? You are as moody as a man in +love." + +The notary had been told several times of Tonelli's affair, but it was +his characteristic not to remember any gossip later than that of +'Forty-eight. + +The Paronsina burst into a laugh full of the cruelty and insult of a +woman's long-smothered sense of injury. "Caro nonno," she screamed into +her grandfather's dull ear, "he is really in despair how to support his +happiness. He is shy, even of his old friends,--he has had so little +experience. It is the first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la +gioventù, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally loosed, the +Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, that hurt more from their +purpose than their point, and gave no one greater pain than herself. + +Tonelli sat sad and perfectly mute under the infliction, but he said in +his heart, "I have merited worse." + +At first the signora remained quite aghast; but when she collected +herself, she called out peremptorily, "Madamigella, you push the affair +a little beyond. Cease!" + +The Paronsina, having said all she desired, ceased, panting. + +The old notary, for whose slow sense all but her first words had been +too quick, though all had been spoken at him, said dryly, turning to +Tonelli, "I imagine that my deafness is not always a misfortune." + +It was by an inexplicable, but hardly less inevitable, violence to the +inclinations of each that, after this miserable dinner, the signora, the +Paronsina, and Tonelli should go forth together for their wonted +promenade on the Molo. Use, which is the second, is also very often the +stronger nature, and so these parted friends made a last show of union +and harmony. In nothing had their amity been more fatally broken than in +this careful homage to its forms; and now, as they walked up and down in +the moonlight, they were of the saddest kind of apparitions,--not mere +disembodied spirits, which, however, are bad enough, but disanimated +bodies, which are far worse, and of which people are not more afraid +only because they go about in society so commonly. As on many and many +another night of summers past, the moon came up and stood over the Lido, +striking far across the glittering lagoon, and everywhere winning the +flattered eye to the dark masses of shadow upon the water; to the trees +of the Gardens, to the trees and towers and domes of the cloistered and +templed isles. Scene of pensive and incomparable loveliness! giving even +to the stranger, in some faint and most unequal fashion, a sense of the +awful meaning of exile to the Venetian, who in all other lands in the +world is doubly an alien, from their unutterable unlikeness to his sole +and beautiful city. The prospect had that pathetic unreality to the +friends which natural things always assume to people playing a part, and +I imagine that they saw it not more substantial than it appears to the +exile in his dreams. In their promenade they met again and again the +unknown, wonted faces; they even encountered some acquaintances, whom +they greeted, and with whom they chatted for a while; and when at nine +the bronze giants beat the hour upon their bell,--with as remote effect +as if they were giants of the times before the flood,--they were aware +of Pennellini, promptly appearing like an exact and methodical spectre. + +But to-night the Paronsina, who had made the scene no compliments, did +not insist as usual upon the ice at Florian's; and Pennellini took his +formal leave of the friends under the arch of the Clock Tower, and they +walked silently homeward through the echoing Merceria. + +At the notary's gate Tonelli would have said good-night, but the signora +made him enter with them, and then abruptly left him standing with the +Paronsina in the gallery, while she was heard hurrying away to her own +apartment. She reappeared, extending toward Tonelli both hands, upon +which glittered and glittered manifold skeins of the delicate chain of +Venice. + +She had a very stately and impressive bearing, as she stood there in the +moonlight, and addressed him with a collected voice. "Tonelli," she +said, "I think you have treated your oldest and best friends very +cruelly. Was it not enough that you should take yourself from us, but +you must also forbid our hearts to follow you even in sympathy and good +wishes? I had almost thought to say adieu forever to-night; but," she +continued, with a breaking utterance, and passing tenderly to the +familiar form of address, "I cannot part so with thee. Thou hast been +too like a son to me, too like a brother to my poor Clarice. Maybe thou +no longer lovest us, yet I think thou wilt not disdain this gift for thy +wife. Take it, Tonelli, if not for our sake, perhaps then for the sake +of sorrows that in times past we have shared together in this unhappy +Venice." + +Here the signora ended perforce the speech, which had been long for +her, and the Paronsina burst into a passion of weeping,--not more at her +mamma's words than out of self-pity and from the national sensibility. + +Tonelli took the chain, and reverently kissed it and the hands that gave +it. He had a helpless sense of the injustice the signora's words and the +Paronsina's tears did him; he knew that they put him with feminine +excess further in the wrong than even his own weakness had; but he tried +to express nothing of this,--it was but part of the miserable maze in +which his life was involved. With what courage he might he owned his +error, but protested his faithful friendship, and poured out all his +troubles,--his love for Carlotta, his regret for them, his shame and +remorse for himself. They forgave him, and there was everything in their +words and will to restore their old friendship, and keep it; and when +the gate with a loud clang closed upon Tonelli, going from them, they +all felt that it had irrevocably perished. + +I do not say that there was not always a decent and affectionate bearing +on the part of the Paronsina and her mother towards Tonelli and his +wife; I acknowledge that it was but too careful and faultless a +tenderness, ever conscious of its own fragility. Far more natural was +the satisfaction they took in the delayed fruitfulness of Tonelli's +marriage, and then in the fact that his child was a girl, and not a boy. +It was but human that they should doubt his happiness, and that the +signora should always say, when hard pressed with questions upon the +matter: "Yes, Tonelli is married; but if it were to do again, I think he +would do it to-morrow rather than to-day." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fearful Responsibility and Other +Stories, by William D. 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Howells. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + hr.smler { width: 10%; } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0px; + } /* page numbers */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .tbrk { margin-top: 2.75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em;} + + /* index */ + + div.index ul li { padding-top: 1em ;text-align: left; } + + div.index ul ul ul, div.index ul li ul li { padding: 0; text-align: left; } + + div.index ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; } + + div.index ul, div.index ul ul ul li { display: inline; } + + div.index .subitem { display: block; padding-left: 2em; } + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories, by +William D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories + +Author: William D. Howells + +Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20403] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY</h1> + +<h2>AND OTHER STORIES</h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>WILLIAM D. HOWELLS</h2> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK," "THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY," ETC.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/logo.png" width='110' height='122' alt="Publisher's logo" /></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">BOSTON<br />JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY<br />1881</p> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1881,</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">By W. D. Howells</span>.<br /> +<i>All rights reserved.</i></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">University Press</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">John Wilson and Son, Cambridge</span>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><a href="#A_FEARFUL_RESPONSIBILITY"><span class="smcap">A Fearful Responsibility</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#AT_THE_SIGN_OF_THE_SAVAGE"><span class="smcap">At the Sign of the Savage</span></a></li> +<li><a href="#TONELLIS_MARRIAGE"><span class="smcap">Tonelli's Marriage</span></a></li> + +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="A_FEARFUL_RESPONSIBILITY" id="A_FEARFUL_RESPONSIBILITY"></a>A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Every loyal American who went abroad during the first years of our great +war felt bound to make himself some excuse for turning his back on his +country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen Elmore sailed, no one +else seemed to think that he needed excuse. All his friends said it was +the best thing for him to do; that he could have leisure and quiet over +there, and would be able to go on with his work.</p> + +<p>At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narrative, I am obliged to +confess that the work of which Elmore's friends spoke was a projected +history of Venice. So many literary Americans have projected such a work +that it may now fairly be regarded as a national enterprise. Elmore was +too obscure to have been announced in the usual way by the newspapers as +having this design; but it was well known in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> town that he was +collecting materials when his professorship in the small inland college +with which he was connected lapsed through the enlistment of nearly all +the students. The president became colonel of the college regiment; and +in parting with Elmore, while their boys waited on the campus without, +he had said, "Now, Elmore, you must go on with your history of Venice. +Go to Venice and collect your materials on the spot. We're coming +through this all right. Mr. Seward puts it at sixty days, but I'll give +them six months to lay down their arms, and we shall want you back at +the end of the year. Don't you have any compunctions about going. I know +how you feel; but it is perfectly right for you to keep out of it. +Good-by." They wrung each other's hands for the last time,—the +president fell at Fort Donelson; but now Elmore followed him to the +door, and when he appeared there one of the boyish captains shouted, +"Three cheers for Professor Elmore!" and the president called for the +tiger, and led it, whirling his cap round his head.</p> + +<p>Elmore went back to his study, sick at heart. It grieved and vexed him +that even these had not thought that he should go to the war, and that +his inward struggle on that point had been idle so far as others were +concerned. He had been quite earnest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> in the matter; he had once almost +volunteered as a private soldier: he had consulted his doctor, who +sternly discouraged him. He would have been truly glad of any accident +that forced him into the ranks; but, as he used afterward to say, it was +not his idea of soldiership to enlist for the hospital. At the distance +of five hundred miles from the scene of hostilities, it was absurd to +enter the Home Guard; and, after all, there were, even at first, some +selfish people who went into the army, and some unselfish people who +kept out of it. Elmore's bronchitis was a disorder which active service +would undoubtedly have aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to +be of use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. Failing such an +appointment, he submitted to expatriation as he best could; and in Italy +he fought for our cause against the English, whom he found everywhere +all but in arms against us.</p> + +<p>He sailed, in fine, with a very fair conscience. "I should be perfectly +at ease," he said to his wife, as the steamer dropped smoothly down to +Sandy Hook, "if I were sure that I was not glad to be getting away."</p> + +<p>"You are <i>not</i> glad," she answered.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I don't know," he said, with the weak persistence of a +man willing that his wife should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> persuade him against his convictions; +"I wish that I felt certain of it."</p> + +<p>"You are too sick to go to the war; nobody expected you to go."</p> + +<p>"I know that, and I can't say that I like it. As for being too sick, +perhaps it's the part of a man to go if he dies on the way to the field. +It would encourage the others," he added, smiling faintly.</p> + +<p>She ignored the tint from Voltaire in replying: "Nonsense! It would do +no good at all. At any rate, it's too late now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's too late now."</p> + +<p>The sea-sickness which shortly followed formed a diversion from his +accusing thoughts. Each day of the voyage removed them further, and with +the preoccupations of his first days in Europe, his travel to Italy, and +his preparations for a long sojourn in Venice, they had softened to a +pensive sense of self-sacrifice, which took a warmer or a cooler tinge +according as the news from home was good or bad.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p>He lost no time in going to work in the Marcian Library, and he early +applied to the Austrian authorities for leave to have transcripts made +in the archives. The permission was negotiated by the American consul +(then a young painter of the name of Ferris), who reported a mechanical +facility on the part of the authorities,—as if, he said, they were used +to obliging American historians of Venice. The foreign tyranny which +cast a pathetic glamour over the romantic city had certainly not +appeared to grudge such publicity as Elmore wished to give her heroic +memories, though it was then at its most repressive period, and formed a +check upon the whole life of the place. The tears were hardly yet dry in +the despairing eyes that had seen the French fleet sail away from the +Lido, after Solferino, without firing a shot in behalf of Venice; but +Lombardy, the Duchies, the Sicilies, had all passed to Sardinia, and the +Pope alone represented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> the old order of native despotism in Italy. At +Venice the Germans seemed tranquilly awaiting the change which should +destroy their system with the rest; and in the meantime there had +occurred one of those impressive pauses, as notable in the lives of +nations as of men, when, after the occurrence of great events, the +forces of action and endurance seem to be gathering themselves against +the stress of the future. The quiet was almost consciously a truce and +not a peace; and this local calm had drawn into it certain elements that +picturesquely and sentimentally heightened the charm of the place. It +was a refuge for many exiled potentates and pretenders; the gondolier +pointed out on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Chambord, the +Duchess of Parma, and the Infante of Spain; and one met these fallen +princes in the squares and streets, bowing with distinct courtesy to any +that chose to salute them. Every evening the Piazza San Marco was filled +with the white coats of the Austrian officers, promenading to the +exquisite military music which has ceased there forever; the patrol +clanked through the footways at all hours of the night, and the lagoon +heard the cry of the sentinel from fort to fort, and from gunboat to +gunboat. Through all this the demonstration of the patriots went on, +silent, ceaseless, implacable, annulling every alien effort at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> gayety, +depopulating the theatres, and desolating the ancient holidays.</p> + +<p>There was something very fine in this, as a spectacle, Elmore said to +his young wife, and he had to admire the austere self-denial of a people +who would not suffer their tyrants to see them happy; but they secretly +owned to each other that it was fatiguing. Soon after coming to Venice +they had made some acquaintance among the Italians through Mr. Ferris, +and had early learned that the condition of knowing Venetians was not to +know Austrians. It was easy and natural for them to submit, +theoretically. As Americans, they must respond to any impulse for +freedom, and certainly they could have no sympathy with such a system as +that of Austria. By whatever was sacred in our own war upon slavery, +they were bound to abhor oppression in every form. But it was hard to +make the application of their hatred to the amiable-looking people whom +they saw everywhere around them in the quality of tyrants, especially +when their Venetian friends confessed that personally they liked the +Austrians. Besides, if the whole truth must be told, they found that +their friendship with the Italians was not always of the most +penetrating sort, though it had a superficial intensity that for a while +gave the effect of lasting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> cordiality. The Elmores were not quite able +to decide whether the pause of feeling at which they arrived was through +their own defect or not. Much was to be laid to the difference of race, +religion, and education; but something, they feared, to the personal +vapidity of acquaintances whose meridional liveliness made them yawn, +and in whose society they did not always find compensation for the +sacrifices they made for it.</p> + +<p>"But it is right," said Elmore. "It would be a sort of treason to +associate with the Austrians. We owe it to the Venetians to let them see +that our feelings are with them."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said his wife pensively.</p> + +<p>"And it is better for us, as Americans abroad, during this war, to be +retired."</p> + +<p>"Well, we are retired," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is no doubt of that," he returned.</p> + +<p>They laughed, and made what they could of chance American acquaintances +at the <i>caffès</i>. Elmore had his history to occupy him, and doubtless he +could not understand how heavy the time hung upon his wife's hands. They +went often to the theatre, and every evening they went to the Piazza, +and ate an ice at Florian's. This was certainly amusement; and routine +was so pleasant to his scholarly tempera<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>ment that he enjoyed merely +that. He made a point of admitting his wife as much as possible into his +intellectual life; he read her his notes as fast as he made them, and he +consulted her upon the management of his theme, which, as his research +extended, he found so vast that he was forced to decide upon a much +lighter treatment than he had at first intended. He had resolved upon a +history which should be presented in a series of biographical studies, +and he was so much interested in this conclusion, and so charmed with +the advantages of the form as they developed themselves, that he began +to lose the sense of social dulness, and ceased to imagine it in his +wife.</p> + +<p>A sort of indolence of the sensibilities, in fact, enabled him to endure +<i>ennui</i> that made her frantic, and he was often deeply bored without +knowing it at the time, or without a reasoned suffering. He suffered as +a child suffers, simply, almost ignorantly: it was upon reflection that +his nerves began to quiver with retroactive anguish. He was also able to +idealize the situation when his wife no longer even wished to do so. His +fancy cast a poetry about these Venetian friends, whose conversation +displayed the occasional sparkle of Ollendorff-English on a dark ground +of lagoon-Italian, and whose vivid smiling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> and gesticulation she +wearied herself in hospitable efforts to outdo. To his eyes their +historic past clothed them with its interest, and the long patience of +their hope and hatred under foreign rule ennobled them, while to hers +they were too often only tiresome visitors, whose powers of silence and +of eloquence were alike to be dreaded. It did not console her as it did +her husband to reflect that they probably bored the Italians as much in +their turn. When a young man, very sympathetic for literature and the +Americans, spent an evening, as it seemed to her, in crying nothing but +"Per Bácco!" she owned that she liked better his oppressor, who once +came by chance, in the figure of a young lieutenant, and who unbuckled +his wife, as he called his sword, and, putting her in a corner, sat up +on a chair in the middle of the room and sang like a bird, and then told +ghost-stories. The songs were out of Heine, and they reminded her of her +girlish enthusiasm for German. Elmore was troubled at the lieutenant's +visit, and feared it would cost them all their Italian friends; but she +said boldly that she did not care; and she never even tried to believe +that the life they saw in Venice was comparable to that of their little +college town at home, with its teas and picnics, and simple, easy social +gayeties. There she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> had been a power in her way; she had entertained, +and had helped to make some matches: but the Venetians ate nothing, and +as for young people, they never saw each other but by stealth, and their +matches were made by their parents on a money-basis. She could not adapt +herself to this foreign life; it puzzled her, and her husband's +conformity seemed to estrange them, as far as it went. It took away her +spirit, and she grew listless and dull. Even the history began to lose +its interest in her eyes; she doubted if the annals of such a people as +she saw about her could ever be popular.</p> + +<p>There were other things to make them melancholy in their exile. The war +at home was going badly, where it was going at all. The letters now +never spoke of any term to it; they expressed rather the dogged patience +of the time when it seemed as if there could be no end, and indicated +that the country had settled into shape about it, and was pushing +forward its other affairs as if the war did not exist. Mrs. Elmore felt +that the America which she had left had ceased to be. The letters were +almost less a pleasure than a pain, but she always tore them open, and +read them with eager unhappiness. There were miserable intervals of days +and even weeks when no letters came, and when the Reuter telegrams in +the Gazette of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Venice dribbled their vitriolic news of Northern +disaster through a few words or lines, and Galignani's long columns were +filled with the hostile exultation and prophecy of the London press.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p>They had passed eighteen months of this sort of life in Venice when one +day a letter dropped into it which sent a thousand ripples over its +stagnant surface. Mrs. Elmore read it first to herself, with gasps and +cries of pleasure and astonishment, which did not divert her husband +from the perusal of some notes he had made the day before, and had +brought to the breakfast-table with the intention of amusing her. When +she flattened it out over his notes, and exacted his attention, he +turned an unwilling and lack-lustre eye upon it; then he looked up at +her.</p> + +<p>"Did you expect she would come?" he asked, in ill-masked dismay.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose they had any idea of it at first. When Sue wrote me +that Lily had been studying too hard, and had to be taken out of school, +I said that I wished she could come over and pay us a visit. But I don't +believe they dreamed of letting her—Sue says so—till the Mortons' +coming seemed too good a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> chance to be lost. I am so glad of it, Owen! +You know how much they have always done for me; and here is a chance now +to pay a little of it back."</p> + +<p>"What in the world shall we do with her?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Do? Everything! Why, Owen," she urged, with pathetic recognition of his +coldness, "she is Susy Stevens's own sister!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes—yes," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"And it was Susy who brought us together!"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course."</p> + +<p>"And oughtn't you to be glad of the opportunity?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> glad—<i>very</i> glad."</p> + +<p>"It will be a relief to you instead of a care. She's such a bright, +intelligent girl that we can both sympathize with your work, and you +won't have to go round with me all the time, and I can matronize her +myself."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," Elmore replied, with scarcely abated seriousness. +"Perhaps, if she is coming here for her health, she won't need much +matronizing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, pshaw! She'll be well enough for <i>that</i>! She's overdone a little at +school. I shall take good care of her, I can tell you; and I shall make +her have a real good time. It's quite flattering of Susy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> to trust her +to us, so far away, and I shall write and tell her we both think so."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Elmore, "it's a fearful responsibility."</p> + +<p>There are instances of the persistence of husbands in certain moods or +points of view on which even wheedling has no effect. The wise woman +perceives that in these cases she must trust entirely to the softening +influences of time, and as much as possible she changes the subject; or +if this is impossible she may hope something from presenting a still +worse aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the letter from +the table: "If she sailed the 3d in the City of Timbuctoo, she will be +at Queenstown on the 12th or 13th, and we shall have a letter from her +by Wednesday saying when she will be at Genoa. That's as far as the +Mortons can bring her, and there's where we must meet her."</p> + +<p>"Meet her in Genoa! How?"</p> + +<p>"By going there for her," replied Mrs. Elmore, as if this were the +simplest thing in the world. "I have never seen Genoa."</p> + +<p>Elmore now tacitly abandoned himself to his fate. His wife continued: "I +needn't take anything. Merely run on, and right back."</p> + +<p>"When must we go?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know yet; but we shall have a letter to-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>morrow. Don't worry on +my account, Owen. Her coming won't be a bit of care to me. It will give +me something to do and to think about, and it will be a pleasure all the +time to know that it's for Susy Stevens. And I shall like the +companionship."</p> + +<p>Elmore looked at his wife in surprise, for it had not occurred to him +before that with his company she could desire any other companionship. +He desired none but hers, and when he was about his work he often +thought of her. He supposed that at these moments she thought of him, +and found society, as he did, in such thoughts. But he was not a jealous +or exacting man, and he said nothing. His treatment of the approaching +visit from Susy Stevens's sister had not been enthusiastic, but a spark +had kindled his imagination, and it burned warmer and brighter as the +days went by. He found a charm in the thought of having this fresh young +life here in his charge, and of teaching the girl to live into the great +and beautiful history of the city: there was still much of the +school-master in him, and he intended to make her sojourn an education +to her; and as a literary man he hoped for novel effects from her mind +upon material which he was above all trying to set in a new light before +himself.</p> + +<p>When the time had arrived for them to go and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> meet Miss Mayhew at Genoa, +he was more than reconciled to the necessity. But at the last moment, +Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What these attacks were I find +myself unable to specify, but as every lady has an old attack of some +kind, I may safely leave their precise nature to conjecture. It is +enough that they were of a nervous character, that they were accompanied +with headache, and that they prostrated her for several days. During +their continuance she required the active sympathy and constant presence +of her husband, whose devotion was then exemplary, and brought up long +arrears of indebtedness in that way.</p> + +<p>"Well, what shall we do?" he asked, as he sank into a chair beside the +lounge on which Mrs. Elmore lay, her eyes closed, and a slice of lemon +placed on each of her throbbing temples with the effect of a new sort of +blinders. "Shall I go alone for her?"</p> + +<p>She gave his hand the kind of convulsive clutch that signified, +"Impossible for you to leave me."</p> + +<p>He reflected. "The Mortons will be pushing on to Leghorn, and somebody +<i>must</i> meet her. How would it do for Mr. Hoskins to go?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore responded with a clutch tantamount to "Horrors! How could +you think of such a thing?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>"Well, then," he said, "the only thing we can do is to send a <i>valet de +place</i> for her. We can send old Cazzi. He's the incarnation of +respectability; five francs a day and his expenses will buy all the +virtues of him. She'll come as safely with him as with me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore had applied a vividly thoughtful pressure to her husband's +hand; she now released it in token of assent, and he rose.</p> + +<p>"But don't be gone long," she whispered.</p> + +<p>On his way to the caffè which Cazzi frequented, Elmore fell in with the +consul.</p> + +<p>By this time a change had taken place in the consular office. Mr. +Ferris, some months before, had suddenly thrown up his charge and gone +home; and after the customary interval of ship-chandler, the California +sculptor, Hoskins, had arrived out, with his commission in his pocket, +and had set up his allegorical figure of The Pacific Slope in the room +where Ferris had painted his too metaphysical conception of A Venetian +Priest. Mrs. Elmore had never liked Ferris; she thought him cynical and +opinionated, and she believed that he had not behaved quite well towards +a young American lady,—a Miss Vervain, who had stayed awhile in Venice +with her mother. She was glad to have him go; but she could not admire +Mr. Hoskins, who, however good-hearted, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> too hopelessly Western. He +had had part of one foot shot away in the nine months' service, and +walked with a limp that did him honor; and he knew as much of a consul's +business as any of the authors or artists with whom it is the tradition +to fill that office at Venice. Besides he was at least a +fellow-American, and Elmore could not forbear telling him the trouble he +was in: a young girl coming from their town in America as far as Genoa +with friends, and expecting to be met there by the Elmores, with whom +she was to pass some months; Mrs. Elmore utterly prostrated by one of +her old attacks, and he unable to leave her, or to take her with him to +Genoa; the friends with whom Miss Mayhew travelled unable to bring her +to Venice; she, of course, unable to come alone. The case deepened and +darkened in Elmore's view as he unfolded it.</p> + +<p>"Why," cried the consul sympathetically, "if I could leave my post I'd +go!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you!" cried Elmore eagerly, remembering his wife. "I couldn't +think of letting you."</p> + +<p>"Look here!" said the consul, taking an official letter, with the seal +broken, from his pocket. "This is the first time I couldn't have left my +post without distinct advantage to the public interests, since I've been +here. But with this letter from Turin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> telling me to be on the lookout +for the Alabama, I couldn't go to Genoa even to meet a young lady. The +Austrians have never recognized the rebels as belligerents: if she +enters the port of Venice, all I've got to do is to require the deposit +of her papers with me, and then I should like to see her get out again. +I <i>should</i> like to capture her. Of course, I don't mean Miss Mayhew," +said the consul, recognizing the double sense in which his language +could be taken.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great thing for you," said Elmore,—"a <i>great</i> thing."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it would set me up in my own eyes, and stop that infernal clatter +inside about going over and taking a hand again."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Elmore assented, with a twinge of the old shame. "I didn't know +you had it too."</p> + +<p>"If I could capture the Alabama, I could afford to let the other fellows +fight it out."</p> + +<p>"I congratulate you, with all my heart," said Elmore sadly, and he +walked in silence beside the consul.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the latter, with a laugh at Elmore's pensive rapture, "I'm +as much obliged to you as if I <i>had</i> captured her. I'll go up to the +Piazza with you, and see Cazzi."</p> + +<p>The affair was easily arranged; Cazzi was made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> to feel by the consul's +intervention that the shield of American sovereignty had been extended +over the young girl whom he was to escort from Genoa, and two days later +he arrived with her. Mrs. Elmore's attack now was passing off, and she +was well enough to receive Miss Mayhew half-recumbent on the sofa where +she had been prone till her arrival. It was pretty to see her fond +greeting of the girl, and her joy in her presence as they sat down for +the first long talk; and Elmore realized, even in his dreamy withdrawal, +how much the bright, active spirit of his wife had suffered merely in +the restriction of her English. Now it was not only English they spoke, +but that American variety of the language of which I hope we shall grow +less and less ashamed; and not only this, but their parlance was +characterized by local turns and accents, which all came welcomely back +to Mrs. Elmore, together with those still more intimate inflections +which belonged to her own particular circle of friends in the little +town of Patmos, N. Y. Lily Mayhew was of course not of her own set, +being five or six years younger; but women, more easily than men, ignore +the disparities of age between themselves and their juniors; and in Susy +Stevens's absence it seemed a sort of tribute to her to establish her +sister in the affection which Mrs. Elmore had so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> long cherished. Their +friendship had been of such a thoroughly trusted sort on both sides that +Mrs. Stevens (the memorably brilliant Sue Mayhew in her girlish days) +had felt perfectly free to act upon Mrs. Elmore's invitation to let Lily +come out to her; and here the child was, as much at home as if she had +just walked into Mrs. Elmore's parlor out of her sister's house in Patmos.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p>They briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss Mayhew's voyage, and +her journey to Genoa, and came as quickly as they could to all those +things which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the town and its +people. "Is it much changed? I suppose it is," she sighed. "The war +changes everything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss Mayhew. "But Patmos <i>is</i> +gay,—perfectly delightful. We've got one of the camps there now; and +<i>such</i> times as the girls have with the officers! We have lots of fun +getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops on the parade-ground at the +camp, and going out to see the prisoners,—you never saw such a place."</p> + +<p>"The prisoners?" murmured Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Why, <i>yes</i>!" cried Lily, with a gay laugh. "Didn't you know that we had +a prison-camp too? Some of the Southerners look real nice. I pitied +them," she added, with unabated gayety.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>"Your sister wrote to me," said Mrs. Elmore; "but I couldn't realize it, +I suppose, and so I forgot it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," pursued Lily, "and Frank Halsey's in command. You would never +know by the way he walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he can't +dance, though, poor fellow. He's pale, and he's perfectly fascinating. +So's Dick Burton, with his empty sleeve; he's one of the recruiting +officers, and there's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't think +how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the old college buildings used +for barracks. Dick says it's much livelier than it was when he was a +student there."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the professor. "Does he find +plenty of volunteers?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know," the young girl explained, "that the old style of +volunteering is all over."</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't know it."</p> + +<p>"Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, and they do say that it +will come to the draft very soon, now. Some of the young men have gone +to Canada. But everybody despises <i>them</i>. Oh, Mrs. Elmore, I should +think you'd be <i>so</i> glad to have the professor off here, and honorably +out of the way!"</p> + +<p>"I'm <i>dis</i>honorably out of the way; I can never forgive myself for not +going to the war," said Elmore.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody feels that way about it +<i>now</i>! As Dick Burton says, we've come down to business. I tell you, +when you see arms and legs off in every direction, and women going about +in black, you don't feel that it's such a romantic thing any more. There +are mighty few engagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets off; +no presentation of revolvers in the town hall; and some of the widows +have got married again; and that I don't think <i>is</i> right. But what can +they do, poor things? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs. Elmore?"</p> + +<p>"Tom Friar's <i>widow</i>! Is Tom Friar <i>dead</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course! One of the first. I think it was Ball's Bluff. Well, +<i>she's</i> married. But she married his cousin, and as Dick Burton says, +that isn't so bad. Isn't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing <i>all</i> her +boys,—all five of them? It does seem to bear too hard on <i>some</i> +families. And then, when you see every one of those six Armstrongs going +through without a scratch!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at a standstill. The streets +must look rather dreary."</p> + +<p>"<i>Business</i> at a standstill!" exclaimed Lily. "What <i>has</i> Sue been +writing you all this time? Why, there never was such prosperity in +Patmos before! Every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>body is making money, and people that you wouldn't +hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and inviting the old +college families. You ought to see the residences and business blocks +going up all over the place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now. +You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Haskell's clerk?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well, he's made a fortune out of an army contract; and he's going +to marry—the engagement came out just before I left—Bella Stearns."</p> + +<p>At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright,—the only posture in which the +fact could be imagined. "Lily!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in America," triumphed the young +girl. She now put her hand to her mouth and hid a yawn.</p> + +<p>"You're sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. "Well, you know the way to your room. +You'll find everything ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You +shall commence being at home at once."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I <i>am</i> sleepy," assented Lily; and she promptly said her +good-nights and vanished; though a keener eye than Elmore's might have +seen that her promptness had a color—or say light—of hesitation in it.</p> + +<p>But he only walked up and down the room, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> she was gone, in +unheedful distress. "Gay times in America! Good heavens! Is the child +utterly heartless, Celia, or is she merely obtuse?"</p> + +<p>"She certainly isn't at all like Sue," sighed Mrs. Elmore, who had not +had time to formulate Lily's defence. "But she's excited now, and a +little off her balance. She'll be different to-morrow. Besides, all +America seems changed, and the people with it. We shouldn't have noticed +it if we had stayed there, but we feel it after this absence."</p> + +<p>"I never realized it before, as I did from her babble! The letters have +told us the same thing, but they were like the histories of other times. +Camps, prisoners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden gains, +social upheavals,—it is the old, hideous story of war come true of our +day and country. It's terrible!"</p> + +<p>"She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. "I don't know exactly +what we shall do with her. Of course, she can't expect the attentions +she's been used to in Patmos, with those young men."</p> + +<p>Elmore stopped, and stared at his wife. "What do you mean, Celia?"</p> + +<p>"We don't go into society at all, and she doesn't speak Italian. How +shall we amuse her?"</p> + +<p>"Well, upon my word, I don't know that we're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> obliged to provide her +amusement! Let her amuse herself. Let her take up some branch of study, +or of—of—research, and get something besides 'fun' into her head, if +possible." He spoke boldly, but his wife's question had unnerved him, +for he had a soft heart, and liked people about him to be happy. "We can +show her the objects of interest. And there are the theatres," he added.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Elmore. "We can both go about with her. I +will just peep in at her now, and see if she has everything she wants." +She rose from her sofa and went to Lily's room, whence she did not +return for nearly three quarters of an hour. By this time Elmore had got +out his notes, and, in their transcription and classification, had +fallen into forgetfulness of his troubles. His wife closed the door +behind her, and said in a low voice, little above a whisper, as she sank +very quietly into a chair, "Well, it has all come out, Owen."</p> + +<p>"What has all come out?" he asked, looking up stupidly.</p> + +<p>"I knew that she had something on her mind, by the way she acted. And +you saw her give me that look as she went out?"</p> + +<p>"No—no, I didn't. What look was it? She looked sleepy."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>"She looked terribly, terribly excited, and as if she would like to say +something to me. That was the reason I said I would let her go to her +room alone."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"Of course she would have felt awfully if I had gone straight off with +her. So I waited. It <i>may</i> never come to anything in the world, and I +don't suppose it will; but it's quite enough to account for everything +you saw in her."</p> + +<p>"I didn't see anything in her,—that was the difficulty. But what is +it—what is it, Celia? You know how I hate these delays."</p> + +<p>"Why, I'm not sure that I need tell you, Owen; and yet I suppose I had +better. It will be safer," said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the +last, enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its effect upon +her husband. "I suppose you will think your troubles are beginning +pretty early," she suggested.</p> + +<p>"Is it a trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know that it is. If it comes to the very worst, I dare +say that every one wouldn't call it a trouble."</p> + +<p>Elmore threw himself back in his chair in an attitude of endurance. +"What would the worst be?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>"Why, it's no use even to discuss that, for it's perfectly absurd to +suppose that it could ever come to that. But the case," added Mrs. +Elmore, perceiving that further delay was only further suffering for her +husband, and that any fact would now probably fall far short of his +apprehensions, "is simply this, and I don't know that it amounts to +anything; but at Peschiera, just before the train started, she looked +out of the window, and saw a splendid officer walking up and down and +smoking; and before she could draw back he must have seen her, for he +threw away his cigar instantly, and got into the same compartment. He +talked awhile in German with an old gentleman who was there, and then he +spoke in Italian with Cazzi; and afterwards, when he heard her speaking +English with Cazzi, he joined in. I don't know how he came to join in at +first, and she doesn't, either; but it seems that he knew some English, +and he began speaking. He was very tall and handsome and +distinguished-looking, and a <i>perfect</i> gentleman in his manners; and she +says that she saw Cazzi looking rather queer, but he didn't say +anything, and so she kept on talking. She told him at once that she was +an American, and that she was coming here to stay with friends; and, as +he was very curious about America, she told him all she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> could think of. +It did her good to talk about home, for she had been feeling a little +blue at being so far away from everybody. Now, <i>I</i> don't see any harm in +it; do you, Owen?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't according to the custom here; but we needn't care for that. Of +course it was imprudent."</p> + +<p>"Of course," Mrs. Elmore admitted. "The officer was very polite; and +when he found that she was from America, it turned out that he was a +<i>great</i> sympathizer with the North, and that he had a brother in our +army. Don't you think that was nice?"</p> + +<p>"Probably some mere soldier of fortune, with no heart in the cause," +said Elmore.</p> + +<p>"And very likely he has no brother there, as I told Lily. He told her he +was coming to Padua; but when they reached Padua, he came right on to +Venice. That <i>shows</i> you couldn't place any dependence upon what he +said. He said he expected to be put under arrest for it; but he didn't +care,—he was coming. Do you believe they'll put him under arrest?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—I don't know," said Elmore, in a voice of grief and +apprehension, which might well have seemed anxiety for the officer's +liberty.</p> + +<p>"I told her it was one of his jokes. He was very funny, and kept her +laughing the whole way, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> his broken English and his witty little +remarks. She says he's just dying to go to America. Who do you suppose +it can be, Owen?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know? We've no acquaintance among the Austrians," groaned +Elmore.</p> + +<p>"That's what I told Lily. She's no idea of the state of things here, and +she was quite horrified. But she says he was a perfect gentleman in +everything. He belongs to the engineer corps,—that's one of the highest +branches of the service, he told her,—and he gave her his card."</p> + +<p>"Gave her his card!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore had it in the hand which she had been keeping in her pocket, +and she now suddenly produced it; and Elmore read the name and address +of Ernst von Ehrhardt, Captain of the Royal-Imperial Engineers, +Peschiera. "She says she knows he wanted hers, but she didn't offer to +give it to him; and he didn't ask her where she was going, or anything."</p> + +<p>"He knew that he could get her address from Cazzi for ten soldi as soon +as her back was turned," said Elmore cynically. "What then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, he said—and this is the only really bold thing he <i>did</i> do—that +he must see her again, and that he should stay over a day in Venice in +hopes of meeting her at the theatre or somewhere."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>"It's a piece of high-handed impudence!" cried Elmore. "Now, Celia, you +see what these people are! Do you wonder that the Italians hate them?"</p> + +<p>"You've often said they only hate their system."</p> + +<p>"The Austrians are part of their system. He thinks he can take any +liberty with us because he is an Austrian officer! Lily must not stir +out of the house to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"She will be too tired to do so," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"And if he molests us further, I will appeal to the consul." Elmore +began to walk up and down the room again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know whether you could call it <i>molesting</i>, exactly," +suggested Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Celia? Do you suppose that she—she—encouraged this +officer?"</p> + +<p>"Owen! It was all in the simplicity and innocence of her heart!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, that she wishes to see him again?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not! But that's no reason why we should be rude about it."</p> + +<p>"Rude about it? How? Is simply avoiding him rudeness? Is proposing to +protect ourselves from his impertinence rudeness?"</p> + +<p>"No. And if you can't see the matter for yourself, Owen, I don't know +how any one is to make you."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>"Why, Celia, one would think that you approved of this man's +behavior,—that <i>you</i> wished her to meet him again! You understand what +the consequences would be if we received this officer. You know how all +the Venetians would drop us, and we should have no acquaintances here +outside of the army."</p> + +<p>"Who has asked you to receive him, Owen? And as for the Italians +dropping us, that doesn't frighten me. But what could he do if he did +meet her again? She needn't look at him. She says he is very +intelligent, and that he has read a great many English books, though he +doesn't speak it very well, and that he knows more about the war than +she does. But of course she won't go out to-morrow. All that I hate is +that we should seem to be frightened into staying at home."</p> + +<p>"She needn't stay in on his account. You said she would be too tired to +go out."</p> + +<p>"I see by the scattering way you talk, Owen, that your mind isn't on the +subject, and that you're anxious to get back to your work. I won't keep +you."</p> + +<p>"Celia, Celia! Be fair, now!" cried Elmore. "You know very well that I'm +only too deeply interested in this matter, and that I'm not likely to +get back to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> my work to-night, at least. What is it you wish me to do?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore considered a while. "I don't wish you to do anything," she +returned placably. "Of course, you're perfectly right in not choosing to +let an acquaintance begun in that way go any further. We shouldn't at +home, and we sha'n't here. But I don't wish you to think that Lily has +been imprudent, under the circumstances. She doesn't know that it was +anything out of the way, but she happened to do the best that any one +could. Of course, it was very exciting and very romantic; girls like +such things, and there's no reason they shouldn't. We must manage," +added Mrs. Elmore, "so that she shall see that we appreciate her +conduct, and trust in her entirely. I wouldn't do anything to wound her +pride or self-confidence. I would rather send her out alone to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Elmore.</p> + +<p>"And if I were with her when she met him, I believe I should leave it +entirely to her how to behave."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Elmore, "you're not likely to be put to the test. He'll +hardly force his way into the house, and she isn't going out."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Elmore. She added, after a silence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> "I'm trying to +think whether I've ever seen him in Venice; he's here often. But there +are so many tall officers with fair complexions and English beards. I +<i>should</i> like to know how he looks! She said he was very +aristocratic-looking."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's a fine type," said Elmore. "They're all nobles, I believe."</p> + +<p>"But after all, they're no better looking than our boys, who come up out +of nothing."</p> + +<p>"Ours are Americans," said Elmore.</p> + +<p>"And they are the best husbands, as I told Lily."</p> + +<p>Elmore looked at his wife, as she turned dreamily to leave the room; but +since the conversation had taken this impersonal turn he would not say +anything to change its complexion. A conjecture vaguely taking shape in +his mind resolved itself to nothing again, and left him with only the +ache of something unascertained.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p>In the morning Lily came to breakfast as blooming as a rose. The sense +of her simple, fresh, wholesome loveliness might have pierced even the +indifference of a man to whom there was but one pretty woman in the +world, and who had lived since their marriage as if his wife had +absorbed her whole sex into herself: this deep, unconscious constancy +was a noble trait in him, but it is not so rare in men as women would +have us believe. For Elmore, Miss Mayhew merely pervaded the place in +her finer way, as the flowers on the table did, as the sweet butter, the +new eggs, and the morning's French bread did; he looked at her with a +perfectly serene ignorance of her piquant face, her beautiful eyes and +abundant hair, and her trim, straight figure. But his wife exulted in +every particular of her charm, and was as generously glad of it as if it +were her own; as women are when they are sure that the charm of others +has no designs. The ladies twit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>tered and laughed together, and as he +was a man without small talk, he soon dropped out of the conversation +into a reverie, from which he found himself presently extracted by a +question from his wife.</p> + +<p>"We had better go in a gondola, hadn't we, Owen?" She seemed to be, as +she put this, trying to look something into him. He, on his part, tried +his best to make out her meaning, but failed.</p> + +<p>He simply asked, "Where? Are you going out?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Lily has some shopping she <i>must</i> do. I think we can get it at +Pazienti's in San Polo."</p> + +<p>Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. It seemed to him a +sudden advance from the position she had taken the night before in +regard to Miss Mayhew's not going out; but he could not understand his +wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he opposed her going. He +decided that she wished him for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he +said, "I think you'd better walk, if Lily isn't too tired."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I'm</i> not tired at all!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I can go with you, in that direction, on my way to the library," he +added.</p> + +<p>"Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, discontinuing her +look, and leaving her husband with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed responsibility.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>"She can step into the Frari a moment, and see those tombs," he said. "I +think it will amuse her."</p> + +<p>Lily broke into a laugh. "Is that the way you amuse yourselves in +Venice?" she asked; and Mrs. Elmore hastened to reassure her.</p> + +<p>"That's the way Mr. Elmore amuses himself. You know his history makes +every bit of the past fascinating to him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, that history! Everybody is looking out for that," said Lily.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible," said Elmore, with a pensive sarcasm in which an +agreeable sense of flattery lurked, "that people still remember me and +my history?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed!" cried Miss Mayhew. "Frank Halsey was talking about it the +night before I left. He couldn't seem to understand why I should be +coming to you at Venice, because he said it was a history of Florence +you were writing. It isn't, is it? You must be getting pretty near the +end of it, Professor Elmore."</p> + +<p>"I'm getting pretty near the beginning," said Elmore sadly.</p> + +<p>"It must be hard writing histories; they're so awfully hard to read," +said Lily innocently. "Does it interest you?" she asked, with unaffected +compassion.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "far more than it will ever interest anybody else."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>"Oh, I don't believe that!" she cried sweetly, seizing the occasion to +get in a little compliment.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore sat silent, while things were thus going against Miss +Mayhew, and perhaps she was then meditating the stroke by which she +restored the balance to her own favor as soon as she saw her husband +alone after breakfast. "Well, Owen," she said, "you've done it now."</p> + +<p>"Done what?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, perhaps!" she answered, while she got on her things for +the walk with unusual gayety; and, with the consciousness of unknown +guilt depressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, subdued, +distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, as he forgot everything +but his history. His wife hated to see him so miserable, and whispered +at the shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, Owen! I didn't +mean anything."</p> + +<p>"By what?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you've forgotten, never mind!" she cried; and she and Miss +Mayhew disappeared within.</p> + +<p>It was two hours later when he next saw them, after he had turned over +the book he wished to see, and had found the passage which would enable +him to go on with his work for the rest of the day at home. He was +fitting his key into the house-door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> when he happened to look up the +little street toward the bridge that led into it, and there, defined +against the sky on the level of the bridge, he saw Mrs. Elmore and Miss +Mayhew receiving the adieux of a distinguished-looking man in the +Austrian uniform. The officer had brought his heels together in the +conventional manner, and with his cap in his right hand, while his left +rested on the hilt of his sword, and pressed it down, he was bowing from +the hips. Once, twice, and he was gone.</p> + +<p>The ladies came down the <i>calle</i> with rapid steps and flushed faces, and +Elmore let them in. His wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, "I +want to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now!" she added, when they +were alone in their own room and she had shut the door, "what do you say +<i>now</i>?"</p> + +<p>"What do <i>I</i> say now, Celia?" retorted Elmore, with just indignation. +"It seems to me that it is for <i>you</i> to say something—or nothing."</p> + +<p>"Why, you brought it on us."</p> + +<p>Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not speak, for this passed +all force of language.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you see me looking at you when I spoke of going out in a +gondola, at breakfast?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What did you suppose I meant?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>"I didn't know."</p> + +<p>"When I was trying to make you understand that if we took a gondola we +could go and come without being seen! Lily <i>had</i> to do her shopping. But +if you chose to run off on some interpretation of your own, was <i>I</i> to +blame, I should like to know? No, indeed! You won't get me to admit it, +Owen."</p> + +<p>Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, miserable sibillation +between his set teeth.</p> + +<p>"Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never saw in my life!" cried +Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing the subject in her own mind, and leaving +her husband to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her words +were strong, but she did not really look affronted; and it is hard to +tell what sort of liberty it is that affronts a woman. It seems to +depend a great deal upon the person who takes the liberty.</p> + +<p>"That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore quietly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful candor, "it was." Seeing +that he remained unaffected by her display of this virtue, she added, +"Don't you think he was very handsome?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't judge, at such a distance."</p> + +<p>"Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want you to think he was +disrespectful at all. He wasn't.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> He was everything that was delicate +and deferential."</p> + +<p>"Did you ask him to walk home with you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. Then she drew a long +breath, and said firmly: "If you won't interrupt me with gratuitous +insults, Owen, I will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will +be ready to do me <i>justice</i>. I ask nothing more." She waited for his +contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily +couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria +for them. Then of course the nearest way home was through St. Mark's +Square. I made Lily go on the Florian side, so as to avoid the officers +who were sitting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square and +past San Moïsè, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had never thought of how +the officers frequented the Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most +magnificent creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid officer!' +when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a sort of stop, and bowed very +low, and she whispered, 'It's my officer.' I didn't dream of his joining +us, and I don't think he did, at first; but after he took a second look +at Lily, it really seemed as if he couldn't help it. He asked if he +might join us, and I didn't say anything."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>"Didn't say anything!"</p> + +<p>"<i>No!</i> How could I refuse, in so many words? And I was frightened and +confused, any way. He asked if we were going to the music in the +Giardini Pubblici; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not going into +society in Venice, but was merely here for her health. That's all there +is of it. Now do you blame me, Owen?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Do you blame her?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see how <i>he</i> was to blame."</p> + +<p>"The transaction was a little irregular, but it was highly creditable to +all parties concerned."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. Indignation and censure +she would have known how to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did +not know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely spoke to him," she +pursued, "and I was very cold. I spoke to him in German."</p> + +<p>"Is German a particularly repellent tongue?"</p> + +<p>"No. But I was determined he should get no hold upon us. He was very +polite and very respectful, as I said, but I didn't give him an atom of +encouragement; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, but I parted +from him very stiffly."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>"Is it possible?"</p> + +<p>"Owen, what <i>is</i> there so wrong about it all? He's clearly fascinated +with her; and as the matter stood, he had no hope of seeing her or +speaking with her except on the street. Perhaps he didn't know it was +wrong,—or didn't realize it."</p> + +<p>"I dare say."</p> + +<p>"What else could the poor fellow have done? There he was! He had stayed +over a day, and laid himself open to arrest, on the bare chance—one in +a hundred—of seeing Lily; and when he did see her, what was he to do?"</p> + +<p>"Obviously, to join her and walk home with her."</p> + +<p>"You are too bad, Owen! Suppose it had been one of our own poor boys? He +<i>looked</i> like an American."</p> + +<p>"He didn't behave like one. One of 'our own poor boys,' as you call +them, would have been as far as possible from thrusting himself upon +you. He would have had too much reverence for you, too much +self-respect, too much pride."</p> + +<p>"What has pride to do with such things, my dear? I think he acted very +naturally. He acted upon impulse. I'm sure you're always crying out +against the restraints and conventionalities between young people, over +here; and now, when a European <i>does</i> do a simple, unaffected thing—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Elmore made a gesture of impatience. "This fellow has presumed upon your +being Americans—on your ignorance of the customs here—to take a +liberty that he would not have dreamed of taking with Italian or German +ladies. He has shown himself no gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. That's what I thought when +Lily first told me about his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very +much prejudiced against him; but when I saw him to-day, I must say that +I felt that I had been wrong. He is a gentleman; but—he is desperate."</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under her husband's +sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she pleaded, "can't you see anything +romantic in it?"</p> + +<p>"I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it. I see it from his +standpoint as an adventure, to be bragged of and laughed over at the +mess-table and the caffè. I'm going to put a stop to it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewildered. "Well, Owen," she +said, "I put the affair entirely in your hands."</p> + +<p>Elmore never could decide upon just what theory his wife had acted; he +had to rest upon the fact, already known to him, of her perfect truth +and con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>scientiousness, and his perception that even in a good woman the +passion for manœuvring and intrigue may approach the point at which +men commit forgery. He now saw her quelled and submissive; but he was by +no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, or that she +voluntarily acquiesced.</p> + +<p>"All that I ask is that you won't do anything that you'll regret +afterward. And as for putting a stop to it, I fancy it's put a stop to +already. He's going back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that'll +probably be the last of him."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Elmore, "if that is the last of him, I ask nothing +better. I certainly have no wish to take any steps in the matter."</p> + +<p>But he went out of the house very unhappy and greatly perplexed. He +thought at first of going to the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was +probably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiar to that hostelry, +and of inquiring him out, and requesting him to discontinue his +attentions; but this course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than +comported with his present mood, and he turned aside to seek advice of +his consul. He found Mr. Hoskins in the best humor for backing his +quarrel. He had just received a second dispatch from Turin, stating that +the rumor of the approaching visit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> the Alabama was unfounded; and he +was thus left with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands which +he was glad to contribute to the defence of Mr. Elmore's family from the +pursuit of this Austrian officer.</p> + +<p>"This is a very simple affair, Mr. Elmore,"—he usually said "Elmore," +but in his haughty frame of mind, he naturally threw something more of +state into their intercourse,—"a very simple affair, fortunately. All +that I have to do is to call on the military governor, and state the +facts of the case, and this fellow will get his orders quietly and +<i>definitively</i>. This war has sapped our influence in Europe,—there's no +doubt of it; but I think it's a pity if an American family living in +this city can't be safe from molestation; and if it can't, I want to +know the reason why."</p> + +<p>This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and he thanked the consul. +At the same time he felt his own resentment moderated, and he said, "I'm +willing to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, "if he clears out, that's the end of +it. I'll look in to-morrow, and see how you're getting along."</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't give them the impression that I've—profited by your +kindness," suggested Elmore at parting.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>"You haven't yet. I only hope you may have the chance."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; I don't think <i>I</i> do."</p> + +<p>Elmore took a long walk, and returned home tranquillized and clarified +as to the situation. Since it could be terminated without difficulty and +without scandal in the way Hoskins had explained, he was not unwilling +to see a certain poetry in it. He could not repress a degree of sympathy +with the bold young fellow who had overstepped the conventional +proprieties in the ardor of a romantic impulse, and he could see how +this very boldness, while it had a terror, would have a charm for a +young girl. There was no necessity, except for the purpose of holding +Mrs. Elmore in check, to look at it in an ugly light. Perhaps the +officer had inferred from Lily's innocent frankness of manner that this +sort of approach was permissible with Americans, and was not amusing +himself with the adventure, but was in love in earnest. Elmore could +allow himself this view of a case which he had so completely in his own +hands; and he was sensible of a sort of pleasure in the novel +responsibility thrown upon him. Few men at his age were called upon to +stand in the place of a parent to a young girl, to intervene in her +affairs, and to decide who was and who was not a proper person to +pretend to her acquaintance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>Feeling so secure in his right, he rebelled against the restraint he had +proposed to himself, and at dinner he invited the ladies to go to the +opera with him. He chose to show himself in public with them, and to +check any impression that they were without due protection. As usual, +the pit was full of officers, and between the acts they all rose, as +usual, and faced the boxes, which they perused through their +<i>lorgnettes</i> till the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs. +Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his notice, instructed him, by +a slow turning of her head, that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After +that he undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation from his +sense of bravado, he enjoyed the last acts of the opera more than the +first. Miss Mayhew showed no disappointment; and she bore herself with +so much grace and dignity, and yet so evidently impressed every one with +her beauty, that he was proud of having her in charge. He began himself +to see that she was pretty.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p>The next day was Sunday, and in going to church they missed a call from +Hoskins, whom Elmore felt bound to visit the following morning on his +way to the library, and inform of his belief that the enemy had quitted +Venice, and that the whole affair was probably at an end. He was +strengthened in this opinion by Mrs. Elmore's fear that she might have +been colder than she supposed; she hoped that she had not hurt the poor +young fellow's feelings; and now that he was gone, and safely out of the +way, Elmore hoped so too.</p> + +<p>On his return from the library, his wife met him with an air of mystery +before which his heart sank. "Owen," she said, "Lily has a letter."</p> + +<p>"Not bad news from home, Celia!"</p> + +<p>"No; a letter which she wishes to show you. It has just come. As I don't +wish to influence you, I would rather not be present." Mrs. Elmore +slipped out of the room, and Miss Mayhew glided gravely in,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> holding an +open note in her hand, and looking into Elmore's eyes with a certain +unfathomable candor, of which she had the secret.</p> + +<p>"Here," she said, "is a letter which I think you ought to see at once, +Professor Elmore"; and she gave him the note with an air of unconcern, +which he afterward recalled without being able to determine whether it +was real indifference or only the calm resulting from the transfer of +the whole responsibility to him. She stood looking at him while he read:</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center"><span class="smcap">Miss</span>,</p> + +<p>In this evening I am just arrived from Venise, 4 hours afterwards I +have had the fortune to see you and to speake with you—and to +favorite me of your gentil acquaintanceship at rail-away. I never +forgeet the moments I have seen you. Your pretty and nice figure +had attached my heard so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to +see you at Venise. And I was so lukely to speak with you cut too +short, and in the possibility to understand all. I wished to go +also in this Sonday to Venise, but I am sory that I cannot, +beaucause I must feeled now the consequences of the desertation. +Pray Miss to agree the assurance of my lov, and perhaps I will be +so lukely to receive a notice from you Miss if I can hop a little +(hapiness) sympathie. Très humble</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">E. von Ehrhardt.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Elmore was not destitute of the national sense of humor; but he read +this letter not only without amusement in its English, but with intense +bitter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>ness and renewed alarm. It appeared to him that the willingness +of the ladies to put the affair in his hands had not strongly manifested +itself till it had quite passed their own control, and had become a most +embarrassing difficulty,—when, in fact, it was no longer a merit in +them to confide it to him. In the resentment of that moment, his +suspicions even accused his wife of desiring, from idle curiosity and +sentiment, the accidental meeting which had resulted in this fresh +aggression.</p> + +<p>"Why did you show me this letter?" he asked harshly.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Elmore told me to do so," Lily answered.</p> + +<p>"Did <i>you</i> wish me to see it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose I <i>wished</i> you to see it: I thought you ought to see +it."</p> + +<p>Elmore felt himself relenting a little. "What do you want done about +it?" he asked more gently.</p> + +<p>"That is what I wished you to tell me," replied the girl.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you what you wish me to do, but I can tell you this, Miss +Mayhew: this man's behavior is totally irregular. He would not think of +writing to an Italian or German girl in this way. If he desired +to—to—pay attention to her, he would write to her father."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>"Yes, that's what Mrs. Elmore said. She said she supposed he must think +it was the American way."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Elmore," began her husband; but he arrested himself there, and +said, "Very well. I want to know what I am to do. I want your full and +explicit authority before I act. We will dismiss the fact of +irregularity. We will suppose that it is fit and becoming for a +gentleman who has twice met a young lady by accident—or once by +accident, and once by his own insistence—to write to her. Do you wish +to continue the correspondence?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Elmore looked into the eyes which dwelt full upon him, and, though they +were clear as the windows of heaven, he hesitated. "I must do what you +<i>say</i>, no matter what you mean, you know?"</p> + +<p>"I mean what I say."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he suggested, "you would prefer to return him this letter +with a few lines on your card."</p> + +<p>"No. I should like him to know that I have shown it to you. I should +think it a liberty for an American to write to me in that way after such +a short acquaintance, and I don't see why I should tolerate it from a +foreigner, though I suppose their customs <i>are</i> different."</p> + +<p>"Then you wish me to write to him?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And make an end of the matter, once for all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—"</p> + +<p>"Very well, then." Elmore sat down at once, and wrote:—</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Miss Mayhew has handed me your note of yesterday, and begs me +to express her very great surprise that you should have ventured to +address her. She desires me also to add that you will consider at +an end whatever acquaintance you suppose yourself to have formed +with her.</p> + +<p class="center">Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Owen Elmore</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>He handed the note to Lily. "Yes, that will do," she said, in a low, +steady voice. She drew a deep breath, and, laying the letter softly +down, went out of the room into Mrs. Elmore's.</p> + +<p>Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax when his wife appeared +swiftly upon the scene.</p> + +<p>"I want to see what you have written, Owen," she said.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk to me, Celia," he replied, thrusting the wax into the +candle-light. "You have put this affair entirely in my hands, and Lily +approves of what I have written. I am sick of the thing, and I don't +want any more talk about it."