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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/306-0.txt b/306-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..736c7f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/306-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5875 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, +Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton + +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: The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #306] +Release Date: August, 1995 +Last Updated: October 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + + + + +Produced by John Hamm + + + + + +THE EARLY SHORT FICTION OF EDITH WHARTON + +A Ten-Part Collection + +Volume Two + + + +Contents of Part Two + + Stories + AFTERWARD............................January 1910 + THE FULNESS OF LIFE..................December 1893 + A VENETIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT.....December 1903 + XINGU................................December 1911 + THE VERDICT..........................June 1908 + THE RECKONING........................August 1902 + + + Verse + + BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE...January 1891 + THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI...........February 1891 + THE SONNET...........................November 1891 + TWO BACKGROUNDS......................November 1892 + EXPERIENCE...........................January 1893 + CHARTRES.............................September 1893 + LIFE.................................June 1894 + AN AUTUMN SUNSET.....................October 1894 + + + + + +AFTERWARD + +January 1910 + + + + +I + + +“Oh, there IS one, of course, but you’ll never know it.” + +The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a bright June +garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp perception of its latent +significance as she stood, in the December dusk, waiting for the lamps +to be brought into the library. + +The words had been spoken by their friend Alida Stair, as they sat at +tea on her lawn at Pangbourne, in reference to the very house of which +the library in question was the central, the pivotal “feature.” Mary +Boyne and her husband, in quest of a country place in one of the +southern or southwestern counties, had, on their arrival in England, +carried their problem straight to Alida Stair, who had successfully +solved it in her own case; but it was not until they had rejected, +almost capriciously, several practical and judicious suggestions that +she threw it out: “Well, there’s Lyng, in Dorsetshire. It belongs to +Hugo’s cousins, and you can get it for a song.” + +The reasons she gave for its being obtainable on these terms--its +remoteness from a station, its lack of electric light, hot-water pipes, +and other vulgar necessities--were exactly those pleading in its +favor with two romantic Americans perversely in search of the economic +drawbacks which were associated, in their tradition, with unusual +architectural felicities. + +“I should never believe I was living in an old house unless I was +thoroughly uncomfortable,” Ned Boyne, the more extravagant of the two, +had jocosely insisted; “the least hint of ‘convenience’ would make me +think it had been bought out of an exhibition, with the pieces numbered, +and set up again.” And they had proceeded to enumerate, with humorous +precision, their various suspicions and exactions, refusing to believe +that the house their cousin recommended was REALLY Tudor till they +learned it had no heating system, or that the village church was +literally in the grounds till she assured them of the deplorable +uncertainty of the water-supply. + +“It’s too uncomfortable to be true!” Edward Boyne had continued to exult +as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively wrung from her; but +he had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with a sudden relapse to distrust: +“And the ghost? You’ve been concealing from us the fact that there is no +ghost!” + +Mary, at the moment, had laughed with him, yet almost with her laugh, +being possessed of several sets of independent perceptions, had noted a +sudden flatness of tone in Alida’s answering hilarity. + +“Oh, Dorsetshire’s full of ghosts, you know.” + +“Yes, yes; but that won’t do. I don’t want to have to drive ten miles +to see somebody else’s ghost. I want one of my own on the premises. IS +there a ghost at Lyng?” + +His rejoinder had made Alida laugh again, and it was then that she had +flung back tantalizingly: “Oh, there IS one, of course, but you’ll never +know it.” + +“Never know it?” Boyne pulled her up. “But what in the world constitutes +a ghost except the fact of its being known for one?” + +“I can’t say. But that’s the story.” + +“That there’s a ghost, but that nobody knows it’s a ghost?” + +“Well--not till afterward, at any rate.” + +“Till afterward?” + +“Not till long, long afterward.” + +“But if it’s once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn’t +its signalement been handed down in the family? How has it managed to +preserve its incognito?” + +Alida could only shake her head. “Don’t ask me. But it has.” + +“And then suddenly--” Mary spoke up as if from some cavernous depth of +divination--“suddenly, long afterward, one says to one’s self, ‘THAT WAS +it?’” + +She was oddly startled at the sepulchral sound with which her question +fell on the banter of the other two, and she saw the shadow of the same +surprise flit across Alida’s clear pupils. “I suppose so. One just has +to wait.” + +“Oh, hang waiting!” Ned broke in. “Life’s too short for a ghost who can +only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can’t we do better than that, Mary?” + +But it turned out that in the event they were not destined to, for +within three months of their conversation with Mrs. Stair they were +established at Lyng, and the life they had yearned for to the point of +planning it out in all its daily details had actually begun for them. + +It was to sit, in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide-hooded +fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the sense that beyond +the mullioned panes the downs were darkening to a deeper solitude: it +was for the ultimate indulgence in such sensations that Mary Boyne had +endured for nearly fourteen years the soul-deadening ugliness of the +Middle West, and that Boyne had ground on doggedly at his engineering +till, with a suddenness that still made her blink, the prodigious +windfall of the Blue Star Mine had put them at a stroke in possession +of life and the leisure to taste it. They had never for a moment meant +their new state to be one of idleness; but they meant to give themselves +only to harmonious activities. She had her vision of painting and +gardening (against a background of gray walls), he dreamed of the +production of his long-planned book on the “Economic Basis of +Culture”; and with such absorbing work ahead no existence could be too +sequestered; they could not get far enough from the world, or plunge +deep enough into the past. + +Dorsetshire had attracted them from the first by a semblance of +remoteness out of all proportion to its geographical position. But +to the Boynes it was one of the ever-recurring wonders of the whole +incredibly compressed island--a nest of counties, as they put it--that +for the production of its effects so little of a given quality went +so far: that so few miles made a distance, and so short a distance a +difference. + +“It’s that,” Ned had once enthusiastically explained, “that gives such +depth to their effects, such relief to their least contrasts. They’ve +been able to lay the butter so thick on every exquisite mouthful.” + +The butter had certainly been laid on thick at Lyng: the old gray house, +hidden under a shoulder of the downs, had almost all the finer marks of +commerce with a protracted past. The mere fact that it was neither large +nor exceptional made it, to the Boynes, abound the more richly in +its special sense--the sense of having been for centuries a deep, dim +reservoir of life. The life had probably not been of the most vivid +order: for long periods, no doubt, it had fallen as noiselessly into +the past as the quiet drizzle of autumn fell, hour after hour, into the +green fish-pond between the yews; but these back-waters of existence +sometimes breed, in their sluggish depths, strange acuities of emotion, +and Mary Boyne had felt from the first the occasional brush of an +intenser memory. + +The feeling had never been stronger than on the December afternoon when, +waiting in the library for the belated lamps, she rose from her seat and +stood among the shadows of the hearth. Her husband had gone off, after +luncheon, for one of his long tramps on the downs. She had noticed of +late that he preferred to be unaccompanied on these occasions; and, +in the tried security of their personal relations, had been driven +to conclude that his book was bothering him, and that he needed the +afternoons to turn over in solitude the problems left from the morning’s +work. Certainly the book was not going as smoothly as she had imagined +it would, and the lines of perplexity between his eyes had never been +there in his engineering days. Then he had often looked fagged to the +verge of illness, but the native demon of “worry” had never branded his +brow. Yet the few pages he had so far read to her--the introduction, and +a synopsis of the opening chapter--gave evidences of a firm possession +of his subject, and a deepening confidence in his powers. + +The fact threw her into deeper perplexity, since, now that he had done +with “business” and its disturbing contingencies, the one other possible +element of anxiety was eliminated. Unless it were his health, then? +But physically he had gained since they had come to Dorsetshire, grown +robuster, ruddier, and fresher-eyed. It was only within a week that she +had felt in him the undefinable change that made her restless in his +absence, and as tongue-tied in his presence as though it were SHE who +had a secret to keep from him! + +The thought that there WAS a secret somewhere between them struck her +with a sudden smart rap of wonder, and she looked about her down the +dim, long room. + +“Can it be the house?” she mused. + +The room itself might have been full of secrets. They seemed to be +piling themselves up, as evening fell, like the layers and layers of +velvet shadow dropping from the low ceiling, the dusky walls of books, +the smoke-blurred sculpture of the hooded hearth. + +“Why, of course--the house is haunted!” she reflected. + +The ghost--Alida’s imperceptible ghost--after figuring largely in the +banter of their first month or two at Lyng, had been gradually discarded +as too ineffectual for imaginative use. Mary had, indeed, as became the +tenant of a haunted house, made the customary inquiries among her few +rural neighbors, but, beyond a vague, “They du say so, Ma’am,” the +villagers had nothing to impart. The elusive specter had apparently +never had sufficient identity for a legend to crystallize about it, +and after a time the Boynes had laughingly set the matter down to their +profit-and-loss account, agreeing that Lyng was one of the few houses +good enough in itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements. + +“And I suppose, poor, ineffectual demon, that’s why it beats its +beautiful wings in vain in the void,” Mary had laughingly concluded. + +“Or, rather,” Ned answered, in the same strain, “why, amid so much +that’s ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence as THE +ghost.” And thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped out +of their references, which were numerous enough to make them promptly +unaware of the loss. + +Now, as she stood on the hearth, the subject of their earlier curiosity +revived in her with a new sense of its meaning--a sense gradually +acquired through close daily contact with the scene of the lurking +mystery. It was the house itself, of course, that possessed the +ghost-seeing faculty, that communed visually but secretly with its own +past; and if one could only get into close enough communion with the +house, one might surprise its secret, and acquire the ghost-sight on +one’s own account. Perhaps, in his long solitary hours in this very +room, where she never trespassed till the afternoon, her husband HAD +acquired it already, and was silently carrying the dread weight of +whatever it had revealed to him. Mary was too well-versed in the code of +the spectral world not to know that one could not talk about the ghosts +one saw: to do so was almost as great a breach of good-breeding as to +name a lady in a club. But this explanation did not really satisfy her. +“What, after all, except for the fun of the frisson,” she reflected, +“would he really care for any of their old ghosts?” And thence she was +thrown back once more on the fundamental dilemma: the fact that one’s +greater or less susceptibility to spectral influences had no particular +bearing on the case, since, when one DID see a ghost at Lyng, one did +not know it. + +“Not till long afterward,” Alida Stair had said. Well, supposing Ned HAD +seen one when they first came, and had known only within the last week +what had happened to him? More and more under the spell of the hour, she +threw back her searching thoughts to the early days of their tenancy, +but at first only to recall a gay confusion of unpacking, settling, +arranging of books, and calling to each other from remote corners of the +house as treasure after treasure of their habitation revealed itself to +them. It was in this particular connection that she presently recalled +a certain soft afternoon of the previous October, when, passing from the +first rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of the +old house, she had pressed (like a novel heroine) a panel that opened at +her touch, on a narrow flight of stairs leading to an unsuspected flat +ledge of the roof--the roof which, from below, seemed to slope away on +all sides too abruptly for any but practised feet to scale. + +The view from this hidden coign was enchanting, and she had flown down +to snatch Ned from his papers and give him the freedom of her discovery. +She remembered still how, standing on the narrow ledge, he had passed +his arm about her while their gaze flew to the long, tossed horizon-line +of the downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace the arabesque +of yew hedges about the fish-pond, and the shadow of the cedar on the +lawn. + +“And now the other way,” he had said, gently turning her about within +his arm; and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed, like some long, +satisfying draft, the picture of the gray-walled court, the squat lions +on the gates, and the lime-avenue reaching up to the highroad under the +downs. + +It was just then, while they gazed and held each other, that she had +felt his arm relax, and heard a sharp “Hullo!” that made her turn to +glance at him. + +Distinctly, yes, she now recalled she had seen, as she glanced, a shadow +of anxiety, of perplexity, rather, fall across his face; and, following +his eyes, had beheld the figure of a man--a man in loose, grayish +clothes, as it appeared to her--who was sauntering down the lime-avenue +to the court with the tentative gait of a stranger seeking his way. Her +short-sighted eyes had given her but a blurred impression of slightness +and grayness, with something foreign, or at least unlocal, in the cut of +the figure or its garb; but her husband had apparently seen more--seen +enough to make him push past her with a sharp “Wait!” and dash down the +twisting stairs without pausing to give her a hand for the descent. + +A slight tendency to dizziness obliged her, after a provisional clutch +at the chimney against which they had been leaning, to follow him down +more cautiously; and when she had reached the attic landing she paused +again for a less definite reason, leaning over the oak banister to +strain her eyes through the silence of the brown, sun-flecked depths +below. She lingered there till, somewhere in those depths, she heard +the closing of a door; then, mechanically impelled, she went down the +shallow flights of steps till she reached the lower hall. + +The front door stood open on the mild sunlight of the court, and +hall and court were empty. The library door was open, too, and after +listening in vain for any sound of voices within, she quickly crossed +the threshold, and found her husband alone, vaguely fingering the papers +on his desk. + +He looked up, as if surprised at her precipitate entrance, but the +shadow of anxiety had passed from his face, leaving it even, as she +fancied, a little brighter and clearer than usual. + +“What was it? Who was it?” she asked. + +“Who?” he repeated, with the surprise still all on his side. + +“The man we saw coming toward the house.” + +He seemed honestly to reflect. “The man? Why, I thought I saw Peters; +I dashed after him to say a word about the stable-drains, but he had +disappeared before I could get down.” + +“Disappeared? Why, he seemed to be walking so slowly when we saw him.” + +Boyne shrugged his shoulders. “So I thought; but he must have got up +steam in the interval. What do you say to our trying a scramble up +Meldon Steep before sunset?” + +That was all. At the time the occurrence had been less than nothing, +had, indeed, been immediately obliterated by the magic of their first +vision from Meldon Steep, a height which they had dreamed of climbing +ever since they had first seen its bare spine heaving itself above the +low roof of Lyng. Doubtless it was the mere fact of the other incident’s +having occurred on the very day of their ascent to Meldon that had kept +it stored away in the unconscious fold of association from which it now +emerged; for in itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment +there could have been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash +himself from the roof in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It was the +period when they were always on the watch for one or the other of the +specialists employed about the place; always lying in wait for them, +and dashing out at them with questions, reproaches, or reminders. And +certainly in the distance the gray figure had looked like Peters. + +Yet now, as she reviewed the rapid scene, she felt her husband’s +explanation of it to have been invalidated by the look of anxiety on his +face. Why had the familiar appearance of Peters made him anxious? +Why, above all, if it was of such prime necessity to confer with that +authority on the subject of the stable-drains, had the failure to find +him produced such a look of relief? Mary could not say that any one +of these considerations had occurred to her at the time, yet, from the +promptness with which they now marshaled themselves at her summons, she +had a sudden sense that they must all along have been there, waiting +their hour. + + + + +II + + +Weary with her thoughts, she moved toward the window. The library was +now completely dark, and she was surprised to see how much faint light +the outer world still held. + +As she peered out into it across the court, a figure shaped itself in +the tapering perspective of bare lines: it looked a mere blot of deeper +gray in the grayness, and for an instant, as it moved toward her, her +heart thumped to the thought, “It’s the ghost!” + +She had time, in that long instant, to feel suddenly that the man of +whom, two months earlier, she had a brief distant vision from the roof +was now, at his predestined hour, about to reveal himself as NOT +having been Peters; and her spirit sank under the impending fear of the +disclosure. But almost with the next tick of the clock the ambiguous +figure, gaining substance and character, showed itself even to her weak +sight as her husband’s; and she turned away to meet him, as he entered, +with the confession of her folly. + +“It’s really too absurd,” she laughed out from the threshold, “but I +never CAN remember!” + +“Remember what?” Boyne questioned as they drew together. + +“That when one sees the Lyng ghost one never knows it.” + +Her hand was on his sleeve, and he kept it there, but with no response +in his gesture or in the lines of his fagged, preoccupied face. + +“Did you think you’d seen it?” he asked, after an appreciable interval. + +“Why, I actually took YOU for it, my dear, in my mad determination to +spot it!” + +“Me--just now?” His arm dropped away, and he turned from her with a +faint echo of her laugh. “Really, dearest, you’d better give it up, if +that’s the best you can do.” + +“Yes, I give it up--I give it up. Have YOU?” she asked, turning round on +him abruptly. + +The parlor-maid had entered with letters and a lamp, and the light +struck up into Boyne’s face as he bent above the tray she presented. + +“Have YOU?” Mary perversely insisted, when the servant had disappeared +on her errand of illumination. + +“Have I what?” he rejoined absently, the light bringing out the sharp +stamp of worry between his brows as he turned over the letters. + +“Given up trying to see the ghost.” Her heart beat a little at the +experiment she was making. + +Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the shadow of the +hearth. + +“I never tried,” he said, tearing open the wrapper of a newspaper. + +“Well, of course,” Mary persisted, “the exasperating thing is that +there’s no use trying, since one can’t be sure till so long afterward.” + +He was unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but after a +pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically between his hands, +he lifted his head to say abruptly, “Have you any idea HOW LONG?” + +Mary had sunk into a low chair beside the fireplace. From her seat +she looked up, startled, at her husband’s profile, which was darkly +projected against the circle of lamplight. + +“No; none. Have YOU?” she retorted, repeating her former phrase with an +added keenness of intention. + +Boyne crumpled the paper into a bunch, and then inconsequently turned +back with it toward the lamp. + +“Lord, no! I only meant,” he explained, with a faint tinge of +impatience, “is there any legend, any tradition, as to that?” + +“Not that I know of,” she answered; but the impulse to add, “What makes +you ask?” was checked by the reappearance of the parlor-maid with tea +and a second lamp. + +With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily domestic +office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that sense of +something mutely imminent which had darkened her solitary afternoon. For +a few moments she gave herself silently to the details of her task, and +when she looked up from it she was struck to the point of bewilderment +by the change in her husband’s face. He had seated himself near the +farther lamp, and was absorbed in the perusal of his letters; but was it +something he had found in them, or merely the shifting of her own point +of view, that had restored his features to their normal aspect? The +longer she looked, the more definitely the change affirmed itself. The +lines of painful tension had vanished, and such traces of fatigue as +lingered were of the kind easily attributable to steady mental effort. +He glanced up, as if drawn by her gaze, and met her eyes with a smile. + +“I’m dying for my tea, you know; and here’s a letter for you,” he said. + +She took the letter he held out in exchange for the cup she proffered +him, and, returning to her seat, broke the seal with the languid gesture +of the reader whose interests are all inclosed in the circle of one +cherished presence. + +Her next conscious motion was that of starting to her feet, the letter +falling to them as she rose, while she held out to her husband a long +newspaper clipping. + +“Ned! What’s this? What does it mean?” + +He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry before +she uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and she studied +each other, like adversaries watching for an advantage, across the space +between her chair and his desk. + +“What’s what? You fairly made me jump!” Boyne said at length, moving +toward her with a sudden, half-exasperated laugh. The shadow of +apprehension was on his face again, not now a look of fixed foreboding, +but a shifting vigilance of lips and eyes that gave her the sense of his +feeling himself invisibly surrounded. + +Her hand shook so that she could hardly give him the clipping. + +“This article--from the ‘Waukesha Sentinel’--that a man named Elwell has +brought suit against you--that there was something wrong about the Blue +Star Mine. I can’t understand more than half.” + +They continued to face each other as she spoke, and to her astonishment, +she saw that her words had the almost immediate effect of dissipating +the strained watchfulness of his look. + +“Oh, THAT!” He glanced down the printed slip, and then folded it with +the gesture of one who handles something harmless and familiar. “What’s +the matter with you this afternoon, Mary? I thought you’d got bad news.” + +She stood before him with her undefinable terror subsiding slowly under +the reassuring touch of his composure. + +“You knew about this, then--it’s all right?” + +“Certainly I knew about it; and it’s all right.” + +“But what IS it? I don’t understand. What does this man accuse you of?” + +“Oh, pretty nearly every crime in the calendar.” Boyne had tossed the +clipping down, and thrown himself comfortably into an arm-chair near +the fire. “Do you want to hear the story? It’s not particularly +interesting--just a squabble over interests in the Blue Star.” + +“But who is this Elwell? I don’t know the name.” + +“Oh, he’s a fellow I put into it--gave him a hand up. I told you all +about him at the time.” + +“I daresay. I must have forgotten.” Vainly she strained back among her +memories. “But if you helped him, why does he make this return?” + +“Oh, probably some shyster lawyer got hold of him and talked him over. +It’s all rather technical and complicated. I thought that kind of thing +bored you.” + +His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the +American wife’s detachment from her husband’s professional interests, +but in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention +on Boyne’s report of the transactions in which his varied interests +involved him. Besides, she had felt from the first that, in a community +where the amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of +efforts as arduous as her husband’s professional labors, such brief +leisure as they could command should be used as an escape from immediate +preoccupations, a flight to the life they always dreamed of living. Once +or twice, now that this new life had actually drawn its magic circle +about them, she had asked herself if she had done right; but hitherto +such conjectures had been no more than the retrospective excursions of +an active fancy. Now, for the first time, it startled her a little +to find how little she knew of the material foundation on which her +happiness was built. + +She glanced again at her husband, and was reassured by the composure +of his face; yet she felt the need of more definite grounds for her +reassurance. + +“But doesn’t this suit worry you? Why have you never spoken to me about +it?” + +He answered both questions at once: “I didn’t speak of it at first +because it DID worry me--annoyed me, rather. But it’s all ancient +history now. Your correspondent must have got hold of a back number of +the ‘Sentinel.’” + +She felt a quick thrill of relief. “You mean it’s over? He’s lost his +case?” + +There was a just perceptible delay in Boyne’s reply. “The suit’s been +withdrawn--that’s all.” + +But she persisted, as if to exonerate herself from the inward charge of +being too easily put off. “Withdrawn because he saw he had no chance?” + +“Oh, he had no chance,” Boyne answered. + +She was still struggling with a dimly felt perplexity at the back of her +thoughts. + +“How long ago was it withdrawn?” + +He paused, as if with a slight return of his former uncertainty. “I’ve +just had the news now; but I’ve been expecting it.” + +“Just now--in one of your letters?” + +“Yes; in one of my letters.” + +She made no answer, and was aware only, after a short interval of +waiting, that he had risen, and strolling across the room, had placed +himself on the sofa at her side. She felt him, as he did so, pass an arm +about her, she felt his hand seek hers and clasp it, and turning slowly, +drawn by the warmth of his cheek, she met the smiling clearness of his +eyes. + +“It’s all right--it’s all right?” she questioned, through the flood of +her dissolving doubts; and “I give you my word it never was righter!” he +laughed back at her, holding her close. + + + + +III + + +One of the strangest things she was afterward to recall out of all the +next day’s incredible strangeness was the sudden and complete recovery +of her sense of security. + +It was in the air when she woke in her low-ceilinged, dusky room; it +accompanied her down-stairs to the breakfast-table, flashed out at her +from the fire, and re-duplicated itself brightly from the flanks of the +urn and the sturdy flutings of the Georgian teapot. It was as if, in +some roundabout way, all her diffused apprehensions of the previous +day, with their moment of sharp concentration about the newspaper +article,--as if this dim questioning of the future, and startled return +upon the past,--had between them liquidated the arrears of some haunting +moral obligation. If she had indeed been careless of her husband’s +affairs, it was, her new state seemed to prove, because her faith in him +instinctively justified such carelessness; and his right to her faith +had overwhelmingly affirmed itself in the very face of menace and +suspicion. She had never seen him more untroubled, more naturally and +unconsciously in possession of himself, than after the cross-examination +to which she had subjected him: it was almost as if he had been aware of +her lurking doubts, and had wanted the air cleared as much as she did. + +It was as clear, thank Heaven! as the bright outer light that surprised +her almost with a touch of summer when she issued from the house for her +daily round of the gardens. She had left Boyne at his desk, indulging +herself, as she passed the library door, by a last peep at his quiet +face, where he bent, pipe in his mouth, above his papers, and now she +had her own morning’s task to perform. The task involved on such charmed +winter days almost as much delighted loitering about the different +quarters of her demesne as if spring were already at work on shrubs and +borders. There were such inexhaustible possibilities still before her, +such opportunities to bring out the latent graces of the old place, +without a single irreverent touch of alteration, that the winter months +were all too short to plan what spring and autumn executed. And her +recovered sense of safety gave, on this particular morning, a peculiar +zest to her progress through the sweet, still place. She went first to +the kitchen-garden, where the espaliered pear-trees drew complicated +patterns on the walls, and pigeons were fluttering and preening about +the silvery-slated roof of their cot. There was something wrong about +the piping of the hothouse, and she was expecting an authority from +Dorchester, who was to drive out between trains and make a diagnosis of +the boiler. But when she dipped into the damp heat of the greenhouses, +among the spiced scents and waxy pinks and reds of old-fashioned +exotics,--even the flora of Lyng was in the note!--she learned that the +great man had not arrived, and the day being too rare to waste in an +artificial atmosphere, she came out again and paced slowly along the +springy turf of the bowling-green to the gardens behind the house. At +their farther end rose a grass terrace, commanding, over the fish-pond +and the yew hedges, a view of the long house-front, with its twisted +chimney-stacks and the blue shadows of its roof angles, all drenched in +the pale gold moisture of the air. + +Seen thus, across the level tracery of the yews, under the suffused, +mild light, it sent her, from its open windows and hospitably smoking +chimneys, the look of some warm human presence, of a mind slowly ripened +on a sunny wall of experience. She had never before had so deep a sense +of her intimacy with it, such a conviction that its secrets were +all beneficent, kept, as they said to children, “for one’s good,” so +complete a trust in its power to gather up her life and Ned’s into the +harmonious pattern of the long, long story it sat there weaving in the +sun. + +She heard steps behind her, and turned, expecting to see the gardener, +accompanied by the engineer from Dorchester. But only one figure was +in sight, that of a youngish, slightly built man, who, for reasons she +could not on the spot have specified, did not remotely resemble her +preconceived notion of an authority on hot-house boilers. The +new-comer, on seeing her, lifted his hat, and paused with the air of a +gentleman--perhaps a traveler--desirous of having it immediately known +that his intrusion is involuntary. The local fame of Lyng occasionally +attracted the more intelligent sight-seer, and Mary half-expected to see +the stranger dissemble a camera, or justify his presence by producing +it. But he made no gesture of any sort, and after a moment she asked, +in a tone responding to the courteous deprecation of his attitude: “Is +there any one you wish to see?” + +“I came to see Mr. Boyne,” he replied. His intonation, rather than his +accent, was faintly American, and Mary, at the familiar note, looked +at him more closely. The brim of his soft felt hat cast a shade on his +face, which, thus obscured, wore to her short-sighted gaze a look of +seriousness, as of a person arriving “on business,” and civilly but +firmly aware of his rights. + +Past experience had made Mary equally sensible to such claims; but she +was jealous of her husband’s morning hours, and doubtful of his having +given any one the right to intrude on them. + +“Have you an appointment with Mr. Boyne?” she asked. + +He hesitated, as if unprepared for the question. + +“Not exactly an appointment,” he replied. + +“Then I’m afraid, this being his working-time, that he can’t receive you +now. Will you give me a message, or come back later?” + +The visitor, again lifting his hat, briefly replied that he would come +back later, and walked away, as if to regain the front of the house. As +his figure receded down the walk between the yew hedges, Mary saw him +pause and look up an instant at the peaceful house-front bathed in faint +winter sunshine; and it struck her, with a tardy touch of compunction, +that it would have been more humane to ask if he had come from a +distance, and to offer, in that case, to inquire if her husband could +receive him. But as the thought occurred to her he passed out of +sight behind a pyramidal yew, and at the same moment her attention was +distracted by the approach of the gardener, attended by the bearded +pepper-and-salt figure of the boiler-maker from Dorchester. + +The encounter with this authority led to such far-reaching issues that +they resulted in his finding it expedient to ignore his train, and +beguiled Mary into spending the remainder of the morning in absorbed +confabulation among the greenhouses. She was startled to find, when the +colloquy ended, that it was nearly luncheon-time, and she half expected, +as she hurried back to the house, to see her husband coming out to meet +her. But she found no one in the court but an under-gardener raking +the gravel, and the hall, when she entered it, was so silent that she +guessed Boyne to be still at work behind the closed door of the library. + +Not wishing to disturb him, she turned into the drawing-room, and there, +at her writing-table, lost herself in renewed calculations of the outlay +to which the morning’s conference had committed her. The knowledge that +she could permit herself such follies had not yet lost its novelty; and +somehow, in contrast to the vague apprehensions of the previous days, it +now seemed an element of her recovered security, of the sense that, as +Ned had said, things in general had never been “righter.” + +She was still luxuriating in a lavish play of figures when the +parlor-maid, from the threshold, roused her with a dubiously worded +inquiry as to the expediency of serving luncheon. It was one of their +jokes that Trimmle announced luncheon as if she were divulging a +state secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers, merely murmured an +absent-minded assent. + +She felt Trimmle wavering expressively on the threshold as if in rebuke +of such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps sounded down the +passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, crossed the hall, and went +to the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered in her turn, +disliking to disturb her husband, yet anxious that he should not exceed +his normal measure of work. As she stood there, balancing her impulses, +the esoteric Trimmle returned with the announcement of luncheon, and +Mary, thus impelled, opened the door and went into the library. + +Boyne was not at his desk, and she peered about her, expecting to +discover him at the book-shelves, somewhere down the length of the room; +but her call brought no response, and gradually it became clear to her +that he was not in the library. + +She turned back to the parlor-maid. + +“Mr. Boyne must be up-stairs. Please tell him that luncheon is ready.” + +The parlor-maid appeared to hesitate between the obvious duty of obeying +orders and an equally obvious conviction of the foolishness of +the injunction laid upon her. The struggle resulted in her saying +doubtfully, “If you please, Madam, Mr. Boyne’s not up-stairs.” + +“Not in his room? Are you sure?” + +“I’m sure, Madam.” + +Mary consulted the clock. “Where is he, then?” + +“He’s gone out,” Trimmle announced, with the superior air of one who has +respectfully waited for the question that a well-ordered mind would have +first propounded. + +Mary’s previous conjecture had been right, then. Boyne must have gone to +the gardens to meet her, and since she had missed him, it was clear that +he had taken the shorter way by the south door, instead of going round +to the court. She crossed the hall to the glass portal opening directly +on the yew garden, but the parlor-maid, after another moment of inner +conflict, decided to bring out recklessly, “Please, Madam, Mr. Boyne +didn’t go that way.” + +Mary turned back. “Where DID he go? And when?” + +“He went out of the front door, up the drive, Madam.” It was a matter of +principle with Trimmle never to answer more than one question at a time. + +“Up the drive? At this hour?” Mary went to the door herself, and +glanced across the court through the long tunnel of bare limes. But +its perspective was as empty as when she had scanned it on entering the +house. + +“Did Mr. Boyne leave no message?” she asked. + +Trimmle seemed to surrender herself to a last struggle with the forces +of chaos. + +“No, Madam. He just went out with the gentleman.” + +“The gentleman? What gentleman?” Mary wheeled about, as if to front this +new factor. + +“The gentleman who called, Madam,” said Trimmle, resignedly. + +“When did a gentleman call? Do explain yourself, Trimmle!” + +Only the fact that Mary was very hungry, and that she wanted to consult +her husband about the greenhouses, would have caused her to lay so +unusual an injunction on her attendant; and even now she was detached +enough to note in Trimmle’s eye the dawning defiance of the respectful +subordinate who has been pressed too hard. + +“I couldn’t exactly say the hour, Madam, because I didn’t let the +gentleman in,” she replied, with the air of magnanimously ignoring the +irregularity of her mistress’s course. + +“You didn’t let him in?” + +“No, Madam. When the bell rang I was dressing, and Agnes--” + +“Go and ask Agnes, then,” Mary interjected. Trimmle still wore her +look of patient magnanimity. “Agnes would not know, Madam, for she had +unfortunately burnt her hand in trying the wick of the new lamp from +town--” Trimmle, as Mary was aware, had always been opposed to the new +lamp--“and so Mrs. Dockett sent the kitchen-maid instead.” + +Mary looked again at the clock. “It’s after two! Go and ask the +kitchen-maid if Mr. Boyne left any word.” + +She went into luncheon without waiting, and Trimmle presently brought +her there the kitchen-maid’s statement that the gentleman had called +about one o’clock, that Mr. Boyne had gone out with him without leaving +any message. The kitchen-maid did not even know the caller’s name, for +he had written it on a slip of paper, which he had folded and handed to +her, with the injunction to deliver it at once to Mr. Boyne. + +Mary finished her luncheon, still wondering, and when it was over, +and Trimmle had brought the coffee to the drawing-room, her wonder had +deepened to a first faint tinge of disquietude. It was unlike Boyne +to absent himself without explanation at so unwonted an hour, and the +difficulty of identifying the visitor whose summons he had apparently +obeyed made his disappearance the more unaccountable. Mary Boyne’s +experience as the wife of a busy engineer, subject to sudden calls and +compelled to keep irregular hours, had trained her to the philosophic +acceptance of surprises; but since Boyne’s withdrawal from business he +had adopted a Benedictine regularity of life. As if to make up for the +dispersed and agitated years, with their “stand-up” lunches and dinners +rattled down to the joltings of the dining-car, he cultivated the last +refinements of punctuality and monotony, discouraging his wife’s fancy +for the unexpected; and declaring that to a delicate taste there were +infinite gradations of pleasure in the fixed recurrences of habit. + +Still, since no life can completely defend itself from the unforeseen, +it was evident that all Boyne’s precautions would sooner or later prove +unavailable, and Mary concluded that he had cut short a tiresome visit +by walking with his caller to the station, or at least accompanying him +for part of the way. + +This conclusion relieved her from farther preoccupation, and she went +out herself to take up her conference with the gardener. Thence she +walked to the village post-office, a mile or so away; and when she +turned toward home, the early twilight was setting in. + +She had taken a foot-path across the downs, and as Boyne, meanwhile, +had probably returned from the station by the highroad, there was little +likelihood of their meeting on the way. She felt sure, however, of his +having reached the house before her; so sure that, when she entered it +herself, without even pausing to inquire of Trimmle, she made directly +for the library. But the library was still empty, and with an unwonted +precision of visual memory she immediately observed that the papers on +her husband’s desk lay precisely as they had lain when she had gone in +to call him to luncheon. + +Then of a sudden she was seized by a vague dread of the unknown. She had +closed the door behind her on entering, and as she stood alone in the +long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take shape and sound, +to be there audibly breathing and lurking among the shadows. Her +short-sighted eyes strained through them, half-discerning an actual +presence, something aloof, that watched and knew; and in the recoil from +that intangible propinquity she threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope +and gave it a desperate pull. + +The long, quavering summons brought Trimmle in precipitately with a +lamp, and Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of the +usual. + +“You may bring tea if Mr. Boyne is in,” she said, to justify her ring. + +“Very well, Madam. But Mr. Boyne is not in,” said Trimmle, putting down +the lamp. + +“Not in? You mean he’s come back and gone out again?” + +“No, Madam. He’s never been back.” + +The dread stirred again, and Mary knew that now it had her fast. + +“Not since he went out with--the gentleman?” + +“Not since he went out with the gentleman.” + +“But who WAS the gentleman?” Mary gasped out, with the sharp note of +some one trying to be heard through a confusion of meaningless noises. + +“That I couldn’t say, Madam.” Trimmle, standing there by the lamp, +seemed suddenly to grow less round and rosy, as though eclipsed by the +same creeping shade of apprehension. + +“But the kitchen-maid knows--wasn’t it the kitchen-maid who let him in?” + +“She doesn’t know either, Madam, for he wrote his name on a folded +paper.” + +Mary, through her agitation, was aware that they were both designating +the unknown visitor by a vague pronoun, instead of the conventional +formula which, till then, had kept their allusions within the bounds of +custom. And at the same moment her mind caught at the suggestion of the +folded paper. + +“But he must have a name! Where is the paper?” + +She moved to the desk, and began to turn over the scattered documents +that littered it. The first that caught her eye was an unfinished letter +in her husband’s hand, with his pen lying across it, as though dropped +there at a sudden summons. + +“My dear Parvis,”--who was Parvis?--“I have just received your letter +announcing Elwell’s death, and while I suppose there is now no farther +risk of trouble, it might be safer--” + +She tossed the sheet aside, and continued her search; but no folded +paper was discoverable among the letters and pages of manuscript which +had been swept together in a promiscuous heap, as if by a hurried or a +startled gesture. + +“But the kitchen-maid SAW him. Send her here,” she commanded, wondering +at her dullness in not thinking sooner of so simple a solution. + +Trimmle, at the behest, vanished in a flash, as if thankful to be out +of the room, and when she reappeared, conducting the agitated underling, +Mary had regained her self-possession, and had her questions pat. + +The gentleman was a stranger, yes--that she understood. But what had he +said? And, above all, what had he looked like? The first question was +easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason that he had said so +little--had merely asked for Mr. Boyne, and, scribbling something on a +bit of paper, had requested that it should at once be carried in to him. + +“Then you don’t know what he wrote? You’re not sure it WAS his name?” + +The kitchen-maid was not sure, but supposed it was, since he had written +it in answer to her inquiry as to whom she should announce. + +“And when you carried the paper in to Mr. Boyne, what did he say?” + +The kitchen-maid did not think that Mr. Boyne had said anything, but she +could not be sure, for just as she had handed him the paper and he was +opening it, she had become aware that the visitor had followed her +into the library, and she had slipped out, leaving the two gentlemen +together. + +“But then, if you left them in the library, how do you know that they +went out of the house?” + +This question plunged the witness into momentary inarticulateness, +from which she was rescued by Trimmle, who, by means of ingenious +circumlocutions, elicited the statement that before she could cross the +hall to the back passage she had heard the gentlemen behind her, and had +seen them go out of the front door together. + +“Then, if you saw the gentleman twice, you must be able to tell me what +he looked like.” + +But with this final challenge to her powers of expression it became +clear that the limit of the kitchen-maid’s endurance had been reached. +The obligation of going to the front door to “show in” a visitor was +in itself so subversive of the fundamental order of things that it had +thrown her faculties into hopeless disarray, and she could only stammer +out, after various panting efforts at evocation, “His hat, mum, was +different-like, as you might say--” + +“Different? How different?” Mary flashed out at her, her own mind, in +the same instant, leaping back to an image left on it that morning, but +temporarily lost under layers of subsequent impressions. + +“His hat had a wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale--a youngish +face?” Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity of interrogation. +But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate answer to this challenge, +it was swept away for her listener down the rushing current of her own +convictions. The stranger--the stranger in the garden! Why had Mary not +thought of him before? She needed no one now to tell her that it was he +who had called for her husband and gone away with him. But who was he, +and why had Boyne obeyed his call? + + + + +IV + + +It leaped out at her suddenly, like a grin out of the dark, that they +had often called England so little--“such a confoundedly hard place to +get lost in.” + +A CONFOUNDEDLY HARD PLACE TO GET LOST IN! That had been her husband’s +phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of official investigation +sweeping its flash-lights from shore to shore, and across the dividing +straits; now, with Boyne’s name blazing from the walls of every town +and village, his portrait (how that wrung her!) hawked up and down the +country like the image of a hunted criminal; now the little compact, +populous island, so policed, surveyed, and administered, revealed itself +as a Sphinx-like guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his +wife’s anguished eyes as if with the malicious joy of knowing something +they would never know! + +In the fortnight since Boyne’s disappearance there had been no word of +him, no trace of his movements. Even the usual misleading reports that +raise expectancy in tortured bosoms had been few and fleeting. No one +but the bewildered kitchen-maid had seen him leave the house, and no one +else had seen “the gentleman” who accompanied him. All inquiries in the +neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger’s presence that +day in the neighborhood of Lyng. And no one had met Edward Boyne, either +alone or in company, in any of the neighboring villages, or on the road +across the downs, or at either of the local railway-stations. The sunny +English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into +Cimmerian night. + +Mary, while every external means of investigation was working at its +highest pressure, had ransacked her husband’s papers for any trace of +antecedent complications, of entanglements or obligations unknown to +her, that might throw a faint ray into the darkness. But if any such +had existed in the background of Boyne’s life, they had disappeared as +completely as the slip of paper on which the visitor had written his +name. There remained no possible thread of guidance except--if it were +indeed an exception--the letter which Boyne had apparently been in the +act of writing when he received his mysterious summons. That letter, +read and reread by his wife, and submitted by her to the police, yielded +little enough for conjecture to feed on. + +“I have just heard of Elwell’s death, and while I suppose there is now +no farther risk of trouble, it might be safer--” That was all. The “risk +of trouble” was easily explained by the newspaper clipping which had +apprised Mary of the suit brought against her husband by one of his +associates in the Blue Star enterprise. The only new information +conveyed in the letter was the fact of its showing Boyne, when he wrote +it, to be still apprehensive of the results of the suit, though he +had assured his wife that it had been withdrawn, and though the letter +itself declared that the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks +of exhaustive cabling to fix the identity of the “Parvis” to whom the +fragmentary communication was addressed, but even after these inquiries +had shown him to be a Waukesha lawyer, no new facts concerning the +Elwell suit were elicited. He appeared to have had no direct concern +in it, but to have been conversant with the facts merely as an +acquaintance, and possible intermediary; and he declared himself unable +to divine with what object Boyne intended to seek his assistance. + +This negative information, sole fruit of the first fortnight’s feverish +search, was not increased by a jot during the slow weeks that followed. +Mary knew that the investigations were still being carried on, but she +had a vague sense of their gradually slackening, as the actual march of +time seemed to slacken. It was as though the days, flying horror-struck +from the shrouded image of the one inscrutable day, gained assurance as +the distance lengthened, till at last they fell back into their normal +gait. And so with the human imaginations at work on the dark event. No +doubt it occupied them still, but week by week and hour by hour it grew +less absorbing, took up less space, was slowly but inevitably crowded +out of the foreground of consciousness by the new problems perpetually +bubbling up from the vaporous caldron of human experience. + +Even Mary Boyne’s consciousness gradually felt the same lowering of +velocity. It still swayed with the incessant oscillations of conjecture; +but they were slower, more rhythmical in their beat. There were moments +of overwhelming lassitude when, like the victim of some poison which +leaves the brain clear, but holds the body motionless, she saw herself +domesticated with the Horror, accepting its perpetual presence as one of +the fixed conditions of life. + +These moments lengthened into hours and days, till she passed into a +phase of stolid acquiescence. She watched the familiar routine of life +with the incurious eye of a savage on whom the meaningless processes of +civilization make but the faintest impression. She had come to regard +herself as part of the routine, a spoke of the wheel, revolving with its +motion; she felt almost like the furniture of the room in which she sat, +an insensate object to be dusted and pushed about with the chairs and +tables. And this deepening apathy held her fast at Lyng, in spite of +the urgent entreaties of friends and the usual medical recommendation of +“change.” Her friends supposed that her refusal to move was inspired by +the belief that her husband would one day return to the spot from which +he had vanished, and a beautiful legend grew up about this imaginary +state of waiting. But in reality she had no such belief: the depths of +anguish inclosing her were no longer lighted by flashes of hope. She was +sure that Boyne would never come back, that he had gone out of her sight +as completely as if Death itself had waited that day on the threshold. +She had even renounced, one by one, the various theories as to his +disappearance which had been advanced by the press, the police, and her +own agonized imagination. In sheer lassitude her mind turned from these +alternatives of horror, and sank back into the blank fact that he was +gone. + +No, she would never know what had become of him--no one would ever know. +But the house KNEW; the library in which she spent her long, lonely +evenings knew. For it was here that the last scene had been enacted, +here that the stranger had come, and spoken the word which had caused +Boyne to rise and follow him. The floor she trod had felt his tread; the +books on the shelves had seen his face; and there were moments when the +intense consciousness of the old, dusky walls seemed about to break out +into some audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation +never came, and she knew it would never come. Lyng was not one of the +garrulous old houses that betray the secrets intrusted to them. Its +very legend proved that it had always been the mute accomplice, the +incorruptible custodian of the mysteries it had surprised. And Mary +Boyne, sitting face to face with its portentous silence, felt the +futility of seeking to break it by any human means. + + + + +V + + +“I don’t say it WASN’T straight, yet don’t say it WAS straight. It was +business.” + +Mary, at the words, lifted her head with a start, and looked intently at +the speaker. + +When, half an hour before, a card with “Mr. Parvis” on it had been +brought up to her, she had been immediately aware that the name had been +a part of her consciousness ever since she had read it at the head of +Boyne’s unfinished letter. In the library she had found awaiting her a +small neutral-tinted man with a bald head and gold eye-glasses, and it +sent a strange tremor through her to know that this was the person to +whom her husband’s last known thought had been directed. + +Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,--in the manner of a man who +has his watch in his hand,--had set forth the object of his visit. +He had “run over” to England on business, and finding himself in the +neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to leave it without paying +his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without asking her, if the occasion offered, +what she meant to do about Bob Elwell’s family. + +The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary’s bosom. +Did her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by his unfinished +phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his question, and noticed at +once that he seemed surprised at her continued ignorance of the subject. +Was it possible that she really knew as little as she said? + +“I know nothing--you must tell me,” she faltered out; and her visitor +thereupon proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even to her confused +perceptions, and imperfectly initiated vision, a lurid glare on the +whole hazy episode of the Blue Star Mine. Her husband had made his money +in that brilliant speculation at the cost of “getting ahead” of some one +less alert to seize the chance; the victim of his ingenuity was young +Robert Elwell, who had “put him on” to the Blue Star scheme. + +Parvis, at Mary’s first startled cry, had thrown her a sobering glance +through his impartial glasses. + +“Bob Elwell wasn’t smart enough, that’s all; if he had been, he might +have turned round and served Boyne the same way. It’s the kind of thing +that happens every day in business. I guess it’s what the scientists +call the survival of the fittest,” said Mr. Parvis, evidently pleased +with the aptness of his analogy. + +Mary felt a physical shrinking from the next question she tried to +frame; it was as though the words on her lips had a taste that nauseated +her. + +“But then--you accuse my husband of doing something dishonorable?” + +Mr. Parvis surveyed the question dispassionately. “Oh, no, I don’t. +I don’t even say it wasn’t straight.” He glanced up and down the long +lines of books, as if one of them might have supplied him with the +definition he sought. “I don’t say it WASN’T straight, and yet I don’t +say it WAS straight. It was business.” After all, no definition in his +category could be more comprehensive than that. + +Mary sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her like the +indifferent, implacable emissary of some dark, formless power. + +“But Mr. Elwell’s lawyers apparently did not take your view, since I +suppose the suit was withdrawn by their advice.” + +“Oh, yes, they knew he hadn’t a leg to stand on, technically. It was +when they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got desperate. You +see, he’d borrowed most of the money he lost in the Blue Star, and he +was up a tree. That’s why he shot himself when they told him he had no +show.” + +The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves. + +“He shot himself? He killed himself because of THAT?” + +“Well, he didn’t kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months before +he died.” Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally as a gramophone +grinding out its “record.” + +“You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried again?” + +“Oh, he didn’t have to try again,” said Parvis, grimly. + +They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eye-glass +thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms stretched along +her knees in an attitude of rigid tension. + +“But if you knew all this,” she began at length, hardly able to force +her voice above a whisper, “how is it that when I wrote you at the +time of my husband’s disappearance you said you didn’t understand his +letter?” + +Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. “Why, I didn’t +understand it--strictly speaking. And it wasn’t the time to talk +about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when the suit was +withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have helped you to find +your husband.” + +Mary continued to scrutinize him. “Then why are you telling me now?” + +Still Parvis did not hesitate. “Well, to begin with, I supposed you +knew more than you appear to--I mean about the circumstances of Elwell’s +death. And then people are talking of it now; the whole matter’s been +raked up again. And I thought, if you didn’t know, you ought to.” + +She remained silent, and he continued: “You see, it’s only come out +lately what a bad state Elwell’s affairs were in. His wife’s a proud +woman, and she fought on as long as she could, going out to work, and +taking sewing at home, when she got too sick--something with the heart, +I believe. But she had his bedridden mother to look after, and the +children, and she broke down under it, and finally had to ask for help. +That attracted attention to the case, and the papers took it up, and a +subscription was started. Everybody out there liked Bob Elwell, and most +of the prominent names in the place are down on the list, and people +began to wonder why--” + +Parvis broke off to fumble in an inner pocket. “Here,” he continued, +“here’s an account of the whole thing from the ‘Sentinel’--a little +sensational, of course. But I guess you’d better look it over.” + +He held out a newspaper to Mary, who unfolded it slowly, remembering, +as she did so, the evening when, in that same room, the perusal of +a clipping from the “Sentinel” had first shaken the depths of her +security. + +As she opened the paper, her eyes, shrinking from the glaring +head-lines, “Widow of Boyne’s Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid,” ran down +the column of text to two portraits inserted in it. The first was +her husband’s, taken from a photograph made the year they had come to +England. It was the picture of him that she liked best, the one that +stood on the writing-table up-stairs in her bedroom. As the eyes in the +photograph met hers, she felt it would be impossible to read what was +said of him, and closed her lids with the sharpness of the pain. + +“I thought if you felt disposed to put your name down--” she heard +Parvis continue. + +She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell on the other portrait. +It was that of a youngish man, slightly built, in rough clothes, with +features somewhat blurred by the shadow of a projecting hat-brim. Where +had she seen that outline before? She stared at it confusedly, her heart +hammering in her throat and ears. Then she gave a cry. + +“This is the man--the man who came for my husband!” + +She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had +slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending +above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and +reached out for the paper, which she had dropped. + +“It’s the man! I should know him anywhere!” she cried in a voice that +sounded in her own ears like a scream. + +Parvis’s voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless, +fog-muffled windings. + +“Mrs. Boyne, you’re not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get a +glass of water?” + +“No, no, no!” She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically +clenching the newspaper. “I tell you, it’s the man! I KNOW him! He spoke +to me in the garden!” + +Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the portrait. +“It can’t be, Mrs. Boyne. It’s Robert Elwell.” + +“Robert Elwell?” Her white stare seemed to travel into space. “Then it +was Robert Elwell who came for him.” + +“Came for Boyne? The day he went away?” Parvis’s voice dropped as hers +rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax her +gently back into her seat. “Why, Elwell was dead! Don’t you remember?” + +Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what he was +saying. + +“Don’t you remember Boyne’s unfinished letter to me--the one you found +on his desk that day? It was written just after he’d heard of Elwell’s +death.” She noticed an odd shake in Parvis’s unemotional voice. “Surely +you remember that!” he urged her. + +Yes, she remembered: that was the profoundest horror of it. Elwell had +died the day before her husband’s disappearance; and this was Elwell’s +portrait; and it was the portrait of the man who had spoken to her in +the garden. She lifted her head and looked slowly about the library. The +library could have borne witness that it was also the portrait of the +man who had come in that day to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. +Through the misty surgings of her brain she heard the faint boom +of half-forgotten words--words spoken by Alida Stair on the lawn at +Pangbourne before Boyne and his wife had ever seen the house at Lyng, or +had imagined that they might one day live there. + +“This was the man who spoke to me,” she repeated. + +She looked again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his disturbance +under what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; +but the edges of his lips were blue. “He thinks me mad; but I’m not +mad,” she reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way of +justifying her strange affirmation. + +She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting till she +could trust her voice to keep its habitual level; then she said, looking +straight at Parvis: “Will you answer me one question, please? When was +it that Robert Elwell tried to kill himself?” + +“When--when?” Parvis stammered. + +“Yes; the date. Please try to remember.” + +She saw that he was growing still more afraid of her. “I have a reason,” + she insisted gently. + +“Yes, yes. Only I can’t remember. About two months before, I should +say.” + +“I want the date,” she repeated. + +Parvis picked up the newspaper. “We might see here,” he said, still +humoring her. He ran his eyes down the page. “Here it is. Last +October--the--” + +She caught the words from him. “The 20th, wasn’t it?” With a sharp look +at her, he verified. “Yes, the 20th. Then you DID know?” + +“I know now.” Her white stare continued to travel past him. “Sunday, the +20th--that was the day he came first.” + +Parvis’s voice was almost inaudible. “Came HERE first?” + +“Yes.” + +“You saw him twice, then?” + +“Yes, twice.” She breathed it at him with dilated eyes. “He came first +on the 20th of October. I remember the date because it was the day +we went up Meldon Steep for the first time.” She felt a faint gasp +of inward laughter at the thought that but for that she might have +forgotten. + +Parvis continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to intercept her gaze. + +“We saw him from the roof,” she went on. “He came down the lime-avenue +toward the house. He was dressed just as he is in that picture. My +husband saw him first. He was frightened, and ran down ahead of me; but +there was no one there. He had vanished.” + +“Elwell had vanished?” Parvis faltered. + +“Yes.” Their two whispers seemed to grope for each other. “I couldn’t +think what had happened. I see now. He TRIED to come then; but he wasn’t +dead enough--he couldn’t reach us. He had to wait for two months; and +then he came back again--and Ned went with him.” + +She nodded at Parvis with the look of triumph of a child who has +successfully worked out a difficult puzzle. But suddenly she lifted her +hands with a desperate gesture, pressing them to her bursting temples. + +“Oh, my God! I sent him to Ned--I told him where to go! I sent him to +this room!” she screamed out. + +She felt the walls of the room rush toward her, like inward falling +ruins; and she heard Parvis, a long way off, as if through the ruins, +crying to her, and struggling to get at her. But she was numb to his +touch, she did not know what he was saying. Through the tumult she heard +but one clear note, the voice of Alida Stair, speaking on the lawn at +Pangbourne. + +“You won’t know till afterward,” it said. “You won’t know till long, +long afterward.” + + +The End of Afterward + + + + + +THE FULNESS OF LIFE + +December 1893 + + + + +I. + + +For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike that sweet +lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer noon, when the +heat seems to have silenced the very birds and insects, and, lying sunk +in the tasselled meadow-grasses, one looks up through a level roofing +of maple-leaves at the vast shadowless, and unsuggestive blue. Now and +then, at ever-lengthening intervals, a flash of pain darted through her, +like the ripple of sheet-lightning across such a midsummer sky; but it +was too transitory to shake her stupor, that calm, delicious, bottomless +stupor into which she felt herself sinking more and more deeply, without +a disturbing impulse of resistance, an effort of reattachment to the +vanishing edges of consciousness. + +The resistance, the effort, had known their hour of violence; but +now they were at an end. Through her mind, long harried by grotesque +visions, fragmentary images of the life that she was leaving, tormenting +lines of verse, obstinate presentments of pictures once beheld, +indistinct impressions of rivers, towers, and cupolas, gathered in the +length of journeys half forgotten--through her mind there now only moved +a few primal sensations of colorless well-being; a vague satisfaction +in the thought that she had swallowed her noxious last draught of +medicine... and that she should never again hear the creaking of her +husband’s boots--those horrible boots--and that no one would come to +bother her about the next day’s dinner... or the butcher’s book.... + +At last even these dim sensations spent themselves in the thickening +obscurity which enveloped her; a dusk now filled with pale geometric +roses, circling softly, interminably before her, now darkened to a +uniform blue-blackness, the hue of a summer night without stars. And +into this darkness she felt herself sinking, sinking, with the gentle +sense of security of one upheld from beneath. Like a tepid tide it +rose around her, gliding ever higher and higher, folding in its velvety +embrace her relaxed and tired body, now submerging her breast and +shoulders, now creeping gradually, with soft inexorableness, over her +throat to her chin, to her ears, to her mouth.... Ah, now it was rising +too high; the impulse to struggle was renewed;... her mouth was full;... +she was choking.... Help! + +“It is all over,” said the nurse, drawing down the eyelids with official +composure. + +The clock struck three. They remembered it afterward. Someone opened the +window and let in a blast of that strange, neutral air which walks +the earth between darkness and dawn; someone else led the husband into +another room. He walked vaguely, like a blind man, on his creaking +boots. + + + + +II. + + +She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway was in +front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet penetrating as the +gathered glimmer of innumerable stars, expanded gradually before her +eyes, in blissful contrast to the cavernous darkness from which she had +of late emerged. + +She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her eyes +began to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light about her, +she distinguished the outlines of a landscape, at first swimming in +the opaline uncertainty of Shelley’s vaporous creations, then gradually +resolved into distincter shape--the vast unrolling of a sunlit plain, +aerial forms of mountains, and presently the silver crescent of a +river in the valley, and a blue stencilling of trees along its +curve--something suggestive in its ineffable hue of an azure background +of Leonardo’s, strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and +the imagination into regions of fabulous delight. As she gazed, her +heart beat with a soft and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a promise +she read in the summons of that hyaline distance. + +“And so death is not the end after all,” in sheer gladness she heard +herself exclaiming aloud. “I always knew that it couldn’t be. I believed +in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said that he +wasn’t sure about the soul--at least, I think he did--and Wallace was a +spiritualist; and then there was St. George Mivart--” + +Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains. + +“How beautiful! How satisfying!” she murmured. “Perhaps now I shall +really know what it is to live.” + +As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart-beats, and +looking up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of Life. + +“Have you never really known what it is to live?” the Spirit of Life +asked her. + +“I have never known,” she replied, “that fulness of life which we all +feel ourselves capable of knowing; though my life has not been without +scattered hints of it, like the scent of earth which comes to one +sometimes far out at sea.” + +“And what do you call the fulness of life?” the Spirit asked again. + +“Oh, I can’t tell you, if you don’t know,” she said, almost +reproachfully. “Many words are supposed to define it--love and sympathy +are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the +right ones, and so few people really know what they mean.” + +“You were married,” said the Spirit, “yet you did not find the fulness +of life in your marriage?” + +“Oh, dear, no,” she replied, with an indulgent scorn, “my marriage was a +very incomplete affair.” + +“And yet you were fond of your husband?” + +“You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just as I +was fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born in, and my old +nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted a very happy couple. +But I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature is like a great house +full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going +in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the +sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; +but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors +perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows +whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the +soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes.” + +“And your husband,” asked the Spirit, after a pause, “never got beyond +the family sitting-room?” + +“Never,” she returned, impatiently; “and the worst of it was that he was +quite content to remain there. He thought it perfectly beautiful, and +sometimes, when he was admiring its commonplace furniture, insignificant +as the chairs and tables of a hotel parlor, I felt like crying out to +him: ‘Fool, will you never guess that close at hand are rooms full of +treasures and wonders, such as the eye of man hath not seen, rooms that +no step has crossed, but that might be yours to live in, could you but +find the handle of the door?’” + +“Then,” the Spirit continued, “those moments of which you lately spoke, +which seemed to come to you like scattered hints of the fulness of life, +were not shared with your husband?” + +“Oh, no--never. He was different. His boots creaked, and he always +slammed the door when he went out, and he never read anything but +railway novels and the sporting advertisements in the papers--and--and, +in short, we never understood each other in the least.” + +“To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite sensations?” + +“I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a flower; sometimes to a +verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a picture or a sunset, +or to one of those calm days at sea, when one seems to be lying in +the hollow of a blue pearl; sometimes, but rarely, to a word spoken by +someone who chanced to give utterance, at the right moment, to what I +felt but could not express.” + +“Someone whom you loved?” asked the Spirit. + +“I never loved anyone, in that way,” she said, rather sadly, “nor was +I thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or three who, by +touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my being, had called +forth a single note of that strange melody which seemed sleeping in my +soul. It has seldom happened, however, that I have owed such feelings to +people; and no one ever gave me a moment of such happiness as it was my +lot to feel one evening in the Church of Or San Michele, in Florence.” + +“Tell me about it,” said the Spirit. + +“It was near sunset on a rainy spring afternoon in Easter week. The +clouds had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we entered the +church the fiery panes of the high windows shone out like lamps through +the dusk. A priest was at the high altar, his white cope a livid spot in +the incense-laden obscurity, the light of the candles flickering up and +down like fireflies about his head; a few people knelt near by. We stole +behind them and sat down on a bench close to the tabernacle of Orcagna. + +“Strange to say, though Florence was not new to me, I had never been in +the church before; and in that magical light I saw for the first time +the inlaid steps, the fluted columns, the sculptured bas-reliefs and +canopy of the marvellous shrine. The marble, worn and mellowed by the +subtle hand of time, took on an unspeakable rosy hue, suggestive in +some remote way of the honey-colored columns of the Parthenon, but more +mystic, more complex, a color not born of the sun’s inveterate kiss, +but made up of cryptal twilight, and the flame of candles upon martyrs’ +tombs, and gleams of sunset through symbolic panes of chrysoprase and +ruby; such a light as illumines the missals in the library of Siena, +or burns like a hidden fire through the Madonna of Gian Bellini in the +Church of the Redeemer, at Venice; the light of the Middle Ages, richer, +more solemn, more significant than the limpid sunshine of Greece. + +“The church was silent, but for the wail of the priest and the +occasional scraping of a chair against the floor, and as I sat there, +bathed in that light, absorbed in rapt contemplation of the marble +miracle which rose before me, cunningly wrought as a casket of ivory and +enriched with jewel-like incrustations and tarnished gleams of gold, I +felt myself borne onward along a mighty current, whose source seemed to +be in the very beginning of things, and whose tremendous waters gathered +as they went all the mingled streams of human passion and endeavor. +Life in all its varied manifestations of beauty and strangeness seemed +weaving a rhythmical dance around me as I moved, and wherever the spirit +of man had passed I knew that my foot had once been familiar. + +“As I gazed the mediaeval bosses of the tabernacle of Orcagna seemed to +melt and flow into their primal forms so that the folded lotus of +the Nile and the Greek acanthus were braided with the runic knots and +fish-tailed monsters of the North, and all the plastic terror and beauty +born of man’s hand from the Ganges to the Baltic quivered and mingled +in Orcagna’s apotheosis of Mary. And so the river bore me on, past the +alien face of antique civilizations and the familiar wonders of Greece, +till I swam upon the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its +swirling eddies of passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry +and art; I heard the rhythmic blow of the craftsmen’s hammers in the +goldsmiths’ workshops and on the walls of churches, the party-cries of +armed factions in the narrow streets, the organ-roll of Dante’s verse, +the crackle of the fagots around Arnold of Brescia, the twitter of +the swallows to which St. Francis preached, the laughter of the +ladies listening on the hillside to the quips of the Decameron, while +plague-struck Florence howled beneath them--all this and much more I +heard, joined in strange unison with voices earlier and more remote, +fierce, passionate, or tender, yet subdued to such awful harmony that +I thought of the song that the morning stars sang together and felt as +though it were sounding in my ears. My heart beat to suffocation, the +tears burned my lids, the joy, the mystery of it seemed too intolerable +to be borne. I could not understand even then the words of the song; but +I knew that if there had been someone at my side who could have heard it +with me, we might have found the key to it together. + +“I turned to my husband, who was sitting beside me in an attitude of +patient dejection, gazing into the bottom of his hat; but at that moment +he rose, and stretching his stiffened legs, said, mildly: ‘Hadn’t we +better be going? There doesn’t seem to be much to see here, and you know +the table d’hote dinner is at half-past six o’clock.” + + +Her recital ended, there was an interval of silence; then the Spirit of +Life said: “There is a compensation in store for such needs as you have +expressed.” + +“Oh, then you DO understand?” she exclaimed. “Tell me what compensation, +I entreat you!” + +“It is ordained,” the Spirit answered, “that every soul which seeks +in vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare its inmost +being shall find that soul here and be united to it for eternity.” + +A glad cry broke from her lips. “Ah, shall I find him at last?” she +cried, exultant. + +“He is here,” said the Spirit of Life. + +She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in that +unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than his face) +drew her toward him with an invincible force. + +“Are you really he?” she murmured. + +“I am he,” he answered. + +She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which overhung +the valley. + +“Shall we go down together,” she asked him, “into that marvellous +country; shall we see it together, as if with the self-same eyes, and +tell each other in the same words all that we think and feel?” + +“So,” he replied, “have I hoped and dreamed.” + +“What?” she asked, with rising joy. “Then you, too, have looked for me?” + +“All my life.” + +“How wonderful! And did you never, never find anyone in the other world +who understood you?” + +“Not wholly--not as you and I understand each other.” + +“Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy,” she sighed. + +They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the +shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into sapphirine +space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the threshold, heard +now and then a floating fragment of their talk blown backward like the +stray swallows which the wind sometimes separates from their migratory +tribe. + +“Did you never feel at sunset--” + +“Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?” + +“Do you remember that line in the third canto of the ‘Inferno?’” + +“Ah, that line--my favorite always. Is it possible--” + +“You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike Apteros?” + +“You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have noticed, too, +that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in those flying folds of +her drapery?” + +“After a storm in autumn have you never seen--” + +“Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters--the +perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose, Titian; the +tuberose, Crivelli--” + +“I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it.” + +“Have you never thought--” + +“Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had.” + +“But surely you must have felt--” + +“Oh, yes, yes; and you, too--” + +“How beautiful! How strange--” + +Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains answering +each other across a garden full of flowers. At length, with a certain +tender impatience, he turned to her and said: “Love, why should we +linger here? All eternity lies before us. Let us go down into that +beautiful country together and make a home for ourselves on some blue +hill above the shining river.” + +As he spoke, the hand she had forgotten in his was suddenly withdrawn, +and he felt that a cloud was passing over the radiance of her soul. + +“A home,” she repeated, slowly, “a home for you and me to live in for +all eternity?” + +“Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?” + +“Y-yes--yes, I know--but, don’t you see, home would not be like home to +me, unless--” + +“Unless?” he wonderingly repeated. + +She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of +whimsical inconsistency, “Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking +boots.” + +But he had recovered his hold upon her hand, and by imperceptible +degrees was leading her toward the shining steps which descended to the +valley. + +“Come, O my soul’s soul,” he passionately implored; “why delay a moment? +Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too short to hold such +bliss as ours. It seems to me that I can see our home already. Have +I not always seem it in my dreams? It is white, love, is it not, with +polished columns, and a sculptured cornice against the blue? Groves +of laurel and oleander and thickets of roses surround it; but from the +terrace where we walk at sunset, the eye looks out over woodlands and +cool meadows where, deep-bowered under ancient boughs, a stream goes +delicately toward the river. Indoors our favorite pictures hang upon the +walls and the rooms are lined with books. Think, dear, at last we shall +have time to read them all. With which shall we begin? Come, help me to +choose. Shall it be ‘Faust’ or the ‘Vita Nuova,’ the ‘Tempest’ or ‘Les +Caprices de Marianne,’ or the thirty-first canto of the ‘Paradise,’ or +‘Epipsychidion’ or ‘Lycidas’? Tell me, dear, which one?” + +As he spoke he saw the answer trembling joyously upon her lips; but it +died in the ensuing silence, and she stood motionless, resisting the +persuasion of his hand. + +“What is it?” he entreated. + +“Wait a moment,” she said, with a strange hesitation in her voice. “Tell +me first, are you quite sure of yourself? Is there no one on earth whom +you sometimes remember?” + +“Not since I have seen you,” he replied; for, being a man, he had indeed +forgotten. + +Still she stood motionless, and he saw that the shadow deepened on her +soul. + +“Surely, love,” he rebuked her, “it was not that which troubled you? For +my part I have walked through Lethe. The past has melted like a cloud +before the moon. I never lived until I saw you.” + +She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing herself with +a visible effort, she turned away from him and moved toward the Spirit +of Life, who still stood near the threshold. + +“I want to ask you a question,” she said, in a troubled voice. + +“Ask,” said the Spirit. + +“A little while ago,” she began, slowly, “you told me that every soul +which has not found a kindred soul on earth is destined to find one +here.” + +“And have you not found one?” asked the Spirit. + +“Yes; but will it be so with my husband’s soul also?” + +“No,” answered the Spirit of Life, “for your husband imagined that +he had found his soul’s mate on earth in you; and for such delusions +eternity itself contains no cure.” + +She gave a little cry. Was it of disappointment or triumph? + +“Then--then what will happen to him when he comes here?” + +“That I cannot tell you. Some field of activity and happiness he will +doubtless find, in due measure to his capacity for being active and +happy.” + +She interrupted, almost angrily: “He will never be happy without me.” + +“Do not be too sure of that,” said the Spirit. + +She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: “He will not +understand you here any better than he did on earth.” + +“No matter,” she said; “I shall be the only sufferer, for he always +thought that he understood me.” + +“His boots will creak just as much as ever--” + +“No matter.” + +“And he will slam the door--” + +“Very likely.” + +“And continue to read railway novels--” + +She interposed, impatiently: “Many men do worse than that.” + +“But you said just now,” said the Spirit, “that you did not love him.” + +“True,” she answered, simply; “but don’t you understand that I shouldn’t +feel at home without him? It is all very well for a week or two--but for +eternity! After all, I never minded the creaking of his boots, except +when my head ached, and I don’t suppose it will ache HERE; and he +was always so sorry when he had slammed the door, only he never COULD +remember not to. Besides, no one else would know how to look after him, +he is so helpless. His inkstand would never be filled, and he would +always be out of stamps and visiting-cards. He would never remember to +have his umbrella re-covered, or to ask the price of anything before he +bought it. Why, he wouldn’t even know what novels to read. I always had +to choose the kind he liked, with a murder or a forgery and a successful +detective.” + +She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood listening with a mien +of wonder and dismay. + +“Don’t you see,” she said, “that I can’t possibly go with you?” + +“But what do you intend to do?” asked the Spirit of Life. + +“What do I intend to do?” she returned, indignantly. “Why, I mean to +wait for my husband, of course. If he had come here first HE would have +waited for me for years and years; and it would break his heart not to +find me here when he comes.” She pointed with a contemptuous gesture +to the magic vision of hill and vale sloping away to the translucent +mountains. “He wouldn’t give a fig for all that,” she said, “if he +didn’t find me here.” + +“But consider,” warned the Spirit, “that you are now choosing for +eternity. It is a solemn moment.” + +“Choosing!” she said, with a half-sad smile. “Do you still keep up here +that old fiction about choosing? I should have thought that YOU knew +better than that. How can I help myself? He will expect to find me here +when he comes, and he would never believe you if you told him that I had +gone away with someone else--never, never.” + +“So be it,” said the Spirit. “Here, as on earth, each one must decide +for himself.” + +She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him gently, almost +wistfully. “I am sorry,” she said. “I should have liked to talk with +you again; but you will understand, I know, and I dare say you will find +someone else a great deal cleverer--” + +And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him a swift farewell +and turned back toward the threshold. + +“Will my husband come soon?” she asked the Spirit of Life. + +“That you are not destined to know,” the Spirit replied. + +“No matter,” she said, cheerfully; “I have all eternity to wait in.” + +And still seated alone on the threshold, she listens for the creaking of +his boots. + + +The End of The Fulness of Life + + + + + +A VENETIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT + +December 1903 + + + +This is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street +house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the famous +East India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn +to the oval parlour (and Maria’s harp was throwing its gauzy web of +sound across the Common), used to relate to his grandsons, about the +year that Buonaparte marched upon Moscow. + + + + +I + + +“Him Venice!” said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony Bracknell, +leaning on the high gunwale of his father’s East Indiaman, the Hepzibah +B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of towers and +domes dissolved in golden air. + +It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly +of age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old +Bracknell’s fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled +into shape. VENICE! The name, since childhood, had been a magician’s +wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung +a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought +home from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces, +of the Grand Turk’s Seraglio, of St. Peter’s Church in Rome; and, in +a corner--the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks hung--a +busy merry populous scene, entitled: ST. MARK’S SQUARE IN VENICE. This +picture, from the first, had singularly taken little Tony’s fancy. His +unformulated criticism on the others was that they lacked action. +True, in the view of St. Peter’s an experienced-looking gentleman in +a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a +bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to +it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels +observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. +But in Venice so many things were happening at once--more, Tony was +sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in +a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were people of every nation +on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a +parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall +personages in parsons’ gowns who stalked through the crowd with an air +of mastery, a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people +seemed to be diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, +watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing doles +to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slippery-looking +fellows in black--the whole with such an air of ease and good-humour +that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a part of the show as the +tumbling acrobats and animals. + +As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost +its magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old +picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a +cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name +of Venice remained associated; and all that observation or report +subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a sober +warranty of fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between +reality and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender Venice glass, +gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the dust of sunbeams, that, +standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two Lowestoft caddies, seemed, +among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled butterfly. +There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother’s, spun of that same +sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped through the +fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant which +seemed held in air as if by magic. MAGIC! That was the word which the +thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place, Tony felt, in which +things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in which two and two +might make five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion give +the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a young heart that did not, +once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? Tony, at +least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms in +his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a +Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before +him, as the distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes +across the morning sea! + +The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony’s governor and bear-leader, was just +putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon +on Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.’s anchor rattled +overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge +with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from his +lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in +suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical +foreign city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many +Moslem idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce’s summing up his +conclusions before the Muse of Theology took flight? He should be happy, +he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell the next +morning. + +The next morning, ha!--Tony murmured a submissive “Yes, sir,” winked at +the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down +with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next +deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah’s gig. + +A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of +the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling +with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic +painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, +laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, +crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over +a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware +at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, +there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, +as in such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity +which seemed to include everybody in the circumference of one huge joke. +In such an air the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was +beginning to feel himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide bore +him against a droll-looking bell-ringing fellow who carried above his +head a tall metal tree hung with sherbet-glasses. + +The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and +clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints, +and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by +mistake for a sequin. The fellow’s eyes shot out of their orbits, +and just then a personable-looking young man who had observed the +transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in English: + +“I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency.” + +“Does he want more?” says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed +and replied: “You have given him enough to retire from his business and +open a gaming-house over the arcade.” + +Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries, +the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in +front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted +himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was +good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had +paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out +again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count +Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to +point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of ton +and ladies of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a kind +not openly mentioned in taking a census of Salem. + +Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, +had perused the “Merchant of Venice” and Mr. Otway’s fine tragedy; but +though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of +Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising +appearance and manners of the great people his friend named to him. The +gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, +short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor’s +gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; while the +President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow +with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet +cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on. + +It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on forever; +but he had given his word to the captain to be at the landing-place at +sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the skies! Tony was a +man of honour; and having pressed on the Count a handsome damascened +dagger selected from one of the goldsmiths’ shops in a narrow street +lined with such wares, he insisted on turning his face toward the +Hepzibah’s gig. The Count yielded reluctantly; but as they came out +again on the square they were caught in a great throng pouring toward +the doors of the cathedral. + +“They go to Benediction,” said the Count. “A beautiful sight, with many +lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it.” + +Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled +back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood in a +haze of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty +undulations of the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and as +Tony flattened himself against a pillar, he heard a pretty voice at his +elbow:--“Oh, sir, oh, sir, your sword!” + +He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched the +voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard. +She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies +affected, and under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as +sweet as a nesting bird. + +In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself +a shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony’s enchanted fingers. Looking +after her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompous-looking graybeard in +a long black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the +exchange of glances between the young people, drew the lady away with a +threatening look. + +The Count met Tony’s eye with a smile. “One of our Venetian beauties,” + said he; “the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to have the finest +eyes in Venice.” + +“She spoke English,” stammered Tony. + +“Oh--ah--precisely: she learned the language at the Court of Saint +James’s, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as +Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England.” + +“And that was her father?” + +“Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena’s rank do not go abroad save +with their parents or a duenna.” + +Just then a soft hand slid into Tony’s. His heart gave a foolish bound, +and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under +the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful +page’s dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and vanished +in the throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at the Count, +who appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a +bell, had in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony +seized the moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter. + +“I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena”--he read; +but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his +shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind of +rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian. + +Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk +himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other’s +grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed +his way through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: “For +God’s sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep quiet and do as I +tell you.” + +Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity +among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in +Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was +that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his +breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the Count’s agitated +whisper. + +“This is one of the agents of the Ten.--For God’s sake, no outcry.” He +exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony. +“You have been seen concealing a letter about your person--” + +“And what of that?” says Tony furiously. + +“Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna +Polixena Cador.--A black business! Oh, a very black business! This Cador +is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice--I beseech you, not a word, +sir! Let me think--deliberate--” + +His hand on Tony’s shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the +potentate in the cocked hat. + +“I am sorry, sir--but our young ladies of rank are as jealously guarded +as the Grand Turk’s wives, and you must be answerable for this scandal. +The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador, +instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your youth +and inexperience”--Tony winced at this--“and I think the business may +still be arranged.” + +Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-featured +shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a lawyer’s clerk, +who laid a grimy hand on Tony’s arm, and with many apologetic gestures +steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church. The Count held +him by the other arm, and in this fashion they emerged on the square, +which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the +arcade and in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it. + +Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go +where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of the +Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the +landing-place. + +The Count repeated this to Tony’s custodian, but the latter shook his +head and rattled off a sharp denial. + +“Impossible, sir,” said the Count. “I entreat you not to insist. Any +resistance will tell against you in the end.” + +Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of +escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and +boyhood’s ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to +outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry +the crowd would close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten +yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng was +thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for +an opening. Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show. Tony’s +fist shot out at the black fellow’s chest, and before the latter could +right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of heels +to his escort. On he sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in +Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye, +dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow +hump-back bridge which landed him in a black pocket between walls. But +now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The +walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony’s breath came +short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed him. +Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a servant +wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh chances. +Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, and the +two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses. + + + + +II + + +The servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They +climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor, +and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from +the painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his +surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started +up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was +the cause of all his troubles. + +She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her +face changed and she shrank back abashed. + +“This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding,” she cried +out in her pretty broken English. “Oh, how does it happen that you are +here?” + +“Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!” retorted Tony, not +over-pleased by his reception. + +“But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?” + +“Why, madam, if you’ll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was +yours--” + +“Mine?” + +--“in sending me a letter--” + +“YOU--a letter?” + +--“by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your +father’s very nose--” + +The girl broke in on him with a cry. “What! It was YOU who received my +letter?” She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged her +under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon, +and as she did so, Tony’s astonished eye detected in her the doubleted +page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark’s. + +“What!” he cried, “the lad was this girl in disguise?” + +Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded +instantly and she returned to the charge. + +“This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! +Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended +for you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my +mother’s, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh, how can I ever +excuse myself to you?” + +“No excuses are needed, madam,” said Tony, bowing; “though I am +surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador.” + +Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena’s face. “Oh, sir, you +must pardon my poor girl’s mistake. She heard you speaking English, +and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner +in the church.” Tony bowed again, more profoundly. “The English +Ambassador,” Polixena added simply, “is a very handsome man.” + +“I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!” + +She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look +of anguish. “Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in +dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you also-- +Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!” She turned pale and leaned +tremblingly upon the little servant. + +Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment +later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by +half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the square. +At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst into +furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to the +young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly +plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung himself on the +intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on +his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming +face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress. +Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among themselves, +and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and Spanish cape, stalked +apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The latter was at his wit’s +end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena’s tears had +quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the +magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what they would be at. + +At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on +the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He +pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be +silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at +first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, +he walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of +earshot. + +“My dear sir,” said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a +perturbed countenance, “it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a +great misfortune.” + +“A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!” shouted Tony, whose +blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the +beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up +to the forehead. + +“Be careful,” said the Count, in a low tone. “Though his Illustriousness +does not speak your language, he understands a few words of it, and--” + +“So much the better!” broke in Tony; “I hope he will understand me if I +ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me.” + +The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, +stepping between, answered quickly: “His grievance against you is that +you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the +most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the +most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--” and he waved a deferential hand at +the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff. + +“Sir,” said Tony, “if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with +the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--” but here he +stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at +him. + +“Sir,” interposed the Count, “we are not accustomed in Venice to take +shelter behind a lady’s reputation.” + +“No more are we in Salem,” retorted Tony in a white heat. “I was merely +about to remark that, by the young lady’s avowal, she has never seen me +before.” + +Polixena’s eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died +to defend her. + +The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: “His +Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter’s misconduct +has been all the more reprehensible.” + +“Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?” + +“Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark’s, a letter which +you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The incident +was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in +consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride.” + +Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. “If his +Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so +trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her +father’s resentment.” + +“That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only +excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to +advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio.” + +It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, +and the thought sharpened his retort. + +“I had supposed,” said he, “that men of sense had much the same +behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman +would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen +to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in +fact nothing to do with what you suppose.” + +As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far +as he dared commit himself. + +There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the +Count then said:--“We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to meet +certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of +immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her father?” + +There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to +look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance +toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by +unmistakable signs of apprehension. + +“Poor girl!” he thought, “she is in a worse case than I imagined, and +whatever happens I must keep her secret.” + +He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. “I am not,” said he, “in the +habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers.” + +The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena’s father, dashing +his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess +continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. + +The Count shook his head funereally. “Alas, sir, it is as I feared. +This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal +imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation +incumbent upon you as a man of honour.” + +Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the +Marquess. “And what obligation is that?” + +“To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the lady.” + +Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: “Why in +heaven does she not bid me show the letter?” Then he remembered that it +had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them +to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm +suspicion. The sense of the girl’s grave plight effaced all thought of +his own risk, but the Count’s last words struck him as so preposterous +that he could not repress a smile. + +“I cannot flatter myself,” said he, “that the lady would welcome this +solution.” + +The Count’s manner became increasingly ceremonious. “Such modesty,” + he said, “becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were +justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in +this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father +has selected.” + +“But I understood just now,” Tony interposed, “that the gentleman yonder +was in that enviable position.” + +“So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in +your favour.” + +“He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness +obliges me to decline--” + +“You are still,” interrupted the Count, “labouring under a +misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted +than the lady’s. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that +you should marry her within the hour.” + +Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. +He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself and the +door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the apartment, +and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her father’s +feet. + +“And if I refuse?” said he. + +The Count made a significant gesture. “I am not so foolish as to +threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the +consequences would be to the lady.” + +Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned +words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an +obdurate gesture. + +The Count turned to Tony. “The lady herself pleads for you--at what +cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an hour his +Illustriousness’s chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness +consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed.” + +He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to +Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in +the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena. + + + + +III + + +The girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame +and agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own +extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, +drawing her hands from her face. + +“Oh, don’t make me look at you!” she sobbed; but it was on his bosom +that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as +he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him +gently from her. + +“What humiliation!” she lamented. + +“Do you think I blame you for what has happened?” + +“Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And +how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show the +letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me +from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even greater.” + +“Ah--it was that you wrote for?” cried Tony with unaccountable relief. + +“Of course--what else did you think?” + +“But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?” + +“From YOU?” A smile flashed through her tears. “Alas, yes.” She drew +back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of +shame. + +Tony glanced about him. “If I could wrench a bar out of that window--” + he muttered. + +“Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.--Oh, I must +speak!” She sprang up and paced the room. “But indeed you can scarce +think worse of me than you do already--” + +“I think ill of you?” + +“Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen +for me--” + +“Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married +him.” + +“Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice.” + +“It is infamous, I say--infamous!” + +“No, no--I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others.” + +“Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!” + +“He has a dreadful name for violence--his gondolier has told my little +maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you I +should be thinking?” + +“Of me, poor child?” cried Tony, losing his head. + +“Yes, and how to save you--for I CAN save you! But every moment +counts--and yet what I have to say is so dreadful.” + +“Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful.” + +“Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!” + +“Well, now at least you are free of him,” said Tony, a little wildly; +but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him. + +“No, I am not free,” she said; “but you are, if you will do as I tell +you.” + +Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight +through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the +fall had stunned him. + +“What am I to do?” he said. + +“Look away from me, or I can never tell you.” + +He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, +and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the +window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back +was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she +were reciting a lesson. + +“You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is +not a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate +spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of +ready money.--If you turn round I shall not go on!--He wrangled horribly +with my father over my dowry--he wanted me to have more than either of +my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee +of Spain. But my father is a gambler too--oh, such fortunes as are +squandered over the arcade yonder! And so--and so--don’t turn, I implore +you--oh, do you begin to see my meaning?” + +She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes +from her. + +“Go on,” he said. + +“Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You +don’t know us Venetians--we’re all to be bought for a price. It is +not only the brides who are marketable--sometimes the husbands sell +themselves too. And they think you rich--my father does, and the +others--I don’t know why, unless you have shown your money too +freely--and the English are all rich, are they not? And--oh, oh--do you +understand? Oh, I can’t bear your eyes!” + +She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was +at her side. + +“My poor child, my poor Polixena!” he cried, and wept and clasped her. + +“You ARE rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?” she +persisted. + +“To enable you to marry the Marquess?” + +“To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see +your face again.” She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and +paced the floor in a fever. + +Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a +clock against the wall. “The hour is nearly over. It is quite true that +my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by +me! There is no other way of escape.” + +“And if I do as you say--?” + +“You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it.” + +“And you--you are married to that villain?” + +“But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to +myself when I am alone.” + +“My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow.” + +“You forgive me, Anthony? You don’t think too badly of me?” + +“I say you must not marry that fellow.” + +She laid a trembling hand on his arm. “Time presses,” she adjured him, +“and I warn you there is no other way.” + +For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a +Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson’s sermons in the best parlour at +Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. +“Yes, there is,” he cried, “if you are willing. Polixena, let the priest +come!” + +She shrank back from him, white and radiant. “Oh, hush, be silent!” she +said. + +“I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates,” he cried. “My +father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts--but if +you--” + +“Oh, hush, I say! I don’t know what your long words mean. But I bless +you, bless you, bless you on my knees!” And she knelt before him, and +fell to kissing his hands. + +He drew her up to his breast and held her there. + +“You are willing, Polixena?” he said. + +“No, no!” She broke from him with outstretched hands. “I am not willing. +You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!” + +“On my money?” he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him. + +“Yes, on your money,” she said sadly. + +“Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?” + +She was silent. + +“If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?” he persisted. + +“You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past.” + +“Let it pass. I’ll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger +to help another man to marry you.” + +“Oh, madman, madman!” she murmured. + +Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the +wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and +falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty. + +“Polixena, I love you!” he cried. + +A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the +verge of her troubled brows. + +“I love you! I love you!” he repeated. + +And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their +lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird’s poise and before he +knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them. + +She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. “I took it from +your fob,” she said. “It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any +of the money, you know.” + +She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her +ashen face. + +“What are you talking of?” he said. + +“They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never +see you again, Anthony!” She gave him a dreadful look. “Oh, my poor boy, +my poor love--‘I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, POLIXENA!’” + +He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with +soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm’s length, and as he +gazed he read the truth in her face. + +He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on +his hands. + +“Only, for God’s sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play +here,” she said. + +As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of +voices on the threshold. + +“It is all a lie,” she gasped out, “about my marriage, and the Marquess, +and the Ambassador, and the Senator--but not, oh, not about your danger +in this place--or about my love,” she breathed to him. And as the key +rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow. + +The key rattled, and the door swung open--but the black-cassocked +gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of +idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias +Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much +on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident +relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was closed +by an escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and small-swords, +who led between them Tony’s late friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a +looking company as the law ever landed in her net. + +The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of +satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony. + +“So, Mr. Bracknell,” said he, “you have been seeing the Carnival with +this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has +landed you? H’m--a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head +of it.” He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock +ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a princess. + +“Why, my girl,” said he, amicably, “I think I saw you this morning in +the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain +Spavent--” and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess--“I’ve +watched him drive his bully’s trade under the arcade ever since I +first dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well,” he continued, his +indignation subsiding, “all’s fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this +gentleman here is under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up your +little party.” + +At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and +explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain. + +“I can assure you, sir,” said the Count in his best English, “that this +incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you +will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends +here will be happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his +companions.” + +Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud +guffaw. + +“Satisfaction?” says he. “Why, my cock, that’s very handsome of you, +considering the rope’s at your throats. But we’ll not take advantage of +your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on +it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!” he spluttered suddenly, +“decoying young innocents with that devil’s bait of yours--” His eye +fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. “Ah, well, we +must all see the Carnival once, I suppose,” he said. “All’s well that +ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. +Bracknell, if you’ll take the reverend gentleman’s arm there, we’ll +bid adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for the +Hepzibah.” + + +The End of A Venetian Night’s Entertainment + + + + + +XINGU + +December, 1911 + + +Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as +though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded +the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other +indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four +winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that +the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted +functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated +“Osric Dane,” on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to +be present at the next meeting. + +The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger’s. The other members, behind +her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede +her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive +setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret +observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on. + +Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded +it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club’s distinguished +guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was +of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one +possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth +could afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set +herself. An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, +was, in her opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly +stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep +footmen clearly intended her to maintain an equally specialized staff of +responsibilities. It was the more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, +whose obligations to society were bounded by the narrow scope of two +parlour-maids, should have been so tenacious of the right to entertain +Osric Dane. + +The question of that lady’s reception had for a month past profoundly +moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt +themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity +plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the +alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as +Mrs. Leveret were fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the +author of “The Wings of Death,” no forebodings of the kind disturbed the +conscious adequacy of Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. +“The Wings of Death” had, in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck’s suggestion, been +chosen as the subject of discussion at the last club meeting, and +each member had thus been enabled to express her own opinion or to +appropriate whatever seemed most likely to be of use in the comments +of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had abstained from profiting by the +opportunity thus offered; but it was now openly recognised that, as a +member of the Lunch Club, Mrs. Roby was a failure. “It all comes,” as +Miss Van Vluyck put it, “of accepting a woman on a man’s estimation.” + Mrs. Roby, returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged sojourn in exotic +regions--the other ladies no longer took the trouble to remember +where--had been emphatically commended by the distinguished biologist, +Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had ever met; and the +members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium that carried the weight +of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the Professor’s social sympathies +would follow the line of his scientific bent, had seized the chance of +annexing a biological member. Their disillusionment was complete. At +Miss Van Vluyck’s first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby +had confusedly murmured: “I know so little about metres--” and after +that painful betrayal of incompetence she had prudently withdrawn from +farther participation in the mental gymnastics of the club. + +“I suppose she flattered him,” Miss Van Vluyck summed up--“or else it’s +the way she does her hair.” + +The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck’s dining-room having restricted the +membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one member was +a serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already +been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to live, as it were, on the +intellectual bounty of the others. This feeling was augmented by the +discovery that she had not yet read “The Wings of Death.” She owned +to having heard the name of Osric Dane; but that--incredible as it +appeared--was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated +novelist. The ladies could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. +Ballinger, whose pride in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby +in the best possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not +had time to acquaint herself with “The Wings of Death,” she must at +least be familiar with its equally remarkable predecessor, “The Supreme +Instant.” + +Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, +as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she HAD seen the book +at her brother’s, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even +carried it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all +got to shying things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone +overboard, so she had never had the chance-- + +The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby’s credit +with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by +Mrs. Plinth’s remarking: “I can understand that, with all your other +pursuits, you should not find much time for reading; but I should have +thought you might at least have GOT UP ‘The Wings of Death’ before Osric +Dane’s arrival.” + +Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned +to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of +Trollope’s that-- + +“No one reads Trollope now,” Mrs. Ballinger interrupted impatiently. + +Mrs. Roby looked pained. “I’m only just beginning,” she confessed. + +“And does he interest you?” Mrs. Plinth inquired. + +“He amuses me.” + +“Amusement,” said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, “is hardly what I look for +in my choice of books.” + +“Oh, certainly, ‘The Wings of Death’ is not amusing,” ventured Mrs. +Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an +obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first +selection does not suit. + +“Was it MEANT to be?” enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking +questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. “Assuredly +not.” + +“Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say,” assented Mrs. Leveret, +hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. “It was meant +to--to elevate.” + +Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black +cap of condemnation. “I hardly see,” she interposed, “how a book steeped +in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, however much it may +instruct.” + +“I meant, of course, to instruct,” said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the +unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be +synonymous. Mrs. Leveret’s enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently +marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other +ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes +troubled by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. It was +only the fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved +her from a sense of hopeless inferiority. + +“Do they get married in the end?” Mrs. Roby interposed. + +“They--who?” the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed. + +“Why, the girl and man. It’s a novel, isn’t it? I always think that’s +the one thing that matters. If they’re parted it spoils my dinner.” + +Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the +latter said: “I should hardly advise you to read ‘The Wings of Death,’ +in that spirit. For my part, when there are so many books that one HAS +to read, I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely +amusing.” + +“The beautiful part of it,” Laura Glyde murmured, “is surely just +this--that no one can tell HOW ‘The Wings of Death’ ends. Osric Dane, +overcome by the dread significance of her own meaning, has mercifully +veiled it--perhaps even from herself--as Apelles, in representing the +sacrifice of Iphigenia, veiled the face of Agamemnon.” + +“What’s that? Is it poetry?” whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to Mrs. +Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: “You should +look it up. I always make it a point to look things up.” Her tone +added--“though I might easily have it done for me by the footman.” + +“I was about to say,” Miss Van Vluyck resumed, “that it must always be a +question whether a book CAN instruct unless it elevates.” + +“Oh--” murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray. + +“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van Vluyck’s tone +a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining Osric +Dane; “I don’t know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a +book which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any +novel since ‘Robert Elsmere.’” + +“Oh, but don’t you see,” exclaimed Laura Glyde, “that it’s just the +dark hopelessness of it all--the wonderful tone-scheme of black on +black--that makes it such an artistic achievement? It reminded me so +when I read it of Prince Rupert’s MANIÈRE NOIRE... the book is etched, +not painted, yet one feels the colour values so intensely...” + +“Who is HE?” Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. “Some one she’s +met abroad?” + +“The wonderful part of the book,” Mrs. Ballinger conceded, “is that it +may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of +determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with ‘The Data of Ethics.’” + +“I’m told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies +before beginning to write it,” said Mrs. Plinth. “She looks up +everything--verifies everything. It has always been my principle, as +you know. Nothing would induce me, now, to put aside a book before I’d +finished it, just because I can buy as many more as I want.” + +“And what do YOU think of ‘The Wings of Death’?” Mrs. Roby abruptly +asked her. + +It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the +ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a +breach of discipline. They all knew that there was nothing Mrs. Plinth +so much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were +written to read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be +questioned in detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her +as great an outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom +House. The club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth’s. +Such opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like +her house, was furnished with monumental “pieces” that were not meant +to be suddenly disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of +the Lunch Club that, within her own province, each member’s habits +of thought should be respected. The meeting therefore closed with +an increased sense, on the part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby’s +hopeless unfitness to be one of them. + + + + +II + + +Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs. +Ballinger’s, her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket. + +It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked +to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of +the turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she +felt herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of +Appropriate Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to +give her any reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled +to meet all the social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion +of Anniversaries, joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran), +of Banquets, social or municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of England +or sectarian, its student need never be at a loss for a pertinent +reference. Mrs. Leveret, though she had for years devoutly conned its +pages, valued it, however, rather for its moral support than for its +practical services; for though in the privacy of her own room she +commanded an army of quotations, these invariably deserted her at the +critical moment, and the only line she retained--CANST THOU DRAW OUT +LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK?--was one she had never yet found the occasion to +apply. + +To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would +hardly have insured her self-possession; for she thought it probable, +even if she DID, in some miraculous way, remember an Allusion, it would +be only to find that Osric Dane used a different volume (Mrs. Leveret +was convinced that literary people always carried them), and would +consequently not recognise her quotations. + +Mrs. Leveret’s sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance +of Mrs. Ballinger’s drawing-room. To a careless eye its aspect was +unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs. Ballinger’s way of +arranging her books would instantly have detected the marks of recent +perturbation. Mrs. Ballinger’s province, as a member of the Lunch Club, +was the Book of the Day. On that, whatever it was, from a novel to +a treatise on experimental psychology, she was confidently, +authoritatively “up.” What became of last year’s books, or last week’s +even; what she did with the “subjects” she had previously professed with +equal authority; no one had ever yet discovered. Her mind was an hotel +where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their +address behind, and frequently without paying for their board. It was +Mrs. Ballinger’s boast that she was “abreast with the Thought of the +Day,” and her pride that this advanced position should be expressed by +the books on her drawing-room table. These volumes, frequently renewed, +and almost always damp from the press, bore names generally unfamiliar +to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she furtively scanned them, a +disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge to be breathlessly +traversed in Mrs. Ballinger’s wake. But to-day a number of +maturer-looking volumes were adroitly mingled with the primeurs of the +press--Karl Marx jostled Professor Bergson, and the “Confessions of St. +Augustine” lay beside the last work on “Mendelism”; so that even to Mrs. +Leveret’s fluttered perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger didn’t +in the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had +taken measures to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt like a +passenger on an ocean steamer who is told that there is no immediate +danger, but that she had better put on her life-belt. + +It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van Vluyck’s +arrival. + +“Well, my dear,” the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, “what subjects +are we to discuss to-day?” + +Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy +of Verlaine. “I hardly know,” she said somewhat nervously. “Perhaps we +had better leave that to circumstances.” + +“Circumstances?” said Miss Van Vluyck drily. “That means, I suppose, +that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we shall be deluged +with literature.” + +Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck’s province, and she +naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest’s attention from +these topics. + +Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared. + +“Literature?” she protested in a tone of remonstrance. “But this is +perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane’s +novel.” + +Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. “We can +hardly make that our chief subject--at least not TOO intentionally,” she +suggested. “Of course we can let our talk DRIFT in that direction; but +we ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is what +I wanted to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of Osric +Dane’s tastes and interests that it is difficult to make any special +preparation.” + +“It may be difficult,” said Mrs. Plinth with decision, “but it is +absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle +leads to. As I told one of my nieces the other day, there are certain +emergencies for which a lady should always be prepared. It’s in shocking +taste to wear colours when one pays a visit of condolence, or a last +year’s dress when there are reports that one’s husband is on the wrong +side of the market; and so it is with conversation. All I ask is that I +should know beforehand what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of +being able to say the proper thing.” + +“I quite agree with you,” Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented; “but--” + +And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid, Osric Dane +appeared upon the threshold. + +Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a glance +what was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them +half way. That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of +compulsion not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality. +She looked as though she were about to be photographed for a new edition +of her books. + +The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its +responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane’s +entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club’s eagerness to please her. Any +lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to +her entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret +said afterward to her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made +you feel as if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence +of greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a +shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their hostess led +the great personage into the dining-room, turned back to whisper to the +others: “What a brute she is!” + +The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict. It was +passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Ballinger’s menu, +and by the members of the Club in the emission of tentative platitudes +which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive +courses of the luncheon. + +Mrs. Ballinger’s deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown the +Club into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the +drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each +lady waited for the other to speak; and there was a general shock +of disappointment when their hostess opened the conversation by the +painfully commonplace inquiry: “Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?” + +Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; and a +vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: “It is a very +small place indeed.” + +Mrs. Plinth bristled. “We have a great many representative people,” she +said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order. + +Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. “What do they represent?” she +asked. + +Mrs. Plinth’s constitutional dislike to being questioned was intensified +by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful glance passed the +question on to Mrs. Ballinger. + +“Why,” said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, “as a +community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture.” + +“For art--” Miss Glyde eagerly interjected. + +“For art and literature,” Mrs. Ballinger emended. + +“And for sociology, I trust,” snapped Miss Van Vluyck. + +“We have a standard,” said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly secure +on the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret, thinking +there must be room for more than one on so broad a statement, took +courage to murmur: “Oh, certainly; we have a standard.” + +“The object of our little club,” Mrs. Ballinger continued, “is to +concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge--to centralise and +focus its complex intellectual effort.” + +This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible +breath of relief. + +“We aspire,” the President went on, “to stand for what is highest in +art, literature and ethics.” + +Osric Dane again turned to her. “What ethics?” she asked. + +A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies required +any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; but when they +were called ethics it was different. The club, when fresh from +the “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” the “Reader’s Handbook” or Smith’s +“Classical Dictionary,” could deal confidently with any subject; but +when taken unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy +of the Early Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; +and such minor members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as +something vaguely pagan. + +Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane’s question was unsettling, and there +was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned forward to say, +with her most sympathetic accent: “You must excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for +not being able, just at present, to talk of anything but ‘The Wings of +Death.’” + +“Yes,” said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the war into +the enemy’s camp. “We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had +in mind in writing your wonderful book.” + +“You will find,” Mrs. Plinth interposed, “that we are not superficial +readers.” + +“We are eager to hear from you,” Miss Van Vluyck continued, “if +the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own +convictions or--” + +“Or merely,” Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, “a sombre background brushed +in to throw your figures into more vivid relief. ARE you not primarily +plastic?” + +“I have always maintained,” Mrs. Ballinger interposed, “that you +represent the purely objective method--” + +Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. “How do you define +objective?” she then inquired. + +There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: “In +reading YOU we don’t define, we feel.” + +Osric Dane smiled. “The cerebellum,” she remarked, “is not infrequently +the seat of the literary emotions.” And she took a second lump of sugar. + +The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost +neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical +language. + +“Ah, the cerebellum,” said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. “The Club took +a course in psychology last winter.” + +“Which psychology?” asked Osric Dane. + +There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the Club +secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. +Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger +said, with an attempt at a high tone: “Well, really, you know, it was +last year that we took psychology, and this winter we have been so +absorbed in--” + +She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club’s +discussions; but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the petrifying +stare of Osric Dane. What HAD the club been absorbed in lately? Mrs. +Ballinger, with a vague purpose of gaining time, repeated slowly: “We’ve +been so intensely absorbed in--” + +Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a +smile. + +“In Xingu?” she gently prompted. + +A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused +glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief +and interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The expression of each +denoted a different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first +to compose her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment’s hasty +adjustment her look almost implied that it was she who had given the +word to Mrs. Ballinger. + +“Xingu, of course!” exclaimed the latter with her accustomed promptness, +while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be plumbing the depths +of memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling apprehensively for Appropriate +Allusions, was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its +bulk against her person. + +Osric Dane’s change of countenance was no less striking than that of +her entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a look of +distinct annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment, what Mrs. Roby +afterward described as the look of feeling for something in the back +of her head; and before she could dissemble these momentary signs of +weakness, Mrs. Roby, turning to her with a deferential smile, had said: +“And we’ve been so hoping that to-day you would tell us just what you +think of it.” + +Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of course; but +the accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, and it became clear +to her observers that she was not quick at shifting her facial scenery. +It was as though her countenance had so long been set in an expression +of unchallenged superiority that the muscles had stiffened, and refused +to obey her orders. + +“Xingu--” she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time. + +Mrs. Roby continued to press her. “Knowing how engrossing the subject +is, you will understand how it happens that the Club has let everything +else go to the wall for the moment. Since we took up Xingu I might +almost say--were it not for your books--that nothing else seems to us +worth remembering.” + +Osric Dane’s stern features were darkened rather than lit up by an +uneasy smile. “I am glad to hear there is one exception,” she gave out +between narrowed lips. + +“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Roby said prettily; “but as you have shown us +that--so very naturally!--you don’t care to talk about your own things, +we really can’t let you off from telling us exactly what you think about +Xingu; especially,” she added, with a persuasive smile, “as some people +say that one of your last books was simply saturated with it.” + +It was an IT, then--the assurance sped like fire through the parched +minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least +little clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at the +discomfiture of Mrs. Dane. + +The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist’s direct assault. +“May I ask,” she faltered out in an embarrassed tone, “to which of my +books you refer?” + +Mrs. Roby did not falter. “That’s just what I want you to tell us; +because, though I was present, I didn’t actually take part.” + +“Present at what?” Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the +trembling members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion Providence +had raised up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained herself +gaily: “At the discussion, of course. And so we’re dreadfully anxious to +know just how it was that you went into the Xingu.” + +There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable dangers +that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips, like +soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their +leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying +sharply: “Ah--you say THE Xingu, do you?” + +Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. “It IS a shade pedantic, isn’t it? +Personally, I always drop the article; but I don’t know how the other +members feel about it.” + +The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed +with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a +bright glance about the group, went on: “They probably think, as I do, +that nothing really matters except the thing itself--except Xingu.” + +No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger +gathered courage to say: “Surely every one must feel that about Xingu.” + +Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and Laura +Glyde breathed emotionally: “I have known cases where it has changed a +whole life.” + +“It has done me worlds of good,” Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming +to herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it in the +winter before. + +“Of course,” Mrs. Roby admitted, “the difficulty is that one must give +up so much time to it. It’s very long.” + +“I can’t imagine,” said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, “grudging the time given +to such a subject.” + +“And deep in places,” Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) “And +it isn’t easy to skip.” + +“I never skip,” said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically. + +“Ah, it’s dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places +where one can’t. One must just wade through.” + +“I should hardly call it WADING,” said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically. + +Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. “Ah--you always found it went +swimmingly?” + +Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. “Of course there are difficult passages,” she +conceded modestly. + +“Yes; some are not at all clear--even,” Mrs. Roby added, “if one is +familiar with the original.” + +“As I suppose you are?” Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with +a look of challenge. + +Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. “Oh, it’s really not difficult +up to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little +known, and it’s almost impossible to get at the source.” + +“Have you ever tried?” Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of Mrs. +Roby’s thoroughness. + +Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered lids: +“No--but a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he told me it +was best for women--not to...” + +A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the +parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; Miss Van +Vluyck’s face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. Plinth looked as +if she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the most +remarkable result of Mrs. Roby’s words was the effect they produced on +the Lunch Club’s distinguished guest. Osric Dane’s impassive features +suddenly melted to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and +edging her chair toward Mrs. Roby’s she asked: “Did he really? And--did +you find he was right?” + +Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby’s unwonted assumption +of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had +rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, +to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough +self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby’s flippancy, at least the Lunch Club +would do so in the person of its President. + +Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby’s arm. “We must not forget,” + she said with a frigid amiability, “that absorbing as Xingu is to US, it +may be less interesting to--” + +“Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you,” Osric Dane energetically +intervened. + +“--to others,” Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; “and we must not allow +our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to say a few +words to us on a subject which, to-day, is much more present in all our +thoughts. I refer, of course, to ‘The Wings of Death.’” + +The other members, animated by various degrees of the same sentiment, +and encouraged by the humanised mien of their redoubtable guest, +repeated after Mrs. Ballinger: “Oh, yes, you really MUST talk to us a +little about your book.” + +Osric Dane’s expression became as bored, though not as haughty, as when +her work had been previously mentioned. But before she could respond +to Mrs. Ballinger’s request, Mrs. Roby had risen from her seat, and was +pulling her veil down over her frivolous nose. + +“I’m so sorry,” she said, advancing toward her hostess with outstretched +hand, “but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I’d better run away. +Unluckily, as you know, I haven’t read her books, so I should be at a +terrible disadvantage among you all; and besides, I’ve an engagement to +play bridge.” + +If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane’s works as +a reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her recent prowess, +might have approved such evidence of discretion; but to couple this +excuse with the brazen announcement that she was foregoing the privilege +for the purpose of joining a bridge-party, was only one more instance of +her deplorable lack of discrimination. + +The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure--now +that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely to render +them--would probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending +discussion, besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which +her presence always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore +restricted herself to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members +were just grouping themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the +latter, to their dismay, started up from the sofa on which she had been +deferentially enthroned. + +“Oh wait--do wait, and I’ll go with you!” she called out to Mrs. Roby; +and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she administered +a series of farewell pressures with the mechanical haste of a +railway-conductor punching tickets. + +“I’m so sorry--I’d quite forgotten--” she flung back at them from the +threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in surprise at +her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of hearing her say, +in a voice which she did not take the pains to lower: “If you’ll let +me walk a little way with you, I should so like to ask you a few more +questions about Xingu...” + + + + +III + + +The incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the departing +pair before the other members had had time to understand what was +happening. Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane’s +unceremonious desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that +they had been cheated out of their due without exactly knowing how or +why. + +There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a +perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which +her distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck +tartly pronounced: “Well, I can’t say that I consider Osric Dane’s +departure a great loss.” + +This confession crystallised the fluid resentment of the other members, +and Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: “I do believe she came on purpose to be +nasty!” + +It was Mrs. Plinth’s private opinion that Osric Dane’s attitude toward +the Lunch Club might have been very different had it welcomed her in the +majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; but not liking to reflect +on the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger’s establishment she sought a +round-about satisfaction in depreciating her savoir faire. + +“I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. It’s +what always happens when you’re unprepared. Now if we’d only got up +Xingu--” + +The slowness of Mrs. Plinth’s mental processes was always allowed for +by the Club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. Ballinger’s +equanimity. + +“Xingu!” she scoffed. “Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more +about it than she did--unprepared though we were--that made Osric Dane +so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody!” + +This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an +impulse of generosity, said: “Yes, we really ought to be grateful +to Mrs. Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane +furious, but at least it made her civil.” + +“I am glad we were able to show her,” added Miss Van Vluyck, “that a +broad and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great intellectual +centres.” + +This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they began +to forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of having +contributed to her defeat. + +Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. “What surprised me +most,” she continued, “was that Fanny Roby should be so up on Xingu.” + +This frank admission threw a slight chill on the company, but Mrs. +Ballinger said with an air of indulgent irony: “Mrs. Roby always has the +knack of making a little go a long way; still, we certainly owe her a +debt for happening to remember that she’d heard of Xingu.” And this was +felt by the other members to be a graceful way of cancelling once for +all the Club’s obligation to Mrs. Roby. + +Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony: “I fancy +Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at Hillbridge!” + +Mrs. Ballinger smiled. “When she asked me what we represented--do you +remember?--I wish I’d simply said we represented Xingu!” + +All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs. Plinth, +who said, after a moment’s deliberation: “I’m not sure it would have +been wise to do so.” + +Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had +launched at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, looked +ironically at Mrs. Plinth. “May I ask why?” she enquired. + +Mrs. Plinth looked grave. “Surely,” she said, “I understood from Mrs. +Roby herself that the subject was one it was as well not to go into too +deeply?” + +Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: “I think that applied only to +an investigation of the origin of the--of the--“; and suddenly she found +that her usually accurate memory had failed her. “It’s a part of the +subject I never studied myself,” she concluded lamely. + +“Nor I,” said Mrs. Ballinger. + +Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. “And yet it +seems--doesn’t it?--the part that is fullest of an esoteric +fascination?” + +“I don’t know on what you base that,” said Miss Van Vluyck +argumentatively. + +“Well, didn’t you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane became +as soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner--he WAS a foreigner, +wasn’t he?--had told Mrs. Roby about the origin--the origin of the +rite--or whatever you call it?” + +Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly wavered. +Then she said in a decisive tone: “It may not be desirable to touch on +the--on that part of the subject in general conversation; but, from the +importance it evidently has to a woman of Osric Dane’s distinction, +I feel as if we ought not to be afraid to discuss it among +ourselves--without gloves--though with closed doors, if necessary.” + +“I’m quite of your opinion,” Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her +support; “on condition, that is, that all grossness of language is +avoided.” + +“Oh, I’m sure we shall understand without that,” Mrs. Leveret tittered; +and Laura Glyde added significantly: “I fancy we can read between the +lines,” while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors were +really closed. + +Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. “I hardly see,” she +began, “what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar +customs--” + +But Mrs. Ballinger’s patience had reached the extreme limit of tension. +“This at least,” she returned; “that we shall not be placed again in the +humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects +than Fanny Roby!” + +Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered furtively +about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: “Have you got a +copy?” + +“A--a copy?” stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the other +members were looking at her expectantly, and that this answer was +inadequate, so she supported it by asking another question. “A copy of +what?” + +Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in turn, +appeared less sure of herself than usual. “Why, of--of--the book,” she +explained. + +“What book?” snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric Dane. + +Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were interrogatively +fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being deferred to was so new to +the latter that it filled her with an insane temerity. “Why, Xingu, of +course!” she exclaimed. + +A profound silence followed this direct challenge to the resources +of Mrs. Ballinger’s library, and the latter, after glancing nervously +toward the Books of the Day, returned in a deprecating voice: “It’s not +a thing one cares to leave about.” + +“I should think NOT!” exclaimed Mrs. Plinth. + +“It IS a book, then?” said Miss Van Vluyck. + +This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, with an +impatient sigh, rejoined: “Why--there IS a book--naturally...” + +“Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?” + +Laura Glyde started up. “A religion? I never--” + +“Yes, you did,” Miss Van Vluyck insisted; “you spoke of rites; and Mrs. +Plinth said it was a custom.” + +Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce her +statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length +she began in a deep murmur: “Surely they used to do something of the +kind at the Eleusinian mysteries--” + +“Oh--” said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and Mrs. +Plinth protested: “I understood there was to be no indelicacy!” + +Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. “Really, it is too +bad that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among +ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all--” + +“Oh, so do I!” cried Miss Glyde. + +“And I don’t see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up +with the Thought of the Day--” + +Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. “There--that’s it!” she +interposed. + +“What’s it?” the President curtly took her up. + +“Why--it’s a--a Thought: I mean a philosophy.” + +This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura Glyde, +but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: “Excuse me if I tell you that +you’re all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language.” + +“A language!” the Lunch Club cried. + +“Certainly. Don’t you remember Fanny Roby’s saying that there were +several branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that +apply to but dialects?” + +Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. “Really, +if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny +Roby for instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease +to exist!” + +“It’s really her fault for not being clearer,” Laura Glyde put in. + +“Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!” Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. “I daresay we +shall find she was mistaken on almost every point.” + +“Why not look it up?” said Mrs. Plinth. + +As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth’s was ignored in the +heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the privacy of +each member’s home. But on the present occasion the desire to ascribe +their own confusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature of +Mrs. Roby’s statements caused the members of the Lunch Club to utter a +collective demand for a book of reference. + +At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. Leveret, +for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the centre front; but +she was not able to hold it long, for Appropriate Allusions contained no +mention of Xingu. + +“Oh, that’s not the kind of thing we want!” exclaimed Miss Van Vluyck. +She cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger’s assortment of +literature, and added impatiently: “Haven’t you any useful books?” + +“Of course I have,” replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; “but I keep them +in my husband’s dressing-room.” + +From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour-maid +produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in deference to the +fact that the demand for it had come from Miss Van Vluyck, laid the +ponderous tome before her. + +There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck rubbed her +spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a murmur of surprise +when she said: “It isn’t here.” + +“I suppose,” said Mrs. Plinth, “it’s not fit to be put in a book of +reference.” + +“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. “Try X.” + +Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short-sightedly +up and down the pages, till she came to a stop and remained motionless, +like a dog on a point. + +“Well, have you found it?” Mrs. Ballinger enquired, after a considerable +delay. + +“Yes. I’ve found it,” said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice. + +Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: “I beg you won’t read it aloud if +there’s anything offensive.” + +Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny. + +“Well, what IS it?” exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly. + +“DO tell us!” urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have something +awful to tell her sister. + +Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the +expectant group. + +“It’s a river.” + +“A RIVER?” + +“Yes: in Brazil. Isn’t that where she’s been living?” + +“Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You’ve been reading the +wrong thing,” Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the +volume. + +“It’s the only XINGU in the Encyclopaedia; and she HAS been living in +Brazil,” Miss Van Vluyck persisted. + +“Yes: her brother has a consulship there,” Mrs. Leveret eagerly +interposed. + +“But it’s too ridiculous! I--we--why we ALL remember studying Xingu last +year--or the year before last,” Mrs. Ballinger stammered. + +“I thought I did when YOU said so,” Laura Glyde avowed. + +“I said so?” cried Mrs. Ballinger. + +“Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind.” + +“Well, YOU said it had changed your whole life!” + +“For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time +she’d given it.” + +Mrs. Plinth interposed: “I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of +the original.” + +Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. “Oh, what does it +all matter if she’s been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck’s +right--she was talking of the river all the while!” + +“How could she? It’s too preposterous,” Miss Glyde exclaimed. + +“Listen.” Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia, +and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. “‘The +Xingu, one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of +Mato Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less +than one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon +near the mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is +auriferous and fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered +in 1884 by the German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and +dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the +Stone Age of culture.’” + +The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence +from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. “She certainly DID speak +of its having branches.” + +The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. “And of +its great length,” gasped Mrs. Ballinger. + +“She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn’t skip--you just had to +wade through,” Miss Glyde subjoined. + +The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth’s compact +resistances. “How could there be anything improper about a river?” she +inquired. + +“Improper?” + +“Why, what she said about the source--that it was corrupt?” + +“Not corrupt, but hard to get at,” Laura Glyde corrected. “Some +one who’d been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer +himself--doesn’t it say the expedition was dangerous?” + +“‘Difficult and dangerous,’” read Miss Van Vluyck. + +Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. “There’s +nothing she said that wouldn’t apply to a river--to this river!” She +swung about excitedly to the other members. “Why, do you remember her +telling us that she hadn’t read ‘The Supreme Instant’ because she’d +taken it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother, +and some one had ‘shied’ it overboard--‘shied’ of course was her own +expression?” + +The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped +them. + +“Well--and then didn’t she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was +simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of Mrs. Roby’s +rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!” + +This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just +participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length +Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy +tone: “Osric Dane was taken in too.” + +Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. “Perhaps that’s what Mrs. Roby did +it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give +her a lesson.” + +Miss Van Vluyck frowned. “It was hardly worth while to do it at our +expense.” + +“At least,” said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, “she succeeded +in interesting her, which was more than we did.” + +“What chance had we?” rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. “Mrs. Roby monopolised +her from the first. And THAT, I’ve no doubt, was her purpose--to give +Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would +hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in +poor Professor Foreland.” + +“She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday,” Mrs. Leveret +piped up. + +Laura Glyde struck her hands together. “Why, this is Thursday, and it’s +THERE she’s gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!” + +“And they’re shrieking over us at this moment,” said Mrs. Ballinger +between her teeth. + +This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. “She would +hardly dare,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “confess the imposture to Osric +Dane.” + +“I’m not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she +hadn’t made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?” + +“Well, you know, we’d all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and +she said she wanted to find out more about it,” Mrs. Leveret said, with +a tardy impulse of justice to the absent. + +This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave +it a stronger impetus. + +“Yes--and that’s exactly what they’re both laughing over now,” said +Laura Glyde ironically. + +Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her +monumental form. “I have no wish to criticise,” she said; “but unless +the Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of +such--such unbecoming scenes, I for one--” + +“Oh, so do I!” agreed Miss Glyde, rising also. + +Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button herself +into her jacket. “My time is really too valuable--” she began. + +“I fancy we are all of one mind,” said Mrs. Ballinger, looking +searchingly at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others. + +“I always deprecate anything like a scandal--” Mrs. Plinth continued. + +“She has been the cause of one to-day!” exclaimed Miss Glyde. + +Mrs. Leveret moaned: “I don’t see how she COULD!” and Miss Van Vluyck +said, picking up her note-book: “Some women stop at nothing.” + +“--but if,” Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, “anything +of the kind had happened in MY house” (it never would have, her tone +implied), “I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for +Mrs. Roby’s resignation--or to offer mine.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Plinth--” gasped the Lunch Club. + +“Fortunately for me,” Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity, +“the matter was taken out of my hands by our President’s decision that +the right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in +her office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was +alone in this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way +of effacing its--its really deplorable consequences.” + +A deep silence followed this unexpected outbreak of Mrs. Plinth’s +long-stored resentment. + +“I don’t see why I should be expected to ask her to resign--” Mrs. +Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her: +“You know she made you say that you’d got on swimmingly in Xingu.” + +An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger +energetically continued “--but you needn’t think for a moment that I’m +afraid to!” + +The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the +Lunch Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating +herself at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of “The Wings +of Death” to make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club’s +note-paper, on which she began to write: “My dear Mrs. Roby--” + + +The End of Xingu + + + + + +THE VERDICT + +June 1908 + + +I had always thought Jack Gisburn rather a cheap genius--though a good +fellow enough--so it was no great surprise to me to hear that, in the +height of his glory, he had dropped his painting, married a rich widow, +and established himself in a villa on the Riviera. (Though I rather +thought it would have been Rome or Florence.) + +“The height of his glory”--that was what the women called it. I can hear +Mrs. Gideon Thwing--his last Chicago sitter--deploring his unaccountable +abdication. “Of course it’s going to send the value of my picture ‘way +up; but I don’t think of that, Mr. Rickham--the loss to Arrt is all I +think of.” The word, on Mrs. Thwing’s lips, multiplied its RS as though +they were reflected in an endless vista of mirrors. And it was not only +the Mrs. Thwings who mourned. Had not the exquisite Hermia Croft, at the +last Grafton Gallery show, stopped me before Gisburn’s “Moon-dancers” to +say, with tears in her eyes: “We shall not look upon its like again”? + +Well!--even through the prism of Hermia’s tears I felt able to face the +fact with equanimity. Poor Jack Gisburn! The women had made him--it was +fitting that they should mourn him. Among his own sex fewer regrets +were heard, and in his own trade hardly a murmur. Professional jealousy? +Perhaps. If it were, the honour of the craft was vindicated by little +Claude Nutley, who, in all good faith, brought out in the Burlington a +very handsome “obituary” on Jack--one of those showy articles stocked +with random technicalities that I have heard (I won’t say by whom) +compared to Gisburn’s painting. And so--his resolve being apparently +irrevocable--the discussion gradually died out, and, as Mrs. Thwing had +predicted, the price of “Gisburns” went up. + +It was not till three years later that, in the course of a few weeks’ +idling on the Riviera, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Gisburn +had given up his painting. On reflection, it really was a tempting +problem. To accuse his wife would have been too easy--his fair sitters +had been denied the solace of saying that Mrs. Gisburn had “dragged him +down.” For Mrs. Gisburn--as such--had not existed till nearly a year +after Jack’s resolve had been taken. It might be that he had married +her--since he liked his ease--because he didn’t want to go on painting; +but it would have been hard to prove that he had given up his painting +because he had married her. + +Of course, if she had not dragged him down, she had equally, as Miss +Croft contended, failed to “lift him up”--she had not led him back to +the easel. To put the brush into his hand again--what a vocation for +a wife! But Mrs. Gisburn appeared to have disdained it--and I felt it +might be interesting to find out why. + +The desultory life of the Riviera lends itself to such purely academic +speculations; and having, on my way to Monte Carlo, caught a glimpse +of Jack’s balustraded terraces between the pines, I had myself borne +thither the next day. + +I found the couple at tea beneath their palm-trees; and Mrs. Gisburn’s +welcome was so genial that, in the ensuing weeks, I claimed it +frequently. It was not that my hostess was “interesting”: on that point +I could have given Miss Croft the fullest reassurance. It was just +because she was NOT interesting--if I may be pardoned the bull--that I +found her so. For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by interesting +women: they had fostered his art, it had been reared in the hot-house +of their adulation. And it was therefore instructive to note what effect +the “deadening atmosphere of mediocrity” (I quote Miss Croft) was having +on him. + +I have mentioned that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was immediately +perceptible that her husband was extracting from this circumstance a +delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as a rule, the people who +scorn money who get most out of it; and Jack’s elegant disdain of +his wife’s big balance enabled him, with an appearance of perfect +good-breeding, to transmute it into objects of art and luxury. To the +latter, I must add, he remained relatively indifferent; but he was +buying Renaissance bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures with a +discrimination that bespoke the amplest resources. + +“Money’s only excuse is to put beauty into circulation,” was one of +the axioms he laid down across the Sèvres and silver of an exquisitely +appointed luncheon-table, when, on a later day, I had again run over +from Monte Carlo; and Mrs. Gisburn, beaming on him, added for my +enlightenment: “Jack is so morbidly sensitive to every form of beauty.” + +Poor Jack! It had always been his fate to have women say such things of +him: the fact should be set down in extenuation. What struck me now +was that, for the first time, he resented the tone. I had seen him, so +often, basking under similar tributes--was it the conjugal note that +robbed them of their savour? No--for, oddly enough, it became apparent +that he was fond of Mrs. Gisburn--fond enough not to see her absurdity. +It was his own absurdity he seemed to be wincing under--his own attitude +as an object for garlands and incense. + +“My dear, since I’ve chucked painting people don’t say that stuff about +me--they say it about Victor Grindle,” was his only protest, as he rose +from the table and strolled out onto the sunlit terrace. + +I glanced after him, struck by his last word. Victor Grindle was, in +fact, becoming the man of the moment--as Jack himself, one might put it, +had been the man of the hour. The younger artist was said to have formed +himself at my friend’s feet, and I wondered if a tinge of jealousy +underlay the latter’s mysterious abdication. But no--for it was not +till after that event that the rose Dubarry drawing-rooms had begun to +display their “Grindles.” + +I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of sugar to +her spaniel in the dining-room. + +“Why HAS he chucked painting?” I asked abruptly. + +She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise. + +“Oh, he doesn’t HAVE to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy himself,” + she said quite simply. + +I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its FAMILLE-VERTE +vases repeating the tones of the pale damask curtains, and its +eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded frames. + +“Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven’t seen a single one in the +house.” + +A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn’s open countenance. +“It’s his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says they’re not fit to have +about; he’s sent them all away except one--my portrait--and that I have +to keep upstairs.” + +His ridiculous modesty--Jack’s modesty about his pictures? My curiosity +was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively to my hostess: “I +must really see your portrait, you know.” + +She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her husband, +lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn the Russian +deerhound’s head between his knees. + +“Well, come while he’s not looking,” she said, with a laugh that tried +to hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the marble Emperors +of the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra-cotta nymphs poised among +flowers at each landing. + +In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of delicate and +distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval canvases, in the +inevitable garlanded frame. The mere outline of the frame called up all +Gisburn’s past! + +Mrs. Gisburn drew back the window-curtains, moved aside a JARDINIÈRE +full of pink azaleas, pushed an arm-chair away, and said: “If you stand +here you can just manage to see it. I had it over the mantel-piece, but +he wouldn’t let it stay.” + +Yes--I could just manage to see it--the first portrait of Jack’s I +had ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the place +of honour--say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose Dubarry +drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it took the light +through curtains of old Venetian point. The more modest place became the +picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, all +the characteristic qualities came out--all the hesitations disguised +as audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with such +consummate skill, he managed to divert attention from the real business +of the picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, +presenting a neutral surface to work on--forming, as it were, so +inevitably the background of her own picture--had lent herself in an +unusual degree to the display of this false virtuosity. The picture +was one of Jack’s “strongest,” as his admirers would have put it--it +represented, on his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of +veins, a balancing, straddling and straining, that reminded one of the +circus-clown’s ironic efforts to lift a feather. It met, in short, at +every point the demand of lovely woman to be painted “strongly” because +she was tired of being painted “sweetly”--and yet not to lose an atom of +the sweetness. + +“It’s the last he painted, you know,” Mrs. Gisburn said with pardonable +pride. “The last but one,” she corrected herself--“but the other doesn’t +count, because he destroyed it.” + +“Destroyed it?” I was about to follow up this clue when I heard a +footstep and saw Jack himself on the threshold. + +As he stood there, his hands in the pockets of his velveteen coat, the +thin brown waves of hair pushed back from his white forehead, his +lean sunburnt cheeks furrowed by a smile that lifted the tips of a +self-confident moustache, I felt to what a degree he had the same +quality as his pictures--the quality of looking cleverer than he was. + +His wife glanced at him deprecatingly, but his eyes travelled past her +to the portrait. + +“Mr. Rickham wanted to see it,” she began, as if excusing herself. He +shrugged his shoulders, still smiling. + +“Oh, Rickham found me out long ago,” he said lightly; then, passing his +arm through mine: “Come and see the rest of the house.” + +He showed it to me with a kind of naive suburban pride: the bath-rooms, +the speaking-tubes, the dress-closets, the trouser-presses--all the +complex simplifications of the millionaire’s domestic economy. And +whenever my wonder paid the expected tribute he said, throwing out +his chest a little: “Yes, I really don’t see how people manage to live +without that.” + +Well--it was just the end one might have foreseen for him. Only he was, +through it all and in spite of it all--as he had been through, and in +spite of, his pictures--so handsome, so charming, so disarming, that one +longed to cry out: “Be dissatisfied with your leisure!” as once one had +longed to say: “Be dissatisfied with your work!” + +But, with the cry on my lips, my diagnosis suffered an unexpected check. + +“This is my own lair,” he said, leading me into a dark plain room at +the end of the florid vista. It was square and brown and leathery: no +“effects”; no bric-a-brac, none of the air of posing for reproduction in +a picture weekly--above all, no least sign of ever having been used as a +studio. + +The fact brought home to me the absolute finality of Jack’s break with +his old life. + +“Don’t you ever dabble with paint any more?” I asked, still looking +about for a trace of such activity. + +“Never,” he said briefly. + +“Or water-colour--or etching?” + +His confident eyes grew dim, and his cheeks paled a little under their +handsome sunburn. + +“Never think of it, my dear fellow--any more than if I’d never touched a +brush.” + +And his tone told me in a flash that he never thought of anything else. + +I moved away, instinctively embarrassed by my unexpected discovery; and +as I turned, my eye fell on a small picture above the mantel-piece--the +only object breaking the plain oak panelling of the room. + +“Oh, by Jove!” I said. + +It was a sketch of a donkey--an old tired donkey, standing in the rain +under a wall. + +“By Jove--a Stroud!” I cried. + +He was silent; but I felt him close behind me, breathing a little +quickly. + +“What a wonder! Made with a dozen lines--but on everlasting foundations. +You lucky chap, where did you get it?” + +He answered slowly: “Mrs. Stroud gave it to me.” + +“Ah--I didn’t know you even knew the Strouds. He was such an inflexible +hermit.” + +“I didn’t--till after.... She sent for me to paint him when he was +dead.” + +“When he was dead? You?” + +I must have let a little too much amazement escape through my surprise, +for he answered with a deprecating laugh: “Yes--she’s an awful +simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by +a fashionable painter--ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way +of proclaiming his greatness--of forcing it on a purblind public. And at +the moment I was THE fashionable painter.” + +“Ah, poor Stroud--as you say. Was THAT his history?” + +“That was his history. She believed in him, gloried in him--or thought +she did. But she couldn’t bear not to have all the drawing-rooms with +her. She couldn’t bear the fact that, on varnishing days, one could +always get near enough to see his pictures. Poor woman! She’s just a +fragment groping for other fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever +knew.” + +“You ever knew? But you just said--” + +Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes. + +“Oh, I knew him, and he knew me--only it happened after he was dead.” + +I dropped my voice instinctively. “When she sent for you?” + +“Yes--quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated--and by +me!” + +He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch +of the donkey. “There were days when I couldn’t look at that +thing--couldn’t face it. But I forced myself to put it here; and now +it’s cured me--cured me. That’s the reason why I don’t dabble any more, +my dear Rickham; or rather Stroud himself is the reason.” + +For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned into a +serious desire to understand him better. + +“I wish you’d tell me how it happened,” I said. + +He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his fingers a +cigarette he had forgotten to light. Suddenly he turned toward me. + +“I’d rather like to tell you--because I’ve always suspected you of +loathing my work.” + +I made a deprecating gesture, which he negatived with a good-humoured +shrug. + +“Oh, I didn’t care a straw when I believed in myself--and now it’s an +added tie between us!” + +He laughed slightly, without bitterness, and pushed one of the deep +arm-chairs forward. “There: make yourself comfortable--and here are the +cigars you like.” + +He placed them at my elbow and continued to wander up and down the room, +stopping now and then beneath the picture. + +“How it happened? I can tell you in five minutes--and it didn’t take +much longer to happen.... I can remember now how surprised and pleased +I was when I got Mrs. Stroud’s note. Of course, deep down, I had always +FELT there was no one like him--only I had gone with the stream, echoed +the usual platitudes about him, till I half got to think he was a +failure, one of the kind that are left behind. By Jove, and he WAS left +behind--because he had come to stay! The rest of us had to let ourselves +be swept along or go under, but he was high above the current--on +everlasting foundations, as you say. + +“Well, I went off to the house in my most egregious mood--rather moved, +Lord forgive me, at the pathos of poor Stroud’s career of failure being +crowned by the glory of my painting him! Of course I meant to do the +picture for nothing--I told Mrs. Stroud so when she began to stammer +something about her poverty. I remember getting off a prodigious phrase +about the honour being MINE--oh, I was princely, my dear Rickham! I was +posing to myself like one of my own sitters. + +“Then I was taken up and left alone with him. I had sent all my traps in +advance, and I had only to set up the easel and get to work. He had been +dead only twenty-four hours, and he died suddenly, of heart disease, +so that there had been no preliminary work of destruction--his face +was clear and untouched. I had met him once or twice, years before, and +thought him insignificant and dingy. Now I saw that he was superb. + +“I was glad at first, with a merely aesthetic satisfaction: glad to have +my hand on such a ‘subject.’ Then his strange life-likeness began +to affect me queerly--as I blocked the head in I felt as if he were +watching me do it. The sensation was followed by the thought: if he WERE +watching me, what would he say to my way of working? My strokes began to +go a little wild--I felt nervous and uncertain. + +“Once, when I looked up, I seemed to see a smile behind his close +grayish beard--as if he had the secret, and were amusing himself by +holding it back from me. That exasperated me still more. The secret? +Why, I had a secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at the canvas +furiously, and tried some of my bravura tricks. But they failed me, +they crumbled. I saw that he wasn’t watching the showy bits--I couldn’t +distract his attention; he just kept his eyes on the hard passages +between. Those were the ones I had always shirked, or covered up with +some lying paint. And how he saw through my lies! + +“I looked up again, and caught sight of that sketch of the donkey +hanging on the wall near his bed. His wife told me afterward it was the +last thing he had done--just a note taken with a shaking hand, when he +was down in Devonshire recovering from a previous heart attack. Just +a note! But it tells his whole history. There are years of patient +scornful persistence in every line. A man who had swum with the current +could never have learned that mighty up-stream stroke.... + +“I turned back to my work, and went on groping and muddling; then I +looked at the donkey again. I saw that, when Stroud laid in the first +stroke, he knew just what the end would be. He had possessed his +subject, absorbed it, recreated it. When had I done that with any of my +things? They hadn’t been born of me--I had just adopted them.... + +“Hang it, Rickham, with that face watching me I couldn’t do another +stroke. The plain truth was, I didn’t know where to put it--I HAD NEVER +KNOWN. Only, with my sitters and my public, a showy splash of colour +covered up the fact--I just threw paint into their faces.... Well, paint +was the one medium those dead eyes could see through--see straight to +the tottering foundations underneath. Don’t you know how, in talking +a foreign language, even fluently, one says half the time not what one +wants to but what one can? Well--that was the way I painted; and as he +lay there and watched me, the thing they called my ‘technique’ collapsed +like a house of cards. He didn’t sneer, you understand, poor Stroud--he +just lay there quietly watching, and on his lips, through the gray +beard, I seemed to hear the question: ‘Are you sure you know where +you’re coming out?’ + +“If I could have painted that face, with that question on it, I should +have done a great thing. The next greatest thing was to see that I +couldn’t--and that grace was given me. But, oh, at that minute, Rickham, +was there anything on earth I wouldn’t have given to have Stroud alive +before me, and to hear him say: ‘It’s not too late--I’ll show you how’? + +“It WAS too late--it would have been, even if he’d been alive. I packed +up my traps, and went down and told Mrs. Stroud. Of course I didn’t +tell her THAT--it would have been Greek to her. I simply said I couldn’t +paint him, that I was too moved. She rather liked the idea--she’s so +romantic! It was that that made her give me the donkey. But she was +terribly upset at not getting the portrait--she did so want him ‘done’ +by some one showy! At first I was afraid she wouldn’t let me off--and at +my wits’ end I suggested Grindle. Yes, it was I who started Grindle: I +told Mrs. Stroud he was the ‘coming’ man, and she told somebody else, +and so it got to be true.... And he painted Stroud without wincing; and +she hung the picture among her husband’s things....” + +He flung himself down in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head, +and clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the +chimney-piece. + +“I like to fancy that Stroud himself would have given it to me, if he’d +been able to say what he thought that day.” + +And, in answer to a question I put half-mechanically--“Begin again?” + he flashed out. “When the one thing that brings me anywhere near him is +that I knew enough to leave off?” + +He stood up and laid his hand on my shoulder with a laugh. “Only the +irony of it is that I AM still painting--since Grindle’s doing it +for me! The Strouds stand alone, and happen once--but there’s no +exterminating our kind of art.” + + +The End of The Verdict + + + + + +THE RECKONING + +August, 1902 + + + + +I + + +“The marriage law of the new dispensation will be: THOU SHALT NOT BE +UNFAITHFUL--TO THYSELF.” + +A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze of +cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from his +improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of ladies. +Westall’s informal talks on “The New Ethics” had drawn about him an +eager following of the mentally unemployed--those who, as he had once +phrased it, liked to have their brain-food cut up for them. The talks +had begun by accident. Westall’s ideas were known to be “advanced,” but +hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of publicity. He +had been, in his wife’s opinion, almost pusillanimously careful not +to let his personal views endanger his professional standing. Of late, +however, he had shown a puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down +the gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the +relation of the sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few +admiring friends had persuaded him to give his after-dinner opinions a +larger circulation by summing them up in a series of talks at the Van +Sideren studio. + +The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on +the fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren’s pictures were chiefly +valuable as accessories to the MISE EN SCÈNE which differentiated his +wife’s “afternoons” from the blighting functions held in long New York +drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends whiskey-and-soda +instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making +the most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel +create; and if at times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and +lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, +she promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh +talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the “artistic” impression. It +was in quest of such aid that she had seized on Westall, coaxing him, +somewhat to his wife’s surprise, into a flattered participation in her +fraud. It was vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren circle, that all the +audacities were artistic, and that a teacher who pronounced marriage +immoral was somehow as distinguished as a painter who depicted +purple grass and a green sky. The Van Sideren set were tired of the +conventional color-scheme in art and conduct. + +Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage; +she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple. In the early +days of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to +proclaim himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax +him with moral cowardice, with a failure to live up to the convictions +for which their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the +first burst of propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her +disobedience into a law. Now she felt differently. She could hardly +account for the change, yet being a woman who never allowed her impulses +to remain unaccounted for, she tried to do so by saying that she did not +care to have the articles of her faith misinterpreted by the vulgar. In +this connection, she was beginning to think that almost every one was +vulgar; certainly there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust +the defence of so esoteric a doctrine. And it was precisely at this +point that Westall, discarding his unspoken principles, had chosen to +descend from the heights of privacy, and stand hawking his convictions +at the street-corner! + +It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed +upon herself Mrs. Westall’s wandering resentment. In the first place, +the girl had no business to be there. It was “horrid”--Mrs. Westall +found herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary--simply +“horrid” to think of a young girl’s being allowed to listen to such +talk. The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional +cocktail did not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which +made her appear the victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents’ +vulgarities. Julia Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something +ought to be done--that some one ought to speak to the girl’s mother. And +just then Una glided up. + +“Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!” Una fixed her with large +limpid eyes. “You believe it all, I suppose?” she asked with seraphic +gravity. + +“All--what, my dear child?” + +The girl shone on her. “About the higher life--the freer expansion of +the individual--the law of fidelity to one’s self,” she glibly recited. + +Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush. + +“My dear Una,” she said, “you don’t in the least understand what it’s +all about!” + +Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. “Don’t YOU, +then?” she murmured. + +Mrs. Westall laughed. “Not always--or altogether! But I should like some +tea, please.” + +Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As +Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully. It was +not such a girlish face, after all--definite lines were forming under +the rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty, +and wondered why she had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would +have as her dower! If THEY were to be a part of the modern girl’s +trousseau-- + +Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one +else had been speaking--a stranger who had borrowed her own voice: she +felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism. Concluding +suddenly that the room was stifling and Una’s tea too sweet, she set +down her cup, and looked about for Westall: to meet his eyes had long +been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but only, +as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger +flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which +Una had withdrawn--one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren +attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had +overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl’s side. She bent +forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the +depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him +to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. +Julia winced at her own definition of the smile. + + +On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife +by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. “Did I open their eyes a bit? +Did I tell them what you wanted me to?” he asked gaily. + +Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. “What I wanted--?” + +“Why, haven’t you--all this time?” She caught the honest wonder of his +tone. “I somehow fancied you’d rather blamed me for not talking more +openly--before-- You’ve made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing +principles to expediency.” + +She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: “What made +you decide not to--any longer?” + +She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. “Why--the wish to +please you!” he answered, almost too simply. + +“I wish you would not go on, then,” she said abruptly. + +He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the +darkness. + +“Not go on--?” + +“Call a hansom, please. I’m tired,” broke from her with a sudden rush of +physical weariness. + +Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally +hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had noticed once or +twice that she looked pale--she mustn’t come to another Saturday. She +felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his +concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a +conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her +hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let +them fall. It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! + +That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the subject +of his talk. He combined a man’s dislike of uncomfortable questions +with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew that if he +returned to the subject he must have some special reason for doing so. + +“You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put +the case badly?” + +“No--you put it very well.” + +“Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go +on with it?” + +She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening +her sense of helplessness. + +“I don’t think I care to hear such things discussed in public.” + +“I don’t understand you,” he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his +surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She +was not sure that she understood herself. + +“Won’t you explain?” he said with a tinge of impatience. Her eyes +wandered about the familiar drawing-room which had been the scene of so +many of their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the quiet-colored +walls hung with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers scattered here and +there in Venice glasses and bowls of old Sèvres, recalled, she hardly +knew why, the apartment in which the evenings of her first marriage had +been passed--a wilderness of rosewood and upholstery, with a picture of +a Roman peasant above the mantel-piece, and a Greek slave in “statuary +marble” between the folding-doors of the back drawing-room. It was a +room with which she had never been able to establish any closer relation +than that between a traveller and a railway station; and now, as +she looked about at the surroundings which stood for her deepest +affinities--the room for which she had left that other room--she was +startled by the same sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity. The prints, +the flowers, the subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a +superficial refinement that had no relation to the deeper significances +of life. + +Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question. + +“I don’t know that I can explain,” she faltered. + +He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the hearth. +The light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face, which had +a kind of surface-sensitiveness akin to the surface-refinement of its +setting. + +“Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?” he asked. + +“In our ideas--?” + +“The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to +stand for.” He paused a moment. “The ideas on which our marriage was +founded.” + +The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then--she was sure now +that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how +often had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was +founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to +examine its foundation? The foundation is there, of course--the house +rests on it--but one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It +was she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the +situation now and then, on recapitulating the reasons which justified +her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the +religion of personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel +the need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted her marriage as +frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the primitive needs +of the heart, and needed no special sanction to explain or justify it. + +“Of course I still believe in our ideas!” she exclaimed. + +“Then I repeat that I don’t understand. It was a part of your theory +that the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of +marriage. Have you changed your mind in that respect?” + +She hesitated. “It depends on circumstances--on the public one is +addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them don’t +care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply +by its novelty.” + +“And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and +learned the truth from each other.” + +“That was different.” + +“In what way?” + +“I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly unfitting that +young girls should be present at--at such times--should hear such things +discussed--” + +“I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such +things never ARE discussed before young girls; but that is beside +the point, for I don’t remember seeing any young girl in my audience +to-day--” + +“Except Una Van Sideren!” + +He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. + +“Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--” + +“Why naturally?” + +“The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with her +governess?” + +“If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my +house!” + +Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. “I fancy +Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself.” + +“No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it’s too late.” + +“And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of +self-defence?” + +“What do you call the surest means of self-defence?” + +“Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the +marriage tie.” + +She made an impatient gesture. “How should you like to marry that kind +of a girl?” + +“Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects.” + +She took up the argument at another point. + +“You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young +girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--” She broke +off, wondering why she had spoken. + +Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning +of their discussion. “What you tell me is immensely flattering to my +oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you +that Miss Van Sideren doesn’t have to have her thinking done for her. +She’s quite capable of doing it herself.” + +“You seem very familiar with her mental processes!” flashed unguardedly +from his wife. + +He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. + +“I should like to be,” he answered. “She interests me.” + + + + +II + + +If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to +Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to +excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John +Arment was “impossible,” and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the +thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine. + +There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side +had accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as +“statutory.” The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their +allegiance to a State which recognized desertion as a cause for divorce, +and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of desertion were +shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment’s second marriage did +not make traditional morality stir in its sleep. It was known that she +had not met her second husband till after she had parted from the first, +and she had, moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement +Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it was generally felt +that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his reputation. The +Westalls would probably always have to live quietly and go out to +dinner in cabs. Could there be better evidence of Mrs. Arment’s complete +disinterestedness? + +If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat +cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the matter, both +explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible. The +only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was something +deeper than a social disqualification. She had once said, in ironical +defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her from +the necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not then +realized at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was +impossible; but the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he +made it impossible for those about him to be other than himself. By +an unconscious process of elimination he had excluded from the world +everything of which he did not feel a personal need: had become, as it +were, a climate in which only his own requirements survived. This might +seem to imply a deliberate selfishness; but there was nothing deliberate +about Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child. It was this +childish element in his nature which sometimes for a moment unsettled +his wife’s estimate of him. Was it possible that he was simply +undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than is usual, the +laborious process of growing up? He had the kind of sporadic shrewdness +which causes it to be said of a dull man that he is “no fool”; and it +was this quality that his wife found most trying. Even to the naturalist +it is annoying to have his deductions disturbed by some unforeseen +aberrancy of form or function; and how much more so to the wife whose +estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with her judgment of her +husband! + +Arment’s shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual +power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of suffering, +perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia’s sensibilities +naturally declined to linger. She so fully understood her own +reasons for leaving him that she disliked to think they were not as +comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her analytic moments, +by the look of perplexity, too inarticulate for words, with which he had +acquiesced to her explanations. + +These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too +concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been +unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it +had been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia was +wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her husband’s personality seemed +to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting off +the air, till she felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of +her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by some world-old +conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. +If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in +ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, for one, +would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had been a +victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest +of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they +may have outgrown the span of each other’s natures as the mature tree +outgrows the iron brace about the sapling. + +It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met +Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was “interested,” and had +fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her +back into the bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril +she had, with an almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to +him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted +by the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted that +he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem to +surprise him: he had thought out all that she had felt, and they had +reached the same conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke +that was an easy fit for the one might soon become galling to the other. +That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. +As soon as their necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would +gain in dignity as well as in harmony. There would be no farther need +of the ignoble concessions and connivances, the perpetual sacrifice of +personal delicacy and moral pride, by means of which imperfect marriages +were now held together. Each partner to the contract would be on his +mettle, forced to live up to the highest standard of self-development, +on pain of losing the other’s respect and affection. The low nature +could no longer drag the higher down, but must struggle to rise, or +remain alone on its inferior level. The only necessary condition to a +harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn +agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith with themselves, +and not to live together for a moment after complete accord had ceased +to exist between them. The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self. + +It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that +they had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to social +prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need +be an imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any +diminution of self-respect. The nature of their attachment placed +them so far beyond the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to +discuss them with an open mind; and Julia’s sense of security made her +dwell with a tender insistence on Westall’s promise to claim his release +when he should cease to love her. The exchange of these vows seemed +to make them, in a sense, champions of the new law, pioneers in the +forbidden realm of individual freedom: they felt that they had somehow +achieved beatitude without martyrdom. + +This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her +theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously, insidiously, +that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed another +conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct of +passionate dependency and possessorship that now made her blood revolt +at the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they +had called it, in their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination +rather--this rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with another’s being! +Another? But he was not other! He and she were one, one in the mystic +sense which alone gave marriage its significance. The new law was not +for them, but for the disunited creatures forced into a mockery of +union. The gospel she had felt called on to proclaim had no bearing on +her own case.... She sent for the doctor and told him she was sure she +needed a nerve tonic. + +She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative +to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her +anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject +of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a +softening of his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, +that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because +she looked badly--because he knew about the doctor and the nerve +tonic--that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to +screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the +way for fresh inferences. + +The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday +the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia +ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was to +be some music after his “talk”? Westall was just leaving for his office +when his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door and called +him back to deliver the message. + +He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. “What a bore! I shall have +to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Will you +write and say it’s all right?” + +Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against +which she leaned. + +“You mean to go on with these talks?” she asked. + +“I--why not?” he returned; and this time it struck her that his surprise +was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find words. + +“You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me--” + +“Well?” + +“I told you last week that they didn’t please me.” + +“Last week? Oh--” He seemed to make an effort of memory. “I thought you +were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day.” + +“It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance--” + +“My assurance?” + +Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair with +a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her like +straws down a whirling flood. + +“Clement,” she cried, “isn’t it enough for you to know that I hate it?” + +He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and +sat down. “What is it that you hate?” he asked gently. + +She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument. + +“I can’t bear to have you speak as if--as if--our marriage--were like +the other kind--the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the other +afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming +that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they +were tired--or had seen some one else--” + +Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet. + +“You HAVE ceased to take this view, then?” he said as she broke +off. “You no longer believe that husbands and wives ARE justified in +separating--under such conditions?” + +“Under such conditions?” she stammered. “Yes--I still believe that--but +how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances--?” + +He interrupted her. “I thought it was a fundamental article of our +creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to +interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty.” He paused a +moment. “I thought that was your reason for leaving Arment.” + +She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal turn +to the argument. + +“It was my reason,” she said simply. + +“Well, then--why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?” + +“I don’t--I don’t--I only say that one can’t judge for others.” + +He made an impatient movement. “This is mere hair-splitting. What you +mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you needed +it, you now repudiate it.” + +“Well,” she exclaimed, flushing again, “what if I do? What does it +matter to us?” + +Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before +his wife with something of the formality of a stranger. + +“It matters to me,” he said in a low voice, “because I do NOT repudiate +it.” + +“Well--?” + +“And because I had intended to invoke it as”-- + +He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened by +her heart-beats. + +--“as a complete justification of the course I am about to take.” + +Julia remained motionless. “What course is that?” she asked. + +He cleared his throat. “I mean to claim the fulfilment of your promise.” + +For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a +torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings pressed +upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the +hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a separate wound to +each sense. + +“My promise--” she faltered. + +“Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the +other should wish to be released.” + +She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position +nervously; then he said, with a touch of irritability: “You acknowledge +the agreement?” + +The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it +proudly. “I acknowledge the agreement,” she said. + +“And--you don’t mean to repudiate it?” + +A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and +pushed it back. + +“No,” she answered slowly, “I don’t mean to repudiate it.” + +There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on the +mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that he had +given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered vaguely if +he noticed it. + +“You intend to leave me, then?” she said at length. + +His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. + +“To marry some one else?” + +Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. + +“Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?” + +He was silent. + +“I wish you good luck,” she said. + + + + +III + + +She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how +he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire +still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the +wall. + +Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that +she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no +crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or +evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns. + +Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked +about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed to +be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. “This is my +room--this is my house,” she heard herself saying. Her room? Her house? +She could almost hear the walls laugh back at her. + +She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room +frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close +a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her +husband must have left the house, then--her HUSBAND? She no longer knew +in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. She +sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock +struck ten--it was only ten o’clock! Suddenly she remembered that +she had not ordered dinner... or were they dining out that evening? +DINNER--DINING OUT--the old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She +must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a some +one dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose wants +and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the ways of a +strange animal... + +The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and walked +to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. HER room? +Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow +hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall’s +sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The +same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French +print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual +continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same +untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she +could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the +lounge, a stupor creeping over her... + +Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the +interval--a wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments, +ideas--a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon +themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize these chaotic +forces. There must be help somewhere, if only she could master the inner +tumult. Life could not be broken off short like this, for a whim, a +fancy; the law itself would side with her, would defend her. The law? +What claim had she upon it? She was the prisoner of her own choice: she +had been her own legislator, and she was the predestined victim of +the code she had devised. But this was grotesque, intolerable--a mad +mistake, for which she could not be held accountable! The law she had +despised was still there, might still be invoked... invoked, but to what +end? Could she ask it to chain Westall to her side? SHE had been +allowed to go free when she claimed her freedom--should she show less +magnanimity than she had exacted? Magnanimity? The word lashed her with +its irony--one does not strike an attitude when one is fighting for +life! She would threaten, grovel, cajole... she would yield anything to +keep her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay deeper! The law +could not help her--her own apostasy could not help her. She was the +victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though some giant +machine of her own making had caught her up in its wheels and was +grinding her to atoms... + +It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with +an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant, +metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to +reveal the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our +architecture. The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared +and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren’s +address. She did not know what had led up to the act; but she found +herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too +late to save herself--but the girl might still be told. The hansom +rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding +recognition. At the Van Siderens’ door she sprang out and rang the bell. +Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and self-possessed. She +knew now exactly what she meant to say. + +The ladies were both out... the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card. +Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a +moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the +cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. +He touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty +street. She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where +she was not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had +returned. Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of Broadway, +swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a +succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite direction... + +A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since +morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of +ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the +sign LADIES’ RESTAURANT: a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against the +dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological museum. She entered, +and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table for +her near the window. The table was covered with a red and white cotton +cloth and adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick tumbler and a +salt-cellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a +long time waiting for it. She was glad to be away from the noise and +confusion of the streets. The low-ceilinged room was empty, and two or +three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the background staring +at her and whispering together. At last the tea was brought in a +discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup and drank it hastily. It was +black and bitter, but it flowed through her veins like an elixir. She +was almost dizzy with exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how unutterably tired +she had been! + +She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once +more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she had +stood on the Van Siderens’ door-step--but the wish to return there had +subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt--the humiliation +to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was that she did +not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading, and she +realized that she could not remain much longer in the restaurant without +attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out into the street. +The lamps were alight, and here and there a basement shop cast an +oblong of gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the dusk there was +something sinister about the aspect of the street, and she hastened back +toward Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out alone at that hour. + +At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream +of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her +that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, +but she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the +farther corner. There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied the +policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the nearest +side street... After that she walked a long time, vaguely... Night had +fallen, and now and then, through the windows of a passing carriage, she +caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera +cloak... + +Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a +moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing +whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house +in which she had once lived--her first husband’s house. The blinds were +drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom +above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a +man walked by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a +heavy middle-aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, +the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. +He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew forth a +latch-key, and let himself in... + +There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against the +area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house. The +feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea still +throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural clearness. +Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving quickly away, she +too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse +which had carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the +electric bell--then she felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and grasped +the balustrade for support. The door opened and a young footman with +a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an +instant that he would admit her. + +“I saw Mr. Arment going in just now,” she said. “Will you ask him to see +me for a moment?” + +The footman hesitated. “I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for +dinner, madam.” + +Julia advanced into the hall. “I am sure he will see me--I will not +detain him long,” she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the +tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on +the drawing-room door. + +“I will tell him, madam. What name, please?” + +Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. “Merely say a lady,” she +returned carelessly. + +The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant +the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He +drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with +the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his +temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears. + +It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the change +in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down into +the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one conscious +thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she must not let +him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body throbbed with +the urgency of her message. + +She went up to him as he drew back. “I must speak to you,” she said. + +Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and +her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a “scene” + predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: “Will you +come this way?” + +He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as she +advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: time +had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the +chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the +inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from +every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of +the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying +these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred +in the act of dominating Arment’s will. The fear that he would refuse +to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt +before it, words and arguments running into each other in the heat of +her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself +thrust out before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, +Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: “You are not well.” + +The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind--a +voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen developments. +She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a deep +breath. “Shall I send for something?” he continued, with a cold +embarrassed politeness. + +Julia raised an entreating hand. “No--no--thank you. I am quite well.” + +He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. “Then may I ask--?” + +“Yes,” she interrupted him. “I came here because I wanted to see you. +There is something I must tell you.” + +Arment continued to scrutinize her. “I am surprised at that,” he said. +“I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make +could have been made through our lawyers.” + +“Our lawyers!” She burst into a little laugh. “I don’t think they could +help me--this time.” + +Arment’s face took on a barricaded look. “If there is any question of +help--of course--” + +It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby +devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him +to put his name down for so much in sympathy--or even in money... +The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to +perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she remembered, +suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering scenery +with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel. +“There IS a question of help,” she said in a softer key: “you can help +me; but only by listening... I want to tell you something...” + +Arment’s resistance was not yielding. “Would it not be easier +to--write?” he suggested. + +She shook her head. “There is no time to write... and it won’t take +long.” She raised her head and their eyes met. “My husband has left me,” + she said. + +“Westall--?” he stammered, reddening again. + +“Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me.” + +The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the +limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed +glance returned to Julia. + +“I am very sorry,” he said awkwardly. + +“Thank you,” she murmured. + +“But I don’t see--” + +“No--but you will--in a moment. Won’t you listen to me? Please!” + Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between +him and the door. “It happened this morning,” she went on in short +breathless phrases. “I never suspected anything--I thought we +were--perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... there +is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her...” As she spoke, the +lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion +of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and +two painful tears burnt a way down her face. + +Arment’s constraint was increasing visibly. “This--this is very +unfortunate,” he began. “But I should say the law--” + +“The law?” she echoed ironically. “When he asks for his freedom?” + +“You are not obliged to give it.” + +“You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did.” + +He made a protesting gesture. + +“You saw that the law couldn’t help you--didn’t you?” she went on. +“That is what I see now. The law represents material rights--it can’t go +beyond. If we don’t recognize an inner law... the obligation that love +creates... being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to +prevent our spreading ruin unhindered... is there?” She raised her head +plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. “That is what I see +now... what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he’s tired... but +I was not tired; and I don’t understand why he is. That’s the dreadful +part of it--the not understanding: I hadn’t realized what it meant. +But I’ve been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to +me--things I hadn’t noticed... when you and I...” She moved closer to +him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond +words. “I see now that YOU didn’t understand--did you?” + +Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be +lifted between them. Arment’s lip trembled. + +“No,” he said, “I didn’t understand.” + +She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. “I knew it! I knew it! You +wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came... You saw your life +falling in ruins... the world slipping from you... and you couldn’t +speak or move!” + +She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. “Now I +know--now I know,” she repeated. + +“I am very sorry for you,” she heard Arment stammer. + +She looked up quickly. “That’s not what I came for. I don’t want you to +be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me... for not understanding that +YOU didn’t understand... That’s all I wanted to say.” She rose with a +vague sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward the +door. + +Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile. + +“You forgive me?” + +“There is nothing to forgive--” + +“Then will you shake hands for good-by?” She felt his hand in hers: it +was nerveless, reluctant. + +“Good-by,” she repeated. “I understand now.” + +She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment +took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was +evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let +her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, +and she found herself outside in the darkness. + +The End of The Reckoning + + + + + +VERSE + + + + +BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. + + + WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies + On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, + Forefeeling the Light’s terrible eclipse + On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, + And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes + The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, + And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps + When the cross darkens her unclouded skies? + + Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, + Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, + And think--“My child at home clings so to me, + With the same smile... and yet in vain, in vain, + Since even this Jesus died on Calvary”-- + Say to her then: “He also rose again.” + + + + +THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. + + + ILARIA, thou that wert so fair and dear + That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise + With prophecy thy husband’s widowed eyes + And bade him call the master’s art to rear + Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, + With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise + Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, + And lips that at love’s call should answer, “Here!” + + First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul + Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, + Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, + Regenerate in art’s sunrise clear and wide + As saints who, having kept faith’s raiment whole, + Change it above for garments glorified. + + + + +THE SONNET. + + PURE form, that like some chalice of old time + Contain’st the liquid of the poet’s thought + Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought + With interwoven traceries of rhyme, + While o’er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, + What thing am I, that undismayed have sought + To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught + Into a shape so small yet so sublime? + Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, + Because thy sacred chalice gathered up + The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley--then + Receive these tears of failure as they drop + (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain + To pour them in a consecrated cup. + + + + +TWO BACKGROUNDS. + + + I. LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR. + + + HERE by the ample river’s argent sweep, + Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, + A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep + The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, + With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee + The friendly gables clustered at their base, + And, equipoised o’er tower and market-place, + The Gothic minster’s winged immensity; + And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, + Two placid hearts, to all life’s good resigned, + Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find + Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude. + + + II. MONA LISA. + + + Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep + No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; + Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, + But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; + And tales are told of those who thought to gain + At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell + Far off they saw each fading pinnacle + Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; + Yet there two souls, whom life’s perversities + Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, + Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, + And drain Joy’s awful chalice to the lees. + + + + +EXPERIENCE. + + + I. + + LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand + Upon the desert verge of death, and say: + “What shall avail the woes of yesterday + To buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land + Whose currency is strange unto our hand? + In life’s small market they have served to pay + Some late-found rapture, could we but delay + Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.” + + But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, + Our gathered strength of individual pain, + When Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold, + Dies with us--hoarded all these years in vain, + Since those that might be heir to it the mould + Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. + + + II. + + O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, + Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, + Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, + And love’s oblivion, and remembering hate, + Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight + Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears + Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, + And sell us the one joy for which we wait. + Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, + With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, + But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, + And all our longings lie within thy keep-- + Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? + + “Not so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.” + + + + +CHARTRES. + + + I. + + IMMENSE, august, like some Titanic bloom, + The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, + Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, + Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, + And stamened with keen flamelets that illume + The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, + By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, + A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, + The stranded driftwood of Faith’s ebbing sea-- + For these alone the finials fret the skies, + The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, + While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, + Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, + The cloud of witnesses still testifies. + + + II. + + The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize + The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. + A rigid fetich in her robe of gold + The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, + Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, + Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. + The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, + Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. + Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows + To be a part of nature’s self, withdrawn + From hot humanity’s impatient woes; + The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, + And in the east one giant window shows + The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn. + + + + +LIFE. + + + LIFE, like a marble block, is given to all, + A blank, inchoate mass of years and days, + Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays + Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; + One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; + One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, + And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia’s gaze, + Carves it apace in toys fantastical. + + But least is he who, with enchanted eyes + Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, + Muses which god he shall immortalize + In the proud Parian’s perpetuity, + Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies + That the night cometh wherein none shall see. + + + + +AN AUTUMN SUNSET + + + I + + LEAGUERED in fire + The wild black promontories of the coast extend + Their savage silhouettes; + The sun in universal carnage sets, + And, halting higher, + The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, + Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, + That, balked, yet stands at bay. + Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day + In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, + A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine + Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, + And in her lifted hand swings high o’erhead, + Above the waste of war, + The silver torch-light of the evening star + Wherewith to search the faces of the dead. + + + II + + Lagooned in gold, + Seem not those jetty promontories rather + The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, + Uncomforted of morn, + Where old oblivions gather, + The melancholy, unconsoling fold + Of all things that go utterly to death + And mix no more, no more + With life’s perpetually awakening breath? + Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, + Over such sailless seas, + To walk with hope’s slain importunities + In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not + All things be there forgot, + Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black + Closecrouching promontories? + Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, + Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade, + A spectre self-destroyed, + So purged of all remembrance and sucked back + Into the primal void, + That should we on that shore phantasmal meet + I should not know the coming of your feet? + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith +Wharton, Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + +***** This file should be named 306-0.txt or 306-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/306/ + +Produced by John Hamm + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/306-0.zip b/306-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ef78a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/306-0.zip diff --git a/306-h.zip b/306-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6785d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/306-h.zip diff --git a/306-h/306-h.htm b/306-h/306-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4851a26 --- /dev/null +++ b/306-h/306-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7151 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, by Edith Warton + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, +Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton + +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: The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #306] +Last Updated: October 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + + + + +Produced by John Hamm, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE EARLY SHORT FICTION<br /> OF EDITH WHARTON + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Edith Wharton + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + A Ten-Part Collection + </h4> + <h3> + Volume Two + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AFTERWARD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE FULNESS OF LIFE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> I. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A VENETIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> III </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XINGU </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> III </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> THE VERDICT </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE RECKONING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> III </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> <b>VERSE</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> THE SONNET. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> TWO BACKGROUNDS. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> EXPERIENCE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> CHARTRES. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> LIFE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> AN AUTUMN SUNSET </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + AFTERWARD + </h2> + <h3> + January 1910 + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “Oh, there <i>is</i> one, of course, but you’ll never know it.” + </p> + <p> + The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a bright June + garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp perception of its latent + significance as she stood, in the December dusk, waiting for the lamps to + be brought into the library. + </p> + <p> + The words had been spoken by their friend Alida Stair, as they sat at tea + on her lawn at Pangbourne, in reference to the very house of which the + library in question was the central, the pivotal “feature.” Mary Boyne and + her husband, in quest of a country place in one of the southern or + southwestern counties, had, on their arrival in England, carried their + problem straight to Alida Stair, who had successfully solved it in her own + case; but it was not until they had rejected, almost capriciously, several + practical and judicious suggestions that she threw it out: “Well, there’s + Lyng, in Dorsetshire. It belongs to Hugo’s cousins, and you can get it for + a song.” + </p> + <p> + The reasons she gave for its being obtainable on these terms—its + remoteness from a station, its lack of electric light, hot-water pipes, + and other vulgar necessities—were exactly those pleading in its + favor with two romantic Americans perversely in search of the economic + drawbacks which were associated, in their tradition, with unusual + architectural felicities. + </p> + <p> + “I should never believe I was living in an old house unless I was + thoroughly uncomfortable,” Ned Boyne, the more extravagant of the two, had + jocosely insisted; “the least hint of ‘convenience’ would make me think it + had been bought out of an exhibition, with the pieces numbered, and set up + again.” And they had proceeded to enumerate, with humorous precision, + their various suspicions and exactions, refusing to believe that the house + their cousin recommended was <i>really</i> Tudor till they learned it had no + heating system, or that the village church was literally in the grounds + till she assured them of the deplorable uncertainty of the water-supply. + </p> + <p> + “It’s too uncomfortable to be true!” Edward Boyne had continued to exult + as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively wrung from her; but he + had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with a sudden relapse to distrust: “And + the ghost? You’ve been concealing from us the fact that there is no + ghost!” + </p> + <p> + Mary, at the moment, had laughed with him, yet almost with her laugh, + being possessed of several sets of independent perceptions, had noted a + sudden flatness of tone in Alida’s answering hilarity. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Dorsetshire’s full of ghosts, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes; but that won’t do. I don’t want to have to drive ten miles to + see somebody else’s ghost. I want one of my own on the premises. <i>Is</i> there + a ghost at Lyng?” + </p> + <p> + His rejoinder had made Alida laugh again, and it was then that she had + flung back tantalizingly: “Oh, there <i>is</i> one, of course, but you’ll never + know it.” + </p> + <p> + “Never know it?” Boyne pulled her up. “But what in the world constitutes a + ghost except the fact of its being known for one?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say. But that’s the story.” + </p> + <p> + “That there’s a ghost, but that nobody knows it’s a ghost?” + </p> + <p> + “Well—not till afterward, at any rate.” + </p> + <p> + “Till afterward?” + </p> + <p> + “Not till long, long afterward.” + </p> + <p> + “But if it’s once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn’t its + signalement been handed down in the family? How has it managed to preserve + its incognito?” + </p> + <p> + Alida could only shake her head. “Don’t ask me. But it has.” + </p> + <p> + “And then suddenly—” Mary spoke up as if from some cavernous depth + of divination—“suddenly, long afterward, one says to one’s self, + ‘<i>that was</i> it?’” + </p> + <p> + She was oddly startled at the sepulchral sound with which her question + fell on the banter of the other two, and she saw the shadow of the same + surprise flit across Alida’s clear pupils. “I suppose so. One just has to + wait.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, hang waiting!” Ned broke in. “Life’s too short for a ghost who can + only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can’t we do better than that, Mary?” + </p> + <p> + But it turned out that in the event they were not destined to, for within + three months of their conversation with Mrs. Stair they were established + at Lyng, and the life they had yearned for to the point of planning it out + in all its daily details had actually begun for them. + </p> + <p> + It was to sit, in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide-hooded + fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the sense that beyond + the mullioned panes the downs were darkening to a deeper solitude: it was + for the ultimate indulgence in such sensations that Mary Boyne had endured + for nearly fourteen years the soul-deadening ugliness of the Middle West, + and that Boyne had ground on doggedly at his engineering till, with a + suddenness that still made her blink, the prodigious windfall of the Blue + Star Mine had put them at a stroke in possession of life and the leisure + to taste it. They had never for a moment meant their new state to be one + of idleness; but they meant to give themselves only to harmonious + activities. She had her vision of painting and gardening (against a + background of gray walls), he dreamed of the production of his + long-planned book on the “Economic Basis of Culture”; and with such + absorbing work ahead no existence could be too sequestered; they could not + get far enough from the world, or plunge deep enough into the past. + </p> + <p> + Dorsetshire had attracted them from the first by a semblance of remoteness + out of all proportion to its geographical position. But to the Boynes it + was one of the ever-recurring wonders of the whole incredibly compressed + island—a nest of counties, as they put it—that for the + production of its effects so little of a given quality went so far: that + so few miles made a distance, and so short a distance a difference. + </p> + <p> + “It’s that,” Ned had once enthusiastically explained, “that gives such + depth to their effects, such relief to their least contrasts. They’ve been + able to lay the butter so thick on every exquisite mouthful.” + </p> + <p> + The butter had certainly been laid on thick at Lyng: the old gray house, + hidden under a shoulder of the downs, had almost all the finer marks of + commerce with a protracted past. The mere fact that it was neither large + nor exceptional made it, to the Boynes, abound the more richly in its + special sense—the sense of having been for centuries a deep, dim + reservoir of life. The life had probably not been of the most vivid order: + for long periods, no doubt, it had fallen as noiselessly into the past as + the quiet drizzle of autumn fell, hour after hour, into the green + fish-pond between the yews; but these back-waters of existence sometimes + breed, in their sluggish depths, strange acuities of emotion, and Mary + Boyne had felt from the first the occasional brush of an intenser memory. + </p> + <p> + The feeling had never been stronger than on the December afternoon when, + waiting in the library for the belated lamps, she rose from her seat and + stood among the shadows of the hearth. Her husband had gone off, after + luncheon, for one of his long tramps on the downs. She had noticed of late + that he preferred to be unaccompanied on these occasions; and, in the + tried security of their personal relations, had been driven to conclude + that his book was bothering him, and that he needed the afternoons to turn + over in solitude the problems left from the morning’s work. Certainly the + book was not going as smoothly as she had imagined it would, and the lines + of perplexity between his eyes had never been there in his engineering + days. Then he had often looked fagged to the verge of illness, but the + native demon of “worry” had never branded his brow. Yet the few pages he + had so far read to her—the introduction, and a synopsis of the + opening chapter—gave evidences of a firm possession of his subject, + and a deepening confidence in his powers. + </p> + <p> + The fact threw her into deeper perplexity, since, now that he had done + with “business” and its disturbing contingencies, the one other possible + element of anxiety was eliminated. Unless it were his health, then? But + physically he had gained since they had come to Dorsetshire, grown + robuster, ruddier, and fresher-eyed. It was only within a week that she + had felt in him the undefinable change that made her restless in his + absence, and as tongue-tied in his presence as though it were <i>she</i> who had + a secret to keep from him! + </p> + <p> + The thought that there <i>was</i> a secret somewhere between them struck her with + a sudden smart rap of wonder, and she looked about her down the dim, long + room. + </p> + <p> + “Can it be the house?” she mused. + </p> + <p> + The room itself might have been full of secrets. They seemed to be piling + themselves up, as evening fell, like the layers and layers of velvet + shadow dropping from the low ceiling, the dusky walls of books, the + smoke-blurred sculpture of the hooded hearth. + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course—the house is haunted!” she reflected. + </p> + <p> + The ghost—Alida’s imperceptible ghost—after figuring largely + in the banter of their first month or two at Lyng, had been gradually + discarded as too ineffectual for imaginative use. Mary had, indeed, as + became the tenant of a haunted house, made the customary inquiries among + her few rural neighbors, but, beyond a vague, “They du say so, Ma’am,” the + villagers had nothing to impart. The elusive specter had apparently never + had sufficient identity for a legend to crystallize about it, and after a + time the Boynes had laughingly set the matter down to their + profit-and-loss account, agreeing that Lyng was one of the few houses good + enough in itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements. + </p> + <p> + “And I suppose, poor, ineffectual demon, that’s why it beats its beautiful + wings in vain in the void,” Mary had laughingly concluded. + </p> + <p> + “Or, rather,” Ned answered, in the same strain, “why, amid so much that’s + ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence as <i>the</i> ghost.” And + thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped out of their + references, which were numerous enough to make them promptly unaware of + the loss. + </p> + <p> + Now, as she stood on the hearth, the subject of their earlier curiosity + revived in her with a new sense of its meaning—a sense gradually + acquired through close daily contact with the scene of the lurking + mystery. It was the house itself, of course, that possessed the + ghost-seeing faculty, that communed visually but secretly with its own + past; and if one could only get into close enough communion with the + house, one might surprise its secret, and acquire the ghost-sight on one’s + own account. Perhaps, in his long solitary hours in this very room, where + she never trespassed till the afternoon, her husband <i>had</i> acquired it + already, and was silently carrying the dread weight of whatever it had + revealed to him. Mary was too well-versed in the code of the spectral + world not to know that one could not talk about the ghosts one saw: to do + so was almost as great a breach of good-breeding as to name a lady in a + club. But this explanation did not really satisfy her. “What, after all, + except for the fun of the frisson,” she reflected, “would he really care + for any of their old ghosts?” And thence she was thrown back once more on + the fundamental dilemma: the fact that one’s greater or less + susceptibility to spectral influences had no particular bearing on the + case, since, when one <i>did</i> see a ghost at Lyng, one did not know it. + </p> + <p> + “Not till long afterward,” Alida Stair had said. Well, supposing Ned <i>had</i> + seen one when they first came, and had known only within the last week + what had happened to him? More and more under the spell of the hour, she + threw back her searching thoughts to the early days of their tenancy, but + at first only to recall a gay confusion of unpacking, settling, arranging + of books, and calling to each other from remote corners of the house as + treasure after treasure of their habitation revealed itself to them. It + was in this particular connection that she presently recalled a certain + soft afternoon of the previous October, when, passing from the first + rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of the old house, + she had pressed (like a novel heroine) a panel that opened at her touch, + on a narrow flight of stairs leading to an unsuspected flat ledge of the + roof—the roof which, from below, seemed to slope away on all sides + too abruptly for any but practised feet to scale. + </p> + <p> + The view from this hidden coign was enchanting, and she had flown down to + snatch Ned from his papers and give him the freedom of her discovery. She + remembered still how, standing on the narrow ledge, he had passed his arm + about her while their gaze flew to the long, tossed horizon-line of the + downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace the arabesque of yew + hedges about the fish-pond, and the shadow of the cedar on the lawn. + </p> + <p> + “And now the other way,” he had said, gently turning her about within his + arm; and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed, like some long, + satisfying draft, the picture of the gray-walled court, the squat lions on + the gates, and the lime-avenue reaching up to the highroad under the + downs. + </p> + <p> + It was just then, while they gazed and held each other, that she had felt + his arm relax, and heard a sharp “Hullo!” that made her turn to glance at + him. + </p> + <p> + Distinctly, yes, she now recalled she had seen, as she glanced, a shadow + of anxiety, of perplexity, rather, fall across his face; and, following + his eyes, had beheld the figure of a man—a man in loose, grayish + clothes, as it appeared to her—who was sauntering down the + lime-avenue to the court with the tentative gait of a stranger seeking his + way. Her short-sighted eyes had given her but a blurred impression of + slightness and grayness, with something foreign, or at least unlocal, in + the cut of the figure or its garb; but her husband had apparently seen + more—seen enough to make him push past her with a sharp “Wait!” and + dash down the twisting stairs without pausing to give her a hand for the + descent. + </p> + <p> + A slight tendency to dizziness obliged her, after a provisional clutch at + the chimney against which they had been leaning, to follow him down more + cautiously; and when she had reached the attic landing she paused again + for a less definite reason, leaning over the oak banister to strain her + eyes through the silence of the brown, sun-flecked depths below. She + lingered there till, somewhere in those depths, she heard the closing of a + door; then, mechanically impelled, she went down the shallow flights of + steps till she reached the lower hall. + </p> + <p> + The front door stood open on the mild sunlight of the court, and hall and + court were empty. The library door was open, too, and after listening in + vain for any sound of voices within, she quickly crossed the threshold, + and found her husband alone, vaguely fingering the papers on his desk. + </p> + <p> + He looked up, as if surprised at her precipitate entrance, but the shadow + of anxiety had passed from his face, leaving it even, as she fancied, a + little brighter and clearer than usual. + </p> + <p> + “What was it? Who was it?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” he repeated, with the surprise still all on his side. + </p> + <p> + “The man we saw coming toward the house.” + </p> + <p> + He seemed honestly to reflect. “The man? Why, I thought I saw Peters; I + dashed after him to say a word about the stable-drains, but he had + disappeared before I could get down.” + </p> + <p> + “Disappeared? Why, he seemed to be walking so slowly when we saw him.” + </p> + <p> + Boyne shrugged his shoulders. “So I thought; but he must have got up steam + in the interval. What do you say to our trying a scramble up Meldon Steep + before sunset?” + </p> + <p> + That was all. At the time the occurrence had been less than nothing, had, + indeed, been immediately obliterated by the magic of their first vision + from Meldon Steep, a height which they had dreamed of climbing ever since + they had first seen its bare spine heaving itself above the low roof of + Lyng. Doubtless it was the mere fact of the other incident’s having + occurred on the very day of their ascent to Meldon that had kept it stored + away in the unconscious fold of association from which it now emerged; for + in itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment there could have + been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash himself from the roof + in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It was the period when they were + always on the watch for one or the other of the specialists employed about + the place; always lying in wait for them, and dashing out at them with + questions, reproaches, or reminders. And certainly in the distance the + gray figure had looked like Peters. + </p> + <p> + Yet now, as she reviewed the rapid scene, she felt her husband’s + explanation of it to have been invalidated by the look of anxiety on his + face. Why had the familiar appearance of Peters made him anxious? Why, + above all, if it was of such prime necessity to confer with that authority + on the subject of the stable-drains, had the failure to find him produced + such a look of relief? Mary could not say that any one of these + considerations had occurred to her at the time, yet, from the promptness + with which they now marshaled themselves at her summons, she had a sudden + sense that they must all along have been there, waiting their hour. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Weary with her thoughts, she moved toward the window. The library was now + completely dark, and she was surprised to see how much faint light the + outer world still held. + </p> + <p> + As she peered out into it across the court, a figure shaped itself in the + tapering perspective of bare lines: it looked a mere blot of deeper gray + in the grayness, and for an instant, as it moved toward her, her heart + thumped to the thought, “It’s the ghost!” + </p> + <p> + She had time, in that long instant, to feel suddenly that the man of whom, + two months earlier, she had a brief distant vision from the roof was now, + at his predestined hour, about to reveal himself as <i>not</i> having been + Peters; and her spirit sank under the impending fear of the disclosure. + But almost with the next tick of the clock the ambiguous figure, gaining + substance and character, showed itself even to her weak sight as her + husband’s; and she turned away to meet him, as he entered, with the + confession of her folly. + </p> + <p> + “It’s really too absurd,” she laughed out from the threshold, “but I never + <i>can</i> remember!” + </p> + <p> + “Remember what?” Boyne questioned as they drew together. + </p> + <p> + “That when one sees the Lyng ghost one never knows it.” + </p> + <p> + Her hand was on his sleeve, and he kept it there, but with no response in + his gesture or in the lines of his fagged, preoccupied face. + </p> + <p> + “Did you think you’d seen it?” he asked, after an appreciable interval. + </p> + <p> + “Why, I actually took <i>you</i> for it, my dear, in my mad determination to spot + it!” + </p> + <p> + “Me—just now?” His arm dropped away, and he turned from her with a + faint echo of her laugh. “Really, dearest, you’d better give it up, if + that’s the best you can do.