</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> see it," said Mrs. Elmore, with finality, and possessed +herself of the note. She ran it through,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> and then flung it on the table +and dropped into a chair, while the tears started to her eyes. "What a +cold, cutting, merciless letter!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I hope he will think so," said Elmore, gathering it up from the table, +and sealing it securely in its envelope.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to <i>send</i> it!" exclaimed his wife.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am."</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you could be so heartless."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, I <i>won't</i> send it," said Elmore. "I put the affair in +<i>your</i> hands. What are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I'm perfectly serious. I don't see why you shouldn't +manage the business. The gentleman is an acquaintance of yours. <i>I</i> +don't know him." Elmore rose and put his hands in his pockets. "What do +you intend to do? Do you like this clandestine sort of thing to go on? I +dare say the fellow only wishes to amuse himself by a flirtation with a +pretty American. But the question is whether you wish him to do so. I'm +willing to lay his conduct to a misunderstanding of our customs, and to +suppose that he thinks this is the way Americans do. I take the matter +at its best: he speaks to Lily on the train without an introduction; he +joins you in your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> walk without invitation; he writes to her without +leave, and proposes to get up a correspondence. It is all perfectly +right and proper, and will appear so to Lily's friends when they hear of +it. But I'm curious to know how you're going to manage the sequel. Do +you wish the affair to go on, and how long do you wish it to go on?"</p> + +<p>"You know very well that I don't wish it to go on."</p> + +<p>"Then you wish it broken off?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"I think there is such a thing as acting kindly and considerately. I +don't see anything in Captain Ehrhardt's conduct that calls for <i>savage</i> +treatment," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"You would like to have him stopped, but stopped gradually. Well, I +don't wish to be savage, either, and I will act upon any suggestion of +yours. I want Lily's people to feel that we managed not only wisely but +humanely in checking a man who was resolved to force his acquaintance +upon her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore thought a long while. Then she said: "Why, of course, Owen, +you're right about it. There <i>is</i> no other way. There couldn't be any +kindness in checking him gradually. But I wish," she added sor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>rowfully, +"that he had not been such a <i>complete</i> goose; and then we could have +done something with him."</p> + +<p>"I am obliged to him for the perfection which you regret, my dear. If he +had been less complete, he would have been much harder to manage."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Elmore, rising, "I shall always say that he meant +well. But send the letter."</p> + +<p>Her husband did not wait for a second bidding. He carried it himself to +the general post-office that there might be no mistake and no delay +about it; and a man who believed that he had a feeling and tender heart +experienced a barbarous joy in the infliction of this pitiless snub. I +do not say that it would not have been different if he had trusted at +all in the sincerity of Captain Ehrhardt's passion; but he was glad to +discredit it. A misgiving to the other effect would have complicated the +matter. But now he was perfectly free to disembarrass himself of a +trouble which had so seriously threatened his peace. He was responsible +to Miss Mayhew's family, and Mrs. Elmore herself could not say, then or +afterward, that there was any other way open to him. I will not contend +that his motives were wholly unselfish. No doubt a sense of personal +annoyance, of offended decorum, of wounded respectability, qualified the +zeal for Miss Mayhew's good which prompted him. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> was still a young +and inexperienced man, confronted with a strange perplexity: he did the +best he could, and I suppose it was the best that could be done. At any +rate, he had no regrets, and he went cheerfully about the work of +interesting Miss Mayhew in the monuments and memories of the city.</p> + +<p>Since the decisive blow had been struck, the ladies seemed to share his +relief. The pursuit of Captain Ehrhardt, while it flattered, might well +have alarmed, and the loss of a not unpleasant excitement was made good +by a sense of perfect security. Whatever repining Miss Mayhew indulged +was secret, or confided solely to Mrs. Elmore. To Elmore himself she +appeared in better spirits than at first, or at least in a more equable +frame of mind. To be sure, he did not notice very particularly. He took +her to the places and told her the things that she ought to be +interested in, and he conceived a better opinion of her mind from the +quick intelligence with which she entered into his own feelings in +regard to them, though he never could see any evidence of the over-study +for which she had been taken from school. He made her, like Mrs. Elmore, +the partner of his historical researches; he read his notes to both of +them now; and when his wife was prevented from accompanying him, he went +with Lily alone to visit the scenes of such events as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> his researches +concerned, and to fill his mind with the local color which he believed +would give life and character to his studies of the past. They also went +often to the theatre; and, though Lily could not understand the plays, +she professed to be entertained, and she had a grateful appreciation of +all his efforts in her behalf that amply repaid him. He grew fond of her +society; he took a childish pleasure in having people in the streets +turn and glance at the handsome girl by his side, of whose beauty and +stylishness he became aware through the admiration looked over the +shoulders of the Austrians, and openly spoken by the Italian populace. +It did not occur to him that she might not enjoy the growth of their +acquaintance in equal degree, that she fatigued herself with the +appreciation of the memorable and the beautiful, and that she found +these long rambles rather dull. He was a man of little conversation; +and, unless Mrs. Elmore was of the company, Miss Mayhew pursued his +pleasures for the most part in silence. One evening, at the end of the +week, his wife asked, "Why do you always take Lily through the Piazza on +the side farthest from where the officers sit? Are you afraid of her +meeting Captain Ehrhardt?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! I consider the Ehrhardt business settled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> But you know the +Italians never walk on the officers' side."</p> + +<p>"You are not an Italian. What do you gain by flattering them up? I +should think you might suppose a young girl had some curiosity."</p> + +<p>"I do; and I do everything I can to gratify her curiosity. I went to San +Pietro di Castello to-day, to show her where the Brides of Venice were +stolen."</p> + +<p>"The oldest and dirtiest part of the city! What <i>could</i> the child care +for the Brides of Venice? Now be reasonable, Owen!"</p> + +<p>"It's a romantic story. I thought girls liked such things,—about +getting married."</p> + +<p>"And that's the reason you took her yesterday to show her the Bucentaur +that the doges wedded the Adriatic in! Well, what was your idea in going +with her to the Cemetery of San Michele?"</p> + +<p>"I thought she would be interested. I had never been there before +myself, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to verify a passage +I was at work on. We always show people the cemetery at home."</p> + +<p>"That was considerate. And why did you go to Canarregio on Wednesday?"</p> + +<p>"I wished her to see the statue of Sior Antonio Rioba; you know it was +the Venetian Pasquino in the Revolution of '48—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>"Charming!"</p> + +<p>"And the Campo di Giustizia, where the executions used to take place."</p> + +<p>"Delightful!"</p> + +<p>"And—and—the house of Tintoretto," faltered Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Delicious! She cares so much for Tintoretto! And you've been with her +to the Jewish burying-ground at the Lido, and the Spanish synagogue in +the Ghetto, and the fish-market at the Rialto, and you've shown her the +house of Othello and the house of Desdemona, and the prisons in the +ducal palace; and three nights you've taken us to the Piazza as soon as +the Austrian band stopped playing, and all the interesting promenading +was over, and those stuffy old Italians began to come to the caffès. +Well, I can tell you that's no way to amuse a young girl. We must do +something for her, or she will die. She has come here from a country +where girls have always had the best time in the world, and where the +times are livelier now than they ever were, with all this excitement of +the war going on; and here she is dropped down in the midst of this +absolute deadness: no calls, no picnics, no parties, no dances—nothing! +We must do something for her."</p> + +<p>"Shall we give her a ball?" asked Elmore, looking round the pretty little apartment.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>"There's nothing going on among the Italians. But you might get us +invited to the German Casino."</p> + +<p>"I dare say. But I will not do that."</p> + +<p>"Then we could go to the Luogotenenza, to the receptions. Mr. Hoskins +could call with us, and they would send us cards."</p> + +<p>"That would make us simply odious to the Venetians, and our house would +be thronged with officers. What I've seen of them doesn't make me +particularly anxious for the honor of their further acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't ask you to do any of these things," said Mrs. Elmore, who +had, in fact, mentioned them with the intention of insisting upon an +abated claim. "But I think you <i>might</i> go and dine at one of the +hotels—at the Danieli—instead of that Italian restaurant; and then +Lily could see somebody at the table d'hôte, and not simply <i>perish</i> of +despair."</p> + +<p>"I—I didn't suppose it was so bad as that," said Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, she hasn't said anything,—she's far too well-bred for +that; but I can tell from my own feelings how she must suffer. I have +you, Owen," she said tenderly, "but Lily has <i>nobody</i>. She has gone +through this Ehrhardt business so well that I think we ought to do all +we can to divert her mind."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>"Well, now, Celia, you see the difficulty of our position,—the nature +of the responsibility we have assumed. How are we possibly, here in +Venice, to divert the mind of a young lady fresh from the parties and +picnics of Patmos?"</p> + +<p>"We can go and dine at the Danieli," replied Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Very well, let us go, then. But she will learn no Italian there. She +will hear nothing but English from the travellers and bad French from +the waiters; while at our restaurant—"</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" cried Mrs. Elmore, "what does Lily care for Italian? I'm sure +<i>I</i> never want to hear another word of it."</p> + +<p>At this desperate admission, Elmore quite gave way; he went to the +Danieli the next morning, and arranged to begin dining there that day. +There is no denying that Miss Mayhew showed an enthusiasm in prospect of +the change that even the sight of the pillar to which Foscarini was +hanged head downwards for treason to the Republic had not evoked. She +made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly an impression at the +table d'hôte when she sat down there. Elmore had found places opposite +an elderly lady and quite a young gentleman, of English speech, but of +not very English effect otherwise, who bowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> to Lily in acknowledgment +of some former meeting. The old lady said, "So you've reached Venice at +last? I'm very pleased, for your sake," as if at some point of the +progress thither she had been privy to anxieties of Lily about arriving +at her destination; and, in fact, they had been in the same hotels at +Marseilles and Genoa. The young gentleman said nothing, but he looked at +Lily throughout the dinner, and seemed to take his eyes from her only +when she glanced at him; then he dropped his gaze to his neglected plate +and blushed. When they left the table, he made haste to join the Elmores +in the reading-room, where he contrived, with creditable skill, to get +Lily apart from them for the examination of an illustrated newspaper, at +which neither of them looked; they remained chatting and laughing over +it in entire irrelevancy till the elderly lady rose and said, "Herbert, +Herbert! I am ready to go now," upon which he did not seem at all so, +but went submissively.</p> + +<p>"Who are those people, Lily?" asked Mrs. Elmore, as they walked towards +Florian's for their after-dinner coffee. The Austrian band was playing +in the centre of the Piazza, and the tall, blond German officers +promenaded back and forth with dark Hungarian women, who looked each +like a princess of her race. The lights glittered upon them, and on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the +brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the Piazza before the caffès; +the scene seemed to shake and waver in the splendor, like something +painted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, their name is Andersen, or something like that; and they're from +Helgoland, or some such place. I saw them first in Paris, but we didn't +speak till we got to Marseilles. That's his aunt; they're English +subjects, someway; and he's got an appointment in the civil service—I +think he called it—in India, and he doesn't want to go; and I told him +he ought to go to America. That's what I tell all these Europeans."</p> + +<p>"It's the best advice for them," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"They don't seem in any great haste to act upon it," laughed Miss +Mayhew. "Who was the red-faced young man that seemed to know you, and +stared so?"</p> + +<p>"That's an English artist who is staying here. He has a curious +name,—Rose-Black; and he is the most impudent and pushing man in the +world. I wouldn't introduce him, because I saw he was just dying for +it."</p> + +<p>Miss Mayhew laughed, as she laughed at everything, not because she was +amused, but because she was happy; this childlike gayety of heart was +great part of her charm.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>Elmore had quieted his scruples as a good Venetian by coming inside of +the caffè while the band played, instead of sitting outside with the bad +patriots; but he put the ladies next the window, and so they were not +altogether sacrificed to his sympathy with the <i>dimostrazione</i>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p>The next morning Elmore was called from his bed—at no very early hour, +it must be owned, but at least before a nine o'clock breakfast—to see a +gentleman who was waiting in the parlor. He dressed hurriedly, with a +thousand exciting speculations in his mind, and found Mr. Rose-Black +looking from the balcony window. "You have a pleasant position here," he +said easily, as he turned about to meet Elmore's look of indignant +demand. "I've come to ask all about our friends the Andersens."</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about them," answered Elmore. "I never saw them +before."</p> + +<p>"Aöh!" said the painter. Elmore had not invited him to sit down, but now +he dropped into a chair, with the air of asking Elmore to explain +himself. "The young lady of your party seemed to know them. How +uncommonly pretty all your American young girls are! But I'm told they +fade very soon. I should like to make up a picnic party with you all for the Lido."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>"Thank you," replied Elmore stiffly. "Miss Mayhew has seen the Lido."</p> + +<p>"Aöh! <i>That's</i> her name. It's a pretty name." He looked through the open +door into the dining-room, where the table was set for breakfast, with +the usual water-goblet at each plate. "I see you have beer for +breakfast. There's nothing so nice, you know. Would you—would you mind +giving me a glahs?"</p> + +<p>Through an undefined sense of the duties of hospitality, Elmore was +surprised by this impudence into sending out to the next caffè for a +pitcher of beer. Rose-Black poured himself out one glass and another +till he had emptied the pitcher, conversing affably meanwhile with his +silent host.</p> + +<p>"<i>Why</i> didn't you turn him out of doors?" demanded Mrs. Elmore, as soon +as the painter's departure allowed her to slip from the closed door +behind which she had been imprisoned in her room.</p> + +<p>"I did everything <i>but</i> that," replied her husband, whom this interview +had saddened more than it had angered.</p> + +<p>"You sent out for beer for him!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know but it might make him sick. Really, the thing is +incredible. I think the man is cracked."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>"He is an Englishman, and he thinks he can take any kind of liberty with +us because we are Americans."</p> + +<p>"That seems to be the prevalent impression among all the European +nationalities," said Elmore. "Let's drop him for the present, and try to +be more brutal in the future."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore, so far from dropping him, turned to Lily, who entered at +that moment, and recounted the extraordinary adventure of the morning, +which scarcely needed the embellishment of her fancy; it was not really +a gallon of beer, but a quart, that Mr. Rose-Black had drunk. She +enlarged upon previous aggressions of his, and said finally that they +had to thank Mr. Ferris for his acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"Ferris couldn't help himself," said Elmore. "He apologized to me +afterward. The man got him into a corner. But he warned us about him as +soon he could. And Rose-Black would have made our acquaintance, any way. +I believe he's crazy."</p> + +<p>"I don't see how that helps the matter."</p> + +<p>"It helps to explain it," concluded Elmore, with a sigh. "We can't refer +everything to our being American lambs, and his being a ravening +European wolf."</p> + +<p>"Of course he came round to find out about Lily,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> said Mrs. Elmore. +"The Andersens were a mere blind."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Elmore!" cried Lily in deprecation.</p> + +<p>The bell jangled. "That is the postman," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>There was a home-letter for Lily, and one from Lily's sister enclosed to +Mrs. Elmore. The ladies rent them open, and lost themselves in the +cross-written pages; and neither of them saw the dismay with which +Elmore looked at the handwriting of the envelope addressed to him. His +wife vaguely knew that he had a letter, and meant to ask him for it as +soon as she should have finished her own. When she glanced at him again, +he was staring at the smiling face of Miss Mayhew, as she read her +letter, with the wild regard of one who sees another in mortal peril, +and can do nothing to avert the coming doom, but must dumbly await the +catastrophe.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Owen?" asked his wife in a low voice.</p> + +<p>He started from his trance, and struggled to answer quietly. "I've a +letter here which I suppose I'd better show to you first."</p> + +<p>They rose and went into the next room, Miss Mayhew following them with a +bright, absent look, and then dropping her eyes again to her letter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>Elmore put the note he had received into his wife's hands without a +word.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—My position permitted me to take a woman. I am a soldier, but +I am an engineer—operateous, and I can exercise wherever my +profession in the civil life. I have seen Miss Mayhew, and I have +great sympathie for she. I think I will be lukely with her, if Miss +Mayhew would be of the same intention of me.</p> + +<p>If you believe, Sir, that my open and realy proposition will not +offendere Miss Mayhew, pray to handed to her this note. Pray sir to +excuse me the liberty to fatigue you, and to go over with silence +if you would be of another intention.</p> + +<p class="center">Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">E. von Ehrhardt.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore folded the letter carefully up and returned it to her +husband. If he had perhaps dreaded some triumphant outburst from her, he +ought to have been content with the thoroughly daunted look which she +lifted to his, and the silence in which she suffered him to do justice +to the writer.</p> + +<p>"This is the letter of a gentleman, Celia," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she responded faintly.</p> + +<p>"It puts another complexion on the affair entirely."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why did he wait a whole week?" she added.</p> + +<p>"It is a serious matter with him. He had a right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> to take time for +thinking it over." Elmore looked at the date of the Peschiera postmark, +and then at that of Venice on the back of the envelope. "No, he wrote at +once. This has been kept in the Venetian office, and probably read there +by the authorities."</p> + +<p>His wife did not heed the conjecture. "He began all wrong," she grieved. +"Why couldn't he have behaved sensibly?"</p> + +<p>"We must look at it from another point of view now," replied Elmore. "He +has repaired his error by this letter."</p> + +<p>"No, no; he hasn't."</p> + +<p>"The question is now what to do about the changed situation. This is an +offer of marriage. It comes in the proper way. It's a very sincere and +manly letter. The man has counted the whole cost: he's ready to leave +the army and go to America, if she says so. He's in love. How can she +refuse him?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she isn't in love with him," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Oh! That's true. I hadn't thought of that. Then it's very simple."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know that she isn't," murmured Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Well, ask her."</p> + +<p>"How could <i>she</i> tell?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>"How could she <i>tell</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Do you suppose a child like that can know her own mind in an +instant?"</p> + +<p>"I should think she could."</p> + +<p>"Well, she couldn't. She liked the excitement,—the romanticality of it; +but she doesn't know any more than you or I whether she cares for him. I +don't suppose marriage with anybody has ever seriously entered her head +yet."</p> + +<p>"It will have to do so now," said Elmore firmly. "There's no help for +it."</p> + +<p>"I think the American plan is much better," pouted Mrs. Elmore. "It's +horrid to know that a man's in love with you, and wants to marry you, +from the very start. Of course it makes you hate him."</p> + +<p>"I dare say the American plan is better in this as in most other things. +But we can't discuss abstractions, Celia. We must come down to business. +What are we to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"We must submit the question to her."</p> + +<p>"To that innocent, unsuspecting little thing? Never!" cried Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Then we must decide it, as he seems to expect we may, without reference +to her," said her husband.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>"No, that won't do. Let me think." Mrs. Elmore thought to so little +purpose that she left the word to her husband again.</p> + +<p>"You see we must lay the matter before her."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't—couldn't we let him come to see us awhile? Couldn't we +explain our ways to him, and allow him to pay her attentions without +letting her know about this letter?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he wouldn't understand,—that we couldn't make it clear to +him," said Elmore. "If we invited him to the house he would consider it +as an acceptance. He wants a categorical answer, and he has a right to +it. It would be no kindness to a man with his ideas to take him on +probation. He has behaved honorably, and we're bound to consider him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't think he's done anything so very great," said Mrs. Elmore, +with that disposition we all have to disparage those who put us in +difficulties.</p> + +<p>"He's done everything he could do," said Elmore. "Shall I speak to Miss +Mayhew?"</p> + +<p>"No, you had better let me," sighed his wife. "I suppose we must. But I +think it's horrid! Everything could have gone on so nicely if he hadn't +been so impatient from the beginning. Of course she won't have him now. +She will be scared, and that will be the end of it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>"I think you ought to be just to him, Celia. I can't help feeling for +him. He has thrown himself upon our mercy, and he has a claim to right +and thoughtful treatment."</p> + +<p>"She won't have anything to do with him. You'll see."</p> + +<p>"I shall be very glad of that," Elmore began.</p> + +<p>"<i>Why</i> should you be glad of it?" demanded his wife.</p> + +<p>He laughed. "I think I can safely leave his case in your hands. Don't go +to the other extreme. If she married a German, he would let her black +his boots,—like that general in Munich."</p> + +<p>"Who is talking of marriage?" retorted Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Captain Ehrhardt and I. That's what it comes to; and it can't come to +anything else. I like his courage in writing English, and it's wonderful +how he hammers his meaning into it. 'Lukely' isn't bad, is it? And 'my +position permitted me to take a woman'—I suppose he means that he has +money enough to marry on—is delicious. Upon my word, I have a good deal +of sympathie for he!"</p> + +<p>"For shame, Owen! It's wicked to make fun of his English."</p> + +<p>"My dear, I respect him for writing in English.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> The whole letter is +touchingly brave and fine. Confound him! I wish I had never heard of +him. What does he come bothering across my path for?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't feel that way about it, Owen!" cried his wife. "It's cruel."</p> + +<p>"I don't. I wish to treat him in the most generous manner; after all, it +isn't his fault. But you must allow, Celia, that it's very annoying and +extremely perplexing. <i>We</i> can't make up Miss Mayhew's mind for her. +Even if we found out that she liked him, it would be only the beginning +of our troubles. <i>We've</i> no right to give her away in marriage, or let +her involve her affections here. But be judicious, Celia."</p> + +<p>"It's easy enough to say that!"</p> + +<p>"I'll be back in an hour," said Elmore. "I'm going to the Square. We +mustn't lose time."</p> + +<p>As he passed out through the breakfast-room, Lily was sitting by the +window with her letter in her lap, and a happy smile on her lips. When +he came back she happened to be seated in the same place; she still had +a letter in her lap, but she was smiling no longer; her face was turned +from him as he entered, and he imagined a wistful droop in that corner +of her mouth which showed on her profile.</p> + +<p>But she rose very promptly, and with a heightened color said, "I am +sorry to trouble you to answer an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>other letter for me, Professor Elmore. +I manage my correspondence at home myself, but here it seems to be +different."</p> + +<p>"It needn't be different here, Lily," said Elmore kindly. "You can +answer all the letters you receive in just the way you like. We don't +doubt your discretion in the least. We will abide by any decision of +yours, on any point that concerns yourself."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," replied the girl; "but in this case I think you had better +write." She kept slipping Ehrhardt's letter up and down between her +thumb and finger against the palm of her left hand, and delayed giving +it to him, as if she wished him to say something first.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you and Celia have talked the matter over?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And I hope you have determined upon the course you are going to take, +quite uninfluenced?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite so."</p> + +<p>"I feel bound to tell you," said Elmore, "that this gentleman has now +done everything that we could expect of him, and has fully atoned for +any error he committed in making your acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand that. Mrs. Elmore thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> he might have written +because he saw he had gone too far, and couldn't think of any other way +out of it."</p> + +<p>"That occurred to me, too, though I didn't mention it. But we're bound +to take the letter on its face, and that's open and honorable. Have you +made up your mind?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you wish for delay? There is no reason for haste."</p> + +<p>"There's no reason for delay, either," said the girl. Yet she did not +give up the letter, or show any signs of intending to terminate the +interview. "If I had had more experience, I should know how to act +better; but I must do the best I can, without the experience. I think +that even in a case like this we should try to do right, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, above all other cases," said Elmore, with a laugh.</p> + +<p>She flushed in recognition of her absurdity. "I mean that we oughtn't to +let our feelings carry us away. I saw so many girls carried away by +their feelings, when the first regiments went off, that I got a horror +of it. I think it's wicked: it deceives both; and then you don't know +how to break the engagement afterward."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>"You're quite right, Lily," said Elmore, with a rising respect for the +girl.</p> + +<p>"Professor Elmore, can you believe that, with all the attentions I've +had, I've never seriously thought of getting married as the end of it +all?" she asked, looking him freely in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand it,—no man could, I suppose,—but I do believe it. +Mrs. Elmore has often told me the same thing."</p> + +<p>"And this—letter—it—means marriage."</p> + +<p>"That and nothing else. The man who wrote it would consider himself +cruelly wronged if you accepted his attentions without the distinct +purpose of marrying him."</p> + +<p>She drew a deep breath. "I shall have to ask you to write a refusal for +me." But still she did not give him the letter.</p> + +<p>"Have you made up your mind to that?"</p> + +<p>"I can't make up my mind to anything else."</p> + +<p>Elmore walked unhappily back and forth across the room. "I have seen +something of international marriages since I've been in Europe," he +said. "Sometimes they succeed; but generally they're wretched failures. +The barriers of different race, language, education, religion,—they're +terrible barriers. It's very hard for a man and woman to understand +each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> other at the best; with these differences added, it's almost a +hopeless case."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that's what Mrs. Elmore said."</p> + +<p>"And suppose you were married to an Austrian officer stationed in Italy. +You would have <i>no</i> society outside of the garrison. Every other human +creature that looked at you would hate you. And if you were ordered to +some of those half barbaric principalities,—Moldavia or Wallachia, or +into Hungary or Bohemia,—everywhere your husband would be an instrument +for the suppression of an alien or disaffected population. What a fate +for an American girl!"</p> + +<p>"If he were good," said the girl, replying in the abstract, "she needn't +care."</p> + +<p>"If he were good, you needn't care. No. And he might leave the Austrian +service, and go with you to America, as he hints. What could he do +there? He might get an appointment in our army, though that's not so +easy now; or he might go to Patmos, and live upon your friends till he +found something to do in civil life."</p> + +<p>Lily began a laugh. "Why, Professor Elmore, <i>I</i> don't want to marry him! +What in the world are you arguing with me for?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I oughtn't to let these +considerations weigh as a feather in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> balance if you are at all—at +all—ahem! excuse me!—attached to him. That, of course, outweighs +everything else."</p> + +<p>"But I'm <i>not</i>!" cried the girl "How <i>could</i> I be? I've only met him +twice. It would be perfectly ridiculous. I <i>know</i> I'm not. I ought to +know that if I know anything."</p> + +<p>Years afterward it occurred to Elmore, when he awoke one night, and his +mind without any reason flew back to this period in Venice, that she +might have been referring the point to him for decision. But now it only +seemed to him that she was adding force to her denial; and he observed +nothing hysterical in the little laugh she gave.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I'll write now, if you will +give me his letter."</p> + +<p>She put it behind her. "Professor Elmore," she said, "I am not going to +have you think that he ever behaved in the least presumingly. And +whatever you think of me, I must tell you that I suppose I talked very +freely with him,—just as freely, as I should with an American. I didn't +know any better. He was very interesting, and I was homesick, and so +glad to see any one who could speak English. I suppose I was a goose; +but I felt very far away from all my friends, and I was grateful for +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> kindness. Even if he had never written this last letter, I should +always have said that he was a true gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"That is all. I can't have him treated as if he were an adventurer."</p> + +<p>"You want him dismissed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"A man can't distinguish as to the terms of a dismissal. They're always +insolent,—more insolent than ever if you try to make them kindly. I +should merely make this as short and sharp as possible."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said breathlessly, as if the idea affected her respiration.</p> + +<p>"But I will show it to you, and I won't send it without your approval."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. But I shall not want to see it. I'd rather not." She was +going out of the room.</p> + +<p>"Will you leave me his letter? You can have it again."</p> + +<p>She turned red in giving it him. "I forgot. Why, it's written to you, +anyway!" she cried, with a laugh, and put the letter on the table.</p> + +<p>The two doors opened and closed: one excluded Lily, and the other +admitted Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Owen, I approve of all you said, except that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> about the form of the +refusal. I will read what you say. I intend that it <i>shall</i> be made +kindly."</p> + +<p>"Very well. I'll copy a letter of yours, or write from your dictation."</p> + +<p>"No; you write it, and I'll criticise it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you talk as if I were eager to write the letter! Can't you imagine +it's being a very painful thing to me?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"It didn't seem to be so before."</p> + +<p>"Why, the situation wasn't the same before he wrote this letter!"</p> + +<p>"I don't see how. He was as much in earnest then as he is now, and you +had no pity for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my goodness!" cried Elmore desperately. "Don't you see the +difference? He hadn't given any proof before"—</p> + +<p>"Oh, proof, proof! You men are always wanting proof! What better proof +could he have given than the way he followed her about? Proof, indeed! I +suppose you'd like to have Lily prove that she doesn't care for him!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Elmore sadly, "I should like very much to have her prove +it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you won't get her to. What makes you think she does?"</p> + +<p>"I don't. Do you?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>"N-o," answered Mrs. Elmore reluctantly.</p> + +<p>"Celia, Celia, you will drive me mad if you go on in this way! The girl +has told me, over and over, that she wishes him dismissed. Why do you +think she doesn't?"</p> + +<p>"I don't. Who hinted such a thing? But I don't want you to <i>enjoy</i> doing +it."</p> + +<p>"<i>Enjoy</i> it? So you think I enjoy it! What do you suppose I'm made of? +Perhaps you think I enjoyed catechizing the child about her feelings +toward him? Perhaps you think I enjoy the whole confounded affair? Well, +I give it up. I will let it go. If I can't have your full and hearty +support, I'll let it go. I'll do nothing about it."</p> + +<p>He threw Ehrhardt's letter on the table, and went and sat down by the +window. His wife took the letter up and read it over. "Why, you see he +asks you to pass it over in silence if you don't consent."</p> + +<p>"Does he?" asked Elmore. "I hadn't noticed that."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you'd better read some of your letters, Owen, before you answer +them!"</p> + +<p>"Really, I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the letter was written to +me at all. I thought it was to Lily, and she had got to thinking so too. +Well, then, I won't do anything about it." He drew a breath of relief.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "he asked that so as to leave himself +some hope if he should happen to meet her again."</p> + +<p>"And we don't wish him to have any hope."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore was silent.</p> + +<p>"Celia," cried her husband indignantly, "I can't have you playing fast +and loose with me in this matter!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I may have time to think?" she retorted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you will tell me what you <i>do</i> think; but that I <i>must</i> know. +It's a thing too vital in its consequences for me to act without your +full concurrence. I won't take another step in it till I know just how +far you have gone with me. If I may judge of what this man's influence +upon Lily would be by the fact that he has brought us to the verge of +the only real quarrel we've ever had"—</p> + +<p>"Who's quarrelling, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore meekly. "I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Well, well! we won't dispute about that. I want to know whether you +thought with me that it was improper for him to address her in the car?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And still more improper for him to join you in the street?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>"Yes. But he was very gentlemanly."</p> + +<p>"No matter about that. You were just as much annoyed as I was by his +letter to her?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know about annoyed. It scared me."</p> + +<p>"Very well. And you approved of my answering it as I did?"</p> + +<p>"I had nothing to do with it. I thought you were acting conscientiously. +I'll say that much."</p> + +<p>"You've got to say more. You have got to say you approved of it; for you +know you did."</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>approved</i> of it? Yes!"</p> + +<p>"That's all I want. Now I agree with you that if we pass this letter in +silence, it will leave him with some hope. You agree with me that in a +marriage between an American girl and an Austrian officer the chances +would be ninety-nine to a hundred against her happiness at the best."</p> + +<p>"There are a great many unhappy marriages at home," said Mrs. Elmore +impartially.</p> + +<p>"That isn't the point, Celia, and you know it. The point is whether you +believe the chances are for or against her in such a marriage. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Do I what?"</p> + +<p>"Agree with me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I say they <i>might</i> be <i>very</i> happy. I shall always say that."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>Elmore flung up his hands in despair. "Well, then, say what shall be +done now."</p> + +<p>This was perhaps just what Mrs. Elmore did not choose to say. She was +silent a long time,—so long that Elmore said, "But there's really no +haste about it," and took some notes of his history out of a drawer, and +began to look them over, with his back turned to her.</p> + +<p>"I never knew anything so heartless!" she cried. "Owen, this <i>must</i> be +attended to at once! I can't have it hanging over me any longer. It will +make me sick."</p> + +<p>He turned abruptly round, and, seating himself at the table, wrote a +note, which he pushed across to her. It acknowledged the receipt of +Captain von Ehrhardt's letter, and expressed Miss Mayhew's feeling that +there was nothing in it to change her wish that the acquaintance should +cease. In after years, the terms of this note did not always appear to +Elmore wisely chosen or humanely considered; but he stood at bay, and he +struck mercilessly. In spite of the explicit concurrence of both Miss +Mayhew and his wife, he felt as if they were throwing wholly upon him a +responsibility whose fearfulness he did not then realize. Even in his +wife's "Send it!" he was aware of a subtile reservation on her part.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore and Lily again rose buoyantly from the conclusive event, but +he succumbed to it. For the delicate and fastidious invalid, keeping his +health evenly from day to day upon the condition of a free and peaceful +mind, the strain had been too much. He had a bad night, and the next day +a gastric trouble declared itself which kept him in bed half the week, +and left him very weak and tremulous. His friends did not forget him +during this time. Hoskins came regularly to see him, and supplied his +place at the table d'hôte of the Danieli, going to and fro with the +ladies, and efficiently protecting them from the depredations of the +Austrian soldiery. From Mr. Rose-Black he could not protect them; and +both the ladies amused Elmore with a dramatization of how the Englishman +had boldly outwitted them, and trampled all their finessing under foot, +by simply walking up to them in the reading-room, and saying, "This is +Miss Mayhew, I suppose," and putting himself at once on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the footing of +an old family friend. They read to Elmore, and they put his papers in +order, so that he did not know where to find anything when he got well; +but they always came home from the hotel with some lively gossip, and +this he liked. They professed to recognize an anxiety on the part of Mr. +Andersen's aunt that his mind should not be diverted from the civil +service in India by thoughts of young American ladies; but she sent some +delicacies to Elmore, and one day she even came to call with her nephew, +in extreme reluctance and anxiety as they pretended to him.</p> + +<p>The next afternoon the young man called alone, and Elmore, who was now +on foot, received him in the parlor, before the ladies came in. Mr. +Andersen had a bunch of flowers in one hand, and a small wooden box +containing a little turtle on a salad-leaf in the other; the poor +animals are sold in the Piazza at Venice for souvenirs of the city, and +people often carry them away. Elmore took the offerings simply, as he +took everything in life, and interpreted them as an expression, however +odd, of Mr. Andersen's sympathy with his recent sufferings, of which he +gave him some account; but he practised a decent self-denial, here, and +they were already talking of the weather when the ladies appeared. He +hastened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> exhibit the tokens of Mr. Andersen's kind remembrance, and +was mystified by the young man's confusion, and the impatient, almost +contemptuous, air with which his wife listened to him. Hoskins came in +at that moment to ask about Elmore's health, and showed the hostile +civility to Andersen which young men use toward each other in the +presence of ladies; and then, seeing that the latter had secured the +place at Miss Mayhew's side on the sofa, he limped to the easy chair +near Mrs. Elmore, and fell into talk with her about Rose-Black's +pictures, which he had just seen. They were based upon an endeavor to +trace the moral principles believed by Mr. Ruskin to underlie Venetian +art, and they were very queer, so Hoskins said; he roughly sketched an +idea of some of them on a block he took from his pocket.</p> + +<p>Mr. Andersen and Lily went out upon one of the high-railed balconies +that overhung the canal, and stood there, with their backs to the +others. She seemed to be listening, with averted face, while he, with +his cheek leaning upon one hand and his elbow resting on the balcony +rail, kept a pensive attitude after they had apparently ceased to speak. +Something in their pose struck the sculptor's fancy, and he made a hasty +sketch of them, and was showing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> it to the Elmores when Lily suddenly +descended into the room again, and, saying something about its being +quite dark, went out, and left Mr. Andersen to make his adieux to the +others. He startled them by saying that he was to set off for India in +the morning, and he went away very melancholy.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Hoskins, thoughtfully retouching his sketch, +"that I should feel very lively about going out to India myself."</p> + +<p>"He seems to be a very affectionate young fellow," observed Elmore, "and +I've no doubt he will feel the separation from his friends. But I really +don't know why he should have brought me a bouquet, and a small turtle +in a box, on the eve of his departure."</p> + +<p>"What?" cried Hoskins, with a rude guffaw; and when Elmore had showed +his gifts, Hoskins threw back his head and laughed indecently. His +behavior nettled Elmore, and it sent Mrs. Elmore prematurely out of the +room; for, not content with his explosions of laughter, he continued for +some time to amuse himself by touching up with the point of his pencil +the tail of the turtle which he had turned out of its box upon the +table. At Mrs. Elmore's withdrawal he stopped, and presently said +good-night rather soberly.</p> + +<p>Then she returned. "Owen," she asked sadly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> "did you really think these +flowers and that turtle were for you?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know whether I wouldn't almost rather it had been a joke. +I believe that I would rather despise your heart than your head. Why +should Mr. Andersen bring <i>you</i> flowers and a turtle?"</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"They were for Lily! And your mistake has added another pang to the poor +young fellow's suffering. She has just refused him," she said; and as +Elmore continued to glare blankly at her, she added: "She was refusing +him there on the balcony while that disgusting Mr. Hoskins was sketching +them; and he had his hand up, that way, because he was crying."</p> + +<p>"This is horrible, Celia!" cried Elmore. The scent of the flowers lying +on the table seemed to choke him; the turtle clawing about on the smooth +surface looked demoniacal. "Why——"</p> + +<p>"Now, don't ask me why she refused him, Owen. Of course she couldn't +care for a boy like that. But he can't realize it, and it's just as +miserable for him as if he were a thousand years old."</p> + +<p>Elmore hung his head. "It was all a mistake. But how should I know any +better? I am a straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>forward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care +that has been thrown upon me. It's more than I can bear. No, I'm <i>not</i> +fit for it!" he cried at last; and his wife, seeing him so crushed, now +said something to console him.</p> + +<p>"I know you're not. I see it more and more. But I know that you will do +the best you can, and that you will always act from a good motive. Only +<i>do</i> try to be more on your guard."</p> + +<p>"I will—I will," he answered humbly.</p> + +<p>He had a temptation, the next time he visited Hoskins, to tell him the +awful secret, and to see how the situation of that night, with this +lurid light upon it, affected him: it could do poor Andersen, now on his +way to India, no harm. He yielded to his temptation, at the same time +that he confessed his own blunder about the flowers.</p> + +<p>Hoskins whistled. "I tell you what," he said, after a long pause, "there +are some things in history that I never could realize,—like Mary, Queen +of Scots, for instance, putting on her best things, and stepping down +into the front parlor of that castle to have her head off. But a thing +like this, happening on your own balcony, <i>helps</i> you to realize it."</p> + +<p>"It helps you to realize it," assented Elmore, deeply oppressed by the +tragic parallel.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>"He's just beginning to feel it about now," said Hoskins, with strange +<i>sang froid</i>. "I reckon it's a good deal like being shot. I didn't fully +appreciate my little hit under a couple of days. Then I began to find +out that something had happened. Look here," he added, "I want to show +you something;" and he pulled the wet cloth off a breadth of clay which +he had set up on a board stayed against the wall. It was a bas-relief +representing a female figure advancing from the left corner over a +stretch of prairie towards a bulk of forest on the right; bison, bear, +and antelope fled before her; a lifted hand shielded her eyes; a star +lit the fillet that bound her hair.</p> + +<p>"That's the best thing you've done, Hoskins," said Elmore. "What do you +call it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't settled yet. I <i>have</i> thought of 'Westward the Star of +Empire,' but that's rather long; and I've thought of 'American +Enterprise.' I ain't in any hurry to name it. You like it, do you?"</p> + +<p>"I like it immensely!" cried Elmore. "You must let me bring the ladies +to see it."</p> + +<p>"Well, not just yet," said the sculptor, in some confusion. "I want to +get it a little further along first."</p> + +<p>They stood looking together at the figure; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> when Elmore went away he +puzzled himself about something in it,—he could not tell exactly what. +He thought he had seen that face and figure before, but this is what +often occurs to the connoisseur of modern sculpture. His mind heavily +reverted to Lily and her suitors. Take her in one way, especially in her +subordination to himself, the girl was as simply a child as any in the +world,—good-hearted, tender, and sweet, and, as he could see, without +tendency to flirtation. Take her in another way, confront her with a +young and marriageable man, and Elmore greatly feared that she +unconsciously set all her beauty and grace at work to charm him; another +life seemed to inform her, and irradiate from her, apart from which she +existed simple and childlike still. In the security of his own deposited +affections, it appeared to him cruelly absurd that a passion which any +other pretty girl might, and some other pretty girl in time must, have +kindled, should cling, when once awakened, so inalienably to the pretty +girl who had, in a million chances, chanced to awaken it. He wondered +how much of this constancy was natural, and how much merely attributive +and traditional, and whether human happiness or misery were increased by +it on the whole.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p>In the respite which followed the dismissal of Andersen, the English +painter, Rose-Black, visited the Elmores as often as the servant, who +had orders in his case to say that they were <i>impediti</i>, failed of her +duty. They could not always escape him at the caffè, and they would have +left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had +driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances, +instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more +offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem; +he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the +London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of +his compatriots, that we were going to the dogs.</p> + +<p>"What do you really make of him, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore, after an +evening that, in its improbable discomfort, had passed quite like a +nightmare.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've been thinking a good deal about him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> I have been wondering +if, in his phenomenal way, he is not a final expression of the national +genius,—the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the tacit denial +of the rights of any people who are at English mercy; the assumption +that the courtesies and decencies of life are for use exclusively +towards Englishmen."</p> + +<p>This was in that embittered old war-time: we have since learned how +forbearing and generous and amiable Englishmen are; how they never take +advantage of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or fail in +consideration for those they imagine their superiors; how you have but +to show yourself successful in order to win their respect, and even +affection.</p> + +<p>But for the present Mrs. Elmore replied to her husband's perverted +ideas, "Yes, it must be so," and she supported him in the ineffectual +experiment of deferential politeness, Christian charity, broad humanity, +and savage rudeness upon Rose-Black. It was all one to Rose-Black.</p> + +<p>He took an air of serious protection towards Mrs. Elmore, and often gave +her advice, while he practised an easy gallantry with Lily, and ignored +Elmore altogether. His intimacy was superior to the accidents of their +moods, and their slights and snubs were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> accepted apparently as +interesting expressions of a civilization about which he was insatiably +curious, especially as regarded the relations of young people. There was +no mistaking the fact that Rose-Black in his way had fallen under the +spell which Elmore had learned to dread; but there was nothing to be +done, and he helplessly waited. He saw what must come; and one evening +it came, when Rose-Black, in more than usually offensive patronage, +lolled back upon the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, "About +flirtations, now, in America,—tell me something about flirtations. +We've heard so much about your American flirtations. We only have them +with married ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. Elmore +would think of one."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean," said Lily. "I don't know anything about +flirtations."</p> + +<p>This seemed to amuse Rose-Black as an uncommonly fine piece of American +humor, which was then just beginning to make its way with the English. +"Oh, but come, now, you don't expect me to believe that, you know. If +you won't tell me, suppose you show me what an American flirtation is +like. Suppose we get up a flirtation. How should you begin?"</p> + +<p>The girl rose with a more imposing air than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> Elmore could have imagined +of her stature; but almost any woman can be awful in emergencies. "I +should begin by bidding you good-evening," she answered, and swept out +of the room.</p> + +<p>Elmore felt as if he had been left alone with a man mortally hurt in +combat, and were likely to be arrested for the deed. He gazed with +fascination upon Rose-Black, and wondered to see him stir, and at last +rise, and with some incoherent words to them, get himself away. He dared +not lift his gaze to the man's eyes, lest he should see there some +reflection of the pain that filled his own. He would have gone after +him, and tried to say something in condolence, but he was quite helpless +to move; and as he sat still, gazing at the door through which +Rose-Black disappeared, Mrs. Elmore said quietly:—</p> + +<p>"Well, really, I think that ought to be the last of him. You see, she's +quite able to take care of herself when she knows her ground. You can't +say that she has thrown the brunt of this affair upon you, Owen."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure of that," sighed Elmore. "I think I suffer less when I +do it than when I see it. It's horrible."</p> + +<p>"He deserved it, every bit," returned his wife.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I dare say," Elmore granted. "But the sight even of justice isn't +pleasant, I find."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>"I don't understand you, Owen. How can you care so much for this +impudent wretch's little snub, and yet be so indifferent about refusing +Captain Ehrhardt?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know that I did right, but I +don't know that I could do right under the same circumstances again."</p> + +<p>In fact there were times when Elmore found almost insupportable the +absolute conclusion to which that business had come. It is hard to +believe that anything has come to an end in this world. For a time, +death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied expectation, as if +somehow the interrupted life must go on, and there is no change we make +or suffer which is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If +Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo to which he had been +so inexorably relegated, he might only have restored the original +situation in all its discomfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he +did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a hold upon +Elmore's imagination which deepened because he could not discuss the +matter frankly with his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what was +passing in his thoughts, lest some misconception of hers should turn +them into self-accusal or urge him to some attempt at the reparation +towards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> which he wavered. He really could have done nothing that would +not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating +upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the +incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope +and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the +archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see +these letters again, but he dared not ask for them; and indeed it would +have been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them perfectly well. +Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was characteristic of him, in that safety +from consequences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly +constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her rejected suitor, +whose pain he luxuriously fancied in all its different stages and +degrees. His indolent pity even developed into a sort of self-righteous +abhorrence of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within himself, +and could work no sort of harm. If he never ventured to hint these +feelings to his wife, he was still further from confessing them to Lily; +but once he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well-guarded +generality relating to the different kinds of sensibility developed by +the European and American civilization. A recent suicide for love which +excited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> all Venice at that time—an Austrian officer hopelessly +attached to an Italian girl had shot himself—had suggested their talk, +and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer. They don't look at women +as respectfully as we do, and they mix up so much cabbage with their +romance that you don't know exactly how to take them; and yet here you +find this fellow suffering just as much as a white man because the +girl's folks won't let her have him. In fact, I don't know but he +suffered more than the average American citizen. I think we have a great +deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We respect women more than +any other people, and I think we show them more true politeness; we let +'em have their way more, and get their finger into the pie right along, +and it's right we should: but we don't make fools of ourselves about +them, as a general rule. We know they're awfully nice, and they know we +know it; and it's a perfectly understood thing all round. We've been +used to each other all our lives, and they're just as sensible as we +are. They like a fellow, when they do like him, about as well as any of +'em; but they know he's a man and a brother after all, and he's got ever +so much human nature in him. Well, now, I reckon one of these Dutch +chaps, the first time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> he gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl, +thinks he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl feels just so +about him. Why, it's natural they should,—they've never had any chance +to know any better, and your feelings <i>are</i> apt to get the upper hand of +you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One of 'em goes off and +shoots himself, and the other one feels as if she was never going to get +over it. Well, now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little +business of hers: one of these girls over here would have had her head +completely turned by that adventure; but when she couldn't see her way +exactly clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands by what +you do, as calm as a clock."</p> + +<p>"It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I knew," said Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, "and she sees that as well as +you or I do, and she stands by you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's +got a cool head."</p> + +<p>In his soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsistently wished that her heart +were not equally cool; but he only said, "Yes, she is a good and +sensible girl. I hope the—the—other one is equally resigned."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>he</i>'ll get along," answered Hoskins, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> indifference of one +man for the sufferings of another in such matters. We are able to offer +a brother very little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those unhappy +affairs of the heart which move women to a pretty compassion for a +disappointed sister. A man in love is in no wise interesting to us for +that reason; and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that he +will have better luck next time. It is only here and there that a +sentimentalist like Elmore stops to pity him; and it is not certain that +even he would have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not been the +means of his disappointment. As it was, he came away, feeling that +doubtless Ehrhardt had "got along," and resolved at least to spend no +more unavailing regrets upon him.</p> + +<p>The time passed very quietly now, and if it had not been for Hoskins, +the ladies must have found it dull. He had nothing to do, except as he +made himself occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed on them +the leisure which Elmore could not find. They went everywhere with him, +and saw the city to advantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to +ordinary curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he showed a +pleasure in using such little privileges as his position gave him for +their amusement. He went upon errands for them; he was like a brother, +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> something more than a brother's pliability; he came half the time +to breakfast with them, and was always welcome to all. He had the gift +of extracting comfort from the darkest news about the war; he was a +prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in many hours of +despondency they willingly submitted to the authority of his greater +experience, and took heart again.</p> + +<p>"I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins," said Elmore, on one of +those occasions when the consul was turning defeat into victory. +"There's a streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in your +taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, so far as the judgment of +the world goes, our fortunes are at the lowest ebb just now—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the world is wrong!" interrupted the consul. "Those London papers +are all in the pay of the rebels."</p> + +<p>"I mean that we have no sort of sympathy in Europe; and yet here you +are, embodying in your conception of 'Westward' the arrogant faith of +the days when our destiny seemed universal union and universal dominion. +There is something sublime to me in your treatment of such a work at +such a time. I think an Italian, for instance, if his country were +involved in a life and death struggle like this of ours,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> would have +expressed something of the anxiety and apprehension of the time in it; +but this conception of yours is as serenely undisturbed by the facts of +the war as if secession had taken place in another planet. There is +something Greek in that repose of feeling, triumphant over circumstance. +It is like the calm beauty which makes you forget the anguish of the +Laocoön."</p> + +<p>"Is that so, Professor?" said Hoskins, blushing modestly, as an artist +often must in these days of creative criticism. He seemed to reflect +awhile before he added, "Well, I reckon you're partly right. If we ever +did go to smash, it would take us a whole generation to find it out. We +have all been raised to put so much dependence on Uncle Sam, that if the +old gentleman really did pass in his checks we should only think he was +lying low for a new deal. I never happened to think it out before, but +I'm pretty sure it's so."</p> + +<p>"Your work wouldn't be worth half so much to me if you had 'thought it +out,'" said Elmore. "It's the unconsciousness of the faith that makes +its chief value, as I said before; and there is another thing about it +that interests and pleases me still more."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" asked the sculptor.</p> + +<p>"The instinctive way in which you have given the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> figure an entirely +American quality. There was something very familiar to me in it, the +first time you showed it, but I've only just been able to formulate my +impression: I see now that while the spirit of your conception is Greek, +you have given it, as you ought, the purest American expression. Your +'Westward' is no Hellenic goddess: she is a vivid and self-reliant +American girl."</p> + +<p>At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and seemed not to know where to +look. Mrs. Elmore had the effect of escaping through the door into her +own room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. Hoskins followed +each in turn with a queer glance, and sat a moment in silence. Then he +said, "Well, I reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly, +without offering to take leave of the ladies.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was gone, Lily came in from the balcony, and whipped into +Mrs. Elmore's room, from which she flashed again in swift retreat to her +own, and was seen no more; and then Mrs. Elmore came back, with a +flushed face, to where her husband sat mystified.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said gravely, "I'm afraid you've hurt Mr. Hoskins's +feelings."</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" she asked; and then she burst into a wild cry of +laughter. "O, Owen, Owen! you will kill me yet!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>"Really," he replied with dignity, "I don't see any occasion in what I +said for this extraordinary behavior."</p> + +<p>"Of course you don't, and that's just what makes the fun of it. So you +found something familiar in Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did +you?" she asked. "And you didn't notice anything particular in it?"</p> + +<p>"Particular, particular?" he demanded, beginning to lose his patience at +this.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she exclaimed, "couldn't you see that it was Lily, all over +again?"</p> + +<p>Elmore laughed in turn. "Why, so it is; so it is! That accounts for +everything that puzzled me. I don't wonder my maunderings amused you. It +<i>was</i> ridiculous, to be sure! When in the world did she give him the +sittings, and how did you manage to keep it from me so well?"</p> + +<p>"Owen!" cried his wife, with terrible severity. "You don't think that +Lily would <i>let</i> him put her into it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I supposed—I didn't know—I don't see how he could have done it +unless—"</p> + +<p>"He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. Elmore. "We saw it all +along, but he never 'let on,' as he would say, about it, and we never +meant to say anything, of course."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>"Then," replied Elmore, delighted with the fact, "it has been a purely +unconscious piece of cerebration."</p> + +<p>"Cerebration!" exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more scorn than she knew how +to express. "I should think as much!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not +care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is so +very unphilosophical."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all!" mocked his wife. "It's philosophical to the last +degree. Be as philosophical as you please, Owen; I shall love you still +the same." She came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm round +his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the head. Then she released +him, and left him with another burst of derision.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<p>After this Elmore had such an uncomfortable feeling that he hated to see +Hoskins again, and he was relieved when the sculptor failed to make his +usual call, the next evening. He had not been at dinner either, and he +did not reappear for several days. Then he merely said that he had been +spending the time at Chioggia, with a French painter who was making some +studies down there, and they all took up the old routine of their +friendly life without embarrassment.</p> + +<p>At first it seemed to Elmore that Lily was a little shy of Hoskins, and +he thought that she resented his using her charm in his art; but before +the evening wore away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long +talk about home, and she took her place at the piano and played some of +the war-songs that had begun to supersede the old negro melodies. Then +she wandered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted over the keys, +and ended with "Stop dat knockin',"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> in which Hoskins joined with his +powerful bass in the recitative "Let me in," and Elmore himself had half +a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as she struck the keys with +a final crash, but lingered, as his fashion was when he had something to +propose: if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be liked, he +brought it in as if he had only happened to remember it. He now drew out +a large, square, ceremonious-looking envelope, at which he glanced as +if, after all, he was rather surprised to see it, and said, "Oh, by the +by, Mrs. Elmore, I wish you'd tell me what to do about this thing. +Here's something that's come to me in my official capacity, but it isn't +exactly consular business,—if it was I don't believe I should ask <i>any</i> +lady for instructions,—and I don't know exactly what to do. It's so +long since I corresponded with a princess that I don't even know how to +answer her letter."</p> + +<p>The ladies perhaps feared a hoax of some sort, and would not ask to see +the letter; and then Hoskins recognized his failure to play upon their +curiosity with a laugh, and gave the letter to Mrs. Elmore. It was an +invitation to a mask ball, of which all Venice had begun to speak. A +great Russian lady, who had come to spend the winter in the Lagoons, and +had taken a whole floor at one of the hotels, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> sent out her cards, +apparently to all the available people in the city, for the event which +was to take place a fortnight later. In the mean time, a thrill of +preparation was felt in various quarters, and the ordinary course of +life was interrupted in a way that gave some idea of the old times, when +Venice was the capital of pleasure, and everything yielded there to the +great business of amusement. Mrs. Elmore had found it impossible to get +a pair of fine shoes finished until after the ball; a dress which Lily +had ordered could not be made; their laundress had given notice that for +the present all fluting and quilling was out of the question; one +already heard that the chief Venetian perruquier and his assistants were +engaged for every moment of the forty-eight hours before the ball, and +that whoever had him now must sit up with her hair dressed for two +nights at least. Mrs. Elmore had a fanatical faith in these stories; and +while agreeing with her husband, as a matter of principle, that mask +balls were wrong, and that it was in bad taste for a foreigner to insult +the sorrow of Venice by a festivity of the sort at such a time, she had +secretly indulged longings which the sight of Hoskins's invitation +rendered almost insupportable. Her longings were not for herself, but +for Lily: if she could provide Lily with the experience of a masquerade +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> Venice, she could overpay all the kindnesses that the Mayhews had +ever done her. It was an ambition neither ignoble nor ungenerous, and it +was with a really heroic effort that she silenced it in passing the +invitation to her husband, and simply saying to Hoskins, "Of course you +will go."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," he answered. "That's the point I want some +advice on. You see this document calls for a lady to fill out the bill."</p> + +<p>"Oh," returned Mrs. Elmore, "you will find some Americans at the hotels. +You can take them."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I was thinking, Mrs. Elmore, that I should like to take +you."</p> + +<p>"Take me!" she echoed tremulously. "What an idea! I'm too old to go to +mask balls."</p> + +<p>"You don't look it," suggested Hoskins.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't go," she sighed. "But it's very, very kind."</p> + +<p>Hoskins dropped his head, and gave the low chuckle with which he +confessed any little bit of humbug. "Well, you <i>or</i> Miss Lily."</p> + +<p>Lily had retired to the other side of the room as soon as the parley +about the invitation began. Without asking or seeing, she knew what was +in the note, and now she felt it right to make a feint of not knowing +what Mrs. Elmore meant when she asked, "What do <i>you</i> say, Lily?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>When the question was duly explained to her, she answered languidly, "I +don't know. Do you think I'd better?"</p> + +<p>"I might as well make a clean breast of it, first as last," said +Hoskins. "I thought perhaps Mrs. Elmore might refuse, she's so stiff +about some things,"—here he gave that chuckle of his,—"and so I came +prepared for contingencies. It occurred to me that it mightn't be quite +the thing, and so I went round to the Spanish consul and asked him how +he thought it would do for me to matronize a young lady if I could get +one, and he said he didn't think it would do at all." Hoskins let this +adverse decision sink into the breasts of his listeners before he added: +"But he said that he was going with his wife, and that if we would come +along she could matronize us both. I don't know how it would work," he +concluded impartially.</p> + +<p>They all looked at Elmore, who stood holding the princess's missive in +his hand, and darkly forecasting the chances of consent and denial. At +the first suggestion of the matter, a reckless hope that this ball might +bring Ehrhardt above their horizon again sprang up in his heart, and +became a desperate fear when the whole responsibility of action was, as +usual, left with him. He stood, feeling that Hoskins had used him very ill.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>"I suppose," began Mrs. Elmore very thoughtfully, "that this will be +something quite in the style of the old masquerades under the Republic."</p> + +<p>"Regular Ridotto business, the Spanish consul says," answered Hoskins.</p> + +<p>"It might be very useful to you, Owen," she resumed, "in an historical +way, if Lily were to go and take notes of everything; so that when you +came to that period you could describe its corruptions intelligently."</p> + +<p>Elmore laughed. "I never thought of that, my dear," he said, returning +the invitation to Hoskins. "Your historical sense has been awakened +late, but it promises to be very active. Lily had better go, by all +means, and I shall depend upon her coming home with very full notes upon +her dance-list."</p> + +<p>They laughed at the professor's sarcasm, and Hoskins, having undertaken +to see that the last claims of etiquette were satisfied by getting an +invitation sent to Miss Mayhew through the Spanish consul, went off, and +left the ladies to the discussion of ways and means. Mrs. Elmore said +that of course it was now too late to hope to get anything done, and +then set herself to devise the character that Lily would have appeared +in if there had been time to get her ready, or if all the work-people +had not been so busy that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> was merely frantic to think of anything. +She first patriotically considered her as Columbia, with the customary +drapery of stars and stripes and the cap of liberty. But while holding +that she would have looked very pretty in the dress, Mrs. Elmore decided +that it would have been too hackneyed; and besides, everybody would have +known instantly who it was.</p> + +<p>"Why not have had her go in the character of Mr. Hoskins's 'Westward'?" +suggested Elmore, with lazy irony.</p> + +<p>"The very thing!" cried his wife. "Owen, you deserve great credit for +thinking of that; no one else would have done it! No one will dream what +it means, and it will be great fun, letting them make it out. We must +keep it a dead secret from Mr. Hoskins, and let her surprise him with it +when he comes for her that evening. It will be a very pretty way of +returning his compliment, and it will be a sort of delicate +acknowledgement of his kindness in asking her, and in so many other +ways. Yes, you've hit it exactly, Owen; she shall go as 'Westward.'"</p> + +<p>"Go?" echoed Elmore, who had with difficulty realized the rapid change +of tense. "I thought you said you couldn't get her ready."</p> + +<p>"We must manage somehow," replied Mrs. Elmore. And somehow a shoemaker +for the sandals, a seam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>stress for the delicate flowing draperies, a +hair-dresser for the adjustment of the young girl's rebellious abundance +of hair beneath the star-lit fillet, were actually found,—with the help +of Hoskins, as usual, though he was not suffered to know anything of the +character to whose make-up he contributed. The perruquier, a personage +of lordly address naturally, and of a dignity heightened by the demand +in which he found himself came early in the morning, and was received by +Elmore with a self-possession that ill-comported with the solemnity of +the occasion. "Sit down," said Elmore easily, pushing him a chair. "The +ladies will be here presently."</p> + +<p>"But I have no time to sit down, signore!" replied the artist, with an +imperious bow, "and the ladies must be here instantly."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore always said that if she had not heard this conversation, and +hurried in at once, the perruquier would have left them at that point. +But she contrived to appease him by the manifestation of an intelligent +sympathy; she made Lily leave her breakfast untasted, and submit her +beautiful head to the touch of this man, with whom it was but a head of +hair and nothing more; and in an hour the work was done. The artist +whisked away the cloth which covered her shoulders, and crying, +"Behold!" bowed splendidly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> to the spectators, and without waiting for +criticism or suggestion, took his napoleon and went his way. All that +day the work of his skill was sacredly guarded, and the custodian of the +treasure went about with her head on her shoulders, as if it had been +temporarily placed in her keeping, and were something she was not at all +used to taking care of. More than once Mrs. Elmore had to warn her +against sinister accidents. "Remember, Lily," she said, "that if +anything <i>did</i> happen, <span class="smcap">nothing</span> could be done to save you!" In spite of +himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the depths of his wonted +studies he found himself pursued and harassed by vague apprehensions, +which upon analysis proved to be fears for Miss Lily's hair. It was a +great moment when the robe came home—rather late—from the +dressmaker's, and was put on over Lily's head; but from this thrilling +rite Elmore was of course excluded, and only knew of it afterwards by +hearsay. He did not see her till she came out just before Hoskins +arrived to fetch her away, when she appeared radiantly perfect in her +dress, and in the air with which she meant to carry it off. At Mrs. +Elmore's direction she paraded dazzlingly up and down the room a number +of times, bending over to see how her dress hung, as she walked. Mrs. +Elmore, with her head on one side, scru<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>tinized her in every detail, and +Elmore regarded her young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as +her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh, which made the others +laugh, recalled him to himself, as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. +He was received in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from one to the +other with his queer, knowing smile, and took in the whole affair +without a word.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a pretty idea?" said Mrs. Elmore. "Studied from an antique +bas-relief, or just the same as an antique,—full of the anguish and the +repose of the Laocoön."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Elmore," said the sculptor, "you're too many for me. I reckon the +procession had better start before I make a fool of myself. Well!" This +was all Hoskins could say; but it sufficed. The ladies declared +afterwards that if he had added a word more, it would have spoiled it. +They had expected him to go to the ball in the character of a miner +perhaps, or in that of a trapper of the great plains; but he had chosen +to appear more naturally as a courtier of the time of Louis XIV. "When +you go in for a disguise," he explained, "you can't make it too +complete; and I consider that this limp of mine adds the last touch."</p> + +<p>"It's no use to sit up for them," Mrs. Elmore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> said, when she and her +husband had come in from calling good wishes and last instructions after +them from the balcony, as their gondola pushed away. "We sha'n't see +anything more of <i>them</i> till morning. Now this," she added, "is +something like the gayety that people at home are always fancying in +Europe. Why, I can remember when I used to imagine that American +tourists figured brilliantly in <i>salons</i> and <i>conversazioni</i>, and spent +their time in masking and throwing <i>confetti</i> in carnival, and going to +balls and opera. I didn't know what American tourists were, then, and +how dismally they moped about in hotels and galleries and churches. And +I didn't know how stupid Europe was socially,—how perfectly dead and +buried it was, especially for young people. It would be fun if things +happened so that Lily never found it out! I don't think two offers +already,—or three, if you count Rose-Black,—are very bad for <i>any</i> +girl; and now this ball, coming right on top of it, where she will see +hundreds of handsome officers! Well, she'll never miss Patmos, at this +rate, will she?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps she had better never have left Patmos," suggested Elmore +gravely.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean, Owen," said his wife, as if hurt.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>"I mean that it's a great pity she should give herself up to the same +frivolous amusements here that she had there. The only good that Europe +can do American girls who travel here is to keep them in total exile +from what they call a good time,—from parties and attentions and +flirtations; to force them, through the hard discipline of social +deprivation, to take some interest in the things that make for +civilization,—in history, in art, in humanity."</p> + +<p>"Now, there I differ with you, Owen. I think American girls are the +nicest girls in the world, just as they are. And I don't see any harm in +the things you think are so awful. You've lived so long here among your +manuscripts that you've forgotten there is any such time as the present. +If you are getting so Europeanized, I think the sooner we go home the +better."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> getting Europeanized!" began Elmore indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Europeanized! And I don't want you to be so severe with Lily, +Owen. The child stands in terror of you now; and if you keep on in this +way, she can't draw a natural breath in the house."</p> + +<p>There is always something flattering, at first, to a gentle and +peaceable man in the notion of being terrible to any one; Elmore melted +at these words,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> and at the fear that he might have been, in some way +that he could not think of, really harsh.</p> + +<p>"I should be very sorry to distress her," he began.</p> + +<p>"Well, you haven't distressed her yet," his wife relented. "Only you +must be careful not to. She was going to be very circumspect, Owen, on +your account, for she really appreciates the interest you take in her, +and I think she sees that it won't do to be at all free with strangers +over here. This ball will be a great education for Lily,—a <i>great</i> +education. I'm going to commence a letter to Sue about her costume, and +all that, and leave it open to finish up when Lily gets home."</p> + +<p>When she went to bed, she did not sleep till after the time when the +girl ought to have come; and when she awoke to a late breakfast, Lily +had still not returned. By eleven o'clock she and Elmore had passed the +stage of accusing themselves, and then of accusing each other, for +allowing Lily to go in the way they had; and had come to the question of +what they had better do, and whether it was practicable to send to the +Spanish consulate and ask what had become of her. They had resigned +themselves to waiting for one half-hour longer, when they heard her +voice at the water-gate, gayly forbidding Hoskins to come up; and +running out upon the balcony, Mrs. Elmore had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> a glimpse of the +courtier, very tawdry by daylight, re-entering his gondola, and had only +time to turn about when Lily burst laughing into the room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't look at me, Professor Elmore!" she cried. "I'm literally +danced to rags!"</p> + +<p>Her dress and hair were splashed with drippings from the wax candles; +she was wildly decorated with favors from the German, and one of these +had been used to pin up a rent which the spur of a hussar had made in +her robe; her hair had escaped from its fastenings during the night, and +in putting it back she had broken the star in her fillet; it was now +kept in place by a bit of black-and-yellow cord which an officer had +lent her. "He said he should claim it of me the first time we met," she +exclaimed excitedly. "Why, Professor Elmore," she implored with a laugh, +"don't look at me <i>so</i>!"</p> + +<p>Grief and indignation were in his heart. "You look like the spectre of +last night," he said with dreamy severity, and as if he saw her merely +as a vision.</p> + +<p>"Why, that's the way I <i>feel</i>!" she answered; and with a reproachful +"Owen!" his wife followed her flight to her room.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<p>Elmore went out for a long walk, from which he returned disconsolate at +dinner. He was one of those people, common enough in our Puritan +civilization, who would rather forego any pleasure than incur the +reaction which must follow with all the keenness of remorse; and he +always mechanically pitied (for the operation was not a rational one) +such unhappy persons as he saw enjoying themselves. But he had not meant +to add bitterness to the anguish which Lily would necessarily feel in +retrospect of the night's gayety; he had not known that he was +recognizing, by those unsparing words of his, the nervous misgivings in +the girl's heart. He scarcely dared ask, as he sat down at table with +Mrs. Elmore alone, whether Lily were asleep.</p> + +<p>"Asleep?" she echoed, in a low tone of mystery. "I hope so."</p> + +<p>"Celia, Celia!" he cried in despair. "What shall I do? I feel terribly +at what I said to her."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>"Sh! At what you said to her? Oh yes! Yes, that was cruel. But there is +so much else, poor child, that I had forgotten that."</p> + +<p>He let his plate of soup stand untasted. "Why—why," he faltered, +"didn't she enjoy herself?" And a historian of Venice, whose mind should +have been wholly engaged in philosophizing the republic's difficult +past, hung abjectly upon the question whether a young girl had or had +not had a good time at a ball.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Oh, yes! She <i>enjoyed</i> herself—if that's all you require," +replied his wife. "Of course she wouldn't have stayed so late if she +hadn't enjoyed herself."</p> + +<p>"No," he said in a tone which he tried to make leading; but his wife +refused to be led by indirect methods. She ate her soup, but in a manner +to carry increasing bitterness to Elmore with every spoonful.</p> + +<p>"Come, Celia!" he cried at last, "tell me what has happened. You know +how wretched this makes me. Tell me it, whatever it is. Of course, I +must know it in the end. Are there any new complications?"</p> + +<p>"No <i>new</i> complications," said his wife, as if resenting the word. "But +you make such a bugbear of the least little matter that there's no +encouragement to tell you anything."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," he retorted, "I haven't made a bugbear of this."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>"You haven't had the opportunity." This was so grossly unjust that +Elmore merely shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. When it +finally appeared that he was not going to ask anything more, his wife +added: "If you could listen, like any one else, and not interrupt with +remarks that distort all one's ideas"—Then, as he persisted in his +silence, she relented still further. "Why, of course, as you say, you +will have to know it in the end. But I can tell you, to begin with, +Owen, that it's nothing you can do anything about, or take hold of in +any way. Whatever it is, it's done and over; so it needn't distress you +at all."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I've known some things done and over that distressed me a great +deal," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"The princess wasn't so very young, after all," said Mrs. Elmore, as if +this had been the point in dispute, "but very fat and jolly, and very +kind. She wasn't in costume; but there was a young countess with her, +helping receive, who appeared as Night,—black tulle, you know, with +silver stars. The princess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily,—the +Russians always <i>have</i> sympathized with us in the war,—and all the time +she wasn't dancing, the princess kept her by her, holding her hand and +patting it. The officers—hundreds of them, in their white uniforms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> and +those magnificent hussar dresses—were very obsequious to the princess, +and Lily had only too many partners. She says you can't imagine how +splendid the scene was, with all those different costumes, and the rooms +a perfect blaze of waxlights; the windows were battened, so that you +couldn't tell when it came daylight, and she hadn't any idea how the +time was passing. They were not all in masks; and there didn't seem to +be any regular hour for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper +was, but she thinks it must have been towards morning. She says Mr. +Hoskins got on capitally, and everybody seemed to like him, he was so +jolly and good-natured; and when they found out that he had been wounded +in the war, they made quite a belle of him, as he called it. The +princess made a point of introducing all the officers to Lily that came +up after they unmasked. They paid her the greatest attention, and you +can easily see that she was the prettiest girl there."</p> + +<p>"I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, with magnanimous pride +in the loveliness that had made him so much trouble. "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, they couldn't any of them get the hang, as Mr. Hoskins said, of +the character she came in, for a good while; but when they did, they +thought it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> the best idea there: and it was all <i>your</i> idea, Owen," +said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride that he knew she must +now be approaching the difficult passage of her narration. "It was so +perfectly new and unconventional. She got on very well speaking Italian +with the officers, for she knew as much of it as they did."</p> + +<p>Here Mrs. Elmore paused, and glanced hesitatingly at her husband. "They +only made one little mistake; but that was at the beginning, and they +soon got over it." Elmore suffered, but he did not ask what it was, and +his wife went on with smooth caution. "Lily thought it was just as it is +at home, and she mustn't dance with any one unless they had been +introduced. So after the first dance with the Spanish consul, as her +escort, a young officer came up and asked her; and she refused, for she +thought it was a great piece of presumption. Afterwards the princess +told her she could dance with any one, introduced or not, and so she +did; and pretty soon she saw this first officer looking at her very +angrily, and going about speaking to others and glancing toward her. She +felt badly about it, when she saw how it was; and she got Mr. Hoskins to +go and speak to him. Mr. Hoskins asked him if he spoke English, and the +officer said No; and it seems that he didn't know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> Italian either, and +Mr. Hoskins tried him in Spanish,—he picked up a little in New +Mexico,—but the officer didn't understand it; and all at once it +occurred to Mr. Hoskins to say, 'Parlez-vous Français?' and says the +officer instantly, 'Oui, monsieur.'"</p> + +<p>"Of course the man knew French. He ought to have tried him with that in +the beginning. What did Hoskins say then?" asked Elmore impatiently.</p> + +<p>"He didn't say anything: that was all the French he knew."</p> + +<p>Elmore broke into a cry of laughter, and laughed on and on with the wild +excess of a sad man when once he unpacks his heart in that way. His wife +did not, perhaps, feel the absurdity as keenly as he, but she gladly +laughed with him, for it smoothed her way to have him in this humor. +"Mr. Hoskins just took him by the arm, and said, 'Here! you come along +with me,' and led him up to the princess, where Lily was sitting; and +when the princess had explained to him, Lily rose, and mustered up +enough French to say, 'Je vous prie, monsieur, de danser avec moi,' and +after that they were the greatest friends."</p> + +<p>"That was very pretty in her; it was sovereignly gracious," said Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if an American girl is left to manage for herself she can <i>always</i> +manage!" cried Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>"Well, and what else?" asked her husband.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> don't know that it amounts to anything," said Mrs. Elmore; but +she did not delay further.</p> + +<p>It appeared from what she went on to say that in the German, which began +not long after midnight, there was a figure fancifully called the +symphony, in which musical toys were distributed among the dancers in +pairs; the possessor of a small pandean pipe, or tin horn, went about +sounding it, till he found some lady similarly equipped, when he +demanded her in the dance. In this way a tall mask, to whom a penny +trumpet had fallen, was stalking to and fro among the waltzers, blowing +the silly plaything with a disgusted air, when Lily, all unconscious of +him, where she sat with her hand in that of her faithful princess, +breathed a responsive note. The mask was instantly at her side, and she +was whirling away in the waltz. She tried to make him out, but she had +already danced with so many people that she was unable to decide whether +she had seen this mask before. He was not disguised except by the little +visor of black silk, coming down to the point of his nose; his blond +whiskers escaped at either side, and his blond moustache swept beneath, +like the whiskers and moustaches of fifty other officers present, and he +did not speak. This was a permissible caprice of his,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> but if she were +resolved to make him speak, this also was a permissible caprice. She +made a whole turn of the room in studying up the Italian sentence with +which she assailed him: "Perdoni, Maschera; ma cosa ha detto? Non ho ben +inteso."</p> + +<p>"Speak English, Mask," came the reply. "I did not say anything." It came +certainly with a German accent, and with a foreigner's deliberation; but +it came at once, and clearly.</p> + +<p>The English astonished her, and somehow it daunted her, for the mask +spoke very gravely; but she would not let him imagine that he had put +her down, and she rejoined laughingly, "Oh, I knew that you hadn't +spoken, but I thought I would make you."</p> + +<p>"You think you can make one do what you will?" asked the mask.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. I don't think I could make you tell me who you are, though I +should like to make you."</p> + +<p>"And why should you wish to know me? If you met me in Piazza, you would +not recognize my salutation."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" demanded Lily. "I don't know what you mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is understood yet already," answered the mask. "Your compatriot, +with whom you live, wishes to be well seen by the Italians, and he would +not let you bow to an Austrian."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>"That is not so," exclaimed Lily indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Professor Elmore wouldn't be so mean; and if he would, <i>I</i> shouldn't." +She was frightened, but she felt her spirit rising, too. "You seem to +know so well who I am: do you think it is fair for you to keep me in +ignorance?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot remain masked without your leave. Shall I unmask? Do you +insist?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," she replied. "You will have to unmask at supper, and then I +shall see you. I'm not impatient. I prefer to keep you for a mystery."</p> + +<p>"You will be a mystery to me even when you unmask," replied the mask +gravely.</p> + +<p>Lily was ill at ease, and she gave a little, unsuccessful laugh. "You +seem to take the mystery very coolly," she said in default of anything +else.</p> + +<p>"I have studied the American manner," replied the mask. "In America they +take everything coolly: life and death, love and hate—all things."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that? You have never been in America."</p> + +<p>"That is not necessary, if the Americans come here to show us."</p> + +<p>"They are not true Americans, if they show you that," cried the girl.</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>"But I see that you are only amusing yourself."</p> + +<p>"And have you never amused yourself with me?"</p> + +<p>"How could I," she demanded, "if I never saw you before?"</p> + +<p>"But are you sure of that?" She did not answer, for in this masquerade +banter she had somehow been growing unhappy. "Shall I prove to you that +you have seen me before? You dare not let me unmask."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can wait till supper. I shall know then that I have never seen +you before. I forbid you to unmask till supper! Will you obey?" she +cried anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I have obeyed in harder things," replied the mask.</p> + +<p>She refused to recognize anything but meaningless badinage in his words. +"Oh, as a soldier, yes!—you must be used to obeying orders." He did not +reply, and she added, releasing her hand and slipping it into his arm, +"I am tired now; will you take me back to the princess?"</p> + +<p>He led her silently to her place, and left her with a profound bow.</p> + +<p>"Now," said the princess, "they shall give you a little time to breathe. +I will not let them make you dance every minute. They are indiscreet. +You shall not take any of their musical instruments, and so you can +fairly escape till supper."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>"Thank you," said Lily absently, "that will be the best way"; and she +sat languidly watching the dancers. A young naval officer who spoke +English ran across the floor to her.</p> + +<p>"Come," he cried, "I shall have twenty duels on my hands if I let you +rest here, when there are so many who wish to dance with you." He threw +a pipe into her lap, and at the same moment a pipe sounded from the +other side of the room.</p> + +<p>"This is a conspiracy!" exclaimed the girl. "I will not have it! I am +not going to dance any more." She put the pipe back into his hands; he +placed it to his lips, and sounded it several times, and then dropped it +into her lap again with a laugh, and vanished in the crowd.</p> + +<p>"That little fellow is a rogue," said the princess. "But he is not so +bad as some of them. Monsieur," she cried in French to the +fair-whiskered, tall mask who had already presented himself before Lily, +"I will not permit it, if it is for a trick. You must unmask. I will +dispense mademoiselle from dancing with you."</p> + +<p>The mask did not reply, but turned his eyes upon Lily with an appeal +which the holes of the visor seemed to intensify. "It is a promise," she +said to the princess, rising in a sort of fascination. "I have forbidden +him to unmask before supper."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>"Oh, very well," answered the princess, "if that is the case. But make +him bring you back soon: it is almost time."</p> + +<p>"Did you hear, Mask?" asked the girl, as they waltzed away. "I will only +make two turns of the room with you."</p> + +<p>"Perdoni?"</p> + +<p>"This is too bad!" she exclaimed. "I will not be trifled with in this +way. Either speak English, or unmask at once."</p> + +<p>The mask again answered in Italian, with a repeated apology for not +understanding. "You understand very well," retorted Lily, now really +indignant, "and you know that this passes a jest."</p> + +<p>"Can you speak German?" asked the mask in that tongue.</p> + +<p>"Yes, a little, but I do not choose to speak it. If you have anything to +say to me you can say it in English."</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand English," replied the mask, still in German, and +now Lily thought the voice seemed changed; but she clung to her belief +that it was some hoax played at her expense, and she continued her +efforts to make him answer her in English. The two turns round the room +had stretched to half a dozen in this futile task, but she felt herself +power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>less to leave the mask, who for his part betrayed signs of +embarrassment, as if he had undertaken a ruse of which he repented. A +confused movement in the crowd and a sudden cessation of the music +recalled her to herself, and she now took her partner's arm and hurried +with him toward the place where she had left the princess. But the +princess had already gone into the supper-room, and she had no other +recourse than to follow with the stranger.</p> + +<p>As they entered the supper-room she removed her little visor, and she +felt, rather than saw, the mask put up his hand and lift away his own: +he turned his head, and looked down upon her with the face of a man she +had never seen before.</p> + +<p>"Ah, you are there!" she heard the princess's voice calling to her from +one of the tables. "How tired you look! Here—here! I will make you +drink this glass of wine."</p> + +<p>The officer who brought her the wine gave her his arm and led her to the +princess, and the late mask mixed with the two-score other tall blond +officers.</p> + +<p>The night which stretched so far into the day ended at last, and she +followed Hoskins down to their gondola. He entered the boat first, to +give her his hand in stepping from the <i>riva</i>; at the same moment she +involuntarily turned at the closing of the door behind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> her, and found +at her side the tall blond mask, or one of the masks, if there were two +who had danced with her. He caught her hand suddenly to his lips, and +kissed it.</p> + +<p>"Adieu—forgive!" he murmured in English, and then vanished indoors +again.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>"Owen," said Mrs. Elmore dramatically at the end of her narration, "who +do you think it could have been?"</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt as to who it was, Celia," replied Elmore, with a heat +evidently quite unexpected to his wife, "and if Lily has not been +seriously annoyed by the matter, I am glad that it has happened. I have +had my regrets—my doubts—whether I did not dismiss that man's +pretensions too curtly, too unkindly. But I am convinced now that we did +exactly right, and that she was wise never to bestow another thought +upon him. A man capable of contriving a petty persecution of this +sort—of pursuing a young girl who had rejected him in this shameless +fashion,—is no gentleman."</p> + +<p>"It <i>was</i> a persecution," said Mrs. Elmore, with a dazed air, as if this +view of the case had not occurred to her.</p> + +<p>"A miserable, unworthy persecution!" repeated her husband.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And we are well rid of him. He has relieved <i>me</i> by this last +performance, immensely; and I trust that if Lily had any secret +lingering regrets, he has given her a final lesson. Though I must say, +in justice to her, poor girl, she didn't seem to need it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Elmore listened with a strange abeyance; she looked beaten and +bewildered, while he vehemently uttered these words. She could not meet +his eyes, with her consciousness of having her intended romance thrown +back upon her hands; and he seemed in nowise eager to meet hers, for +whatever consciousness of his own. "Well, it isn't certain that he was +the one, after all," she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<p>Long after the ball Lily seemed to Elmore's eye not to have recovered +her former tone. He thought she went about languidly, and that she was +fitful and dreamy, breaking from moods of unwonted abstraction in bursts +of gayety as unnatural. She did not talk much of the ball; he could not +be sure that she ever recurred to it of her own motion. Hoskins +continued to come a great deal to the house, and she often talked with +him for a whole evening; Elmore fancied she was very serious in these +talks.</p> + +<p>He wondered if Lily avoided him, or whether this was only an illusion of +his; but in any case, he was glad that the girl seemed to find so much +comfort in Hoskins's company, and when it occurred to him he always said +something to encourage his visits. His wife was singularly quiescent at +this time, as if, having accomplished all she wished in Lily's presence +at the princess's ball, she was willing to rest for a while from further +social endeavor. Life was falling into the dull<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> routine again, and +after the past shocks his nerves were gratefully clothing themselves in +the old habits of tranquillity once more, when one day a letter came +from the overseers of Patmos University, offering him the presidency of +that institution on condition of his early return. The board had in view +certain changes, intended to bring the university abreast with the +times, which they hoped would meet his approval.</p> + +<p>Among these was a modification of the name, which was hereafter to be +Patmos University and Military Institute. The board not only believed +that popular feeling demanded the introduction of military drill into +the college, but they felt that a college which had been closed at the +beginning of the Rebellion, through the dedication of its president and +nearly all its students to the war, could in no way so gracefully +recognize this proud fact of its history as by hereafter making war one +of the arts which it taught. The board explained that of course Mr. +Elmore would not be expected to take charge of this branch of +instruction at once. A competent military assistant would be provided, +and continued under him as long as he should deem his services +essential. The letter closed with a cordial expression of the desire of +Elmore's old friends to have him once more in their midst, at the close +of labors which they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> sure would do credit to the good old +university and to the whole city of Patmos.</p> + +<p>Elmore read this letter at breakfast, and silently handed it to his +wife: they were alone, for Lily, as now often happened, had not yet +risen. "Well?" he said, when she had read it in her turn. She gave it +back to him with a look in her dimmed eyes which he could not mistake. +"I see there is no doubt of your feeling, Celia," he added.</p> + +<p>"I don't wish to urge you," she replied, "but yes, I should like to go +back. Yes, I am homesick. I have been afraid of it before, but this +chance of returning makes it certain."</p> + +<p>"And you see nothing ridiculous in my taking the presidency of a +military institute?"</p> + +<p>"They say expressly that they don't expect you to give instruction in +that branch."</p> + +<p>"No, not immediately, it seems," he said, with his pensive irony. "And +the history?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't you almost got notes enough?"</p> + +<p>Elmore laughed sadly. "I have been here two years. It would take me +twenty years to write such a history of Venice as I ought not to be +ashamed to write; it would take me five years to scamp it as I thought +of doing. Oh, I dare say I had better go back. I have neither the time +nor the money to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> give to a work I never was fit for,—of whose +magnitude even I was unable to conceive."</p> + +<p>"Don't say that!" cried his wife, with the old sympathy. "You will write +it yet, I know you will. I would rather spend all my days in +this—watery mausoleum than have you talk so, Owen!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my dear; but the work won't be lost even if I give it up at +this point. I can do something with my material, I suppose. And you know +that if I didn't <i>wish</i> to give up my project I couldn't. It's a sign of +my unfitness for it that I'm able to abandon it. The man who is born to +write the history of Venice will have no volition in the matter: he +cannot leave it, and he will not die till he has finished it." He feebly +crushed a bit of bread in his fingers as he ended with this burst of +feeling, and he shook his head in sad negation to his wife's tender +protest,—"Oh, you will come back some day to finish it!"</p> + +<p>"No one ever comes back to finish a history of Venice," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you will," she returned. "But you need the rest from this kind +of work, now, just as you needed rest from your college work before. You +need a change of standpoint,—and the American standpoint will be the +very thing for you."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>"Perhaps so, perhaps so," he admitted. "At any rate, this is a handsome +offer, and most kindly made, Celia. It's a great compliment. I didn't +suppose they valued me so much."</p> + +<p>"Of course they valued you, and they will be very glad to get you. I +call it merely letting the historic material ripen in your mind, or else +I shouldn't let you accept. And I shall be glad to go home, Owen, on +Lily's account. The child is getting no good here: she's drooping."</p> + +<p>"Drooping?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Don't you see how she mopes about?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid—that—I have—noticed."</p> + +<p>He was going to ask why she was drooping; but he could not. He said, +recurring to the letter of the overseers, "So Patmos is a city."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is by this time," said his wife, "with all that +prosperity!"</p> + +<p>Now that they were determined to go, their little preparations for +return were soon made; and a week after Elmore had written to accept the +offer of the overseers, they were ready to follow his letter home. Their +decision was a blow to Hoskins under which he visibly suffered; and they +did not realize till then in what fond and affectionate friendship he +held them. He now frankly spent his whole time with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> them; he +disconsolately helped them pack, and he did all that a consul can do to +secure free entry for some objects of Venice that they wished to get in +without payment of duties at New York.</p> + +<p>He said a dozen times, "I don't know what I <i>will</i> do when you're gone"; +and toward the last he alarmed them for his own interests by beginning +to say, "Well, I don't see but what I will have to go along."</p> + +<p>The last night but one Lily felt it her duty to talk to him very +seriously about his future and what he owed to it. She told him that he +must stay in Italy till he could bring home something that would honor +the great, precious, suffering country for which he had fought so nobly, +and which they all loved. She made the tears come into her eyes as she +spoke, and when she said that she should always be proud to be +associated with one of his works, Hoskins's voice was quite husky in +replying: "Is that the way you feel about it?" He went away promising to +remain at least till he finished his bas-relief of Westward, and his +figure of the Pacific Slope; and the next morning he sent around by a +<i>facchino</i> a note to Lily.</p> + +<p>She ran it through in the presence of the Elmores, before whom she +received it, and then, with a cry of "I think Mr. Hoskins is too <i>bad</i>!" +she threw it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> into Mrs. Elmore's lap, and, catching her handkerchief to +her eyes, she broke into tears and went out of the room. The note +read:—</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear Miss Lily</span>,—Your kind interest in me gives me courage to say +something that will very likely make me hateful to you forevermore. +But I have got to say it, and you have got to know it; and it's all +the worse for me if you have never suspected it. I want to give my +whole life to you, wherever and however you will have it. With you +by my side, I feel as if I could really do something that you would +not be ashamed of in sculpture, and I believe that I could make you +happy. I suppose I believe this because I love you very dearly, and +I know the chances are that you will not think this is reason +enough. But I would take one chance in a million, and be only too +glad of it. I hope it will not worry you to read this: as I said +before, I had to tell you. Perhaps it won't be altogether a +surprise. I might go on, but I suppose that until I hear from you I +had better give you as little of my eloquence as possible.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Clay Hoskins</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Well, upon my word," said Elmore, to whom his wife had transferred the +letter, "this is very indelicate of Hoskins! I must say, I expected +something better of him." He looked at the note with a face of disgust.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why you had a right to expect anything better of him, as +you call it," retorted his wife. "It's perfectly natural."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>"Natural!" cried Elmore. "To put this upon us at the last moment, when +he knows how much trouble I've——"</p> + +<p>Lily re-entered the room as precipitately as she had left it, and saved +him from betraying himself as to the extent of his confidences to +Hoskins. "Professor Elmore," she said, bending her reddened eyes upon +him, "I want you to answer this letter for me; and I don't want you to +write as you—I mean, don't make it so cutting—so—so—Why, I <i>like</i> +Mr. Hoskins! He's been so <i>kind</i>! And if you said anything to wound his +feelings—"</p> + +<p>"I shall not do that, you may be sure; because, for one reason, I shall +say nothing at all to him," replied Elmore.</p> + +<p>"You won't write to him?" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why, what shall I do-o-o-o?" demanded Lily, prolonging the syllable in +a burst of grief and astonishment.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," answered Elmore.</p> + +<p>"Owen," cried his wife, interfering for the first time, in response to +the look of appeal that Lily turned upon her, "you <i>must</i> write!"</p> + +<p>"Celia," he retorted boldly, "I <i>won't</i> write. I have a genuine regard +for Hoskins; I respect him, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> am very grateful to him for all his +kindness to you. He has been like a brother to you both."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course," interrupted Lily, "I never thought of him as anything +<i>but</i> a brother."</p> + +<p>"And though I must say I think it would have been more thoughtful +and—and—more considerate in him not to do this—"</p> + +<p>"We did everything we could to fight him off from it," interrupted Mrs. +Elmore, "both of us. We saw that it was coming, and we tried to stop it. +But nothing would help. Perhaps, as he says, he <i>did</i> have to do it."</p> + +<p>"I didn't dream of his—having any such—idea," said Elmore. "I felt so +perfectly safe in his coming; I trusted everything to him."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you thought his wanting to come was all unconscious +cerebration," said his wife disdainfully. "Well, now you see it wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but it's too late now to help it; and though I think he ought to +have spared us this, if he thought there was no hope for him, still I +can't bring myself to inflict pain upon him, and the long and the short +of it is, I <i>won't</i>."</p> + +<p>"But how is he to be answered?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. <i>You</i> can answer him."</p> + +<p>"I could never do it in the world!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>"I own it's difficult," said Elmore coldly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> will answer him—I will answer him," cried Lily, "rather than +have any trouble about it. Here,—here," she said, reaching blindly for +pen and paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, "give me the ink, +quick. Oh, dear! What shall I say? What date is it?—the 25th? And it +doesn't matter about the day of the week. 'Dear Mr. Hoskins—Dear Mr. +Hoskins—Dear Mr. Hosk'—Ought you to put Clay Hoskins, Esq., at the top +or the bottom—or not at all, when you've said Dear Mr. Hoskins? Esquire +seems so cold, anyway, and I <i>won't</i> put it! 'Dear Mr. +Hoskins'—Professor Elmore!" she implored reproachfully, "tell me what +to say!"</p> + +<p>"That would be equivalent to writing the letter," he began.</p> + +<p>"Well, write it, then," she said, throwing down the pen. "I don't <i>ask</i> +you to dictate it. Write it,—write anything,—just in pencil, you know; +that won't commit you to anything; they say a thing in pencil isn't +legal,—and I'll copy it out in the first person."</p> + +<p>"Owen," said his wife, "you shall not refuse! It's inhuman, it's +inhospitable, when Lily wants you to, so! Why, I never heard of such a +thing!"</p> + +<p>Elmore desperately caught up the sheet of paper on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> which Lily had +written "Dear Mr. Hoskins," and groaning out "Well, well!" he added,—</p> + +<blockquote><p>I have your letter. Come to the station to-morrow and say good-by +to her whom you will yet live to thank for remaining only</p> + +<p class="center">Your friend,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Mayhew</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"There! there, that will do beautifully—beautifully! Oh, thank you, +Professor Elmore, ever and ever so much! That will save his feelings, +and do everything," said Lily, sitting down again to copy it; while Mrs. +Elmore, looking over her shoulder, mingled her hysterical excitement +with the girl's, and helped her out by sealing the note when it was +finished and directed.</p> + +<p>It accomplished at least one purpose intended. It kept Hoskins away till +the final moment, and it brought him to the station for their adieux +just before their train started. A consciousness of the absurdity of his +part gave his face a humorously rueful cast. But he came pluckily to the +mark. He marched straight up to the girl. "It's all right, Miss Lily," +he said, and offered her his hand, which she had a strong impulse to cry +over. Then he turned to Mrs. Elmore, and while he held her hand in his +right, he placed his left affectionately on Elmore's shoulder, and, +looking at Lily, he said, "You ought to get Miss Lily to help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> you out +with your history, Professor; she has a very good style,—quite a +literary style, I should have said, if I hadn't known it was hers. I +don't like her subjects, though." They broke into a forlorn laugh +together; he wrung their hands once more, without a word, and, without +looking back, limped out of the waiting-room and out of their lives.</p> + +<p>They did not know that this was really the last of Hoskins,—one never +knows that any parting is the last,—and in their inability to conceive +of a serious passion in him, they quickly consoled themselves for what +he might suffer. They knew how kindly, how tenderly even, they felt +towards him, and by that juggle with the emotions which we all practise +at times, they found comfort for him in the fact. Another interest, +another figure, began to occupy the morbid fancy of Elmore, and as they +approached Peschiera his expectation became intense. There was no reason +why it should exist; it would be by the thousandth chance, even if +Ehrhardt were still there, that they should meet him at the railroad +station, and there were a thousand chances that he was no longer in +Peschiera. He could see that his wife and Lily were restive too: as the +train drew into the station they nodded to each other, and pointed out +of the window, as if to identify the spot where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> Lily had first noticed +him; they laughed nervously, and it seemed to Elmore that he could not +endure their laughter.</p> + +<p>During that long wait which the train used to make in the old Austrian +times at Peschiera, while the police authorities <i>viséd</i> the passports +of those about to cross the frontier, Elmore continued perpetually +alert. He was aware that he should not know Ehrhardt if he met him; but +he should know that he was present from the looks of Lily and Mrs. +Elmore, and he watched them. They dined well in waiting, while he +impatiently trifled with the food, and ate next to nothing; and they +calmly returned to their places in the train, to which he remounted +after a last despairing glance around the platform in a passion of +disappointment. The old longing not to be left so wholly to the effect +of what he had done possessed him to the exclusion of all other +sensations, and as the train moved away from the station he fell back +against the cushions of the carriage, sick that he should never even +have looked on the face of the man in whose destiny he had played so fatal a part.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<p>In America, life soon settled into form about the daily duties of +Elmore's place, and the daily pleasures and cares which his wife assumed +as a leader in Patmos society. Their sojourn abroad conferred its +distinction; the day came when they regarded it as a brilliant episode, +and it was only by fitful glimpses that they recognized its essential +dulness. After they had been home a year or two, Elmore published his +Story of Venice in the Lives of her Heroes, which fell into a ready +oblivion; he paid all the expenses of the book, and was puzzled that, in +spite of this, the final settlement should still bring him in debt to +his publishers. He did not understand, but he submitted; and he accepted +the failure of his book very meekly. If he could have chosen, he would +have preferred that the Saturday Review, which alone noticed it in +London with three lines of exquisite slight, should have passed it in +silence. But after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> all, he felt that the book deserved no better fate. +He always spoke of it as unphilosophized and incomplete, without any +just claim to being.</p> + +<p>Lily had returned to her sister's household, but though she came home in +the heyday of her young beauty, she failed somehow to take up the story +of her life just where she had left it in Patmos. On the way home she +had refused an offer in London, and shortly after her arrival in America +she received a letter from a young gentleman whom she had casually seen +in Geneva, and who had found exile insupportable since parting with her, +and was ready to return to his native land at her bidding; but she said +nothing of these proposals till long afterwards to Professor Elmore, +who, she said, had suffered enough from her offers. She went to all the +parties and picnics, and had abundant opportunities of flirtation and +marriage; but she neither flirted nor married. She seemed to have +greatly sobered; and the sound sense which she had always shown became +more and more qualified with a thoughtful sweetness. At first, the +relation between her and the Elmores lost something of its intimacy; but +when, after several years, her health gave way, a familiarity, even +kinder than before, grew up. She used to like to come to them, and talk +and laugh fondly over their old Vene<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>tian days. But often she sat +pensive and absent, in the midst of these memories, and looked at Elmore +with a regard which he found hard to bear: a gentle, unconscious wonder +it seemed, in which he imagined a shade of tender reproach.</p> + +<p>When she recovered her health, after a journey to the West one winter, +they saw that, by some subtile and indefinable difference, she was no +longer a young girl. Perhaps it was because they had not met her for +half a year. But perhaps it was age,—she was now thirty. However it +was, Elmore recognized with a pang that the first youth at least had +gone out of her voice and eyes. She only returned to arrange for a long +sojourn in the West. She liked the climate and the people, she said; and +she seemed well and happy. She had planned starting a Kindergarten +school in Omaha with another young lady; she said that she wanted +something to do. "She will end by marrying one of those Western +widowers," said Mrs. Elmore.</p> + +<p>"I wonder she didn't take poor old Hoskins," mused Elmore aloud.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't, dear," said his wife, who had not grown less direct in +dealing with him. "You know it would have been ridiculous; besides, she +never cared anything for him,—she couldn't. You might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> as well wonder +why she didn't take Captain Ehrhardt after you dismissed him."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> dismissed him?"</p> + +<p>"You wrote to him, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Celia," cried Elmore, "this I <i>cannot</i> bear. Did I take a single step +in that business without her request and your full approval? Didn't you +both ask me to write?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose we did."</p> + +<p>"Suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we <i>did</i>,—if you want me to say it. And I'm not accusing you of +anything. I know you acted for the best. But you can see yourself, can't +you, that it was rather sudden to have it end so quickly—"</p> + +<p>She did not finish her sentence, or he did not hear the close in the +miserable absence into which he lapsed. "Celia," he asked at last, "do +you think she—she had any feeling about him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," cried his wife restively, "how should <i>I</i> know?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you <i>knew</i>," he pleaded. "I asked if you thought so."</p> + +<p>"What would be the use of thinking anything about it? The matter can't +be helped now. If you inferred from anything she said to you—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>"She told me repeatedly, in answer to questions as explicit as I could +make them, that she wished him dismissed."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, very likely she did."</p> + +<p>"Very likely, Celia?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. At any rate, it's too late now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's too late now." He was silent again, and he began to walk the +floor, after his old habit, without speaking. He was always mute when he +was in pain, and he startled her with the anguish in which he now broke +forth. "I give it up! I give it up! Celia, Celia, I'm afraid I did +wrong! Yes, I'm afraid that I spoiled two lives. I ventured to lay my +sacrilegious hands upon two hearts that a divine force was drawing +together, and put them asunder. It was a lamentable blunder,—it was a +crime!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Owen, how strangely you talk! How could you have done any +differently under the circumstances?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I could have done very differently. I might have seen him, and +talked with him brotherly, face to face. He was a fearless and generous +soul! And I was meanly scared for my wretched little decorums, for my +responsibility to her friends, and I gave him no chance."</p> + +<p>"We wouldn't let you give him any," interrupted his wife.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>"Don't try to deceive yourself, don't try to deceive <i>me</i>, Celia! I know +well enough that you would have been glad to have me show mercy; and I +would not even show him the poor grace of passing his offer in silence, +if I must refuse it. I couldn't spare him even so much as that!"</p> + +<p>"We decided—we both decided—that it would be better to cut off all +hope at once," urged his wife.</p> + +<p>"Ah, it was I who decided that—decided everything. Leave me to deal +honestly with myself at last, Celia! I have tried long enough to believe +that it was not I who did it!" The pent-up doubt of years, the +long-silenced self-accusal, burst forth in his words. "Oh, I have +suffered for it! I thought he must come back, somehow, as long as we +stayed in Venice. When we left Peschiera without a glimpse of him—I +wonder I outlived it. But even if I had seen him there, what use would +it have been? Would I have tried to repair the wrong done? What did I do +but impute unmanly and impudent motives to him when he seized his chance +to see her once more at that masquerade—"</p> + +<p>"No, no, Owen! He was not the one. Lily was satisfied of that long ago. +It was nothing but a chance, a coincidence. Perhaps it was some one he +had told about the affair—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>"No matter! no matter! If I thought it was he, my blame is the same. And +she, poor girl,—in my lying compassion for him, I used to accuse her of +cold-heartedness, of indifference! I wonder she did not abhor the sight +of me. How has she ever tolerated the presence, the friendship, of a man +who did her this irreparable wrong? Yes, it has spoiled her life, and it +was my work. No, no, Celia! you and she had nothing to do with it, +except as I forced your consent—it was my work; and, however I have +tried openly and secretly to shirk it, I must bear this fearful +responsibility."</p> + +<p>He dropped into a chair, and hid his face in his hands, while his wife +soothed him with loving excuses for what he had done, with tender +protests against the exaggerations of his remorse. She said that he had +done the only thing he could do; that Lily wished it, and that she never +had blamed him. "Why, I don't believe she would ever have married +Captain Ehrhardt, anyhow. She was full of that silly fancy of hers about +Dick Burton, all the time,—you know how she used always to be talking +about him; and when she came home and found she had outgrown him, she +had to refuse him, and I suppose it's that that's made her rather +melancholy." She explained that Major Burton had become extremely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> fat, +that his moustache was too big and black, and his laugh too loud; there +was nothing left of him, in fact, but his empty sleeve, and Lily was too +conscientious to marry him merely for that.</p> + +<p>In fact, Elmore's regret did reflect a monstrous and distorted image of +his conduct. He had really acted the part of a prudent and conscientious +man; he was perfectly justifiable at every step: but in the retrospect +those steps which we can perfectly justify sometimes seem to have cost +so terribly that we look back even upon our sinful stumblings with +better heart. Heaven knows how such things will be at the last day; but +at that moment there was no wrong, no folly of his youth, of which +Elmore did not think with more comfort than of this passage in which he +had been so wise and right.</p> + +<p>Of course the time came when he saw it all differently again; when his +wife persuaded him that he had done the best that any one could do with +the responsibilities that ought never to have been laid on a man of his +temperament and habits; when he even came to see that Lily's feeling was +a matter of pure conjecture with him, and that so far as he knew she had +never cared anything for Ehrhardt. Yet he was glad to have her away; he +did not like to talk of her with his wife; he did not think of her if he +could help it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>They heard from time to time through her sister that her little +enterprise in Omaha was prospering, and that she was very contented out +West; at last they heard directly from her that she was going to be +married. Till then, Elmore had been dumbly tormented in his sombre moods +with the solution of a problem at which his imagination vainly +toiled,—the problem of how some day she and Ehrhardt should meet again +and retrieve the error of the past for him. He contrived this encounter +in a thousand different ways by a thousand different chances; what he so +passionately and sorrowfully longed for accomplished itself continually +in his dreams, but only in his dreams.</p> + +<p>In due course Lily married, and from all they could understand, very +happily. Her husband was a clergyman, and she took particular interest +in his parochial work, which her good heart and clear head especially +qualified her to share with him. To connect her fate any longer with +that of Ehrhardt was now not only absurd, it was improper; yet Elmore +sometimes found his fancy forgetfully at work as before. He could not at +once realize that the tragedy of this romance, such as it was, remained +to him alone, except perhaps as Ehrhardt shared it. With him, indeed, +Elmore still sought to fret his remorse and keep it poignant, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> his +final failure to do so made him ashamed. But what lasting sorrow can one +have from the disappointment of a man whom one has never seen? If Lily +could console herself, it seemed probable that Ehrhardt too had "got +along."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h2><a name="AT_THE_SIGN_OF_THE_SAVAGE" id="AT_THE_SIGN_OF_THE_SAVAGE"></a>AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE.</h2> + +<p>As they bowled along in the deliberate German express train through the +Black Forest, Colonel Kenton said he had only two things against the +region: it was not black, and it was not a forest. He had all his life +heard of the Black Forest, and he hoped he knew what it was. The +inhabitants burned charcoal, high up the mountains, and carved toys in +the winter when shut in by the heavy snows; they had Easter eggs all the +year round, with overshot mill-wheels in the valleys, and cherry-trees +all about, always full of blossoms or ripe fruit, just as you liked to +think. They were very poor people, but very devout, and lived in little +villages on a friendly intimacy with their cattle. The young women of +these hamlets had each a long braid of yellow hair down her back, blue +eyes, and a white bodice with a cat's-cradle lacing behind; the men had +bell-crowned hats and spindle-legs: they buttoned the breath out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +their bodies with round pewter buttons on tight, short crimson +waistcoats.</p> + +<p>"Now, here," said the colonel, breathing on the window of the car and +rubbing a little space clear of the frost, "I see nothing of the sort. +Either I have been imposed upon by what I have heard of the Black +Forest, or this is not the Black Forest. I'm inclined to believe that +there is no Black Forest, and never was. There isn't," he added, looking +again, so as not to speak hastily, "a charcoal-burner, or an Easter egg, +or a cherry blossom, or a yellow braid, or a red waistcoat, to enliven +the whole desolate landscape. What are we to think of it, Bessie?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kenton, who sat opposite, huddled in speechless comfort under her +wraps and rugs, and was just trying to decide in her own mind whether it +was more delicious to let her feet, now that they were thoroughly warm, +rest upon the carpet-covered cylinder of hot water, or hover just a +hair's breadth above it without touching it, answered a little +impatiently that she did not know. In ordinary circumstances she would +not have been so short with the colonel's nonsense. She thought that was +the way all men talked when they got well acquainted with you; and, as +coming from a sex incapable of seriousness, she could have excused it if +it had not interrupted her in her solution of so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> nice a problem. +Colonel Kenton, however, did not mind. He at once possessed himself of +much more than his share of the cylinder, extorting a cry of indignation +from his wife, who now saw herself reduced from a fastidious choice of +luxuries to a mere vulgar strife for the necessaries of life,—a thing +any woman abhors.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said the colonel, "keep your old hot-water bottle. If +there was any other way of warming my feet, I wouldn't touch it. It +makes me sick to use it; I feel as if the doctor was going to order me +some boneset tea. Give <i>me</i> a good red-hot patent car-heater, that +smells enough of burning iron to make your head ache in a minute, and +sets your car on fire as soon as it rolls over the embankment. That's +what <i>I</i> call comfort. A hot-water bottle shoved under your feet—I +should suppose I <i>was</i> a woman, and a feeble one at that. I'll tell you +what <i>I</i> think about this Black Forest business, Bessie: I think it's +part of a system of deception that runs through the whole German +character. I have heard the Germans praised for their sincerity and +honesty, but I tell you they have got to work hard to convince me of it, +from this out. I am on my guard. I am not going to be taken in any +more."</p> + +<p>It became the colonel's pleasure to develop and ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>emplify this idea at +all points of their progress through Germany. They were going to Italy, +and as Mrs. Kenton had had enough of the sea in coming to Europe, they +were going to Italy by the only all-rail route then existing,—from +Paris to Vienna, and so down through the Simmering to Trieste and +Venice. Wherever they stopped, whatever they did before reaching Vienna, +Colonel Kenton chose to preserve his guarded attitude. "Ah, they pretend +this is Stuttgart, do they?" he said on arriving at the Suabian capital. +"A likely story! They pretended that was the Black Forest, you know, +Bessie." At Munich, "And this is Munich!" he sneered, whenever the +conversation flagged during their sojourn. "It's outrageous, the way +they let these swindling little towns palm themselves off upon the +traveller for cities he's heard of. This place will be calling itself +Berlin, next." When his wife, guide-book in hand, was struggling to heat +her admiration at some cold history of Kaulbach, and in her failure +clinging fondly to the fact that Kaulbach had painted it, "Kaulbach!" +the colonel would exclaim, and half close his eyes and slowly nod his +head and smile. "What guide-book is that you've got, Bessie?" looking +curiously at the volume he knew so well. "Oh!—Baedeker! And are you +going to let a Black Forest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> Dutchman like Baedeker persuade you that +this daub is by Kaulbach? Come! That's a little too much!" He rejected +the birthplaces of famous persons one and all; they could not drive +through a street or into a park, whose claims to be this or that street +or park he did not boldly dispute; and he visited a pitiless incredulity +upon the dishes of the <i>table d'hôte</i>, concerning which he always +answered his wife's questions: "Oh, he <i>says</i> it's beef," or veal, or +fowl, as the case might be; and though he never failed to relish his own +dinner, strange fears began to affect the appetite of Mrs. Kenton. It +happened that he never did come out with these sneers before other +travellers, but his wife was always expecting him to do so, and +afterwards portrayed herself as ready to scream, the whole time. She was +not a nervous person, and regarding the colonel's jokes as part of the +matrimonial contract, she usually bore them, as I have hinted, with +severe composure; accepting them all, good, bad, and indifferent, as +something in the nature of man which she should understand better after +they had been married longer. The present journey was made just after +the close of the war; they had seen very little of each other while he +was in the army, and it had something of the fresh interest of a bridal +tour. But they sojourned only a day or two in the places<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> between +Strasburg and Vienna; it was very cold and very unpleasant getting +about, and they instinctively felt what every wise traveller knows, that +it is folly to be lingering in Germany when you can get into Italy; and +so they hurried on.</p> + +<p>It was nine o'clock one night when they reached Salzburg; and when their +baggage had been visited and their passports examined, they had still +half an hour to wait before the train went on. They profited by the +delay to consider what hotel they should stop at in Vienna, and they +advised with their Bradshaw on the point. This railway guide gave in its +laconic fashion several hotels, and specified the Kaiserin Elisabeth as +one at which there was a table d'hôte, briefly explaining that at most +hotels in Vienna there was none.</p> + +<p>"That settles it," said Mrs. Kenton. "We will go to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth, of course. I'm sure I never want the bother of ordering +dinner in English, let alone German, which never was meant for human +beings to speak."</p> + +<p>"It's a language you can't tell the truth in," said the colonel +thoughtfully. "You can't call an open country an open country; you have +to call it a Black Forest." Mrs. Kenton sighed patiently. "But I don't +know about this Kaiserin Elisabeth business. How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> do we know that's the +<i>real</i> name of the hotel? How can <i>we</i> be sure that it isn't an <i>alias</i>, +an assumed name, trumped up for the occasion? I tell you, Bessie, we +can't be too cautious as long as we're in this fatherland of lies. What +guide-book is this? Baedeker? Oh! Bradshaw. Well, that's some comfort. +Bradshaw's an Englishman, at least. If it had been Baedeker"—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Edward, Edward!" Mrs. Kenton burst out. "Will you <i>never</i> give that +up? Here you've been harping on it for the last four days, and worrying +my life out with it. I think it's unkind. It's perfectly bewildering me. +I don't know where or what I am, any more." Some tears of vexation +started to her eyes, at which Colonel Kenton put the shaggy arm of his +overcoat round her, and gave her an honest hug.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I give it up, from this out. Though I shall always say +that it was a joke that wore well. And I can tell you, Bessie, that it's +no small sacrifice to give up a joke that you've just got into prime +working order, so that you can use it on almost anything that comes up. +But that's a thing that you can never understand. Let it all pass. We'll +go to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, and submit to any sort of imposition +they've a mind to practise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> upon us. I shall not breathe freely, I +suppose, till we get into Italy, where people mean what they say. Haw, +haw, haw!" laughed the colonel, "honest Iago's the man <i>I'm</i> after."</p> + +<p>The doors of the waiting-room were thrown open, and cries of "Erste +Klasse! Zweite Klasse! Dritte Klasse!" summoned the variously assorted +passengers to carriages of their several degrees. The colonel lifted his +little wife into a non-smoking first-class carriage, and established her +against the cushioned barrier dividing the two seats, so that her feet +could just reach the hot-water bottle, as he called it, and tucked her +in and built her up so with wraps that she was a prodigy of comfort; and +then folding about him the long fur-lined coat which she had bought him +at Munich (in spite of his many protests that the fur was artificial), +he sat down on the seat opposite, and proudly enjoyed the perfect +content that beamed from Mrs. Kenton's face, looking so small from her +heap of luxurious coverings.</p> + +<p>"Well, Bessie, this would be very pleasant—if you could believe in it," +he said, as the train smoothly rolled out of the station. "But of course +it can't be genuine. There must be some dodge about it. I've no doubt +you'll begin to feel perfectly horrid, the first thing you know."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>Mrs. Kenton let him go on, as he did at some length, and began to +drowse, while he amused himself with a gross parody of things she had +said during the past four days. In those years while their wedded bliss +was yet practically new, Colonel Kenton found his wife an inexhaustible +source of mental refreshment. He prized beyond measure the feminine +inadequacy and excess of her sayings; he had stored away such a variety +of these that he was able to talk her personal parlance for an hour +together; indeed, he had learned the trick of inventing phrases so much +in her manner that Mrs. Kenton never felt quite safe in disowning any +monstrous thing attributed to her. Her drowse now became a little nap, +and presently a delicious doze, in which she drifted far away from +actual circumstance into a realm where she seemed to exist as a mere +airy thought of her physical self; suddenly she lost this thought, and +slept through all stops at stations and all changes of the hot-water +cylinder, to renew which the guard, faithful to Colonel Kenton's bribe, +alone opened the door.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, Bessie!" she heard her husband saying. "We're at Vienna."</p> + +<p>It seemed very improbable, but she did not dispute it. "What time is +it?" she asked, as she suffered herself to be lifted from the carriage +into the keen air of the winter night.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>"Three o'clock," said the colonel, hurrying her into the waiting-room, +where she sat, still somewhat remote from herself but getting nearer and +nearer, while he went off about the baggage. "Now, then!" he cried +cheerfully when he returned; and he led his wife out and put her into a +<i>fiacre</i>. The driver bent from his perch and arrested the colonel, as he +was getting in after Mrs. Kenton, with words in themselves +unintelligible, but so probably in demand for neglected instructions +that the colonel said, "Oh! Kaiserin Elisabeth!" and again bowed his +head towards the fiacre door, when the driver addressed further speech +to him, so diffuse and so presumably unnecessary that Colonel Kenton +merely repeated, with rising impatience, "Kaiserin Elisabeth,—Kaiserin +Elisabeth, I tell you!" and getting in shut the fiacre door after him.</p> + +<p>The driver remained a moment in mumbled soliloquy; then he smacked his +whip and drove rapidly away. They were aware of nothing outside but the +starlit winter morning in unknown streets, till they plunged at last +under an archway and drew up at a sort of lodge door, from which issued +an example of the universal gold-cap-banded continental hotel <i>portier</i>, +so like all others in Europe that it seemed idle for him to be leading +an individual existence. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> took the colonel's passport and summoned a +waiter, who went bowing before them up a staircase more or less +grandiose, and led them to a pleasant chamber, whither he sent directly +a woman servant. She bade them a hearty good morning in her tongue, and, +kneeling down before the tall porcelain stove, kindled from her apronful +of blocks and sticks a fire that soon penetrated the travellers with a +rich comfort. It was of course too early yet to think of breakfast, but +it was fortunately not too late to think of sleep. They were both very +tired, and it was almost noon when they woke. The colonel had the fire +rekindled, and he ordered breakfast to be served them in their room. +"Beefsteak and coffee—here!" he said, pointing to the table; and as he +made Mrs. Kenton snug near the stove he expatiated in her own terms upon +the perfect loveliness of the whole affair, and the touch of nature that +made coffee and beefsteak the same in every language. It seemed that the +Kaiserin Elisabeth knew how to serve such a breakfast in faultless +taste; and they sat long over it, in that sense of sovereign +satisfaction which beefsteak and coffee in your own room can best give. +At last the colonel rose briskly and announced the order of the day. +They were to go here, they were to stop there; they were to see this, +they were to do that.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>"Nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Kenton. "I am not going out at all +to-day. It's too cold; and if we are to push on to Trieste to-morrow, I +shall need the whole day to get a little rested. Besides, I have some +jobs of mending to do that can't be put off any longer."</p> + +<p>The colonel listened with an air of joyous admiration. "Bessie," said +he, "this is inspiration. <i>I</i> don't want to see their old town; and I +shall ask nothing better than to spend the day with you here at our own +fireside. You can sew, and I—I'll <i>read</i> to you, Bessie!" This was a +little too gross; even Mrs. Kenton laughed at this, the act of reading +being so abhorrent to Colonel Kenton's active temperament that he was +notorious for his avoidance of all literature except newspapers. In +about ten minutes, passed in an agreeable idealization of his purpose, +which came in that time to include the perusal of all the books on Italy +he had picked up on their journey, the colonel said he would go down and +ask the portier if they had the New York papers.</p> + +<p>When he returned, somewhat disconsolate, to say they had not, and had +apparently never heard of the Herald or Tribune, his wife smiled subtly: +"Then I suppose you'll have to go to the consul's for them."</p> + +<p>"Why, Bessie, it isn't a thing I should have sug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>gested; I can't bear +the thoughts of leaving you here alone; but as you <i>say</i>! No, I'll tell +you: I'll not go for the New York papers, but I will just step round and +call upon the representative of the country—pay my respects to him, you +know—if you <i>wish</i> it. But I'd far rather spend the time here with you, +Bessie, in our cosy little boudoir; I would, indeed."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kenton now laughed outright, and—it was a tremendous sarcasm for +her—asked him if he were not afraid the example of the Black Forest was +becoming infectious.</p> + +<p>"Oh, come now, Bessie; no joking," pleaded the colonel, in mock +distress. "I'll tell you what, my dear, the head waiter here speaks +English like a—an Ollendorff; and if you get to feeling a little +lonesome while I'm out, you can just ring and order something from him, +you know. It will cheer you up to hear the sound of your native tongue +in a foreign land. But, pshaw! <i>I</i> sha'nt be gone a minute!"</p> + +<p>By this time the colonel had got on his overcoat and gloves, and had his +hat in one hand, and was leaning over his wife, resting the other hand +on the back of the chair in which she sat warming the toes of her +slippers at the draft of the stove. She popped him a cheery little kiss +on his mustache, and gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> him a small push: "Stay as long as you like, +Ned. I shall not be in the least lonesome. I shall do my mending, and +then I shall take a nap, and by that time it will be dinner. You needn't +come back before dinner. What hour is the table d'hôte?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried the colonel guiltily. "The fact is, I wasn't going to tell +you, I thought it would vex you so much: there <i>is</i> no table d'hôte here +and never was. Bradshaw has been depraved by the moral atmosphere of +Germany. I'd as soon trust Baedeker after this."</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind," said Mrs. Kenton. "We can tell them to bring us what +they like for dinner, and we can have it whenever <i>we</i> like."</p> + +<p>"Bessie!" exclaimed the colonel, "I have not done justice to you, and I +supposed I had. I knew how bright and beautiful you were, but I <i>didn't</i> +think you were so amiable. I didn't, indeed. This is a real surprise," +he said, getting out at the door. He opened it to add that he would be +back in an hour, and then he went his way, with the light heart of a +husband who has a day to himself with his wife's full approval.</p> + +<p>At the consulate a still greater surprise awaited Colonel Kenton. This +was the consul himself, who proved to be an old companion-in-arms, and +into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> whose awful presence the colonel was ushered by a <i>Hausmeister</i> in +a cocked hat and a gold-braided uniform finer than that of all the +American major-generals put together. The friends both shouted "Hollo!" +and "<i>You</i> don't say so!" and threw back their heads and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Why, didn't you know I was here?" demanded the consul when the hard +work of greeting was over. "I thought everybody knew that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I knew you were rusting out in some of these Dutch towns, but I +never supposed it was Vienna. But that doesn't make any difference, so +long as you <i>are</i> here." At this they smacked each other on the knees, +and laughed again. That carried them by a very rough point in their +astonishment, and they now composed themselves to the pleasure of +telling each other how they happened to be then and there, with glances +at their personal history when they were making it together in the +field.