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I give it up—I give it up. Have <i>you</i>?” she asked, turning round + on him abruptly. + </p> + <p> + The parlor-maid had entered with letters and a lamp, and the light struck + up into Boyne’s face as he bent above the tray she presented. + </p> + <p> + “Have <i>you</i>?” Mary perversely insisted, when the servant had disappeared on + her errand of illumination. + </p> + <p> + “Have I what?” he rejoined absently, the light bringing out the sharp + stamp of worry between his brows as he turned over the letters. + </p> + <p> + “Given up trying to see the ghost.” Her heart beat a little at the + experiment she was making. + </p> + <p> + Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the shadow of the + hearth. + </p> + <p> + “I never tried,” he said, tearing open the wrapper of a newspaper. + </p> + <p> + “Well, of course,” Mary persisted, “the exasperating thing is that there’s + no use trying, since one can’t be sure till so long afterward.” + </p> + <p> + He was unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but after a + pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically between his hands, he + lifted his head to say abruptly, “Have you any idea <i>how long</i>?” + </p> + <p> + Mary had sunk into a low chair beside the fireplace. From her seat she + looked up, startled, at her husband’s profile, which was darkly projected + against the circle of lamplight. + </p> + <p> + “No; none. Have <i>you</i>?” she retorted, repeating her former phrase with an + added keenness of intention. + </p> + <p> + Boyne crumpled the paper into a bunch, and then inconsequently turned back + with it toward the lamp. + </p> + <p> + “Lord, no! I only meant,” he explained, with a faint tinge of impatience, + “is there any legend, any tradition, as to that?” + </p> + <p> + “Not that I know of,” she answered; but the impulse to add, “What makes + you ask?” was checked by the reappearance of the parlor-maid with tea and + a second lamp. + </p> + <p> + With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily domestic + office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that sense of something + mutely imminent which had darkened her solitary afternoon. For a few + moments she gave herself silently to the details of her task, and when she + looked up from it she was struck to the point of bewilderment by the + change in her husband’s face. He had seated himself near the farther lamp, + and was absorbed in the perusal of his letters; but was it something he + had found in them, or merely the shifting of her own point of view, that + had restored his features to their normal aspect? The longer she looked, + the more definitely the change affirmed itself. The lines of painful + tension had vanished, and such traces of fatigue as lingered were of the + kind easily attributable to steady mental effort. He glanced up, as if + drawn by her gaze, and met her eyes with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “I’m dying for my tea, you know; and here’s a letter for you,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She took the letter he held out in exchange for the cup she proffered him, + and, returning to her seat, broke the seal with the languid gesture of the + reader whose interests are all inclosed in the circle of one cherished + presence. + </p> + <p> + Her next conscious motion was that of starting to her feet, the letter + falling to them as she rose, while she held out to her husband a long + newspaper clipping. + </p> + <p> + “Ned! What’s this? What does it mean?” + </p> + <p> + He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry before she + uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and she studied each + other, like adversaries watching for an advantage, across the space + between her chair and his desk. + </p> + <p> + “What’s what? You fairly made me jump!” Boyne said at length, moving + toward her with a sudden, half-exasperated laugh. The shadow of + apprehension was on his face again, not now a look of fixed foreboding, + but a shifting vigilance of lips and eyes that gave her the sense of his + feeling himself invisibly surrounded. + </p> + <p> + Her hand shook so that she could hardly give him the clipping. + </p> + <p> + “This article—from the ‘Waukesha Sentinel’—that a man named + Elwell has brought suit against you—that there was something wrong + about the Blue Star Mine. I can’t understand more than half.” + </p> + <p> + They continued to face each other as she spoke, and to her astonishment, + she saw that her words had the almost immediate effect of dissipating the + strained watchfulness of his look. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, <i>that</i>!” He glanced down the printed slip, and then folded it with the + gesture of one who handles something harmless and familiar. “What’s the + matter with you this afternoon, Mary? I thought you’d got bad news.” + </p> + <p> + She stood before him with her undefinable terror subsiding slowly under + the reassuring touch of his composure. + </p> + <p> + “You knew about this, then—it’s all right?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly I knew about it; and it’s all right.” + </p> + <p> + “But what <i>is</i> it? I don’t understand. What does this man accuse you of?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, pretty nearly every crime in the calendar.” Boyne had tossed the + clipping down, and thrown himself comfortably into an arm-chair near the + fire. “Do you want to hear the story? It’s not particularly interesting—just + a squabble over interests in the Blue Star.” + </p> + <p> + “But who is this Elwell? I don’t know the name.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he’s a fellow I put into it—gave him a hand up. I told you all + about him at the time.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay. I must have forgotten.” Vainly she strained back among her + memories. “But if you helped him, why does he make this return?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, probably some shyster lawyer got hold of him and talked him over. + It’s all rather technical and complicated. I thought that kind of thing + bored you.” + </p> + <p> + His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the + American wife’s detachment from her husband’s professional interests, but + in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention on + Boyne’s report of the transactions in which his varied interests involved + him. Besides, she had felt from the first that, in a community where the + amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of efforts as + arduous as her husband’s professional labors, such brief leisure as they + could command should be used as an escape from immediate preoccupations, a + flight to the life they always dreamed of living. Once or twice, now that + this new life had actually drawn its magic circle about them, she had + asked herself if she had done right; but hitherto such conjectures had + been no more than the retrospective excursions of an active fancy. Now, + for the first time, it startled her a little to find how little she knew + of the material foundation on which her happiness was built. + </p> + <p> + She glanced again at her husband, and was reassured by the composure of + his face; yet she felt the need of more definite grounds for her + reassurance. + </p> + <p> + “But doesn’t this suit worry you? Why have you never spoken to me about + it?” + </p> + <p> + He answered both questions at once: “I didn’t speak of it at first because + it <i>did</i> worry me—annoyed me, rather. But it’s all ancient history + now. Your correspondent must have got hold of a back number of the + ‘Sentinel.’” + </p> + <p> + She felt a quick thrill of relief. “You mean it’s over? He’s lost his + case?” + </p> + <p> + There was a just perceptible delay in Boyne’s reply. “The suit’s been + withdrawn—that’s all.” + </p> + <p> + But she persisted, as if to exonerate herself from the inward charge of + being too easily put off. “Withdrawn because he saw he had no chance?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he had no chance,” Boyne answered. + </p> + <p> + She was still struggling with a dimly felt perplexity at the back of her + thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “How long ago was it withdrawn?” + </p> + <p> + He paused, as if with a slight return of his former uncertainty. “I’ve + just had the news now; but I’ve been expecting it.” + </p> + <p> + “Just now—in one of your letters?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; in one of my letters.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer, and was aware only, after a short interval of waiting, + that he had risen, and strolling across the room, had placed himself on + the sofa at her side. She felt him, as he did so, pass an arm about her, + she felt his hand seek hers and clasp it, and turning slowly, drawn by the + warmth of his cheek, she met the smiling clearness of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “It’s all right—it’s all right?” she questioned, through the flood + of her dissolving doubts; and “I give you my word it never was righter!” + he laughed back at her, holding her close. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + One of the strangest things she was afterward to recall out of all the + next day’s incredible strangeness was the sudden and complete recovery of + her sense of security. + </p> + <p> + It was in the air when she woke in her low-ceilinged, dusky room; it + accompanied her down-stairs to the breakfast-table, flashed out at her + from the fire, and re-duplicated itself brightly from the flanks of the + urn and the sturdy flutings of the Georgian teapot. It was as if, in some + roundabout way, all her diffused apprehensions of the previous day, with + their moment of sharp concentration about the newspaper article,—as + if this dim questioning of the future, and startled return upon the past,—had + between them liquidated the arrears of some haunting moral obligation. If + she had indeed been careless of her husband’s affairs, it was, her new + state seemed to prove, because her faith in him instinctively justified + such carelessness; and his right to her faith had overwhelmingly affirmed + itself in the very face of menace and suspicion. She had never seen him + more untroubled, more naturally and unconsciously in possession of + himself, than after the cross-examination to which she had subjected him: + it was almost as if he had been aware of her lurking doubts, and had + wanted the air cleared as much as she did. + </p> + <p> + It was as clear, thank Heaven! as the bright outer light that surprised + her almost with a touch of summer when she issued from the house for her + daily round of the gardens. She had left Boyne at his desk, indulging + herself, as she passed the library door, by a last peep at his quiet face, + where he bent, pipe in his mouth, above his papers, and now she had her + own morning’s task to perform. The task involved on such charmed winter + days almost as much delighted loitering about the different quarters of + her demesne as if spring were already at work on shrubs and borders. There + were such inexhaustible possibilities still before her, such opportunities + to bring out the latent graces of the old place, without a single + irreverent touch of alteration, that the winter months were all too short + to plan what spring and autumn executed. And her recovered sense of safety + gave, on this particular morning, a peculiar zest to her progress through + the sweet, still place. She went first to the kitchen-garden, where the + espaliered pear-trees drew complicated patterns on the walls, and pigeons + were fluttering and preening about the silvery-slated roof of their cot. + There was something wrong about the piping of the hothouse, and she was + expecting an authority from Dorchester, who was to drive out between + trains and make a diagnosis of the boiler. But when she dipped into the + damp heat of the greenhouses, among the spiced scents and waxy pinks and + reds of old-fashioned exotics,—even the flora of Lyng was in the + note!—she learned that the great man had not arrived, and the day + being too rare to waste in an artificial atmosphere, she came out again + and paced slowly along the springy turf of the bowling-green to the + gardens behind the house. At their farther end rose a grass terrace, + commanding, over the fish-pond and the yew hedges, a view of the long + house-front, with its twisted chimney-stacks and the blue shadows of its + roof angles, all drenched in the pale gold moisture of the air. + </p> + <p> + Seen thus, across the level tracery of the yews, under the suffused, mild + light, it sent her, from its open windows and hospitably smoking chimneys, + the look of some warm human presence, of a mind slowly ripened on a sunny + wall of experience. She had never before had so deep a sense of her + intimacy with it, such a conviction that its secrets were all beneficent, + kept, as they said to children, “for one’s good,” so complete a trust in + its power to gather up her life and Ned’s into the harmonious pattern of + the long, long story it sat there weaving in the sun. + </p> + <p> + She heard steps behind her, and turned, expecting to see the gardener, + accompanied by the engineer from Dorchester. But only one figure was in + sight, that of a youngish, slightly built man, who, for reasons she could + not on the spot have specified, did not remotely resemble her preconceived + notion of an authority on hot-house boilers. The new-comer, on seeing her, + lifted his hat, and paused with the air of a gentleman—perhaps a + traveler—desirous of having it immediately known that his intrusion + is involuntary. The local fame of Lyng occasionally attracted the more + intelligent sight-seer, and Mary half-expected to see the stranger + dissemble a camera, or justify his presence by producing it. But he made + no gesture of any sort, and after a moment she asked, in a tone responding + to the courteous deprecation of his attitude: “Is there any one you wish + to see?” + </p> + <p> + “I came to see Mr. Boyne,” he replied. His intonation, rather than his + accent, was faintly American, and Mary, at the familiar note, looked at + him more closely. The brim of his soft felt hat cast a shade on his face, + which, thus obscured, wore to her short-sighted gaze a look of + seriousness, as of a person arriving “on business,” and civilly but firmly + aware of his rights. + </p> + <p> + Past experience had made Mary equally sensible to such claims; but she was + jealous of her husband’s morning hours, and doubtful of his having given + any one the right to intrude on them. + </p> + <p> + “Have you an appointment with Mr. Boyne?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + He hesitated, as if unprepared for the question. + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly an appointment,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “Then I’m afraid, this being his working-time, that he can’t receive you + now. Will you give me a message, or come back later?” + </p> + <p> + The visitor, again lifting his hat, briefly replied that he would come + back later, and walked away, as if to regain the front of the house. As + his figure receded down the walk between the yew hedges, Mary saw him + pause and look up an instant at the peaceful house-front bathed in faint + winter sunshine; and it struck her, with a tardy touch of compunction, + that it would have been more humane to ask if he had come from a distance, + and to offer, in that case, to inquire if her husband could receive him. + But as the thought occurred to her he passed out of sight behind a + pyramidal yew, and at the same moment her attention was distracted by the + approach of the gardener, attended by the bearded pepper-and-salt figure + of the boiler-maker from Dorchester. + </p> + <p> + The encounter with this authority led to such far-reaching issues that + they resulted in his finding it expedient to ignore his train, and + beguiled Mary into spending the remainder of the morning in absorbed + confabulation among the greenhouses. She was startled to find, when the + colloquy ended, that it was nearly luncheon-time, and she half expected, + as she hurried back to the house, to see her husband coming out to meet + her. But she found no one in the court but an under-gardener raking the + gravel, and the hall, when she entered it, was so silent that she guessed + Boyne to be still at work behind the closed door of the library. + </p> + <p> + Not wishing to disturb him, she turned into the drawing-room, and there, + at her writing-table, lost herself in renewed calculations of the outlay + to which the morning’s conference had committed her. The knowledge that + she could permit herself such follies had not yet lost its novelty; and + somehow, in contrast to the vague apprehensions of the previous days, it + now seemed an element of her recovered security, of the sense that, as Ned + had said, things in general had never been “righter.” + </p> + <p> + She was still luxuriating in a lavish play of figures when the + parlor-maid, from the threshold, roused her with a dubiously worded + inquiry as to the expediency of serving luncheon. It was one of their + jokes that Trimmle announced luncheon as if she were divulging a state + secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers, merely murmured an absent-minded + assent. + </p> + <p> + She felt Trimmle wavering expressively on the threshold as if in rebuke of + such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps sounded down the + passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, crossed the hall, and went to + the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered in her turn, + disliking to disturb her husband, yet anxious that he should not exceed + his normal measure of work. As she stood there, balancing her impulses, + the esoteric Trimmle returned with the announcement of luncheon, and Mary, + thus impelled, opened the door and went into the library. + </p> + <p> + Boyne was not at his desk, and she peered about her, expecting to discover + him at the book-shelves, somewhere down the length of the room; but her + call brought no response, and gradually it became clear to her that he was + not in the library. + </p> + <p> + She turned back to the parlor-maid. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Boyne must be up-stairs. Please tell him that luncheon is ready.” + </p> + <p> + The parlor-maid appeared to hesitate between the obvious duty of obeying + orders and an equally obvious conviction of the foolishness of the + injunction laid upon her. The struggle resulted in her saying doubtfully, + “If you please, Madam, Mr. Boyne’s not up-stairs.” + </p> + <p> + “Not in his room? Are you sure?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure, Madam.” + </p> + <p> + Mary consulted the clock. “Where is he, then?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s gone out,” Trimmle announced, with the superior air of one who has + respectfully waited for the question that a well-ordered mind would have + first propounded. + </p> + <p> + Mary’s previous conjecture had been right, then. Boyne must have gone to + the gardens to meet her, and since she had missed him, it was clear that + he had taken the shorter way by the south door, instead of going round to + the court. She crossed the hall to the glass portal opening directly on + the yew garden, but the parlor-maid, after another moment of inner + conflict, decided to bring out recklessly, “Please, Madam, Mr. Boyne + didn’t go that way.” + </p> + <p> + Mary turned back. “Where <i>did</i> he go? And when?” + </p> + <p> + “He went out of the front door, up the drive, Madam.” It was a matter of + principle with Trimmle never to answer more than one question at a time. + </p> + <p> + “Up the drive? At this hour?” Mary went to the door herself, and glanced + across the court through the long tunnel of bare limes. But its + perspective was as empty as when she had scanned it on entering the house. + </p> + <p> + “Did Mr. Boyne leave no message?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + Trimmle seemed to surrender herself to a last struggle with the forces of + chaos. + </p> + <p> + “No, Madam. He just went out with the gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “The gentleman? What gentleman?” Mary wheeled about, as if to front this + new factor. + </p> + <p> + “The gentleman who called, Madam,” said Trimmle, resignedly. + </p> + <p> + “When did a gentleman call? Do explain yourself, Trimmle!” + </p> + <p> + Only the fact that Mary was very hungry, and that she wanted to consult + her husband about the greenhouses, would have caused her to lay so unusual + an injunction on her attendant; and even now she was detached enough to + note in Trimmle’s eye the dawning defiance of the respectful subordinate + who has been pressed too hard. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t exactly say the hour, Madam, because I didn’t let the + gentleman in,” she replied, with the air of magnanimously ignoring the + irregularity of her mistress’s course. + </p> + <p> + “You didn’t let him in?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Madam. When the bell rang I was dressing, and Agnes—” + </p> + <p> + “Go and ask Agnes, then,” Mary interjected. Trimmle still wore her look of + patient magnanimity. “Agnes would not know, Madam, for she had + unfortunately burnt her hand in trying the wick of the new lamp from town—” + Trimmle, as Mary was aware, had always been opposed to the new lamp—“and + so Mrs. Dockett sent the kitchen-maid instead.” + </p> + <p> + Mary looked again at the clock. “It’s after two! Go and ask the + kitchen-maid if Mr. Boyne left any word.” + </p> + <p> + She went into luncheon without waiting, and Trimmle presently brought her + there the kitchen-maid’s statement that the gentleman had called about one + o’clock, that Mr. Boyne had gone out with him without leaving any message. + The kitchen-maid did not even know the caller’s name, for he had written + it on a slip of paper, which he had folded and handed to her, with the + injunction to deliver it at once to Mr. Boyne. + </p> + <p> + Mary finished her luncheon, still wondering, and when it was over, and + Trimmle had brought the coffee to the drawing-room, her wonder had + deepened to a first faint tinge of disquietude. It was unlike Boyne to + absent himself without explanation at so unwonted an hour, and the + difficulty of identifying the visitor whose summons he had apparently + obeyed made his disappearance the more unaccountable. Mary Boyne’s + experience as the wife of a busy engineer, subject to sudden calls and + compelled to keep irregular hours, had trained her to the philosophic + acceptance of surprises; but since Boyne’s withdrawal from business he had + adopted a Benedictine regularity of life. As if to make up for the + dispersed and agitated years, with their “stand-up” lunches and dinners + rattled down to the joltings of the dining-car, he cultivated the last + refinements of punctuality and monotony, discouraging his wife’s fancy for + the unexpected; and declaring that to a delicate taste there were infinite + gradations of pleasure in the fixed recurrences of habit. + </p> + <p> + Still, since no life can completely defend itself from the unforeseen, it + was evident that all Boyne’s precautions would sooner or later prove + unavailable, and Mary concluded that he had cut short a tiresome visit by + walking with his caller to the station, or at least accompanying him for + part of the way. + </p> + <p> + This conclusion relieved her from farther preoccupation, and she went out + herself to take up her conference with the gardener. Thence she walked to + the village post-office, a mile or so away; and when she turned toward + home, the early twilight was setting in. + </p> + <p> + She had taken a foot-path across the downs, and as Boyne, meanwhile, had + probably returned from the station by the highroad, there was little + likelihood of their meeting on the way. She felt sure, however, of his + having reached the house before her; so sure that, when she entered it + herself, without even pausing to inquire of Trimmle, she made directly for + the library. But the library was still empty, and with an unwonted + precision of visual memory she immediately observed that the papers on her + husband’s desk lay precisely as they had lain when she had gone in to call + him to luncheon. + </p> + <p> + Then of a sudden she was seized by a vague dread of the unknown. She had + closed the door behind her on entering, and as she stood alone in the + long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take shape and sound, to + be there audibly breathing and lurking among the shadows. Her + short-sighted eyes strained through them, half-discerning an actual + presence, something aloof, that watched and knew; and in the recoil from + that intangible propinquity she threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope + and gave it a desperate pull. + </p> + <p> + The long, quavering summons brought Trimmle in precipitately with a lamp, + and Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of the usual. + </p> + <p> + “You may bring tea if Mr. Boyne is in,” she said, to justify her ring. + </p> + <p> + “Very well, Madam. But Mr. Boyne is not in,” said Trimmle, putting down + the lamp. + </p> + <p> + “Not in? You mean he’s come back and gone out again?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Madam. He’s never been back.” + </p> + <p> + The dread stirred again, and Mary knew that now it had her fast. + </p> + <p> + “Not since he went out with—the gentleman?” + </p> + <p> + “Not since he went out with the gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “But who <i>was</i> the gentleman?” Mary gasped out, with the sharp note of some + one trying to be heard through a confusion of meaningless noises. + </p> + <p> + “That I couldn’t say, Madam.” Trimmle, standing there by the lamp, seemed + suddenly to grow less round and rosy, as though eclipsed by the same + creeping shade of apprehension. + </p> + <p> + “But the kitchen-maid knows—wasn’t it the kitchen-maid who let him + in?” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t know either, Madam, for he wrote his name on a folded paper.” + </p> + <p> + Mary, through her agitation, was aware that they were both designating the + unknown visitor by a vague pronoun, instead of the conventional formula + which, till then, had kept their allusions within the bounds of custom. + And at the same moment her mind caught at the suggestion of the folded + paper. + </p> + <p> + “But he must have a name! Where is the paper?” + </p> + <p> + She moved to the desk, and began to turn over the scattered documents that + littered it. The first that caught her eye was an unfinished letter in her + husband’s hand, with his pen lying across it, as though dropped there at a + sudden summons. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Parvis,”—who was Parvis?—“I have just received your + letter announcing Elwell’s death, and while I suppose there is now no + farther risk of trouble, it might be safer—” + </p> + <p> + She tossed the sheet aside, and continued her search; but no folded paper + was discoverable among the letters and pages of manuscript which had been + swept together in a promiscuous heap, as if by a hurried or a startled + gesture. + </p> + <p> + “But the kitchen-maid <i>saw</i> him. Send her here,” she commanded, wondering at + her dullness in not thinking sooner of so simple a solution. + </p> + <p> + Trimmle, at the behest, vanished in a flash, as if thankful to be out of + the room, and when she reappeared, conducting the agitated underling, Mary + had regained her self-possession, and had her questions pat. + </p> + <p> + The gentleman was a stranger, yes—that she understood. But what had + he said? And, above all, what had he looked like? The first question was + easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason that he had said so + little—had merely asked for Mr. Boyne, and, scribbling something on + a bit of paper, had requested that it should at once be carried in to him. + </p> + <p> + “Then you don’t know what he wrote? You’re not sure it <i>was</i> his name?” + </p> + <p> + The kitchen-maid was not sure, but supposed it was, since he had written + it in answer to her inquiry as to whom she should announce. + </p> + <p> + “And when you carried the paper in to Mr. Boyne, what did he say?” + </p> + <p> + The kitchen-maid did not think that Mr. Boyne had said anything, but she + could not be sure, for just as she had handed him the paper and he was + opening it, she had become aware that the visitor had followed her into + the library, and she had slipped out, leaving the two gentlemen together. + </p> + <p> + “But then, if you left them in the library, how do you know that they went + out of the house?” + </p> + <p> + This question plunged the witness into momentary inarticulateness, from + which she was rescued by Trimmle, who, by means of ingenious + circumlocutions, elicited the statement that before she could cross the + hall to the back passage she had heard the gentlemen behind her, and had + seen them go out of the front door together. + </p> + <p> + “Then, if you saw the gentleman twice, you must be able to tell me what he + looked like.” + </p> + <p> + But with this final challenge to her powers of expression it became clear + that the limit of the kitchen-maid’s endurance had been reached. The + obligation of going to the front door to “show in” a visitor was in itself + so subversive of the fundamental order of things that it had thrown her + faculties into hopeless disarray, and she could only stammer out, after + various panting efforts at evocation, “His hat, mum, was different-like, + as you might say—” + </p> + <p> + “Different? How different?” Mary flashed out at her, her own mind, in the + same instant, leaping back to an image left on it that morning, but + temporarily lost under layers of subsequent impressions. + </p> + <p> + “His hat had a wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale—a youngish + face?” Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity of interrogation. + But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate answer to this challenge, it + was swept away for her listener down the rushing current of her own + convictions. The stranger—the stranger in the garden! Why had Mary + not thought of him before? She needed no one now to tell her that it was + he who had called for her husband and gone away with him. But who was he, + and why had Boyne obeyed his call? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + It leaped out at her suddenly, like a grin out of the dark, that they had + often called England so little—“such a confoundedly hard place to + get lost in.” + </p> + <p> + <i>A confoundedly hard place to get lost in!</i> That had been her husband’s + phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of official investigation + sweeping its flash-lights from shore to shore, and across the dividing + straits; now, with Boyne’s name blazing from the walls of every town and + village, his portrait (how that wrung her!) hawked up and down the country + like the image of a hunted criminal; now the little compact, populous + island, so policed, surveyed, and administered, revealed itself as a + Sphinx-like guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his wife’s + anguished eyes as if with the malicious joy of knowing something they + would never know! + </p> + <p> + In the fortnight since Boyne’s disappearance there had been no word of + him, no trace of his movements. Even the usual misleading reports that + raise expectancy in tortured bosoms had been few and fleeting. No one but + the bewildered kitchen-maid had seen him leave the house, and no one else + had seen “the gentleman” who accompanied him. All inquiries in the + neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger’s presence that day + in the neighborhood of Lyng. And no one had met Edward Boyne, either alone + or in company, in any of the neighboring villages, or on the road across + the downs, or at either of the local railway-stations. The sunny English + noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into Cimmerian + night. + </p> + <p> + Mary, while every external means of investigation was working at its + highest pressure, had ransacked her husband’s papers for any trace of + antecedent complications, of entanglements or obligations unknown to her, + that might throw a faint ray into the darkness. But if any such had + existed in the background of Boyne’s life, they had disappeared as + completely as the slip of paper on which the visitor had written his name. + There remained no possible thread of guidance except—if it were + indeed an exception—the letter which Boyne had apparently been in + the act of writing when he received his mysterious summons. That letter, + read and reread by his wife, and submitted by her to the police, yielded + little enough for conjecture to feed on. + </p> + <p> + “I have just heard of Elwell’s death, and while I suppose there is now no + farther risk of trouble, it might be safer—” That was all. The “risk + of trouble” was easily explained by the newspaper clipping which had + apprised Mary of the suit brought against her husband by one of his + associates in the Blue Star enterprise. The only new information conveyed + in the letter was the fact of its showing Boyne, when he wrote it, to be + still apprehensive of the results of the suit, though he had assured his + wife that it had been withdrawn, and though the letter itself declared + that the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks of exhaustive cabling + to fix the identity of the “Parvis” to whom the fragmentary communication + was addressed, but even after these inquiries had shown him to be a + Waukesha lawyer, no new facts concerning the Elwell suit were elicited. He + appeared to have had no direct concern in it, but to have been conversant + with the facts merely as an acquaintance, and possible intermediary; and + he declared himself unable to divine with what object Boyne intended to + seek his assistance. + </p> + <p> + This negative information, sole fruit of the first fortnight’s feverish + search, was not increased by a jot during the slow weeks that followed. + Mary knew that the investigations were still being carried on, but she had + a vague sense of their gradually slackening, as the actual march of time + seemed to slacken. It was as though the days, flying horror-struck from + the shrouded image of the one inscrutable day, gained assurance as the + distance lengthened, till at last they fell back into their normal gait. + And so with the human imaginations at work on the dark event. No doubt it + occupied them still, but week by week and hour by hour it grew less + absorbing, took up less space, was slowly but inevitably crowded out of + the foreground of consciousness by the new problems perpetually bubbling + up from the vaporous caldron of human experience. + </p> + <p> + Even Mary Boyne’s consciousness gradually felt the same lowering of + velocity. It still swayed with the incessant oscillations of conjecture; + but they were slower, more rhythmical in their beat. There were moments of + overwhelming lassitude when, like the victim of some poison which leaves + the brain clear, but holds the body motionless, she saw herself + domesticated with the Horror, accepting its perpetual presence as one of + the fixed conditions of life. + </p> + <p> + These moments lengthened into hours and days, till she passed into a phase + of stolid acquiescence. She watched the familiar routine of life with the + incurious eye of a savage on whom the meaningless processes of + civilization make but the faintest impression. She had come to regard + herself as part of the routine, a spoke of the wheel, revolving with its + motion; she felt almost like the furniture of the room in which she sat, + an insensate object to be dusted and pushed about with the chairs and + tables. And this deepening apathy held her fast at Lyng, in spite of the + urgent entreaties of friends and the usual medical recommendation of + “change.” Her friends supposed that her refusal to move was inspired by + the belief that her husband would one day return to the spot from which he + had vanished, and a beautiful legend grew up about this imaginary state of + waiting. But in reality she had no such belief: the depths of anguish + inclosing her were no longer lighted by flashes of hope. She was sure that + Boyne would never come back, that he had gone out of her sight as + completely as if Death itself had waited that day on the threshold. She + had even renounced, one by one, the various theories as to his + disappearance which had been advanced by the press, the police, and her + own agonized imagination. In sheer lassitude her mind turned from these + alternatives of horror, and sank back into the blank fact that he was + gone. + </p> + <p> + No, she would never know what had become of him—no one would ever + know. But the house <i>knew</i>; the library in which she spent her long, lonely + evenings knew. For it was here that the last scene had been enacted, here + that the stranger had come, and spoken the word which had caused Boyne to + rise and follow him. The floor she trod had felt his tread; the books on + the shelves had seen his face; and there were moments when the intense + consciousness of the old, dusky walls seemed about to break out into some + audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation never came, and she + knew it would never come. Lyng was not one of the garrulous old houses + that betray the secrets intrusted to them. Its very legend proved that it + had always been the mute accomplice, the incorruptible custodian of the + mysteries it had surprised. And Mary Boyne, sitting face to face with its + portentous silence, felt the futility of seeking to break it by any human + means. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + “I don’t say it <i>wasn’t</i> straight, yet don’t say it <i>was</i> straight. It was + business.” + </p> + <p> + Mary, at the words, lifted her head with a start, and looked intently at + the speaker. + </p> + <p> + When, half an hour before, a card with “Mr. Parvis” on it had been brought + up to her, she had been immediately aware that the name had been a part of + her consciousness ever since she had read it at the head of Boyne’s + unfinished letter. In the library she had found awaiting her a small + neutral-tinted man with a bald head and gold eye-glasses, and it sent a + strange tremor through her to know that this was the person to whom her + husband’s last known thought had been directed. + </p> + <p> + Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,—in the manner of a man + who has his watch in his hand,—had set forth the object of his + visit. He had “run over” to England on business, and finding himself in + the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to leave it without paying + his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without asking her, if the occasion offered, + what she meant to do about Bob Elwell’s family. + </p> + <p> + The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary’s bosom. Did + her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by his unfinished + phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his question, and noticed at once + that he seemed surprised at her continued ignorance of the subject. Was it + possible that she really knew as little as she said? + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing—you must tell me,” she faltered out; and her visitor + thereupon proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even to her confused + perceptions, and imperfectly initiated vision, a lurid glare on the whole + hazy episode of the Blue Star Mine. Her husband had made his money in that + brilliant speculation at the cost of “getting ahead” of some one less + alert to seize the chance; the victim of his ingenuity was young Robert + Elwell, who had “put him on” to the Blue Star scheme. + </p> + <p> + Parvis, at Mary’s first startled cry, had thrown her a sobering glance + through his impartial glasses. + </p> + <p> + “Bob Elwell wasn’t smart enough, that’s all; if he had been, he might have + turned round and served Boyne the same way. It’s the kind of thing that + happens every day in business. I guess it’s what the scientists call the + survival of the fittest,” said Mr. Parvis, evidently pleased with the + aptness of his analogy. + </p> + <p> + Mary felt a physical shrinking from the next question she tried to frame; + it was as though the words on her lips had a taste that nauseated her. + </p> + <p> + “But then—you accuse my husband of doing something dishonorable?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Parvis surveyed the question dispassionately. “Oh, no, I don’t. I + don’t even say it wasn’t straight.” He glanced up and down the long lines + of books, as if one of them might have supplied him with the definition he + sought. “I don’t say it <i>wasn’t</i> straight, and yet I don’t say it <i>was</i> + straight. It was business.” After all, no definition in his category could + be more comprehensive than that. + </p> + <p> + Mary sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her like the + indifferent, implacable emissary of some dark, formless power. + </p> + <p> + “But Mr. Elwell’s lawyers apparently did not take your view, since I + suppose the suit was withdrawn by their advice.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, they knew he hadn’t a leg to stand on, technically. It was when + they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got desperate. You see, he’d + borrowed most of the money he lost in the Blue Star, and he was up a tree. + That’s why he shot himself when they told him he had no show.” + </p> + <p> + The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves. + </p> + <p> + “He shot himself? He killed himself because of <i>that</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he didn’t kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months before he + died.” Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally as a gramophone + grinding out its “record.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried again?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he didn’t have to try again,” said Parvis, grimly. + </p> + <p> + They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eye-glass + thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms stretched along + her knees in an attitude of rigid tension. + </p> + <p> + “But if you knew all this,” she began at length, hardly able to force her + voice above a whisper, “how is it that when I wrote you at the time of my + husband’s disappearance you said you didn’t understand his letter?” + </p> + <p> + Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. “Why, I didn’t + understand it—strictly speaking. And it wasn’t the time to talk + about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when the suit was + withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have helped you to find + your husband.” + </p> + <p> + Mary continued to scrutinize him. “Then why are you telling me now?” + </p> + <p> + Still Parvis did not hesitate. “Well, to begin with, I supposed you knew + more than you appear to—I mean about the circumstances of Elwell’s + death. And then people are talking of it now; the whole matter’s been + raked up again. And I thought, if you didn’t know, you ought to.” + </p> + <p> + She remained silent, and he continued: “You see, it’s only come out lately + what a bad state Elwell’s affairs were in. His wife’s a proud woman, and + she fought on as long as she could, going out to work, and taking sewing + at home, when she got too sick—something with the heart, I believe. + But she had his bedridden mother to look after, and the children, and she + broke down under it, and finally had to ask for help. That attracted + attention to the case, and the papers took it up, and a subscription was + started. Everybody out there liked Bob Elwell, and most of the prominent + names in the place are down on the list, and people began to wonder why—” + </p> + <p> + Parvis broke off to fumble in an inner pocket. “Here,” he continued, + “here’s an account of the whole thing from the ‘Sentinel’—a little + sensational, of course. But I guess you’d better look it over.” + </p> + <p> + He held out a newspaper to Mary, who unfolded it slowly, remembering, as + she did so, the evening when, in that same room, the perusal of a clipping + from the “Sentinel” had first shaken the depths of her security. + </p> + <p> + As she opened the paper, her eyes, shrinking from the glaring head-lines, + “Widow of Boyne’s Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid,” ran down the column of + text to two portraits inserted in it. The first was her husband’s, taken + from a photograph made the year they had come to England. It was the + picture of him that she liked best, the one that stood on the + writing-table up-stairs in her bedroom. As the eyes in the photograph met + hers, she felt it would be impossible to read what was said of him, and + closed her lids with the sharpness of the pain. + </p> + <p> + “I thought if you felt disposed to put your name down—” she heard + Parvis continue. + </p> + <p> + She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell on the other portrait. + It was that of a youngish man, slightly built, in rough clothes, with + features somewhat blurred by the shadow of a projecting hat-brim. Where + had she seen that outline before? She stared at it confusedly, her heart + hammering in her throat and ears. Then she gave a cry. + </p> + <p> + “This is the man—the man who came for my husband!” + </p> + <p> + She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had + slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending + above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and + reached out for the paper, which she had dropped. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the man! I should know him anywhere!” she cried in a voice that + sounded in her own ears like a scream. + </p> + <p> + Parvis’s voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless, + fog-muffled windings. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Boyne, you’re not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get a + glass of water?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically clenching + the newspaper. “I tell you, it’s the man! I <i>know</i> him! He spoke to me in + the garden!” + </p> + <p> + Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the portrait. + “It can’t be, Mrs. Boyne. It’s Robert Elwell.” + </p> + <p> + “Robert Elwell?” Her white stare seemed to travel into space. “Then it was + Robert Elwell who came for him.” + </p> + <p> + “Came for Boyne? The day he went away?” Parvis’s voice dropped as hers + rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax her + gently back into her seat. “Why, Elwell was dead! Don’t you remember?” + </p> + <p> + Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what he was + saying. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you remember Boyne’s unfinished letter to me—the one you + found on his desk that day? It was written just after he’d heard of + Elwell’s death.” She noticed an odd shake in Parvis’s unemotional voice. + “Surely you remember that!” he urged her. + </p> + <p> + Yes, she remembered: that was the profoundest horror of it. Elwell had + died the day before her husband’s disappearance; and this was Elwell’s + portrait; and it was the portrait of the man who had spoken to her in the + garden. She lifted her head and looked slowly about the library. The + library could have borne witness that it was also the portrait of the man + who had come in that day to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. Through + the misty surgings of her brain she heard the faint boom of half-forgotten + words—words spoken by Alida Stair on the lawn at Pangbourne before + Boyne and his wife had ever seen the house at Lyng, or had imagined that + they might one day live there. + </p> + <p> + “This was the man who spoke to me,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + She looked again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his disturbance under + what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; but the + edges of his lips were blue. “He thinks me mad; but I’m not mad,” she + reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way of justifying her + strange affirmation. + </p> + <p> + She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting till she + could trust her voice to keep its habitual level; then she said, looking + straight at Parvis: “Will you answer me one question, please? When was it + that Robert Elwell tried to kill himself?” + </p> + <p> + “When—when?” Parvis stammered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; the date. Please try to remember.” + </p> + <p> + She saw that he was growing still more afraid of her. “I have a reason,” + she insisted gently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. Only I can’t remember. About two months before, I should say.” + </p> + <p> + “I want the date,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + Parvis picked up the newspaper. “We might see here,” he said, still + humoring her. He ran his eyes down the page. “Here it is. Last October—the—” + </p> + <p> + She caught the words from him. “The 20th, wasn’t it?” With a sharp look at + her, he verified. “Yes, the 20th. Then you <i>did</i> know?” + </p> + <p> + “I know now.” Her white stare continued to travel past him. “Sunday, the + 20th—that was the day he came first.” + </p> + <p> + Parvis’s voice was almost inaudible. “Came <i>here</i> first?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “You saw him twice, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, twice.” She breathed it at him with dilated eyes. “He came first on + the 20th of October. I remember the date because it was the day we went up + Meldon Steep for the first time.” She felt a faint gasp of inward laughter + at the thought that but for that she might have forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Parvis continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to intercept her gaze. + </p> + <p> + “We saw him from the roof,” she went on. “He came down the lime-avenue + toward the house. He was dressed just as he is in that picture. My husband + saw him first. He was frightened, and ran down ahead of me; but there was + no one there. He had vanished.” + </p> + <p> + “Elwell had vanished?” Parvis faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” Their two whispers seemed to grope for each other. “I couldn’t + think what had happened. I see now. He <i>tried</i> to come then; but he wasn’t + dead enough—he couldn’t reach us. He had to wait for two months; and + then he came back again—and Ned went with him.” + </p> + <p> + She nodded at Parvis with the look of triumph of a child who has + successfully worked out a difficult puzzle. But suddenly she lifted her + hands with a desperate gesture, pressing them to her bursting temples. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my God! I sent him to Ned—I told him where to go! I sent him to + this room!” she screamed out. + </p> + <p> + She felt the walls of the room rush toward her, like inward falling ruins; + and she heard Parvis, a long way off, as if through the ruins, crying to + her, and struggling to get at her. But she was numb to his touch, she did + not know what he was saying. Through the tumult she heard but one clear + note, the voice of Alida Stair, speaking on the lawn at Pangbourne. + </p> + <p> + “You won’t know till afterward,” it said. “You won’t know till long, long + afterward.” + </p> + <p> + The End of Afterward + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE FULNESS OF LIFE + </h2> + <h3> + December 1893 + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike that sweet + lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer noon, when the heat + seems to have silenced the very birds and insects, and, lying sunk in the + tasselled meadow-grasses, one looks up through a level roofing of + maple-leaves at the vast shadowless, and unsuggestive blue. Now and then, + at ever-lengthening intervals, a flash of pain darted through her, like + the ripple of sheet-lightning across such a midsummer sky; but it was too + transitory to shake her stupor, that calm, delicious, bottomless stupor + into which she felt herself sinking more and more deeply, without a + disturbing impulse of resistance, an effort of reattachment to the + vanishing edges of consciousness. + </p> + <p> + The resistance, the effort, had known their hour of violence; but now they + were at an end. Through her mind, long harried by grotesque visions, + fragmentary images of the life that she was leaving, tormenting lines of + verse, obstinate presentments of pictures once beheld, indistinct + impressions of rivers, towers, and cupolas, gathered in the length of + journeys half forgotten—through her mind there now only moved a few + primal sensations of colorless well-being; a vague satisfaction in the + thought that she had swallowed her noxious last draught of medicine... and + that she should never again hear the creaking of her husband’s boots—those + horrible boots—and that no one would come to bother her about the + next day’s dinner... or the butcher’s book.... + </p> + <p> + At last even these dim sensations spent themselves in the thickening + obscurity which enveloped her; a dusk now filled with pale geometric + roses, circling softly, interminably before her, now darkened to a uniform + blue-blackness, the hue of a summer night without stars. And into this + darkness she felt herself sinking, sinking, with the gentle sense of + security of one upheld from beneath. Like a tepid tide it rose around her, + gliding ever higher and higher, folding in its velvety embrace her relaxed + and tired body, now submerging her breast and shoulders, now creeping + gradually, with soft inexorableness, over her throat to her chin, to her + ears, to her mouth.... Ah, now it was rising too high; the impulse to + struggle was renewed;... her mouth was full;... she was choking.... Help! + </p> + <p> + “It is all over,” said the nurse, drawing down the eyelids with official + composure. + </p> + <p> + The clock struck three. They remembered it afterward. Someone opened the + window and let in a blast of that strange, neutral air which walks the + earth between darkness and dawn; someone else led the husband into another + room. He walked vaguely, like a blind man, on his creaking boots. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway was in + front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet penetrating as the + gathered glimmer of innumerable stars, expanded gradually before her eyes, + in blissful contrast to the cavernous darkness from which she had of late + emerged. + </p> + <p> + She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her eyes began + to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light about her, she + distinguished the outlines of a landscape, at first swimming in the + opaline uncertainty of Shelley’s vaporous creations, then gradually + resolved into distincter shape—the vast unrolling of a sunlit plain, + aerial forms of mountains, and presently the silver crescent of a river in + the valley, and a blue stencilling of trees along its curve—something + suggestive in its ineffable hue of an azure background of Leonardo’s, + strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and the imagination + into regions of fabulous delight. As she gazed, her heart beat with a soft + and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a promise she read in the summons of + that hyaline distance. + </p> + <p> + “And so death is not the end after all,” in sheer gladness she heard + herself exclaiming aloud. “I always knew that it couldn’t be. I believed + in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said that he + wasn’t sure about the soul—at least, I think he did—and + Wallace was a spiritualist; and then there was St. George Mivart—” + </p> + <p> + Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains. + </p> + <p> + “How beautiful! How satisfying!” she murmured. “Perhaps now I shall really + know what it is to live.” + </p> + <p> + As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart-beats, and looking + up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + “Have you never really known what it is to live?” the Spirit of Life asked + her. + </p> + <p> + “I have never known,” she replied, “that fulness of life which we all feel + ourselves capable of knowing; though my life has not been without + scattered hints of it, like the scent of earth which comes to one + sometimes far out at sea.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do you call the fulness of life?” the Spirit asked again. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I can’t tell you, if you don’t know,” she said, almost reproachfully. + “Many words are supposed to define it—love and sympathy are those in + commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the right ones, and so + few people really know what they mean.” + </p> + <p> + “You were married,” said the Spirit, “yet you did not find the fulness of + life in your marriage?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear, no,” she replied, with an indulgent scorn, “my marriage was a + very incomplete affair.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet you were fond of your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just as I was + fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born in, and my old + nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted a very happy couple. But + I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature is like a great house full + of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and + out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, + where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, + far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never + turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and + in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits + for a footstep that never comes.” + </p> + <p> + “And your husband,” asked the Spirit, after a pause, “never got beyond the + family sitting-room?” + </p> + <p> + “Never,” she returned, impatiently; “and the worst of it was that he was + quite content to remain there. He thought it perfectly beautiful, and + sometimes, when he was admiring its commonplace furniture, insignificant + as the chairs and tables of a hotel parlor, I felt like crying out to him: + ‘Fool, will you never guess that close at hand are rooms full of treasures + and wonders, such as the eye of man hath not seen, rooms that no step has + crossed, but that might be yours to live in, could you but find the handle + of the door?’” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” the Spirit continued, “those moments of which you lately spoke, + which seemed to come to you like scattered hints of the fulness of life, + were not shared with your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no—never. He was different. His boots creaked, and he always + slammed the door when he went out, and he never read anything but railway + novels and the sporting advertisements in the papers—and—and, + in short, we never understood each other in the least.” + </p> + <p> + “To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite sensations?” + </p> + <p> + “I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a flower; sometimes to a + verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a picture or a sunset, or + to one of those calm days at sea, when one seems to be lying in the hollow + of a blue pearl; sometimes, but rarely, to a word spoken by someone who + chanced to give utterance, at the right moment, to what I felt but could + not express.” + </p> + <p> + “Someone whom you loved?” asked the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “I never loved anyone, in that way,” she said, rather sadly, “nor was I + thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or three who, by + touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my being, had called forth + a single note of that strange melody which seemed sleeping in my soul. It + has seldom happened, however, that I have owed such feelings to people; + and no one ever gave me a moment of such happiness as it was my lot to + feel one evening in the Church of Or San Michele, in Florence.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about it,” said the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “It was near sunset on a rainy spring afternoon in Easter week. The clouds + had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we entered the church the + fiery panes of the high windows shone out like lamps through the dusk. A + priest was at the high altar, his white cope a livid spot in the + incense-laden obscurity, the light of the candles flickering up and down + like fireflies about his head; a few people knelt near by. We stole behind + them and sat down on a bench close to the tabernacle of Orcagna. + </p> + <p> + “Strange to say, though Florence was not new to me, I had never been in + the church before; and in that magical light I saw for the first time the + inlaid steps, the fluted columns, the sculptured bas-reliefs and canopy of + the marvellous shrine. The marble, worn and mellowed by the subtle hand of + time, took on an unspeakable rosy hue, suggestive in some remote way of + the honey-colored columns of the Parthenon, but more mystic, more complex, + a color not born of the sun’s inveterate kiss, but made up of cryptal + twilight, and the flame of candles upon martyrs’ tombs, and gleams of + sunset through symbolic panes of chrysoprase and ruby; such a light as + illumines the missals in the library of Siena, or burns like a hidden fire + through the Madonna of Gian Bellini in the Church of the Redeemer, at + Venice; the light of the Middle Ages, richer, more solemn, more + significant than the limpid sunshine of Greece. + </p> + <p> + “The church was silent, but for the wail of the priest and the occasional + scraping of a chair against the floor, and as I sat there, bathed in that + light, absorbed in rapt contemplation of the marble miracle which rose + before me, cunningly wrought as a casket of ivory and enriched with + jewel-like incrustations and tarnished gleams of gold, I felt myself borne + onward along a mighty current, whose source seemed to be in the very + beginning of things, and whose tremendous waters gathered as they went all + the mingled streams of human passion and endeavor. Life in all its varied + manifestations of beauty and strangeness seemed weaving a rhythmical dance + around me as I moved, and wherever the spirit of man had passed I knew + that my foot had once been familiar. + </p> + <p> + “As I gazed the mediaeval bosses of the tabernacle of Orcagna seemed to + melt and flow into their primal forms so that the folded lotus of the Nile + and the Greek acanthus were braided with the runic knots and fish-tailed + monsters of the North, and all the plastic terror and beauty born of man’s + hand from the Ganges to the Baltic quivered and mingled in Orcagna’s + apotheosis of Mary. And so the river bore me on, past the alien face of + antique civilizations and the familiar wonders of Greece, till I swam upon + the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its swirling eddies of + passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry and art; I heard the + rhythmic blow of the craftsmen’s hammers in the goldsmiths’ workshops and + on the walls of churches, the party-cries of armed factions in the narrow + streets, the organ-roll of Dante’s verse, the crackle of the fagots around + Arnold of Brescia, the twitter of the swallows to which St. Francis + preached, the laughter of the ladies listening on the hillside to the + quips of the Decameron, while plague-struck Florence howled beneath them—all + this and much more I heard, joined in strange unison with voices earlier + and more remote, fierce, passionate, or tender, yet subdued to such awful + harmony that I thought of the song that the morning stars sang together + and felt as though it were sounding in my ears. My heart beat to + suffocation, the tears burned my lids, the joy, the mystery of it seemed + too intolerable to be borne. I could not understand even then the words of + the song; but I knew that if there had been someone at my side who could + have heard it with me, we might have found the key to it together. + </p> + <p> + “I turned to my husband, who was sitting beside me in an attitude of + patient dejection, gazing into the bottom of his hat; but at that moment + he rose, and stretching his stiffened legs, said, mildly: ‘Hadn’t we + better be going? There doesn’t seem to be much to see here, and you know + the table d’hote dinner is at half-past six o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + Her recital ended, there was an interval of silence; then the Spirit of + Life said: “There is a compensation in store for such needs as you have + expressed.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, then you <i>do</i> understand?” she exclaimed. “Tell me what compensation, I + entreat you!” + </p> + <p> + “It is ordained,” the Spirit answered, “that every soul which seeks in + vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare its inmost being + shall find that soul here and be united to it for eternity.” + </p> + <p> + A glad cry broke from her lips. “Ah, shall I find him at last?” she cried, + exultant. + </p> + <p> + “He is here,” said the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in that + unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than his face) drew + her toward him with an invincible force. + </p> + <p> + “Are you really he?” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “I am he,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which overhung + the valley. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go down together,” she asked him, “into that marvellous country; + shall we see it together, as if with the self-same eyes, and tell each + other in the same words all that we think and feel?” + </p> + <p> + “So,” he replied, “have I hoped and dreamed.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” she asked, with rising joy. “Then you, too, have looked for me?” + </p> + <p> + “All my life.” + </p> + <p> + “How wonderful! And did you never, never find anyone in the other world + who understood you?” + </p> + <p> + “Not wholly—not as you and I understand each other.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy,” she sighed. + </p> + <p> + They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the + shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into sapphirine + space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the threshold, heard + now and then a floating fragment of their talk blown backward like the + stray swallows which the wind sometimes separates from their migratory + tribe. + </p> + <p> + “Did you never feel at sunset—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember that line in the third canto of the ‘Inferno?’” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that line—my favorite always. Is it possible—” + </p> + <p> + “You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike Apteros?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have noticed, too, + that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in those flying folds of her + drapery?” + </p> + <p> + “After a storm in autumn have you never seen—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters—the + perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose, Titian; the + tuberose, Crivelli—” + </p> + <p> + “I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you never thought—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had.” + </p> + <p> + “But surely you must have felt—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, yes; and you, too—” + </p> + <p> + “How beautiful! How strange—” + </p> + <p> + Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains answering + each other across a garden full of flowers. At length, with a certain + tender impatience, he turned to her and said: “Love, why should we linger + here? All eternity lies before us. Let us go down into that beautiful + country together and make a home for ourselves on some blue hill above the + shining river.” + </p> + <p> + As he spoke, the hand she had forgotten in his was suddenly withdrawn, and + he felt that a cloud was passing over the radiance of her soul. + </p> + <p> + “A home,” she repeated, slowly, “a home for you and me to live in for all + eternity?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?” + </p> + <p> + “Y-yes—yes, I know—but, don’t you see, home would not be like + home to me, unless—” + </p> + <p> + “Unless?” he wonderingly repeated. + </p> + <p> + She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of + whimsical inconsistency, “Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking + boots.” + </p> + <p> + But he had recovered his hold upon her hand, and by imperceptible degrees + was leading her toward the shining steps which descended to the valley. + </p> + <p> + “Come, O my soul’s soul,” he passionately implored; “why delay a moment? + Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too short to hold such + bliss as ours. It seems to me that I can see our home already. Have I not + always seem it in my dreams? It is white, love, is it not, with polished + columns, and a sculptured cornice against the blue? Groves of laurel and + oleander and thickets of roses surround it; but from the terrace where we + walk at sunset, the eye looks out over woodlands and cool meadows where, + deep-bowered under ancient boughs, a stream goes delicately toward the + river. Indoors our favorite pictures hang upon the walls and the rooms are + lined with books. Think, dear, at last we shall have time to read them + all. With which shall we begin? Come, help me to choose. Shall it be + ‘Faust’ or the ‘Vita Nuova,’ the ‘Tempest’ or ‘Les Caprices de Marianne,’ + or the thirty-first canto of the ‘Paradise,’ or ‘Epipsychidion’ or + ‘Lycidas’? Tell me, dear, which one?” + </p> + <p> + As he spoke he saw the answer trembling joyously upon her lips; but it + died in the ensuing silence, and she stood motionless, resisting the + persuasion of his hand. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he entreated. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment,” she said, with a strange hesitation in her voice. “Tell + me first, are you quite sure of yourself? Is there no one on earth whom + you sometimes remember?” + </p> + <p> + “Not since I have seen you,” he replied; for, being a man, he had indeed + forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Still she stood motionless, and he saw that the shadow deepened on her + soul. + </p> + <p> + “Surely, love,” he rebuked her, “it was not that which troubled you? For + my part I have walked through Lethe. The past has melted like a cloud + before the moon. I never lived until I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing herself with a + visible effort, she turned away from him and moved toward the Spirit of + Life, who still stood near the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “I want to ask you a question,” she said, in a troubled voice. + </p> + <p> + “Ask,” said the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “A little while ago,” she began, slowly, “you told me that every soul + which has not found a kindred soul on earth is destined to find one here.” + </p> + <p> + “And have you not found one?” asked the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but will it be so with my husband’s soul also?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered the Spirit of Life, “for your husband imagined that he had + found his soul’s mate on earth in you; and for such delusions eternity + itself contains no cure.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a little cry. Was it of disappointment or triumph? + </p> + <p> + “Then—then what will happen to him when he comes here?” + </p> + <p> + “That I cannot tell you. Some field of activity and happiness he will + doubtless find, in due measure to his capacity for being active and + happy.” + </p> + <p> + She interrupted, almost angrily: “He will never be happy without me.” + </p> + <p> + “Do not be too sure of that,” said the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: “He will not + understand you here any better than he did on earth.” + </p> + <p> + “No matter,” she said; “I shall be the only sufferer, for he always + thought that he understood me.” + </p> + <p> + “His boots will creak just as much as ever—” + </p> + <p> + “No matter.” + </p> + <p> + “And he will slam the door—” + </p> + <p> + “Very likely.” + </p> + <p> + “And continue to read railway novels—” + </p> + <p> + She interposed, impatiently: “Many men do worse than that.” + </p> + <p> + “But you said just now,” said the Spirit, “that you did not love him.” + </p> + <p> + “True,” she answered, simply; “but don’t you understand that I shouldn’t + feel at home without him? It is all very well for a week or two—but + for eternity! After all, I never minded the creaking of his boots, except + when my head ached, and I don’t suppose it will ache <i>here</i>; and he was + always so sorry when he had slammed the door, only he never <i>could</i> remember + not to. Besides, no one else would know how to look after him, he is so + helpless. His inkstand would never be filled, and he would always be out + of stamps and visiting-cards. He would never remember to have his umbrella + re-covered, or to ask the price of anything before he bought it. Why, he + wouldn’t even know what novels to read. I always had to choose the kind he + liked, with a murder or a forgery and a successful detective.” + </p> + <p> + She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood listening with a mien + of wonder and dismay. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you see,” she said, “that I can’t possibly go with you?” + </p> + <p> + “But what do you intend to do?” asked the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + “What do I intend to do?” she returned, indignantly. “Why, I mean to wait + for my husband, of course. If he had come here first <i>he</i> would have waited + for me for years and years; and it would break his heart not to find me + here when he comes.” She pointed with a contemptuous gesture to the magic + vision of hill and vale sloping away to the translucent mountains. “He + wouldn’t give a fig for all that,” she said, “if he didn’t find me here.” + </p> + <p> + “But consider,” warned the Spirit, “that you are now choosing for + eternity. It is a solemn moment.” + </p> + <p> + “Choosing!” she said, with a half-sad smile. “Do you still keep up here + that old fiction about choosing? I should have thought that <i>you</i> knew + better than that. How can I help myself? He will expect to find me here + when he comes, and he would never believe you if you told him that I had + gone away with someone else—never, never.” + </p> + <p> + “So be it,” said the Spirit. “Here, as on earth, each one must decide for + himself.” + </p> + <p> + She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him gently, almost wistfully. + “I am sorry,” she said. “I should have liked to talk with you again; but + you will understand, I know, and I dare say you will find someone else a + great deal cleverer—” + </p> + <p> + And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him a swift farewell and + turned back toward the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “Will my husband come soon?” she asked the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + “That you are not destined to know,” the Spirit replied. + </p> + <p> + “No matter,” she said, cheerfully; “I have all eternity to wait in.” + </p> + <p> + And still seated alone on the threshold, she listens for the creaking of + his boots. + </p> + <p> + The End of The Fulness of Life + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A VENETIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT + </h2> + <h3> + December 1903 + </h3> + <p> + This is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street house + (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the famous East + India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn to + the oval parlour (and Maria’s harp was throwing its gauzy web of sound + across the Common), used to relate to his grandsons, about the year that + Buonaparte marched upon Moscow. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “Him Venice!” said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony Bracknell, + leaning on the high gunwale of his father’s East Indiaman, the Hepzibah + B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of towers and + domes dissolved in golden air. + </p> + <p> + It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of + age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old + Bracknell’s fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled + into shape. <i>Venice!</i> The name, since childhood, had been a magician’s wand + to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung a + series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought home + from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces, of the + Grand Turk’s Seraglio, of St. Peter’s Church in Rome; and, in a corner—the + corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks hung—a busy merry + populous scene, entitled: <i>St. Mark’s Square in Venice</i>. This picture, from + the first, had singularly taken little Tony’s fancy. His unformulated + criticism on the others was that they lacked action. True, in the view of + St. Peter’s an experienced-looking gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was + pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had + presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of + the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy + the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things + were happening at once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened + in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by + their garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, + Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, + lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons’ gowns who + stalked through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at + their heels. And all these people seemed to be diverting themselves + hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained dogs + and monkeys, distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their pockets + picked by slippery-looking fellows in black—the whole with such an + air of ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a + part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals. + </p> + <p> + As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost its + magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old picture + had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a cloud-ladder + leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name of Venice remained + associated; and all that observation or report subsequently brought him + concerning the place seemed, on a sober warranty of fact, to confirm its + claim to stand midway between reality and illusion. There was, for + instance, a slender Venice glass, gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the + dust of sunbeams, that, standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two + Lowestoft caddies, seemed, among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate + like an impaled butterfly. There was, farther, a gold chain of his + mother’s, spun of that same sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that + it slipped through the fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a + heavy pendant which seemed held in air as if by magic. <i>Magic!</i> That was the + word which the thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place, Tony + felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in + which two and two might make five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a + conclusion give the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a young heart + that did not, once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? + Tony, at least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms + in his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a + Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before him, + as the distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes across the + morning sea! + </p> + <p> + The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony’s governor and bear-leader, was just + putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon on + Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.’s anchor rattled + overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge + with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from his + lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in + suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical foreign + city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many Moslem idolators, + to the important fact of Mr. Mounce’s summing up his conclusions before + the Muse of Theology took flight? He should be happy, he said, if the tide + served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell the next morning. + </p> + <p> + The next morning, ha!—Tony murmured a submissive “Yes, sir,” winked + at the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down with + a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next + deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah’s gig. + </p> + <p> + A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of + the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling with + merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic painted + buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, + jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and + sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. + Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, + spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no + undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in such crowds + on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity which seemed to + include everybody in the circumference of one huge joke. In such an air + the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was beginning to feel + himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide bore him against a + droll-looking bell-ringing fellow who carried above his head a tall metal + tree hung with sherbet-glasses. + </p> + <p> + The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and + clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints, and + Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by mistake + for a sequin. The fellow’s eyes shot out of their orbits, and just then a + personable-looking young man who had observed the transaction stepped up + to Tony and said pleasantly, in English: + </p> + <p> + “I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency.” + </p> + <p> + “Does he want more?” says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed and + replied: “You have given him enough to retire from his business and open a + gaming-house over the arcade.” + </p> + <p> + Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries, + the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in + front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted himself + lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was + good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had + paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out again + to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, + appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to point out + to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of ton and ladies + of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a kind not openly + mentioned in taking a census of Salem. + </p> + <p> + Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, had + perused the “Merchant of Venice” and Mr. Otway’s fine tragedy; but though + these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of Venice + differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising + appearance and manners of the great people his friend named to him. The + gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, + short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor’s + gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; while the + President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow + with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet + cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on. + </p> + <p> + It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on forever; + but he had given his word to the captain to be at the landing-place at + sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the skies! Tony was a man + of honour; and having pressed on the Count a handsome damascened dagger + selected from one of the goldsmiths’ shops in a narrow street lined with + such wares, he insisted on turning his face toward the Hepzibah’s gig. The + Count yielded reluctantly; but as they came out again on the square they + were caught in a great throng pouring toward the doors of the cathedral. + </p> + <p> + “They go to Benediction,” said the Count. “A beautiful sight, with many + lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it.” + </p> + <p> + Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled + back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood in a haze of + gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty undulations of + the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and as Tony flattened + himself against a pillar, he heard a pretty voice at his elbow:—“Oh, + sir, oh, sir, your sword!” + </p> + <p> + He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched the + voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard. She wore + one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies affected, and + under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as sweet as a nesting + bird. + </p> + <p> + In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself a + shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony’s enchanted fingers. Looking after + her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompous-looking graybeard in a long + black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the exchange of + glances between the young people, drew the lady away with a threatening + look. + </p> + <p> + The Count met Tony’s eye with a smile. “One of our Venetian beauties,” + said he; “the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to have the finest + eyes in Venice.” + </p> + <p> + “She spoke English,” stammered Tony. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—ah—precisely: she learned the language at the Court of + Saint James’s, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as + Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England.” + </p> + <p> + “And that was her father?” + </p> + <p> + “Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena’s rank do not go abroad save + with their parents or a duenna.” + </p> + <p> + Just then a soft hand slid into Tony’s. His heart gave a foolish bound, + and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under the + hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful page’s + dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and vanished in the + throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at the Count, who + appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a bell, had + in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the + moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter. + </p> + <p> + “I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena”—he read; + but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his + shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind of + rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian. + </p> + <p> + Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk + himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other’s grip, + and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed his way + through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: “For God’s + sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep quiet and do as I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity among + the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in Venice + what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was that this + black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his breast; and this + suspicion was confirmed by the Count’s agitated whisper. + </p> + <p> + “This is one of the agents of the Ten.—For God’s sake, no outcry.” + He exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony. + “You have been seen concealing a letter about your person—” + </p> + <p> + “And what of that?” says Tony furiously. + </p> + <p> + “Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna + Polixena Cador.—A black business! Oh, a very black business! This + Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice—I beseech you, + not a word, sir! Let me think—deliberate—” + </p> + <p> + His hand on Tony’s shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the + potentate in the cocked hat. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry, sir—but our young ladies of rank are as jealously + guarded as the Grand Turk’s wives, and you must be answerable for this + scandal. The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo + Cador, instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your + youth and inexperience”—Tony winced at this—“and I think the + business may still be arranged.” + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-featured + shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a lawyer’s clerk, + who laid a grimy hand on Tony’s arm, and with many apologetic gestures + steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church. The Count held + him by the other arm, and in this fashion they emerged on the square, + which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the + arcade and in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it. + </p> + <p> + Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go + where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of the + Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the + landing-place. + </p> + <p> + The Count repeated this to Tony’s custodian, but the latter shook his head + and rattled off a sharp denial. + </p> + <p> + “Impossible, sir,” said the Count. “I entreat you not to insist. Any + resistance will tell against you in the end.” + </p> + <p> + Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of escape. + In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and boyhood’s + ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to outwitting a + dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry the crowd would + close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten yards, and he would + have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng was thick as glue, and he + walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for an opening. Suddenly the + mob swerved aside after some new show. Tony’s fist shot out at the black + fellow’s chest, and before the latter could right himself the young New + Englander was showing a clean pair of heels to his escort. On he sped, + cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in Gloucester bay, diving under the + first arch that caught his eye, dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, + and plunging across a narrow hump-back bridge which landed him in a black + pocket between walls. But now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by + the yelping mob. The walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage + Tony’s breath came short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck + had landed him. Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of + a servant wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh + chances. Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, + and the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + The servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They + climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor, and + entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from the + painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his + surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started up + at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was the + cause of all his troubles. + </p> + <p> + She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her face + changed and she shrank back abashed. + </p> + <p> + “This is a misunderstanding—a dreadful misunderstanding,” she cried + out in her pretty broken English. “Oh, how does it happen that you are + here?” + </p> + <p> + “Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!” retorted Tony, not + over-pleased by his reception. + </p> + <p> + “But why—how—how did you make this unfortunate mistake?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, madam, if you’ll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was yours—” + </p> + <p> + “Mine?” + </p> + <p> + —“in sending me a letter—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i>—a letter?” + </p> + <p> + —“by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your + father’s very nose—” + </p> + <p> + The girl broke in on him with a cry. “What! It was <i>you</i> who received my + letter?” She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged her + under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon, + and as she did so, Tony’s astonished eye detected in her the doubleted + page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark’s. + </p> + <p> + “What!” he cried, “the lad was this girl in disguise?” + </p> + <p> + Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded + instantly and she returned to the charge. + </p> + <p> + “This wicked, careless girl—she has ruined me, she will be my + undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not + intended for you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old + friend of my mother’s, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, + how can I ever excuse myself to you?” + </p> + <p> + “No excuses are needed, madam,” said Tony, bowing; “though I am surprised, + I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador.” + </p> + <p> + Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena’s face. “Oh, sir, you must + pardon my poor girl’s mistake. She heard you speaking English, and—and—I + had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner in the + church.” Tony bowed again, more profoundly. “The English Ambassador,” + Polixena added simply, “is a very handsome man.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!” + </p> + <p> + She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look of + anguish. “Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in + dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you also— + Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!” She turned pale and leaned + tremblingly upon the little servant. + </p> + <p> + Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment later + the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by half-a-dozen + of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the square. At sight of + him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst into furious outcries; + and though their jargon was unintelligible to the young man, their tones + and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly plain. The Senator, with a + start of anger, first flung himself on the intruder; then, snatched back + by his companions, turned wrathfully on his daughter, who, at his feet, + with outstretched arms and streaming face, pleaded her cause with all the + eloquence of young distress. Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated + vehemently among themselves, and one, a truculent-looking personage in + ruff and Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The + latter was at his wit’s end how to comport himself, for the lovely + Polixena’s tears had quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond + guessing that the magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what + they would be at. + </p> + <p> + At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on the + scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He pulled + a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be silent, + and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at first, + would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, he walked + apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of earshot. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir,” said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a perturbed + countenance, “it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a great + misfortune.” + </p> + <p> + “A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!” shouted Tony, whose blood, + by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the beautiful + Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up to the + forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Be careful,” said the Count, in a low tone. “Though his Illustriousness + does not speak your language, he understands a few words of it, and—” + </p> + <p> + “So much the better!” broke in Tony; “I hope he will understand me if I + ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me.” + </p> + <p> + The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, + stepping between, answered quickly: “His grievance against you is that you + have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the most + noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the most + illustrious Marquess Zanipolo—” and he waved a deferential hand at + the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff. + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” said Tony, “if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with the + young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal—” but here he + stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at + him. + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” interposed the Count, “we are not accustomed in Venice to take + shelter behind a lady’s reputation.” + </p> + <p> + “No more are we in Salem,” retorted Tony in a white heat. “I was merely + about to remark that, by the young lady’s avowal, she has never seen me + before.” + </p> + <p> + Polixena’s eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died to + defend her. + </p> + <p> + The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: “His + Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter’s misconduct has + been all the more reprehensible.” + </p> + <p> + “Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?” + </p> + <p> + “Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark’s, a letter which + you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The incident was + witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in + consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride.” + </p> + <p> + Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. “If his Illustriousness + is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so trivial a pretext, + it is he and not I who should be the object of her father’s resentment.” + </p> + <p> + “That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only + excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to + advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio.” + </p> + <p> + It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, and + the thought sharpened his retort. + </p> + <p> + “I had supposed,” said he, “that men of sense had much the same behaviour + in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman would be taken + at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen to read reflects + in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in fact nothing to do + with what you suppose.” + </p> + <p> + As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far as + he dared commit himself. + </p> + <p> + There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the Count + then said:—“We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to meet + certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of + immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her father?” + </p> + <p> + There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to look + straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance toward + Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by + unmistakable signs of apprehension. + </p> + <p> + “Poor girl!” he thought, “she is in a worse case than I imagined, and + whatever happens I must keep her secret.” + </p> + <p> + He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. “I am not,” said he, “in the + habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers.” + </p> + <p> + The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena’s father, dashing + his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess + continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. + </p> + <p> + The Count shook his head funereally. “Alas, sir, it is as I feared. This + is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal + imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation + incumbent upon you as a man of honour.” + </p> + <p> + Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the + Marquess. “And what obligation is that?” + </p> + <p> + “To repair the wrong you have done—in other words, to marry the + lady.” + </p> + <p> + Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: “Why in + heaven does she not bid me show the letter?” Then he remembered that it + had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them to + have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm + suspicion. The sense of the girl’s grave plight effaced all thought of his + own risk, but the Count’s last words struck him as so preposterous that he + could not repress a smile. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot flatter myself,” said he, “that the lady would welcome this + solution.” + </p> + <p> + The Count’s manner became increasingly ceremonious. “Such modesty,” he + said, “becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were justified + it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in this country + that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father has selected.” + </p> + <p> + “But I understood just now,” Tony interposed, “that the gentleman yonder + was in that enviable position.” + </p> + <p> + “So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in your + favour.” + </p> + <p> + “He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness + obliges me to decline—” + </p> + <p> + “You are still,” interrupted the Count, “labouring under a + misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted than + the lady’s. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that you + should marry her within the hour.” + </p> + <p> + Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. + He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself and the + door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the apartment, and + then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her father’s feet. + </p> + <p> + “And if I refuse?” said he. + </p> + <p> + The Count made a significant gesture. “I am not so foolish as to threaten + a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the consequences + would be to the lady.” + </p> + <p> + Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned + words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an + obdurate gesture. + </p> + <p> + The Count turned to Tony. “The lady herself pleads for you—at what + cost you do not guess—but as you see it is vain. In an hour his + Illustriousness’s chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness + consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed.” + </p> + <p> + He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to + Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in the + lock, and found himself alone with Polixena. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + The girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and + agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own + extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, + drawing her hands from her face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don’t make me look at you!” she sobbed; but it was on his bosom that + she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as he might + have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him gently from + her. + </p> + <p> + “What humiliation!” she lamented. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I blame you for what has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And + how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show the + letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me from + this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even greater.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—it was that you wrote for?” cried Tony with unaccountable + relief. + </p> + <p> + “Of course—what else did you think?” + </p> + <p> + “But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?” + </p> + <p> + “From <i>you</i>?” A smile flashed through her tears. “Alas, yes.” She drew back + and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of shame. + </p> + <p> + Tony glanced about him. “If I could wrench a bar out of that window—” + he muttered. + </p> + <p> + “Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.—Oh, I + must speak!” She sprang up and paced the room. “But indeed you can scarce + think worse of me than you do already—” + </p> + <p> + “I think ill of you?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen for + me—” + </p> + <p> + “Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice.” + </p> + <p> + “It is infamous, I say—infamous!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no—I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others.” + </p> + <p> + “Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!” + </p> + <p> + “He has a dreadful name for violence—his gondolier has told my + little maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of + you I should be thinking?” + </p> + <p> + “Of me, poor child?” cried Tony, losing his head. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and how to save you—for I <i>can</i> save you! But every moment + counts—and yet what I have to say is so dreadful.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now at least you are free of him,” said Tony, a little wildly; but + at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him. + </p> + <p> + “No, I am not free,” she said; “but you are, if you will do as I tell + you.” + </p> + <p> + Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight + through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the fall + had stunned him. + </p> + <p> + “What am I to do?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Look away from me, or I can never tell you.” + </p> + <p> + He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, and + reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the window. She + stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back was turned she + began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she were reciting a + lesson. + </p> + <p> + “You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not a + rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate spendthrift + and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of ready money.—If + you turn round I shall not go on!—He wrangled horribly with my + father over my dowry—he wanted me to have more than either of my + sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee of Spain. + But my father is a gambler too—oh, such fortunes as are squandered + over the arcade yonder! And so—and so—don’t turn, I implore + you—oh, do you begin to see my meaning?” + </p> + <p> + She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes from + her. + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You don’t + know us Venetians—we’re all to be bought for a price. It is not only + the brides who are marketable—sometimes the husbands sell themselves + too. And they think you rich—my father does, and the others—I + don’t know why, unless you have shown your money too freely—and the + English are all rich, are they not? And—oh, oh—do you + understand? Oh, I can’t bear your eyes!” + </p> + <p> + She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was at + her side. + </p> + <p> + “My poor child, my poor Polixena!” he cried, and wept and clasped her. + </p> + <p> + “You <i>are</i> rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?” she + persisted. + </p> + <p> + “To enable you to marry the Marquess?” + </p> + <p> + “To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see your + face again.” She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and paced the + floor in a fever. + </p> + <p> + Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a + clock against the wall. “The hour is nearly over. It is quite true that my + father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by me! + There is no other way of escape.” + </p> + <p> + “And if I do as you say—?” + </p> + <p> + “You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it.” + </p> + <p> + “And you—you are married to that villain?” + </p> + <p> + “But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to + myself when I am alone.” + </p> + <p> + “My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow.” + </p> + <p> + “You forgive me, Anthony? You don’t think too badly of me?” + </p> + <p> + “I say you must not marry that fellow.” + </p> + <p> + She laid a trembling hand on his arm. “Time presses,” she adjured him, + “and I warn you there is no other way.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a + Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson’s sermons in the best parlour at + Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. + “Yes, there is,” he cried, “if you are willing. Polixena, let the priest + come!” + </p> + <p> + She shrank back from him, white and radiant. “Oh, hush, be silent!” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates,” he cried. “My father + is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts—but if you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, hush, I say! I don’t know what your long words mean. But I bless you, + bless you, bless you on my knees!” And she knelt before him, and fell to + kissing his hands. + </p> + <p> + He drew her up to his breast and held her there. + </p> + <p> + “You are willing, Polixena?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” She broke from him with outstretched hands. “I am not willing. + You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!” + </p> + <p> + “On my money?” he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, on your money,” she said sadly. + </p> + <p> + “Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?” + </p> + <p> + She was silent. + </p> + <p> + “If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?” he persisted. + </p> + <p> + “You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past.” + </p> + <p> + “Let it pass. I’ll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger to + help another man to marry you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, madman, madman!” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the + wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and + falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty. + </p> + <p> + “Polixena, I love you!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the verge + of her troubled brows. + </p> + <p> + “I love you! I love you!” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their + lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird’s poise and before he knew + it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them. + </p> + <p> + She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. “I took it from your + fob,” she said. “It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any of the + money, you know.” + </p> + <p> + She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her + ashen face. + </p> + <p> + “What are you talking of?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never see + you again, Anthony!” She gave him a dreadful look. “Oh, my poor boy, my + poor love—‘<i>I love you, I love you, Polixena!</i>’” + </p> + <p> + He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with soothing + words; but she held him quietly at arm’s length, and as he gazed he read + the truth in her face. + </p> + <p> + He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on + his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Only, for God’s sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play + here,” she said. + </p> + <p> + As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of + voices on the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “It is all a lie,” she gasped out, “about my marriage, and the Marquess, + and the Ambassador, and the Senator—but not, oh, not about your + danger in this place—or about my love,” she breathed to him. And as + the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow. + </p> + <p> + The key rattled, and the door swung open—but the black-cassocked + gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of + idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias + Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much on + the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident relief, + by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was closed by an + escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and small-swords, who led + between them Tony’s late friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a looking + company as the law ever landed in her net. + </p> + <p> + The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of satisfaction + as he clapped eyes on Tony. + </p> + <p> + “So, Mr. Bracknell,” said he, “you have been seeing the Carnival with this + pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has landed + you? H’m—a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head of + it.” He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock ceremony + to Polixena, who faced him like a princess. + </p> + <p> + “Why, my girl,” said he, amicably, “I think I saw you this morning in the + square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain + Spavent—” and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess—“I’ve + watched him drive his bully’s trade under the arcade ever since I first + dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well,” he continued, his indignation + subsiding, “all’s fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this gentleman here is + under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up your little party.” + </p> + <p> + At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and + explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain. + </p> + <p> + “I can assure you, sir,” said the Count in his best English, “that this + incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you will + oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends here will be + happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his companions.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud + guffaw. + </p> + <p> + “Satisfaction?” says he. “Why, my cock, that’s very handsome of you, + considering the rope’s at your throats. But we’ll not take advantage of + your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it too + long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!” he spluttered suddenly, “decoying + young innocents with that devil’s bait of yours—” His eye fell on + Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. “Ah, well, we must all see + the Carnival once, I suppose,” he said. “All’s well that ends well, as the + fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. Bracknell, if you’ll + take the reverend gentleman’s arm there, we’ll bid adieu to our hospitable + entertainers, and right about face for the Hepzibah.” + </p> + <p> + The End of A Venetian Night’s Entertainment + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XINGU + </h2> + <h3> + December, 1911 + </h3> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though + it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch + Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable + huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of + lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the + entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted + functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated + “Osric Dane,” on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to be + present at the next meeting. + </p> + <p> + The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger’s. The other members, behind her + back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede her rights + in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive setting for + the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there + was always the picture-gallery to fall back on. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded + it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club’s distinguished + guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was of + her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one + possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth could + afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set herself. + An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her + opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly stationed; but the + power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep footmen clearly intended + her to maintain an equally specialized staff of responsibilities. It was + the more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society + were bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have been so + tenacious of the right to entertain Osric Dane. + </p> + <p> + The question of that lady’s reception had for a month past profoundly + moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt themselves + unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity plunged them + into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the alternatives of + a well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as Mrs. Leveret were + fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the author of “The Wings + of Death,” no forebodings of the kind disturbed the conscious adequacy of + Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. “The Wings of Death” had, + in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck’s suggestion, been chosen as the subject of + discussion at the last club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled + to express her own opinion or to appropriate whatever seemed most likely + to be of use in the comments of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had abstained + from profiting by the opportunity thus offered; but it was now openly + recognised that, as a member of the Lunch Club, Mrs. Roby was a failure. + “It all comes,” as Miss Van Vluyck put it, “of accepting a woman on a + man’s estimation.” Mrs. Roby, returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged + sojourn in exotic regions—the other ladies no longer took the + trouble to remember where—had been emphatically commended by the + distinguished biologist, Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman + he had ever met; and the members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium + that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the + Professor’s social sympathies would follow the line of his scientific + bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological member. Their + disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van Vluyck’s first off-hand mention + of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had confusedly murmured: “I know so little + about metres—” and after that painful betrayal of incompetence she + had prudently withdrawn from farther participation in the mental + gymnastics of the club. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose she flattered him,” Miss Van Vluyck summed up—“or else + it’s the way she does her hair.” + </p> + <p> + The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck’s dining-room having restricted the + membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one member was a + serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already + been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to live, as it were, on the + intellectual bounty of the others. This feeling was augmented by the + discovery that she had not yet read “The Wings of Death.” She owned to + having heard the name of Osric Dane; but that—incredible as it + appeared—was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated + novelist. The ladies could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. Ballinger, + whose pride in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby in the best + possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not had time to + acquaint herself with “The Wings of Death,” she must at least be familiar + with its equally remarkable predecessor, “The Supreme Instant.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, as + a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she <i>had</i> seen the book at her + brother’s, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even carried + it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all got to shying + things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she + had never had the chance— + </p> + <p> + The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby’s credit + with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by Mrs. + Plinth’s remarking: “I can understand that, with all your other pursuits, + you should not find much time for reading; but I should have thought you + might at least have <i>got up</i> ‘The Wings of Death’ before Osric Dane’s + arrival.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned to + glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of + Trollope’s that— + </p> + <p> + “No one reads Trollope now,” Mrs. Ballinger interrupted impatiently. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby looked pained. “I’m only just beginning,” she confessed. + </p> + <p> + “And does he interest you?” Mrs. Plinth inquired. + </p> + <p> + “He amuses me.” + </p> + <p> + “Amusement,” said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, “is hardly what I look for in + my choice of books.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, certainly, ‘The Wings of Death’ is not amusing,” ventured Mrs. + Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an + obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first + selection does not suit. + </p> + <p> + “Was it <i>meant</i> to be?” enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking + questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. “Assuredly + not.” + </p> + <p> + “Assuredly not—that is what I was going to say,” assented Mrs. + Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. “It was + meant to—to elevate.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black cap + of condemnation. “I hardly see,” she interposed, “how a book steeped in + the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, however much it may + instruct.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant, of course, to instruct,” said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the + unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be + synonymous. Mrs. Leveret’s enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently + marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other + ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes troubled + by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. It was only the + fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved her from a + sense of hopeless inferiority. + </p> + <p> + “Do they get married in the end?” Mrs. Roby interposed. + </p> + <p> + “They—who?” the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Why, the girl and man. It’s a novel, isn’t it? I always think that’s the + one thing that matters. If they’re parted it spoils my dinner.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the + latter said: “I should hardly advise you to read ‘The Wings of Death,’ in + that spirit. For my part, when there are so many books that one <i>has</i> to + read, I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely + amusing.” + </p> + <p> + “The beautiful part of it,” Laura Glyde murmured, “is surely just this—that + no one can tell <i>how</i> ‘The Wings of Death’ ends. Osric Dane, overcome by the + dread significance of her own meaning, has mercifully veiled it—perhaps + even from herself—as Apelles, in representing the sacrifice of + Iphigenia, veiled the face of Agamemnon.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s that? Is it poetry?” whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to Mrs. + Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: “You should look it + up. I always make it a point to look things up.” Her tone added—“though + I might easily have it done for me by the footman.” + </p> + <p> + “I was about to say,” Miss Van Vluyck resumed, “that it must always be a + question whether a book <i>can</i> instruct unless it elevates.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—” murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van Vluyck’s tone a + tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining Osric Dane; + “I don’t know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a book + which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any novel + since ‘Robert Elsmere.’” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but don’t you see,” exclaimed Laura Glyde, “that it’s just the dark + hopelessness of it all—the wonderful tone-scheme of black on black—that + makes it such an artistic achievement? It reminded me so when I read it of + Prince Rupert’s <i>manière noire</i>... the book is etched, not painted, yet one + feels the colour values so intensely...” + </p> + <p> + “Who is <i>he</i>?” Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. “Some one she’s met + abroad?” + </p> + <p> + “The wonderful part of the book,” Mrs. Ballinger conceded, “is that it may + be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of + determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with ‘The Data of Ethics.’” + </p> + <p> + “I’m told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies before + beginning to write it,” said Mrs. Plinth. “She looks up everything—verifies + everything. It has always been my principle, as you know. Nothing would + induce me, now, to put aside a book before I’d finished it, just because I + can buy as many more as I want.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do <i>you</i> think of ‘The Wings of Death’?” Mrs. Roby abruptly asked + her. + </p> + <p> + It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the + ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a + breach of discipline. They all knew that there was nothing Mrs. Plinth so + much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were written to + read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be questioned in + detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an + outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. The club + had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth’s. Such opinions as + she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her house, was + furnished with monumental “pieces” that were not meant to be suddenly + disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of the Lunch Club that, + within her own province, each member’s habits of thought should be + respected. The meeting therefore closed with an increased sense, on the + part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby’s hopeless unfitness to be one of + them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs. Ballinger’s, + her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket. + </p> + <p> + It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked + to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of the + turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she felt + herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of Appropriate + Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to give her any + reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled to meet all the + social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion of Anniversaries, + joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran), of Banquets, social or + municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of England or sectarian, its student + need never be at a loss for a pertinent reference. Mrs. Leveret, though + she had for years devoutly conned its pages, valued it, however, rather + for its moral support than for its practical services; for though in the + privacy of her own room she commanded an army of quotations, these + invariably deserted her at the critical moment, and the only line she + retained—<i>Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?</i>—was one + she had never yet found the occasion to apply. + </p> + <p> + To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would hardly + have insured her self-possession; for she thought it probable, even if she + <i>did</i>, in some miraculous way, remember an Allusion, it would be only to + find that Osric Dane used a different volume (Mrs. Leveret was convinced + that literary people always carried them), and would consequently not + recognise her quotations. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret’s sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance of + Mrs. Ballinger’s drawing-room. To a careless eye its aspect was unchanged; + but those acquainted with Mrs. Ballinger’s way of arranging her books + would instantly have detected the marks of recent perturbation. Mrs. + Ballinger’s province, as a member of the Lunch Club, was the Book of the + Day. On that, whatever it was, from a novel to a treatise on experimental + psychology, she was confidently, authoritatively “up.” What became of last + year’s books, or last week’s even; what she did with the “subjects” she + had previously professed with equal authority; no one had ever yet + discovered. Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient + lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without + paying for their board. It was Mrs. Ballinger’s boast that she was + “abreast with the Thought of the Day,” and her pride that this advanced + position should be expressed by the books on her drawing-room table. These + volumes, frequently renewed, and almost always damp from the press, bore + names generally unfamiliar to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she + furtively scanned them, a disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge + to be breathlessly traversed in Mrs. Ballinger’s wake. But to-day a number + of maturer-looking volumes were adroitly mingled with the primeurs of the + press—Karl Marx jostled Professor Bergson, and the “Confessions of + St. Augustine” lay beside the last work on “Mendelism”; so that even to + Mrs. Leveret’s fluttered perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger + didn’t in the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had + taken measures to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt like a + passenger on an ocean steamer who is told that there is no immediate + danger, but that she had better put on her life-belt. + </p> + <p> + It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van Vluyck’s + arrival. + </p> + <p> + “Well, my dear,” the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, “what subjects + are we to discuss to-day?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy of + Verlaine. “I hardly know,” she said somewhat nervously. “Perhaps we had + better leave that to circumstances.” + </p> + <p> + “Circumstances?” said Miss Van Vluyck drily. “That means, I suppose, that + Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we shall be deluged with + literature.” + </p> + <p> + Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck’s province, and she + naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest’s attention from + these topics. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared. + </p> + <p> + “Literature?” she protested in a tone of remonstrance. “But this is + perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane’s novel.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. “We can + hardly make that our chief subject—at least not <i>too</i> intentionally,” + she suggested. “Of course we can let our talk <i>drift</i> in that direction; but + we ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is what I + wanted to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of Osric + Dane’s tastes and interests that it is difficult to make any special + preparation.” + </p> + <p> + “It may be difficult,” said Mrs. Plinth with decision, “but it is + absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle leads to. + As I told one of my nieces the other day, there are certain emergencies + for which a lady should always be prepared. It’s in shocking taste to wear + colours when one pays a visit of condolence, or a last year’s dress when + there are reports that one’s husband is on the wrong side of the market; + and so it is with conversation. All I ask is that I should know beforehand + what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of being able to say the + proper thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I quite agree with you,” Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented; “but—” + </p> + <p> + And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid, Osric Dane + appeared upon the threshold. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a glance what + was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them half way. + That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of compulsion + not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality. She looked as + though she were about to be photographed for a new edition of her books. + </p> + <p> + The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its + responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane’s + entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club’s eagerness to please her. Any + lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to her + entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret said + afterward to her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made you + feel as if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence of + greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a + shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their hostess led the + great personage into the dining-room, turned back to whisper to the + others: “What a brute she is!” + </p> + <p> + The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict. It was + passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Ballinger’s menu, + and by the members of the Club in the emission of tentative platitudes + which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive + courses of the luncheon. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger’s deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown the Club + into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the + drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each + lady waited for the other to speak; and there was a general shock of + disappointment when their hostess opened the conversation by the painfully + commonplace inquiry: “Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?” + </p> + <p> + Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; and a vague + impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: “It is a very small + place indeed.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth bristled. “We have a great many representative people,” she + said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order. + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. “What do they represent?” she + asked. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth’s constitutional dislike to being questioned was intensified + by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful glance passed the + question on to Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “Why,” said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, “as a + community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture.” + </p> + <p> + “For art—” Miss Glyde eagerly interjected. + </p> + <p> + “For art and literature,” Mrs. Ballinger emended. + </p> + <p> + “And for sociology, I trust,” snapped Miss Van Vluyck. + </p> + <p> + “We have a standard,” said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly secure on + the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret, thinking there + must be room for more than one on so broad a statement, took courage to + murmur: “Oh, certainly; we have a standard.” + </p> + <p> + “The object of our little club,” Mrs. Ballinger continued, “is to + concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge—to centralise and + focus its complex intellectual effort.” + </p> + <p> + This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible breath + of relief. + </p> + <p> + “We aspire,” the President went on, “to stand for what is highest in art, + literature and ethics.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane again turned to her. “What ethics?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies required + any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; but when they were + called ethics it was different. The club, when fresh from the + “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” the “Reader’s Handbook” or Smith’s “Classical + Dictionary,” could deal confidently with any subject; but when taken + unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the Early + Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; and such minor + members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as something + vaguely pagan. + </p> + <p> + Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane’s question was unsettling, and there + was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned forward to say, + with her most sympathetic accent: “You must excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for not + being able, just at present, to talk of anything but ‘The Wings of + Death.’” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the war into + the enemy’s camp. “We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had in + mind in writing your wonderful book.” + </p> + <p> + “You will find,” Mrs. Plinth interposed, “that we are not superficial + readers.” + </p> + <p> + “We are eager to hear from you,” Miss Van Vluyck continued, “if the + pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own convictions + or—” + </p> + <p> + “Or merely,” Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, “a sombre background brushed in + to throw your figures into more vivid relief. <i>Are</i> you not primarily + plastic?” + </p> + <p> + “I have always maintained,” Mrs. Ballinger interposed, “that you represent + the purely objective method—” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. “How do you define + objective?” she then inquired. + </p> + <p> + There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: “In + reading <i>you</i> we don’t define, we feel.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane smiled. “The cerebellum,” she remarked, “is not infrequently + the seat of the literary emotions.” And she took a second lump of sugar. + </p> + <p> + The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost + neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical + language. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, the cerebellum,” said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. “The Club took a + course in psychology last winter.” + </p> + <p> + “Which psychology?” asked Osric Dane. + </p> + <p> + There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the Club + secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. + Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, + with an attempt at a high tone: “Well, really, you know, it was last year + that we took psychology, and this winter we have been so absorbed in—” + </p> + <p> + She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club’s discussions; + but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the petrifying stare of Osric + Dane. What <i>had</i> the club been absorbed in lately? Mrs. Ballinger, with a + vague purpose of gaining time, repeated slowly: “We’ve been so intensely + absorbed in—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “In Xingu?” she gently prompted. + </p> + <p> + A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused glances, + and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief and + interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The expression of each denoted + a different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first to + compose her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment’s hasty + adjustment her look almost implied that it was she who had given the word + to Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “Xingu, of course!” exclaimed the latter with her accustomed promptness, + while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be plumbing the depths of + memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling apprehensively for Appropriate + Allusions, was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its bulk + against her person. + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane’s change of countenance was no less striking than that of her + entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a look of distinct + annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment, what Mrs. Roby afterward + described as the look of feeling for something in the back of her head; + and before she could dissemble these momentary signs of weakness, Mrs. + Roby, turning to her with a deferential smile, had said: “And we’ve been + so hoping that to-day you would tell us just what you think of it.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of course; but the + accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, and it became clear to + her observers that she was not quick at shifting her facial scenery. It + was as though her countenance had so long been set in an expression of + unchallenged superiority that the muscles had stiffened, and refused to + obey her orders. + </p> + <p> + “Xingu—” she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby continued to press her. “Knowing how engrossing the subject is, + you will understand how it happens that the Club has let everything else + go to the wall for the moment. Since we took up Xingu I might almost say—were + it not for your books—that nothing else seems to us worth + remembering.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane’s stern features were darkened rather than lit up by an uneasy + smile. “I am glad to hear there is one exception,” she gave out between + narrowed lips. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, of course,” Mrs. Roby said prettily; “but as you have shown us that—so + very naturally!—you don’t care to talk about your own things, we + really can’t let you off from telling us exactly what you think about + Xingu; especially,” she added, with a persuasive smile, “as some people + say that one of your last books was simply saturated with it.” + </p> + <p> + It was an <i>it</i>, then—the assurance sped like fire through the parched + minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least little + clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at the discomfiture + of Mrs. Dane. + </p> + <p> + The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist’s direct assault. “May + I ask,” she faltered out in an embarrassed tone, “to which of my books you + refer?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby did not falter. “That’s just what I want you to tell us; + because, though I was present, I didn’t actually take part.” + </p> + <p> + “Present at what?” Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the trembling + members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion Providence had raised + up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained herself gaily: “At + the discussion, of course. And so we’re dreadfully anxious to know just + how it was that you went into the Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable dangers + that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips, like + soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their + leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying + sharply: “Ah—you say <i>The</i> Xingu, do you?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. “It <i>is</i> a shade pedantic, isn’t it? + Personally, I always drop the article; but I don’t know how the other + members feel about it.” + </p> + <p> + The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed + with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a + bright glance about the group, went on: “They probably think, as I do, + that nothing really matters except the thing itself—except Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger + gathered courage to say: “Surely every one must feel that about Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and Laura + Glyde breathed emotionally: “I have known cases where it has changed a + whole life.” + </p> + <p> + “It has done me worlds of good,” Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming to + herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it in the winter + before. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” Mrs. Roby admitted, “the difficulty is that one must give up + so much time to it. It’s very long.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine,” said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, “grudging the time given + to such a subject.” + </p> + <p> + “And deep in places,” Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) “And it + isn’t easy to skip.” + </p> + <p> + “I never skip,” said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, it’s dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places where + one can’t. One must just wade through.” + </p> + <p> + “I should hardly call it <i>wading</i>,” said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. “Ah—you always found it went + swimmingly?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. “Of course there are difficult passages,” she + conceded modestly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; some are not at all clear—even,” Mrs. Roby added, “if one is + familiar with the original.” + </p> + <p> + “As I suppose you are?” Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with a + look of challenge. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. “Oh, it’s really not difficult up + to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little known, and + it’s almost impossible to get at the source.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever tried?” Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of Mrs. + Roby’s thoroughness. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered lids: “No—but + a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he told me it was best for + women—not to...” + </p> + <p> + A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the + parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; Miss Van + Vluyck’s face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. Plinth looked as if + she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the most + remarkable result of Mrs. Roby’s words was the effect they produced on the + Lunch Club’s distinguished guest. Osric Dane’s impassive features suddenly + melted to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and edging her + chair toward Mrs. Roby’s she asked: “Did he really? And—did you find + he was right?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby’s unwonted assumption of + prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had + rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, + to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough + self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby’s flippancy, at least the Lunch Club + would do so in the person of its President. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby’s arm. “We must not forget,” she + said with a frigid amiability, “that absorbing as Xingu is to <i>us</i>, it may + be less interesting to—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you,” Osric Dane energetically + intervened. + </p> + <p> + “—to others,” Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; “and we must not allow + our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to say a few words + to us on a subject which, to-day, is much more present in all our + thoughts. I refer, of course, to ‘The Wings of Death.’” + </p> + <p> + The other members, animated by various degrees of the same sentiment, and + encouraged by the humanised mien of their redoubtable guest, repeated + after Mrs. Ballinger: “Oh, yes, you really <i>must</i> talk to us a little about + your book.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane’s expression became as bored, though not as haughty, as when + her work had been previously mentioned. But before she could respond to + Mrs. Ballinger’s request, Mrs. Roby had risen from her seat, and was + pulling her veil down over her frivolous nose. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so sorry,” she said, advancing toward her hostess with outstretched + hand, “but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I’d better run away. Unluckily, + as you know, I haven’t read her books, so I should be at a terrible + disadvantage among you all; and besides, I’ve an engagement to play + bridge.” + </p> + <p> + If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane’s works as a + reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her recent prowess, + might have approved such evidence of discretion; but to couple this excuse + with the brazen announcement that she was foregoing the privilege for the + purpose of joining a bridge-party, was only one more instance of her + deplorable lack of discrimination. + </p> + <p> + The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure—now + that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely to render them—would + probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending discussion, + besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which her presence + always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore restricted herself + to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members were just grouping + themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the latter, to their dismay, + started up from the sofa on which she had been deferentially enthroned. + </p> + <p> + “Oh wait—do wait, and I’ll go with you!” she called out to Mrs. + Roby; and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she administered + a series of farewell pressures with the mechanical haste of a + railway-conductor punching tickets. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so sorry—I’d quite forgotten—” she flung back at them + from the threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in + surprise at her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of hearing + her say, in a voice which she did not take the pains to lower: “If you’ll + let me walk a little way with you, I should so like to ask you a few more + questions about Xingu...” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + The incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the departing pair + before the other members had had time to understand what was happening. + Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane’s unceremonious + desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that they had been + cheated out of their due without exactly knowing how or why. + </p> + <p> + There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a + perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which her + distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck + tartly pronounced: “Well, I can’t say that I consider Osric Dane’s + departure a great loss.” + </p> + <p> + This confession crystallised the fluid resentment of the other members, + and Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: “I do believe she came on purpose to be + nasty!” + </p> + <p> + It was Mrs. Plinth’s private opinion that Osric Dane’s attitude toward the + Lunch Club might have been very different had it welcomed her in the + majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; but not liking to reflect on + the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger’s establishment she sought a round-about + satisfaction in depreciating her savoir faire. + </p> + <p> + “I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. It’s + what always happens when you’re unprepared. Now if we’d only got up Xingu—” + </p> + <p> + The slowness of Mrs. Plinth’s mental processes was always allowed for by + the Club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. Ballinger’s + equanimity. + </p> + <p> + “Xingu!” she scoffed. “Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more + about it than she did—unprepared though we were—that made + Osric Dane so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to + everybody!” + </p> + <p> + This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an + impulse of generosity, said: “Yes, we really ought to be grateful to Mrs. + Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane furious, but + at least it made her civil.” + </p> + <p> + “I am glad we were able to show her,” added Miss Van Vluyck, “that a broad + and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great intellectual centres.” + </p> + <p> + This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they began to + forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of having + contributed to her defeat. + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. “What surprised me + most,” she continued, “was that Fanny Roby should be so up on Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + This frank admission threw a slight chill on the company, but Mrs. + Ballinger said with an air of indulgent irony: “Mrs. Roby always has the + knack of making a little go a long way; still, we certainly owe her a debt + for happening to remember that she’d heard of Xingu.” And this was felt by + the other members to be a graceful way of cancelling once for all the + Club’s obligation to Mrs. Roby. + </p> + <p> + Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony: “I fancy + Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at Hillbridge!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger smiled. “When she asked me what we represented—do you + remember?—I wish I’d simply said we represented Xingu!” + </p> + <p> + All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs. Plinth, + who said, after a moment’s deliberation: “I’m not sure it would have been + wise to do so.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had launched + at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, looked ironically + at Mrs. Plinth. “May I ask why?” she enquired. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth looked grave. “Surely,” she said, “I understood from Mrs. Roby + herself that the subject was one it was as well not to go into too + deeply?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: “I think that applied only to an + investigation of the origin of the—of the—“; and suddenly she + found that her usually accurate memory had failed her. “It’s a part of the + subject I never studied myself,” she concluded lamely. + </p> + <p> + “Nor I,” said Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. “And yet it seems—doesn’t + it?—the part that is fullest of an esoteric fascination?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know on what you base that,” said Miss Van Vluyck + argumentatively. + </p> + <p> + “Well, didn’t you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane became as + soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner—he <i>was</i> a foreigner, + wasn’t he?—had told Mrs. Roby about the origin—the origin of + the rite—or whatever you call it?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly wavered. Then + she said in a decisive tone: “It may not be desirable to touch on the—on + that part of the subject in general conversation; but, from the importance + it evidently has to a woman of Osric Dane’s distinction, I feel as if we + ought not to be afraid to discuss it among ourselves—without gloves—though + with closed doors, if necessary.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m quite of your opinion,” Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her support; + “on condition, that is, that all grossness of language is avoided.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m sure we shall understand without that,” Mrs. Leveret tittered; + and Laura Glyde added significantly: “I fancy we can read between the + lines,” while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors were + really closed. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. “I hardly see,” she began, + “what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar customs—” + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Ballinger’s patience had reached the extreme limit of tension. + “This at least,” she returned; “that we shall not be placed again in the + humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects than + Fanny Roby!” + </p> + <p> + Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered furtively + about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: “Have you got a + copy?” + </p> + <p> + “A—a copy?” stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the other + members were looking at her expectantly, and that this answer was + inadequate, so she supported it by asking another question. “A copy of + what?” + </p> + <p> + Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in turn, + appeared less sure of herself than usual. “Why, of—of—the + book,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + “What book?” snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric Dane. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were interrogatively + fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being deferred to was so new to the + latter that it filled her with an insane temerity. “Why, Xingu, of + course!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + A profound silence followed this direct challenge to the resources of Mrs. + Ballinger’s library, and the latter, after glancing nervously toward the + Books of the Day, returned in a deprecating voice: “It’s not a thing one + cares to leave about.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think <i>not</i>!” exclaimed Mrs. Plinth. + </p> + <p> + “It <i>is</i> a book, then?” said Miss Van Vluyck. + </p> + <p> + This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, with an + impatient sigh, rejoined: “Why—there <i>is</i> a book—naturally...” + </p> + <p> + “Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?” + </p> + <p> + Laura Glyde started up. “A religion? I never—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you did,” Miss Van Vluyck insisted; “you spoke of rites; and Mrs. + Plinth said it was a custom.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce her + statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length + she began in a deep murmur: “Surely they used to do something of the kind + at the Eleusinian mysteries—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—” said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and Mrs. + Plinth protested: “I understood there was to be no indelicacy!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. “Really, it is too bad + that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among + ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so do I!” cried Miss Glyde. + </p> + <p> + “And I don’t see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up with + the Thought of the Day—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. “There—that’s it!” + she interposed. + </p> + <p> + “What’s it?” the President curtly took her up. + </p> + <p> + “Why—it’s a—a Thought: I mean a philosophy.” + </p> + <p> + This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura Glyde, + but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: “Excuse me if I tell you that + you’re all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language.” + </p> + <p> + “A language!” the Lunch Club cried. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Don’t you remember Fanny Roby’s saying that there were several + branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that apply to but + dialects?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. “Really, if + the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny Roby for + instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease to exist!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s really her fault for not being clearer,” Laura Glyde put in. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!” Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. “I daresay we + shall find she was mistaken on almost every point.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not look it up?” said Mrs. Plinth. + </p> + <p> + As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth’s was ignored in the + heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the privacy of each + member’s home. But on the present occasion the desire to ascribe their own + confusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature of Mrs. Roby’s + statements caused the members of the Lunch Club to utter a collective + demand for a book of reference. + </p> + <p> + At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. Leveret, + for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the centre front; but + she was not able to hold it long, for Appropriate Allusions contained no + mention of Xingu. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s not the kind of thing we want!” exclaimed Miss Van Vluyck. She + cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger’s assortment of literature, + and added impatiently: “Haven’t you any useful books?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I have,” replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; “but I keep them + in my husband’s dressing-room.” + </p> + <p> + From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour-maid + produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in deference to the fact + that the demand for it had come from Miss Van Vluyck, laid the ponderous + tome before her. + </p> + <p> + There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck rubbed her + spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a murmur of surprise when + she said: “It isn’t here.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Mrs. Plinth, “it’s not fit to be put in a book of + reference.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. “Try X.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short-sightedly up + and down the pages, till she came to a stop and remained motionless, like + a dog on a point. + </p> + <p> + “Well, have you found it?” Mrs. Ballinger enquired, after a considerable + delay. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I’ve found it,” said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: “I beg you won’t read it aloud if there’s + anything offensive.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what <i>is</i> it?” exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Do</i> tell us!” urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have something + awful to tell her sister. + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the + expectant group. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a river.” + </p> + <p> + “A <i>river</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes: in Brazil. Isn’t that where she’s been living?” + </p> + <p> + “Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You’ve been reading the + wrong thing,” Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the + volume. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the only <i>Xingu</i> in the Encyclopaedia; and she <i>has</i> been living in + Brazil,” Miss Van Vluyck persisted. + </p> + <p> + “Yes: her brother has a consulship there,” Mrs. Leveret eagerly + interposed. + </p> + <p> + “But it’s too ridiculous! I—we—why we <i>all</i> remember studying + Xingu last year—or the year before last,” Mrs. Ballinger stammered. + </p> + <p> + “I thought I did when <i>you</i> said so,” Laura Glyde avowed. + </p> + <p> + “I said so?” cried Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, <i>you</i> said it had changed your whole life!” + </p> + <p> + “For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time + she’d given it.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth interposed: “I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of + the original.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. “Oh, what does it all + matter if she’s been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck’s right—she + was talking of the river all the while!” + </p> + <p> + “How could she? It’s too preposterous,” Miss Glyde exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Listen.” Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia, + and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. “‘The Xingu, + one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of Mato + Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less than + one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon near the + mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is auriferous and + fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered in 1884 by the + German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and dangerous + expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the Stone Age of + culture.’” + </p> + <p> + The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence + from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. “She certainly <i>did</i> speak + of its having branches.” + </p> + <p> + The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. “And of its + great length,” gasped Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn’t skip—you just had to + wade through,” Miss Glyde subjoined. + </p> + <p> + The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth’s compact + resistances. “How could there be anything improper about a river?” she + inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Improper?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what she said about the source—that it was corrupt?” + </p> + <p> + “Not corrupt, but hard to get at,” Laura Glyde corrected. “Some one who’d + been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer himself—doesn’t + it say the expedition was dangerous?” + </p> + <p> + “‘Difficult and dangerous,’” read Miss Van Vluyck. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. “There’s + nothing she said that wouldn’t apply to a river—to this river!” She + swung about excitedly to the other members. “Why, do you remember her + telling us that she hadn’t read ‘The Supreme Instant’ because she’d taken + it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother, and some one + had ‘shied’ it overboard—‘shied’ of course was her own expression?” + </p> + <p> + The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped + them. + </p> + <p> + “Well—and then didn’t she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was + simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of Mrs. Roby’s + rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!” + </p> + <p> + This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just + participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length + Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy + tone: “Osric Dane was taken in too.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. “Perhaps that’s what Mrs. Roby did it + for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give her + a lesson.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck frowned. “It was hardly worth while to do it at our + expense.” + </p> + <p> + “At least,” said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, “she succeeded in + interesting her, which was more than we did.” + </p> + <p> + “What chance had we?” rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. “Mrs. Roby monopolised her + from the first. And <i>that</i>, I’ve no doubt, was her purpose—to give + Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would + hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in poor + Professor Foreland.” + </p> + <p> + “She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday,” Mrs. Leveret + piped up. + </p> + <p> + Laura Glyde struck her hands together. “Why, this is Thursday, and it’s + <i>there</i> she’s gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!” + </p> + <p> + “And they’re shrieking over us at this moment,” said Mrs. Ballinger + between her teeth. + </p> + <p> + This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. “She would hardly + dare,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “confess the imposture to Osric Dane.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she + hadn’t made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you know, we’d all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and + she said she wanted to find out more about it,” Mrs. Leveret said, with a + tardy impulse of justice to the absent. + </p> + <p> + This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave it + a stronger impetus. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—and that’s exactly what they’re both laughing over now,” said + Laura Glyde ironically. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her monumental + form. “I have no wish to criticise,” she said; “but unless the Lunch Club + can protect its members against the recurrence of such—such + unbecoming scenes, I for one—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so do I!” agreed Miss Glyde, rising also. + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button herself + into her jacket. “My time is really too valuable—” she began. + </p> + <p> + “I fancy we are all of one mind,” said Mrs. Ballinger, looking searchingly + at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others. + </p> + <p> + “I always deprecate anything like a scandal—” Mrs. Plinth continued. + </p> + <p> + “She has been the cause of one to-day!” exclaimed Miss Glyde. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret moaned: “I don’t see how she <i>could</i>!” and Miss Van Vluyck + said, picking up her note-book: “Some women stop at nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “—but if,” Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, “anything + of the kind had happened in <i>my</i> house” (it never would have, her tone + implied), “I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for + Mrs. Roby’s resignation—or to offer mine.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mrs. Plinth—” gasped the Lunch Club. + </p> + <p> + “Fortunately for me,” Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity, + “the matter was taken out of my hands by our President’s decision that the + right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in her + office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was alone in + this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way of + effacing its—its really deplorable consequences.” + </p> + <p> + A deep silence followed this unexpected outbreak of Mrs. Plinth’s + long-stored resentment. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see why I should be expected to ask her to resign—” Mrs. + Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her: “You + know she made you say that you’d got on swimmingly in Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger + energetically continued “—but you needn’t think for a moment that + I’m afraid to!” + </p> + <p> + The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the Lunch + Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating herself + at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of “The Wings of Death” to + make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club’s note-paper, on + which she began to write: “My dear Mrs. Roby—” + </p> + <p> + The End of Xingu + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE VERDICT + </h2> + <h3> + June 1908 + </h3> + <p> + I had always thought Jack Gisburn rather a cheap genius—though a + good fellow enough—so it was no great surprise to me to hear that, + in the height of his glory, he had dropped his painting, married a rich + widow, and established himself in a villa on the Riviera. (Though I rather + thought it would have been Rome or Florence.) + </p> + <p> + “The height of his glory”—that was what the women called it. I can + hear Mrs. Gideon Thwing—his last Chicago sitter—deploring his + unaccountable abdication. “Of course it’s going to send the value of my + picture ‘way up; but I don’t think of that, Mr. Rickham—the loss to + Arrt is all I think of.” The word, on Mrs. Thwing’s lips, multiplied its + <i>rs</i> as though they were reflected in an endless vista of mirrors. And it + was not only the Mrs. Thwings who mourned. Had not the exquisite Hermia + Croft, at the last Grafton Gallery show, stopped me before Gisburn’s + “Moon-dancers” to say, with tears in her eyes: “We shall not look upon its + like again”? + </p> + <p> + Well!—even through the prism of Hermia’s tears I felt able to face + the fact with equanimity. Poor Jack Gisburn! The women had made him—it + was fitting that they should mourn him. Among his own sex fewer regrets + were heard, and in his own trade hardly a murmur. Professional jealousy? + Perhaps. If it were, the honour of the craft was vindicated by little + Claude Nutley, who, in all good faith, brought out in the Burlington a + very handsome “obituary” on Jack—one of those showy articles stocked + with random technicalities that I have heard (I won’t say by whom) + compared to Gisburn’s painting. And so—his resolve being apparently + irrevocable—the discussion gradually died out, and, as Mrs. Thwing + had predicted, the price of “Gisburns” went up. + </p> + <p> + It was not till three years later that, in the course of a few weeks’ + idling on the Riviera, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Gisburn + had given up his painting. On reflection, it really was a tempting + problem. To accuse his wife would have been too easy—his fair + sitters had been denied the solace of saying that Mrs. Gisburn had + “dragged him down.” For Mrs. Gisburn—as such—had not existed + till nearly a year after Jack’s resolve had been taken. It might be that + he had married her—since he liked his ease—because he didn’t + want to go on painting; but it would have been hard to prove that he had + given up his painting because he had married her. + </p> + <p> + Of course, if she had not dragged him down, she had equally, as Miss Croft + contended, failed to “lift him up”—she had not led him back to the + easel. To put the brush into his hand again—what a vocation for a + wife! But Mrs. Gisburn appeared to have disdained it—and I felt it + might be interesting to find out why. + </p> + <p> + The desultory life of the Riviera lends itself to such purely academic + speculations; and having, on my way to Monte Carlo, caught a glimpse of + Jack’s balustraded terraces between the pines, I had myself borne thither + the next day. + </p> + <p> + I found the couple at tea beneath their palm-trees; and Mrs. Gisburn’s + welcome was so genial that, in the ensuing weeks, I claimed it frequently. + It was not that my hostess was “interesting”: on that point I could have + given Miss Croft the fullest reassurance. It was just because she was <i>not</i> + interesting—if I may be pardoned the bull—that I found her so. + For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by interesting women: they had + fostered his art, it had been reared in the hot-house of their adulation. + And it was therefore instructive to note what effect the “deadening + atmosphere of mediocrity” (I quote Miss Croft) was having on him. + </p> + <p> + I have mentioned that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was immediately + perceptible that her husband was extracting from this circumstance a + delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as a rule, the people who + scorn money who get most out of it; and Jack’s elegant disdain of his + wife’s big balance enabled him, with an appearance of perfect + good-breeding, to transmute it into objects of art and luxury. To the + latter, I must add, he remained relatively indifferent; but he was buying + Renaissance bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures with a discrimination + that bespoke the amplest resources. + </p> + <p> + “Money’s only excuse is to put beauty into circulation,” was one of the + axioms he laid down across the Sèvres and silver of an exquisitely + appointed luncheon-table, when, on a later day, I had again run over from + Monte Carlo; and Mrs. Gisburn, beaming on him, added for my enlightenment: + “Jack is so morbidly sensitive to every form of beauty.” + </p> + <p> + Poor Jack! It had always been his fate to have women say such things of + him: the fact should be set down in extenuation. What struck me now was + that, for the first time, he resented the tone. I had seen him, so often, + basking under similar tributes—was it the conjugal note that robbed + them of their savour? No—for, oddly enough, it became apparent that + he was fond of Mrs. Gisburn—fond enough not to see her absurdity. It + was his own absurdity he seemed to be wincing under—his own attitude + as an object for garlands and incense. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, since I’ve chucked painting people don’t say that stuff about me—they + say it about Victor Grindle,” was his only protest, as he rose from the + table and strolled out onto the sunlit terrace. + </p> + <p> + I glanced after him, struck by his last word. Victor Grindle was, in fact, + becoming the man of the moment—as Jack himself, one might put it, + had been the man of the hour. The younger artist was said to have formed + himself at my friend’s feet, and I wondered if a tinge of jealousy + underlay the latter’s mysterious abdication. But no—for it was not + till after that event that the rose Dubarry drawing-rooms had begun to + display their “Grindles.” + </p> + <p> + I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of sugar to her + spaniel in the dining-room. + </p> + <p> + “Why <i>has</i> he chucked painting?” I asked abruptly. + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he doesn’t <i>have</i> to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy himself,” + she said quite simply. + </p> + <p> + I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its <i>famille-verte</i> + vases repeating the tones of the pale damask curtains, and its + eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded frames. + </p> + <p> + “Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven’t seen a single one in the + house.” + </p> + <p> + A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn’s open countenance. + “It’s his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says they’re not fit to have + about; he’s sent them all away except one—my portrait—and that + I have to keep upstairs.” + </p> + <p> + His ridiculous modesty—Jack’s modesty about his pictures? My + curiosity was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively to my + hostess: “I must really see your portrait, you know.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her husband, + lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn the Russian + deerhound’s head between his knees. + </p> + <p> + “Well, come while he’s not looking,” she said, with a laugh that tried to + hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the marble Emperors of + the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra-cotta nymphs poised among + flowers at each landing. + </p> + <p> + In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of delicate and + distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval canvases, in the + inevitable garlanded frame. The mere outline of the frame called up all + Gisburn’s past! + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Gisburn drew back the window-curtains, moved aside a <i>jardinière</i> full + of pink azaleas, pushed an arm-chair away, and said: “If you stand here + you can just manage to see it. I had it over the mantel-piece, but he + wouldn’t let it stay.” + </p> + <p> + Yes—I could just manage to see it—the first portrait of Jack’s + I had ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the place of + honour—say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose Dubarry + drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it took the light + through curtains of old Venetian point. The more modest place became the + picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, all the + characteristic qualities came out—all the hesitations disguised as + audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with such consummate + skill, he managed to divert attention from the real business of the + picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, presenting a + neutral surface to work on—forming, as it were, so inevitably the + background of her own picture—had lent herself in an unusual degree + to the display of this false virtuosity. The picture was one of Jack’s + “strongest,” as his admirers would have put it—it represented, on + his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of veins, a balancing, + straddling and straining, that reminded one of the circus-clown’s ironic + efforts to lift a feather. It met, in short, at every point the demand of + lovely woman to be painted “strongly” because she was tired of being + painted “sweetly”—and yet not to lose an atom of the sweetness. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the last he painted, you know,” Mrs. Gisburn said with pardonable + pride. “The last but one,” she corrected herself—“but the other + doesn’t count, because he destroyed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Destroyed it?” I was about to follow up this clue when I heard a footstep + and saw Jack himself on the threshold. + </p> + <p> + As he stood there, his hands in the pockets of his velveteen coat, the + thin brown waves of hair pushed back from his white forehead, his lean + sunburnt cheeks furrowed by a smile that lifted the tips of a + self-confident moustache, I felt to what a degree he had the same quality + as his pictures—the quality of looking cleverer than he was. + </p> + <p> + His wife glanced at him deprecatingly, but his eyes travelled past her to + the portrait. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Rickham wanted to see it,” she began, as if excusing herself. He + shrugged his shoulders, still smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Rickham found me out long ago,” he said lightly; then, passing his + arm through mine: “Come and see the rest of the house.” + </p> + <p> + He showed it to me with a kind of naive suburban pride: the bath-rooms, + the speaking-tubes, the dress-closets, the trouser-presses—all the + complex simplifications of the millionaire’s domestic economy. And + whenever my wonder paid the expected tribute he said, throwing out his + chest a little: “Yes, I really don’t see how people manage to live without + that.” + </p> + <p> + Well—it was just the end one might have foreseen for him. Only he + was, through it all and in spite of it all—as he had been through, + and in spite of, his pictures—so handsome, so charming, so + disarming, that one longed to cry out: “Be dissatisfied with your + leisure!” as once one had longed to say: “Be dissatisfied with your work!” + </p> + <p> + But, with the cry on my lips, my diagnosis suffered an unexpected check. + </p> + <p> + “This is my own lair,” he said, leading me into a dark plain room at the + end of the florid vista. It was square and brown and leathery: no + “effects”; no bric-a-brac, none of the air of posing for reproduction in a + picture weekly—above all, no least sign of ever having been used as + a studio. + </p> + <p> + The fact brought home to me the absolute finality of Jack’s break with his + old life. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you ever dabble with paint any more?” I asked, still looking about + for a trace of such activity. + </p> + <p> + “Never,” he said briefly. + </p> + <p> + “Or water-colour—or etching?” + </p> + <p> + His confident eyes grew dim, and his cheeks paled a little under their + handsome sunburn. + </p> + <p> + “Never think of it, my dear fellow—any more than if I’d never + touched a brush.” + </p> + <p> + And his tone told me in a flash that he never thought of anything else. + </p> + <p> + I moved away, instinctively embarrassed by my unexpected discovery; and as + I turned, my eye fell on a small picture above the mantel-piece—the + only object breaking the plain oak panelling of the room. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, by Jove!” I said. + </p> + <p> + It was a sketch of a donkey—an old tired donkey, standing in the + rain under a wall. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove—a Stroud!” I cried. + </p> + <p> + He was silent; but I felt him close behind me, breathing a little quickly. + </p> + <p> + “What a wonder! Made with a dozen lines—but on everlasting + foundations. You lucky chap, where did you get it?” + </p> + <p> + He answered slowly: “Mrs. Stroud gave it to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—I didn’t know you even knew the Strouds. He was such an + inflexible hermit.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t—till after.... She sent for me to paint him when he was + dead.” + </p> + <p> + “When he was dead? You?” + </p> + <p> + I must have let a little too much amazement escape through my surprise, + for he answered with a deprecating laugh: “Yes—she’s an awful + simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by a + fashionable painter—ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way + of proclaiming his greatness—of forcing it on a purblind public. And + at the moment I was <i>the</i> fashionable painter.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, poor Stroud—as you say. Was <i>that</i> his history?” + </p> + <p> + “That was his history. She believed in him, gloried in him—or + thought she did. But she couldn’t bear not to have all the drawing-rooms + with her. She couldn’t bear the fact that, on varnishing days, one could + always get near enough to see his pictures. Poor woman! She’s just a + fragment groping for other fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever + knew.” + </p> + <p> + “You ever knew? But you just said—” + </p> + <p> + Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I knew him, and he knew me—only it happened after he was dead.” + </p> + <p> + I dropped my voice instinctively. “When she sent for you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated—and + by me!” + </p> + <p> + He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch of the + donkey. “There were days when I couldn’t look at that thing—couldn’t + face it. But I forced myself to put it here; and now it’s cured me—cured + me. That’s the reason why I don’t dabble any more, my dear Rickham; or + rather Stroud himself is the reason.” + </p> + <p> + For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned into a + serious desire to understand him better. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you’d tell me how it happened,” I said. + </p> + <p> + He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his fingers a + cigarette he had forgotten to light. Suddenly he turned toward me. + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather like to tell you—because I’ve always suspected you of + loathing my work.” + </p> + <p> + I made a deprecating gesture, which he negatived with a good-humoured + shrug. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I didn’t care a straw when I believed in myself—and now it’s an + added tie between us!” + </p> + <p> + He laughed slightly, without bitterness, and pushed one of the deep + arm-chairs forward. “There: make yourself comfortable—and here are + the cigars you like.” + </p> + <p> + He placed them at my elbow and continued to wander up and down the room, + stopping now and then beneath the picture. + </p> + <p> + “How it happened? I can tell you in five minutes—and it didn’t take + much longer to happen.... I can remember now how surprised and pleased I + was when I got Mrs. Stroud’s note. Of course, deep down, I had always <i>felt</i> + there was no one like him—only I had gone with the stream, echoed + the usual platitudes about him, till I half got to think he was a failure, + one of the kind that are left behind. By Jove, and he <i>was</i> left behind—because + he had come to stay! The rest of us had to let ourselves be swept along or + go under, but he was high above the current—on everlasting + foundations, as you say. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I went off to the house in my most egregious mood—rather + moved, Lord forgive me, at the pathos of poor Stroud’s career of failure + being crowned by the glory of my painting him! Of course I meant to do the + picture for nothing—I told Mrs. Stroud so when she began to stammer + something about her poverty. I remember getting off a prodigious phrase + about the honour being <i>mine</i>—oh, I was princely, my dear Rickham! I + was posing to myself like one of my own sitters. + </p> + <p> + “Then I was taken up and left alone with him. I had sent all my traps in + advance, and I had only to set up the easel and get to work. He had been + dead only twenty-four hours, and he died suddenly, of heart disease, so + that there had been no preliminary work of destruction—his face was + clear and untouched. I had met him once or twice, years before, and + thought him insignificant and dingy. Now I saw that he was superb. + </p> + <p> + “I was glad at first, with a merely aesthetic satisfaction: glad to have + my hand on such a ‘subject.’ Then his strange life-likeness began to + affect me queerly—as I blocked the head in I felt as if he were + watching me do it. The sensation was followed by the thought: if he <i>were</i> + watching me, what would he say to my way of working? My strokes began to + go a little wild—I felt nervous and uncertain. + </p> + <p> + “Once, when I looked up, I seemed to see a smile behind his close grayish + beard—as if he had the secret, and were amusing himself by holding + it back from me. That exasperated me still more. The secret? Why, I had a + secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at the canvas furiously, and tried + some of my bravura tricks. But they failed me, they crumbled. I saw that + he wasn’t watching the showy bits—I couldn’t distract his attention; + he just kept his eyes on the hard passages between. Those were the ones I + had always shirked, or covered up with some lying paint. And how he saw + through my lies! + </p> + <p> + “I looked up again, and caught sight of that sketch of the donkey hanging + on the wall near his bed. His wife told me afterward it was the last thing + he had done—just a note taken with a shaking hand, when he was down + in Devonshire recovering from a previous heart attack. Just a note! But it + tells his whole history. There are years of patient scornful persistence + in every line. A man who had swum with the current could never have + learned that mighty up-stream stroke.... + </p> + <p> + “I turned back to my work, and went on groping and muddling; then I looked + at the donkey again. I saw that, when Stroud laid in the first stroke, he + knew just what the end would be. He had possessed his subject, absorbed + it, recreated it. When had I done that with any of my things? They hadn’t + been born of me—I had just adopted them.... + </p> + <p> + “Hang it, Rickham, with that face watching me I couldn’t do another + stroke. The plain truth was, I didn’t know where to put it—I <i>had + never known</i>. Only, with my sitters and my public, a showy splash of colour + covered up the fact—I just threw paint into their faces.... Well, + paint was the one medium those dead eyes could see through—see + straight to the tottering foundations underneath. Don’t you know how, in + talking a foreign language, even fluently, one says half the time not what + one wants to but what one can? Well—that was the way I painted; and + as he lay there and watched me, the thing they called my ‘technique’ + collapsed like a house of cards. He didn’t sneer, you understand, poor + Stroud—he just lay there quietly watching, and on his lips, through + the gray beard, I seemed to hear the question: ‘Are you sure you know + where you’re coming out?’ + </p> + <p> + “If I could have painted that face, with that question on it, I should + have done a great thing. The next greatest thing was to see that I + couldn’t—and that grace was given me. But, oh, at that minute, + Rickham, was there anything on earth I wouldn’t have given to have Stroud + alive before me, and to hear him say: ‘It’s not too late—I’ll show + you how’? + </p> + <p> + “It <i>was</i> too late—it would have been, even if he’d been alive. I + packed up my traps, and went down and told Mrs. Stroud. Of course I didn’t + tell her <i>that</i>—it would have been Greek to her. I simply said I + couldn’t paint him, that I was too moved. She rather liked the idea—she’s + so romantic! It was that that made her give me the donkey. But she was + terribly upset at not getting the portrait—she did so want him + ‘done’ by some one showy! At first I was afraid she wouldn’t let me off—and + at my wits’ end I suggested Grindle. Yes, it was I who started Grindle: I + told Mrs. Stroud he was the ‘coming’ man, and she told somebody else, and + so it got to be true.... And he painted Stroud without wincing; and she + hung the picture among her husband’s things....” + </p> + <p> + He flung himself down in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head, and + clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the + chimney-piece. + </p> + <p> + “I like to fancy that Stroud himself would have given it to me, if he’d + been able to say what he thought that day.” + </p> + <p> + And, in answer to a question I put half-mechanically—“Begin again?” + he flashed out. “When the one thing that brings me anywhere near him is + that I knew enough to leave off?” + </p> + <p> + He stood up and laid his hand on my shoulder with a laugh. “Only the irony + of it is that I <i>am</i> still painting—since Grindle’s doing it for me! + The Strouds stand alone, and happen once—but there’s no + exterminating our kind of art.” + </p> + <p> + The End of The Verdict + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE RECKONING + </h2> + <h3> + August, 1902 + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “The marriage law of the new dispensation will be: <i>Thou shalt not be + unfaithful—to thyself.</i>” + </p> + <p> + A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze of + cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from his + improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of ladies. + Westall’s informal talks on “The New Ethics” had drawn about him an eager + following of the mentally unemployed—those who, as he had once + phrased it, liked to have their brain-food cut up for them. The talks had + begun by accident. Westall’s ideas were known to be “advanced,” but + hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of publicity. He had + been, in his wife’s opinion, almost pusillanimously careful not to let his + personal views endanger his professional standing. Of late, however, he + had shown a puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to + flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the relation of the + sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few admiring friends had + persuaded him to give his after-dinner opinions a larger circulation by + summing them up in a series of talks at the Van Sideren studio. + </p> + <p> + The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on the + fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren’s pictures were chiefly valuable + as accessories to the <i>mise en scène</i> which differentiated his wife’s + “afternoons” from the blighting functions held in long New York + drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends whiskey-and-soda + instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making the + most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel create; and + if at times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and lost courage to + the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, she promptly + overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh talent, some + extraneous re-enforcement of the “artistic” impression. It was in quest of + such aid that she had seized on Westall, coaxing him, somewhat to his + wife’s surprise, into a flattered participation in her fraud. It was + vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren circle, that all the audacities were + artistic, and that a teacher who pronounced marriage immoral was somehow + as distinguished as a painter who depicted purple grass and a green sky. + The Van Sideren set were tired of the conventional color-scheme in art and + conduct. + </p> + <p> + Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage; + she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple. In the early days + of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to proclaim + himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax him with + moral cowardice, with a failure to live up to the convictions for which + their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the first burst of + propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her disobedience into a + law. Now she felt differently. She could hardly account for the change, + yet being a woman who never allowed her impulses to remain unaccounted + for, she tried to do so by saying that she did not care to have the + articles of her faith misinterpreted by the vulgar. In this connection, + she was beginning to think that almost every one was vulgar; certainly + there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust the defence of so + esoteric a doctrine. And it was precisely at this point that Westall, + discarding his unspoken principles, had chosen to descend from the heights + of privacy, and stand hawking his convictions at the street-corner! + </p> + <p> + It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed upon + herself Mrs. Westall’s wandering resentment. In the first place, the girl + had no business to be there. It was “horrid”—Mrs. Westall found + herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary—simply + “horrid” to think of a young girl’s being allowed to listen to such talk. + The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional cocktail did + not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which made her appear + the victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents’ vulgarities. Julia + Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something ought to be done—that + some one ought to speak to the girl’s mother. And just then Una glided up. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!” Una fixed her with large limpid + eyes. “You believe it all, I suppose?” she asked with seraphic gravity. + </p> + <p> + “All—what, my dear child?” + </p> + <p> + The girl shone on her. “About the higher life—the freer expansion of + the individual—the law of fidelity to one’s self,” she glibly + recited. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Una,” she said, “you don’t in the least understand what it’s all + about!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. “Don’t <i>you</i>, then?” + she murmured. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westall laughed. “Not always—or altogether! But I should like + some tea, please.” + </p> + <p> + Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As + Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully. It was not + such a girlish face, after all—definite lines were forming under the + rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty, and + wondered why she had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would have as + her dower! If <i>they</i> were to be a part of the modern girl’s trousseau— + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one + else had been speaking—a stranger who had borrowed her own voice: + she felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism. + Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling and Una’s tea too sweet, + she set down her cup, and looked about for Westall: to meet his eyes had + long been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but only, + as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger + flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which + Una had withdrawn—one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren + attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had + overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl’s side. She bent + forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the + depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to + swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. Julia + winced at her own definition of the smile. + </p> + <p> + On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife + by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. “Did I open their eyes a bit? Did + I tell them what you wanted me to?” he asked gaily. + </p> + <p> + Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. “What I wanted—?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, haven’t you—all this time?” She caught the honest wonder of + his tone. “I somehow fancied you’d rather blamed me for not talking more + openly—before— You’ve made me feel, at times, that I was + sacrificing principles to expediency.” + </p> + <p> + She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: “What made you + decide not to—any longer?” + </p> + <p> + She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. “Why—the wish to + please you!” he answered, almost too simply. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would not go on, then,” she said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the darkness. + </p> + <p> + “Not go on—?” + </p> + <p> + “Call a hansom, please. I’m tired,” broke from her with a sudden rush of + physical weariness. + </p> + <p> + Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally hot—and + then that confounded cigarette smoke—he had noticed once or twice + that she looked pale—she mustn’t come to another Saturday. She felt + herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his concern + for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a conscious + intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her hand stole + into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let them fall. It + was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! + </p> + <p> + That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the subject + of his talk. He combined a man’s dislike of uncomfortable questions with + an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew that if he returned + to the subject he must have some special reason for doing so. + </p> + <p> + “You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put the + case badly?” + </p> + <p> + “No—you put it very well.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go on + with it?” + </p> + <p> + She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening her + sense of helplessness. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I care to hear such things discussed in public.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand you,” he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his + surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She was + not sure that she understood herself. + </p> + <p> + “Won’t you explain?” he said with a tinge of impatience. Her eyes wandered + about the familiar drawing-room which had been the scene of so many of + their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the quiet-colored walls hung + with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers scattered here and there in + Venice glasses and bowls of old Sèvres, recalled, she hardly knew why, the + apartment in which the evenings of her first marriage had been passed—a + wilderness of rosewood and upholstery, with a picture of a Roman peasant + above the mantel-piece, and a Greek slave in “statuary marble” between the + folding-doors of the back drawing-room. It was a room with which she had + never been able to establish any closer relation than that between a + traveller and a railway station; and now, as she looked about at the + surroundings which stood for her deepest affinities—the room for + which she had left that other room—she was startled by the same + sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity. The prints, the flowers, the + subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a superficial + refinement that had no relation to the deeper significances of life. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know that I can explain,” she faltered. + </p> + <p> + He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the hearth. The + light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face, which had a kind of + surface-sensitiveness akin to the surface-refinement of its setting. + </p> + <p> + “Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “In our ideas—?” + </p> + <p> + “The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to stand + for.” He paused a moment. “The ideas on which our marriage was founded.” + </p> + <p> + The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then—she was sure + now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how often + had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was founded? + How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to examine its + foundation? The foundation is there, of course—the house rests on it—but + one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was she, indeed, who in + the beginning had insisted on reviewing the situation now and then, on + recapitulating the reasons which justified her course, on proclaiming, + from time to time, her adherence to the religion of personal independence; + but she had long ceased to feel the need of any such ideal standards, and + had accepted her marriage as frankly and naturally as though it had been + based on the primitive needs of the heart, and needed no special sanction + to explain or justify it. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I still believe in our ideas!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Then I repeat that I don’t understand. It was a part of your theory that + the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of marriage. + Have you changed your mind in that respect?” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated. “It depends on circumstances—on the public one is + addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them don’t + care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply + by its novelty.