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, what are you going to do the rest of the day?" asked the +consul at last, with a look at his watch. "As I understand it, you 're +going to spend it with me, somehow. The question is, how would you like +to spend it?"</p> + +<p>"This is a handsome offer, Davis; but I don't see how I'm to manage +exactly," replied the colonel, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> the first time distinctly recalling +the memory of Mrs. Kenton. "My wife wouldn't know what had become of me, +you know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she would," retorted the consul, with a bachelor's ignorant +ease of mind on a point of that kind. "We'll go round and take her with +us."</p> + +<p>The colonel gravely shook his head. "She wouldn't go, old fellow. She's +in for a day's rest and odd jobs. I'll tell you what, I'll just drop +round and let her know I've found you, and then come back again. You'll +dine with us, won't you?" Colonel Kenton had not always found old +comradeship a bond between Mrs. Kenton and his friends, but he believed +he could safely chance it with Davis, whom she had always rather +liked,—with such small regard as a lady's devotion to her husband +leaves her for his friends.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll <i>dine</i> with you fast enough," said his friend. "But why don't +you send a note to Mrs. Kenton to say that we'll be round together, and +save yourself the bother? Did you come here alone?"</p> + +<p>"Bless your heart, no! I forgot him. The poor devil's out there, cooling +his heels on your stairs all this time. I came with a complete guide to +Vienna. Can't you let him in out of the weather a minute?"</p> + +<p>"We'll have him in, so that he can take your note<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> back; but he doesn't +expect to be decently treated: they don't, here. You just sit down and +write it," said the consul, pushing the colonel into his own chair +before his desk; and when the colonel had superscribed his note, he +called in the <i>Lohndiener</i>,—patient, hat in hand,—and, "Where are you +stopping?" he asked the colonel.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I forgot that. At the Kaiserin Elisabeth. I'll just write it"—</p> + +<p>"Never mind; we'll tell him where to take it. See here," added the +consul in a serviceable Viennese German of his own construction. "Take +this to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, quick;" and as the man looked up in a +dull surprise, "Do you hear? The Kaiserin Elisabeth!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know what it is about that hotel," said the colonel, when the +man had meekly bowed himself away, with a hat that swept the ground in +honor of a handsome drink-money; "but the mention of it always seems to +awaken some sort of reluctance in the minds of the lower classes. Our +driver wanted to enter into conversation with me about it this morning +at three o'clock, and I had to be pretty short with him. If you don't +know the language, it isn't so difficult to be short in German as I've +heard. And another curious thing is that Bradshaw says the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Kaiserin +Elisabeth has a table d'hôte, and the head-waiter says she hasn't, and +never did have."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you can't trust anybody in Europe," said the consul sententiously. +"I'd leave Bradshaw and the waiter to fight it out among themselves. +We'll get back in time to order a dinner; it's always better, and then +we can dine alone, and have a good time."</p> + +<p>"They couldn't keep us from having a good time at a table d'hôte, even. +But I don't mind."</p> + +<p>By this time they had got on their hats and coats and sallied forth. +They first went to a café and had some of that famous Viennese coffee; +and then they went to the imperial and municipal arsenals, and viewed +those collections of historical bricabrac, including the head of the +unhappy Turkish general who was strangled by his sovereign because he +failed to take Vienna in 1683. This from familiarity had no longer any +effect upon the consul, but it gave Colonel Kenton prolonged pause. "I +should have preferred a subordinate position in the sultan's army, I +believe," he said. "Why, Davis, what a museum we could have had out of +the Army of the Potomac alone, if Lincoln had been as particular as that +sultan!"</p> + +<p>From the arsenals they went to visit the parade-ground of the garrison, +and came in time to see a manœuvre of the troops, at which they +looked with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> the frank respect and reserved superiority with which our +veterans seem to regard the military of Europe. Then they walked about +and noted the principal monuments of the city, and strolled along the +promenades and looked at the handsome officers and the beautiful women. +Colonel Kenton admired the life and the gay movement everywhere; since +leaving Paris he had seen nothing so much like New York. But he did not +like their shovelling up the snow into carts everywhere and dumping all +that fine sleighing into the Danube. "By the way," said his friend, +"let's go over into Leopoldstadt, and see if we can't scare up a sleigh +for a little turn in the suburbs."</p> + +<p>"It's getting late, isn't it?" asked the colonel.</p> + +<p>"Not so late as it looks. You know we haven't the high American sun, +here."</p> + +<p>Colonel Kenton was having such a good time that he felt no trouble about +his wife, sitting over her mending in the Kaiserin Elisabeth; and he +yielded joyfully, thinking how much she would like to hear about the +suburbs of Vienna: a husband will go through almost any pleasure in +order to give his wife an entertaining account of it afterwards; +besides, a bachelor companionship is confusing: it makes many things +appear right and feasible which are perhaps not so. It was not till +their driver, who had turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> out of the beaten track into a wayside +drift to make room for another vehicle, attempted to regain the road by +too abrupt a movement, and the shafts of their sledge responded with a +loud crick-crack, that Colonel Kenton perceived the error into which he +had suffered himself to be led. At three miles' distance from the city, +and with the winter twilight beginning to fall, he felt the pang of a +sudden remorse. It grew sorer with every homeward step and with each +successive failure to secure a conveyance for their return. In fine, +they trudged back to Leopoldstadt, where an absurd series of +discomfitures awaited them in their attempts to get a fiacre over into +the main city. They visited all the stands known to the consul, and then +they were obliged to walk. But they were not tired, and they made their +distance so quickly that Colonel Kenton's spirits rose again. He was +able for the first time to smile at their misadventure, and some +misgivings as to how Mrs. Kenton might stand affected towards a guest +under the circumstances yielded to the thought of how he should make her +laugh at them both. "Good old Davis!" mused the colonel, and +affectionately linked his arm through that of his friend; and they +stamped through the brilliantly lighted streets gay with uniforms and +the picturesque costumes with which the Levant at Vienna encoun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>ters the +London and Paris fashions. Suddenly the consul arrested their movement. +"Didn't you say you were stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes; certainly."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's just around the corner, here." The consul turned him about, +and in another minute they walked under an archway into a court-yard, +and were met by the portier at the door of his room with an inquiring +obeisance.</p> + +<p>Colonel Kenton started. The cap and the cap-band were the same, and it +was to all intents and purposes the same portier who had bowed him away +in the morning; but the face was different. On noting this fact Colonel +Kenton observed so general a change in the appointments and even +architecture of the place that, "Old fellow," he said to the consul, +"you've made a little mistake; this isn't the Kaiserin Elisabeth."</p> + +<p>The consul referred the matter to the portier. Perfectly; that was the +Kaiserin Elisabeth. "Well, then," said the colonel, "tell him to have us +shown to my room." The portier discovered a certain embarrassment when +the colonel's pleasure was made known to him, and ventured something in +reply which made the consul smile.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Kenton," he said, "<i>you've</i> made a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> little mistake, this +time. You're not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, pshaw! Come now! Don't bring the consular dignity so low as to +enter into a practical joke with a hotel porter. It won't do. We got +into Vienna this morning at three, and drove straight to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth. We had a room and fire, and breakfast about noon. Tell him +who I am, and what I say."</p> + +<p>The consul did so, the portier slowly and respectfully shaking his head +at every point. When it came to the name, he turned to his books, and +shook his head yet more impressively. Then he took down a letter, +spelled its address, and handed it to the colonel; it was his own note +to Mrs. Kenton. That quite crushed him. He looked at it in a dull, +mechanical way, and nodded his head with compressed lips. Then he +scanned the portier, and glanced round once more at the bedevilled +architecture. "Well," said he, at last, "there's a mistake somewhere. +Unless there are two Kaiserin Elisabeths—. Davis, ask him if there are +two Kaiserin Elisabeths."</p> + +<p>The consul compassionately put the question, received with something +like grief by the portier. Impossible!</p> + +<p>"Then I'm not stopping at either of them," con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>tinued the colonel. "So +far, so good,—if you want to call it <i>good</i>. The question is now, if +I'm not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth," he demanded, with sudden +heat, and raising his voice, "how the devil did I get there?"</p> + +<p>The consul at this broke into a fit of laughter so violent that the +portier retired a pace or two from these maniacs, and took up a safe +position within his doorway. "You didn't—you didn't—get there!" +shrieked the consul. "That's what made the whole trouble. You—you meant +well, but you got somewhere else." He took out his handkerchief and +wiped the tears from his eyes.</p> + +<p>The colonel did not laugh; he had no real pleasure in the joke. On the +contrary, he treated it as a serious business. "Very well," said he, "it +will be proved next that I never told that driver to take me to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth, as it appears that I never got there and am not +stopping there. Will you be good enough to tell me," he asked, with +polished sarcasm, "where I <i>am</i> stopping, and why, and how?'</p> + +<p>"I wish with all my heart I could," gasped his friend, catching his +breath, "but I can't, and the only way is to go round to the principal +hotels till we hit the right one. It won't take long. Come!" He passed +his arm through that of the colonel, and made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> an explanation to the +portier, as if accounting for the vagaries of some harmless eccentric he +had in charge. Then he pulled his friend gently away, who yielded after +a survey of the portier and the court-yard with a frown in which an +indignant sense of injury quite eclipsed his former bewilderment. He had +still this defiant air when they came to the next hotel, and used the +portier with so much severity on finding that he was not stopping there, +either, that the consul was obliged to protest: "If you behave in that +way, Kenton, I won't go with you. The man's perfectly innocent of your +stopping at the wrong place; and some of these hotel people know me, and +I won't stand your bullying them. And I tell you what: you've got to let +me have my laugh out, too. You know the thing's perfectly ridiculous, +and there's no use putting any other face on it." The consul did not +wait for leave to have his laugh out, but had it out in a series of +furious gusts. At last the colonel himself joined him ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said he, "I know I'm an ass, and I wouldn't mind it on my +own account. <i>I</i> would as soon roam round after that hotel the rest of +the night as not, but I can't help feeling anxious about my wife. I'm +afraid she'll be getting very uneasy at my being gone so long. She's all +alone, there, wherever it is, and—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>"Well, but she's got your note. She'll understand—"</p> + +<p>"What a fool <i>you</i> are, Davis! <i>There's</i> my note!" cried the colonel, +opening his fist and showing a very small wad of paper in his palm. +"She'd have got my note if she'd been at the Kaiserin Elisabeth; but +she's no more there than I am."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said his friend, sobered at this. "To be sure! Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's no use trying to tell a man like you; but I suppose that +she's simply distracted by this time. You don't know what a woman is, +and how she can suffer about a little matter when she gives her mind to +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the consul again, very contritely. "I'm very sorry I laughed; +but"—here he looked into the colonel's gloomy face with a countenance +contorted with agony—"this only makes it the more ridiculous, you +know;" and he reeled away, drunk with the mirth which filled him from +head to foot. But he repented again, and with a superhuman effort so far +subdued his transports as merely to quake internally, and tremble all +over, as he led the way to the next hotel, arm in arm with the +bewildered and embittered colonel. He encouraged the latter with much +genuine sympathy, and observed a proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> decorum in his interviews with +one portier after another, formulating the colonel's story very neatly, +and explaining at the close that this American Herr, who had arrived at +Vienna before daylight and directed his driver to take him to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth, and had left his hotel at one o'clock in the belief +that it was the Kaiserin Elisabeth, felt now an added eagerness to know +what his hotel really was from the circumstance that his wife was there +quite alone and in probable distress at his long absence. At first +Colonel Kenton took a lively interest in this statement of his case, and +prompted the consul with various remarks and sub-statements; he was +grateful for the compassion generally shown him by the portiers, and he +strove with himself to give some account of the exterior and locality of +his mysterious hotel. But the fact was that he had not so much as looked +behind him when he quitted it, and knew nothing about its appearance; +and gradually the reiteration of the points of his misadventure to one +portier after another began to be as "a tale of little meaning, though +the words are strong." His personation of an American Herr in great +trouble of mind was an entire failure, except as illustrating the +national apathy of countenance when under the influence of strong +emotion. He ceased to take part in the con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>sul's efforts in his behalf; +the whole abominable affair seemed as far beyond his forecast or +endeavor as some result of malign enchantment, and there was no such +thing as carrying off the tragedy with self-respect. Distressing as it +was, there could be no question but it was entirely ridiculous; he hung +his head with shame before the portiers at being a party to it; he no +longer felt like resenting Davis's amusement; he only wondered that he +could keep his face in relating the idiotic mischance. Each successive +failure to discover his lodging confirmed him in his humiliation and +despair. Very likely there was a way out of the difficulty, but he did +not know it. He became at last almost an indifferent spectator of the +consul's perseverance. He began to look back with incredulity at the +period of his life passed before entering the fatal fiacre that morning. +He received the final portier's rejection with something like a personal +derision.</p> + +<p>"That's the last place I can think of," said the consul, wiping his brow +as they emerged from the court-yard, for he had grown very warm with +walking so much.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right," said the colonel languidly.</p> + +<p>"But we won't give it up. Let's go in here and get some coffee, and +think it over a bit." They were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> near one of the principal cafés, which +was full of people smoking, and drinking the Viennese <i>mélange</i> out of +tumblers.</p> + +<p>"By all means," assented Colonel Kenton with inconsequent courtliness, +"think it over. It's all that's left us."</p> + +<p>Matters did not look so dark, quite, after a tumbler of coffee with +milk, but they did not continue to brighten so much as they ought with +the cigars. "Now let us go through the facts of the case," said the +consul, and the colonel wearily reproduced his original narrative with +every possible circumstance. "But you know all about it," he concluded. +"I don't see any end of it. I don't see but I'm to spend the rest of my +life in hunting up a hotel that professes to be the Kaiserin Elisabeth, +and isn't. I never knew anything like it."</p> + +<p>"It certainly has the charm of novelty," gloomily assented the consul: +it must be owned that his gloom was a respectful feint. "I have heard of +men running away from their hotels, but I never did hear of a hotel +running away from a man before now. Yes—hold on! I have, too. Aladdin's +palace—and with Mrs. Aladdin in it, at that! It's a parallel case." +Here he abandoned himself as usual, while Colonel Kenton viewed his +mirth with a dreary grin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> When he at last caught his breath, "I beg +your pardon, I do, indeed," the consul implored. "I know just how you +feel, but of course it's coming out right. We've been to all the hotels +I know of, but there must be others. We'll get some more names and start +at once; and if the genie has dropped your hotel anywhere this side of +Africa we shall find it. If the worst comes to the worst, you can stay +at my house to-night and start new to-m—Oh, I forgot!—Mrs. Kenton! +Really, the whole thing is such an amusing muddle that I can't seem to +get over it." He looked at Kenton with tears in his eyes, but contained +himself and decorously summoned a waiter, who brought him whatever +corresponds to a city directory in Vienna. "There!" he said, when he had +copied into his note-book a number of addresses, "I don't think your +hotel will escape us this time;" and discharging his account he led the +way to the door, Colonel Kenton listlessly following.</p> + +<p>The wretched husband was now suffering all the anguish of a just +remorse, and the heartlessness of his behavior in going off upon his own +pleasure the whole afternoon and leaving his wife alone in a strange +hotel to pass the time as she might was no less a poignant reproach, +because it seemed so inconceivable in connection with what he had +always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> taken to be the kindness and unselfishness of his character. We +all know the sensation; and I know none, on the whole, so disagreeable, +so little flattering, so persistent when once it has established itself +in the ill-doer's consciousness. To find out that you are not so good or +generous or magnanimous as you thought is, next to having other people +find it out, probably the unfriendliest discovery that can be made. But +I suppose it has its uses. Colonel Kenton now saw the unhandsomeness of +his leaving his wife at all, and he beheld in its true light his +shabbiness in not going back to tell her he had found his old friend and +was to bring him to dinner. The Lohndiener would of course have taken +him straight to his hotel, and he would have been spared this shameful +exposure, which, he knew well enough, Davis would never forget, but +would tell all his life with an ever-increasing garniture of fiction. He +cursed his weakness in allowing himself to dawdle about those arsenals +and that parade-ground, and to be so far misguided by a hardened +bachelor as to admire certain yellow-haired German and black-haired +Hungarian women on the promenade; when he came to think of going out in +that sledge, it was with anathema maranatha. He groaned in spirit, but +he owned that he was rightly punished,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> though it seemed hard that his +wife should be punished too. And then he went on miserably to figure +first her slight surprise at his being gone so long; then her vague +uneasiness and her conjectures; then her dawning apprehensions and her +helplessness; her probable sending to the consulate to find out what had +become of him; her dismay at learning nothing of him there; her waiting +and waiting in wild dismay as the moments and hours went by; her +frenzied running to the door at every step and her despair when it +proved not his. He had seen her suffering from less causes. And where +was she? In what low, shabby tavern had he left her? He choked with rage +and grief, and could hardly speak to the gentleman, a naturalized +fellow-citizen of Vienna, to whom he found the consul introducing him.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if you can't help us," said the consul. "My friend here is the +victim of a curious annoyance;" and he stated the case in language so +sympathetic and decorous as to restore some small shreds of the +colonel's self-respect.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said their new acquaintance, who was mercifully not a man of +humor, or too polite to seem so, "that's another trick of those scamps +of fiacre-drivers. He took you purposely to the wrong hotel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> and was +probably feed by the landlord for bringing you. But why should you make +yourselves so much trouble? You know Colonel Kenton's landlord had to +send his name to the police as soon as he came, and you can get his +address there at once."</p> + +<p>"Good-by!" said the consul very hastily, with a crestfallen air. "Come +along, Kenton."</p> + +<p>"What did he send my name to the police for?" demanded the colonel, in +the open air.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's a form. They do it with all travellers. It's merely to secure +the imperial government against your machinations."</p> + +<p>"And do you mean to say you ought to have known," cried the colonel, +halting him, "that you could have found out where I was from the police +at once, before we had walked all over this moral vineyard, and wasted +half a precious lifetime?"</p> + +<p>"Kenton," contritely admitted the other, "I never happened to think of +it."</p> + +<p>"Well, Davis, you're a pretty consul!" That was all the colonel said, +and though his friend was voluble in self-exculpation and condemnation, +he did not answer him a word till they arrived at the police office. A +few brief questions and replies between the commissary and the consul +solved the long mystery, and Colonel Kenton had once more a hotel over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +his head. The commissary certified to the respectability of the place, +but invited the colonel to prosecute the driver of the fiacre in behalf +of the general public,—which seemed so right a thing that the colonel +entered into it with zeal, and then suddenly relinquished it, +remembering that he had not the rogue's number, that he had not so much +as looked at him, and that he knew no more what manner of man he was +than his own image in a glass. Under the circumstances, the commissary +admitted that it was impossible, and as to bringing the landlord to +justice, nothing could be proved against him.</p> + +<p>"Will you ask him," said the colonel, "the outside price of a +first-class assault and battery in Vienna?"</p> + +<p>The consul put as much of this idea into German as the language would +contain, which was enough to make the commissary laugh and shake his +head warningly.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do, he says, Kenton; it isn't the custom of the country."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, I don't see why we should occupy his time." He gave +his hand to the commissary, whom he would have liked to embrace, and +then hurried forth again with the consul. "There is one little thing +that worries me still," he said. "I suppose Mrs. Kenton is simply crazy +by this time."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>"Is she of a very—nervous—disposition?" faltered the consul.</p> + +<p>"Nervous? Well, if you could witness the expression of her emotions in +regard to mice, you wouldn't ask that question, Davis."</p> + +<p>At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a moment. Then he +ventured: "I've heard—or read, I don't know which—that women have more +real fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of moral support in +an actual emergency that they wouldn't find in—mice."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" answered the colonel. "You wait till you see Mrs. Kenton."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, and stopping short. +"I've been thinking that perhaps—I—I had better dine with you some +other day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely domestic that +a third person, you know—"</p> + +<p>"Come along!" cried the colonel. "I want you to help me out of this +scrape. I'm going to leave that hotel as soon as I can put my things +together, and you've got to browbeat the landlord for me while I go up +and reassure my wife long enough to get her out of that den of thieves. +What did you say the scoundrelly name was?"</p> + +<p>"The Gasthof zum Wilden Manne."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>"And what does Wildun Manny mean?"</p> + +<p>"The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I suppose,—the Wild Man."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know whether it was named after me or not; but if I'd +found that sign anywhere for the last four or five hours, I should have +known it for home. There hasn't been any wilder man in Vienna since the +town was laid out, I reckon; and I don't believe there ever was a wilder +woman anywhere than Mrs. Kenton is at this instant."</p> + +<p>Arrived at the Sign of the Savage, Colonel Kenton left his friend below +with the portier, and mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to +his room. Flinging open the door, he beheld his wife dressed in one of +her best silks, before the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching +her back hair with her hand and twitching the bow at her throat into +perfect place. She smiled at him in the glass, and said, "Where's +Captain Davis?"</p> + +<p>"Captain Davis?" gasped the colonel, dry-tongued with anxiety and +fatigue. "Oh! <i>He's</i> down there. He'll be up directly."</p> + +<p>She turned and came forward to him: "How do you like it?" Then she +advanced near enough to encounter the moustache: "Why, how heated and +tired you look!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>"Yes, yes,—we've been walking. I—I'm rather late, ain't I, Bessie?"</p> + +<p>"About an hour. I ordered dinner at six, and it's nearly seven now." The +colonel started; he had not dared to look at his watch, and he had +supposed it must be about ten o'clock; it seemed years since his search +for the hotel had begun. But he said nothing; he felt that in some +mysterious and unmerited manner Heaven was having mercy upon him, and he +accepted the grace in the sneaking way we all accept mercy. "I knew +you'd stay longer than you expected, when you found it was Davis."</p> + +<p>"How did you know it was Davis?" asked the colonel, blindly feeling his +way.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kenton picked up her Almanach de Gotha. "It has all the consular +and diplomatic corps in it."</p> + +<p>"I won't laugh at it any more," said the colonel, humbly. "Weren't +you—uneasy, Bessie?"</p> + +<p>"No. I mended away, here, and fussed round the whole afternoon, putting +the trunks to rights; and I got out this dress and ran a bit of lace +into the collar; and then I ordered dinner, for I knew you'd bring the +captain; and I took a nap, and by that it was nearly dinner-time."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the colonel.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>"Yes; and the head-waiter was as polite as peas; they've all been very +attentive. I shall certainly recommend everybody to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented the wretched man. "I reckon it's about the best hotel in +Vienna."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, go and get Captain Davis. You can bring him right in here; +we're only travellers. Why, what makes you act so queerly? Has anything +happened?" Mrs. Kenton was surprised to find herself gathered into her +husband's arms and embraced with a rapture for which she could see no +particular reason.</p> + +<p>"Bessie," said her husband, "I told you this morning that you were +amiable as well as bright and beautiful; I now wish to add that you are +sensible. I'm awfully ashamed of being gone so long. But the fact is we +had a little accident. Our sleigh broke down out in the country, and we +had to walk back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you poor old fellow! No wonder you look tired."</p> + +<p>He accepted the balm of her compassion like a candid and innocent man: +"Yes, it was pretty rough. But <i>I</i> didn't mind it, except on your +account. I thought the delay would make you uneasy." With that he went +out to the head of the stairs and called, "Davis!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>"Yes!" responded the consul; and he ascended the stairs in such +trepidation that he tripped and fell part of the way up.</p> + +<p>"Have you been saying anything to that man about my going away?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've simply been blowing him up on the fiacre driver's account. He +swears they are innocent of collusion. But of course they're not."</p> + +<p>"Well, all right. Mrs. Kenton is waiting for us to go to dinner. And +look here," whispered the colonel, "don't you open your mouth, except to +put something into it, till I give you the cue."</p> + +<p>The dinner was charming, and had suffered little or nothing from the +delay. Mrs. Kenton was in raptures with it, and after a thimbleful of +the good Hungarian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing the +praises of the Kaiserin Elisabeth.</p> + +<p>"The K——" began the consul, who had hitherto guarded himself very +well. But the colonel arrested him at that letter with a terrible look. +He returned the look with a glance of intelligence, and resumed: "The +Kaiserin Elisabeth has the best cook in Vienna."</p> + +<p>"And everybody about has such nice, honest faces," said Mrs. Kenton. +"I'm sure I couldn't have felt anxious if you hadn't come till midnight: +I knew I was perfectly secure here."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>"Quite right, quite right," said the consul. "All classes of the +Viennese are so faithful. Now, I dare say you could have trusted that +driver of yours, who brought you here before daylight this morning, with +untold gold. No stranger need fear any of the tricks ordinarily +practised upon travellers in Vienna. They are a truthful, honest, +virtuous population,—like all the Germans in fact."</p> + +<p>"There, Ned! What do you say to that, with your Black Forest nonsense?" +triumphed Mrs. Kenton.</p> + +<p>Colonel Kenton laughed sheepishly: "Well, I take it all back, Bessie. I +wasn't quite satisfied with the appearance of the Black Forest country +when I came to it," he explained to the consul, "and Mrs. Kenton and I +had our little joke about the fraudulent nature of the Germans."</p> + +<p>"<i>Our</i> little joke!" retorted his wife. "I wish we were going to stay +longer in Vienna. They say you have to make bargains for everything in +Italy, and here I suppose I could shop just as at home."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said the consul; the Viennese shopkeepers being the most +notorious Jews in Europe.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we can't stop longer than till the morning," remarked the colonel. +"I shall be sorry to leave Vienna and the Kaiserin Elizabeth, but we must go."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>"Better hang on awhile; you won't find many hotels like it, Kenton," +observed his friend.</p> + +<p>"No, I suppose not," sighed the colonel; "but I'll get the address of +their correspondent in Venice and stop there."</p> + +<p>Thus these craven spirits combined to delude and deceive the helpless +woman of whom half an hour before they had stood in such abject terror. +If they had found her in hysterics they would have pitied and respected +her; but her good sense, her amiability, and noble self-control +subjected her to their shameless mockery.</p> + +<p>Colonel Kenton followed the consul downstairs when he went away, and +pretended to justify himself. "I'll tell her one of these days," he +said, "but there's no use distressing her now."</p> + +<p>"I didn't understand you at first," said the other. "But I see now it +was the only way."</p> + +<p>"Yes; saves needless suffering. I say, Davis, this is about an even +thing between us? A United States consul ought to be of some use to his +fellow-citizens abroad; and if he allows them to walk their legs off +hunting up a hotel which he could have found at the first police-station +if <i>he had happened to think of it</i>, he won't be very anxious to tell +the joke, I suppose?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>"I don't propose to write home to the papers about it."</p> + +<p>"All right." So, in the court-yard of the Wild Man, they parted.</p> + +<p>Long after that Mrs. Kenton continued to recommend people to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth. Even when the truth was made known to her she did +not see much to laugh at. "I'm sure I was always very glad the colonel +didn't tell me at once," she said, "for if I had known what I had been +through, I certainly <i>should</i> have gone distracted."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h2><a name="TONELLIS_MARRIAGE" id="TONELLIS_MARRIAGE"></a>TONELLI'S MARRIAGE.</h2> + +<p>There was no richer man in Venice than Tommaso Tonelli, who had enough +on his florin a day; and none younger than he, who owned himself +forty-seven years old. He led the cheerfullest life in the world, and +was quite a monster of content; but when I come to sum up his pleasures, +I fear that I shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very +insipid and monotonous existence. I doubt if even a summary of his +duties could be made attractive to the conscientious imagination of +hard-working people; for Tonelli's labors were not killing, nor, for +that matter, were those of any Venetian that I ever knew. He had a +stated employment in the office of the notary Cenarotti; and he passed +there so much of every working day as lies between nine and five +o'clock, writing upon deeds and conveyances and petitions and other +legal instruments for the notary, who sat in an adjoining room, secluded +from nearly everything in this world but snuff. He called Tonelli by the +sound of a little bell; and, when he turned to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> a paper from his +safe, he seemed to be abstracting some secret from long-lapsed +centuries, which he restored again, and locked back among the dead ages +when his clerk replaced the document in his hands. These hands were very +soft and pale, and their owner was a colorless old man, whose silvery +hair fell down a face nearly as white; but, as he has almost nothing to +do with the present affair, I shall merely say that, having been +compromised in the last revolution, he had been obliged to live ever +since in perfect retirement, and that he seemed to have been blanched in +this social darkness as a plant is blanched by growth in a cellar. His +enemies said that he was naturally a timid man, but they could not deny +that he had seen things to make the brave afraid, or that he had now +every reason from the police to be secret and cautious in his life. He +could hardly be called company for Tonelli, who must have found the day +intolerably long but for the visit which the notary's pretty +granddaughter contrived to pay every morning in the cheerless <i>mezzà</i>. +She commonly appeared on some errand from her mother, but her chief +business seemed to be to share with Tonelli the modest feast of rumor +and hearsay which he loved to furnish forth for her, and from which +doubtless she carried back some fragments of gossip to the family +apartments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> Tonelli called her, with that mingled archness and +tenderness of the Venetians, his Paronsina; and, as he had seen her grow +up from the smallest possible of Little Mistresses, there was no shyness +between them, and they were fully privileged to each other's society by +her mother. When she flitted away again, Tonelli was left to a stillness +broken only by the soft breathing of the old man in the next room, and +by the shrill discourse of his own loquacious pen, so that he was +commonly glad enough when it came five o'clock. At this hour he put on +his black coat, that shone with constant use, and his faithful silk hat, +worn down to the pasteboard with assiduous brushing, and caught up a +very jaunty cane in his hand. Then, saluting the notary, he took his way +to the little restaurant, where it was his custom to dine, and had his +tripe soup and his <i>risotto</i>, or dish of fried liver, in the austere +silence imposed by the presence of a few poor Austrian captains and +lieutenants. It was not that the Italians feared to be overheard by +these enemies; but it was good <i>dimostrazione</i> to be silent before the +oppressor, and not let him know that they even enjoyed their dinners +well enough, under his government, to chat sociably over them. To tell +the truth, this duty was an irksome one to Tonelli, who liked far better +to dine, as he sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> did, at a cook-shop, where he met the folk of +the people (<i>gente del popolo</i>), as he called them; and where, though +himself a person of civil condition, he discoursed freely with the other +guests, and ate of their humble but relishing fare. He was known among +them as Sior Tommaso; and they paid him a homage, which they enjoyed +equally with him, as a person not only learned in the law, but a poet of +gift enough to write wedding and funeral verses, and a veteran who had +fought for the dead Republic of Forty-eight. They honored him as a most +travelled gentleman, who had been in the Tyrol, and who could have +spoken German, if he had not despised that tongue as the language of the +ugly Croats, like one born to it. Who, for example, spoke Venetian more +elegantly than Sior Tommaso? or Tuscan, when he chose? and yet he was +poor,—a man of that genius! Patience! When Garibaldi came, we should +see! The <i>facchini</i> and gondoliers, who had been wagging their tongues +all day at the church corners and ferries, were never tired of talking +of this gifted friend of theirs, when, having ended some impressive +discourse or some dramatic story, he left them with a sudden adieu, and +walked quickly away toward the Riva degli Schiavoni.</p> + +<p>Here, whether he had dined at the cook-shop, or at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> his more genteel and +gloomy restaurant of the Bronze Horses, it was his custom to lounge an +hour or two over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the many +caffès, and to watch all the world as it passed to and fro on the quay. +Tonelli was gray, he did not disown it; but he always maintained that +his heart was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great +difference in persons as to age, which told in his favor. So he loved to +sit there, and look at the ladies; and he amused himself by inventing a +pet name for every face he saw, which he used to teach to certain +friends of his, when they joined him over his coffee. These friends were +all young enough to be his sons, and wise enough to be his fathers; but +they were always glad to be with him, for he had so cheery a wit and so +good a heart that neither his years nor his follies could make any one +sad. His kind face beamed with smiles, when Pennellini, chief among the +youngsters in his affections, appeared on the top of the nearest bridge, +and thence descended directly towards his little table. Then it was that +he drew out the straw which ran through the centre of his long Virginia, +and lighted the pleasant weed, and gave himself up to the delight of +making aloud those comments on the ladies which he had hitherto stifled +in his breast. Sometimes he would feign himself too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> deeply taken with a +passing beauty to remain quiet, and would make his friend follow with +him in chase of her to the Public Gardens. But he was a fickle lover, +and wanted presently to get back to his caffè, where, at decent +intervals of days or weeks, he would indulge himself in discovering a +spy in some harmless stranger, who, in going out, looked curiously at +the scar Tonelli's cheek had brought from the battle of Vicenza in 1848.</p> + +<p>"Something of a spy, no?" he asked at these times of the waiter, who, +flattered by the penetration of a frequenter of his caffè, and the +implication that it was thought seditious enough to be watched by the +police, assumed a pensive importance, and answered, "Something of a spy, +certainly."</p> + +<p>Upon this Tonelli was commonly encouraged to proceed: "Did I ever tell +you how I once sent one of those ugly muzzles out of a caffè? I knew him +as soon as I saw him,—I am never mistaken in a spy,—and I went with my +newspaper, and sat down close at his side. Then I whispered to him +across the sheet, 'We are two.' 'Eh?' says he. 'It is a very small +caffè, and there is no need of more than one,' and then I stared at him +and frowned. He looks at me fixedly a moment, then gathers up his hat +and gloves, and takes his pestilency off."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>The waiter, who had heard this story, man and boy, a hundred times, made +a quite successful show of enjoying it, as he walked away with Tonelli's +fee of half a cent in his pocket. Tonelli then had left from his day's +salary enough to pay for the ice which he ate at ten o'clock, but which +he would sometimes forego, in order to give the money in charity, though +more commonly he indulged himself, and put off the beggar with, "Another +time, my dear. I have no leisure now to discuss those matters with +thee."</p> + +<p>On holidays this routine of Tonelli's life was varied. In the forenoon +he went to mass at St. Mark's, to see the beauty and fashion of the +city; and then he took a walk with his four or five young friends, or +went with them to play at bowls, or even made an excursion to the main +land, where they hired a carriage, and all those Venetians got into it, +like so many seamen, and drove the horse with as little mercy as if he +had been a sail-boat. At seven o'clock Tonelli dined with the notary, +next whom he sat at table, and for whom his quaint pleasantries had a +zest that inspired the Paronsina and her mother to shout them into his +dull ears, that he might lose none of them. He laughed a kind of faded +laugh at them, and, rubbing his pale hands together, showed by his act +that he did not think his best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> wine too good for his kindly guest. The +signora feigned to take the same delight shown by her father and +daughter in Tonelli's drolleries; but I doubt if she had a great sense +of his humor, or, indeed, cared anything for it save as she perceived +that it gave pleasure to those she loved. Otherwise, however, she had a +sincere regard for him, for he was most useful and devoted to her in her +quality of widowed mother; and if she could not feel wit, she could feel +gratitude, which is perhaps the rarer gift, if not the more respectable.</p> + +<p>The Little Mistress was dependent upon him for nearly all the pleasures +and for the only excitements of her life. As a young girl she was at +best a sort of caged bird, who had to be guarded against the youth of +the other sex as if they, on their part, were so many marauding and +ravening cats. During most days of the year the Paronsina's parrot had +almost as much freedom as she. He could leave his gilded prison when he +chose, and promenade the notary's house as far down as the marble well +in the sunless court, and the Paronsina could do little more. The +signora would as soon have thought of letting the parrot walk across +their campo alone as her daughter, though the local dangers, either to +bird or beauty, could not have been very great. The green-grocer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> of +that sequestered campo was an old woman, the apothecary was gray, and +his shop was haunted by none but superannuated physicians; the baker, +the butcher, the waiters at the caffè were all professionally, and, as +purveyors to her family, out of the question; the sacristan, who +sometimes appeared at the perruquier's to get a coal from under the +curling-tongs to kindle his censer, had but one eye, which he kept +single to the service of the Church, and his perquisite of +candle-drippings; and I hazard little in saying that the Paronsina might +have danced a polka around Campo San Giuseppe without jeopardy so far as +concerned the handsome wood-carver, for his wife always sat in the shop +beside him. Nevertheless, a custom is not idly handed down by mother to +daughter from the dawn of Christianity to the middle of the nineteenth +century; and I cannot deny that the local perruquier, though stricken in +years, was still so far kept fresh by the immortal youth of the wax +heads in his window as to have something beauish about him; or that, +just at the moment the Paronsina chanced to go into the campo alone, a +<i>leone</i> from Florian's might not have been passing through it, when he +would certainly have looked boldly at her, perhaps spoken to her, and +possibly pounced at once upon her fluttering heart. So by day the +Paronsina<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> rarely went out, and she never emerged unattended from the +silence and shadow of her grandfather's house.</p> + +<p>If I were here telling a story of the Paronsina, or indeed any story at +all, I might suffer myself to enlarge somewhat upon the daily order of +her secluded life, and show how the seclusion of other Venetian girls +was the widest liberty as compared with hers; but I have no right to +play with the reader's patience in a performance that can promise no +excitement of incident, no charm of invention. Let him figure to +himself, if he will, the ancient and half-ruined palace in which the +notary dwelt, with a gallery running along one side of its inner court, +the slender pillars supporting upon the corroded sculpture of their +capitals a clinging vine, that dappled the floor with palpitant light +and shadow in the afternoon sun. The gate, whose exquisite Saracenic +arch grew into a carven flame, was surmounted by the armorial bearings +of a family that died of its sins against the Serenest Republic long +ago; the marble cistern which stood in the middle of the court had still +a ducal rose upon either of its four sides; and little lions of stone +perched upon the posts at the head of the marble stairway climbing to +the gallery, their fierce aspects worn smooth and amiable by the contact +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> hands that for many ages had mouldered in tombs. Toward the canal +the palace windows had been immemorially bricked up for some reason or +caprice, and no morning sunlight, save such as shone from the bright +eyes of the Paronsina, ever looked into the dim halls. It was a fit +abode for such a man as the notary, exiled in the heart of his native +city, and it was not unfriendly in its influences to a quiet vegetation +like the signora's; but to the Paronsina it was sad as Venice itself, +where, in some moods, I have wondered that any sort of youth could have +the courage to exist. Nevertheless, the Paronsina had contrived to grow +up here a child of the gayest and archest spirit, and to lead a life of +due content, till after her return home from the comparative freedom and +society of Madame Prateux's school, where she spent three years in +learning all polite accomplishments, and whence she came, with brilliant +hopes and romances ready imagined, for any possible exigency of the +future. She adored all the modern Italian poets, and read their verse +with that stately and rhythmical fulness of voice which often made it +sublime and always pleasing. She was a relentless patriot, an +Italianissima of the vividest green, white, and red; and she could +interpret the historical novels of her countrymen in their subtilest +application to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> the modern enemies of Italy. But all the Paronsina's +gifts and accomplishments were to poor purpose, if they brought no young +men a-wooing under her balcony; and it was to no effect that her fervid +fancy peopled the palace's empty halls with stately and gallant company +out of Marco Visconti, Nicolò de' Lapi, Margherita Pusterla, and the +other romances, since she could not hope to receive any practicable +offer of marriage from the heroes thus assembled. Her grandfather +invited no guests of more substantial presence to his house. In fact, +the police watched him too narrowly to permit him to receive society, +even had he been so minded, and for kindred reasons his family paid few +visits in the city. To leave Venice, except for the autumnal +<i>villeggiatura</i> was almost out of the question; repeated applications at +the Luogotenenza won the two ladies but a tardy and scanty grace; and +the use of the passport allowing them to spend a few weeks in Florence +was attended with so much vexation, in coming and going upon the +imperial confines, and when they returned home they were subject to so +great fear of perquisition from the police, that it was after all rather +a mortification than a pleasure that the government had given them. The +signora received her few acquaintances once a week; but the Paronsina +found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> the old ladies tedious over their cups of coffee or tumblers of +lemonade, and declared that her mamma's reception days were a +martyrdom,—actually a martyrdom, to her. She was full of life and the +beautiful and tender longing of youth; she had a warm heart and a +sprightly wit; but she led an existence scarce livelier than a ghost's, +and she was so poor in friends and resources that she shuddered to think +what must become of her if Tonelli should die. It was not possible, +thanks to God! that he should marry.</p> + +<p>The signora herself seldom cared to go out, for the reason that it was +too cold in winter and too hot in summer. In the one season she clung +all day to her wadded arm-chair, with her <i>scaldino</i> in her lap; and in +the other season she found it a sufficient diversion to sit in the great +hall of the palace, and be fanned by the salt breeze that came from the +Adriatic through the vine-garlanded gallery. But besides this habitual +inclemency of the weather, which forbade out-door exercise nearly the +whole year, it was a displeasure to walk in Venice on account of the +stairways of the bridges; and the signora much preferred to wait till +they went to the country in the autumn, when she always rode to take the +air. The exceptions to her custom were formed by those after-dinner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +promenades which she sometimes made on holidays, in summer. Then she put +on her richest black, and the Paronsina dressed herself in her best, and +they both went to walk on the Molo, before the pillars of the lion and +the saint, under the escort of Tonelli.</p> + +<p>It often happened that, at the hour of their arrival on the Molo, the +moon was coming up over the low bank of the Lido in the east, and all +that prospect of ship-bordered quay, island, and lagoon, which, at its +worst, is everything that heart can wish, was then at its best, and far +beyond words to paint. On the right stretched the long Giudecca, with +the domes and towers of its Palladian church, and the swelling foliage +of its gardens, and its line of warehouses—painted pink, as if even +Business, grateful to be tolerated amid such lovely scenes, had striven +to adorn herself. In front lay San Giorgio, picturesque with its church +and pathetic with its political prisons; and, farther away to the east +again, the gloomy mass of the madhouse at San Servolo, and then the +slender campanili of the Armenian convent rose over the gleaming and +tremulous water. Tonelli took in the beauty of the scene with no more +consciousness than a bird; but the Paronsina had learnt from her +romantic poets and novelists to be complimentary to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> prospects, and her +heart gurgled out in rapturous praises of this. The unwonted freedom +exhilarated her; there was intoxication in the encounter of faces on the +promenade, in the dazzle and glimmer of the lights, and even in the +music of the Austrian band playing in the Piazza, as it came purified to +her patriotic ear by the distance. There were none but Italians upon the +Molo, and one might walk there without so much as touching an officer +with the hem of one's garment; and, a little later, when the band ceased +playing, she should go with the other Italians and possess the Piazza +for one blessed hour. In the mean time, the Paronsina had a sharp little +tongue; and, after she had flattered the landscape, and had, from her +true heart, once for all, saluted the promenaders as brothers and +sisters in Italy, she did not mind making fun of their peculiarities of +dress and person. She was signally sarcastic upon such ladies as Tonelli +chanced to admire, and often so stung him with her jests that he was +glad when Pennellini appeared, as he always did exactly at nine o'clock, +and joined the ladies in their promenade, asking and answering all those +questions of ceremony which form Venetian greeting. He was a youth of +the most methodical exactness in his whole life, and could no more have +arrived on the Molo a moment before or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> after nine than the bronze +giants on the clock-tower could have hastened or lingered in striking +the hour. Nature, which had made him thus punctual and precise, gave him +also good looks, and a most amiable kindness of heart. The Paronsina +cared nothing at all for him in his quality of handsome young fellow; +but she prized him as an acquaintance whom she might salute, and be +saluted by, in a city where her grandfather's isolation kept her strange +to nearly all the faces she saw. Sometimes her evenings on the Molo +wasted away without the exchange of a word save with Tonelli, for her +mother seldom talked; and then it was quite possible her teasing was +greater than his patience, and that he grew taciturn under her tongue. +At such times she hailed Pennellini's appearance with a double delight; +for, if he never joined in her attacks upon Tonelli's favorites, he +always enjoyed them, and politely applauded them. If his friend +reproached him for this treason, he made him every amend in answering, +"She is jealous, Tonelli,"—a wily compliment, which had the most +intense effect in coming from lips ordinarily so sincere as his.</p> + +<p>The signora was weary of the promenade long before the Austrian music +ceased in the Piazza, and was very glad when it came time for them to +leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> the Molo, and go and sit down to an ice at the Caffè Florian. +This was the supreme hour to the Paronsina, the one heavenly excess of +her restrained and eventless life. All about her were scattered tranquil +Italian idlers, listening to the music of the strolling minstrels who +had succeeded the military band; on either hand sat her friends, and she +had thus the image of that tender devotion without which a young girl is +said not to be perfectly happy; while the very heart of adventure seemed +to bound in her exchange of glances with a handsome foreigner at a +neighboring table. On the other side of the Piazza a few officers still +lingered at the Caffè Quadri; and at the Specchi sundry groups of +citizens in their dark dress contrasted well with these white uniforms; +but, for the most part, the moon and gas-jets shone upon the broad, +empty space of the Piazza, whose loneliness the presence of a few +belated promenaders only served to render conspicuous. As the giants +hammered eleven upon the great bell, the Austrian sentinel, under the +Ducal Palace, uttered a long, reverberating cry; and soon after a patrol +of soldiers clanked across the Piazza, and passed with echoing feet +through the arcade into the narrow and devious streets beyond. The young +girl found it hard to rend herself from the dreamy pleasure of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +scene, or even to turn from the fine impersonal pain which the presence +of the Austrians in the spectacle inflicted. All gave an impression +something like that of the theatre, with the advantage that here one's +self was part of the pantomime; and in those days, when nearly +everything but the puppet-shows was forbidden to patriots, it was +altogether the greatest enjoyment possible to the Paronsina. The pensive +charm of the place imbued all the little company so deeply that they +scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly homeward through the deserted +Merceria. When they reached the Campo San Salvatore, on many a lovely +summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to waken a nightingale whose +cage hung from a lofty balcony there; for suddenly, at their coming, the +bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched them all, and +suffused the tender heart of the Paronsina with an inexpressible pathos.</p> + +<p>Alas! she had so often returned thus from the Piazza, and no stealthy +footstep had followed hers homeward with love's persistence and +diffidence! She was young, she knew, and she thought not quite dull or +hideous; but her spirit was as sole in that melancholy city as if there +were no youth but hers in the world. And a little later than this, when +she had her first affair, it did not originate in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> the Piazza, nor at +all respond to her expectations in a love-affair. In fact, it was +altogether a business affair, and was managed chiefly by Tonelli, who +having met a young doctor, laurelled the year before at Padua, had heard +him express so pungent a curiosity to know what the Paronsina would have +to her dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love with her. So +with the consent of the signora he had arranged a correspondence between +the young people; and all went on well at first,—the letters from both +passing through his hands. But his office was anything but a sinecure, +for while the Doctor was on his part of a cold temperament, and disposed +to regard the affair merely as a proper way of providing for the natural +affections, the Paronsina cared nothing for him personally, and only +viewed him favorably as abstract matrimony,—as the means of escaping +from the bondage of her girlhood and the sad seclusion of her life into +the world outside her grandfather's house. So presently the +correspondence fell almost wholly upon Tonelli, who worked up to the +point of betrothal with an expense of finesse and sentiment that would +have made his fortune in diplomacy or poetry. What should he say now? +that stupid young Doctor would cry in a desperation, when Tonelli +delicately reminded him that it was time to answer the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> Paronsina's last +note. Say this, that, and the other, Tonelli would answer, giving him +the heads of a proper letter, which the Doctor took down on square bits +of paper, neatly fashioned for writing prescriptions. "And for God's +sake, caro dottore, put a little warmth into it!" The poor Doctor would +try, but it must always end in Tonelli's suggesting and almost dictating +every sentence; and then the letter, being carried to the Paronsina made +her laugh: "This is very pretty, my poor Tonelli, but it was never my +onoratissimo dottore who thought of these tender compliments. Ah! that +allusion to my mouth and eyes could only have come from the heart of a +great poet. It is yours, Tonelli, don't deny it." And Tonelli, taken in +his weak point of literature, could make but a feeble pretence of +disclaiming the child of his fancy, while the Paronsina, being in this +reckless humor, more than once responded to the Doctor in such fashion +that in the end the inspiration of her altered and amended letter was +Tonelli's. Even after the betrothal, the lovemaking languished, and the +Doctor was indecently patient of the late day fixed for the marriage by +the notary. In fact, the Doctor was very busy; and, as his practice +grew, the dower of the Paronsina dwindled in his fancy, till one day he +treated the whole question of their marriage with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> such coldness and +uncertainty in his talk with Tonelli, that the latter saw whither his +thoughts were drifting, and went home with an indignant heart to the +Paronsina, who joyfully sat down and wrote her first sincere letter to +the Doctor, dismissing him.</p> + +<p>"It is finished," she said, "and I am glad. After all, perhaps, I don't +want to be any freer than I am; and while I have you, Tonelli, I don't +want a younger lover. Younger? Diana! You are in the flower of youth, +and I believe you will never wither. Did that rogue of a Doctor, then, +really give you the elixir of youth for writing him those letters? Tell +me, Tonelli, as a true friend, how long have you been forty-seven? Ever +since your fiftieth birthday? Listen! I have been more afraid of losing +you than my sweetest Doctor. I thought you would be so much in love with +lovemaking that you would go break-neck and court some one in earnest on +your own account!"</p> + +<p>Thus the Paronsina made a jest of the loss she had sustained; but it was +not pleasant to her, except as it dissolved a tie which love had done +nothing to form. Her life seemed colder and vaguer after it, and the +hour very far away when the handsome officers of her king (all good +Venetians in those days called Victor Emanuel "our king") should come to +drive out the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Austrians, and marry their victims. She scarcely enjoyed +the prodigious privilege, offered her at this time in consideration of +her bereavement, of going to the comedy, under Tonelli's protection and +along with Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora afterwards +had real qualms of patriotism concerning the breach of public duty +involved in this distraction of her daughter. She hoped that no one had +recognized her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warning from +the Venetian Committee. "Thou knowest," she said to the Paronsina, "that +they have even admonished the old Conte Tradonico, who loves the comedy +better than his soul, and who used to go every evening. Thy aunt told +me, and that the old rogue, when people ask him why he doesn't go to the +play, answers, 'My mistress won't let me.' But fie! I am saying what +young girls ought not to hear."</p> + +<p>After the affair with the Doctor, I say, life refused to return exactly +to its old expression, and I suppose that, if what presently happened +was ever to happen, it could not have occurred at a more appropriate +time for a disaster, or at a time when its victims were less able to +bear it I do not know whether I have yet sufficiently indicated the +fact, but the truth is both the Paronsina and her mother had from long +use come to regard Tonelli as a kind of property of theirs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> which had +no right in any way to alienate itself. They would have felt an attempt +of this sort to be not only very absurd, but very wicked, in view of +their affection for him and dependence upon him; and while the Paronsina +thanked God that he would never marry, she had a deep conviction that he +ought not to marry, even if he desired. It was at the same time +perfectly natural, nay, filial, that she should herself be ready to +desert this old friend, whom she felt so strictly bound to be faithful +to her loneliness. As matters fell out, she had herself primarily to +blame for Tonelli's loss; for, in that interval of disgust and ennui +following the Doctor's dismissal, she had suffered him to seek his own +pleasure on holiday evenings; and he had thus wandered alone to the +Piazza, and so, one night, had seen a lady eating an ice there, and +fallen in love without more ado than another man should drink a +lemonade.</p> + +<p>This facility came of habit, for Tonelli had now been falling in love +every other day for some forty years; and in that time had broken the +hearts of innumerable women of all nations and classes. The prettiest +water-carriers in his neighborhood were in love with him, as their +mothers had been before them, and ladies of noble condition were +believed to cherish passions for him. Especially, gay and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> beautiful +foreigners, as they sat at Florian's, were taken with hopeless love of +him; and he could tell stories of very romantic adventure in which he +figured as hero, though nearly always with moral effect. For example, +there was the countess from the mainland,—she merited the sad +distinction of being chief among those who had vainly loved him, if you +could believe the poet who both inspired and sang her passion. When she +took a palace in Venice, he had been summoned to her on the pretended +business of a secretary; but when she presented herself with those idle +accounts of her factor and tenants on the mainland, her household +expenses and her correspondence with her advocate, Tonelli perceived at +once that it was upon a wholly different affair that she had desired to +see him. She was a rich widow of forty, of a beauty supernaturally +preserved and very great. "This is no place for thee, Tonelli mine," the +secretary had said to himself, after a week had passed, and he had +understood all the waywardness of that unhappy lady's intentions. "Thou +art not too old, but thou art too wise, for these follies, though no +saint"; and so had gathered up his personal effects, and secretly +quitted the palace. But such was the countess's fury at his escape that +she never paid him his week's salary; nor did she manifest the least +gratitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> that Tonelli, out of regard for her son, a very honest young +man, refused in any way to identify her, but, to all except his closest +friends, pretended that he had passed those terrible eight days on a +visit to the country village where he was born. It showed Pennellini's +ignorance of life that he should laugh at this history; and I prefer to +treat it seriously, and to use it in explaining the precipitation with +which Tonelli's latest inamorata returned his love.</p> + +<p>Though, indeed, why should a lady of thirty, and from an obscure country +town, hesitate to be enamored of any eligible suitor who presented +himself in Venice? It is not my duty to enter upon a detail or summary +of Carlotta's character or condition, or to do more than indicate that, +while she did not greatly excel in youth, good looks, or worldly gear, +she had yet a little property, and was of that soft prettiness which is +often more effective than downright beauty. There was, indeed, something +very charming about her; and, if she was a blonde, I have no reason to +think she was as fickle as the Venetian proverb paints that complexion +of woman; or that she had not every quality which would have excused any +one but Tonelli for thinking of marrying her.</p> + +<p>After their first mute interview in the Piazza, the two lost no time in +making each other's acquaintance;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> but though the affair was vigorously +conducted, no one could say that it was not perfectly in order. Tonelli +on the following day, which chanced to be Sunday, repaired to St. Mark's +at the hour of the fashionable mass, where he gazed steadfastly at the +lady during her orisons, and whence, at a discreet distance, he followed +her home to the house of the friends whom she was visiting. Somewhat to +his discomfiture at first, these proved to be old acquaintances of his; +and when he came at night to walk up and down under their balconies, as +bound in true love to do, they made nothing of asking him indoors, and +presenting him to his lady. But the pair were not to be entirely balked +of their romance, and they still arranged stolen interviews at church, +where one furtively whispered word had the value of whole hours of +unrestricted converse under the roof of their friends. They quite +refused to take advantage of their anomalously easy relations, beyond +inquiry on his part as to the amount of the lady's dower, and on hers as +to the permanence of Tonelli's employment. He in due form had Pennellini +to his confidant, and Carlotta unbosomed herself to her hostess; and the +affair was thus conducted with such secrecy that not more than two +thirds of Tonelli's acquaintance knew anything about it when their +engagement was announced.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>There were now no circumstances to prevent their early union, yet the +happy conclusion was one to which Tonelli urged himself after many +secret and bitter displeasures of spirit. I am persuaded that his love +for Carlotta must have been most ardent and sincere, for there was +everything in his history and reason against marriage. He could not +disown that he had hitherto led a joyous and careless life, or that he +was exactly fitted for the modest delights, the discreet variety, of his +present state,—for his daily routine at the notary's, his dinner at the +Bronze Horses or the cook-shop, his hour at the caffè, his walks and +excursions, for his holiday banquet with the Cenarotti, and his formal +promenade with the ladies of that family upon the Molo. He had a good +employment, with a salary that held him above want, and afforded him the +small luxuries already named; and he had fixed habits of work and of +relaxation, which made both a blessing. He had his chosen circle of +intimate equals, who regarded him for his good-heartedness and wit and +foibles; and his little following of humble admirers, who looked upon +him as a gifted man in disgrace with fortune. His friendships were as +old as they were secure and cordial; he was established in the +kindliness of all who knew him; and he was flattered by the dependence +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Paronsina and her mother, even when it was troublesome to him. +He had his past of sentiment and war, his present of story-telling and +romance. He was quite independent: his sins, if he had any, began and +ended in himself, for none was united to him so closely as to be hurt by +them; and he was far too imprudent a man to be taken for an example by +any one. He came and went as he listed, he did this or that without +question. With no heart chosen yet from the world of woman's love, he +was still a young man, with hopes and affections as pliable as a boy's. +He had, in a word, that reputation of good-fellow which in Venice gives +a man the title of <i>buon diavolo</i>, but on which he does not anywhere +turn his back with impunity, either from his own consciousness or from +public opinion. There never was such a thing in the world as both good +devil and good husband; and even with his betrothal Tonelli felt that +his old, careless, merry life of the hour ended, and that he had tacitly +recognized a future while he was yet unable to cut the past. If one has +for twenty years made a jest of women, however amiably and insincerely, +one does not propose to marry a woman without making a jest of one's +self. The avenging remembrance of elderly people whose late matrimony +had furnished food for Tonelli's wit now rose up to torment him, and in +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> morbid fancy the merriment he had caused was echoed back in his own +derision.</p> + +<p>It shocked him to find how quickly his secret took wing, and it annoyed +him that all his acquaintances were so prompt to felicitate him. He +imagined a latent mockery in their speeches, and he took them with an +argumentative solemnity. He reasoned separately with his friends; to all +who spoke to him of his marriage he presented elaborate proofs that it +was the wisest thing he could possibly do, and tried to give the affair +a cold air of prudence. "You see, I am getting old; that is to say, I am +tired of this bachelor life in which I have no one to take care of me, +if I fall sick, and to watch that the doctors do not put me to death. My +pay is very little, but, with Carlotta's dower well invested, we shall +both together live better than either of us lives alone. She is a +careful woman, and will keep me neat and comfortable. She is not so +young as some women I had thought to marry,—no, but so much the better; +nobody will think her half so charming as I do, and at my time of life +that is a great point gained. She is good, and has an admirable +disposition. She is not spoiled by Venice, but as innocent as a dove. O, +I shall find myself very well with her!"</p> + +<p>This was the speech which with slight modification<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> Tonelli made over +and over again to all his friends but Pennellini. To him he unmasked, +and said boldly that at last he was really in love; and being gently +discouraged in what seemed his folly, and incredulously laughed at, he +grew angry, and gave such proofs of his sincerity that Pennellini was +convinced, and owned to himself, "This madman is actually +enamored,—enamored,—like a cat! Patience! What will ever those +Cenarotti say?"</p> + +<p>In a little while poor Tonelli lost the philosophic mind with which he +had at first received the congratulations of his friends, and, from +reasoning with them, fell to resenting their good wishes. Very little +things irritated him, and pleasantries which he had taken in excellent +part, time out of mind, now raised his anger. His barber had for many +years been in the habit of saying, as he applied the stick of fixature +to Tonelli's mustache, and gave it a jaunty upward curl, "Now we will +bestow that little dash of youthfulness"; and it both amazed and hurt +him to have Tonelli respond with a fierce "Tsit!" and say that this jest +was proper in its antiquity to the times of Romulus rather than our own +period, and so go out of the shop without that "Adieu, old fellow," +which he had never failed to give in twenty years. "Capperi!" said the +barber, when he emerged from a pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>found revery into which this outbreak +had plunged him, and in which he had remained holding the nose of his +next customer, and tweaking it to and fro in the violence of his +emotions, regardless of those mumbled maledictions which the lather +would not permit the victim to articulate. "If Tonelli is so savage in +his betrothal, we must wait for his marriage to tame him. I am sorry. He +was always such a good devil."</p> + +<p>But if many things annoyed Tonelli, there were some that deeply wounded +him, and chiefly the fact that his betrothal seemed to have fixed an +impassable gulf of years between him and all those young men whose +company he loved so well. He had really a boy's heart, and he had +consorted with them because he felt himself nearer their age than his +own. Hitherto they had in no wise found his presence a restraint. They +had always laughed, and told their loves, and spoken their young men's +thoughts, and made their young men's jokes, without fear or shame, +before the merry-hearted sage, who never offered good advice, if indeed +he ever dreamed that there was a wiser philosophy than theirs. It had +been as if he were the youngest among them; but now, in spite of all +that he or they could do, he seemed suddenly and irretrievably aged. +They looked at him strangely, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> for the first time they saw that +his mustache was gray, that his brow was not smooth like theirs, that +there were crow's-feet at the corners of his kindly eyes. They could not +phrase the vague feeling that haunted their hearts, or they would have +said that Tonelli, in offering to marry, had voluntarily turned his back +upon his youth; that love, which would only have brought a richer bloom +to their age, had breathed away forever the autumnal blossom of his.</p> + +<p>Something of this made itself felt in Tonelli's own consciousness, +whenever he met them, and he soon grew to avoid these comrades of his +youth. It was therefore after a purely accidental encounter with one of +them, and as he was passing into the Campo Sant' Angelo, head down, and +supporting himself with an inexplicable sense of infirmity upon the cane +he was wont so jauntily to flourish, that he heard himself addressed +with, "I say, master!" He looked up, and beheld the fat madman who +patrols that campo, and who has the license of his affliction to utter +insolences to whomsoever he will, leaning against the door of a +tobacconist's shop, with his arms folded, and a lazy, mischievous smile +loitering down on his greasy face. As he caught Tonelli's eye he nodded, +"Eh! I have heard, master"; while the idlers of that neighborhood, who +relished and repeated his incoherent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> pleasantries like the <i>mots</i> of +some great diner-out, gathered near with expectant grins. Had Tonelli +been altogether himself, as in other days, he would have been far too +wise to answer, "What hast thou heard, poor animal?"</p> + +<p>"That you are going to take a mate when most birds think of flying +away," said the madman. "Because it has been summer a long time with +you, master, you think it will never be winter. Look out: the wolf +doesn't eat the season."</p> + +<p>The poor fool in these words seemed to utter a public voice of +disapprobation and derision; and as the pitiless bystanders, who had +many a time laughed with Tonelli, now laughed at him, joining in the +applause which the madman himself led off, the miserable good devil +walked away with a shiver, as if the weather had actually turned cold. +It was not till he found himself in Carlotta's presence that the long +summer appeared to return to him. Indeed, in her tenderness and his real +love for her he won back all his youth again; and he found it of a truer +and sweeter quality than he had known even when his years were few, +while the gay old-bachelor life he had long led seemed to him a period +of miserable loneliness and decrepitude. Mirrored in her fond eyes, he +saw himself alert and handsome; and, since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> for the time being they were +to each other all the world, we may be sure there was nothing in the +world then to vex or shame Tonelli. The promises of the future, too, +seemed not improbable of fulfilment, for they were not extravagant +promises. These people's castle in the air was a house furnished from +Carlotta's modest portion, and situated in a quarter of the city not too +far from the Piazza, and convenient to a decent caffè, from which they +could order a lemonade or a cup of coffee for visitors. Tonelli's +stipend was to pay the housekeeping, as well as the minute wage of a +servant-girl from the country; and it was believed that they could save +enough from that, and a little of Carlotta's money at interest, to go +sometimes to the Malibran theatre or the Marionette, or even make an +excursion to the mainland upon a holiday; but if they could not, it was +certainly better Italianism to stay at home; and at least they could +always walk to the Public Gardens. At one time, religious differences +threatened to cloud this blissful vision of the future; but it was +finally agreed that Carlotta should go to mass and confession as often +as she liked, and should not tease Tonelli about his soul; while he, on +his part, was not to speak ill of the pope except as a temporal prince, +or of any of the priesthood except of the Jesuits when in com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>pany, in +order to show that marriage had not made him a <i>codino</i>. For the like +reason, no change was to be made in his custom of praising Garibaldi and +reviling the accursed Germans upon all safe occasions.</p> + +<p>As Tonelli had nothing in the world but his salary and his slender +wardrobe, Carlotta eagerly accepted the idea of a loss of family +property during the revolution. Of Tonelli's scar she was as proud as +Tonelli himself.</p> + +<p>When she came to speak of the acquaintance of all those young men, it +seemed again like a breath from the north to her betrothed; and he +answered, with a sigh, that this was an affair that had already finished +itself. "I have long thought them too boyish for me," he said, "and I +shall keep none of them but Pennellini, who is even older than I,—who, +I believe, was never born, but created middle-aged out of the dust of +the earth, like Adam. He is not a good devil, but he has every good +quality."</p> + +<p>While he thus praised his friend, Tonelli was meditating a service, +which when he asked it of Pennellini, had almost the effect to destroy +their ancient amity. This was no less than the composition of those +wedding-verses, without which, printed and exposed to view in all the +shop-windows, no one in Venice feels himself adequately and truly +married. Pennel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>lini had never willingly made a verse in his life; and +it was long before he understood Tonelli, when he urged the delicate +request. Then in vain he protested, recalcitrated. It was all an offence +to Tonelli's morbid soul, already irritated by his friend's obtuseness, +and eager to turn even the reluctance of nature into insult. He took his +refusal for a sign that he, too, deserted him; and must be called back, +after bidding Pennellini adieu, to hear the only condition on which the +accursed sonnet would be furnished, namely, that it should not be signed +Pennellini, but An Affectionate Friend. Never was sonnet cost poet so +great anguish as this: Pennellini went at it conscientiously as if it +were a problem in mathematics; he refreshed his prosody, he turned over +Carrer, he toiled a whole night, and in due time appeared as Tonelli's +affectionate friend in all the butchers' and bakers' windows. But it had +been too much to ask of him, and for a while he felt the shock of +Tonelli's unreason and excess so much that there was a decided coolness +between them.</p> + +<p>This important particular arranged, little remained for Tonelli to do +but to come to that open understanding with the Paronsina and her mother +which he had long dreaded and avoided. He could not conceal from himself +that his marriage was a kind of de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>sertion of the two dear friends so +dependent upon his singleness, and he considered the case of the +Paronsina with a real remorse. If his meditated act sometimes appeared +to him a gross inconsistency and a satire upon all his former life, he +had still consoled himself with the truth of his passion, and had found +love its own apology and comfort; but in its relation to these lonely +women, his love itself had no fairer aspect than that of treason, and he +shrank from owning it before them with a sense of guilt. Some wild +dreams of reconciling his future with his past occasionally haunted him; +but in his saner moments, he perceived their folly. Carlotta, he knew, +was good and patient, but she was nevertheless a woman, and she would +never consent that he should be to the Cenarotti all that he had been; +these ladies also were very kind and reasonable, but they too were +women, and incapable of accepting a less perfect devotion. Indeed, was +not his proposed marriage too much like taking her only son from the +signora and giving the Paronsina a stepmother? It was worse, and so the +ladies of the notary's family viewed it, cherishing a resentment that +grew with Tonelli's delay to deal frankly with them; while Carlotta, on +her part, was wounded that these old friends should ignore his future +wife so utterly. On both sides evil was stored up.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>When Tonelli would still make a show of fidelity to the Paronsina and +her mother, they accepted his awkward advances, the latter with a cold +visage, the former with a sarcastic face and tongue. He had managed +particularly ill with the Paronsina, who, having no romance of her own, +would possibly have come to enjoy the autumnal poetry of his love if he +had permitted. But when she first approached him on the subject of those +rumors she had heard, and treated them with a natural derision, as +involving the most absurd and preposterous ideas, he, instead of +suffering her jests, and then turning her interest to his favor, +resented them, and closed his heart and its secret against her. What +could she do, thereafter, but feign to avoid the subject, and adroitly +touch it with constant, invisible stings? Alas! it did not need that she +should ever speak to Tonelli with the wicked intent she did; at this +time he would have taken ill whatever most innocent thing she said. When +friends are to be estranged, they do not require a cause. They have but +to doubt one another, and no forced forbearance or kindness between them +can do aught but confirm their alienation. This is on the whole +fortunate, for in this manner neither feels to blame for the broken +friendship, and each can declare with perfect truth that he did all he +could to main<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>tain it. Tonelli said to himself, "If the Paronsina had +treated the affair properly at first!" and the Paronsina thought, "If he +had told me frankly about it to begin with!" Both had a latent heartache +over their trouble, and both a sense of loss the more bitter because it +was of loss still unacknowledged.</p> + +<p>As the day fixed for Tonelli's wedding drew near, the rumor of it came +to the Cenarotti from all their acquaintance. But when people spoke to +them of it, as of something they must be fully and particularly informed +of, the signora answered coldly, "It seems that we have not merited +Tonelli's confidence"; and the Paronsina received the gossip with an air +of clearly affected surprise, and a "<i>Davvero!</i>" that at least +discomfited the tale-bearers.</p> + +<p>The consciousness of the unworthy part he was acting toward these ladies +had come at last to poison the pleasure of Tonelli's wooing, even in +Carlotta's presence; yet I suppose he would still have let his +wedding-day come and go, and been married beyond hope of atonement, so +loath was he to inflict upon himself and them the pain of an +explanation, if one day, within a week of that time, the notary had not +bade his clerk dine with him on the morrow. It was a holiday, and as +Carlotta was at home, making ready for the marriage, Tonelli consented +to take his place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> at the table from which he had been a long time +absent. But it turned out such a frigid and melancholy banquet as never +was known before. The old notary, to whom all things came dimly, finally +missed the accustomed warmth of Tonelli's fun, and said, with a little +shiver, "Why, what ails you, Tonelli? You are as moody as a man in +love."</p> + +<p>The notary had been told several times of Tonelli's affair, but it was +his characteristic not to remember any gossip later than that of +'Forty-eight.</p> + +<p>The Paronsina burst into a laugh full of the cruelty and insult of a +woman's long-smothered sense of injury. "Caro nonno," she screamed into +her grandfather's dull ear, "he is really in despair how to support his +happiness. He is shy, even of his old friends,—he has had so little +experience. It is the first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la +gioventù, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally loosed, the +Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, that hurt more from their +purpose than their point, and gave no one greater pain than herself.</p> + +<p>Tonelli sat sad and perfectly mute under the infliction, but he said in +his heart, "I have merited worse."</p> + +<p>At first the signora remained quite aghast; but when she collected +herself, she called out peremptorily, "Madamigella, you push the affair +a little beyond. Cease!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>The Paronsina, having said all she desired, ceased, panting.</p> + +<p>The old notary, for whose slow sense all but her first words had been +too quick, though all had been spoken at him, said dryly, turning to +Tonelli, "I imagine that my deafness is not always a misfortune."</p> + +<p>It was by an inexplicable, but hardly less inevitable, violence to the +inclinations of each that, after this miserable dinner, the signora, the +Paronsina, and Tonelli should go forth together for their wonted +promenade on the Molo. Use, which is the second, is also very often the +stronger nature, and so these parted friends made a last show of union +and harmony. In nothing had their amity been more fatally broken than in +this careful homage to its forms; and now, as they walked up and down in +the moonlight, they were of the saddest kind of apparitions,—not mere +disembodied spirits, which, however, are bad enough, but disanimated +bodies, which are far worse, and of which people are not more afraid +only because they go about in society so commonly. As on many and many +another night of summers past, the moon came up and stood over the Lido, +striking far across the glittering lagoon, and everywhere winning the +flattered eye to the dark masses of shadow upon the water; to the trees +of the Gardens, to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> trees and towers and domes of the cloistered and +templed isles. Scene of pensive and incomparable loveliness! giving even +to the stranger, in some faint and most unequal fashion, a sense of the +awful meaning of exile to the Venetian, who in all other lands in the +world is doubly an alien, from their unutterable unlikeness to his sole +and beautiful city. The prospect had that pathetic unreality to the +friends which natural things always assume to people playing a part, and +I imagine that they saw it not more substantial than it appears to the +exile in his dreams. In their promenade they met again and again the +unknown, wonted faces; they even encountered some acquaintances, whom +they greeted, and with whom they chatted for a while; and when at nine +the bronze giants beat the hour upon their bell,—with as remote effect +as if they were giants of the times before the flood,—they were aware +of Pennellini, promptly appearing like an exact and methodical spectre.</p> + +<p>But to-night the Paronsina, who had made the scene no compliments, did +not insist as usual upon the ice at Florian's; and Pennellini took his +formal leave of the friends under the arch of the Clock Tower, and they +walked silently homeward through the echoing Merceria.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>At the notary's gate Tonelli would have said good-night, but the signora +made him enter with them, and then abruptly left him standing with the +Paronsina in the gallery, while she was heard hurrying away to her own +apartment. She reappeared, extending toward Tonelli both hands, upon +which glittered and glittered manifold skeins of the delicate chain of +Venice.</p> + +<p>She had a very stately and impressive bearing, as she stood there in the +moonlight, and addressed him with a collected voice. "Tonelli," she +said, "I think you have treated your oldest and best friends very +cruelly. Was it not enough that you should take yourself from us, but +you must also forbid our hearts to follow you even in sympathy and good +wishes? I had almost thought to say adieu forever to-night; but," she +continued, with a breaking utterance, and passing tenderly to the +familiar form of address, "I cannot part so with thee. Thou hast been +too like a son to me, too like a brother to my poor Clarice. Maybe thou +no longer lovest us, yet I think thou wilt not disdain this gift for thy +wife. Take it, Tonelli, if not for our sake, perhaps then for the sake +of sorrows that in times past we have shared together in this unhappy +Venice."</p> + +<p>Here the signora ended perforce the speech, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> had been long for +her, and the Paronsina burst into a passion of weeping,—not more at her +mamma's words than out of self-pity and from the national sensibility.</p> + +<p>Tonelli took the chain, and reverently kissed it and the hands that gave +it. He had a helpless sense of the injustice the signora's words and the +Paronsina's tears did him; he knew that they put him with feminine +excess further in the wrong than even his own weakness had; but he tried +to express nothing of this,—it was but part of the miserable maze in +which his life was involved. With what courage he might he owned his +error, but protested his faithful friendship, and poured out all his +troubles,—his love for Carlotta, his regret for them, his shame and +remorse for himself. They forgave him, and there was everything in their +words and will to restore their old friendship, and keep it; and when +the gate with a loud clang closed upon Tonelli, going from them, they +all felt that it had irrevocably perished.</p> + +<p>I do not say that there was not always a decent and affectionate bearing +on the part of the Paronsina and her mother towards Tonelli and his +wife; I acknowledge that it was but too careful and faultless a +tenderness, ever conscious of its own fragility. Far more natural was +the satisfaction they took in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> delayed fruitfulness of Tonelli's +marriage, and then in the fact that his child was a girl, and not a boy. +It was but human that they should doubt his happiness, and that the +signora should always say, when hard pressed with questions upon the +matter: "Yes, Tonelli is married; but if it were to do again, I think he +would do it to-morrow rather than to-day."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">THE END.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fearful Responsibility and Other +Stories, by William D. 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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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories + +Author: William D. Howells + +Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20403] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY + +AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +WILLIAM D. HOWELLS + +AUTHOR OF "THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK," "THE UNDISCOVERED +COUNTRY," ETC. + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + +BOSTON +JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY +1881 + + +_Copyright, 1881,_ +BY W. D. HOWELLS. + +_All rights reserved._ + +UNIVERSITY PRESS +JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + +A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY 1 + +AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE 165 + +TONELLI'S MARRIAGE 209 + + + + +A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. + + +I. + +Every loyal American who went abroad during the first years of our great +war felt bound to make himself some excuse for turning his back on his +country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen Elmore sailed, no one +else seemed to think that he needed excuse. All his friends said it was +the best thing for him to do; that he could have leisure and quiet over +there, and would be able to go on with his work. + +At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narrative, I am obliged to +confess that the work of which Elmore's friends spoke was a projected +history of Venice. So many literary Americans have projected such a work +that it may now fairly be regarded as a national enterprise. Elmore was +too obscure to have been announced in the usual way by the newspapers as +having this design; but it was well known in his town that he was +collecting materials when his professorship in the small inland college +with which he was connected lapsed through the enlistment of nearly all +the students. The president became colonel of the college regiment; and +in parting with Elmore, while their boys waited on the campus without, +he had said, "Now, Elmore, you must go on with your history of Venice. +Go to Venice and collect your materials on the spot. We're coming +through this all right. Mr. Seward puts it at sixty days, but I'll give +them six months to lay down their arms, and we shall want you back at +the end of the year. Don't you have any compunctions about going. I know +how you feel; but it is perfectly right for you to keep out of it. +Good-by." They wrung each other's hands for the last time,--the +president fell at Fort Donelson; but now Elmore followed him to the +door, and when he appeared there one of the boyish captains shouted, +"Three cheers for Professor Elmore!" and the president called for the +tiger, and led it, whirling his cap round his head. + +Elmore went back to his study, sick at heart. It grieved and vexed him +that even these had not thought that he should go to the war, and that +his inward struggle on that point had been idle so far as others were +concerned. He had been quite earnest in the matter; he had once almost +volunteered as a private soldier: he had consulted his doctor, who +sternly discouraged him. He would have been truly glad of any accident +that forced him into the ranks; but, as he used afterward to say, it was +not his idea of soldiership to enlist for the hospital. At the distance +of five hundred miles from the scene of hostilities, it was absurd to +enter the Home Guard; and, after all, there were, even at first, some +selfish people who went into the army, and some unselfish people who +kept out of it. Elmore's bronchitis was a disorder which active service +would undoubtedly have aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to +be of use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. Failing such an +appointment, he submitted to expatriation as he best could; and in Italy +he fought for our cause against the English, whom he found everywhere +all but in arms against us. + +He sailed, in fine, with a very fair conscience. "I should be perfectly +at ease," he said to his wife, as the steamer dropped smoothly down to +Sandy Hook, "if I were sure that I was not glad to be getting away." + +"You are _not_ glad," she answered. + +"I don't know, I don't know," he said, with the weak persistence of a +man willing that his wife should persuade him against his convictions; +"I wish that I felt certain of it." + +"You are too sick to go to the war; nobody expected you to go." + +"I know that, and I can't say that I like it. As for being too sick, +perhaps it's the part of a man to go if he dies on the way to the field. +It would encourage the others," he added, smiling faintly. + +She ignored the tint from Voltaire in replying: "Nonsense! It would do +no good at all. At any rate, it's too late now." + +"Yes, it's too late now." + +The sea-sickness which shortly followed formed a diversion from his +accusing thoughts. Each day of the voyage removed them further, and with +the preoccupations of his first days in Europe, his travel to Italy, and +his preparations for a long sojourn in Venice, they had softened to a +pensive sense of self-sacrifice, which took a warmer or a cooler tinge +according as the news from home was good or bad. + + +II. + +He lost no time in going to work in the Marcian Library, and he early +applied to the Austrian authorities for leave to have transcripts made +in the archives. The permission was negotiated by the American consul +(then a young painter of the name of Ferris), who reported a mechanical +facility on the part of the authorities,--as if, he said, they were used +to obliging American historians of Venice. The foreign tyranny which +cast a pathetic glamour over the romantic city had certainly not +appeared to grudge such publicity as Elmore wished to give her heroic +memories, though it was then at its most repressive period, and formed a +check upon the whole life of the place. The tears were hardly yet dry in +the despairing eyes that had seen the French fleet sail away from the +Lido, after Solferino, without firing a shot in behalf of Venice; but +Lombardy, the Duchies, the Sicilies, had all passed to Sardinia, and the +Pope alone represented the old order of native despotism in Italy. At +Venice the Germans seemed tranquilly awaiting the change which should +destroy their system with the rest; and in the meantime there had +occurred one of those impressive pauses, as notable in the lives of +nations as of men, when, after the occurrence of great events, the +forces of action and endurance seem to be gathering themselves against +the stress of the future. The quiet was almost consciously a truce and +not a peace; and this local calm had drawn into it certain elements that +picturesquely and sentimentally heightened the charm of the place. It +was a refuge for many exiled potentates and pretenders; the gondolier +pointed out on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Chambord, the +Duchess of Parma, and the Infante of Spain; and one met these fallen +princes in the squares and streets, bowing with distinct courtesy to any +that chose to salute them. Every evening the Piazza San Marco was filled +with the white coats of the Austrian officers, promenading to the +exquisite military music which has ceased there forever; the patrol +clanked through the footways at all hours of the night, and the lagoon +heard the cry of the sentinel from fort to fort, and from gunboat to +gunboat. Through all this the demonstration of the patriots went on, +silent, ceaseless, implacable, annulling every alien effort at gayety, +depopulating the theatres, and desolating the ancient holidays. + +There was something very fine in this, as a spectacle, Elmore said to +his young wife, and he had to admire the austere self-denial of a people +who would not suffer their tyrants to see them happy; but they secretly +owned to each other that it was fatiguing. Soon after coming to Venice +they had made some acquaintance among the Italians through Mr. Ferris, +and had early learned that the condition of knowing Venetians was not to +know Austrians. It was easy and natural for them to submit, +theoretically. As Americans, they must respond to any impulse for +freedom, and certainly they could have no sympathy with such a system as +that of Austria. By whatever was sacred in our own war upon slavery, +they were bound to abhor oppression in every form. But it was hard to +make the application of their hatred to the amiable-looking people whom +they saw everywhere around them in the quality of tyrants, especially +when their Venetian friends confessed that personally they liked the +Austrians. Besides, if the whole truth must be told, they found that +their friendship with the Italians was not always of the most +penetrating sort, though it had a superficial intensity that for a while +gave the effect of lasting cordiality. The Elmores were not quite able +to decide whether the pause of feeling at which they arrived was through +their own defect or not. Much was to be laid to the difference of race, +religion, and education; but something, they feared, to the personal +vapidity of acquaintances whose meridional liveliness made them yawn, +and in whose society they did not always find compensation for the +sacrifices they made for it. + +"But it is right," said Elmore. "It would be a sort of treason to +associate with the Austrians. We owe it to the Venetians to let them see +that our feelings are with them." + +"Yes," said his wife pensively. + +"And it is better for us, as Americans abroad, during this war, to be +retired." + +"Well, we are retired," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"Yes, there is no doubt of that," he returned. + +They laughed, and made what they could of chance American acquaintances +at the _caffes_. Elmore had his history to occupy him, and doubtless he +could not understand how heavy the time hung upon his wife's hands. They +went often to the theatre, and every evening they went to the Piazza, +and ate an ice at Florian's. This was certainly amusement; and routine +was so pleasant to his scholarly temperament that he enjoyed merely +that. He made a point of admitting his wife as much as possible into his +intellectual life; he read her his notes as fast as he made them, and he +consulted her upon the management of his theme, which, as his research +extended, he found so vast that he was forced to decide upon a much +lighter treatment than he had at first intended. He had resolved upon a +history which should be presented in a series of biographical studies, +and he was so much interested in this conclusion, and so charmed with +the advantages of the form as they developed themselves, that he began +to lose the sense of social dulness, and ceased to imagine it in his +wife. + +A sort of indolence of the sensibilities, in fact, enabled him to endure +_ennui_ that made her frantic, and he was often deeply bored without +knowing it at the time, or without a reasoned suffering. He suffered as +a child suffers, simply, almost ignorantly: it was upon reflection that +his nerves began to quiver with retroactive anguish. He was also able to +idealize the situation when his wife no longer even wished to do so. His +fancy cast a poetry about these Venetian friends, whose conversation +displayed the occasional sparkle of Ollendorff-English on a dark ground +of lagoon-Italian, and whose vivid smiling and gesticulation she +wearied herself in hospitable efforts to outdo. To his eyes their +historic past clothed them with its interest, and the long patience of +their hope and hatred under foreign rule ennobled them, while to hers +they were too often only tiresome visitors, whose powers of silence and +of eloquence were alike to be dreaded. It did not console her as it did +her husband to reflect that they probably bored the Italians as much in +their turn. When a young man, very sympathetic for literature and the +Americans, spent an evening, as it seemed to her, in crying nothing but +"Per Bacco!" she owned that she liked better his oppressor, who once +came by chance, in the figure of a young lieutenant, and who unbuckled +his wife, as he called his sword, and, putting her in a corner, sat up +on a chair in the middle of the room and sang like a bird, and then told +ghost-stories. The songs were out of Heine, and they reminded her of her +girlish enthusiasm for German. Elmore was troubled at the lieutenant's +visit, and feared it would cost them all their Italian friends; but she +said boldly that she did not care; and she never even tried to believe +that the life they saw in Venice was comparable to that of their little +college town at home, with its teas and picnics, and simple, easy social +gayeties. There she had been a power in her way; she had entertained, +and had helped to make some matches: but the Venetians ate nothing, and +as for young people, they never saw each other but by stealth, and their +matches were made by their parents on a money-basis. She could not adapt +herself to this foreign life; it puzzled her, and her husband's +conformity seemed to estrange them, as far as it went. It took away her +spirit, and she grew listless and dull. Even the history began to lose +its interest in her eyes; she doubted if the annals of such a people as +she saw about her could ever be popular. + +There were other things to make them melancholy in their exile. The war +at home was going badly, where it was going at all. The letters now +never spoke of any term to it; they expressed rather the dogged patience +of the time when it seemed as if there could be no end, and indicated +that the country had settled into shape about it, and was pushing +forward its other affairs as if the war did not exist. Mrs. Elmore felt +that the America which she had left had ceased to be. The letters were +almost less a pleasure than a pain, but she always tore them open, and +read them with eager unhappiness. There were miserable intervals of days +and even weeks when no letters came, and when the Reuter telegrams in +the Gazette of Venice dribbled their vitriolic news of Northern +disaster through a few words or lines, and Galignani's long columns were +filled with the hostile exultation and prophecy of the London press. + + +III. + +They had passed eighteen months of this sort of life in Venice when one +day a letter dropped into it which sent a thousand ripples over its +stagnant surface. Mrs. Elmore read it first to herself, with gasps and +cries of pleasure and astonishment, which did not divert her husband +from the perusal of some notes he had made the day before, and had +brought to the breakfast-table with the intention of amusing her. When +she flattened it out over his notes, and exacted his attention, he +turned an unwilling and lack-lustre eye upon it; then he looked up at +her. + +"Did you expect she would come?" he asked, in ill-masked dismay. + +"I don't suppose they had any idea of it at first. When Sue wrote me +that Lily had been studying too hard, and had to be taken out of school, +I said that I wished she could come over and pay us a visit. But I don't +believe they dreamed of letting her--Sue says so--till the Mortons' +coming seemed too good a chance to be lost. I am so glad of it, Owen! +You know how much they have always done for me; and here is a chance now +to pay a little of it back." + +"What in the world shall we do with her?" he asked. + +"Do? Everything! Why, Owen," she urged, with pathetic recognition of his +coldness, "she is Susy Stevens's own sister!" + +"Oh, yes--yes," he admitted. + +"And it was Susy who brought us together!" + +"Why, of course." + +"And oughtn't you to be glad of the opportunity?" + +"I _am_ glad--_very_ glad." + +"It will be a relief to you instead of a care. She's such a bright, +intelligent girl that we can both sympathize with your work, and you +won't have to go round with me all the time, and I can matronize her +myself." + +"I see, I see," Elmore replied, with scarcely abated seriousness. +"Perhaps, if she is coming here for her health, she won't need much +matronizing." + +"Oh, pshaw! She'll be well enough for _that_! She's overdone a little at +school. I shall take good care of her, I can tell you; and I shall make +her have a real good time. It's quite flattering of Susy to trust her +to us, so far away, and I shall write and tell her we both think so." + +"Yes," said Elmore, "it's a fearful responsibility." + +There are instances of the persistence of husbands in certain moods or +points of view on which even wheedling has no effect. The wise woman +perceives that in these cases she must trust entirely to the softening +influences of time, and as much as possible she changes the subject; or +if this is impossible she may hope something from presenting a still +worse aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the letter from +the table: "If she sailed the 3d in the City of Timbuctoo, she will be +at Queenstown on the 12th or 13th, and we shall have a letter from her +by Wednesday saying when she will be at Genoa. That's as far as the +Mortons can bring her, and there's where we must meet her." + +"Meet her in Genoa! How?" + +"By going there for her," replied Mrs. Elmore, as if this were the +simplest thing in the world. "I have never seen Genoa." + +Elmore now tacitly abandoned himself to his fate. His wife continued: "I +needn't take anything. Merely run on, and right back." + +"When must we go?" he asked. + +"I don't know yet; but we shall have a letter to-morrow. Don't worry on +my account, Owen. Her coming won't be a bit of care to me. It will give +me something to do and to think about, and it will be a pleasure all the +time to know that it's for Susy Stevens. And I shall like the +companionship." + +Elmore looked at his wife in surprise, for it had not occurred to him +before that with his company she could desire any other companionship. +He desired none but hers, and when he was about his work he often +thought of her. He supposed that at these moments she thought of him, +and found society, as he did, in such thoughts. But he was not a jealous +or exacting man, and he said nothing. His treatment of the approaching +visit from Susy Stevens's sister had not been enthusiastic, but a spark +had kindled his imagination, and it burned warmer and brighter as the +days went by. He found a charm in the thought of having this fresh young +life here in his charge, and of teaching the girl to live into the great +and beautiful history of the city: there was still much of the +school-master in him, and he intended to make her sojourn an education +to her; and as a literary man he hoped for novel effects from her mind +upon material which he was above all trying to set in a new light before +himself. + +When the time had arrived for them to go and meet Miss Mayhew at Genoa, +he was more than reconciled to the necessity. But at the last moment, +Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What these attacks were I find +myself unable to specify, but as every lady has an old attack of some +kind, I may safely leave their precise nature to conjecture. It is +enough that they were of a nervous character, that they were accompanied +with headache, and that they prostrated her for several days. During +their continuance she required the active sympathy and constant presence +of her husband, whose devotion was then exemplary, and brought up long +arrears of indebtedness in that way. + +"Well, what shall we do?" he asked, as he sank into a chair beside the +lounge on which Mrs. Elmore lay, her eyes closed, and a slice of lemon +placed on each of her throbbing temples with the effect of a new sort of +blinders. "Shall I go alone for her?" + +She gave his hand the kind of convulsive clutch that signified, +"Impossible for you to leave me." + +He reflected. "The Mortons will be pushing on to Leghorn, and somebody +_must_ meet her. How would it do for Mr. Hoskins to go?" + +Mrs. Elmore responded with a clutch tantamount to "Horrors! How could +you think of such a thing?" + +"Well, then," he said, "the only thing we can do is to send a _valet de +place_ for her. We can send old Cazzi. He's the incarnation of +respectability; five francs a day and his expenses will buy all the +virtues of him. She'll come as safely with him as with me." + +Mrs. Elmore had applied a vividly thoughtful pressure to her husband's +hand; she now released it in token of assent, and he rose. + +"But don't be gone long," she whispered. + +On his way to the caffe which Cazzi frequented, Elmore fell in with the +consul. + +By this time a change had taken place in the consular office. Mr. +Ferris, some months before, had suddenly thrown up his charge and gone +home; and after the customary interval of ship-chandler, the California +sculptor, Hoskins, had arrived out, with his commission in his pocket, +and had set up his allegorical figure of The Pacific Slope in the room +where Ferris had painted his too metaphysical conception of A Venetian +Priest. Mrs. Elmore had never liked Ferris; she thought him cynical and +opinionated, and she believed that he had not behaved quite well towards +a young American lady,--a Miss Vervain, who had stayed awhile in Venice +with her mother. She was glad to have him go; but she could not admire +Mr. Hoskins, who, however good-hearted, was too hopelessly Western. He +had had part of one foot shot away in the nine months' service, and +walked with a limp that did him honor; and he knew as much of a consul's +business as any of the authors or artists with whom it is the tradition +to fill that office at Venice. Besides he was at least a +fellow-American, and Elmore could not forbear telling him the trouble he +was in: a young girl coming from their town in America as far as Genoa +with friends, and expecting to be met there by the Elmores, with whom +she was to pass some months; Mrs. Elmore utterly prostrated by one of +her old attacks, and he unable to leave her, or to take her with him to +Genoa; the friends with whom Miss Mayhew travelled unable to bring her +to Venice; she, of course, unable to come alone. The case deepened and +darkened in Elmore's view as he unfolded it. + +"Why," cried the consul sympathetically, "if I could leave my post I'd +go!" + +"Oh, thank you!" cried Elmore eagerly, remembering his wife. "I couldn't +think of letting you." + +"Look here!" said the consul, taking an official letter, with the seal +broken, from his pocket. "This is the first time I couldn't have left my +post without distinct advantage to the public interests, since I've been +here. But with this letter from Turin, telling me to be on the lookout +for the Alabama, I couldn't go to Genoa even to meet a young lady. The +Austrians have never recognized the rebels as belligerents: if she +enters the port of Venice, all I've got to do is to require the deposit +of her papers with me, and then I should like to see her get out again. +I _should_ like to capture her. Of course, I don't mean Miss Mayhew," +said the consul, recognizing the double sense in which his language +could be taken. + +"It would be a great thing for you," said Elmore,--"a _great_ thing." + +"Yes, it would set me up in my own eyes, and stop that infernal clatter +inside about going over and taking a hand again." + +"Yes," Elmore assented, with a twinge of the old shame. "I didn't know +you had it too." + +"If I could capture the Alabama, I could afford to let the other fellows +fight it out." + +"I congratulate you, with all my heart," said Elmore sadly, and he +walked in silence beside the consul. + +"Well," said the latter, with a laugh at Elmore's pensive rapture, "I'm +as much obliged to you as if I _had_ captured her. I'll go up to the +Piazza with you, and see Cazzi." + +The affair was easily arranged; Cazzi was made to feel by the consul's +intervention that the shield of American sovereignty had been extended +over the young girl whom he was to escort from Genoa, and two days later +he arrived with her. Mrs. Elmore's attack now was passing off, and she +was well enough to receive Miss Mayhew half-recumbent on the sofa where +she had been prone till her arrival. It was pretty to see her fond +greeting of the girl, and her joy in her presence as they sat down for +the first long talk; and Elmore realized, even in his dreamy withdrawal, +how much the bright, active spirit of his wife had suffered merely in +the restriction of her English. Now it was not only English they spoke, +but that American variety of the language of which I hope we shall grow +less and less ashamed; and not only this, but their parlance was +characterized by local turns and accents, which all came welcomely back +to Mrs. Elmore, together with those still more intimate inflections +which belonged to her own particular circle of friends in the little +town of Patmos, N. Y. Lily Mayhew was of course not of her own set, +being five or six years younger; but women, more easily than men, ignore +the disparities of age between themselves and their juniors; and in Susy +Stevens's absence it seemed a sort of tribute to her to establish her +sister in the affection which Mrs. Elmore had so long cherished. Their +friendship had been of such a thoroughly trusted sort on both sides that +Mrs. Stevens (the memorably brilliant Sue Mayhew in her girlish days) +had felt perfectly free to act upon Mrs. Elmore's invitation to let Lily +come out to her; and here the child was, as much at home as if she had +just walked into Mrs. Elmore's parlor out of her sister's house in +Patmos. + + +IV. + +They briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss Mayhew's voyage, and +her journey to Genoa, and came as quickly as they could to all those +things which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the town and its +people. "Is it much changed? I suppose it is," she sighed. "The war +changes everything." + +"Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss Mayhew. "But Patmos _is_ +gay,--perfectly delightful. We've got one of the camps there now; and +_such_ times as the girls have with the officers! We have lots of fun +getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops on the parade-ground at the +camp, and going out to see the prisoners,--you never saw such a place." + +"The prisoners?" murmured Mrs. Elmore. + +"Why, _yes_!" cried Lily, with a gay laugh. "Didn't you know that we had +a prison-camp too? Some of the Southerners look real nice. I pitied +them," she added, with unabated gayety. + +"Your sister wrote to me," said Mrs. Elmore; "but I couldn't realize it, +I suppose, and so I forgot it." + +"Yes," pursued Lily, "and Frank Halsey's in command. You would never +know by the way he walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he can't +dance, though, poor fellow. He's pale, and he's perfectly fascinating. +So's Dick Burton, with his empty sleeve; he's one of the recruiting +officers, and there's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't think +how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the old college buildings used +for barracks. Dick says it's much livelier than it was when he was a +student there." + +"I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the professor. "Does he find +plenty of volunteers?" + +"Well, you know," the young girl explained, "that the old style of +volunteering is all over." + +"No, I didn't know it." + +"Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, and they do say that it +will come to the draft very soon, now. Some of the young men have gone +to Canada. But everybody despises _them_. Oh, Mrs. Elmore, I should +think you'd be _so_ glad to have the professor off here, and honorably +out of the way!" + +"I'm _dis_honorably out of the way; I can never forgive myself for not +going to the war," said Elmore. + +"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody feels that way about it +_now_! As Dick Burton says, we've come down to business. I tell you, +when you see arms and legs off in every direction, and women going about +in black, you don't feel that it's such a romantic thing any more. There +are mighty few engagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets off; +no presentation of revolvers in the town hall; and some of the widows +have got married again; and that I don't think _is_ right. But what can +they do, poor things? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs. Elmore?" + +"Tom Friar's _widow_! Is Tom Friar _dead_?" + +"Why, of course! One of the first. I think it was Ball's Bluff. Well, +_she's_ married. But she married his cousin, and as Dick Burton says, +that isn't so bad. Isn't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing _all_ her +boys,--all five of them? It does seem to bear too hard on _some_ +families. And then, when you see every one of those six Armstrongs going +through without a scratch!" + +"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at a standstill. The streets +must look rather dreary." + +"_Business_ at a standstill!" exclaimed Lily. "What _has_ Sue been +writing you all this time? Why, there never was such prosperity in +Patmos before! Everybody is making money, and people that you wouldn't +hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and inviting the old +college families. You ought to see the residences and business blocks +going up all over the place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now. +You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore?" + +"Mr. Haskell's clerk?" + +"Yes. Well, he's made a fortune out of an army contract; and he's going +to marry--the engagement came out just before I left--Bella Stearns." + +At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright,--the only posture in which the +fact could be imagined. "Lily!" + +"Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in America," triumphed the young +girl. She now put her hand to her mouth and hid a yawn. + +"You're sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. "Well, you know the way to your room. +You'll find everything ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You +shall commence being at home at once." + +"Yes, I _am_ sleepy," assented Lily; and she promptly said her +good-nights and vanished; though a keener eye than Elmore's might have +seen that her promptness had a color--or say light--of hesitation in it. + +But he only walked up and down the room, after she was gone, in +unheedful distress. "Gay times in America! Good heavens! Is the child +utterly heartless, Celia, or is she merely obtuse?" + +"She certainly isn't at all like Sue," sighed Mrs. Elmore, who had not +had time to formulate Lily's defence. "But she's excited now, and a +little off her balance. She'll be different to-morrow. Besides, all +America seems changed, and the people with it. We shouldn't have noticed +it if we had stayed there, but we feel it after this absence." + +"I never realized it before, as I did from her babble! The letters have +told us the same thing, but they were like the histories of other times. +Camps, prisoners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden gains, +social upheavals,--it is the old, hideous story of war come true of our +day and country. It's terrible!" + +"She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. "I don't know exactly +what we shall do with her. Of course, she can't expect the attentions +she's been used to in Patmos, with those young men." + +Elmore stopped, and stared at his wife. "What do you mean, Celia?" + +"We don't go into society at all, and she doesn't speak Italian. How +shall we amuse her?" + +"Well, upon my word, I don't know that we're obliged to provide her +amusement! Let her amuse herself. Let her take up some branch of study, +or of--of--research, and get something besides 'fun' into her head, if +possible." He spoke boldly, but his wife's question had unnerved him, +for he had a soft heart, and liked people about him to be happy. "We can +show her the objects of interest. And there are the theatres," he added. + +"Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Elmore. "We can both go about with her. I +will just peep in at her now, and see if she has everything she wants." +She rose from her sofa and went to Lily's room, whence she did not +return for nearly three quarters of an hour. By this time Elmore had got +out his notes, and, in their transcription and classification, had +fallen into forgetfulness of his troubles. His wife closed the door +behind her, and said in a low voice, little above a whisper, as she sank +very quietly into a chair, "Well, it has all come out, Owen." + +"What has all come out?" he asked, looking up stupidly. + +"I knew that she had something on her mind, by the way she acted. And +you saw her give me that look as she went out?" + +"No--no, I didn't. What look was it? She looked sleepy." + +"She looked terribly, terribly excited, and as if she would like to say +something to me. That was the reason I said I would let her go to her +room alone." + +"Oh!" + +"Of course she would have felt awfully if I had gone straight off with +her. So I waited. It _may_ never come to anything in the world, and I +don't suppose it will; but it's quite enough to account for everything +you saw in her." + +"I didn't see anything in her,--that was the difficulty. But what is +it--what is it, Celia? You know how I hate these delays." + +"Why, I'm not sure that I need tell you, Owen; and yet I suppose I had +better. It will be safer," said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the +last, enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its effect upon +her husband. "I suppose you will think your troubles are beginning +pretty early," she suggested. + +"Is it a trouble?" + +"Well, I don't know that it is. If it comes to the very worst, I dare +say that every one wouldn't call it a trouble." + +Elmore threw himself back in his chair in an attitude of endurance. +"What would the worst be?" + +"Why, it's no use even to discuss that, for it's perfectly absurd to +suppose that it could ever come to that. But the case," added Mrs. +Elmore, perceiving that further delay was only further suffering for her +husband, and that any fact would now probably fall far short of his +apprehensions, "is simply this, and I don't know that it amounts to +anything; but at Peschiera, just before the train started, she looked +out of the window, and saw a splendid officer walking up and down and +smoking; and before she could draw back he must have seen her, for he +threw away his cigar instantly, and got into the same compartment. He +talked awhile in German with an old gentleman who was there, and then he +spoke in Italian with Cazzi; and afterwards, when he heard her speaking +English with Cazzi, he joined in. I don't know how he came to join in at +first, and she doesn't, either; but it seems that he knew some English, +and he began speaking. He was very tall and handsome and +distinguished-looking, and a _perfect_ gentleman in his manners; and she +says that she saw Cazzi looking rather queer, but he didn't say +anything, and so she kept on talking. She told him at once that she was +an American, and that she was coming here to stay with friends; and, as +he was very curious about America, she told him all she could think of. +It did her good to talk about home, for she had been feeling a little +blue at being so far away from everybody. Now, _I_ don't see any harm in +it; do you, Owen?" + +"It isn't according to the custom here; but we needn't care for that. Of +course it was imprudent." + +"Of course," Mrs. Elmore admitted. "The officer was very polite; and +when he found that she was from America, it turned out that he was a +_great_ sympathizer with the North, and that he had a brother in our +army. Don't you think that was nice?" + +"Probably some mere soldier of fortune, with no heart in the cause," +said Elmore. + +"And very likely he has no brother there, as I told Lily. He told her he +was coming to Padua; but when they reached Padua, he came right on to +Venice. That _shows_ you couldn't place any dependence upon what he +said. He said he expected to be put under arrest for it; but he didn't +care,--he was coming. Do you believe they'll put him under arrest?" + +"I don't know--I don't know," said Elmore, in a voice of grief and +apprehension, which might well have seemed anxiety for the officer's +liberty. + +"I told her it was one of his jokes. He was very funny, and kept her +laughing the whole way, with his broken English and his witty little +remarks. She says he's just dying to go to America. Who do you suppose +it can be, Owen?" + +"How should I know? We've no acquaintance among the Austrians," groaned +Elmore. + +"That's what I told Lily. She's no idea of the state of things here, and +she was quite horrified. But she says he was a perfect gentleman in +everything. He belongs to the engineer corps,--that's one of the highest +branches of the service, he told her,--and he gave her his card." + +"Gave her his card!" + +Mrs. Elmore had it in the hand which she had been keeping in her pocket, +and she now suddenly produced it; and Elmore read the name and address +of Ernst von Ehrhardt, Captain of the Royal-Imperial Engineers, +Peschiera. "She says she knows he wanted hers, but she didn't offer to +give it to him; and he didn't ask her where she was going, or anything." + +"He knew that he could get her address from Cazzi for ten soldi as soon +as her back was turned," said Elmore cynically. "What then?" + +"Why, he said--and this is the only really bold thing he _did_ do--that +he must see her again, and that he should stay over a day in Venice in +hopes of meeting her at the theatre or somewhere." + +"It's a piece of high-handed impudence!" cried Elmore. "Now, Celia, you +see what these people are! Do you wonder that the Italians hate them?" + +"You've often said they only hate their system." + +"The Austrians are part of their system. He thinks he can take any +liberty with us because he is an Austrian officer! Lily must not stir +out of the house to-morrow." + +"She will be too tired to do so," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"And if he molests us further, I will appeal to the consul." Elmore +began to walk up and down the room again. + +"Well, I don't know whether you could call it _molesting_, exactly," +suggested Mrs. Elmore. + +"What do you mean, Celia? Do you suppose that she--she--encouraged this +officer?" + +"Owen! It was all in the simplicity and innocence of her heart!" + +"Well, then, that she wishes to see him again?" + +"Certainly not! But that's no reason why we should be rude about it." + +"Rude about it? How? Is simply avoiding him rudeness? Is proposing to +protect ourselves from his impertinence rudeness?" + +"No. And if you can't see the matter for yourself, Owen, I don't know +how any one is to make you." + +"Why, Celia, one would think that you approved of this man's +behavior,--that _you_ wished her to meet him again! You understand what +the consequences would be if we received this officer. You know how all +the Venetians would drop us, and we should have no acquaintances here +outside of the army." + +"Who has asked you to receive him, Owen? And as for the Italians +dropping us, that doesn't frighten me. But what could he do if he did +meet her again? She needn't look at him. She says he is very +intelligent, and that he has read a great many English books, though he +doesn't speak it very well, and that he knows more about the war than +she does. But of course she won't go out to-morrow. All that I hate is +that we should seem to be frightened into staying at home." + +"She needn't stay in on his account. You said she would be too tired to +go out." + +"I see by the scattering way you talk, Owen, that your mind isn't on the +subject, and that you're anxious to get back to your work. I won't keep +you." + +"Celia, Celia! Be fair, now!" cried Elmore. "You know very well that I'm +only too deeply interested in this matter, and that I'm not likely to +get back to my work to-night, at least. What is it you wish me to do?" + +Mrs. Elmore considered a while. "I don't wish you to do anything," she +returned placably. "Of course, you're perfectly right in not choosing to +let an acquaintance begun in that way go any further. We shouldn't at +home, and we sha'n't here. But I don't wish you to think that Lily has +been imprudent, under the circumstances. She doesn't know that it was +anything out of the way, but she happened to do the best that any one +could. Of course, it was very exciting and very romantic; girls like +such things, and there's no reason they shouldn't. We must manage," +added Mrs. Elmore, "so that she shall see that we appreciate her +conduct, and trust in her entirely. I wouldn't do anything to wound her +pride or self-confidence. I would rather send her out alone to-morrow." + +"Of course," said Elmore. + +"And if I were with her when she met him, I believe I should leave it +entirely to her how to behave." + +"Well," said Elmore, "you're not likely to be put to the test. He'll +hardly force his way into the house, and she isn't going out." + +"No," said Mrs. Elmore. She added, after a silence, "I'm trying to +think whether I've ever seen him in Venice; he's here often. But there +are so many tall officers with fair complexions and English beards. I +_should_ like to know how he looks! She said he was very +aristocratic-looking." + +"Yes, it's a fine type," said Elmore. "They're all nobles, I believe." + +"But after all, they're no better looking than our boys, who come up out +of nothing." + +"Ours are Americans," said Elmore. + +"And they are the best husbands, as I told Lily." + +Elmore looked at his wife, as she turned dreamily to leave the room; but +since the conversation had taken this impersonal turn he would not say +anything to change its complexion. A conjecture vaguely taking shape in +his mind resolved itself to nothing again, and left him with only the +ache of something unascertained. + + +V. + +In the morning Lily came to breakfast as blooming as a rose. The sense +of her simple, fresh, wholesome loveliness might have pierced even the +indifference of a man to whom there was but one pretty woman in the +world, and who had lived since their marriage as if his wife had +absorbed her whole sex into herself: this deep, unconscious constancy +was a noble trait in him, but it is not so rare in men as women would +have us believe. For Elmore, Miss Mayhew merely pervaded the place in +her finer way, as the flowers on the table did, as the sweet butter, the +new eggs, and the morning's French bread did; he looked at her with a +perfectly serene ignorance of her piquant face, her beautiful eyes and +abundant hair, and her trim, straight figure. But his wife exulted in +every particular of her charm, and was as generously glad of it as if it +were her own; as women are when they are sure that the charm of others +has no designs. The ladies twittered and laughed together, and as he +was a man without small talk, he soon dropped out of the conversation +into a reverie, from which he found himself presently extracted by a +question from his wife. + +"We had better go in a gondola, hadn't we, Owen?" She seemed to be, as +she put this, trying to look something into him. He, on his part, tried +his best to make out her meaning, but failed. + +He simply asked, "Where? Are you going out?" + +"Yes. Lily has some shopping she _must_ do. I think we can get it at +Pazienti's in San Polo." + +Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. It seemed to him a +sudden advance from the position she had taken the night before in +regard to Miss Mayhew's not going out; but he could not understand his +wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he opposed her going. He +decided that she wished him for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he +said, "I think you'd better walk, if Lily isn't too tired." + +"Oh, _I'm_ not tired at all!" she cried. + +"I can go with you, in that direction, on my way to the library," he +added. + +"Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, discontinuing her +look, and leaving her husband with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed +responsibility. + +"She can step into the Frari a moment, and see those tombs," he said. "I +think it will amuse her." + +Lily broke into a laugh. "Is that the way you amuse yourselves in +Venice?" she asked; and Mrs. Elmore hastened to reassure her. + +"That's the way Mr. Elmore amuses himself. You know his history makes +every bit of the past fascinating to him." + +"Oh, yes, that history! Everybody is looking out for that," said Lily. + +"Is it possible," said Elmore, with a pensive sarcasm in which an +agreeable sense of flattery lurked, "that people still remember me and +my history?" + +"Yes, indeed!" cried Miss Mayhew. "Frank Halsey was talking about it the +night before I left. He couldn't seem to understand why I should be +coming to you at Venice, because he said it was a history of Florence +you were writing. It isn't, is it? You must be getting pretty near the +end of it, Professor Elmore." + +"I'm getting pretty near the beginning," said Elmore sadly. + +"It must be hard writing histories; they're so awfully hard to read," +said Lily innocently. "Does it interest you?" she asked, with unaffected +compassion. + +"Yes," he said, "far more than it will ever interest anybody else." + +"Oh, I don't believe that!" she cried sweetly, seizing the occasion to +get in a little compliment. + +Mrs. Elmore sat silent, while things were thus going against Miss +Mayhew, and perhaps she was then meditating the stroke by which she +restored the balance to her own favor as soon as she saw her husband +alone after breakfast. "Well, Owen," she said, "you've done it now." + +"Done what?" he demanded. + +"Oh, nothing, perhaps!" she answered, while she got on her things for +the walk with unusual gayety; and, with the consciousness of unknown +guilt depressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, subdued, +distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, as he forgot everything +but his history. His wife hated to see him so miserable, and whispered +at the shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, Owen! I didn't +mean anything." + +"By what?" + +"Oh, if you've forgotten, never mind!" she cried; and she and Miss +Mayhew disappeared within. + +It was two hours later when he next saw them, after he had turned over +the book he wished to see, and had found the passage which would enable +him to go on with his work for the rest of the day at home. He was +fitting his key into the house-door when he happened to look up the +little street toward the bridge that led into it, and there, defined +against the sky on the level of the bridge, he saw Mrs. Elmore and Miss +Mayhew receiving the adieux of a distinguished-looking man in the +Austrian uniform. The officer had brought his heels together in the +conventional manner, and with his cap in his right hand, while his left +rested on the hilt of his sword, and pressed it down, he was bowing from +the hips. Once, twice, and he was gone. + +The ladies came down the _calle_ with rapid steps and flushed faces, and +Elmore let them in. His wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, "I +want to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now!" she added, when they +were alone in their own room and she had shut the door, "what do you say +_now_?" + +"What do _I_ say now, Celia?" retorted Elmore, with just indignation. +"It seems to me that it is for _you_ to say something--or nothing." + +"Why, you brought it on us." + +Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not speak, for this passed +all force of language. + +"Didn't you see me looking at you when I spoke of going out in a +gondola, at breakfast?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you suppose I meant?" + +"I didn't know." + +"When I was trying to make you understand that if we took a gondola we +could go and come without being seen! Lily _had_ to do her shopping. But +if you chose to run off on some interpretation of your own, was _I_ to +blame, I should like to know? No, indeed! You won't get me to admit it, +Owen." + +Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, miserable sibillation +between his set teeth. + +"Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never saw in my life!" cried +Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing the subject in her own mind, and leaving +her husband to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her words +were strong, but she did not really look affronted; and it is hard to +tell what sort of liberty it is that affronts a woman. It seems to +depend a great deal upon the person who takes the liberty. + +"That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore quietly. + +"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful candor, "it was." Seeing +that he remained unaffected by her display of this virtue, she added, +"Don't you think he was very handsome?" + +"I couldn't judge, at such a distance." + +"Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want you to think he was +disrespectful at all. He wasn't. He was everything that was delicate +and deferential." + +"Did you ask him to walk home with you?" + +Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. Then she drew a long +breath, and said firmly: "If you won't interrupt me with gratuitous +insults, Owen, I will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will +be ready to do me _justice_. I ask nothing more." She waited for his +contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily +couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria +for them. Then of course the nearest way home was through St. Mark's +Square. I made Lily go on the Florian side, so as to avoid the officers +who were sitting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square and +past San Moise, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had never thought of how +the officers frequented the Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most +magnificent creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid officer!' +when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a sort of stop, and bowed very +low, and she whispered, 'It's my officer.' I didn't dream of his joining +us, and I don't think he did, at first; but after he took a second look +at Lily, it really seemed as if he couldn't help it. He asked if he +might join us, and I didn't say anything." + +"Didn't say anything!" + +"_No!_ How could I refuse, in so many words? And I was frightened and +confused, any way. He asked if we were going to the music in the +Giardini Pubblici; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not going into +society in Venice, but was merely here for her health. That's all there +is of it. Now do you blame me, Owen?" + +"No." + +"Do you blame her?" + +"No." + +"Well, I don't see how _he_ was to blame." + +"The transaction was a little irregular, but it was highly creditable to +all parties concerned." + +Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. Indignation and censure +she would have known how to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did +not know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely spoke to him," she +pursued, "and I was very cold. I spoke to him in German." + +"Is German a particularly repellent tongue?" + +"No. But I was determined he should get no hold upon us. He was very +polite and very respectful, as I said, but I didn't give him an atom of +encouragement; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, but I parted +from him very stiffly." + +"Is it possible?" + +"Owen, what _is_ there so wrong about it all? He's clearly fascinated +with her; and as the matter stood, he had no hope of seeing her or +speaking with her except on the street. Perhaps he didn't know it was +wrong,--or didn't realize it." + +"I dare say." + +"What else could the poor fellow have done? There he was! He had stayed +over a day, and laid himself open to arrest, on the bare chance--one in +a hundred--of seeing Lily; and when he did see her, what was he to do?" + +"Obviously, to join her and walk home with her." + +"You are too bad, Owen! Suppose it had been one of our own poor boys? He +_looked_ like an American." + +"He didn't behave like one. One of 'our own poor boys,' as you call +them, would have been as far as possible from thrusting himself upon +you. He would have had too much reverence for you, too much +self-respect, too much pride." + +"What has pride to do with such things, my dear? I think he acted very +naturally. He acted upon impulse. I'm sure you're always crying out +against the restraints and conventionalities between young people, over +here; and now, when a European _does_ do a simple, unaffected thing--" + +Elmore made a gesture of impatience. "This fellow has presumed upon your +being Americans--on your ignorance of the customs here--to take a +liberty that he would not have dreamed of taking with Italian or German +ladies. He has shown himself no gentleman." + +"Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. That's what I thought when +Lily first told me about his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very +much prejudiced against him; but when I saw him to-day, I must say that +I felt that I had been wrong. He is a gentleman; but--he is desperate." + +"Oh, indeed!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under her husband's +sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she pleaded, "can't you see anything +romantic in it?" + +"I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it. I see it from his +standpoint as an adventure, to be bragged of and laughed over at the +mess-table and the caffe. I'm going to put a stop to it." + +Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewildered. "Well, Owen," she +said, "I put the affair entirely in your hands." + +Elmore never could decide upon just what theory his wife had acted; he +had to rest upon the fact, already known to him, of her perfect truth +and conscientiousness, and his perception that even in a good woman the +passion for manoeuvring and intrigue may approach the point at which +men commit forgery. He now saw her quelled and submissive; but he was by +no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, or that she +voluntarily acquiesced. + +"All that I ask is that you won't do anything that you'll regret +afterward. And as for putting a stop to it, I fancy it's put a stop to +already. He's going back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that'll +probably be the last of him." + +"Very well," said Elmore, "if that is the last of him, I ask nothing +better. I certainly have no wish to take any steps in the matter." + +But he went out of the house very unhappy and greatly perplexed. He +thought at first of going to the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was +probably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiar to that hostelry, +and of inquiring him out, and requesting him to discontinue his +attentions; but this course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than +comported with his present mood, and he turned aside to seek advice of +his consul. He found Mr. Hoskins in the best humor for backing his +quarrel. He had just received a second dispatch from Turin, stating that +the rumor of the approaching visit of the Alabama was unfounded; and he +was thus left with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands which +he was glad to contribute to the defence of Mr. Elmore's family from the +pursuit of this Austrian officer. + +"This is a very simple affair, Mr. Elmore,"--he usually said "Elmore," +but in his haughty frame of mind, he naturally threw something more of +state into their intercourse,--"a very simple affair, fortunately. All +that I have to do is to call on the military governor, and state the +facts of the case, and this fellow will get his orders quietly and +_definitively_. This war has sapped our influence in Europe,--there's no +doubt of it; but I think it's a pity if an American family living in +this city can't be safe from molestation; and if it can't, I want to +know the reason why." + +This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and he thanked the consul. +At the same time he felt his own resentment moderated, and he said, "I'm +willing to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon." + +"Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, "if he clears out, that's the end of +it. I'll look in to-morrow, and see how you're getting along." + +"Don't--don't give them the impression that I've--profited by your +kindness," suggested Elmore at parting. + +"You haven't yet. I only hope you may have the chance." + +"Thank you; I don't think _I_ do." + +Elmore took a long walk, and returned home tranquillized and clarified +as to the situation. Since it could be terminated without difficulty and +without scandal in the way Hoskins had explained, he was not unwilling +to see a certain poetry in it. He could not repress a degree of sympathy +with the bold young fellow who had overstepped the conventional +proprieties in the ardor of a romantic impulse, and he could see how +this very boldness, while it had a terror, would have a charm for a +young girl. There was no necessity, except for the purpose of holding +Mrs. Elmore in check, to look at it in an ugly light. Perhaps the +officer had inferred from Lily's innocent frankness of manner that this +sort of approach was permissible with Americans, and was not amusing +himself with the adventure, but was in love in earnest. Elmore could +allow himself this view of a case which he had so completely in his own +hands; and he was sensible of a sort of pleasure in the novel +responsibility thrown upon him. Few men at his age were called upon to +stand in the place of a parent to a young girl, to intervene in her +affairs, and to decide who was and who was not a proper person to +pretend to her acquaintance. + +Feeling so secure in his right, he rebelled against the restraint he had +proposed to himself, and at dinner he invited the ladies to go to the +opera with him. He chose to show himself in public with them, and to +check any impression that they were without due protection. As usual, +the pit was full of officers, and between the acts they all rose, as +usual, and faced the boxes, which they perused through their +_lorgnettes_ till the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs. +Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his notice, instructed him, by +a slow turning of her head, that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After +that he undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation from his +sense of bravado, he enjoyed the last acts of the opera more than the +first. Miss Mayhew showed no disappointment; and she bore herself with +so much grace and dignity, and yet so evidently impressed every one with +her beauty, that he was proud of having her in charge. He began himself +to see that she was pretty. + + +VI. + +The next day was Sunday, and in going to church they missed a call from +Hoskins, whom Elmore felt bound to visit the following morning on his +way to the library, and inform of his belief that the enemy had quitted +Venice, and that the whole affair was probably at an end. He was +strengthened in this opinion by Mrs. Elmore's fear that she might have +been colder than she supposed; she hoped that she had not hurt the poor +young fellow's feelings; and now that he was gone, and safely out of the +way, Elmore hoped so too. + +On his return from the library, his wife met him with an air of mystery +before which his heart sank. "Owen," she said, "Lily has a letter." + +"Not bad news from home, Celia!" + +"No; a letter which she wishes to show you. It has just come. As I don't +wish to influence you, I would rather not be present." Mrs. Elmore +slipped out of the room, and Miss Mayhew glided gravely in, holding an +open note in her hand, and looking into Elmore's eyes with a certain +unfathomable candor, of which she had the secret. + +"Here," she said, "is a letter which I think you ought to see at once, +Professor Elmore"; and she gave him the note with an air of unconcern, +which he afterward recalled without being able to determine whether it +was real indifference or only the calm resulting from the transfer of +the whole responsibility to him. She stood looking at him while he read: + + + MISS, + + + In this evening I am just arrived from Venise, 4 hours afterwards I + have had the fortune to see you and to speake with you--and to + favorite me of your gentil acquaintanceship at rail-away. I never + forgeet the moments I have seen you. Your pretty and nice figure + had attached my heard so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to + see you at Venise. And I was so lukely to speak with you cut too + short, and in the possibility to understand all. I wished to go + also in this Sonday to Venise, but I am sory that I cannot, + beaucause I must feeled now the consequences of the desertation. + Pray Miss to agree the assurance of my lov, and perhaps I will be + so lukely to receive a notice from you Miss if I can hop a little + (hapiness) sympathie. Tres humble + + E. VON EHRHARDT. + + +Elmore was not destitute of the national sense of humor; but he read +this letter not only without amusement in its English, but with intense +bitterness and renewed alarm. It appeared to him that the willingness +of the ladies to put the affair in his hands had not strongly manifested +itself till it had quite passed their own control, and had become a most +embarrassing difficulty,--when, in fact, it was no longer a merit in +them to confide it to him. In the resentment of that moment, his +suspicions even accused his wife of desiring, from idle curiosity and +sentiment, the accidental meeting which had resulted in this fresh +aggression. + +"Why did you show me this letter?" he asked harshly. + +"Mrs. Elmore told me to do so," Lily answered. + +"Did _you_ wish me to see it?" + +"I don't suppose I _wished_ you to see it: I thought you ought to see +it." + +Elmore felt himself relenting a little. "What do you want done about +it?" he asked more gently. + +"That is what I wished you to tell me," replied the girl. + +"I can't tell you what you wish me to do, but I can tell you this, Miss +Mayhew: this man's behavior is totally irregular. He would not think of +writing to an Italian or German girl in this way. If he desired +to--to--pay attention to her, he would write to her father." + +"Yes, that's what Mrs. Elmore said. She said she supposed he must think +it was the American way." + +"Mrs. Elmore," began her husband; but he arrested himself there, and +said, "Very well. I want to know what I am to do. I want your full and +explicit authority before I act. We will dismiss the fact of +irregularity. We will suppose that it is fit and becoming for a +gentleman who has twice met a young lady by accident--or once by +accident, and once by his own insistence--to write to her. Do you wish +to continue the correspondence?" + +"No." + +Elmore looked into the eyes which dwelt full upon him, and, though they +were clear as the windows of heaven, he hesitated. "I must do what you +_say_, no matter what you mean, you know?" + +"I mean what I say." + +"Perhaps," he suggested, "you would prefer to return him this letter +with a few lines on your card." + +"No. I should like him to know that I have shown it to you. I should +think it a liberty for an American to write to me in that way after such +a short acquaintance, and I don't see why I should tolerate it from a +foreigner, though I suppose their customs _are_ different." + +"Then you wish me to write to him?" + +"Yes." + +"And make an end of the matter, once for all?" + +"Yes--" + +"Very well, then." Elmore sat down at once, and wrote:-- + + + SIR,--Miss Mayhew has handed me your note of yesterday, and begs me + to express her very great surprise that you should have ventured to + address her. She desires me also to add that you will consider at + an end whatever acquaintance you suppose yourself to have formed + with her. + + Your obedient servant, + OWEN ELMORE. + + +He handed the note to Lily. "Yes, that will do," she said, in a low, +steady voice. She drew a deep breath, and, laying the letter softly +down, went out of the room into Mrs. Elmore's. + +Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax when his wife appeared +swiftly upon the scene. + +"I want to see what you have written, Owen," she said. + +"Don't talk to me, Celia," he replied, thrusting the wax into the +candle-light. "You have put this affair entirely in my hands, and Lily +approves of what I have written. I am sick of the thing, and I don't +want any more talk about it." + +"I _must_ see it," said Mrs. Elmore, with finality, and possessed +herself of the note. She ran it through, and then flung it on the table +and dropped into a chair, while the tears started to her eyes. "What a +cold, cutting, merciless letter!" she cried. + +"I hope he will think so," said Elmore, gathering it up from the table, +and sealing it securely in its envelope. + +"You're not going to _send_ it!" exclaimed his wife. + +"Yes, I am." + +"I didn't suppose you could be so heartless." + +"Very well, then, I _won't_ send it," said Elmore. "I put the affair in +_your_ hands. What are you going to do about it?" + +"Nonsense!" + +"On the contrary, I'm perfectly serious. I don't see why you shouldn't +manage the business. The gentleman is an acquaintance of yours. _I_ +don't know him." Elmore rose and put his hands in his pockets. "What do +you intend to do? Do you like this clandestine sort of thing to go on? I +dare say the fellow only wishes to amuse himself by a flirtation with a +pretty American. But the question is whether you wish him to do so. I'm +willing to lay his conduct to a misunderstanding of our customs, and to +suppose that he thinks this is the way Americans do. I take the matter +at its best: he speaks to Lily on the train without an introduction; he +joins you in your walk without invitation; he writes to her without +leave, and proposes to get up a correspondence. It is all perfectly +right and proper, and will appear so to Lily's friends when they hear of +it. But I'm curious to know how you're going to manage the sequel. Do +you wish the affair to go on, and how long do you wish it to go on?" + +"You know very well that I don't wish it to go on." + +"Then you wish it broken off?" + +"Of course I do." + +"How?" + +"I think there is such a thing as acting kindly and considerately. I +don't see anything in Captain Ehrhardt's conduct that calls for _savage_ +treatment," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"You would like to have him stopped, but stopped gradually. Well, I +don't wish to be savage, either, and I will act upon any suggestion of +yours. I want Lily's people to feel that we managed not only wisely but +humanely in checking a man who was resolved to force his acquaintance +upon her." + +Mrs. Elmore thought a long while. Then she said: "Why, of course, Owen, +you're right about it. There _is_ no other way. There couldn't be any +kindness in checking him gradually. But I wish," she added sorrowfully, +"that he had not been such a _complete_ goose; and then we could have +done something with him." + +"I am obliged to him for the perfection which you regret, my dear. If he +had been less complete, he would have been much harder to manage." + +"Well," said Mrs. Elmore, rising, "I shall always say that he meant +well. But send the letter." + +Her husband did not wait for a second bidding. He carried it himself to +the general post-office that there might be no mistake and no delay +about it; and a man who believed that he had a feeling and tender heart +experienced a barbarous joy in the infliction of this pitiless snub. I +do not say that it would not have been different if he had trusted at +all in the sincerity of Captain Ehrhardt's passion; but he was glad to +discredit it. A misgiving to the other effect would have complicated the +matter. But now he was perfectly free to disembarrass himself of a +trouble which had so seriously threatened his peace. He was responsible +to Miss Mayhew's family, and Mrs. Elmore herself could not say, then or +afterward, that there was any other way open to him. I will not contend +that his motives were wholly unselfish. No doubt a sense of personal +annoyance, of offended decorum, of wounded respectability, qualified the +zeal for Miss Mayhew's good which prompted him. He was still a young +and inexperienced man, confronted with a strange perplexity: he did the +best he could, and I suppose it was the best that could be done. At any +rate, he had no regrets, and he went cheerfully about the work of +interesting Miss Mayhew in the monuments and memories of the city. + +Since the decisive blow had been struck, the ladies seemed to share his +relief. The pursuit of Captain Ehrhardt, while it flattered, might well +have alarmed, and the loss of a not unpleasant excitement was made good +by a sense of perfect security. Whatever repining Miss Mayhew indulged +was secret, or confided solely to Mrs. Elmore. To Elmore himself she +appeared in better spirits than at first, or at least in a more equable +frame of mind. To be sure, he did not notice very particularly. He took +her to the places and told her the things that she ought to be +interested in, and he conceived a better opinion of her mind from the +quick intelligence with which she entered into his own feelings in +regard to them, though he never could see any evidence of the over-study +for which she had been taken from school. He made her, like Mrs. Elmore, +the partner of his historical researches; he read his notes to both of +them now; and when his wife was prevented from accompanying him, he went +with Lily alone to visit the scenes of such events as his researches +concerned, and to fill his mind with the local color which he believed +would give life and character to his studies of the past. They also went +often to the theatre; and, though Lily could not understand the plays, +she professed to be entertained, and she had a grateful appreciation of +all his efforts in her behalf that amply repaid him. He grew fond of her +society; he took a childish pleasure in having people in the streets +turn and glance at the handsome girl by his side, of whose beauty and +stylishness he became aware through the admiration looked over the +shoulders of the Austrians, and openly spoken by the Italian populace. +It did not occur to him that she might not enjoy the growth of their +acquaintance in equal degree, that she fatigued herself with the +appreciation of the memorable and the beautiful, and that she found +these long rambles rather dull. He was a man of little conversation; +and, unless Mrs. Elmore was of the company, Miss Mayhew pursued his +pleasures for the most part in silence. One evening, at the end of the +week, his wife asked, "Why do you always take Lily through the Piazza on +the side farthest from where the officers sit? Are you afraid of her +meeting Captain Ehrhardt?" + +"Oh, no! I consider the Ehrhardt business settled. But you know the +Italians never walk on the officers' side." + +"You are not an Italian. What do you gain by flattering them up? I +should think you might suppose a young girl had some curiosity." + +"I do; and I do everything I can to gratify her curiosity. I went to San +Pietro di Castello to-day, to show her where the Brides of Venice were +stolen." + +"The oldest and dirtiest part of the city! What _could_ the child care +for the Brides of Venice? Now be reasonable, Owen!" + +"It's a romantic story. I thought girls liked such things,--about +getting married." + +"And that's the reason you took her yesterday to show her the Bucentaur +that the doges wedded the Adriatic in! Well, what was your idea in going +with her to the Cemetery of San Michele?" + +"I thought she would be interested. I had never been there before +myself, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to verify a passage +I was at work on. We always show people the cemetery at home." + +"That was considerate. And why did you go to Canarregio on Wednesday?" + +"I wished her to see the statue of Sior Antonio Rioba; you know it was +the Venetian Pasquino in the Revolution of '48--" + +"Charming!" + +"And the Campo di Giustizia, where the executions used to take place." + +"Delightful!" + +"And--and--the house of Tintoretto," faltered Elmore. + +"Delicious! She cares so much for Tintoretto! And you've been with her +to the Jewish burying-ground at the Lido, and the Spanish synagogue in +the Ghetto, and the fish-market at the Rialto, and you've shown her the +house of Othello and the house of Desdemona, and the prisons in the +ducal palace; and three nights you've taken us to the Piazza as soon as +the Austrian band stopped playing, and all the interesting promenading +was over, and those stuffy old Italians began to come to the caffes. +Well, I can tell you that's no way to amuse a young girl. We must do +something for her, or she will die. She has come here from a country +where girls have always had the best time in the world, and where the +times are livelier now than they ever were, with all this excitement of +the war going on; and here she is dropped down in the midst of this +absolute deadness: no calls, no picnics, no parties, no dances--nothing! +We must do something for her." + +"Shall we give her a ball?" asked Elmore, looking round the pretty +little apartment. + +"There's nothing going on among the Italians. But you might get us +invited to the German Casino." + +"I dare say. But I will not do that." + +"Then we could go to the Luogotenenza, to the receptions. Mr. Hoskins +could call with us, and they would send us cards." + +"That would make us simply odious to the Venetians, and our house would +be thronged with officers. What I've seen of them doesn't make me +particularly anxious for the honor of their further acquaintance." + +"Well, I don't ask you to do any of these things," said Mrs. Elmore, who +had, in fact, mentioned them with the intention of insisting upon an +abated claim. "But I think you _might_ go and dine at one of the +hotels--at the Danieli--instead of that Italian restaurant; and then +Lily could see somebody at the table d'hote, and not simply _perish_ of +despair." + +"I--I didn't suppose it was so bad as that," said Elmore. + +"Why, of course, she hasn't said anything,--she's far too well-bred for +that; but I can tell from my own feelings how she must suffer. I have +you, Owen," she said tenderly, "but Lily has _nobody_. She has gone +through this Ehrhardt business so well that I think we ought to do all +we can to divert her mind." + +"Well, now, Celia, you see the difficulty of our position,--the nature +of the responsibility we have assumed. How are we possibly, here in +Venice, to divert the mind of a young lady fresh from the parties and +picnics of Patmos?" + +"We can go and dine at the Danieli," replied Mrs. Elmore. + +"Very well, let us go, then. But she will learn no Italian there. She +will hear nothing but English from the travellers and bad French from +the waiters; while at our restaurant--" + +"Pshaw!" cried Mrs. Elmore, "what does Lily care for Italian? I'm sure +_I_ never want to hear another word of it." + +At this desperate admission, Elmore quite gave way; he went to the +Danieli the next morning, and arranged to begin dining there that day. +There is no denying that Miss Mayhew showed an enthusiasm in prospect of +the change that even the sight of the pillar to which Foscarini was +hanged head downwards for treason to the Republic had not evoked. She +made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly an impression at the +table d'hote when she sat down there. Elmore had found places opposite +an elderly lady and quite a young gentleman, of English speech, but of +not very English effect otherwise, who bowed to Lily in acknowledgment +of some former meeting. The old lady said, "So you've reached Venice at +last? I'm very pleased, for your sake," as if at some point of the +progress thither she had been privy to anxieties of Lily about arriving +at her destination; and, in fact, they had been in the same hotels at +Marseilles and Genoa. The young gentleman said nothing, but he looked at +Lily throughout the dinner, and seemed to take his eyes from her only +when she glanced at him; then he dropped his gaze to his neglected plate +and blushed. When they left the table, he made haste to join the Elmores +in the reading-room, where he contrived, with creditable skill, to get +Lily apart from them for the examination of an illustrated newspaper, at +which neither of them looked; they remained chatting and laughing over +it in entire irrelevancy till the elderly lady rose and said, "Herbert, +Herbert! I am ready to go now," upon which he did not seem at all so, +but went submissively. + +"Who are those people, Lily?" asked Mrs. Elmore, as they walked towards +Florian's for their after-dinner coffee. The Austrian band was playing +in the centre of the Piazza, and the tall, blond German officers +promenaded back and forth with dark Hungarian women, who looked each +like a princess of her race. The lights glittered upon them, and on the +brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the Piazza before the caffes; +the scene seemed to shake and waver in the splendor, like something +painted. + +"Oh, their name is Andersen, or something like that; and they're from +Helgoland, or some such place. I saw them first in Paris, but we didn't +speak till we got to Marseilles. That's his aunt; they're English +subjects, someway; and he's got an appointment in the civil service--I +think he called it--in India, and he doesn't want to go; and I told him +he ought to go to America. That's what I tell all these Europeans." + +"It's the best advice for them," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"They don't seem in any great haste to act upon it," laughed Miss +Mayhew. "Who was the red-faced young man that seemed to know you, and +stared so?" + +"That's an English artist who is staying here. He has a curious +name,--Rose-Black; and he is the most impudent and pushing man in the +world. I wouldn't introduce him, because I saw he was just dying for +it." + +Miss Mayhew laughed, as she laughed at everything, not because she was +amused, but because she was happy; this childlike gayety of heart was +great part of her charm. + +Elmore had quieted his scruples as a good Venetian by coming inside of +the caffe while the band played, instead of sitting outside with the bad +patriots; but he put the ladies next the window, and so they were not +altogether sacrificed to his sympathy with the _dimostrazione_. + + +VII. + +The next morning Elmore was called from his bed--at no very early hour, +it must be owned, but at least before a nine o'clock breakfast--to see a +gentleman who was waiting in the parlor. He dressed hurriedly, with a +thousand exciting speculations in his mind, and found Mr. Rose-Black +looking from the balcony window. "You have a pleasant position here," he +said easily, as he turned about to meet Elmore's look of indignant +demand. "I've come to ask all about our friends the Andersens." + +"I don't know anything about them," answered Elmore. "I never saw them +before." + +"Aoeh!" said the painter. Elmore had not invited him to sit down, but now +he dropped into a chair, with the air of asking Elmore to explain +himself. "The young lady of your party seemed to know them. How +uncommonly pretty all your American young girls are! But I'm told they +fade very soon. I should like to make up a picnic party with you all for +the Lido." + +"Thank you," replied Elmore stiffly. "Miss Mayhew has seen the Lido." + +"Aoeh! _That's_ her name. It's a pretty name." He looked through the open +door into the dining-room, where the table was set for breakfast, with +the usual water-goblet at each plate. "I see you have beer for +breakfast. There's nothing so nice, you know. Would you--would you mind +giving me a glahs?" + +Through an undefined sense of the duties of hospitality, Elmore was +surprised by this impudence into sending out to the next caffe for a +pitcher of beer. Rose-Black poured himself out one glass and another +till he had emptied the pitcher, conversing affably meanwhile with his +silent host. + +"_Why_ didn't you turn him out of doors?" demanded Mrs. Elmore, as soon +as the painter's departure allowed her to slip from the closed door +behind which she had been imprisoned in her room. + +"I did everything _but_ that," replied her husband, whom this interview +had saddened more than it had angered. + +"You sent out for beer for him!" + +"I didn't know but it might make him sick. Really, the thing is +incredible. I think the man is cracked." + +"He is an Englishman, and he thinks he can take any kind of liberty with +us because we are Americans." + +"That seems to be the prevalent impression among all the European +nationalities," said Elmore. "Let's drop him for the present, and try to +be more brutal in the future." + +Mrs. Elmore, so far from dropping him, turned to Lily, who entered at +that moment, and recounted the extraordinary adventure of the morning, +which scarcely needed the embellishment of her fancy; it was not really +a gallon of beer, but a quart, that Mr. Rose-Black had drunk. She +enlarged upon previous aggressions of his, and said finally that they +had to thank Mr. Ferris for his acquaintance. + +"Ferris couldn't help himself," said Elmore. "He apologized to me +afterward. The man got him into a corner. But he warned us about him as +soon he could. And Rose-Black would have made our acquaintance, any way. +I believe he's crazy." + +"I don't see how that helps the matter." + +"It helps to explain it," concluded Elmore, with a sigh. "We can't refer +everything to our being American lambs, and his being a ravening +European wolf." + +"Of course he came round to find out about Lily," said Mrs. Elmore. +"The Andersens were a mere blind." + +"Oh, Mrs. Elmore!" cried Lily in deprecation. + +The bell jangled. "That is the postman," said Mrs. Elmore. + +There was a home-letter for Lily, and one from Lily's sister enclosed to +Mrs. Elmore. The ladies rent them open, and lost themselves in the +cross-written pages; and neither of them saw the dismay with which +Elmore looked at the handwriting of the envelope addressed to him. His +wife vaguely knew that he had a letter, and meant to ask him for it as +soon as she should have finished her own. When she glanced at him again, +he was staring at the smiling face of Miss Mayhew, as she read her +letter, with the wild regard of one who sees another in mortal peril, +and can do nothing to avert the coming doom, but must dumbly await the +catastrophe. + +"What is it, Owen?" asked his wife in a low voice. + +He started from his trance, and struggled to answer quietly. "I've a +letter here which I suppose I'd better show to you first." + +They rose and went into the next room, Miss Mayhew following them with a +bright, absent look, and then dropping her eyes again to her letter. + +Elmore put the note he had received into his wife's hands without a +word. + + + SIR,--My position permitted me to take a woman. I am a soldier, but + I am an engineer--operateous, and I can exercise wherever my + profession in the civil life. I have seen Miss Mayhew, and I have + great sympathie for she. I think I will be lukely with her, if Miss + Mayhew would be of the same intention of me. + + If you believe, Sir, that my open and realy proposition will not + offendere Miss Mayhew, pray to handed to her this note. Pray sir to + excuse me the liberty to fatigue you, and to go over with silence + if you would be of another intention. + + Your obedient servant, + E. VON EHRHARDT. + + +Mrs. Elmore folded the letter carefully up and returned it to her +husband. If he had perhaps dreaded some triumphant outburst from her, he +ought to have been content with the thoroughly daunted look which she +lifted to his, and the silence in which she suffered him to do justice +to the writer. + +"This is the letter of a gentleman, Celia," he said. + +"Yes," she responded faintly. + +"It puts another complexion on the affair entirely." + +"Yes. Why did he wait a whole week?" she added. + +"It is a serious matter with him. He had a right to take time for +thinking it over." Elmore looked at the date of the Peschiera postmark, +and then at that of Venice on the back of the envelope. "No, he wrote at +once. This has been kept in the Venetian office, and probably read there +by the authorities." + +His wife did not heed the conjecture. "He began all wrong," she grieved. +"Why couldn't he have behaved sensibly?" + +"We must look at it from another point of view now," replied Elmore. "He +has repaired his error by this letter." + +"No, no; he hasn't." + +"The question is now what to do about the changed situation. This is an +offer of marriage. It comes in the proper way. It's a very sincere and +manly letter. The man has counted the whole cost: he's ready to leave +the army and go to America, if she says so. He's in love. How can she +refuse him?" + +"Perhaps she isn't in love with him," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"Oh! That's true. I hadn't thought of that. Then it's very simple." + +"But I don't know that she isn't," murmured Mrs. Elmore. + +"Well, ask her." + +"How could _she_ tell?" + +"How could she _tell_?" + +"Yes. Do you suppose a child like that can know her own mind in an +instant?" + +"I should think she could." + +"Well, she couldn't. She liked the excitement,--the romanticality of it; +but she doesn't know any more than you or I whether she cares for him. I +don't suppose marriage with anybody has ever seriously entered her head +yet." + +"It will have to do so now," said Elmore firmly. "There's no help for +it." + +"I think the American plan is much better," pouted Mrs. Elmore. "It's +horrid to know that a man's in love with you, and wants to marry you, +from the very start. Of course it makes you hate him." + +"I dare say the American plan is better in this as in most other things. +But we can't discuss abstractions, Celia. We must come down to business. +What are we to do?" + +"I don't know." + +"We must submit the question to her." + +"To that innocent, unsuspecting little thing? Never!" cried Mrs. Elmore. + +"Then we must decide it, as he seems to expect we may, without reference +to her," said her husband. + +"No, that won't do. Let me think." Mrs. Elmore thought to so little +purpose that she left the word to her husband again. + +"You see we must lay the matter before her." + +"Couldn't--couldn't we let him come to see us awhile? Couldn't we +explain our ways to him, and allow him to pay her attentions without +letting her know about this letter?" + +"I'm afraid he wouldn't understand,--that we couldn't make it clear to +him," said Elmore. "If we invited him to the house he would consider it +as an acceptance. He wants a categorical answer, and he has a right to +it. It would be no kindness to a man with his ideas to take him on +probation. He has behaved honorably, and we're bound to consider him." + +"Oh, I don't think he's done anything so very great," said Mrs. Elmore, +with that disposition we all have to disparage those who put us in +difficulties. + +"He's done everything he could do," said Elmore. "Shall I speak to Miss +Mayhew?" + +"No, you had better let me," sighed his wife. "I suppose we must. But I +think it's horrid! Everything could have gone on so nicely if he hadn't +been so impatient from the beginning. Of course she won't have him now. +She will be scared, and that will be the end of it." + +"I think you ought to be just to him, Celia. I can't help feeling for +him. He has thrown himself upon our mercy, and he has a claim to right +and thoughtful treatment." + +"She won't have anything to do with him. You'll see." + +"I shall be very glad of that," Elmore began. + +"_Why_ should you be glad of it?" demanded his wife. + +He laughed. "I think I can safely leave his case in your hands. Don't go +to the other extreme. If she married a German, he would let her black +his boots,--like that general in Munich." + +"Who is talking of marriage?" retorted Mrs. Elmore. + +"Captain Ehrhardt and I. That's what it comes to; and it can't come to +anything else. I like his courage in writing English, and it's wonderful +how he hammers his meaning into it. 'Lukely' isn't bad, is it? And 'my +position permitted me to take a woman'--I suppose he means that he has +money enough to marry on--is delicious. Upon my word, I have a good deal +of sympathie for he!" + +"For shame, Owen! It's wicked to make fun of his English." + +"My dear, I respect him for writing in English. The whole letter is +touchingly brave and fine. Confound him! I wish I had never heard of +him. What does he come bothering across my path for?" + +"Oh, don't feel that way about it, Owen!" cried his wife. "It's cruel." + +"I don't. I wish to treat him in the most generous manner; after all, it +isn't his fault. But you must allow, Celia, that it's very annoying and +extremely perplexing. _We_ can't make up Miss Mayhew's mind for her. +Even if we found out that she liked him, it would be only the beginning +of our troubles. _We've_ no right to give her away in marriage, or let +her involve her affections here. But be judicious, Celia." + +"It's easy enough to say that!" + +"I'll be back in an hour," said Elmore. "I'm going to the Square. We +mustn't lose time." + +As he passed out through the breakfast-room, Lily was sitting by the +window with her letter in her lap, and a happy smile on her lips. When +he came back she happened to be seated in the same place; she still had +a letter in her lap, but she was smiling no longer; her face was turned +from him as he entered, and he imagined a wistful droop in that corner +of her mouth which showed on her profile. + +But she rose very promptly, and with a heightened color said, "I am +sorry to trouble you to answer another letter for me, Professor Elmore. +I manage my correspondence at home myself, but here it seems to be +different." + +"It needn't be different here, Lily," said Elmore kindly. "You can +answer all the letters you receive in just the way you like. We don't +doubt your discretion in the least. We will abide by any decision of +yours, on any point that concerns yourself." + +"Thank you," replied the girl; "but in this case I think you had better +write." She kept slipping Ehrhardt's letter up and down between her +thumb and finger against the palm of her left hand, and delayed giving +it to him, as if she wished him to say something first. + +"I suppose you and Celia have talked the matter over?" + +"Yes." + +"And I hope you have determined upon the course you are going to take, +quite uninfluenced?" + +"Oh, quite so." + +"I feel bound to tell you," said Elmore, "that this gentleman has now +done everything that we could expect of him, and has fully atoned for +any error he committed in making your acquaintance." + +"Yes, I understand that. Mrs. Elmore thought he might have written +because he saw he had gone too far, and couldn't think of any other way +out of it." + +"That occurred to me, too, though I didn't mention it. But we're bound +to take the letter on its face, and that's open and honorable. Have you +made up your mind?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you wish for delay? There is no reason for haste." + +"There's no reason for delay, either," said the girl. Yet she did not +give up the letter, or show any signs of intending to terminate the +interview. "If I had had more experience, I should know how to act +better; but I must do the best I can, without the experience. I think +that even in a case like this we should try to do right, don't you?" + +"Yes, above all other cases," said Elmore, with a laugh. + +She flushed in recognition of her absurdity. "I mean that we oughtn't to +let our feelings carry us away. I saw so many girls carried away by +their feelings, when the first regiments went off, that I got a horror +of it. I think it's wicked: it deceives both; and then you don't know +how to break the engagement afterward." + +"You're quite right, Lily," said Elmore, with a rising respect for the +girl. + +"Professor Elmore, can you believe that, with all the attentions I've +had, I've never seriously thought of getting married as the end of it +all?" she asked, looking him freely in the eyes. + +"I can't understand it,--no man could, I suppose,--but I do believe it. +Mrs. Elmore has often told me the same thing." + +"And this--letter--it--means marriage." + +"That and nothing else. The man who wrote it would consider himself +cruelly wronged if you accepted his attentions without the distinct +purpose of marrying him." + +She drew a deep breath. "I shall have to ask you to write a refusal for +me." But still she did not give him the letter. + +"Have you made up your mind to that?" + +"I can't make up my mind to anything else." + +Elmore walked unhappily back and forth across the room. "I have seen +something of international marriages since I've been in Europe," he +said. "Sometimes they succeed; but generally they're wretched failures. +The barriers of different race, language, education, religion,--they're +terrible barriers. It's very hard for a man and woman to understand +each other at the best; with these differences added, it's almost a +hopeless case." + +"Yes; that's what Mrs. Elmore said." + +"And suppose you were married to an Austrian officer stationed in Italy. +You would have _no_ society outside of the garrison. Every other human +creature that looked at you would hate you. And if you were ordered to +some of those half barbaric principalities,--Moldavia or Wallachia, or +into Hungary or Bohemia,--everywhere your husband would be an instrument +for the suppression of an alien or disaffected population. What a fate +for an American girl!" + +"If he were good," said the girl, replying in the abstract, "she needn't +care." + +"If he were good, you needn't care. No. And he might leave the Austrian +service, and go with you to America, as he hints. What could he do +there? He might get an appointment in our army, though that's not so +easy now; or he might go to Patmos, and live upon your friends till he +found something to do in civil life." + +Lily began a laugh. "Why, Professor Elmore, _I_ don't want to marry him! +What in the world are you arguing with me for?" + +"Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I oughtn't to let these +considerations weigh as a feather in the balance if you are at all--at +all--ahem! excuse me!--attached to him. That, of course, outweighs +everything else." + +"But I'm _not_!" cried the girl "How _could_ I be? I've only met him +twice. It would be perfectly ridiculous. I _know_ I'm not. I ought to +know that if I know anything." + +Years afterward it occurred to Elmore, when he awoke one night, and his +mind without any reason flew back to this period in Venice, that she +might have been referring the point to him for decision. But now it only +seemed to him that she was adding force to her denial; and he observed +nothing hysterical in the little laugh she gave. + +"Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I'll write now, if you will +give me his letter." + +She put it behind her. "Professor Elmore," she said, "I am not going to +have you think that he ever behaved in the least presumingly. And +whatever you think of me, I must tell you that I suppose I talked very +freely with him,--just as freely, as I should with an American. I didn't +know any better. He was very interesting, and I was homesick, and so +glad to see any one who could speak English. I suppose I was a goose; +but I felt very far away from all my friends, and I was grateful for +his kindness. Even if he had never written this last letter, I should +always have said that he was a true gentleman." + +"Well?" + +"That is all. I can't have him treated as if he were an adventurer." + +"You want him dismissed?" + +"Yes." + +"A man can't distinguish as to the terms of a dismissal. They're always +insolent,--more insolent than ever if you try to make them kindly. I +should merely make this as short and sharp as possible." + +"Yes," she said breathlessly, as if the idea affected her respiration. + +"But I will show it to you, and I won't send it without your approval." + +"Thank you. But I shall not want to see it. I'd rather not." She was +going out of the room. + +"Will you leave me his letter? You can have it again." + +She turned red in giving it him. "I forgot. Why, it's written to you, +anyway!" she cried, with a laugh, and put the letter on the table. + +The two doors opened and closed: one excluded Lily, and the other +admitted Mrs. Elmore. + +"Owen, I approve of all you said, except that about the form of the +refusal. I will read what you say. I intend that it _shall_ be made +kindly." + +"Very well. I'll copy a letter of yours, or write from your dictation." + +"No; you write it, and I'll criticise it." + +"Oh, you talk as if I were eager to write the letter! Can't you imagine +it's being a very painful thing to me?" he demanded. + +"It didn't seem to be so before." + +"Why, the situation wasn't the same before he wrote this letter!" + +"I don't see how. He was as much in earnest then as he is now, and you +had no pity for him." + +"Oh, my goodness!" cried Elmore desperately. "Don't you see the +difference? He hadn't given any proof before"-- + +"Oh, proof, proof! You men are always wanting proof! What better proof +could he have given than the way he followed her about? Proof, indeed! I +suppose you'd like to have Lily prove that she doesn't care for him!" + +"Yes," said Elmore sadly, "I should like very much to have her prove +it." + +"Well, you won't get her to. What makes you think she does?" + +"I don't. Do you?" + +"N-o," answered Mrs. Elmore reluctantly. + +"Celia, Celia, you will drive me mad if you go on in this way! The girl +has told me, over and over, that she wishes him dismissed. Why do you +think she doesn't?" + +"I don't. Who hinted such a thing? But I don't want you to _enjoy_ doing +it." + +"_Enjoy_ it? So you think I enjoy it! What do you suppose I'm made of? +Perhaps you think I enjoyed catechizing the child about her feelings +toward him? Perhaps you think I enjoy the whole confounded affair? Well, +I give it up. I will let it go. If I can't have your full and hearty +support, I'll let it go. I'll do nothing about it." + +He threw Ehrhardt's letter on the table, and went and sat down by the +window. His wife took the letter up and read it over. "Why, you see he +asks you to pass it over in silence if you don't consent." + +"Does he?" asked Elmore. "I hadn't noticed that." + +"Perhaps you'd better read some of your letters, Owen, before you answer +them!" + +"Really, I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the letter was written to +me at all. I thought it was to Lily, and she had got to thinking so too. +Well, then, I won't do anything about it." He drew a breath of relief. + +"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "he asked that so as to leave himself +some hope if he should happen to meet her again." + +"And we don't wish him to have any hope." + +Mrs. Elmore was silent. + +"Celia," cried her husband indignantly, "I can't have you playing fast +and loose with me in this matter!" + +"I suppose I may have time to think?" she retorted. + +"Yes, if you will tell me what you _do_ think; but that I _must_ know. +It's a thing too vital in its consequences for me to act without your +full concurrence. I won't take another step in it till I know just how +far you have gone with me. If I may judge of what this man's influence +upon Lily would be by the fact that he has brought us to the verge of +the only real quarrel we've ever had"-- + +"Who's quarrelling, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore meekly. "I'm not." + +"Well, well! we won't dispute about that. I want to know whether you +thought with me that it was improper for him to address her in the car?" + +"Yes." + +"And still more improper for him to join you in the street?" + +"Yes. But he was very gentlemanly." + +"No matter about that. You were just as much annoyed as I was by his +letter to her?" + +"I don't know about annoyed. It scared me." + +"Very well. And you approved of my answering it as I did?" + +"I had nothing to do with it. I thought you were acting conscientiously. +I'll say that much." + +"You've got to say more. You have got to say you approved of it; for you +know you did." + +"Oh--_approved_ of it? Yes!" + +"That's all I want. Now I agree with you that if we pass this letter in +silence, it will leave him with some hope. You agree with me that in a +marriage between an American girl and an Austrian officer the chances +would be ninety-nine to a hundred against her happiness at the best." + +"There are a great many unhappy marriages at home," said Mrs. Elmore +impartially. + +"That isn't the point, Celia, and you know it. The point is whether you +believe the chances are for or against her in such a marriage. Do you?" + +"Do I what?" + +"Agree with me?" + +"Yes; but I say they _might_ be _very_ happy. I shall always say that." + +Elmore flung up his hands in despair. "Well, then, say what shall be +done now." + +This was perhaps just what Mrs. Elmore did not choose to say. She was +silent a long time,--so long that Elmore said, "But there's really no +haste about it," and took some notes of his history out of a drawer, and +began to look them over, with his back turned to her. + +"I never knew anything so heartless!" she cried. "Owen, this _must_ be +attended to at once! I can't have it hanging over me any longer. It will +make me sick." + +He turned abruptly round, and, seating himself at the table, wrote a +note, which he pushed across to her. It acknowledged the receipt of +Captain von Ehrhardt's letter, and expressed Miss Mayhew's feeling that +there was nothing in it to change her wish that the acquaintance should +cease. In after years, the terms of this note did not always appear to +Elmore wisely chosen or humanely considered; but he stood at bay, and he +struck mercilessly. In spite of the explicit concurrence of both Miss +Mayhew and his wife, he felt as if they were throwing wholly upon him a +responsibility whose fearfulness he did not then realize. Even in his +wife's "Send it!" he was aware of a subtile reservation on her part. + + +VIII. + +Mrs. Elmore and Lily again rose buoyantly from the conclusive event, but +he succumbed to it. For the delicate and fastidious invalid, keeping his +health evenly from day to day upon the condition of a free and peaceful +mind, the strain had been too much. He had a bad night, and the next day +a gastric trouble declared itself which kept him in bed half the week, +and left him very weak and tremulous. His friends did not forget him +during this time. Hoskins came regularly to see him, and supplied his +place at the table d'hote of the Danieli, going to and fro with the +ladies, and efficiently protecting them from the depredations of the +Austrian soldiery. From Mr. Rose-Black he could not protect them; and +both the ladies amused Elmore with a dramatization of how the Englishman +had boldly outwitted them, and trampled all their finessing under foot, +by simply walking up to them in the reading-room, and saying, "This is +Miss Mayhew, I suppose," and putting himself at once on the footing of +an old family friend. They read to Elmore, and they put his papers in +order, so that he did not know where to find anything when he got well; +but they always came home from the hotel with some lively gossip, and +this he liked. They professed to recognize an anxiety on the part of Mr. +Andersen's aunt that his mind should not be diverted from the civil +service in India by thoughts of young American ladies; but she sent some +delicacies to Elmore, and one day she even came to call with her nephew, +in extreme reluctance and anxiety as they pretended to him. + +The next afternoon the young man called alone, and Elmore, who was now +on foot, received him in the parlor, before the ladies came in. Mr. +Andersen had a bunch of flowers in one hand, and a small wooden box +containing a little turtle on a salad-leaf in the other; the poor +animals are sold in the Piazza at Venice for souvenirs of the city, and +people often carry them away. Elmore took the offerings simply, as he +took everything in life, and interpreted them as an expression, however +odd, of Mr. Andersen's sympathy with his recent sufferings, of which he +gave him some account; but he practised a decent self-denial, here, and +they were already talking of the weather when the ladies appeared. He +hastened to exhibit the tokens of Mr. Andersen's kind remembrance, and +was mystified by the young man's confusion, and the impatient, almost +contemptuous, air with which his wife listened to him. Hoskins came in +at that moment to ask about Elmore's health, and showed the hostile +civility to Andersen which young men use toward each other in the +presence of ladies; and then, seeing that the latter had secured the +place at Miss Mayhew's side on the sofa, he limped to the easy chair +near Mrs. Elmore, and fell into talk with her about Rose-Black's +pictures, which he had just seen. They were based upon an endeavor to +trace the moral principles believed by Mr. Ruskin to underlie Venetian +art, and they were very queer, so Hoskins said; he roughly sketched an +idea of some of them on a block he took from his pocket. + +Mr. Andersen and Lily went out upon one of the high-railed balconies +that overhung the canal, and stood there, with their backs to the +others. She seemed to be listening, with averted face, while he, with +his cheek leaning upon one hand and his elbow resting on the balcony +rail, kept a pensive attitude after they had apparently ceased to speak. +Something in their pose struck the sculptor's fancy, and he made a hasty +sketch of them, and was showing it to the Elmores when Lily suddenly +descended into the room again, and, saying something about its being +quite dark, went out, and left Mr. Andersen to make his adieux to the +others. He startled them by saying that he was to set off for India in +the morning, and he went away very melancholy. + +"Well, I don't know," said Hoskins, thoughtfully retouching his sketch, +"that I should feel very lively about going out to India myself." + +"He seems to be a very affectionate young fellow," observed Elmore, "and +I've no doubt he will feel the separation from his friends. But I really +don't know why he should have brought me a bouquet, and a small turtle +in a box, on the eve of his departure." + +"What?" cried Hoskins, with a rude guffaw; and when Elmore had showed +his gifts, Hoskins threw back his head and laughed indecently. His +behavior nettled Elmore, and it sent Mrs. Elmore prematurely out of the +room; for, not content with his explosions of laughter, he continued for +some time to amuse himself by touching up with the point of his pencil +the tail of the turtle which he had turned out of its box upon the +table. At Mrs. Elmore's withdrawal he stopped, and presently said +good-night rather soberly. + +Then she returned. "Owen," she asked sadly, "did you really think these +flowers and that turtle were for you?" + +"Why, yes," he answered. + +"Well, I don't know whether I wouldn't almost rather it had been a joke. +I believe that I would rather despise your heart than your head. Why +should Mr. Andersen bring _you_ flowers and a turtle?" + +"Upon my word, I don't know." + +"They were for Lily! And your mistake has added another pang to the poor +young fellow's suffering. She has just refused him," she said; and as +Elmore continued to glare blankly at her, she added: "She was refusing +him there on the balcony while that disgusting Mr. Hoskins was sketching +them; and he had his hand up, that way, because he was crying." + +"This is horrible, Celia!" cried Elmore. The scent of the flowers lying +on the table seemed to choke him; the turtle clawing about on the smooth +surface looked demoniacal. "Why----" + +"Now, don't ask me why she refused him, Owen. Of course she couldn't +care for a boy like that. But he can't realize it, and it's just as +miserable for him as if he were a thousand years old." + +Elmore hung his head. "It was all a mistake. But how should I know any +better? I am a straightforward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care +that has been thrown upon me. It's more than I can bear. No, I'm _not_ +fit for it!" he cried at last; and his wife, seeing him so crushed, now +said something to console him. + +"I know you're not. I see it more and more. But I know that you will do +the best you can, and that you will always act from a good motive. Only +_do_ try to be more on your guard." + +"I will--I will," he answered humbly. + +He had a temptation, the next time he visited Hoskins, to tell him the +awful secret, and to see how the situation of that night, with this +lurid light upon it, affected him: it could do poor Andersen, now on his +way to India, no harm. He yielded to his temptation, at the same time +that he confessed his own blunder about the flowers. + +Hoskins whistled. "I tell you what," he said, after a long pause, "there +are some things in history that I never could realize,--like Mary, Queen +of Scots, for instance, putting on her best things, and stepping down +into the front parlor of that castle to have her head off. But a thing +like this, happening on your own balcony, _helps_ you to realize it." + +"It helps you to realize it," assented Elmore, deeply oppressed by the +tragic parallel. + +"He's just beginning to feel it about now," said Hoskins, with strange +_sang froid_. "I reckon it's a good deal like being shot. I didn't fully +appreciate my little hit under a couple of days. Then I began to find +out that something had happened. Look here," he added, "I want to show +you something;" and he pulled the wet cloth off a breadth of clay which +he had set up on a board stayed against the wall. It was a bas-relief +representing a female figure advancing from the left corner over a +stretch of prairie towards a bulk of forest on the right; bison, bear, +and antelope fled before her; a lifted hand shielded her eyes; a star +lit the fillet that bound her hair. + +"That's the best thing you've done, Hoskins," said Elmore. "What do you +call it?" + +"Well, I haven't settled yet. I _have_ thought of 'Westward the Star of +Empire,' but that's rather long; and I've thought of 'American +Enterprise.' I ain't in any hurry to name it. You like it, do you?" + +"I like it immensely!" cried Elmore. "You must let me bring the ladies +to see it." + +"Well, not just yet," said the sculptor, in some confusion. "I want to +get it a little further along first." + +They stood looking together at the figure; and when Elmore went away he +puzzled himself about something in it,--he could not tell exactly what. +He thought he had seen that face and figure before, but this is what +often occurs to the connoisseur of modern sculpture. His mind heavily +reverted to Lily and her suitors. Take her in one way, especially in her +subordination to himself, the girl was as simply a child as any in the +world,--good-hearted, tender, and sweet, and, as he could see, without +tendency to flirtation. Take her in another way, confront her with a +young and marriageable man, and Elmore greatly feared that she +unconsciously set all her beauty and grace at work to charm him; another +life seemed to inform her, and irradiate from her, apart from which she +existed simple and childlike still. In the security of his own deposited +affections, it appeared to him cruelly absurd that a passion which any +other pretty girl might, and some other pretty girl in time must, have +kindled, should cling, when once awakened, so inalienably to the pretty +girl who had, in a million chances, chanced to awaken it. He wondered +how much of this constancy was natural, and how much merely attributive +and traditional, and whether human happiness or misery were increased by +it on the whole. + + +IX. + +In the respite which followed the dismissal of Andersen, the English +painter, Rose-Black, visited the Elmores as often as the servant, who +had orders in his case to say that they were _impediti_, failed of her +duty. They could not always escape him at the caffe, and they would have +left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had +driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances, +instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more +offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem; +he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the +London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of +his compatriots, that we were going to the dogs. + +"What do you really make of him, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore, after an +evening that, in its improbable discomfort, had passed quite like a +nightmare. + +"Well, I've been thinking a good deal about him. I have been wondering +if, in his phenomenal way, he is not a final expression of the national +genius,--the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the tacit denial +of the rights of any people who are at English mercy; the assumption +that the courtesies and decencies of life are for use exclusively +towards Englishmen." + +This was in that embittered old war-time: we have since learned how +forbearing and generous and amiable Englishmen are; how they never take +advantage of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or fail in +consideration for those they imagine their superiors; how you have but +to show yourself successful in order to win their respect, and even +affection. + +But for the present Mrs. Elmore replied to her husband's perverted +ideas, "Yes, it must be so," and she supported him in the ineffectual +experiment of deferential politeness, Christian charity, broad humanity, +and savage rudeness upon Rose-Black. It was all one to Rose-Black. + +He took an air of serious protection towards Mrs. Elmore, and often gave +her advice, while he practised an easy gallantry with Lily, and ignored +Elmore altogether. His intimacy was superior to the accidents of their +moods, and their slights and snubs were accepted apparently as +interesting expressions of a civilization about which he was insatiably +curious, especially as regarded the relations of young people. There was +no mistaking the fact that Rose-Black in his way had fallen under the +spell which Elmore had learned to dread; but there was nothing to be +done, and he helplessly waited. He saw what must come; and one evening +it came, when Rose-Black, in more than usually offensive patronage, +lolled back upon the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, "About +flirtations, now, in America,--tell me something about flirtations. +We've heard so much about your American flirtations. We only have them +with married ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. Elmore +would think of one." + +"I don't know what you mean," said Lily. "I don't know anything about +flirtations." + +This seemed to amuse Rose-Black as an uncommonly fine piece of American +humor, which was then just beginning to make its way with the English. +"Oh, but come, now, you don't expect me to believe that, you know. If +you won't tell me, suppose you show me what an American flirtation is +like. Suppose we get up a flirtation. How should you begin?" + +The girl rose with a more imposing air than Elmore could have imagined +of her stature; but almost any woman can be awful in emergencies. "I +should begin by bidding you good-evening," she answered, and swept out +of the room. + +Elmore felt as if he had been left alone with a man mortally hurt in +combat, and were likely to be arrested for the deed. He gazed with +fascination upon Rose-Black, and wondered to see him stir, and at last +rise, and with some incoherent words to them, get himself away. He dared +not lift his gaze to the man's eyes, lest he should see there some +reflection of the pain that filled his own. He would have gone after +him, and tried to say something in condolence, but he was quite helpless +to move; and as he sat still, gazing at the door through which +Rose-Black disappeared, Mrs. Elmore said quietly:-- + +"Well, really, I think that ought to be the last of him. You see, she's +quite able to take care of herself when she knows her ground. You can't +say that she has thrown the brunt of this affair upon you, Owen." + +"I am not so sure of that," sighed Elmore. "I think I suffer less when I +do it than when I see it. It's horrible." + +"He deserved it, every bit," returned his wife. + +"Oh, I dare say," Elmore granted. "But the sight even of justice isn't +pleasant, I find." + +"I don't understand you, Owen. How can you care so much for this +impudent wretch's little snub, and yet be so indifferent about refusing +Captain Ehrhardt?" + +"I'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know that I did right, but I +don't know that I could do right under the same circumstances again." + +In fact there were times when Elmore found almost insupportable the +absolute conclusion to which that business had come. It is hard to +believe that anything has come to an end in this world. For a time, +death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied expectation, as if +somehow the interrupted life must go on, and there is no change we make +or suffer which is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If +Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo to which he had been +so inexorably relegated, he might only have restored the original +situation in all its discomfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he +did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a hold upon +Elmore's imagination which deepened because he could not discuss the +matter frankly with his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what was +passing in his thoughts, lest some misconception of hers should turn +them into self-accusal or urge him to some attempt at the reparation +towards which he wavered. He really could have done nothing that would +not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating +upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the +incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope +and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the +archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see +these letters again, but he dared not ask for them; and indeed it would +have been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them perfectly well. +Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was characteristic of him, in that safety +from consequences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly +constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her rejected suitor, +whose pain he luxuriously fancied in all its different stages and +degrees. His indolent pity even developed into a sort of self-righteous +abhorrence of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within himself, +and could work no sort of harm. If he never ventured to hint these +feelings to his wife, he was still further from confessing them to Lily; +but once he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well-guarded +generality relating to the different kinds of sensibility developed by +the European and American civilization. A recent suicide for love which +excited all Venice at that time--an Austrian officer hopelessly +attached to an Italian girl had shot himself--had suggested their talk, +and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind. + +"Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer. They don't look at women +as respectfully as we do, and they mix up so much cabbage with their +romance that you don't know exactly how to take them; and yet here you +find this fellow suffering just as much as a white man because the +girl's folks won't let her have him. In fact, I don't know but he +suffered more than the average American citizen. I think we have a great +deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We respect women more than +any other people, and I think we show them more true politeness; we let +'em have their way more, and get their finger into the pie right along, +and it's right we should: but we don't make fools of ourselves about +them, as a general rule. We know they're awfully nice, and they know we +know it; and it's a perfectly understood thing all round. We've been +used to each other all our lives, and they're just as sensible as we +are. They like a fellow, when they do like him, about as well as any of +'em; but they know he's a man and a brother after all, and he's got ever +so much human nature in him. Well, now, I reckon one of these Dutch +chaps, the first time he gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl, +thinks he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl feels just so +about him. Why, it's natural they should,--they've never had any chance +to know any better, and your feelings _are_ apt to get the upper hand of +you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One of 'em goes off and +shoots himself, and the other one feels as if she was never going to get +over it. Well, now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little +business of hers: one of these girls over here would have had her head +completely turned by that adventure; but when she couldn't see her way +exactly clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands by what +you do, as calm as a clock." + +"It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I knew," said Elmore. + +"Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, "and she sees that as well as +you or I do, and she stands by you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's +got a cool head." + +In his soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsistently wished that her heart +were not equally cool; but he only said, "Yes, she is a good and +sensible girl. I hope the--the--other one is equally resigned." + +"Oh, _he_'ll get along," answered Hoskins, with the indifference of one +man for the sufferings of another in such matters. We are able to offer +a brother very little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those unhappy +affairs of the heart which move women to a pretty compassion for a +disappointed sister. A man in love is in no wise interesting to us for +that reason; and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that he +will have better luck next time. It is only here and there that a +sentimentalist like Elmore stops to pity him; and it is not certain that +even he would have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not been the +means of his disappointment. As it was, he came away, feeling that +doubtless Ehrhardt had "got along," and resolved at least to spend no +more unavailing regrets upon him. + +The time passed very quietly now, and if it had not been for Hoskins, +the ladies must have found it dull. He had nothing to do, except as he +made himself occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed on them +the leisure which Elmore could not find. They went everywhere with him, +and saw the city to advantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to +ordinary curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he showed a +pleasure in using such little privileges as his position gave him for +their amusement. He went upon errands for them; he was like a brother, +with something more than a brother's pliability; he came half the time +to breakfast with them, and was always welcome to all. He had the gift +of extracting comfort from the darkest news about the war; he was a +prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in many hours of +despondency they willingly submitted to the authority of his greater +experience, and took heart again. + +"I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins," said Elmore, on one of +those occasions when the consul was turning defeat into victory. +"There's a streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in your +taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, so far as the judgment of +the world goes, our fortunes are at the lowest ebb just now--" + +"Oh, the world is wrong!" interrupted the consul. "Those London papers +are all in the pay of the rebels." + +"I mean that we have no sort of sympathy in Europe; and yet here you +are, embodying in your conception of 'Westward' the arrogant faith of +the days when our destiny seemed universal union and universal dominion. +There is something sublime to me in your treatment of such a work at +such a time. I think an Italian, for instance, if his country were +involved in a life and death struggle like this of ours, would have +expressed something of the anxiety and apprehension of the time in it; +but this conception of yours is as serenely undisturbed by the facts of +the war as if secession had taken place in another planet. There is +something Greek in that repose of feeling, triumphant over circumstance. +It is like the calm beauty which makes you forget the anguish of the +Laocooen." + +"Is that so, Professor?" said Hoskins, blushing modestly, as an artist +often must in these days of creative criticism. He seemed to reflect +awhile before he added, "Well, I reckon you're partly right. If we ever +did go to smash, it would take us a whole generation to find it out. We +have all been raised to put so much dependence on Uncle Sam, that if the +old gentleman really did pass in his checks we should only think he was +lying low for a new deal. I never happened to think it out before, but +I'm pretty sure it's so." + +"Your work wouldn't be worth half so much to me if you had 'thought it +out,'" said Elmore. "It's the unconsciousness of the faith that makes +its chief value, as I said before; and there is another thing about it +that interests and pleases me still more." + +"What's that?" asked the sculptor. + +"The instinctive way in which you have given the figure an entirely +American quality. There was something very familiar to me in it, the +first time you showed it, but I've only just been able to formulate my +impression: I see now that while the spirit of your conception is Greek, +you have given it, as you ought, the purest American expression. Your +'Westward' is no Hellenic goddess: she is a vivid and self-reliant +American girl." + +At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and seemed not to know where to +look. Mrs. Elmore had the effect of escaping through the door into her +own room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. Hoskins followed +each in turn with a queer glance, and sat a moment in silence. Then he +said, "Well, I reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly, +without offering to take leave of the ladies. + +As soon as he was gone, Lily came in from the balcony, and whipped into +Mrs. Elmore's room, from which she flashed again in swift retreat to her +own, and was seen no more; and then Mrs. Elmore came back, with a +flushed face, to where her husband sat mystified. + +"My dear," he said gravely, "I'm afraid you've hurt Mr. Hoskins's +feelings." + +"Do you think so?" she asked; and then she burst into a wild cry of +laughter. "O, Owen, Owen! you will kill me yet!" + +"Really," he replied with dignity, "I don't see any occasion in what I +said for this extraordinary behavior." + +"Of course you don't, and that's just what makes the fun of it. So you +found something familiar in Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did +you?" she asked. "And you didn't notice anything particular in it?" + +"Particular, particular?" he demanded, beginning to lose his patience at +this. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "couldn't you see that it was Lily, all over +again?" + +Elmore laughed in turn. "Why, so it is; so it is! That accounts for +everything that puzzled me. I don't wonder my maunderings amused you. It +_was_ ridiculous, to be sure! When in the world did she give him the +sittings, and how did you manage to keep it from me so well?" + +"Owen!" cried his wife, with terrible severity. "You don't think that +Lily would _let_ him put her into it?" + +"Why, I supposed--I didn't know--I don't see how he could have done it +unless--" + +"He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. Elmore. "We saw it all +along, but he never 'let on,' as he would say, about it, and we never +meant to say anything, of course." + +"Then," replied Elmore, delighted with the fact, "it has been a purely +unconscious piece of cerebration." + +"Cerebration!" exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more scorn than she knew how +to express. "I should think as much!" + +"Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not +care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is so +very unphilosophical." + +"Oh, not at all!" mocked his wife. "It's philosophical to the last +degree. Be as philosophical as you please, Owen; I shall love you still +the same." She came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm round +his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the head. Then she released +him, and left him with another burst of derision. + + +X. + +After this Elmore had such an uncomfortable feeling that he hated to see +Hoskins again, and he was relieved when the sculptor failed to make his +usual call, the next evening. He had not been at dinner either, and he +did not reappear for several days. Then he merely said that he had been +spending the time at Chioggia, with a French painter who was making some +studies down there, and they all took up the old routine of their +friendly life without embarrassment. + +At first it seemed to Elmore that Lily was a little shy of Hoskins, and +he thought that she resented his using her charm in his art; but before +the evening wore away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long +talk about home, and she took her place at the piano and played some of +the war-songs that had begun to supersede the old negro melodies. Then +she wandered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted over the keys, +and ended with "Stop dat knockin'," in which Hoskins joined with his +powerful bass in the recitative "Let me in," and Elmore himself had half +a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as she struck the keys with +a final crash, but lingered, as his fashion was when he had something to +propose: if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be liked, he +brought it in as if he had only happened to remember it. He now drew out +a large, square, ceremonious-looking envelope, at which he glanced as +if, after all, he was rather surprised to see it, and said, "Oh, by the +by, Mrs. Elmore, I wish you'd tell me what to do about this thing. +Here's something that's come to me in my official capacity, but it isn't +exactly consular business,--if it was I don't believe I should ask _any_ +lady for instructions,--and I don't know exactly what to do. It's so +long since I corresponded with a princess that I don't even know how to +answer her letter." + +The ladies perhaps feared a hoax of some sort, and would not ask to see +the letter; and then Hoskins recognized his failure to play upon their +curiosity with a laugh, and gave the letter to Mrs. Elmore. It was an +invitation to a mask ball, of which all Venice had begun to speak. A +great Russian lady, who had come to spend the winter in the Lagoons, and +had taken a whole floor at one of the hotels, had sent out her cards, +apparently to all the available people in the city, for the event which +was to take place a fortnight later. In the mean time, a thrill of +preparation was felt in various quarters, and the ordinary course of +life was interrupted in a way that gave some idea of the old times, when +Venice was the capital of pleasure, and everything yielded there to the +great business of amusement. Mrs. Elmore had found it impossible to get +a pair of fine shoes finished until after the ball; a dress which Lily +had ordered could not be made; their laundress had given notice that for +the present all fluting and quilling was out of the question; one +already heard that the chief Venetian perruquier and his assistants were +engaged for every moment of the forty-eight hours before the ball, and +that whoever had him now must sit up with her hair dressed for two +nights at least. Mrs. Elmore had a fanatical faith in these stories; and +while agreeing with her husband, as a matter of principle, that mask +balls were wrong, and that it was in bad taste for a foreigner to insult +the sorrow of Venice by a festivity of the sort at such a time, she had +secretly indulged longings which the sight of Hoskins's invitation +rendered almost insupportable. Her longings were not for herself, but +for Lily: if she could provide Lily with the experience of a masquerade +in Venice, she could overpay all the kindnesses that the Mayhews had +ever done her. It was an ambition neither ignoble nor ungenerous, and it +was with a really heroic effort that she silenced it in passing the +invitation to her husband, and simply saying to Hoskins, "Of course you +will go." + +"I don't know about that," he answered. "That's the point I want some +advice on. You see this document calls for a lady to fill out the bill." + +"Oh," returned Mrs. Elmore, "you will find some Americans at the hotels. +You can take them." + +"Well, now, I was thinking, Mrs. Elmore, that I should like to take +you." + +"Take me!" she echoed tremulously. "What an idea! I'm too old to go to +mask balls." + +"You don't look it," suggested Hoskins. + +"Oh, I couldn't go," she sighed. "But it's very, very kind." + +Hoskins dropped his head, and gave the low chuckle with which he +confessed any little bit of humbug. "Well, you _or_ Miss Lily." + +Lily had retired to the other side of the room as soon as the parley +about the invitation began. Without asking or seeing, she knew what was +in the note, and now she felt it right to make a feint of not knowing +what Mrs. Elmore meant when she asked, "What do _you_ say, Lily?" + +When the question was duly explained to her, she answered languidly, "I +don't know. Do you think I'd better?" + +"I might as well make a clean breast of it, first as last," said +Hoskins. "I thought perhaps Mrs. Elmore might refuse, she's so stiff +about some things,"--here he gave that chuckle of his,--"and so I came +prepared for contingencies. It occurred to me that it mightn't be quite +the thing, and so I went round to the Spanish consul and asked him how +he thought it would do for me to matronize a young lady if I could get +one, and he said he didn't think it would do at all." Hoskins let this +adverse decision sink into the breasts of his listeners before he added: +"But he said that he was going with his wife, and that if we would come +along she could matronize us both. I don't know how it would work," he +concluded impartially. + +They all looked at Elmore, who stood holding the princess's missive in +his hand, and darkly forecasting the chances of consent and denial. At +the first suggestion of the matter, a reckless hope that this ball might +bring Ehrhardt above their horizon again sprang up in his heart, and +became a desperate fear when the whole responsibility of action was, as +usual, left with him. He stood, feeling that Hoskins had used him very +ill. + +"I suppose," began Mrs. Elmore very thoughtfully, "that this will be +something quite in the style of the old masquerades under the Republic." + +"Regular Ridotto business, the Spanish consul says," answered Hoskins. + +"It might be very useful to you, Owen," she resumed, "in an historical +way, if Lily were to go and take notes of everything; so that when you +came to that period you could describe its corruptions intelligently." + +Elmore laughed. "I never thought of that, my dear," he said, returning +the invitation to Hoskins. "Your historical sense has been awakened +late, but it promises to be very active. Lily had better go, by all +means, and I shall depend upon her coming home with very full notes upon +her dance-list." + +They laughed at the professor's sarcasm, and Hoskins, having undertaken +to see that the last claims of etiquette were satisfied by getting an +invitation sent to Miss Mayhew through the Spanish consul, went off, and +left the ladies to the discussion of ways and means. Mrs. Elmore said +that of course it was now too late to hope to get anything done, and +then set herself to devise the character that Lily would have appeared +in if there had been time to get her ready, or if all the work-people +had not been so busy that it was merely frantic to think of anything. +She first patriotically considered her as Columbia, with the customary +drapery of stars and stripes and the cap of liberty. But while holding +that she would have looked very pretty in the dress, Mrs. Elmore decided +that it would have been too hackneyed; and besides, everybody would have +known instantly who it was. + +"Why not have had her go in the character of Mr. Hoskins's 'Westward'?" +suggested Elmore, with lazy irony. + +"The very thing!" cried his wife. "Owen, you deserve great credit for +thinking of that; no one else would have done it! No one will dream what +it means, and it will be great fun, letting them make it out. We must +keep it a dead secret from Mr. Hoskins, and let her surprise him with it +when he comes for her that evening. It will be a very pretty way of +returning his compliment, and it will be a sort of delicate +acknowledgement of his kindness in asking her, and in so many other +ways. Yes, you've hit it exactly, Owen; she shall go as 'Westward.'" + +"Go?" echoed Elmore, who had with difficulty realized the rapid change +of tense. "I thought you said you couldn't get her ready." + +"We must manage somehow," replied Mrs. Elmore. And somehow a shoemaker +for the sandals, a seamstress for the delicate flowing draperies, a +hair-dresser for the adjustment of the young girl's rebellious abundance +of hair beneath the star-lit fillet, were actually found,--with the help +of Hoskins, as usual, though he was not suffered to know anything of the +character to whose make-up he contributed. The perruquier, a personage +of lordly address naturally, and of a dignity heightened by the demand +in which he found himself came early in the morning, and was received by +Elmore with a self-possession that ill-comported with the solemnity of +the occasion. "Sit down," said Elmore easily, pushing him a chair. "The +ladies will be here presently." + +"But I have no time to sit down, signore!" replied the artist, with an +imperious bow, "and the ladies must be here instantly." + +Mrs. Elmore always said that if she had not heard this conversation, and +hurried in at once, the perruquier would have left them at that point. +But she contrived to appease him by the manifestation of an intelligent +sympathy; she made Lily leave her breakfast untasted, and submit her +beautiful head to the touch of this man, with whom it was but a head of +hair and nothing more; and in an hour the work was done. The artist +whisked away the cloth which covered her shoulders, and crying, +"Behold!" bowed splendidly to the spectators, and without waiting for +criticism or suggestion, took his napoleon and went his way. All that +day the work of his skill was sacredly guarded, and the custodian of the +treasure went about with her head on her shoulders, as if it had been +temporarily placed in her keeping, and were something she was not at all +used to taking care of. More than once Mrs. Elmore had to warn her +against sinister accidents. "Remember, Lily," she said, "that if +anything _did_ happen, NOTHING could be done to save you!" In spite of +himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the depths of his wonted +studies he found himself pursued and harassed by vague apprehensions, +which upon analysis proved to be fears for Miss Lily's hair. It was a +great moment when the robe came home--rather late--from the +dressmaker's, and was put on over Lily's head; but from this thrilling +rite Elmore was of course excluded, and only knew of it afterwards by +hearsay. He did not see her till she came out just before Hoskins +arrived to fetch her away, when she appeared radiantly perfect in her +dress, and in the air with which she meant to carry it off. At Mrs. +Elmore's direction she paraded dazzlingly up and down the room a number +of times, bending over to see how her dress hung, as she walked. Mrs. +Elmore, with her head on one side, scrutinized her in every detail, and +Elmore regarded her young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as +her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh, which made the others +laugh, recalled him to himself, as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. +He was received in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from one to the +other with his queer, knowing smile, and took in the whole affair +without a word. + +"Isn't it a pretty idea?" said Mrs. Elmore. "Studied from an antique +bas-relief, or just the same as an antique,--full of the anguish and the +repose of the Laocooen." + +"Mrs. Elmore," said the sculptor, "you're too many for me. I reckon the +procession had better start before I make a fool of myself. Well!" This +was all Hoskins could say; but it sufficed. The ladies declared +afterwards that if he had added a word more, it would have spoiled it. +They had expected him to go to the ball in the character of a miner +perhaps, or in that of a trapper of the great plains; but he had chosen +to appear more naturally as a courtier of the time of Louis XIV. "When +you go in for a disguise," he explained, "you can't make it too +complete; and I consider that this limp of mine adds the last touch." + +"It's no use to sit up for them," Mrs. Elmore said, when she and her +husband had come in from calling good wishes and last instructions after +them from the balcony, as their gondola pushed away. "We sha'n't see +anything more of _them_ till morning. Now this," she added, "is +something like the gayety that people at home are always fancying in +Europe. Why, I can remember when I used to imagine that American +tourists figured brilliantly in _salons_ and _conversazioni_, and spent +their time in masking and throwing _confetti_ in carnival, and going to +balls and opera. I didn't know what American tourists were, then, and +how dismally they moped about in hotels and galleries and churches. And +I didn't know how stupid Europe was socially,--how perfectly dead and +buried it was, especially for young people. It would be fun if things +happened so that Lily never found it out! I don't think two offers +already,--or three, if you count Rose-Black,--are very bad for _any_ +girl; and now this ball, coming right on top of it, where she will see +hundreds of handsome officers! Well, she'll never miss Patmos, at this +rate, will she?" + +"Perhaps she had better never have left Patmos," suggested Elmore +gravely. + +"I don't know what you mean, Owen," said his wife, as if hurt. + +"I mean that it's a great pity she should give herself up to the same +frivolous amusements here that she had there. The only good that Europe +can do American girls who travel here is to keep them in total exile +from what they call a good time,--from parties and attentions and +flirtations; to force them, through the hard discipline of social +deprivation, to take some interest in the things that make for +civilization,--in history, in art, in humanity." + +"Now, there I differ with you, Owen. I think American girls are the +nicest girls in the world, just as they are. And I don't see any harm in +the things you think are so awful. You've lived so long here among your +manuscripts that you've forgotten there is any such time as the present. +If you are getting so Europeanized, I think the sooner we go home the +better." + +"_I_ getting Europeanized!" began Elmore indignantly. + +"Yes, Europeanized! And I don't want you to be so severe with Lily, +Owen. The child stands in terror of you now; and if you keep on in this +way, she can't draw a natural breath in the house." + +There is always something flattering, at first, to a gentle and +peaceable man in the notion of being terrible to any one; Elmore melted +at these words, and at the fear that he might have been, in some way +that he could not think of, really harsh. + +"I should be very sorry to distress her," he began. + +"Well, you haven't distressed her yet," his wife relented. "Only you +must be careful not to. She was going to be very circumspect, Owen, on +your account, for she really appreciates the interest you take in her, +and I think she sees that it won't do to be at all free with strangers +over here. This ball will be a great education for Lily,--a _great_ +education. I'm going to commence a letter to Sue about her costume, and +all that, and leave it open to finish up when Lily gets home." + +When she went to bed, she did not sleep till after the time when the +girl ought to have come; and when she awoke to a late breakfast, Lily +had still not returned. By eleven o'clock she and Elmore had passed the +stage of accusing themselves, and then of accusing each other, for +allowing Lily to go in the way they had; and had come to the question of +what they had better do, and whether it was practicable to send to the +Spanish consulate and ask what had become of her. They had resigned +themselves to waiting for one half-hour longer, when they heard her +voice at the water-gate, gayly forbidding Hoskins to come up; and +running out upon the balcony, Mrs. Elmore had a glimpse of the +courtier, very tawdry by daylight, re-entering his gondola, and had only +time to turn about when Lily burst laughing into the room. + +"Oh, don't look at me, Professor Elmore!" she cried. "I'm literally +danced to rags!" + +Her dress and hair were splashed with drippings from the wax candles; +she was wildly decorated with favors from the German, and one of these +had been used to pin up a rent which the spur of a hussar had made in +her robe; her hair had escaped from its fastenings during the night, and +in putting it back she had broken the star in her fillet; it was now +kept in place by a bit of black-and-yellow cord which an officer had +lent her. "He said he should claim it of me the first time we met," she +exclaimed excitedly. "Why, Professor Elmore," she implored with a laugh, +"don't look at me _so_!" + +Grief and indignation were in his heart. "You look like the spectre of +last night," he said with dreamy severity, and as if he saw her merely +as a vision. + +"Why, that's the way I _feel_!" she answered; and with a reproachful +"Owen!" his wife followed her flight to her room. + + +XI. + +Elmore went out for a long walk, from which he returned disconsolate at +dinner. He was one of those people, common enough in our Puritan +civilization, who would rather forego any pleasure than incur the +reaction which must follow with all the keenness of remorse; and he +always mechanically pitied (for the operation was not a rational one) +such unhappy persons as he saw enjoying themselves. But he had not meant +to add bitterness to the anguish which Lily would necessarily feel in +retrospect of the night's gayety; he had not known that he was +recognizing, by those unsparing words of his, the nervous misgivings in +the girl's heart. He scarcely dared ask, as he sat down at table with +Mrs. Elmore alone, whether Lily were asleep. + +"Asleep?" she echoed, in a low tone of mystery. "I hope so." + +"Celia, Celia!" he cried in despair. "What shall I do? I feel terribly +at what I said to her." + +"Sh! At what you said to her? Oh yes! Yes, that was cruel. But there is +so much else, poor child, that I had forgotten that." + +He let his plate of soup stand untasted. "Why--why," he faltered, +"didn't she enjoy herself?" And a historian of Venice, whose mind should +have been wholly engaged in philosophizing the republic's difficult +past, hung abjectly upon the question whether a young girl had or had +not had a good time at a ball. + +"Yes. Oh, yes! She _enjoyed_ herself--if that's all you require," +replied his wife. "Of course she wouldn't have stayed so late if she +hadn't enjoyed herself." + +"No," he said in a tone which he tried to make leading; but his wife +refused to be led by indirect methods. She ate her soup, but in a manner +to carry increasing bitterness to Elmore with every spoonful. + +"Come, Celia!" he cried at last, "tell me what has happened. You know +how wretched this makes me. Tell me it, whatever it is. Of course, I +must know it in the end. Are there any new complications?" + +"No _new_ complications," said his wife, as if resenting the word. "But +you make such a bugbear of the least little matter that there's no +encouragement to tell you anything." + +"Excuse me," he retorted, "I haven't made a bugbear of this." + +"You haven't had the opportunity." This was so grossly unjust that +Elmore merely shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. When it +finally appeared that he was not going to ask anything more, his wife +added: "If you could listen, like any one else, and not interrupt with +remarks that distort all one's ideas"--Then, as he persisted in his +silence, she relented still further. "Why, of course, as you say, you +will have to know it in the end. But I can tell you, to begin with, +Owen, that it's nothing you can do anything about, or take hold of in +any way. Whatever it is, it's done and over; so it needn't distress you +at all." + +"Ah, I've known some things done and over that distressed me a great +deal," he suggested. + +"The princess wasn't so very young, after all," said Mrs. Elmore, as if +this had been the point in dispute, "but very fat and jolly, and very +kind. She wasn't in costume; but there was a young countess with her, +helping receive, who appeared as Night,--black tulle, you know, with +silver stars. The princess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily,--the +Russians always _have_ sympathized with us in the war,--and all the time +she wasn't dancing, the princess kept her by her, holding her hand and +patting it. The officers--hundreds of them, in their white uniforms and +those magnificent hussar dresses--were very obsequious to the princess, +and Lily had only too many partners. She says you can't imagine how +splendid the scene was, with all those different costumes, and the rooms +a perfect blaze of waxlights; the windows were battened, so that you +couldn't tell when it came daylight, and she hadn't any idea how the +time was passing. They were not all in masks; and there didn't seem to +be any regular hour for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper +was, but she thinks it must have been towards morning. She says Mr. +Hoskins got on capitally, and everybody seemed to like him, he was so +jolly and good-natured; and when they found out that he had been wounded +in the war, they made quite a belle of him, as he called it. The +princess made a point of introducing all the officers to Lily that came +up after they unmasked. They paid her the greatest attention, and you +can easily see that she was the prettiest girl there." + +"I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, with magnanimous pride +in the loveliness that had made him so much trouble. "Well?" + +"Well, they couldn't any of them get the hang, as Mr. Hoskins said, of +the character she came in, for a good while; but when they did, they +thought it was the best idea there: and it was all _your_ idea, Owen," +said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride that he knew she must +now be approaching the difficult passage of her narration. "It was so +perfectly new and unconventional. She got on very well speaking Italian +with the officers, for she knew as much of it as they did." + +Here Mrs. Elmore paused, and glanced hesitatingly at her husband. "They +only made one little mistake; but that was at the beginning, and they +soon got over it." Elmore suffered, but he did not ask what it was, and +his wife went on with smooth caution. "Lily thought it was just as it is +at home, and she mustn't dance with any one unless they had been +introduced. So after the first dance with the Spanish consul, as her +escort, a young officer came up and asked her; and she refused, for she +thought it was a great piece of presumption. Afterwards the princess +told her she could dance with any one, introduced or not, and so she +did; and pretty soon she saw this first officer looking at her very +angrily, and going about speaking to others and glancing toward her. She +felt badly about it, when she saw how it was; and she got Mr. Hoskins to +go and speak to him. Mr. Hoskins asked him if he spoke English, and the +officer said No; and it seems that he didn't know Italian either, and +Mr. Hoskins tried him in Spanish,--he picked up a little in New +Mexico,--but the officer didn't understand it; and all at once it +occurred to Mr. Hoskins to say, 'Parlez-vous Francais?' and says the +officer instantly, 'Oui, monsieur.'" + +"Of course the man knew French. He ought to have tried him with that in +the beginning. What did Hoskins say then?" asked Elmore impatiently. + +"He didn't say anything: that was all the French he knew." + +Elmore broke into a cry of laughter, and laughed on and on with the wild +excess of a sad man when once he unpacks his heart in that way. His wife +did not, perhaps, feel the absurdity as keenly as he, but she gladly +laughed with him, for it smoothed her way to have him in this humor. +"Mr. Hoskins just took him by the arm, and said, 'Here! you come along +with me,' and led him up to the princess, where Lily was sitting; and +when the princess had explained to him, Lily rose, and mustered up +enough French to say, 'Je vous prie, monsieur, de danser avec moi,' and +after that they were the greatest friends." + +"That was very pretty in her; it was sovereignly gracious," said Elmore. + +"Oh, if an American girl is left to manage for herself she can _always_ +manage!" cried Mrs. Elmore. + +"Well, and what else?" asked her husband. + +"Oh, _I_ don't know that it amounts to anything," said Mrs. Elmore; but +she did not delay further. + +It appeared from what she went on to say that in the German, which began +not long after midnight, there was a figure fancifully called the +symphony, in which musical toys were distributed among the dancers in +pairs; the possessor of a small pandean pipe, or tin horn, went about +sounding it, till he found some lady similarly equipped, when he +demanded her in the dance. In this way a tall mask, to whom a penny +trumpet had fallen, was stalking to and fro among the waltzers, blowing +the silly plaything with a disgusted air, when Lily, all unconscious of +him, where she sat with her hand in that of her faithful princess, +breathed a responsive note. The mask was instantly at her side, and she +was whirling away in the waltz. She tried to make him out, but she had +already danced with so many people that she was unable to decide whether +she had seen this mask before. He was not disguised except by the little +visor of black silk, coming down to the point of his nose; his blond +whiskers escaped at either side, and his blond moustache swept beneath, +like the whiskers and moustaches of fifty other officers present, and he +did not speak. This was a permissible caprice of his, but if she were +resolved to make him speak, this also was a permissible caprice. She +made a whole turn of the room in studying up the Italian sentence with +which she assailed him: "Perdoni, Maschera; ma cosa ha detto? Non ho ben +inteso." + +"Speak English, Mask," came the reply. "I did not say anything." It came +certainly with a German accent, and with a foreigner's deliberation; but +it came at once, and clearly. + +The English astonished her, and somehow it daunted her, for the mask +spoke very gravely; but she would not let him imagine that he had put +her down, and she rejoined laughingly, "Oh, I knew that you hadn't +spoken, but I thought I would make you." + +"You think you can make one do what you will?" asked the mask. + +"Oh, no. I don't think I could make you tell me who you are, though I +should like to make you." + +"And why should you wish to know me? If you met me in Piazza, you would +not recognize my salutation." + +"How do you know that?" demanded Lily. "I don't know what you mean." + +"Oh, it is understood yet already," answered the mask. "Your compatriot, +with whom you live, wishes to be well seen by the Italians, and he would +not let you bow to an Austrian." + +"That is not so," exclaimed Lily indignantly. + +"Professor Elmore wouldn't be so mean; and if he would, _I_ shouldn't." +She was frightened, but she felt her spirit rising, too. "You seem to +know so well who I am: do you think it is fair for you to keep me in +ignorance?" + +"I cannot remain masked without your leave. Shall I unmask? Do you +insist?" + +"Oh, no," she replied. "You will have to unmask at supper, and then I +shall see you. I'm not impatient. I prefer to keep you for a mystery." + +"You will be a mystery to me even when you unmask," replied the mask +gravely. + +Lily was ill at ease, and she gave a little, unsuccessful laugh. "You +seem to take the mystery very coolly," she said in default of anything +else. + +"I have studied the American manner," replied the mask. "In America they +take everything coolly: life and death, love and hate--all things." + +"How do you know that? You have never been in America." + +"That is not necessary, if the Americans come here to show us." + +"They are not true Americans, if they show you that," cried the girl. + +"No?" + +"But I see that you are only amusing yourself." + +"And have you never amused yourself with me?" + +"How could I," she demanded, "if I never saw you before?" + +"But are you sure of that?" She did not answer, for in this masquerade +banter she had somehow been growing unhappy. "Shall I prove to you that +you have seen me before? You dare not let me unmask." + +"Oh, I can wait till supper. I shall know then that I have never seen +you before. I forbid you to unmask till supper! Will you obey?" she +cried anxiously. + +"I have obeyed in harder things," replied the mask. + +She refused to recognize anything but meaningless badinage in his words. +"Oh, as a soldier, yes!--you must be used to obeying orders." He did not +reply, and she added, releasing her hand and slipping it into his arm, +"I am tired now; will you take me back to the princess?" + +He led her silently to her place, and left her with a profound bow. + +"Now," said the princess, "they shall give you a little time to breathe. +I will not let them make you dance every minute. They are indiscreet. +You shall not take any of their musical instruments, and so you can +fairly escape till supper." + +"Thank you," said Lily absently, "that will be the best way"; and she +sat languidly watching the dancers. A young naval officer who spoke +English ran across the floor to her. + +"Come," he cried, "I shall have twenty duels on my hands if I let you +rest here, when there are so many who wish to dance with you." He threw +a pipe into her lap, and at the same moment a pipe sounded from the +other side of the room. + +"This is a conspiracy!" exclaimed the girl. "I will not have it! I am +not going to dance any more." She put the pipe back into his hands; he +placed it to his lips, and sounded it several times, and then dropped it +into her lap again with a laugh, and vanished in the crowd. + +"That little fellow is a rogue," said the princess. "But he is not so +bad as some of them. Monsieur," she cried in French to the +fair-whiskered, tall mask who had already presented himself before Lily, +"I will not permit it, if it is for a trick. You must unmask. I will +dispense mademoiselle from dancing with you." + +The mask did not reply, but turned his eyes upon Lily with an appeal +which the holes of the visor seemed to intensify. "It is a promise," she +said to the princess, rising in a sort of fascination. "I have forbidden +him to unmask before supper." + +"Oh, very well," answered the princess, "if that is the case. But make +him bring you back soon: it is almost time." + +"Did you hear, Mask?" asked the girl, as they waltzed away. "I will only +make two turns of the room with you." + +"Perdoni?" + +"This is too bad!" she exclaimed. "I will not be trifled with in this +way. Either speak English, or unmask at once." + +The mask again answered in Italian, with a repeated apology for not +understanding. "You understand very well," retorted Lily, now really +indignant, "and you know that this passes a jest." + +"Can you speak German?" asked the mask in that tongue. + +"Yes, a little, but I do not choose to speak it. If you have anything to +say to me you can say it in English." + +"I cannot understand English," replied the mask, still in German, and +now Lily thought the voice seemed changed; but she clung to her belief +that it was some hoax played at her expense, and she continued her +efforts to make him answer her in English. The two turns round the room +had stretched to half a dozen in this futile task, but she felt herself +powerless to leave the mask, who for his part betrayed signs of +embarrassment, as if he had undertaken a ruse of which he repented. A +confused movement in the crowd and a sudden cessation of the music +recalled her to herself, and she now took her partner's arm and hurried +with him toward the place where she had left the princess. But the +princess had already gone into the supper-room, and she had no other +recourse than to follow with the stranger. + +As they entered the supper-room she removed her little visor, and she +felt, rather than saw, the mask put up his hand and lift away his own: +he turned his head, and looked down upon her with the face of a man she +had never seen before. + +"Ah, you are there!" she heard the princess's voice calling to her from +one of the tables. "How tired you look! Here--here! I will make you +drink this glass of wine." + +The officer who brought her the wine gave her his arm and led her to the +princess, and the late mask mixed with the two-score other tall blond +officers. + +The night which stretched so far into the day ended at last, and she +followed Hoskins down to their gondola. He entered the boat first, to +give her his hand in stepping from the _riva_; at the same moment she +involuntarily turned at the closing of the door behind her, and found +at her side the tall blond mask, or one of the masks, if there were two +who had danced with her. He caught her hand suddenly to his lips, and +kissed it. + +"Adieu--forgive!" he murmured in English, and then vanished indoors +again. + + +"Owen," said Mrs. Elmore dramatically at the end of her narration, "who +do you think it could have been?" + +"I have no doubt as to who it was, Celia," replied Elmore, with a heat +evidently quite unexpected to his wife, "and if Lily has not been +seriously annoyed by the matter, I am glad that it has happened. I have +had my regrets--my doubts--whether I did not dismiss that man's +pretensions too curtly, too unkindly. But I am convinced now that we did +exactly right, and that she was wise never to bestow another thought +upon him. A man capable of contriving a petty persecution of this +sort--of pursuing a young girl who had rejected him in this shameless +fashion,--is no gentleman." + +"It _was_ a persecution," said Mrs. Elmore, with a dazed air, as if this +view of the case had not occurred to her. + +"A miserable, unworthy persecution!" repeated her husband. + +"Yes." + +"And we are well rid of him. He has relieved _me_ by this last +performance, immensely; and I trust that if Lily had any secret +lingering regrets, he has given her a final lesson. Though I must say, +in justice to her, poor girl, she didn't seem to need it." + +Mrs. Elmore listened with a strange abeyance; she looked beaten and +bewildered, while he vehemently uttered these words. She could not meet +his eyes, with her consciousness of having her intended romance thrown +back upon her hands; and he seemed in nowise eager to meet hers, for +whatever consciousness of his own. "Well, it isn't certain that he was +the one, after all," she said. + + +XII. + +Long after the ball Lily seemed to Elmore's eye not to have recovered +her former tone. He thought she went about languidly, and that she was +fitful and dreamy, breaking from moods of unwonted abstraction in bursts +of gayety as unnatural. She did not talk much of the ball; he could not +be sure that she ever recurred to it of her own motion. Hoskins +continued to come a great deal to the house, and she often talked with +him for a whole evening; Elmore fancied she was very serious in these +talks. + +He wondered if Lily avoided him, or whether this was only an illusion of +his; but in any case, he was glad that the girl seemed to find so much +comfort in Hoskins's company, and when it occurred to him he always said +something to encourage his visits. His wife was singularly quiescent at +this time, as if, having accomplished all she wished in Lily's presence +at the princess's ball, she was willing to rest for a while from further +social endeavor. Life was falling into the dull routine again, and +after the past shocks his nerves were gratefully clothing themselves in +the old habits of tranquillity once more, when one day a letter came +from the overseers of Patmos University, offering him the presidency of +that institution on condition of his early return. The board had in view +certain changes, intended to bring the university abreast with the +times, which they hoped would meet his approval. + +Among these was a modification of the name, which was hereafter to be +Patmos University and Military Institute. The board not only believed +that popular feeling demanded the introduction of military drill into +the college, but they felt that a college which had been closed at the +beginning of the Rebellion, through the dedication of its president and +nearly all its students to the war, could in no way so gracefully +recognize this proud fact of its history as by hereafter making war one +of the arts which it taught. The board explained that of course Mr. +Elmore would not be expected to take charge of this branch of +instruction at once. A competent military assistant would be provided, +and continued under him as long as he should deem his services +essential. The letter closed with a cordial expression of the desire of +Elmore's old friends to have him once more in their midst, at the close +of labors which they were sure would do credit to the good old +university and to the whole city of Patmos. + +Elmore read this letter at breakfast, and silently handed it to his +wife: they were alone, for Lily, as now often happened, had not yet +risen. "Well?" he said, when she had read it in her turn. She gave it +back to him with a look in her dimmed eyes which he could not mistake. +"I see there is no doubt of your feeling, Celia," he added. + +"I don't wish to urge you," she replied, "but yes, I should like to go +back. Yes, I am homesick. I have been afraid of it before, but this +chance of returning makes it certain." + +"And you see nothing ridiculous in my taking the presidency of a +military institute?" + +"They say expressly that they don't expect you to give instruction in +that branch." + +"No, not immediately, it seems," he said, with his pensive irony. "And +the history?" + +"Haven't you almost got notes enough?" + +Elmore laughed sadly. "I have been here two years. It would take me +twenty years to write such a history of Venice as I ought not to be +ashamed to write; it would take me five years to scamp it as I thought +of doing. Oh, I dare say I had better go back. I have neither the time +nor the money to give to a work I never was fit for,--of whose +magnitude even I was unable to conceive." + +"Don't say that!" cried his wife, with the old sympathy. "You will write +it yet, I know you will. I would rather spend all my days in +this--watery mausoleum than have you talk so, Owen!" + +"Thank you, my dear; but the work won't be lost even if I give it up at +this point. I can do something with my material, I suppose. And you know +that if I didn't _wish_ to give up my project I couldn't. It's a sign of +my unfitness for it that I'm able to abandon it. The man who is born to +write the history of Venice will have no volition in the matter: he +cannot leave it, and he will not die till he has finished it." He feebly +crushed a bit of bread in his fingers as he ended with this burst of +feeling, and he shook his head in sad negation to his wife's tender +protest,--"Oh, you will come back some day to finish it!" + +"No one ever comes back to finish a history of Venice," he said. + +"Oh, yes, you will," she returned. "But you need the rest from this kind +of work, now, just as you needed rest from your college work before. You +need a change of standpoint,--and the American standpoint will be the +very thing for you." + +"Perhaps so, perhaps so," he admitted. "At any rate, this is a handsome +offer, and most kindly made, Celia. It's a great compliment. I didn't +suppose they valued me so much." + +"Of course they valued you, and they will be very glad to get you. I +call it merely letting the historic material ripen in your mind, or else +I shouldn't let you accept. And I shall be glad to go home, Owen, on +Lily's account. The child is getting no good here: she's drooping." + +"Drooping?" + +"Yes. Don't you see how she mopes about?" + +"I'm afraid--that--I have--noticed." + +He was going to ask why she was drooping; but he could not. He said, +recurring to the letter of the overseers, "So Patmos is a city." + +"Of course it is by this time," said his wife, "with all that +prosperity!" + +Now that they were determined to go, their little preparations for +return were soon made; and a week after Elmore had written to accept the +offer of the overseers, they were ready to follow his letter home. Their +decision was a blow to Hoskins under which he visibly suffered; and they +did not realize till then in what fond and affectionate friendship he +held them. He now frankly spent his whole time with them; he +disconsolately helped them pack, and he did all that a consul can do to +secure free entry for some objects of Venice that they wished to get in +without payment of duties at New York. + +He said a dozen times, "I don't know what I _will_ do when you're gone"; +and toward the last he alarmed them for his own interests by beginning +to say, "Well, I don't see but what I will have to go along." + +The last night but one Lily felt it her duty to talk to him very +seriously about his future and what he owed to it. She told him that he +must stay in Italy till he could bring home something that would honor +the great, precious, suffering country for which he had fought so nobly, +and which they all loved. She made the tears come into her eyes as she +spoke, and when she said that she should always be proud to be +associated with one of his works, Hoskins's voice was quite husky in +replying: "Is that the way you feel about it?" He went away promising to +remain at least till he finished his bas-relief of Westward, and his +figure of the Pacific Slope; and the next morning he sent around by a +_facchino_ a note to Lily. + +She ran it through in the presence of the Elmores, before whom she +received it, and then, with a cry of "I think Mr. Hoskins is too _bad_!" +she threw it into Mrs. Elmore's lap, and, catching her handkerchief to +her eyes, she broke into tears and went out of the room. The note +read:-- + + + DEAR MISS LILY,--Your kind interest in me gives me courage to say + something that will very likely make me hateful to you forevermore. + But I have got to say it, and you have got to know it; and it's all + the worse for me if you have never suspected it. I want to give my + whole life to you, wherever and however you will have it. With you + by my side, I feel as if I could really do something that you would + not be ashamed of in sculpture, and I believe that I could make you + happy. I suppose I believe this because I love you very dearly, and + I know the chances are that you will not think this is reason + enough. But I would take one chance in a million, and be only too + glad of it. I hope it will not worry you to read this: as I said + before, I had to tell you. Perhaps it won't be altogether a + surprise. I might go on, but I suppose that until I hear from you I + had better give you as little of my eloquence as possible. + + CLAY HOSKINS. + + +"Well, upon my word," said Elmore, to whom his wife had transferred the +letter, "this is very indelicate of Hoskins! I must say, I expected +something better of him." He looked at the note with a face of disgust. + +"I don't know why you had a right to expect anything better of him, as +you call it," retorted his wife. "It's perfectly natural." + +"Natural!" cried Elmore. "To put this upon us at the last moment, when +he knows how much trouble I've----" + +Lily re-entered the room as precipitately as she had left it, and saved +him from betraying himself as to the extent of his confidences to +Hoskins. "Professor Elmore," she said, bending her reddened eyes upon +him, "I want you to answer this letter for me; and I don't want you to +write as you--I mean, don't make it so cutting--so--so--Why, I _like_ +Mr. Hoskins! He's been so _kind_! And if you said anything to wound his +feelings--" + +"I shall not do that, you may be sure; because, for one reason, I shall +say nothing at all to him," replied Elmore. + +"You won't write to him?" she gasped. + +"No." + +"Why, what shall I do-o-o-o?" demanded Lily, prolonging the syllable in +a burst of grief and astonishment. + +"I don't know," answered Elmore. + +"Owen," cried his wife, interfering for the first time, in response to +the look of appeal that Lily turned upon her, "you _must_ write!" + +"Celia," he retorted boldly, "I _won't_ write. I have a genuine regard +for Hoskins; I respect him, and I am very grateful to him for all his +kindness to you. He has been like a brother to you both." + +"Why, of course," interrupted Lily, "I never thought of him as anything +_but_ a brother." + +"And though I must say I think it would have been more thoughtful +and--and--more considerate in him not to do this--" + +"We did everything we could to fight him off from it," interrupted Mrs. +Elmore, "both of us. We saw that it was coming, and we tried to stop it. +But nothing would help. Perhaps, as he says, he _did_ have to do it." + +"I didn't dream of his--having any such--idea," said Elmore. "I felt so +perfectly safe in his coming; I trusted everything to him." + +"I suppose you thought his wanting to come was all unconscious +cerebration," said his wife disdainfully. "Well, now you see it wasn't." + +"Yes; but it's too late now to help it; and though I think he ought to +have spared us this, if he thought there was no hope for him, still I +can't bring myself to inflict pain upon him, and the long and the short +of it is, I _won't_." + +"But how is he to be answered?" + +"I don't know. _You_ can answer him." + +"I could never do it in the world!" + +"I own it's difficult," said Elmore coldly. + +"Oh, _I_ will answer him--I will answer him," cried Lily, "rather than +have any trouble about it. Here,--here," she said, reaching blindly for +pen and paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, "give me the ink, +quick. Oh, dear! What shall I say? What date is it?--the 25th? And it +doesn't matter about the day of the week. 'Dear Mr. Hoskins--Dear Mr. +Hoskins--Dear Mr. Hosk'--Ought you to put Clay Hoskins, Esq., at the top +or the bottom--or not at all, when you've said Dear Mr. Hoskins? +Esquire seems so cold, anyway, and I _won't_ put it! 'Dear Mr. +Hoskins'--Professor Elmore!" she implored reproachfully, "tell me what +to say!" + +"That would be equivalent to writing the letter," he began. + +"Well, write it, then," she said, throwing down the pen. "I don't _ask_ +you to dictate it. Write it,--write anything,--just in pencil, you know; +that won't commit you to anything; they say a thing in pencil isn't +legal,--and I'll copy it out in the first person." + +"Owen," said his wife, "you shall not refuse! It's inhuman, it's +inhospitable, when Lily wants you to, so! Why, I never heard of such a +thing!" + +Elmore desperately caught up the sheet of paper on which Lily had +written "Dear Mr. Hoskins," and groaning out "Well, well!" he added,-- + + + I have your letter. Come to the station to-morrow and say good-by + to her whom you will yet live to thank for remaining only + + Your friend, + ELIZABETH MAYHEW. + + +"There! there, that will do beautifully--beautifully! Oh, thank you, +Professor Elmore, ever and ever so much! That will save his feelings, +and do everything," said Lily, sitting down again to copy it; while Mrs. +Elmore, looking over her shoulder, mingled her hysterical excitement +with the girl's, and helped her out by sealing the note when it was +finished and directed. + +It accomplished at least one purpose intended. It kept Hoskins away till +the final moment, and it brought him to the station for their adieux +just before their train started. A consciousness of the absurdity of his +part gave his face a humorously rueful cast. But he came pluckily to the +mark. He marched straight up to the girl. "It's all right, Miss Lily," +he said, and offered her his hand, which she had a strong impulse to cry +over. Then he turned to Mrs. Elmore, and while he held her hand in his +right, he placed his left affectionately on Elmore's shoulder, and, +looking at Lily, he said, "You ought to get Miss Lily to help you out +with your history, Professor; she has a very good style,--quite a +literary style, I should have said, if I hadn't known it was hers. I +don't like her subjects, though." They broke into a forlorn laugh +together; he wrung their hands once more, without a word, and, without +looking back, limped out of the waiting-room and out of their lives. + +They did not know that this was really the last of Hoskins,--one never +knows that any parting is the last,--and in their inability to conceive +of a serious passion in him, they quickly consoled themselves for what +he might suffer. They knew how kindly, how tenderly even, they felt +towards him, and by that juggle with the emotions which we all practise +at times, they found comfort for him in the fact. Another interest, +another figure, began to occupy the morbid fancy of Elmore, and as they +approached Peschiera his expectation became intense. There was no reason +why it should exist; it would be by the thousandth chance, even if +Ehrhardt were still there, that they should meet him at the railroad +station, and there were a thousand chances that he was no longer in +Peschiera. He could see that his wife and Lily were restive too: as the +train drew into the station they nodded to each other, and pointed out +of the window, as if to identify the spot where Lily had first noticed +him; they laughed nervously, and it seemed to Elmore that he could not +endure their laughter. + +During that long wait which the train used to make in the old Austrian +times at Peschiera, while the police authorities _vised_ the passports +of those about to cross the frontier, Elmore continued perpetually +alert. He was aware that he should not know Ehrhardt if he met him; but +he should know that he was present from the looks of Lily and Mrs. +Elmore, and he watched them. They dined well in waiting, while he +impatiently trifled with the food, and ate next to nothing; and they +calmly returned to their places in the train, to which he remounted +after a last despairing glance around the platform in a passion of +disappointment. The old longing not to be left so wholly to the effect +of what he had done possessed him to the exclusion of all other +sensations, and as the train moved away from the station he fell back +against the cushions of the carriage, sick that he should never even +have looked on the face of the man in whose destiny he had played so +fatal a part. + + +XIII. + +In America, life soon settled into form about the daily duties of +Elmore's place, and the daily pleasures and cares which his wife assumed +as a leader in Patmos society. Their sojourn abroad conferred its +distinction; the day came when they regarded it as a brilliant episode, +and it was only by fitful glimpses that they recognized its essential +dulness. After they had been home a year or two, Elmore published his +Story of Venice in the Lives of her Heroes, which fell into a ready +oblivion; he paid all the expenses of the book, and was puzzled that, in +spite of this, the final settlement should still bring him in debt to +his publishers. He did not understand, but he submitted; and he accepted +the failure of his book very meekly. If he could have chosen, he would +have preferred that the Saturday Review, which alone noticed it in +London with three lines of exquisite slight, should have passed it in +silence. But after all, he felt that the book deserved no better fate. +He always spoke of it as unphilosophized and incomplete, without any +just claim to being. + +Lily had returned to her sister's household, but though she came home in +the heyday of her young beauty, she failed somehow to take up the story +of her life just where she had left it in Patmos. On the way home she +had refused an offer in London, and shortly after her arrival in America +she received a letter from a young gentleman whom she had casually seen +in Geneva, and who had found exile insupportable since parting with her, +and was ready to return to his native land at her bidding; but she said +nothing of these proposals till long afterwards to Professor Elmore, +who, she said, had suffered enough from her offers. She went to all the +parties and picnics, and had abundant opportunities of flirtation and +marriage; but she neither flirted nor married. She seemed to have +greatly sobered; and the sound sense which she had always shown became +more and more qualified with a thoughtful sweetness. At first, the +relation between her and the Elmores lost something of its intimacy; but +when, after several years, her health gave way, a familiarity, even +kinder than before, grew up. She used to like to come to them, and talk +and laugh fondly over their old Venetian days. But often she sat +pensive and absent, in the midst of these memories, and looked at Elmore +with a regard which he found hard to bear: a gentle, unconscious wonder +it seemed, in which he imagined a shade of tender reproach. + +When she recovered her health, after a journey to the West one winter, +they saw that, by some subtile and indefinable difference, she was no +longer a young girl. Perhaps it was because they had not met her for +half a year. But perhaps it was age,--she was now thirty. However it +was, Elmore recognized with a pang that the first youth at least had +gone out of her voice and eyes. She only returned to arrange for a long +sojourn in the West. She liked the climate and the people, she said; and +she seemed well and happy. She had planned starting a Kindergarten +school in Omaha with another young lady; she said that she wanted +something to do. "She will end by marrying one of those Western +widowers," said Mrs. Elmore. + +"I wonder she didn't take poor old Hoskins," mused Elmore aloud. + +"No, you don't, dear," said his wife, who had not grown less direct in +dealing with him. "You know it would have been ridiculous; besides, she +never cared anything for him,--she couldn't. You might as well wonder +why she didn't take Captain Ehrhardt after you dismissed him." + +"_I_ dismissed him?" + +"You wrote to him, didn't you?" + +"Celia," cried Elmore, "this I _cannot_ bear. Did I take a single step +in that business without her request and your full approval? Didn't you +both ask me to write?" + +"Yes, I suppose we did." + +"Suppose?" + +"Well, we _did_,--if you want me to say it. And I'm not accusing you of +anything. I know you acted for the best. But you can see yourself, can't +you, that it was rather sudden to have it end so quickly--" + +She did not finish her sentence, or he did not hear the close in the +miserable absence into which he lapsed. "Celia," he asked at last, "do +you think she--she had any feeling about him?" + +"Oh," cried his wife restively, "how should _I_ know?" + +"I didn't suppose you _knew_," he pleaded. "I asked if you thought so." + +"What would be the use of thinking anything about it? The matter can't +be helped now. If you inferred from anything she said to you--" + +"She told me repeatedly, in answer to questions as explicit as I could +make them, that she wished him dismissed." + +"Well, then, very likely she did." + +"Very likely, Celia?" + +"Yes. At any rate, it's too late now." + +"Yes, it's too late now." He was silent again, and he began to walk the +floor, after his old habit, without speaking. He was always mute when he +was in pain, and he startled her with the anguish in which he now broke +forth. "I give it up! I give it up! Celia, Celia, I'm afraid I did +wrong! Yes, I'm afraid that I spoiled two lives. I ventured to lay my +sacrilegious hands upon two hearts that a divine force was drawing +together, and put them asunder. It was a lamentable blunder,--it was a +crime!" + +"Why, Owen, how strangely you talk! How could you have done any +differently under the circumstances?" + +"Oh, I could have done very differently. I might have seen him, and +talked with him brotherly, face to face. He was a fearless and generous +soul! And I was meanly scared for my wretched little decorums, for my +responsibility to her friends, and I gave him no chance." + +"We wouldn't let you give him any," interrupted his wife. + +"Don't try to deceive yourself, don't try to deceive _me_, Celia! I know +well enough that you would have been glad to have me show mercy; and I +would not even show him the poor grace of passing his offer in silence, +if I must refuse it. I couldn't spare him even so much as that!" + +"We decided--we both decided--that it would be better to cut off all +hope at once," urged his wife. + +"Ah, it was I who decided that--decided everything. Leave me to deal +honestly with myself at last, Celia! I have tried long enough to believe +that it was not I who did it!" The pent-up doubt of years, the +long-silenced self-accusal, burst forth in his words. "Oh, I have +suffered for it! I thought he must come back, somehow, as long as we +stayed in Venice. When we left Peschiera without a glimpse of him--I +wonder I outlived it. But even if I had seen him there, what use would +it have been? Would I have tried to repair the wrong done? What did I do +but impute unmanly and impudent motives to him when he seized his chance +to see her once more at that masquerade--" + +"No, no, Owen! He was not the one. Lily was satisfied of that long ago. +It was nothing but a chance, a coincidence. Perhaps it was some one he +had told about the affair--" + +"No matter! no matter! If I thought it was he, my blame is the same. And +she, poor girl,--in my lying compassion for him, I used to accuse her of +cold-heartedness, of indifference! I wonder she did not abhor the sight +of me. How has she ever tolerated the presence, the friendship, of a man +who did her this irreparable wrong? Yes, it has spoiled her life, and it +was my work. No, no, Celia! you and she had nothing to do with it, +except as I forced your consent--it was my work; and, however I have +tried openly and secretly to shirk it, I must bear this fearful +responsibility." + +He dropped into a chair, and hid his face in his hands, while his wife +soothed him with loving excuses for what he had done, with tender +protests against the exaggerations of his remorse. She said that he had +done the only thing he could do; that Lily wished it, and that she never +had blamed him. "Why, I don't believe she would ever have married +Captain Ehrhardt, anyhow. She was full of that silly fancy of hers about +Dick Burton, all the time,--you know how she used always to be talking +about him; and when she came home and found she had outgrown him, she +had to refuse him, and I suppose it's that that's made her rather +melancholy." She explained that Major Burton had become extremely fat, +that his moustache was too big and black, and his laugh too loud; there +was nothing left of him, in fact, but his empty sleeve, and Lily was too +conscientious to marry him merely for that. + +In fact, Elmore's regret did reflect a monstrous and distorted image of +his conduct. He had really acted the part of a prudent and conscientious +man; he was perfectly justifiable at every step: but in the retrospect +those steps which we can perfectly justify sometimes seem to have cost +so terribly that we look back even upon our sinful stumblings with +better heart. Heaven knows how such things will be at the last day; but +at that moment there was no wrong, no folly of his youth, of which +Elmore did not think with more comfort than of this passage in which he +had been so wise and right. + +Of course the time came when he saw it all differently again; when his +wife persuaded him that he had done the best that any one could do with +the responsibilities that ought never to have been laid on a man of his +temperament and habits; when he even came to see that Lily's feeling was +a matter of pure conjecture with him, and that so far as he knew she had +never cared anything for Ehrhardt. Yet he was glad to have her away; he +did not like to talk of her with his wife; he did not think of her if he +could help it. + +They heard from time to time through her sister that her little +enterprise in Omaha was prospering, and that she was very contented out +West; at last they heard directly from her that she was going to be +married. Till then, Elmore had been dumbly tormented in his sombre moods +with the solution of a problem at which his imagination vainly +toiled,--the problem of how some day she and Ehrhardt should meet again +and retrieve the error of the past for him. He contrived this encounter +in a thousand different ways by a thousand different chances; what he so +passionately and sorrowfully longed for accomplished itself continually +in his dreams, but only in his dreams. + +In due course Lily married, and from all they could understand, very +happily. Her husband was a clergyman, and she took particular interest +in his parochial work, which her good heart and clear head especially +qualified her to share with him. To connect her fate any longer with +that of Ehrhardt was now not only absurd, it was improper; yet Elmore +sometimes found his fancy forgetfully at work as before. He could not at +once realize that the tragedy of this romance, such as it was, remained +to him alone, except perhaps as Ehrhardt shared it. With him, indeed, +Elmore still sought to fret his remorse and keep it poignant, and his +final failure to do so made him ashamed. But what lasting sorrow can one +have from the disappointment of a man whom one has never seen? If Lily +could console herself, it seemed probable that Ehrhardt too had "got +along." + + + + +AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. + + +As they bowled along in the deliberate German express train through the +Black Forest, Colonel Kenton said he had only two things against the +region: it was not black, and it was not a forest. He had all his life +heard of the Black Forest, and he hoped he knew what it was. The +inhabitants burned charcoal, high up the mountains, and carved toys in +the winter when shut in by the heavy snows; they had Easter eggs all the +year round, with overshot mill-wheels in the valleys, and cherry-trees +all about, always full of blossoms or ripe fruit, just as you liked to +think. They were very poor people, but very devout, and lived in little +villages on a friendly intimacy with their cattle. The young women of +these hamlets had each a long braid of yellow hair down her back, blue +eyes, and a white bodice with a cat's-cradle lacing behind; the men had +bell-crowned hats and spindle-legs: they buttoned the breath out of +their bodies with round pewter buttons on tight, short crimson +waistcoats. + +"Now, here," said the colonel, breathing on the window of the car and +rubbing a little space clear of the frost, "I see nothing of the sort. +Either I have been imposed upon by what I have heard of the Black +Forest, or this is not the Black Forest. I'm inclined to believe that +there is no Black Forest, and never was. There isn't," he added, looking +again, so as not to speak hastily, "a charcoal-burner, or an Easter egg, +or a cherry blossom, or a yellow braid, or a red waistcoat, to enliven +the whole desolate landscape. What are we to think of it, Bessie?" + +Mrs. Kenton, who sat opposite, huddled in speechless comfort under her +wraps and rugs, and was just trying to decide in her own mind whether it +was more delicious to let her feet, now that they were thoroughly warm, +rest upon the carpet-covered cylinder of hot water, or hover just a +hair's breadth above it without touching it, answered a little +impatiently that she did not know. In ordinary circumstances she would +not have been so short with the colonel's nonsense. She thought that was +the way all men talked when they got well acquainted with you; and, as +coming from a sex incapable of seriousness, she could have excused it if +it had not interrupted her in her solution of so nice a problem. +Colonel Kenton, however, did not mind. He at once possessed himself of +much more than his share of the cylinder, extorting a cry of indignation +from his wife, who now saw herself reduced from a fastidious choice of +luxuries to a mere vulgar strife for the necessaries of life,--a thing +any woman abhors. + +"Well, well," said the colonel, "keep your old hot-water bottle. If +there was any other way of warming my feet, I wouldn't touch it. It +makes me sick to use it; I feel as if the doctor was going to order me +some boneset tea. Give _me_ a good red-hot patent car-heater, that +smells enough of burning iron to make your head ache in a minute, and +sets your car on fire as soon as it rolls over the embankment. That's +what _I_ call comfort. A hot-water bottle shoved under your feet--I +should suppose I _was_ a woman, and a feeble one at that. I'll tell you +what _I_ think about this Black Forest business, Bessie: I think it's +part of a system of deception that runs through the whole German +character. I have heard the Germans praised for their sincerity and +honesty, but I tell you they have got to work hard to convince me of it, +from this out. I am on my guard. I am not going to be taken in any +more." + +It became the colonel's pleasure to develop and exemplify this idea at +all points of their progress through Germany. They were going to Italy, +and as Mrs. Kenton had had enough of the sea in coming to Europe, they +were going to Italy by the only all-rail route then existing,--from +Paris to Vienna, and so down through the Simmering to Trieste and +Venice. Wherever they stopped, whatever they did before reaching Vienna, +Colonel Kenton chose to preserve his guarded attitude. "Ah, they pretend +this is Stuttgart, do they?" he said on arriving at the Suabian capital. +"A likely story! They pretended that was the Black Forest, you know, +Bessie." At Munich, "And this is Munich!" he sneered, whenever the +conversation flagged during their sojourn. "It's outrageous, the way +they let these swindling little towns palm themselves off upon the +traveller for cities he's heard of. This place will be calling itself +Berlin, next." When his wife, guide-book in hand, was struggling to heat +her admiration at some cold history of Kaulbach, and in her failure +clinging fondly to the fact that Kaulbach had painted it, "Kaulbach!" +the colonel would exclaim, and half close his eyes and slowly nod his +head and smile. "What guide-book is that you've got, Bessie?" looking +curiously at the volume he knew so well. "Oh!--Baedeker! And are you +going to let a Black Forest Dutchman like Baedeker persuade you that +this daub is by Kaulbach? Come! That's a little too much!" He rejected +the birthplaces of famous persons one and all; they could not drive +through a street or into a park, whose claims to be this or that street +or park he did not boldly dispute; and he visited a pitiless incredulity +upon the dishes of the _table d'hote_, concerning which he always +answered his wife's questions: "Oh, he _says_ it's beef," or veal, or +fowl, as the case might be; and though he never failed to relish his own +dinner, strange fears began to affect the appetite of Mrs. Kenton. It +happened that he never did come out with these sneers before other +travellers, but his wife was always expecting him to do so, and +afterwards portrayed herself as ready to scream, the whole time. She was +not a nervous person, and regarding the colonel's jokes as part of the +matrimonial contract, she usually bore them, as I have hinted, with +severe composure; accepting them all, good, bad, and indifferent, as +something in the nature of man which she should understand better after +they had been married longer. The present journey was made just after +the close of the war; they had seen very little of each other while he +was in the army, and it had something of the fresh interest of a bridal +tour. But they sojourned only a day or two in the places between +Strasburg and Vienna; it was very cold and very unpleasant getting +about, and they instinctively felt what every wise traveller knows, that +it is folly to be lingering in Germany when you can get into Italy; and +so they hurried on. + +It was nine o'clock one night when they reached Salzburg; and when their +baggage had been visited and their passports examined, they had still +half an hour to wait before the train went on. They profited by the +delay to consider what hotel they should stop at in Vienna, and they +advised with their Bradshaw on the point. This railway guide gave in its +laconic fashion several hotels, and specified the Kaiserin Elisabeth as +one at which there was a table d'hote, briefly explaining that at most +hotels in Vienna there was none. + +"That settles it," said Mrs. Kenton. "We will go to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth, of course. I'm sure I never want the bother of ordering +dinner in English, let alone German, which never was meant for human +beings to speak." + +"It's a language you can't tell the truth in," said the colonel +thoughtfully. "You can't call an open country an open country; you have +to call it a Black Forest." Mrs. Kenton sighed patiently. "But I don't +know about this Kaiserin Elisabeth business. How do we know that's the +_real_ name of the hotel? How can _we_ be sure that it isn't an _alias_, +an assumed name, trumped up for the occasion? I tell you, Bessie, we +can't be too cautious as long as we're in this fatherland of lies. What +guide-book is this? Baedeker? Oh! Bradshaw. Well, that's some comfort. +Bradshaw's an Englishman, at least. If it had been Baedeker"-- + +"Oh, Edward, Edward!" Mrs. Kenton burst out. "Will you _never_ give that +up? Here you've been harping on it for the last four days, and worrying +my life out with it. I think it's unkind. It's perfectly bewildering me. +I don't know where or what I am, any more." Some tears of vexation +started to her eyes, at which Colonel Kenton put the shaggy arm of his +overcoat round her, and gave her an honest hug. + +"Well," he said, "I give it up, from this out. Though I shall always say +that it was a joke that wore well. And I can tell you, Bessie, that it's +no small sacrifice to give up a joke that you've just got into prime +working order, so that you can use it on almost anything that comes up. +But that's a thing that you can never understand. Let it all pass. We'll +go to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, and submit to any sort of imposition +they've a mind to practise upon us. I shall not breathe freely, I +suppose, till we get into Italy, where people mean what they say. Haw, +haw, haw!" laughed the colonel, "honest Iago's the man _I'm_ after." + +The doors of the waiting-room were thrown open, and cries of "Erste +Klasse! Zweite Klasse! Dritte Klasse!" summoned the variously assorted +passengers to carriages of their several degrees. The colonel lifted his +little wife into a non-smoking first-class carriage, and established her +against the cushioned barrier dividing the two seats, so that her feet +could just reach the hot-water bottle, as he called it, and tucked her +in and built her up so with wraps that she was a prodigy of comfort; and +then folding about him the long fur-lined coat which she had bought him +at Munich (in spite of his many protests that the fur was artificial), +he sat down on the seat opposite, and proudly enjoyed the perfect +content that beamed from Mrs. Kenton's face, looking so small from her +heap of luxurious coverings. + +"Well, Bessie, this would be very pleasant--if you could believe in it," +he said, as the train smoothly rolled out of the station. "But of course +it can't be genuine. There must be some dodge about it. I've no doubt +you'll begin to feel perfectly horrid, the first thing you know." + +Mrs. Kenton let him go on, as he did at some length, and began to +drowse, while he amused himself with a gross parody of things she had +said during the past four days. In those years while their wedded bliss +was yet practically new, Colonel Kenton found his wife an inexhaustible +source of mental refreshment. He prized beyond measure the feminine +inadequacy and excess of her sayings; he had stored away such a variety +of these that he was able to talk her personal parlance for an hour +together; indeed, he had learned the trick of inventing phrases so much +in her manner that Mrs. Kenton never felt quite safe in disowning any +monstrous thing attributed to her. Her drowse now became a little nap, +and presently a delicious doze, in which she drifted far away from +actual circumstance into a realm where she seemed to exist as a mere +airy thought of her physical self; suddenly she lost this thought, and +slept through all stops at stations and all changes of the hot-water +cylinder, to renew which the guard, faithful to Colonel Kenton's bribe, +alone opened the door. + +"Wake up, Bessie!" she heard her husband saying. "We're at Vienna." + +It seemed very improbable, but she did not dispute it. "What time is +it?" she asked, as she suffered herself to be lifted from the carriage +into the keen air of the winter night. + +"Three o'clock," said the colonel, hurrying her into the waiting-room, +where she sat, still somewhat remote from herself but getting nearer and +nearer, while he went off about the baggage. "Now, then!" he cried +cheerfully when he returned; and he led his wife out and put her into a +_fiacre_. The driver bent from his perch and arrested the colonel, as he +was getting in after Mrs. Kenton, with words in themselves +unintelligible, but so probably in demand for neglected instructions +that the colonel said, "Oh! Kaiserin Elisabeth!" and again bowed his +head towards the fiacre door, when the driver addressed further speech +to him, so diffuse and so presumably unnecessary that Colonel Kenton +merely repeated, with rising impatience, "Kaiserin Elisabeth,--Kaiserin +Elisabeth, I tell you!" and getting in shut the fiacre door after him. + +The driver remained a moment in mumbled soliloquy; then he smacked his +whip and drove rapidly away. They were aware of nothing outside but the +starlit winter morning in unknown streets, till they plunged at last +under an archway and drew up at a sort of lodge door, from which issued +an example of the universal gold-cap-banded continental hotel _portier_, +so like all others in Europe that it seemed idle for him to be leading +an individual existence. He took the colonel's passport and summoned a +waiter, who went bowing before them up a staircase more or less +grandiose, and led them to a pleasant chamber, whither he sent directly +a woman servant. She bade them a hearty good morning in her tongue, and, +kneeling down before the tall porcelain stove, kindled from her apronful +of blocks and sticks a fire that soon penetrated the travellers with a +rich comfort. It was of course too early yet to think of breakfast, but +it was fortunately not too late to think of sleep. They were both very +tired, and it was almost noon when they woke. The colonel had the fire +rekindled, and he ordered breakfast to be served them in their room. +"Beefsteak and coffee--here!" he said, pointing to the table; and as he +made Mrs. Kenton snug near the stove he expatiated in her own terms upon +the perfect loveliness of the whole affair, and the touch of nature that +made coffee and beefsteak the same in every language. It seemed that the +Kaiserin Elisabeth knew how to serve such a breakfast in faultless +taste; and they sat long over it, in that sense of sovereign +satisfaction which beefsteak and coffee in your own room can best give. +At last the colonel rose briskly and announced the order of the day. +They were to go here, they were to stop there; they were to see this, +they were to do that. + +"Nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Kenton. "I am not going out at all +to-day. It's too cold; and if we are to push on to Trieste to-morrow, I +shall need the whole day to get a little rested. Besides, I have some +jobs of mending to do that can't be put off any longer." + +The colonel listened with an air of joyous admiration. "Bessie," said +he, "this is inspiration. _I_ don't want to see their old town; and I +shall ask nothing better than to spend the day with you here at our own +fireside. You can sew, and I--I'll _read_ to you, Bessie!" This was a +little too gross; even Mrs. Kenton laughed at this, the act of reading +being so abhorrent to Colonel Kenton's active temperament that he was +notorious for his avoidance of all literature except newspapers. In +about ten minutes, passed in an agreeable idealization of his purpose, +which came in that time to include the perusal of all the books on Italy +he had picked up on their journey, the colonel said he would go down and +ask the portier if they had the New York papers. + +When he returned, somewhat disconsolate, to say they had not, and had +apparently never heard of the Herald or Tribune, his wife smiled subtly: +"Then I suppose you'll have to go to the consul's for them." + +"Why, Bessie, it isn't a thing I should have suggested; I can't bear +the thoughts of leaving you here alone; but as you _say_! No, I'll tell +you: I'll not go for the New York papers, but I will just step round and +call upon the representative of the country--pay my respects to him, you +know--if you _wish_ it. But I'd far rather spend the time here with you, +Bessie, in our cosy little boudoir; I would, indeed." + +Mrs. Kenton now laughed outright, and--it was a tremendous sarcasm for +her--asked him if he were not afraid the example of the Black Forest was +becoming infectious. + +"Oh, come now, Bessie; no joking," pleaded the colonel, in mock +distress. "I'll tell you what, my dear, the head waiter here speaks +English like a--an Ollendorff; and if you get to feeling a little +lonesome while I'm out, you can just ring and order something from him, +you know. It will cheer you up to hear the sound of your native tongue +in a foreign land. But, pshaw! _I_ sha'nt be gone a minute!" + +By this time the colonel had got on his overcoat and gloves, and had his +hat in one hand, and was leaning over his wife, resting the other hand +on the back of the chair in which she sat warming the toes of her +slippers at the draft of the stove. She popped him a cheery little kiss +on his mustache, and gave him a small push: "Stay as long as you like, +Ned. I shall not be in the least lonesome. I shall do my mending, and +then I shall take a nap, and by that time it will be dinner. You needn't +come back before dinner. What hour is the table d'hote?" + +"Oh!" cried the colonel guiltily. "The fact is, I wasn't going to tell +you, I thought it would vex you so much: there _is_ no table d'hote here +and never was. Bradshaw has been depraved by the moral atmosphere of +Germany. I'd as soon trust Baedeker after this." + +"Well, never mind," said Mrs. Kenton. "We can tell them to bring us what +they like for dinner, and we can have it whenever _we_ like." + +"Bessie!" exclaimed the colonel, "I have not done justice to you, and I +supposed I had. I knew how bright and beautiful you were, but I _didn't_ +think you were so amiable. I didn't, indeed. This is a real surprise," +he said, getting out at the door. He opened it to add that he would be +back in an hour, and then he went his way, with the light heart of a +husband who has a day to himself with his wife's full approval. + +At the consulate a still greater surprise awaited Colonel Kenton. This +was the consul himself, who proved to be an old companion-in-arms, and +into whose awful presence the colonel was ushered by a _Hausmeister_ in +a cocked hat and a gold-braided uniform finer than that of all the +American major-generals put together. The friends both shouted "Hollo!" +and "_You_ don't say so!" and threw back their heads and laughed. + +"Why, didn't you know I was here?" demanded the consul when the hard +work of greeting was over. "I thought everybody knew that." + +"Oh, I knew you were rusting out in some of these Dutch towns, but I +never supposed it was Vienna. But that doesn't make any difference, so +long as you _are_ here." At this they smacked each other on the knees, +and laughed again. That carried them by a very rough point in their +astonishment, and they now composed themselves to the pleasure of +telling each other how they happened to be then and there, with glances +at their personal history when they were making it together in the +field. + +"Well, now, what are you going to do the rest of the day?" asked the +consul at last, with a look at his watch. "As I understand it, you 're +going to spend it with me, somehow. The question is, how would you like +to spend it?" + +"This is a handsome offer, Davis; but I don't see how I'm to manage +exactly," replied the colonel, for the first time distinctly recalling +the memory of Mrs. Kenton. "My wife wouldn't know what had become of me, +you know." + +"Oh, yes, she would," retorted the consul, with a bachelor's ignorant +ease of mind on a point of that kind. "We'll go round and take her with +us." + +The colonel gravely shook his head. "She wouldn't go, old fellow. She's +in for a day's rest and odd jobs. I'll tell you what, I'll just drop +round and let her know I've found you, and then come back again. You'll +dine with us, won't you?" Colonel Kenton had not always found old +comradeship a bond between Mrs. Kenton and his friends, but he believed +he could safely chance it with Davis, whom she had always rather +liked,--with such small regard as a lady's devotion to her husband +leaves her for his friends. + +"Oh, I'll _dine_ with you fast enough," said his friend. "But why don't +you send a note to Mrs. Kenton to say that we'll be round together, and +save yourself the bother? Did you come here alone?" + +"Bless your heart, no! I forgot him. The poor devil's out there, cooling +his heels on your stairs all this time. I came with a complete guide to +Vienna. Can't you let him in out of the weather a minute?" + +"We'll have him in, so that he can take your note back; but he doesn't +expect to be decently treated: they don't, here. You just sit down and +write it," said the consul, pushing the colonel into his own chair +before his desk; and when the colonel had superscribed his note, he +called in the _Lohndiener_,--patient, hat in hand,--and, "Where are you +stopping?" he asked the colonel. + +"Oh, I forgot that. At the Kaiserin Elisabeth. I'll just write it"-- + +"Never mind; we'll tell him where to take it. See here," added the +consul in a serviceable Viennese German of his own construction. "Take +this to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, quick;" and as the man looked up in a +dull surprise, "Do you hear? The Kaiserin Elisabeth!" + +"_I_ don't know what it is about that hotel," said the colonel, when the +man had meekly bowed himself away, with a hat that swept the ground in +honor of a handsome drink-money; "but the mention of it always seems to +awaken some sort of reluctance in the minds of the lower classes. Our +driver wanted to enter into conversation with me about it this morning +at three o'clock, and I had to be pretty short with him. If you don't +know the language, it isn't so difficult to be short in German as I've +heard. And another curious thing is that Bradshaw says the Kaiserin +Elisabeth has a table d'hote, and the head-waiter says she hasn't, and +never did have." + +"Oh, you can't trust anybody in Europe," said the consul sententiously. +"I'd leave Bradshaw and the waiter to fight it out among themselves. +We'll get back in time to order a dinner; it's always better, and then +we can dine alone, and have a good time." + +"They couldn't keep us from having a good time at a table d'hote, even. +But I don't mind." + +By this time they had got on their hats and coats and sallied forth. +They first went to a cafe and had some of that famous Viennese coffee; +and then they went to the imperial and municipal arsenals, and viewed +those collections of historical bricabrac, including the head of the +unhappy Turkish general who was strangled by his sovereign because he +failed to take Vienna in 1683. This from familiarity had no longer any +effect upon the consul, but it gave Colonel Kenton prolonged pause. "I +should have preferred a subordinate position in the sultan's army, I +believe," he said. "Why, Davis, what a museum we could have had out of +the Army of the Potomac alone, if Lincoln had been as particular as that +sultan!" + +From the arsenals they went to visit the parade-ground of the garrison, +and came in time to see a manoeuvre of the troops, at which they +looked with the frank respect and reserved superiority with which our +veterans seem to regard the military of Europe. Then they walked about +and noted the principal monuments of the city, and strolled along the +promenades and looked at the handsome officers and the beautiful women. +Colonel Kenton admired the life and the gay movement everywhere; since +leaving Paris he had seen nothing so much like New York. But he did not +like their shovelling up the snow into carts everywhere and dumping all +that fine sleighing into the Danube. "By the way," said his friend, +"let's go over into Leopoldstadt, and see if we can't scare up a sleigh +for a little turn in the suburbs." + +"It's getting late, isn't it?" asked the colonel. + +"Not so late as it looks. You know we haven't the high American sun, +here." + +Colonel Kenton was having such a good time that he felt no trouble about +his wife, sitting over her mending in the Kaiserin Elisabeth; and he +yielded joyfully, thinking how much she would like to hear about the +suburbs of Vienna: a husband will go through almost any pleasure in +order to give his wife an entertaining account of it afterwards; +besides, a bachelor companionship is confusing: it makes many things +appear right and feasible which are perhaps not so. It was not till +their driver, who had turned out of the beaten track into a wayside +drift to make room for another vehicle, attempted to regain the road by +too abrupt a movement, and the shafts of their sledge responded with a +loud crick-crack, that Colonel Kenton perceived the error into which he +had suffered himself to be led. At three miles' distance from the city, +and with the winter twilight beginning to fall, he felt the pang of a +sudden remorse. It grew sorer with every homeward step and with each +successive failure to secure a conveyance for their return. In fine, +they trudged back to Leopoldstadt, where an absurd series of +discomfitures awaited them in their attempts to get a fiacre over into +the main city. They visited all the stands known to the consul, and then +they were obliged to walk. But they were not tired, and they made their +distance so quickly that Colonel Kenton's spirits rose again. He was +able for the first time to smile at their misadventure, and some +misgivings as to how Mrs. Kenton might stand affected towards a guest +under the circumstances yielded to the thought of how he should make her +laugh at them both. "Good old Davis!" mused the colonel, and +affectionately linked his arm through that of his friend; and they +stamped through the brilliantly lighted streets gay with uniforms and +the picturesque costumes with which the Levant at Vienna encounters the +London and Paris fashions. Suddenly the consul arrested their movement. +"Didn't you say you were stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth?" + +"Why, yes; certainly." + +"Well, it's just around the corner, here." The consul turned him about, +and in another minute they walked under an archway into a court-yard, +and were met by the portier at the door of his room with an inquiring +obeisance. + +Colonel Kenton started. The cap and the cap-band were the same, and it +was to all intents and purposes the same portier who had bowed him away +in the morning; but the face was different. On noting this fact Colonel +Kenton observed so general a change in the appointments and even +architecture of the place that, "Old fellow," he said to the consul, +"you've made a little mistake; this isn't the Kaiserin Elisabeth." + +The consul referred the matter to the portier. Perfectly; that was the +Kaiserin Elisabeth. "Well, then," said the colonel, "tell him to have us +shown to my room." The portier discovered a certain embarrassment when +the colonel's pleasure was made known to him, and ventured something in +reply which made the consul smile. + +"Look here, Kenton," he said, "_you've_ made a little mistake, this +time. You're not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth!" + +"Oh, pshaw! Come now! Don't bring the consular dignity so low as to +enter into a practical joke with a hotel porter. It won't do. We got +into Vienna this morning at three, and drove straight to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth. We had a room and fire, and breakfast about noon. Tell him +who I am, and what I say." + +The consul did so, the portier slowly and respectfully shaking his head +at every point. When it came to the name, he turned to his books, and +shook his head yet more impressively. Then he took down a letter, +spelled its address, and handed it to the colonel; it was his own note +to Mrs. Kenton. That quite crushed him. He looked at it in a dull, +mechanical way, and nodded his head with compressed lips. Then he +scanned the portier, and glanced round once more at the bedevilled +architecture. "Well," said he, at last, "there's a mistake somewhere. +Unless there are two Kaiserin Elisabeths--. Davis, ask him if there are +two Kaiserin Elisabeths." + +The consul compassionately put the question, received with something +like grief by the portier. Impossible! + +"Then I'm not stopping at either of them," continued the colonel. "So +far, so good,--if you want to call it _good_. The question is now, if +I'm not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth," he demanded, with sudden +heat, and raising his voice, "how the devil did I get there?" + +The consul at this broke into a fit of laughter so violent that the +portier retired a pace or two from these maniacs, and took up a safe +position within his doorway. "You didn't--you didn't--get there!" +shrieked the consul. "That's what made the whole trouble. You--you meant +well, but you got somewhere else." He took out his handkerchief and +wiped the tears from his eyes. + +The colonel did not laugh; he had no real pleasure in the joke. On the +contrary, he treated it as a serious business. "Very well," said he, "it +will be proved next that I never told that driver to take me to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth, as it appears that I never got there and am not +stopping there. Will you be good enough to tell me," he asked, with +polished sarcasm, "where I _am_ stopping, and why, and how?' + +"I wish with all my heart I could," gasped his friend, catching his +breath, "but I can't, and the only way is to go round to the principal +hotels till we hit the right one. It won't take long. Come!" He passed +his arm through that of the colonel, and made an explanation to the +portier, as if accounting for the vagaries of some harmless eccentric he +had in charge. Then he pulled his friend gently away, who yielded after +a survey of the portier and the court-yard with a frown in which an +indignant sense of injury quite eclipsed his former bewilderment. He had +still this defiant air when they came to the next hotel, and used the +portier with so much severity on finding that he was not stopping there, +either, that the consul was obliged to protest: "If you behave in that +way, Kenton, I won't go with you. The man's perfectly innocent of your +stopping at the wrong place; and some of these hotel people know me, and +I won't stand your bullying them. And I tell you what: you've got to let +me have my laugh out, too. You know the thing's perfectly ridiculous, +and there's no use putting any other face on it." The consul did not +wait for leave to have his laugh out, but had it out in a series of +furious gusts. At last the colonel himself joined him ruefully. + +"Of course," said he, "I know I'm an ass, and I wouldn't mind it on my +own account. _I_ would as soon roam round after that hotel the rest of +the night as not, but I can't help feeling anxious about my wife. I'm +afraid she'll be getting very uneasy at my being gone so long. She's all +alone, there, wherever it is, and--" + +"Well, but she's got your note. She'll understand--" + +"What a fool _you_ are, Davis! _There's_ my note!" cried the colonel, +opening his fist and showing a very small wad of paper in his palm. +"She'd have got my note if she'd been at the Kaiserin Elisabeth; but +she's no more there than I am." + +"Oh!" said his friend, sobered at this. "To be sure! Well?" + +"Well, it's no use trying to tell a man like you; but I suppose that +she's simply distracted by this time. You don't know what a woman is, +and how she can suffer about a little matter when she gives her mind to +it." + +"Oh!" said the consul again, very contritely. "I'm very sorry I laughed; +but"--here he looked into the colonel's gloomy face with a countenance +contorted with agony--"this only makes it the more ridiculous, you +know;" and he reeled away, drunk with the mirth which filled him from +head to foot. But he repented again, and with a superhuman effort so far +subdued his transports as merely to quake internally, and tremble all +over, as he led the way to the next hotel, arm in arm with the +bewildered and embittered colonel. He encouraged the latter with much +genuine sympathy, and observed a proper decorum in his interviews with +one portier after another, formulating the colonel's story very neatly, +and explaining at the close that this American Herr, who had arrived at +Vienna before daylight and directed his driver to take him to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth, and had left his hotel at one o'clock in the belief +that it was the Kaiserin Elisabeth, felt now an added eagerness to know +what his hotel really was from the circumstance that his wife was there +quite alone and in probable distress at his long absence. At first +Colonel Kenton took a lively interest in this statement of his case, and +prompted the consul with various remarks and sub-statements; he was +grateful for the compassion generally shown him by the portiers, and he +strove with himself to give some account of the exterior and locality of +his mysterious hotel. But the fact was that he had not so much as looked +behind him when he quitted it, and knew nothing about its appearance; +and gradually the reiteration of the points of his misadventure to one +portier after another began to be as "a tale of little meaning, though +the words are strong." His personation of an American Herr in great +trouble of mind was an entire failure, except as illustrating the +national apathy of countenance when under the influence of strong +emotion. He ceased to take part in the consul's efforts in his behalf; +the whole abominable affair seemed as far beyond his forecast or +endeavor as some result of malign enchantment, and there was no such +thing as carrying off the tragedy with self-respect. Distressing as it +was, there could be no question but it was entirely ridiculous; he hung +his head with shame before the portiers at being a party to it; he no +longer felt like resenting Davis's amusement; he only wondered that he +could keep his face in relating the idiotic mischance. Each successive +failure to discover his lodging confirmed him in his humiliation and +despair. Very likely there was a way out of the difficulty, but he did +not know it. He became at last almost an indifferent spectator of the +consul's perseverance. He began to look back with incredulity at the +period of his life passed before entering the fatal fiacre that morning. +He received the final portier's rejection with something like a personal +derision. + +"That's the last place I can think of," said the consul, wiping his brow +as they emerged from the court-yard, for he had grown very warm with +walking so much. + +"Oh, all right," said the colonel languidly. + +"But we won't give it up. Let's go in here and get some coffee, and +think it over a bit." They were near one of the principal cafes, which +was full of people smoking, and drinking the Viennese _melange_ out of +tumblers. + +"By all means," assented Colonel Kenton with inconsequent courtliness, +"think it over. It's all that's left us." + +Matters did not look so dark, quite, after a tumbler of coffee with +milk, but they did not continue to brighten so much as they ought with +the cigars. "Now let us go through the facts of the case," said the +consul, and the colonel wearily reproduced his original narrative with +every possible circumstance. "But you know all about it," he concluded. +"I don't see any end of it. I don't see but I'm to spend the rest of my +life in hunting up a hotel that professes to be the Kaiserin Elisabeth, +and isn't. I never knew anything like it." + +"It certainly has the charm of novelty," gloomily assented the consul: +it must be owned that his gloom was a respectful feint. "I have heard of +men running away from their hotels, but I never did hear of a hotel +running away from a man before now. Yes--hold on! I have, too. Aladdin's +palace--and with Mrs. Aladdin in it, at that! It's a parallel case." +Here he abandoned himself as usual, while Colonel Kenton viewed his +mirth with a dreary grin. When he at last caught his breath, "I beg +your pardon, I do, indeed," the consul implored. "I know just how you +feel, but of course it's coming out right. We've been to all the hotels +I know of, but there must be others. We'll get some more names and start +at once; and if the genie has dropped your hotel anywhere this side of +Africa we shall find it. If the worst comes to the worst, you can stay +at my house to-night and start new to-m--Oh, I forgot!--Mrs. Kenton! +Really, the whole thing is such an amusing muddle that I can't seem to +get over it." He looked at Kenton with tears in his eyes, but contained +himself and decorously summoned a waiter, who brought him whatever +corresponds to a city directory in Vienna. "There!" he said, when he had +copied into his note-book a number of addresses, "I don't think your +hotel will escape us this time;" and discharging his account he led the +way to the door, Colonel Kenton listlessly following. + +The wretched husband was now suffering all the anguish of a just +remorse, and the heartlessness of his behavior in going off upon his own +pleasure the whole afternoon and leaving his wife alone in a strange +hotel to pass the time as she might was no less a poignant reproach, +because it seemed so inconceivable in connection with what he had +always taken to be the kindness and unselfishness of his character. We +all know the sensation; and I know none, on the whole, so disagreeable, +so little flattering, so persistent when once it has established itself +in the ill-doer's consciousness. To find out that you are not so good or +generous or magnanimous as you thought is, next to having other people +find it out, probably the unfriendliest discovery that can be made. But +I suppose it has its uses. Colonel Kenton now saw the unhandsomeness of +his leaving his wife at all, and he beheld in its true light his +shabbiness in not going back to tell her he had found his old friend and +was to bring him to dinner. The Lohndiener would of course have taken +him straight to his hotel, and he would have been spared this shameful +exposure, which, he knew well enough, Davis would never forget, but +would tell all his life with an ever-increasing garniture of fiction. He +cursed his weakness in allowing himself to dawdle about those arsenals +and that parade-ground, and to be so far misguided by a hardened +bachelor as to admire certain yellow-haired German and black-haired +Hungarian women on the promenade; when he came to think of going out in +that sledge, it was with anathema maranatha. He groaned in spirit, but +he owned that he was rightly punished, though it seemed hard that his +wife should be punished too. And then he went on miserably to figure +first her slight surprise at his being gone so long; then her vague +uneasiness and her conjectures; then her dawning apprehensions and her +helplessness; her probable sending to the consulate to find out what had +become of him; her dismay at learning nothing of him there; her waiting +and waiting in wild dismay as the moments and hours went by; her +frenzied running to the door at every step and her despair when it +proved not his. He had seen her suffering from less causes. And where +was she? In what low, shabby tavern had he left her? He choked with rage +and grief, and could hardly speak to the gentleman, a naturalized +fellow-citizen of Vienna, to whom he found the consul introducing him. + +"I wonder if you can't help us," said the consul. "My friend here is the +victim of a curious annoyance;" and he stated the case in language so +sympathetic and decorous as to restore some small shreds of the +colonel's self-respect. + +"Ah," said their new acquaintance, who was mercifully not a man of +humor, or too polite to seem so, "that's another trick of those scamps +of fiacre-drivers. He took you purposely to the wrong hotel, and was +probably feed by the landlord for bringing you. But why should you make +yourselves so much trouble? You know Colonel Kenton's landlord had to +send his name to the police as soon as he came, and you can get his +address there at once." + +"Good-by!" said the consul very hastily, with a crestfallen air. "Come +along, Kenton." + +"What did he send my name to the police for?" demanded the colonel, in +the open air. + +"Oh, it's a form. They do it with all travellers. It's merely to secure +the imperial government against your machinations." + +"And do you mean to say you ought to have known," cried the colonel, +halting him, "that you could have found out where I was from the police +at once, before we had walked all over this moral vineyard, and wasted +half a precious lifetime?" + +"Kenton," contritely admitted the other, "I never happened to think of +it." + +"Well, Davis, you're a pretty consul!" That was all the colonel said, +and though his friend was voluble in self-exculpation and condemnation, +he did not answer him a word till they arrived at the police office. A +few brief questions and replies between the commissary and the consul +solved the long mystery, and Colonel Kenton had once more a hotel over +his head. The commissary certified to the respectability of the place, +but invited the colonel to prosecute the driver of the fiacre in behalf +of the general public,--which seemed so right a thing that the colonel +entered into it with zeal, and then suddenly relinquished it, +remembering that he had not the rogue's number, that he had not so much +as looked at him, and that he knew no more what manner of man he was +than his own image in a glass. Under the circumstances, the commissary +admitted that it was impossible, and as to bringing the landlord to +justice, nothing could be proved against him. + +"Will you ask him," said the colonel, "the outside price of a +first-class assault and battery in Vienna?" + +The consul put as much of this idea into German as the language would +contain, which was enough to make the commissary laugh and shake his +head warningly. + +"It wouldn't do, he says, Kenton; it isn't the custom of the country." + +"Very well, then, I don't see why we should occupy his time." He gave +his hand to the commissary, whom he would have liked to embrace, and +then hurried forth again with the consul. "There is one little thing +that worries me still," he said. "I suppose Mrs. Kenton is simply crazy +by this time." + +"Is she of a very--nervous--disposition?" faltered the consul. + +"Nervous? Well, if you could witness the expression of her emotions in +regard to mice, you wouldn't ask that question, Davis." + +At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a moment. Then he +ventured: "I've heard--or read, I don't know which--that women have more +real fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of moral support in +an actual emergency that they wouldn't find in--mice." + +"Pshaw!" answered the colonel. "You wait till you see Mrs. Kenton." + +"Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, and stopping short. +"I've been thinking that perhaps--I--I had better dine with you some +other day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely domestic that +a third person, you know--" + +"Come along!" cried the colonel. "I want you to help me out of this +scrape. I'm going to leave that hotel as soon as I can put my things +together, and you've got to browbeat the landlord for me while I go up +and reassure my wife long enough to get her out of that den of thieves. +What did you say the scoundrelly name was?" + +"The Gasthof zum Wilden Manne." + +"And what does Wildun Manny mean?" + +"The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I suppose,--the Wild Man." + +"Well, I don't know whether it was named after me or not; but if I'd +found that sign anywhere for the last four or five hours, I should have +known it for home. There hasn't been any wilder man in Vienna since the +town was laid out, I reckon; and I don't believe there ever was a wilder +woman anywhere than Mrs. Kenton is at this instant." + +Arrived at the Sign of the Savage, Colonel Kenton left his friend below +with the portier, and mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to +his room. Flinging open the door, he beheld his wife dressed in one of +her best silks, before the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching +her back hair with her hand and twitching the bow at her throat into +perfect place. She smiled at him in the glass, and said, "Where's +Captain Davis?" + +"Captain Davis?" gasped the colonel, dry-tongued with anxiety and +fatigue. "Oh! _He's_ down there. He'll be up directly." + +She turned and came forward to him: "How do you like it?" Then she +advanced near enough to encounter the moustache: "Why, how heated and +tired you look!" + +"Yes, yes,--we've been walking. I--I'm rather late, ain't I, Bessie?" + +"About an hour. I ordered dinner at six, and it's nearly seven now." The +colonel started; he had not dared to look at his watch, and he had +supposed it must be about ten o'clock; it seemed years since his search +for the hotel had begun. But he said nothing; he felt that in some +mysterious and unmerited manner Heaven was having mercy upon him, and he +accepted the grace in the sneaking way we all accept mercy. "I knew +you'd stay longer than you expected, when you found it was Davis." + +"How did you know it was Davis?" asked the colonel, blindly feeling his +way. + +Mrs. Kenton picked up her Almanach de Gotha. "It has all the consular +and diplomatic corps in it." + +"I won't laugh at it any more," said the colonel, humbly. "Weren't +you--uneasy, Bessie?" + +"No. I mended away, here, and fussed round the whole afternoon, putting +the trunks to rights; and I got out this dress and ran a bit of lace +into the collar; and then I ordered dinner, for I knew you'd bring the +captain; and I took a nap, and by that it was nearly dinner-time." + +"Oh!" said the colonel. + +"Yes; and the head-waiter was as polite as peas; they've all been very +attentive. I shall certainly recommend everybody to the Kaiserin +Elisabeth." + +"Yes," assented the wretched man. "I reckon it's about the best hotel in +Vienna." + +"Well, now, go and get Captain Davis. You can bring him right in here; +we're only travellers. Why, what makes you act so queerly? Has anything +happened?" Mrs. Kenton was surprised to find herself gathered into her +husband's arms and embraced with a rapture for which she could see no +particular reason. + +"Bessie," said her husband, "I told you this morning that you were +amiable as well as bright and beautiful; I now wish to add that you are +sensible. I'm awfully ashamed of being gone so long. But the fact is we +had a little accident. Our sleigh broke down out in the country, and we +had to walk back." + +"Oh, you poor old fellow! No wonder you look tired." + +He accepted the balm of her compassion like a candid and innocent man: +"Yes, it was pretty rough. But _I_ didn't mind it, except on your +account. I thought the delay would make you uneasy." With that he went +out to the head of the stairs and called, "Davis!" + +"Yes!" responded the consul; and he ascended the stairs in such +trepidation that he tripped and fell part of the way up. + +"Have you been saying anything to that man about my going away?" + +"No, I've simply been blowing him up on the fiacre driver's account. He +swears they are innocent of collusion. But of course they're not." + +"Well, all right. Mrs. Kenton is waiting for us to go to dinner. And +look here," whispered the colonel, "don't you open your mouth, except to +put something into it, till I give you the cue." + +The dinner was charming, and had suffered little or nothing from the +delay. Mrs. Kenton was in raptures with it, and after a thimbleful of +the good Hungarian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing the +praises of the Kaiserin Elisabeth. + +"The K----" began the consul, who had hitherto guarded himself very +well. But the colonel arrested him at that letter with a terrible look. +He returned the look with a glance of intelligence, and resumed: "The +Kaiserin Elisabeth has the best cook in Vienna." + +"And everybody about has such nice, honest faces," said Mrs. Kenton. +"I'm sure I couldn't have felt anxious if you hadn't come till midnight: +I knew I was perfectly secure here." + +"Quite right, quite right," said the consul. "All classes of the +Viennese are so faithful. Now, I dare say you could have trusted that +driver of yours, who brought you here before daylight this morning, with +untold gold. No stranger need fear any of the tricks ordinarily +practised upon travellers in Vienna. They are a truthful, honest, +virtuous population,--like all the Germans in fact." + +"There, Ned! What do you say to that, with your Black Forest nonsense?" +triumphed Mrs. Kenton. + +Colonel Kenton laughed sheepishly: "Well, I take it all back, Bessie. I +wasn't quite satisfied with the appearance of the Black Forest country +when I came to it," he explained to the consul, "and Mrs. Kenton and I +had our little joke about the fraudulent nature of the Germans." + +"_Our_ little joke!" retorted his wife. "I wish we were going to stay +longer in Vienna. They say you have to make bargains for everything in +Italy, and here I suppose I could shop just as at home." + +"Precisely," said the consul; the Viennese shopkeepers being the most +notorious Jews in Europe. + +"Oh, we can't stop longer than till the morning," remarked the colonel. +"I shall be sorry to leave Vienna and the Kaiserin Elizabeth, but we +must go." + +"Better hang on awhile; you won't find many hotels like it, Kenton," +observed his friend. + +"No, I suppose not," sighed the colonel; "but I'll get the address of +their correspondent in Venice and stop there." + +Thus these craven spirits combined to delude and deceive the helpless +woman of whom half an hour before they had stood in such abject terror. +If they had found her in hysterics they would have pitied and respected +her; but her good sense, her amiability, and noble self-control +subjected her to their shameless mockery. + +Colonel Kenton followed the consul downstairs when he went away, and +pretended to justify himself. "I'll tell her one of these days," he +said, "but there's no use distressing her now." + +"I didn't understand you at first," said the other. "But I see now it +was the only way." + +"Yes; saves needless suffering. I say, Davis, this is about an even +thing between us? A United States consul ought to be of some use to his +fellow-citizens abroad; and if he allows them to walk their legs off +hunting up a hotel which he could have found at the first police-station +if _he had happened to think of it_, he won't be very anxious to tell +the joke, I suppose?" + +"I don't propose to write home to the papers about it." + +"All right." So, in the court-yard of the Wild Man, they parted. + +Long after that Mrs. Kenton continued to recommend people to the +Kaiserin Elisabeth. Even when the truth was made known to her she did +not see much to laugh at. "I'm sure I was always very glad the colonel +didn't tell me at once," she said, "for if I had known what I had been +through, I certainly _should_ have gone distracted." + + + + +TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. + + +There was no richer man in Venice than Tommaso Tonelli, who had enough +on his florin a day; and none younger than he, who owned himself +forty-seven years old. He led the cheerfullest life in the world, and +was quite a monster of content; but when I come to sum up his pleasures, +I fear that I shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very +insipid and monotonous existence. I doubt if even a summary of his +duties could be made attractive to the conscientious imagination of +hard-working people; for Tonelli's labors were not killing, nor, for +that matter, were those of any Venetian that I ever knew. He had a +stated employment in the office of the notary Cenarotti; and he passed +there so much of every working day as lies between nine and five +o'clock, writing upon deeds and conveyances and petitions and other +legal instruments for the notary, who sat in an adjoining room, secluded +from nearly everything in this world but snuff. He called Tonelli by the +sound of a little bell; and, when he turned to take a paper from his +safe, he seemed to be abstracting some secret from long-lapsed +centuries, which he restored again, and locked back among the dead ages +when his clerk replaced the document in his hands. These hands were very +soft and pale, and their owner was a colorless old man, whose silvery +hair fell down a face nearly as white; but, as he has almost nothing to +do with the present affair, I shall merely say that, having been +compromised in the last revolution, he had been obliged to live ever +since in perfect retirement, and that he seemed to have been blanched in +this social darkness as a plant is blanched by growth in a cellar. His +enemies said that he was naturally a timid man, but they could not deny +that he had seen things to make the brave afraid, or that he had now +every reason from the police to be secret and cautious in his life. He +could hardly be called company for Tonelli, who must have found the day +intolerably long but for the visit which the notary's pretty +granddaughter contrived to pay every morning in the cheerless _mezza_. +She commonly appeared on some errand from her mother, but her chief +business seemed to be to share with Tonelli the modest feast of rumor +and hearsay which he loved to furnish forth for her, and from which +doubtless she carried back some fragments of gossip to the family +apartments. Tonelli called her, with that mingled archness and +tenderness of the Venetians, his Paronsina; and, as he had seen her grow +up from the smallest possible of Little Mistresses, there was no shyness +between them, and they were fully privileged to each other's society by +her mother. When she flitted away again, Tonelli was left to a stillness +broken only by the soft breathing of the old man in the next room, and +by the shrill discourse of his own loquacious pen, so that he was +commonly glad enough when it came five o'clock. At this hour he put on +his black coat, that shone with constant use, and his faithful silk hat, +worn down to the pasteboard with assiduous brushing, and caught up a +very jaunty cane in his hand. Then, saluting the notary, he took his way +to the little restaurant, where it was his custom to dine, and had his +tripe soup and his _risotto_, or dish of fried liver, in the austere +silence imposed by the presence of a few poor Austrian captains and +lieutenants. It was not that the Italians feared to be overheard by +these enemies; but it was good _dimostrazione_ to be silent before the +oppressor, and not let him know that they even enjoyed their dinners +well enough, under his government, to chat sociably over them. To tell +the truth, this duty was an irksome one to Tonelli, who liked far better +to dine, as he sometimes did, at a cook-shop, where he met the folk of +the people (_gente del popolo_), as he called them; and where, though +himself a person of civil condition, he discoursed freely with the other +guests, and ate of their humble but relishing fare. He was known among +them as Sior Tommaso; and they paid him a homage, which they enjoyed +equally with him, as a person not only learned in the law, but a poet of +gift enough to write wedding and funeral verses, and a veteran who had +fought for the dead Republic of Forty-eight. They honored him as a most +travelled gentleman, who had been in the Tyrol, and who could have +spoken German, if he had not despised that tongue as the language of the +ugly Croats, like one born to it. Who, for example, spoke Venetian more +elegantly than Sior Tommaso? or Tuscan, when he chose? and yet he was +poor,--a man of that genius! Patience! When Garibaldi came, we should +see! The _facchini_ and gondoliers, who had been wagging their tongues +all day at the church corners and ferries, were never tired of talking +of this gifted friend of theirs, when, having ended some impressive +discourse or some dramatic story, he left them with a sudden adieu, and +walked quickly away toward the Riva degli Schiavoni. + +Here, whether he had dined at the cook-shop, or at his more genteel and +gloomy restaurant of the Bronze Horses, it was his custom to lounge an +hour or two over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the many +caffes, and to watch all the world as it passed to and fro on the quay. +Tonelli was gray, he did not disown it; but he always maintained that +his heart was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great +difference in persons as to age, which told in his favor. So he loved to +sit there, and look at the ladies; and he amused himself by inventing a +pet name for every face he saw, which he used to teach to certain +friends of his, when they joined him over his coffee. These friends were +all young enough to be his sons, and wise enough to be his fathers; but +they were always glad to be with him, for he had so cheery a wit and so +good a heart that neither his years nor his follies could make any one +sad. His kind face beamed with smiles, when Pennellini, chief among the +youngsters in his affections, appeared on the top of the nearest bridge, +and thence descended directly towards his little table. Then it was that +he drew out the straw which ran through the centre of his long Virginia, +and lighted the pleasant weed, and gave himself up to the delight of +making aloud those comments on the ladies which he had hitherto stifled +in his breast. Sometimes he would feign himself too deeply taken with a +passing beauty to remain quiet, and would make his friend follow with +him in chase of her to the Public Gardens. But he was a fickle lover, +and wanted presently to get back to his caffe, where, at decent +intervals of days or weeks, he would indulge himself in discovering a +spy in some harmless stranger, who, in going out, looked curiously at +the scar Tonelli's cheek had brought from the battle of Vicenza in 1848. + +"Something of a spy, no?" he asked at these times of the waiter, who, +flattered by the penetration of a frequenter of his caffe, and the +implication that it was thought seditious enough to be watched by the +police, assumed a pensive importance, and answered, "Something of a spy, +certainly." + +Upon this Tonelli was commonly encouraged to proceed: "Did I ever tell +you how I once sent one of those ugly muzzles out of a caffe? I knew him +as soon as I saw him,--I am never mistaken in a spy,--and I went with my +newspaper, and sat down close at his side. Then I whispered to him +across the sheet, 'We are two.' 'Eh?' says he. 'It is a very small +caffe, and there is no need of more than one,' and then I stared at him +and frowned. He looks at me fixedly a moment, then gathers up his hat +and gloves, and takes his pestilency off." + +The waiter, who had heard this story, man and boy, a hundred times, made +a quite successful show of enjoying it, as he walked away with Tonelli's +fee of half a cent in his pocket. Tonelli then had left from his day's +salary enough to pay for the ice which he ate at ten o'clock, but which +he would sometimes forego, in order to give the money in charity, though +more commonly he indulged himself, and put off the beggar with, "Another +time, my dear. I have no leisure now to discuss those matters with +thee." + +On holidays this routine of Tonelli's life was varied. In the forenoon +he went to mass at St. Mark's, to see the beauty and fashion of the +city; and then he took a walk with his four or five young friends, or +went with them to play at bowls, or even made an excursion to the main +land, where they hired a carriage, and all those Venetians got into it, +like so many seamen, and drove the horse with as little mercy as if he +had been a sail-boat. At seven o'clock Tonelli dined with the notary, +next whom he sat at table, and for whom his quaint pleasantries had a +zest that inspired the Paronsina and her mother to shout them into his +dull ears, that he might lose none of them. He laughed a kind of faded +laugh at them, and, rubbing his pale hands together, showed by his act +that he did not think his best wine too good for his kindly guest. The +signora feigned to take the same delight shown by her father and +daughter in Tonelli's drolleries; but I doubt if she had a great sense +of his humor, or, indeed, cared anything for it save as she perceived +that it gave pleasure to those she loved. Otherwise, however, she had a +sincere regard for him, for he was most useful and devoted to her in her +quality of widowed mother; and if she could not feel wit, she could feel +gratitude, which is perhaps the rarer gift, if not the more respectable. + +The Little Mistress was dependent upon him for nearly all the pleasures +and for the only excitements of her life. As a young girl she was at +best a sort of caged bird, who had to be guarded against the youth of +the other sex as if they, on their part, were so many marauding and +ravening cats. During most days of the year the Paronsina's parrot had +almost as much freedom as she. He could leave his gilded prison when he +chose, and promenade the notary's house as far down as the marble well +in the sunless court, and the Paronsina could do little more. The +signora would as soon have thought of letting the parrot walk across +their campo alone as her daughter, though the local dangers, either to +bird or beauty, could not have been very great. The green-grocer of +that sequestered campo was an old woman, the apothecary was gray, and +his shop was haunted by none but superannuated physicians; the baker, +the butcher, the waiters at the caffe were all professionally, and, as +purveyors to her family, out of the question; the sacristan, who +sometimes appeared at the perruquier's to get a coal from under the +curling-tongs to kindle his censer, had but one eye, which he kept +single to the service of the Church, and his perquisite of +candle-drippings; and I hazard little in saying that the Paronsina might +have danced a polka around Campo San Giuseppe without jeopardy so far as +concerned the handsome wood-carver, for his wife always sat in the shop +beside him. Nevertheless, a custom is not idly handed down by mother to +daughter from the dawn of Christianity to the middle of the nineteenth +century; and I cannot deny that the local perruquier, though stricken in +years, was still so far kept fresh by the immortal youth of the wax +heads in his window as to have something beauish about him; or that, +just at the moment the Paronsina chanced to go into the campo alone, a +_leone_ from Florian's might not have been passing through it, when he +would certainly have looked boldly at her, perhaps spoken to her, and +possibly pounced at once upon her fluttering heart. So by day the +Paronsina rarely went out, and she never emerged unattended from the +silence and shadow of her grandfather's house. + +If I were here telling a story of the Paronsina, or indeed any story at +all, I might suffer myself to enlarge somewhat upon the daily order of +her secluded life, and show how the seclusion of other Venetian girls +was the widest liberty as compared with hers; but I have no right to +play with the reader's patience in a performance that can promise no +excitement of incident, no charm of invention. Let him figure to +himself, if he will, the ancient and half-ruined palace in which the +notary dwelt, with a gallery running along one side of its inner court, +the slender pillars supporting upon the corroded sculpture of their +capitals a clinging vine, that dappled the floor with palpitant light +and shadow in the afternoon sun. The gate, whose exquisite Saracenic +arch grew into a carven flame, was surmounted by the armorial bearings +of a family that died of its sins against the Serenest Republic long +ago; the marble cistern which stood in the middle of the court had still +a ducal rose upon either of its four sides; and little lions of stone +perched upon the posts at the head of the marble stairway climbing to +the gallery, their fierce aspects worn smooth and amiable by the contact +of hands that for many ages had mouldered in tombs. Toward the canal +the palace windows had been immemorially bricked up for some reason or +caprice, and no morning sunlight, save such as shone from the bright +eyes of the Paronsina, ever looked into the dim halls. It was a fit +abode for such a man as the notary, exiled in the heart of his native +city, and it was not unfriendly in its influences to a quiet vegetation +like the signora's; but to the Paronsina it was sad as Venice itself, +where, in some moods, I have wondered that any sort of youth could have +the courage to exist. Nevertheless, the Paronsina had contrived to grow +up here a child of the gayest and archest spirit, and to lead a life of +due content, till after her return home from the comparative freedom and +society of Madame Prateux's school, where she spent three years in +learning all polite accomplishments, and whence she came, with brilliant +hopes and romances ready imagined, for any possible exigency of the +future. She adored all the modern Italian poets, and read their verse +with that stately and rhythmical fulness of voice which often made it +sublime and always pleasing. She was a relentless patriot, an +Italianissima of the vividest green, white, and red; and she could +interpret the historical novels of her countrymen in their subtilest +application to the modern enemies of Italy. But all the Paronsina's +gifts and accomplishments were to poor purpose, if they brought no young +men a-wooing under her balcony; and it was to no effect that her fervid +fancy peopled the palace's empty halls with stately and gallant company +out of Marco Visconti, Nicolo de' Lapi, Margherita Pusterla, and the +other romances, since she could not hope to receive any practicable +offer of marriage from the heroes thus assembled. Her grandfather +invited no guests of more substantial presence to his house. In fact, +the police watched him too narrowly to permit him to receive society, +even had he been so minded, and for kindred reasons his family paid few +visits in the city. To leave Venice, except for the autumnal +_villeggiatura_ was almost out of the question; repeated applications at +the Luogotenenza won the two ladies but a tardy and scanty grace; and +the use of the passport allowing them to spend a few weeks in Florence +was attended with so much vexation, in coming and going upon the +imperial confines, and when they returned home they were subject to so +great fear of perquisition from the police, that it was after all rather +a mortification than a pleasure that the government had given them. The +signora received her few acquaintances once a week; but the Paronsina +found the old ladies tedious over their cups of coffee or tumblers of +lemonade, and declared that her mamma's reception days were a +martyrdom,--actually a martyrdom, to her. She was full of life and the +beautiful and tender longing of youth; she had a warm heart and a +sprightly wit; but she led an existence scarce livelier than a ghost's, +and she was so poor in friends and resources that she shuddered to think +what must become of her if Tonelli should die. It was not possible, +thanks to God! that he should marry. + +The signora herself seldom cared to go out, for the reason that it was +too cold in winter and too hot in summer. In the one season she clung +all day to her wadded arm-chair, with her _scaldino_ in her lap; and in +the other season she found it a sufficient diversion to sit in the great +hall of the palace, and be fanned by the salt breeze that came from the +Adriatic through the vine-garlanded gallery. But besides this habitual +inclemency of the weather, which forbade out-door exercise nearly the +whole year, it was a displeasure to walk in Venice on account of the +stairways of the bridges; and the signora much preferred to wait till +they went to the country in the autumn, when she always rode to take the +air. The exceptions to her custom were formed by those after-dinner +promenades which she sometimes made on holidays, in summer. Then she put +on her richest black, and the Paronsina dressed herself in her best, and +they both went to walk on the Molo, before the pillars of the lion and +the saint, under the escort of Tonelli. + +It often happened that, at the hour of their arrival on the Molo, the +moon was coming up over the low bank of the Lido in the east, and all +that prospect of ship-bordered quay, island, and lagoon, which, at its +worst, is everything that heart can wish, was then at its best, and far +beyond words to paint. On the right stretched the long Giudecca, with +the domes and towers of its Palladian church, and the swelling foliage +of its gardens, and its line of warehouses--painted pink, as if even +Business, grateful to be tolerated amid such lovely scenes, had striven +to adorn herself. In front lay San Giorgio, picturesque with its church +and pathetic with its political prisons; and, farther away to the east +again, the gloomy mass of the madhouse at San Servolo, and then the +slender campanili of the Armenian convent rose over the gleaming and +tremulous water. Tonelli took in the beauty of the scene with no more +consciousness than a bird; but the Paronsina had learnt from her +romantic poets and novelists to be complimentary to prospects, and her +heart gurgled out in rapturous praises of this. The unwonted freedom +exhilarated her; there was intoxication in the encounter of faces on the +promenade, in the dazzle and glimmer of the lights, and even in the +music of the Austrian band playing in the Piazza, as it came purified to +her patriotic ear by the distance. There were none but Italians upon the +Molo, and one might walk there without so much as touching an officer +with the hem of one's garment; and, a little later, when the band ceased +playing, she should go with the other Italians and possess the Piazza +for one blessed hour. In the mean time, the Paronsina had a sharp little +tongue; and, after she had flattered the landscape, and had, from her +true heart, once for all, saluted the promenaders as brothers and +sisters in Italy, she did not mind making fun of their peculiarities of +dress and person. She was signally sarcastic upon such ladies as Tonelli +chanced to admire, and often so stung him with her jests that he was +glad when Pennellini appeared, as he always did exactly at nine o'clock, +and joined the ladies in their promenade, asking and answering all those +questions of ceremony which form Venetian greeting. He was a youth of +the most methodical exactness in his whole life, and could no more have +arrived on the Molo a moment before or after nine than the bronze +giants on the clock-tower could have hastened or lingered in striking +the hour. Nature, which had made him thus punctual and precise, gave him +also good looks, and a most amiable kindness of heart. The Paronsina +cared nothing at all for him in his quality of handsome young fellow; +but she prized him as an acquaintance whom she might salute, and be +saluted by, in a city where her grandfather's isolation kept her strange +to nearly all the faces she saw. Sometimes her evenings on the Molo +wasted away without the exchange of a word save with Tonelli, for her +mother seldom talked; and then it was quite possible her teasing was +greater than his patience, and that he grew taciturn under her tongue. +At such times she hailed Pennellini's appearance with a double delight; +for, if he never joined in her attacks upon Tonelli's favorites, he +always enjoyed them, and politely applauded them. If his friend +reproached him for this treason, he made him every amend in answering, +"She is jealous, Tonelli,"--a wily compliment, which had the most +intense effect in coming from lips ordinarily so sincere as his. + +The signora was weary of the promenade long before the Austrian music +ceased in the Piazza, and was very glad when it came time for them to +leave the Molo, and go and sit down to an ice at the Caffe Florian. +This was the supreme hour to the Paronsina, the one heavenly excess of +her restrained and eventless life. All about her were scattered tranquil +Italian idlers, listening to the music of the strolling minstrels who +had succeeded the military band; on either hand sat her friends, and she +had thus the image of that tender devotion without which a young girl is +said not to be perfectly happy; while the very heart of adventure seemed +to bound in her exchange of glances with a handsome foreigner at a +neighboring table. On the other side of the Piazza a few officers still +lingered at the Caffe Quadri; and at the Specchi sundry groups of +citizens in their dark dress contrasted well with these white uniforms; +but, for the most part, the moon and gas-jets shone upon the broad, +empty space of the Piazza, whose loneliness the presence of a few +belated promenaders only served to render conspicuous. As the giants +hammered eleven upon the great bell, the Austrian sentinel, under the +Ducal Palace, uttered a long, reverberating cry; and soon after a patrol +of soldiers clanked across the Piazza, and passed with echoing feet +through the arcade into the narrow and devious streets beyond. The young +girl found it hard to rend herself from the dreamy pleasure of the +scene, or even to turn from the fine impersonal pain which the presence +of the Austrians in the spectacle inflicted. All gave an impression +something like that of the theatre, with the advantage that here one's +self was part of the pantomime; and in those days, when nearly +everything but the puppet-shows was forbidden to patriots, it was +altogether the greatest enjoyment possible to the Paronsina. The pensive +charm of the place imbued all the little company so deeply that they +scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly homeward through the deserted +Merceria. When they reached the Campo San Salvatore, on many a lovely +summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to waken a nightingale whose +cage hung from a lofty balcony there; for suddenly, at their coming, the +bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched them all, and +suffused the tender heart of the Paronsina with an inexpressible pathos. + +Alas! she had so often returned thus from the Piazza, and no stealthy +footstep had followed hers homeward with love's persistence and +diffidence! She was young, she knew, and she thought not quite dull or +hideous; but her spirit was as sole in that melancholy city as if there +were no youth but hers in the world. And a little later than this, when +she had her first affair, it did not originate in the Piazza, nor at +all respond to her expectations in a love-affair. In fact, it was +altogether a business affair, and was managed chiefly by Tonelli, who +having met a young doctor, laurelled the year before at Padua, had heard +him express so pungent a curiosity to know what the Paronsina would have +to her dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love with her. So +with the consent of the signora he had arranged a correspondence between +the young people; and all went on well at first,--the letters from both +passing through his hands. But his office was anything but a sinecure, +for while the Doctor was on his part of a cold temperament, and disposed +to regard the affair merely as a proper way of providing for the natural +affections, the Paronsina cared nothing for him personally, and only +viewed him favorably as abstract matrimony,--as the means of escaping +from the bondage of her girlhood and the sad seclusion of her life into +the world outside her grandfather's house. So presently the +correspondence fell almost wholly upon Tonelli, who worked up to the +point of betrothal with an expense of finesse and sentiment that would +have made his fortune in diplomacy or poetry. What should he say now? +that stupid young Doctor would cry in a desperation, when Tonelli +delicately reminded him that it was time to answer the Paronsina's last +note. Say this, that, and the other, Tonelli would answer, giving him +the heads of a proper letter, which the Doctor took down on square bits +of paper, neatly fashioned for writing prescriptions. "And for God's +sake, caro dottore, put a little warmth into it!" The poor Doctor would +try, but it must always end in Tonelli's suggesting and almost dictating +every sentence; and then the letter, being carried to the Paronsina made +her laugh: "This is very pretty, my poor Tonelli, but it was never my +onoratissimo dottore who thought of these tender compliments. Ah! that +allusion to my mouth and eyes could only have come from the heart of a +great poet. It is yours, Tonelli, don't deny it." And Tonelli, taken in +his weak point of literature, could make but a feeble pretence of +disclaiming the child of his fancy, while the Paronsina, being in this +reckless humor, more than once responded to the Doctor in such fashion +that in the end the inspiration of her altered and amended letter was +Tonelli's. Even after the betrothal, the lovemaking languished, and the +Doctor was indecently patient of the late day fixed for the marriage by +the notary. In fact, the Doctor was very busy; and, as his practice +grew, the dower of the Paronsina dwindled in his fancy, till one day he +treated the whole question of their marriage with such coldness and +uncertainty in his talk with Tonelli, that the latter saw whither his +thoughts were drifting, and went home with an indignant heart to the +Paronsina, who joyfully sat down and wrote her first sincere letter to +the Doctor, dismissing him. + +"It is finished," she said, "and I am glad. After all, perhaps, I don't +want to be any freer than I am; and while I have you, Tonelli, I don't +want a younger lover. Younger? Diana! You are in the flower of youth, +and I believe you will never wither. Did that rogue of a Doctor, then, +really give you the elixir of youth for writing him those letters? Tell +me, Tonelli, as a true friend, how long have you been forty-seven? Ever +since your fiftieth birthday? Listen! I have been more afraid of losing +you than my sweetest Doctor. I thought you would be so much in love with +lovemaking that you would go break-neck and court some one in earnest on +your own account!" + +Thus the Paronsina made a jest of the loss she had sustained; but it was +not pleasant to her, except as it dissolved a tie which love had done +nothing to form. Her life seemed colder and vaguer after it, and the +hour very far away when the handsome officers of her king (all good +Venetians in those days called Victor Emanuel "our king") should come to +drive out the Austrians, and marry their victims. She scarcely enjoyed +the prodigious privilege, offered her at this time in consideration of +her bereavement, of going to the comedy, under Tonelli's protection and +along with Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora afterwards +had real qualms of patriotism concerning the breach of public duty +involved in this distraction of her daughter. She hoped that no one had +recognized her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warning from +the Venetian Committee. "Thou knowest," she said to the Paronsina, "that +they have even admonished the old Conte Tradonico, who loves the comedy +better than his soul, and who used to go every evening. Thy aunt told +me, and that the old rogue, when people ask him why he doesn't go to the +play, answers, 'My mistress won't let me.' But fie! I am saying what +young girls ought not to hear." + +After the affair with the Doctor, I say, life refused to return exactly +to its old expression, and I suppose that, if what presently happened +was ever to happen, it could not have occurred at a more appropriate +time for a disaster, or at a time when its victims were less able to +bear it I do not know whether I have yet sufficiently indicated the +fact, but the truth is both the Paronsina and her mother had from long +use come to regard Tonelli as a kind of property of theirs, which had +no right in any way to alienate itself. They would have felt an attempt +of this sort to be not only very absurd, but very wicked, in view of +their affection for him and dependence upon him; and while the Paronsina +thanked God that he would never marry, she had a deep conviction that he +ought not to marry, even if he desired. It was at the same time +perfectly natural, nay, filial, that she should herself be ready to +desert this old friend, whom she felt so strictly bound to be faithful +to her loneliness. As matters fell out, she had herself primarily to +blame for Tonelli's loss; for, in that interval of disgust and ennui +following the Doctor's dismissal, she had suffered him to seek his own +pleasure on holiday evenings; and he had thus wandered alone to the +Piazza, and so, one night, had seen a lady eating an ice there, and +fallen in love without more ado than another man should drink a +lemonade. + +This facility came of habit, for Tonelli had now been falling in love +every other day for some forty years; and in that time had broken the +hearts of innumerable women of all nations and classes. The prettiest +water-carriers in his neighborhood were in love with him, as their +mothers had been before them, and ladies of noble condition were +believed to cherish passions for him. Especially, gay and beautiful +foreigners, as they sat at Florian's, were taken with hopeless love of +him; and he could tell stories of very romantic adventure in which he +figured as hero, though nearly always with moral effect. For example, +there was the countess from the mainland,--she merited the sad +distinction of being chief among those who had vainly loved him, if you +could believe the poet who both inspired and sang her passion. When she +took a palace in Venice, he had been summoned to her on the pretended +business of a secretary; but when she presented herself with those idle +accounts of her factor and tenants on the mainland, her household +expenses and her correspondence with her advocate, Tonelli perceived at +once that it was upon a wholly different affair that she had desired to +see him. She was a rich widow of forty, of a beauty supernaturally +preserved and very great. "This is no place for thee, Tonelli mine," the +secretary had said to himself, after a week had passed, and he had +understood all the waywardness of that unhappy lady's intentions. "Thou +art not too old, but thou art too wise, for these follies, though no +saint"; and so had gathered up his personal effects, and secretly +quitted the palace. But such was the countess's fury at his escape that +she never paid him his week's salary; nor did she manifest the least +gratitude that Tonelli, out of regard for her son, a very honest young +man, refused in any way to identify her, but, to all except his closest +friends, pretended that he had passed those terrible eight days on a +visit to the country village where he was born. It showed Pennellini's +ignorance of life that he should laugh at this history; and I prefer to +treat it seriously, and to use it in explaining the precipitation with +which Tonelli's latest inamorata returned his love. + +Though, indeed, why should a lady of thirty, and from an obscure country +town, hesitate to be enamored of any eligible suitor who presented +himself in Venice? It is not my duty to enter upon a detail or summary +of Carlotta's character or condition, or to do more than indicate that, +while she did not greatly excel in youth, good looks, or worldly gear, +she had yet a little property, and was of that soft prettiness which is +often more effective than downright beauty. There was, indeed, something +very charming about her; and, if she was a blonde, I have no reason to +think she was as fickle as the Venetian proverb paints that complexion +of woman; or that she had not every quality which would have excused any +one but Tonelli for thinking of marrying her. + +After their first mute interview in the Piazza, the two lost no time in +making each other's acquaintance; but though the affair was vigorously +conducted, no one could say that it was not perfectly in order. Tonelli +on the following day, which chanced to be Sunday, repaired to St. Mark's +at the hour of the fashionable mass, where he gazed steadfastly at the +lady during her orisons, and whence, at a discreet distance, he followed +her home to the house of the friends whom she was visiting. Somewhat to +his discomfiture at first, these proved to be old acquaintances of his; +and when he came at night to walk up and down under their balconies, as +bound in true love to do, they made nothing of asking him indoors, and +presenting him to his lady. But the pair were not to be entirely balked +of their romance, and they still arranged stolen interviews at church, +where one furtively whispered word had the value of whole hours of +unrestricted converse under the roof of their friends. They quite +refused to take advantage of their anomalously easy relations, beyond +inquiry on his part as to the amount of the lady's dower, and on hers as +to the permanence of Tonelli's employment. He in due form had Pennellini +to his confidant, and Carlotta unbosomed herself to her hostess; and the +affair was thus conducted with such secrecy that not more than two +thirds of Tonelli's acquaintance knew anything about it when their +engagement was announced. + +There were now no circumstances to prevent their early union, yet the +happy conclusion was one to which Tonelli urged himself after many +secret and bitter displeasures of spirit. I am persuaded that his love +for Carlotta must have been most ardent and sincere, for there was +everything in his history and reason against marriage. He could not +disown that he had hitherto led a joyous and careless life, or that he +was exactly fitted for the modest delights, the discreet variety, of his +present state,--for his daily routine at the notary's, his dinner at the +Bronze Horses or the cook-shop, his hour at the caffe, his walks and +excursions, for his holiday banquet with the Cenarotti, and his formal +promenade with the ladies of that family upon the Molo. He had a good +employment, with a salary that held him above want, and afforded him the +small luxuries already named; and he had fixed habits of work and of +relaxation, which made both a blessing. He had his chosen circle of +intimate equals, who regarded him for his good-heartedness and wit and +foibles; and his little following of humble admirers, who looked upon +him as a gifted man in disgrace with fortune. His friendships were as +old as they were secure and cordial; he was established in the +kindliness of all who knew him; and he was flattered by the dependence +of the Paronsina and her mother, even when it was troublesome to him. +He had his past of sentiment and war, his present of story-telling and +romance. He was quite independent: his sins, if he had any, began and +ended in himself, for none was united to him so closely as to be hurt by +them; and he was far too imprudent a man to be taken for an example by +any one. He came and went as he listed, he did this or that without +question. With no heart chosen yet from the world of woman's love, he +was still a young man, with hopes and affections as pliable as a boy's. +He had, in a word, that reputation of good-fellow which in Venice gives +a man the title of _buon diavolo_, but on which he does not anywhere +turn his back with impunity, either from his own consciousness or from +public opinion. There never was such a thing in the world as both good +devil and good husband; and even with his betrothal Tonelli felt that +his old, careless, merry life of the hour ended, and that he had tacitly +recognized a future while he was yet unable to cut the past. If one has +for twenty years made a jest of women, however amiably and insincerely, +one does not propose to marry a woman without making a jest of one's +self. The avenging remembrance of elderly people whose late matrimony +had furnished food for Tonelli's wit now rose up to torment him, and in +his morbid fancy the merriment he had caused was echoed back in his own +derision. + +It shocked him to find how quickly his secret took wing, and it annoyed +him that all his acquaintances were so prompt to felicitate him. He +imagined a latent mockery in their speeches, and he took them with an +argumentative solemnity. He reasoned separately with his friends; to all +who spoke to him of his marriage he presented elaborate proofs that it +was the wisest thing he could possibly do, and tried to give the affair +a cold air of prudence. "You see, I am getting old; that is to say, I am +tired of this bachelor life in which I have no one to take care of me, +if I fall sick, and to watch that the doctors do not put me to death. My +pay is very little, but, with Carlotta's dower well invested, we shall +both together live better than either of us lives alone. She is a +careful woman, and will keep me neat and comfortable. She is not so +young as some women I had thought to marry,--no, but so much the better; +nobody will think her half so charming as I do, and at my time of life +that is a great point gained. She is good, and has an admirable +disposition. She is not spoiled by Venice, but as innocent as a dove. O, +I shall find myself very well with her!" + +This was the speech which with slight modification Tonelli made over +and over again to all his friends but Pennellini. To him he unmasked, +and said boldly that at last he was really in love; and being gently +discouraged in what seemed his folly, and incredulously laughed at, he +grew angry, and gave such proofs of his sincerity that Pennellini was +convinced, and owned to himself, "This madman is actually +enamored,--enamored,--like a cat! Patience! What will ever those +Cenarotti say?" + +In a little while poor Tonelli lost the philosophic mind with which he +had at first received the congratulations of his friends, and, from +reasoning with them, fell to resenting their good wishes. Very little +things irritated him, and pleasantries which he had taken in excellent +part, time out of mind, now raised his anger. His barber had for many +years been in the habit of saying, as he applied the stick of fixature +to Tonelli's mustache, and gave it a jaunty upward curl, "Now we will +bestow that little dash of youthfulness"; and it both amazed and hurt +him to have Tonelli respond with a fierce "Tsit!" and say that this jest +was proper in its antiquity to the times of Romulus rather than our own +period, and so go out of the shop without that "Adieu, old fellow," +which he had never failed to give in twenty years. "Capperi!" said the +barber, when he emerged from a profound revery into which this outbreak +had plunged him, and in which he had remained holding the nose of his +next customer, and tweaking it to and fro in the violence of his +emotions, regardless of those mumbled maledictions which the lather +would not permit the victim to articulate. "If Tonelli is so savage in +his betrothal, we must wait for his marriage to tame him. I am sorry. He +was always such a good devil." + +But if many things annoyed Tonelli, there were some that deeply wounded +him, and chiefly the fact that his betrothal seemed to have fixed an +impassable gulf of years between him and all those young men whose +company he loved so well. He had really a boy's heart, and he had +consorted with them because he felt himself nearer their age than his +own. Hitherto they had in no wise found his presence a restraint. They +had always laughed, and told their loves, and spoken their young men's +thoughts, and made their young men's jokes, without fear or shame, +before the merry-hearted sage, who never offered good advice, if indeed +he ever dreamed that there was a wiser philosophy than theirs. It had +been as if he were the youngest among them; but now, in spite of all +that he or they could do, he seemed suddenly and irretrievably aged. +They looked at him strangely, as if for the first time they saw that +his mustache was gray, that his brow was not smooth like theirs, that +there were crow's-feet at the corners of his kindly eyes. They could not +phrase the vague feeling that haunted their hearts, or they would have +said that Tonelli, in offering to marry, had voluntarily turned his back +upon his youth; that love, which would only have brought a richer bloom +to their age, had breathed away forever the autumnal blossom of his. + +Something of this made itself felt in Tonelli's own consciousness, +whenever he met them, and he soon grew to avoid these comrades of his +youth. It was therefore after a purely accidental encounter with one of +them, and as he was passing into the Campo Sant' Angelo, head down, and +supporting himself with an inexplicable sense of infirmity upon the cane +he was wont so jauntily to flourish, that he heard himself addressed +with, "I say, master!" He looked up, and beheld the fat madman who +patrols that campo, and who has the license of his affliction to utter +insolences to whomsoever he will, leaning against the door of a +tobacconist's shop, with his arms folded, and a lazy, mischievous smile +loitering down on his greasy face. As he caught Tonelli's eye he nodded, +"Eh! I have heard, master"; while the idlers of that neighborhood, who +relished and repeated his incoherent pleasantries like the _mots_ of +some great diner-out, gathered near with expectant grins. Had Tonelli +been altogether himself, as in other days, he would have been far too +wise to answer, "What hast thou heard, poor animal?" + +"That you are going to take a mate when most birds think of flying +away," said the madman. "Because it has been summer a long time with +you, master, you think it will never be winter. Look out: the wolf +doesn't eat the season." + +The poor fool in these words seemed to utter a public voice of +disapprobation and derision; and as the pitiless bystanders, who had +many a time laughed with Tonelli, now laughed at him, joining in the +applause which the madman himself led off, the miserable good devil +walked away with a shiver, as if the weather had actually turned cold. +It was not till he found himself in Carlotta's presence that the long +summer appeared to return to him. Indeed, in her tenderness and his real +love for her he won back all his youth again; and he found it of a truer +and sweeter quality than he had known even when his years were few, +while the gay old-bachelor life he had long led seemed to him a period +of miserable loneliness and decrepitude. Mirrored in her fond eyes, he +saw himself alert and handsome; and, since for the time being they were +to each other all the world, we may be sure there was nothing in the +world then to vex or shame Tonelli. The promises of the future, too, +seemed not improbable of fulfilment, for they were not extravagant +promises. These people's castle in the air was a house furnished from +Carlotta's modest portion, and situated in a quarter of the city not too +far from the Piazza, and convenient to a decent caffe, from which they +could order a lemonade or a cup of coffee for visitors. Tonelli's +stipend was to pay the housekeeping, as well as the minute wage of a +servant-girl from the country; and it was believed that they could save +enough from that, and a little of Carlotta's money at interest, to go +sometimes to the Malibran theatre or the Marionette, or even make an +excursion to the mainland upon a holiday; but if they could not, it was +certainly better Italianism to stay at home; and at least they could +always walk to the Public Gardens. At one time, religious differences +threatened to cloud this blissful vision of the future; but it was +finally agreed that Carlotta should go to mass and confession as often +as she liked, and should not tease Tonelli about his soul; while he, on +his part, was not to speak ill of the pope except as a temporal prince, +or of any of the priesthood except of the Jesuits when in company, in +order to show that marriage had not made him a _codino_. For the like +reason, no change was to be made in his custom of praising Garibaldi and +reviling the accursed Germans upon all safe occasions. + +As Tonelli had nothing in the world but his salary and his slender +wardrobe, Carlotta eagerly accepted the idea of a loss of family +property during the revolution. Of Tonelli's scar she was as proud as +Tonelli himself. + +When she came to speak of the acquaintance of all those young men, it +seemed again like a breath from the north to her betrothed; and he +answered, with a sigh, that this was an affair that had already finished +itself. "I have long thought them too boyish for me," he said, "and I +shall keep none of them but Pennellini, who is even older than I,--who, +I believe, was never born, but created middle-aged out of the dust of +the earth, like Adam. He is not a good devil, but he has every good +quality." + +While he thus praised his friend, Tonelli was meditating a service, +which when he asked it of Pennellini, had almost the effect to destroy +their ancient amity. This was no less than the composition of those +wedding-verses, without which, printed and exposed to view in all the +shop-windows, no one in Venice feels himself adequately and truly +married. Pennellini had never willingly made a verse in his life; and +it was long before he understood Tonelli, when he urged the delicate +request. Then in vain he protested, recalcitrated. It was all an offence +to Tonelli's morbid soul, already irritated by his friend's obtuseness, +and eager to turn even the reluctance of nature into insult. He took his +refusal for a sign that he, too, deserted him; and must be called back, +after bidding Pennellini adieu, to hear the only condition on which the +accursed sonnet would be furnished, namely, that it should not be signed +Pennellini, but An Affectionate Friend. Never was sonnet cost poet so +great anguish as this: Pennellini went at it conscientiously as if it +were a problem in mathematics; he refreshed his prosody, he turned over +Carrer, he toiled a whole night, and in due time appeared as Tonelli's +affectionate friend in all the butchers' and bakers' windows. But it had +been too much to ask of him, and for a while he felt the shock of +Tonelli's unreason and excess so much that there was a decided coolness +between them. + +This important particular arranged, little remained for Tonelli to do +but to come to that open understanding with the Paronsina and her mother +which he had long dreaded and avoided. He could not conceal from himself +that his marriage was a kind of desertion of the two dear friends so +dependent upon his singleness, and he considered the case of the +Paronsina with a real remorse. If his meditated act sometimes appeared +to him a gross inconsistency and a satire upon all his former life, he +had still consoled himself with the truth of his passion, and had found +love its own apology and comfort; but in its relation to these lonely +women, his love itself had no fairer aspect than that of treason, and he +shrank from owning it before them with a sense of guilt. Some wild +dreams of reconciling his future with his past occasionally haunted him; +but in his saner moments, he perceived their folly. Carlotta, he knew, +was good and patient, but she was nevertheless a woman, and she would +never consent that he should be to the Cenarotti all that he had been; +these ladies also were very kind and reasonable, but they too were +women, and incapable of accepting a less perfect devotion. Indeed, was +not his proposed marriage too much like taking her only son from the +signora and giving the Paronsina a stepmother? It was worse, and so the +ladies of the notary's family viewed it, cherishing a resentment that +grew with Tonelli's delay to deal frankly with them; while Carlotta, on +her part, was wounded that these old friends should ignore his future +wife so utterly. On both sides evil was stored up. + +When Tonelli would still make a show of fidelity to the Paronsina and +her mother, they accepted his awkward advances, the latter with a cold +visage, the former with a sarcastic face and tongue. He had managed +particularly ill with the Paronsina, who, having no romance of her own, +would possibly have come to enjoy the autumnal poetry of his love if he +had permitted. But when she first approached him on the subject of those +rumors she had heard, and treated them with a natural derision, as +involving the most absurd and preposterous ideas, he, instead of +suffering her jests, and then turning her interest to his favor, +resented them, and closed his heart and its secret against her. What +could she do, thereafter, but feign to avoid the subject, and adroitly +touch it with constant, invisible stings? Alas! it did not need that she +should ever speak to Tonelli with the wicked intent she did; at this +time he would have taken ill whatever most innocent thing she said. When +friends are to be estranged, they do not require a cause. They have but +to doubt one another, and no forced forbearance or kindness between them +can do aught but confirm their alienation. This is on the whole +fortunate, for in this manner neither feels to blame for the broken +friendship, and each can declare with perfect truth that he did all he +could to maintain it. Tonelli said to himself, "If the Paronsina had +treated the affair properly at first!" and the Paronsina thought, "If he +had told me frankly about it to begin with!" Both had a latent heartache +over their trouble, and both a sense of loss the more bitter because it +was of loss still unacknowledged. + +As the day fixed for Tonelli's wedding drew near, the rumor of it came +to the Cenarotti from all their acquaintance. But when people spoke to +them of it, as of something they must be fully and particularly informed +of, the signora answered coldly, "It seems that we have not merited +Tonelli's confidence"; and the Paronsina received the gossip with an air +of clearly affected surprise, and a "_Davvero!_" that at least +discomfited the tale-bearers. + +The consciousness of the unworthy part he was acting toward these ladies +had come at last to poison the pleasure of Tonelli's wooing, even in +Carlotta's presence; yet I suppose he would still have let his +wedding-day come and go, and been married beyond hope of atonement, so +loath was he to inflict upon himself and them the pain of an +explanation, if one day, within a week of that time, the notary had not +bade his clerk dine with him on the morrow. It was a holiday, and as +Carlotta was at home, making ready for the marriage, Tonelli consented +to take his place at the table from which he had been a long time +absent. But it turned out such a frigid and melancholy banquet as never +was known before. The old notary, to whom all things came dimly, finally +missed the accustomed warmth of Tonelli's fun, and said, with a little +shiver, "Why, what ails you, Tonelli? You are as moody as a man in +love." + +The notary had been told several times of Tonelli's affair, but it was +his characteristic not to remember any gossip later than that of +'Forty-eight. + +The Paronsina burst into a laugh full of the cruelty and insult of a +woman's long-smothered sense of injury. "Caro nonno," she screamed into +her grandfather's dull ear, "he is really in despair how to support his +happiness. He is shy, even of his old friends,--he has had so little +experience. It is the first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la +gioventu, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally loosed, the +Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, that hurt more from their +purpose than their point, and gave no one greater pain than herself. + +Tonelli sat sad and perfectly mute under the infliction, but he said in +his heart, "I have merited worse." + +At first the signora remained quite aghast; but when she collected +herself, she called out peremptorily, "Madamigella, you push the affair +a little beyond. Cease!" + +The Paronsina, having said all she desired, ceased, panting. + +The old notary, for whose slow sense all but her first words had been +too quick, though all had been spoken at him, said dryly, turning to +Tonelli, "I imagine that my deafness is not always a misfortune." + +It was by an inexplicable, but hardly less inevitable, violence to the +inclinations of each that, after this miserable dinner, the signora, the +Paronsina, and Tonelli should go forth together for their wonted +promenade on the Molo. Use, which is the second, is also very often the +stronger nature, and so these parted friends made a last show of union +and harmony. In nothing had their amity been more fatally broken than in +this careful homage to its forms; and now, as they walked up and down in +the moonlight, they were of the saddest kind of apparitions,--not mere +disembodied spirits, which, however, are bad enough, but disanimated +bodies, which are far worse, and of which people are not more afraid +only because they go about in society so commonly. As on many and many +another night of summers past, the moon came up and stood over the Lido, +striking far across the glittering lagoon, and everywhere winning the +flattered eye to the dark masses of shadow upon the water; to the trees +of the Gardens, to the trees and towers and domes of the cloistered and +templed isles. Scene of pensive and incomparable loveliness! giving even +to the stranger, in some faint and most unequal fashion, a sense of the +awful meaning of exile to the Venetian, who in all other lands in the +world is doubly an alien, from their unutterable unlikeness to his sole +and beautiful city. The prospect had that pathetic unreality to the +friends which natural things always assume to people playing a part, and +I imagine that they saw it not more substantial than it appears to the +exile in his dreams. In their promenade they met again and again the +unknown, wonted faces; they even encountered some acquaintances, whom +they greeted, and with whom they chatted for a while; and when at nine +the bronze giants beat the hour upon their bell,--with as remote effect +as if they were giants of the times before the flood,--they were aware +of Pennellini, promptly appearing like an exact and methodical spectre. + +But to-night the Paronsina, who had made the scene no compliments, did +not insist as usual upon the ice at Florian's; and Pennellini took his +formal leave of the friends under the arch of the Clock Tower, and they +walked silently homeward through the echoing Merceria. + +At the notary's gate Tonelli would have said good-night, but the signora +made him enter with them, and then abruptly left him standing with the +Paronsina in the gallery, while she was heard hurrying away to her own +apartment. She reappeared, extending toward Tonelli both hands, upon +which glittered and glittered manifold skeins of the delicate chain of +Venice. + +She had a very stately and impressive bearing, as she stood there in the +moonlight, and addressed him with a collected voice. "Tonelli," she +said, "I think you have treated your oldest and best friends very +cruelly. Was it not enough that you should take yourself from us, but +you must also forbid our hearts to follow you even in sympathy and good +wishes? I had almost thought to say adieu forever to-night; but," she +continued, with a breaking utterance, and passing tenderly to the +familiar form of address, "I cannot part so with thee. Thou hast been +too like a son to me, too like a brother to my poor Clarice. Maybe thou +no longer lovest us, yet I think thou wilt not disdain this gift for thy +wife. Take it, Tonelli, if not for our sake, perhaps then for the sake +of sorrows that in times past we have shared together in this unhappy +Venice." + +Here the signora ended perforce the speech, which had been long for +her, and the Paronsina burst into a passion of weeping,--not more at her +mamma's words than out of self-pity and from the national sensibility. + +Tonelli took the chain, and reverently kissed it and the hands that gave +it. He had a helpless sense of the injustice the signora's words and the +Paronsina's tears did him; he knew that they put him with feminine +excess further in the wrong than even his own weakness had; but he tried +to express nothing of this,--it was but part of the miserable maze in +which his life was involved. With what courage he might he owned his +error, but protested his faithful friendship, and poured out all his +troubles,--his love for Carlotta, his regret for them, his shame and +remorse for himself. They forgave him, and there was everything in their +words and will to restore their old friendship, and keep it; and when +the gate with a loud clang closed upon Tonelli, going from them, they +all felt that it had irrevocably perished. + +I do not say that there was not always a decent and affectionate bearing +on the part of the Paronsina and her mother towards Tonelli and his +wife; I acknowledge that it was but too careful and faultless a +tenderness, ever conscious of its own fragility. Far more natural was +the satisfaction they took in the delayed fruitfulness of Tonelli's +marriage, and then in the fact that his child was a girl, and not a boy. +It was but human that they should doubt his happiness, and that the +signora should always say, when hard pressed with questions upon the +matter: "Yes, Tonelli is married; but if it were to do again, I think he +would do it to-morrow rather than to-day." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fearful Responsibility and Other +Stories, by William D. 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