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and + learned the truth from each other.” + </p> + <p> + “That was different.” + </p> + <p> + “In what way?” + </p> + <p> + “I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly unfitting that + young girls should be present at—at such times—should hear + such things discussed—” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such + things never <i>are</i> discussed before young girls; but that is beside the + point, for I don’t remember seeing any young girl in my audience to-day—” + </p> + <p> + “Except Una Van Sideren!” + </p> + <p> + He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Miss Van Sideren—naturally—” + </p> + <p> + “Why naturally?” + </p> + <p> + “The daughter of the house—would you have had her sent out with her + governess?” + </p> + <p> + “If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my house!” + </p> + <p> + Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. “I fancy + Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself.” + </p> + <p> + “No girl knows how to take care of herself—till it’s too late.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of + self-defence?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you call the surest means of self-defence?” + </p> + <p> + “Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the + marriage tie.” + </p> + <p> + She made an impatient gesture. “How should you like to marry that kind of + a girl?” + </p> + <p> + “Immensely—if she were my kind of girl in other respects.” + </p> + <p> + She took up the argument at another point. + </p> + <p> + “You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young + girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation—” She broke + off, wondering why she had spoken. + </p> + <p> + Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of + their discussion. “What you tell me is immensely flattering to my + oratorical talent—but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure + you that Miss Van Sideren doesn’t have to have her thinking done for her. + She’s quite capable of doing it herself.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem very familiar with her mental processes!” flashed unguardedly + from his wife. + </p> + <p> + He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. + </p> + <p> + “I should like to be,” he answered. “She interests me.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to + Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to + excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John + Arment was “impossible,” and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the + thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine. + </p> + <p> + There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side had + accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as “statutory.” + The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their allegiance to a + State which recognized desertion as a cause for divorce, and construed the + term so liberally that the seeds of desertion were shown to exist in every + union. Even Mrs. Arment’s second marriage did not make traditional + morality stir in its sleep. It was known that she had not met her second + husband till after she had parted from the first, and she had, moreover, + replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement Westall was acknowledged + to be a rising lawyer, it was generally felt that his fortunes would not + rise as rapidly as his reputation. The Westalls would probably always have + to live quietly and go out to dinner in cabs. Could there be better + evidence of Mrs. Arment’s complete disinterestedness? + </p> + <p> + If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat + cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the matter, both + explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible. The + only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was something + deeper than a social disqualification. She had once said, in ironical + defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her from the + necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not then realized + at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was impossible; but + the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he made it impossible + for those about him to be other than himself. By an unconscious process of + elimination he had excluded from the world everything of which he did not + feel a personal need: had become, as it were, a climate in which only his + own requirements survived. This might seem to imply a deliberate + selfishness; but there was nothing deliberate about Arment. He was as + instinctive as an animal or a child. It was this childish element in his + nature which sometimes for a moment unsettled his wife’s estimate of him. + Was it possible that he was simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, + somewhat longer than is usual, the laborious process of growing up? He had + the kind of sporadic shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man + that he is “no fool”; and it was this quality that his wife found most + trying. Even to the naturalist it is annoying to have his deductions + disturbed by some unforeseen aberrancy of form or function; and how much + more so to the wife whose estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with + her judgment of her husband! + </p> + <p> + Arment’s shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual power; + it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of suffering, perhaps, in + a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia’s sensibilities naturally declined + to linger. She so fully understood her own reasons for leaving him that + she disliked to think they were not as comprehensible to her husband. She + was haunted, in her analytic moments, by the look of perplexity, too + inarticulate for words, with which he had acquiesced to her explanations. + </p> + <p> + These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too + concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been unhappy + for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it had been + uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia was wounded in + every fibre of her spirit. Her husband’s personality seemed to be closing + gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting off the air, till she + felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A + sense of having been decoyed by some world-old conspiracy into this + bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage was the slow + life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a + crime against human nature. She, for one, would have no share in + maintaining the pretence of which she had been a victim: the pretence that + a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must + remain there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of each + other’s natures as the mature tree outgrows the iron brace about the + sapling. + </p> + <p> + It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met Clement + Westall. She had seen at once that he was “interested,” and had fought off + the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her back into the + bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril she had, with an + almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to him. To her surprise, + she found that he shared them. She was attracted by the frankness of a + suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted that he did not believe in + marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem to surprise him: he had + thought out all that she had felt, and they had reached the same + conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy + fit for the one might soon become galling to the other. That was what + divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. As soon as their + necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would gain in dignity as + well as in harmony. There would be no farther need of the ignoble + concessions and connivances, the perpetual sacrifice of personal delicacy + and moral pride, by means of which imperfect marriages were now held + together. Each partner to the contract would be on his mettle, forced to + live up to the highest standard of self-development, on pain of losing the + other’s respect and affection. The low nature could no longer drag the + higher down, but must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior + level. The only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank + recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting + parties to keep faith with themselves, and not to live together for a + moment after complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new + adultery was unfaithfulness to self. + </p> + <p> + It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that they + had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to social + prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need be an + imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any diminution + of self-respect. The nature of their attachment placed them so far beyond + the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to discuss them with an + open mind; and Julia’s sense of security made her dwell with a tender + insistence on Westall’s promise to claim his release when he should cease + to love her. The exchange of these vows seemed to make them, in a sense, + champions of the new law, pioneers in the forbidden realm of individual + freedom: they felt that they had somehow achieved beatitude without + martyrdom. + </p> + <p> + This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her + theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously, insidiously, + that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed another + conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct of + passionate dependency and possessorship that now made her blood revolt at + the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they had called + it, in their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination rather—this + rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with another’s being! Another? But + he was not other! He and she were one, one in the mystic sense which alone + gave marriage its significance. The new law was not for them, but for the + disunited creatures forced into a mockery of union. The gospel she had + felt called on to proclaim had no bearing on her own case.... She sent for + the doctor and told him she was sure she needed a nerve tonic. + </p> + <p> + She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative to + her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her anxiety the + more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject of his + Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a softening of + his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, that sickened + her with new fears. She told herself that it was because she looked badly—because + he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic—that he showed this + deference to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her from moral draughts; + but the explanation simply cleared the way for fresh inferences. + </p> + <p> + The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday the + morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia ask + Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was to be + some music after his “talk”? Westall was just leaving for his office when + his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door and called him + back to deliver the message. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. “What a bore! I shall have to + cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Will you + write and say it’s all right?” + </p> + <p> + Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against + which she leaned. + </p> + <p> + “You mean to go on with these talks?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I—why not?” he returned; and this time it struck her that his + surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find words. + </p> + <p> + “You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me—” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I told you last week that they didn’t please me.” + </p> + <p> + “Last week? Oh—” He seemed to make an effort of memory. “I thought + you were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day.” + </p> + <p> + “It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance—” + </p> + <p> + “My assurance?” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair with a + choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her like straws + down a whirling flood. + </p> + <p> + “Clement,” she cried, “isn’t it enough for you to know that I hate it?” + </p> + <p> + He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and sat + down. “What is it that you hate?” he asked gently. + </p> + <p> + She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t bear to have you speak as if—as if—our marriage—were + like the other kind—the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the + other afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, + proclaiming that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other + whenever they were tired—or had seen some one else—” + </p> + <p> + Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet. + </p> + <p> + “You <i>have</i> ceased to take this view, then?” he said as she broke off. “You + no longer believe that husbands and wives <i>are</i> justified in separating—under + such conditions?” + </p> + <p> + “Under such conditions?” she stammered. “Yes—I still believe that—but + how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances—?” + </p> + <p> + He interrupted her. “I thought it was a fundamental article of our creed + that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to interfere + with the full assertion of individual liberty.” He paused a moment. “I + thought that was your reason for leaving Arment.” + </p> + <p> + She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal turn + to the argument. + </p> + <p> + “It was my reason,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then—why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t—I don’t—I only say that one can’t judge for others.” + </p> + <p> + He made an impatient movement. “This is mere hair-splitting. What you mean + is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you needed it, you + now repudiate it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she exclaimed, flushing again, “what if I do? What does it matter + to us?” + </p> + <p> + Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before his + wife with something of the formality of a stranger. + </p> + <p> + “It matters to me,” he said in a low voice, “because I do <i>not</i> repudiate + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well—?” + </p> + <p> + “And because I had intended to invoke it as”— + </p> + <p> + He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened by + her heart-beats. + </p> + <p> + —“as a complete justification of the course I am about to take.” + </p> + <p> + Julia remained motionless. “What course is that?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + He cleared his throat. “I mean to claim the fulfilment of your promise.” + </p> + <p> + For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a + torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings pressed + upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the + hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a separate wound to each + sense. + </p> + <p> + “My promise—” she faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the + other should wish to be released.” + </p> + <p> + She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position nervously; + then he said, with a touch of irritability: “You acknowledge the + agreement?” + </p> + <p> + The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it + proudly. “I acknowledge the agreement,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “And—you don’t mean to repudiate it?” + </p> + <p> + A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and pushed + it back. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered slowly, “I don’t mean to repudiate it.” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on the + mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that he had + given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered vaguely if + he noticed it. + </p> + <p> + “You intend to leave me, then?” she said at length. + </p> + <p> + His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. + </p> + <p> + “To marry some one else?” + </p> + <p> + Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. + </p> + <p> + “Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?” + </p> + <p> + He was silent. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you good luck,” she said. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how he + had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire still + smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the wall. + </p> + <p> + Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that she + had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no crying + out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or evasion. She + had marched straight up to the guns. + </p> + <p> + Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked about + her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed to be + slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. “This is my room—this + is my house,” she heard herself saying. Her room? Her house? She could + almost hear the walls laugh back at her. + </p> + <p> + She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room + frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close a + long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her husband + must have left the house, then—her <i>husband</i>? She no longer knew in + what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. She sank + back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock struck ten—it + was only ten o’clock! Suddenly she remembered that she had not ordered + dinner... or were they dining out that evening? <i>Dinner</i>—<i>dining out</i>—the + old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She must try to think of herself + as she would think of some one else, a some one dissociated from all the + familiar routine of the past, whose wants and habits must gradually be + learned, as one might spy out the ways of a strange animal... + </p> + <p> + The clock struck another hour—eleven. She stood up again and walked + to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. <i>Her</i> room? + Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow hall, + and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall’s sticks and + umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The same + stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French print, in + its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual continuity + was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same untroubled and + familiar surface. She must get away from it before she could attempt to + think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the lounge, a stupor + creeping over her... + </p> + <p> + Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the interval—a + wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments, ideas—a + fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon themselves. She had + tried, at first, to rally, to organize these chaotic forces. There must be + help somewhere, if only she could master the inner tumult. Life could not + be broken off short like this, for a whim, a fancy; the law itself would + side with her, would defend her. The law? What claim had she upon it? She + was the prisoner of her own choice: she had been her own legislator, and + she was the predestined victim of the code she had devised. But this was + grotesque, intolerable—a mad mistake, for which she could not be + held accountable! The law she had despised was still there, might still be + invoked... invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to chain Westall to + her side? <i>She</i> had been allowed to go free when she claimed her freedom—should + she show less magnanimity than she had exacted? Magnanimity? The word + lashed her with its irony—one does not strike an attitude when one + is fighting for life! She would threaten, grovel, cajole... she would + yield anything to keep her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay + deeper! The law could not help her—her own apostasy could not help + her. She was the victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though + some giant machine of her own making had caught her up in its wheels and + was grinding her to atoms... + </p> + <p> + It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with an + aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant, + metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to reveal the + shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our architecture. + The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared and glittered. She + called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren’s address. She did not + know what had led up to the act; but she found herself suddenly resolved + to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too late to save herself—but + the girl might still be told. The hansom rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat + with her eyes fixed, avoiding recognition. At the Van Siderens’ door she + sprang out and rang the bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she felt + calm and self-possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to say. + </p> + <p> + The ladies were both out... the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card. + Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a + moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the + cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. He + touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty street. + She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where she was + not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had returned. + Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of Broadway, swept past + tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a succession of + meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite direction... + </p> + <p> + A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since morning. + She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of ash-barrels + behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the sign <i>Ladies’ + Restaurant</i>: a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against the dusty pane like + petrified food in an ethnological museum. She entered, and a young woman + with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table for her near the + window. The table was covered with a red and white cotton cloth and + adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick tumbler and a salt-cellar full + of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a long time waiting for + it. She was glad to be away from the noise and confusion of the streets. + The low-ceilinged room was empty, and two or three waitresses with thin + pert faces lounged in the background staring at her and whispering + together. At last the tea was brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia + poured a cup and drank it hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed + through her veins like an elixir. She was almost dizzy with exhilaration. + Oh, how tired, how unutterably tired she had been! + </p> + <p> + She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once + more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she had + stood on the Van Siderens’ door-step—but the wish to return there + had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt—the + humiliation to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was that + she did not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading, and she + realized that she could not remain much longer in the restaurant without + attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out into the street. The + lamps were alight, and here and there a basement shop cast an oblong of + gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the dusk there was something + sinister about the aspect of the street, and she hastened back toward + Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out alone at that hour. + </p> + <p> + At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream of + carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her that + he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, but she + obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the farther corner. + There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied the policeman was + watching her, and this sent her hastening down the nearest side street... + After that she walked a long time, vaguely... Night had fallen, and now + and then, through the windows of a passing carriage, she caught the + expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera cloak... + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a moment, + breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing whither it + led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in which she had + once lived—her first husband’s house. The blinds were drawn, and + only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom above the + door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a man walked by + in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a heavy middle-aged + gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, the red crease of his + neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. He crossed the street, + went up the steps of the house, drew forth a latch-key, and let himself + in... + </p> + <p> + There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against the + area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house. The + feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea still + throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural clearness. + Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving quickly away, she + too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse + which had carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the + electric bell—then she felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and grasped + the balustrade for support. The door opened and a young footman with a + fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an instant + that he would admit her. + </p> + <p> + “I saw Mr. Arment going in just now,” she said. “Will you ask him to see + me for a moment?” + </p> + <p> + The footman hesitated. “I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for + dinner, madam.” + </p> + <p> + Julia advanced into the hall. “I am sure he will see me—I will not + detain him long,” she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the + tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on + the drawing-room door. + </p> + <p> + “I will tell him, madam. What name, please?” + </p> + <p> + Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. “Merely say a lady,” she + returned carelessly. + </p> + <p> + The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant the + door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He drew + back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with the shock; + then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his temples and + reddening the lobes of his thick ears. + </p> + <p> + It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the change + in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down into the + enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one conscious thought + was that, now she was face to face with him, she must not let him escape + till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body throbbed with the urgency + of her message. + </p> + <p> + She went up to him as he drew back. “I must speak to you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and + her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a “scene” + predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: “Will you + come this way?” + </p> + <p> + He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as she + advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: time had + not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the + chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the inner + room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from every fold + of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of the rosewood + furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying these + impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred in the + act of dominating Arment’s will. The fear that he would refuse to hear her + mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt before it, + words and arguments running into each other in the heat of her longing. + For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself thrust out + before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, Arment + pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: “You are not well.” + </p> + <p> + The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind—a + voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen developments. + She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a deep + breath. “Shall I send for something?” he continued, with a cold + embarrassed politeness. + </p> + <p> + Julia raised an entreating hand. “No—no—thank you. I am quite + well.” + </p> + <p> + He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. “Then may I ask—?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she interrupted him. “I came here because I wanted to see you. + There is something I must tell you.” + </p> + <p> + Arment continued to scrutinize her. “I am surprised at that,” he said. “I + should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make could + have been made through our lawyers.” + </p> + <p> + “Our lawyers!” She burst into a little laugh. “I don’t think they could + help me—this time.” + </p> + <p> + Arment’s face took on a barricaded look. “If there is any question of help—of + course—” + </p> + <p> + It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby + devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him + to put his name down for so much in sympathy—or even in money... The + thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to + perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she remembered, + suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering scenery + with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel. + “There <i>is</i> a question of help,” she said in a softer key: “you can help me; + but only by listening... I want to tell you something...” + </p> + <p> + Arment’s resistance was not yielding. “Would it not be easier to—write?” + he suggested. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “There is no time to write... and it won’t take long.” + She raised her head and their eyes met. “My husband has left me,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “Westall—?” he stammered, reddening again. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me.” + </p> + <p> + The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the limit + of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed glance + returned to Julia. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry,” he said awkwardly. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t see—” + </p> + <p> + “No—but you will—in a moment. Won’t you listen to me? Please!” + Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between him and + the door. “It happened this morning,” she went on in short breathless + phrases. “I never suspected anything—I thought we were—perfectly + happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... there is a girl he + likes better... He has gone to her...” As she spoke, the lurking anguish + rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every other + emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and two painful tears + burnt a way down her face. + </p> + <p> + Arment’s constraint was increasing visibly. “This—this is very + unfortunate,” he began. “But I should say the law—” + </p> + <p> + “The law?” she echoed ironically. “When he asks for his freedom?” + </p> + <p> + “You are not obliged to give it.” + </p> + <p> + “You were not obliged to give me mine—but you did.” + </p> + <p> + He made a protesting gesture. + </p> + <p> + “You saw that the law couldn’t help you—didn’t you?” she went on. + “That is what I see now. The law represents material rights—it can’t + go beyond. If we don’t recognize an inner law... the obligation that love + creates... being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to prevent + our spreading ruin unhindered... is there?” She raised her head + plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. “That is what I see + now... what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he’s tired... but I + was not tired; and I don’t understand why he is. That’s the dreadful part + of it—the not understanding: I hadn’t realized what it meant. But + I’ve been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me—things + I hadn’t noticed... when you and I...” She moved closer to him, and fixed + her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. “I see now + that <i>you</i> didn’t understand—did you?” + </p> + <p> + Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be + lifted between them. Arment’s lip trembled. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, “I didn’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. “I knew it! I knew it! You + wondered—you tried to tell me—but no words came... You saw + your life falling in ruins... the world slipping from you... and you + couldn’t speak or move!” + </p> + <p> + She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. “Now I know—now + I know,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry for you,” she heard Arment stammer. + </p> + <p> + She looked up quickly. “That’s not what I came for. I don’t want you to be + sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me... for not understanding that <i>you</i> + didn’t understand... That’s all I wanted to say.” She rose with a vague + sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward the door. + </p> + <p> + Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile. + </p> + <p> + “You forgive me?” + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to forgive—” + </p> + <p> + “Then will you shake hands for good-by?” She felt his hand in hers: it was + nerveless, reluctant. + </p> + <p> + “Good-by,” she repeated. “I understand now.” + </p> + <p> + She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment + took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was + evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let + her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, and + she found herself outside in the darkness. + </p> + <p> + The End of The Reckoning + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VERSE + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>What</i> strange presentiment, O Mother, lies + On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, + Forefeeling the Light’s terrible eclipse + On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, + And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes + The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, + And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps + When the cross darkens her unclouded skies? + + Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, + Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, + And think—“My child at home clings so to me, + With the same smile... and yet in vain, in vain, + Since even this Jesus died on Calvary”— + Say to her then: “He also rose again.” + </pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Ilaria</i>, thou that wert so fair and dear + That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise + With prophecy thy husband’s widowed eyes + And bade him call the master’s art to rear + Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, + With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise + Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, + And lips that at love’s call should answer, “Here!” + + First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul + Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, + Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, + Regenerate in art’s sunrise clear and wide + As saints who, having kept faith’s raiment whole, + Change it above for garments glorified. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SONNET. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Pure</i> form, that like some chalice of old time + Contain’st the liquid of the poet’s thought + Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought + With interwoven traceries of rhyme, + While o’er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, + What thing am I, that undismayed have sought + To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught + Into a shape so small yet so sublime? + Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, + Because thy sacred chalice gathered up + The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley—then + Receive these tears of failure as they drop + (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain + To pour them in a consecrated cup. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TWO BACKGROUNDS. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I. LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Here</i> by the ample river’s argent sweep, + Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, + A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep + The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, + With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee + The friendly gables clustered at their base, + And, equipoised o’er tower and market-place, + The Gothic minster’s winged immensity; + And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, + Two placid hearts, to all life’s good resigned, + Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find + Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II. MONA LISA. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep + No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; + Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, + But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; + And tales are told of those who thought to gain + At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell + Far off they saw each fading pinnacle + Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; + Yet there two souls, whom life’s perversities + Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, + Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, + And drain Joy’s awful chalice to the lees. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EXPERIENCE. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I. + + <i>Like</i> Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand + Upon the desert verge of death, and say: + “What shall avail the woes of yesterday + To buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land + Whose currency is strange unto our hand? + In life’s small market they have served to pay + Some late-found rapture, could we but delay + Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.” + + But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, + Our gathered strength of individual pain, + When Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold, + Dies with us—hoarded all these years in vain, + Since those that might be heir to it the mould + Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II. + + O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, + Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, + Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, + And love’s oblivion, and remembering hate, + Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight + Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears + Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, + And sell us the one joy for which we wait. + Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, + With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, + But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, + And all our longings lie within thy keep— + Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? + + “Not so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.” + </pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHARTRES. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I. + + <i>Immense</i>, august, like some Titanic bloom, + The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, + Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, + Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, + And stamened with keen flamelets that illume + The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, + By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, + A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, + The stranded driftwood of Faith’s ebbing sea— + For these alone the finials fret the skies, + The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, + While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, + Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, + The cloud of witnesses still testifies. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II. + + The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize + The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. + A rigid fetich in her robe of gold + The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, + Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, + Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. + The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, + Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. + Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows + To be a part of nature’s self, withdrawn + From hot humanity’s impatient woes; + The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, + And in the east one giant window shows + The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LIFE. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Life</i>, like a marble block, is given to all, + A blank, inchoate mass of years and days, + Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays + Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; + One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; + One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, + And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia’s gaze, + Carves it apace in toys fantastical. + + But least is he who, with enchanted eyes + Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, + Muses which god he shall immortalize + In the proud Parian’s perpetuity, + Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies + That the night cometh wherein none shall see. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN AUTUMN SUNSET + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I + + <i>Leaguered</i> in fire + The wild black promontories of the coast extend + Their savage silhouettes; + The sun in universal carnage sets, + And, halting higher, + The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, + Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, + That, balked, yet stands at bay. + Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day + In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, + A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine + Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, + And in her lifted hand swings high o’erhead, + Above the waste of war, + The silver torch-light of the evening star + Wherewith to search the faces of the dead. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II + + Lagooned in gold, + Seem not those jetty promontories rather + The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, + Uncomforted of morn, + Where old oblivions gather, + The melancholy, unconsoling fold + Of all things that go utterly to death + And mix no more, no more + With life’s perpetually awakening breath? + Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, + Over such sailless seas, + To walk with hope’s slain importunities + In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not + All things be there forgot, + Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black + Closecrouching promontories? + Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, + Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade, + A spectre self-destroyed, + So purged of all remembrance and sucked back + Into the primal void, + That should we on that shore phantasmal meet + I should not know the coming of your feet? +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith +Wharton, Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + +***** This file should be named 306-h.htm or 306-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/306/ + +Produced by John Hamm, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #306] +Release Date: August, 1995 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + + + + +Produced by John Hamm + + + + + +THE EARLY SHORT FICTION OF EDITH WHARTON + +A Ten-Part Collection + +Volume Two + + + +Contents of Part Two + + Stories + AFTERWARD............................January 1910 + THE FULNESS OF LIFE..................December 1893 + A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT.....December 1903 + XINGU................................December 1911 + THE VERDICT..........................June 1908 + THE RECKONING........................August 1902 + + + Verse + + BOTTICELLI'S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE...January 1891 + THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI...........February 1891 + THE SONNET...........................November 1891 + TWO BACKGROUNDS......................November 1892 + EXPERIENCE...........................January 1893 + CHARTRES.............................September 1893 + LIFE.................................June 1894 + AN AUTUMN SUNSET.....................October 1894 + + + + + +AFTERWARD + +January 1910 + + + + +I + + +"Oh, there IS one, of course, but you'll never know it." + +The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a bright June +garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp perception of its latent +significance as she stood, in the December dusk, waiting for the lamps +to be brought into the library. + +The words had been spoken by their friend Alida Stair, as they sat at +tea on her lawn at Pangbourne, in reference to the very house of which +the library in question was the central, the pivotal "feature." Mary +Boyne and her husband, in quest of a country place in one of the +southern or southwestern counties, had, on their arrival in England, +carried their problem straight to Alida Stair, who had successfully +solved it in her own case; but it was not until they had rejected, +almost capriciously, several practical and judicious suggestions that +she threw it out: "Well, there's Lyng, in Dorsetshire. It belongs to +Hugo's cousins, and you can get it for a song." + +The reasons she gave for its being obtainable on these terms--its +remoteness from a station, its lack of electric light, hot-water pipes, +and other vulgar necessities--were exactly those pleading in its +favor with two romantic Americans perversely in search of the economic +drawbacks which were associated, in their tradition, with unusual +architectural felicities. + +"I should never believe I was living in an old house unless I was +thoroughly uncomfortable," Ned Boyne, the more extravagant of the two, +had jocosely insisted; "the least hint of 'convenience' would make me +think it had been bought out of an exhibition, with the pieces numbered, +and set up again." And they had proceeded to enumerate, with humorous +precision, their various suspicions and exactions, refusing to believe +that the house their cousin recommended was REALLY Tudor till they +learned it had no heating system, or that the village church was +literally in the grounds till she assured them of the deplorable +uncertainty of the water-supply. + +"It's too uncomfortable to be true!" Edward Boyne had continued to exult +as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively wrung from her; but +he had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with a sudden relapse to distrust: +"And the ghost? You've been concealing from us the fact that there is no +ghost!" + +Mary, at the moment, had laughed with him, yet almost with her laugh, +being possessed of several sets of independent perceptions, had noted a +sudden flatness of tone in Alida's answering hilarity. + +"Oh, Dorsetshire's full of ghosts, you know." + +"Yes, yes; but that won't do. I don't want to have to drive ten miles +to see somebody else's ghost. I want one of my own on the premises. IS +there a ghost at Lyng?" + +His rejoinder had made Alida laugh again, and it was then that she had +flung back tantalizingly: "Oh, there IS one, of course, but you'll never +know it." + +"Never know it?" Boyne pulled her up. "But what in the world constitutes +a ghost except the fact of its being known for one?" + +"I can't say. But that's the story." + +"That there's a ghost, but that nobody knows it's a ghost?" + +"Well--not till afterward, at any rate." + +"Till afterward?" + +"Not till long, long afterward." + +"But if it's once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn't +its signalement been handed down in the family? How has it managed to +preserve its incognito?" + +Alida could only shake her head. "Don't ask me. But it has." + +"And then suddenly--" Mary spoke up as if from some cavernous depth of +divination--"suddenly, long afterward, one says to one's self, 'THAT WAS +it?'" + +She was oddly startled at the sepulchral sound with which her question +fell on the banter of the other two, and she saw the shadow of the same +surprise flit across Alida's clear pupils. "I suppose so. One just has +to wait." + +"Oh, hang waiting!" Ned broke in. "Life's too short for a ghost who can +only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can't we do better than that, Mary?" + +But it turned out that in the event they were not destined to, for +within three months of their conversation with Mrs. Stair they were +established at Lyng, and the life they had yearned for to the point of +planning it out in all its daily details had actually begun for them. + +It was to sit, in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide-hooded +fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the sense that beyond +the mullioned panes the downs were darkening to a deeper solitude: it +was for the ultimate indulgence in such sensations that Mary Boyne had +endured for nearly fourteen years the soul-deadening ugliness of the +Middle West, and that Boyne had ground on doggedly at his engineering +till, with a suddenness that still made her blink, the prodigious +windfall of the Blue Star Mine had put them at a stroke in possession +of life and the leisure to taste it. They had never for a moment meant +their new state to be one of idleness; but they meant to give themselves +only to harmonious activities. She had her vision of painting and +gardening (against a background of gray walls), he dreamed of the +production of his long-planned book on the "Economic Basis of +Culture"; and with such absorbing work ahead no existence could be too +sequestered; they could not get far enough from the world, or plunge +deep enough into the past. + +Dorsetshire had attracted them from the first by a semblance of +remoteness out of all proportion to its geographical position. But +to the Boynes it was one of the ever-recurring wonders of the whole +incredibly compressed island--a nest of counties, as they put it--that +for the production of its effects so little of a given quality went +so far: that so few miles made a distance, and so short a distance a +difference. + +"It's that," Ned had once enthusiastically explained, "that gives such +depth to their effects, such relief to their least contrasts. They've +been able to lay the butter so thick on every exquisite mouthful." + +The butter had certainly been laid on thick at Lyng: the old gray house, +hidden under a shoulder of the downs, had almost all the finer marks of +commerce with a protracted past. The mere fact that it was neither large +nor exceptional made it, to the Boynes, abound the more richly in +its special sense--the sense of having been for centuries a deep, dim +reservoir of life. The life had probably not been of the most vivid +order: for long periods, no doubt, it had fallen as noiselessly into +the past as the quiet drizzle of autumn fell, hour after hour, into the +green fish-pond between the yews; but these back-waters of existence +sometimes breed, in their sluggish depths, strange acuities of emotion, +and Mary Boyne had felt from the first the occasional brush of an +intenser memory. + +The feeling had never been stronger than on the December afternoon when, +waiting in the library for the belated lamps, she rose from her seat and +stood among the shadows of the hearth. Her husband had gone off, after +luncheon, for one of his long tramps on the downs. She had noticed of +late that he preferred to be unaccompanied on these occasions; and, +in the tried security of their personal relations, had been driven +to conclude that his book was bothering him, and that he needed the +afternoons to turn over in solitude the problems left from the morning's +work. Certainly the book was not going as smoothly as she had imagined +it would, and the lines of perplexity between his eyes had never been +there in his engineering days. Then he had often looked fagged to the +verge of illness, but the native demon of "worry" had never branded his +brow. Yet the few pages he had so far read to her--the introduction, and +a synopsis of the opening chapter--gave evidences of a firm possession +of his subject, and a deepening confidence in his powers. + +The fact threw her into deeper perplexity, since, now that he had done +with "business" and its disturbing contingencies, the one other possible +element of anxiety was eliminated. Unless it were his health, then? +But physically he had gained since they had come to Dorsetshire, grown +robuster, ruddier, and fresher-eyed. It was only within a week that she +had felt in him the undefinable change that made her restless in his +absence, and as tongue-tied in his presence as though it were SHE who +had a secret to keep from him! + +The thought that there WAS a secret somewhere between them struck her +with a sudden smart rap of wonder, and she looked about her down the +dim, long room. + +"Can it be the house?" she mused. + +The room itself might have been full of secrets. They seemed to be +piling themselves up, as evening fell, like the layers and layers of +velvet shadow dropping from the low ceiling, the dusky walls of books, +the smoke-blurred sculpture of the hooded hearth. + +"Why, of course--the house is haunted!" she reflected. + +The ghost--Alida's imperceptible ghost--after figuring largely in the +banter of their first month or two at Lyng, had been gradually discarded +as too ineffectual for imaginative use. Mary had, indeed, as became the +tenant of a haunted house, made the customary inquiries among her few +rural neighbors, but, beyond a vague, "They du say so, Ma'am," the +villagers had nothing to impart. The elusive specter had apparently +never had sufficient identity for a legend to crystallize about it, +and after a time the Boynes had laughingly set the matter down to their +profit-and-loss account, agreeing that Lyng was one of the few houses +good enough in itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements. + +"And I suppose, poor, ineffectual demon, that's why it beats its +beautiful wings in vain in the void," Mary had laughingly concluded. + +"Or, rather," Ned answered, in the same strain, "why, amid so much +that's ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence as THE +ghost." And thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped out +of their references, which were numerous enough to make them promptly +unaware of the loss. + +Now, as she stood on the hearth, the subject of their earlier curiosity +revived in her with a new sense of its meaning--a sense gradually +acquired through close daily contact with the scene of the lurking +mystery. It was the house itself, of course, that possessed the +ghost-seeing faculty, that communed visually but secretly with its own +past; and if one could only get into close enough communion with the +house, one might surprise its secret, and acquire the ghost-sight on +one's own account. Perhaps, in his long solitary hours in this very +room, where she never trespassed till the afternoon, her husband HAD +acquired it already, and was silently carrying the dread weight of +whatever it had revealed to him. Mary was too well-versed in the code of +the spectral world not to know that one could not talk about the ghosts +one saw: to do so was almost as great a breach of good-breeding as to +name a lady in a club. But this explanation did not really satisfy her. +"What, after all, except for the fun of the frisson," she reflected, +"would he really care for any of their old ghosts?" And thence she was +thrown back once more on the fundamental dilemma: the fact that one's +greater or less susceptibility to spectral influences had no particular +bearing on the case, since, when one DID see a ghost at Lyng, one did +not know it. + +"Not till long afterward," Alida Stair had said. Well, supposing Ned HAD +seen one when they first came, and had known only within the last week +what had happened to him? More and more under the spell of the hour, she +threw back her searching thoughts to the early days of their tenancy, +but at first only to recall a gay confusion of unpacking, settling, +arranging of books, and calling to each other from remote corners of the +house as treasure after treasure of their habitation revealed itself to +them. It was in this particular connection that she presently recalled +a certain soft afternoon of the previous October, when, passing from the +first rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of the +old house, she had pressed (like a novel heroine) a panel that opened at +her touch, on a narrow flight of stairs leading to an unsuspected flat +ledge of the roof--the roof which, from below, seemed to slope away on +all sides too abruptly for any but practised feet to scale. + +The view from this hidden coign was enchanting, and she had flown down +to snatch Ned from his papers and give him the freedom of her discovery. +She remembered still how, standing on the narrow ledge, he had passed +his arm about her while their gaze flew to the long, tossed horizon-line +of the downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace the arabesque +of yew hedges about the fish-pond, and the shadow of the cedar on the +lawn. + +"And now the other way," he had said, gently turning her about within +his arm; and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed, like some long, +satisfying draft, the picture of the gray-walled court, the squat lions +on the gates, and the lime-avenue reaching up to the highroad under the +downs. + +It was just then, while they gazed and held each other, that she had +felt his arm relax, and heard a sharp "Hullo!" that made her turn to +glance at him. + +Distinctly, yes, she now recalled she had seen, as she glanced, a shadow +of anxiety, of perplexity, rather, fall across his face; and, following +his eyes, had beheld the figure of a man--a man in loose, grayish +clothes, as it appeared to her--who was sauntering down the lime-avenue +to the court with the tentative gait of a stranger seeking his way. Her +short-sighted eyes had given her but a blurred impression of slightness +and grayness, with something foreign, or at least unlocal, in the cut of +the figure or its garb; but her husband had apparently seen more--seen +enough to make him push past her with a sharp "Wait!" and dash down the +twisting stairs without pausing to give her a hand for the descent. + +A slight tendency to dizziness obliged her, after a provisional clutch +at the chimney against which they had been leaning, to follow him down +more cautiously; and when she had reached the attic landing she paused +again for a less definite reason, leaning over the oak banister to +strain her eyes through the silence of the brown, sun-flecked depths +below. She lingered there till, somewhere in those depths, she heard +the closing of a door; then, mechanically impelled, she went down the +shallow flights of steps till she reached the lower hall. + +The front door stood open on the mild sunlight of the court, and +hall and court were empty. The library door was open, too, and after +listening in vain for any sound of voices within, she quickly crossed +the threshold, and found her husband alone, vaguely fingering the papers +on his desk. + +He looked up, as if surprised at her precipitate entrance, but the +shadow of anxiety had passed from his face, leaving it even, as she +fancied, a little brighter and clearer than usual. + +"What was it? Who was it?" she asked. + +"Who?" he repeated, with the surprise still all on his side. + +"The man we saw coming toward the house." + +He seemed honestly to reflect. "The man? Why, I thought I saw Peters; +I dashed after him to say a word about the stable-drains, but he had +disappeared before I could get down." + +"Disappeared? Why, he seemed to be walking so slowly when we saw him." + +Boyne shrugged his shoulders. "So I thought; but he must have got up +steam in the interval. What do you say to our trying a scramble up +Meldon Steep before sunset?" + +That was all. At the time the occurrence had been less than nothing, +had, indeed, been immediately obliterated by the magic of their first +vision from Meldon Steep, a height which they had dreamed of climbing +ever since they had first seen its bare spine heaving itself above the +low roof of Lyng. Doubtless it was the mere fact of the other incident's +having occurred on the very day of their ascent to Meldon that had kept +it stored away in the unconscious fold of association from which it now +emerged; for in itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment +there could have been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash +himself from the roof in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It was the +period when they were always on the watch for one or the other of the +specialists employed about the place; always lying in wait for them, +and dashing out at them with questions, reproaches, or reminders. And +certainly in the distance the gray figure had looked like Peters. + +Yet now, as she reviewed the rapid scene, she felt her husband's +explanation of it to have been invalidated by the look of anxiety on his +face. Why had the familiar appearance of Peters made him anxious? +Why, above all, if it was of such prime necessity to confer with that +authority on the subject of the stable-drains, had the failure to find +him produced such a look of relief? Mary could not say that any one +of these considerations had occurred to her at the time, yet, from the +promptness with which they now marshaled themselves at her summons, she +had a sudden sense that they must all along have been there, waiting +their hour. + + + + +II + + +Weary with her thoughts, she moved toward the window. The library was +now completely dark, and she was surprised to see how much faint light +the outer world still held. + +As she peered out into it across the court, a figure shaped itself in +the tapering perspective of bare lines: it looked a mere blot of deeper +gray in the grayness, and for an instant, as it moved toward her, her +heart thumped to the thought, "It's the ghost!" + +She had time, in that long instant, to feel suddenly that the man of +whom, two months earlier, she had a brief distant vision from the roof +was now, at his predestined hour, about to reveal himself as NOT +having been Peters; and her spirit sank under the impending fear of the +disclosure. But almost with the next tick of the clock the ambiguous +figure, gaining substance and character, showed itself even to her weak +sight as her husband's; and she turned away to meet him, as he entered, +with the confession of her folly. + +"It's really too absurd," she laughed out from the threshold, "but I +never CAN remember!" + +"Remember what?" Boyne questioned as they drew together. + +"That when one sees the Lyng ghost one never knows it." + +Her hand was on his sleeve, and he kept it there, but with no response +in his gesture or in the lines of his fagged, preoccupied face. + +"Did you think you'd seen it?" he asked, after an appreciable interval. + +"Why, I actually took YOU for it, my dear, in my mad determination to +spot it!" + +"Me--just now?" His arm dropped away, and he turned from her with a +faint echo of her laugh. "Really, dearest, you'd better give it up, if +that's the best you can do." + +"Yes, I give it up--I give it up. Have YOU?" she asked, turning round on +him abruptly. + +The parlor-maid had entered with letters and a lamp, and the light +struck up into Boyne's face as he bent above the tray she presented. + +"Have YOU?" Mary perversely insisted, when the servant had disappeared +on her errand of illumination. + +"Have I what?" he rejoined absently, the light bringing out the sharp +stamp of worry between his brows as he turned over the letters. + +"Given up trying to see the ghost." Her heart beat a little at the +experiment she was making. + +Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the shadow of the +hearth. + +"I never tried," he said, tearing open the wrapper of a newspaper. + +"Well, of course," Mary persisted, "the exasperating thing is that +there's no use trying, since one can't be sure till so long afterward." + +He was unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but after a +pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically between his hands, +he lifted his head to say abruptly, "Have you any idea HOW LONG?" + +Mary had sunk into a low chair beside the fireplace. From her seat +she looked up, startled, at her husband's profile, which was darkly +projected against the circle of lamplight. + +"No; none. Have YOU?" she retorted, repeating her former phrase with an +added keenness of intention. + +Boyne crumpled the paper into a bunch, and then inconsequently turned +back with it toward the lamp. + +"Lord, no! I only meant," he explained, with a faint tinge of +impatience, "is there any legend, any tradition, as to that?" + +"Not that I know of," she answered; but the impulse to add, "What makes +you ask?" was checked by the reappearance of the parlor-maid with tea +and a second lamp. + +With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily domestic +office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that sense of +something mutely imminent which had darkened her solitary afternoon. For +a few moments she gave herself silently to the details of her task, and +when she looked up from it she was struck to the point of bewilderment +by the change in her husband's face. He had seated himself near the +farther lamp, and was absorbed in the perusal of his letters; but was it +something he had found in them, or merely the shifting of her own point +of view, that had restored his features to their normal aspect? The +longer she looked, the more definitely the change affirmed itself. The +lines of painful tension had vanished, and such traces of fatigue as +lingered were of the kind easily attributable to steady mental effort. +He glanced up, as if drawn by her gaze, and met her eyes with a smile. + +"I'm dying for my tea, you know; and here's a letter for you," he said. + +She took the letter he held out in exchange for the cup she proffered +him, and, returning to her seat, broke the seal with the languid gesture +of the reader whose interests are all inclosed in the circle of one +cherished presence. + +Her next conscious motion was that of starting to her feet, the letter +falling to them as she rose, while she held out to her husband a long +newspaper clipping. + +"Ned! What's this? What does it mean?" + +He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry before +she uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and she studied +each other, like adversaries watching for an advantage, across the space +between her chair and his desk. + +"What's what? You fairly made me jump!" Boyne said at length, moving +toward her with a sudden, half-exasperated laugh. The shadow of +apprehension was on his face again, not now a look of fixed foreboding, +but a shifting vigilance of lips and eyes that gave her the sense of his +feeling himself invisibly surrounded. + +Her hand shook so that she could hardly give him the clipping. + +"This article--from the 'Waukesha Sentinel'--that a man named Elwell has +brought suit against you--that there was something wrong about the Blue +Star Mine. I can't understand more than half." + +They continued to face each other as she spoke, and to her astonishment, +she saw that her words had the almost immediate effect of dissipating +the strained watchfulness of his look. + +"Oh, THAT!" He glanced down the printed slip, and then folded it with +the gesture of one who handles something harmless and familiar. "What's +the matter with you this afternoon, Mary? I thought you'd got bad news." + +She stood before him with her undefinable terror subsiding slowly under +the reassuring touch of his composure. + +"You knew about this, then--it's all right?" + +"Certainly I knew about it; and it's all right." + +"But what IS it? I don't understand. What does this man accuse you of?" + +"Oh, pretty nearly every crime in the calendar." Boyne had tossed the +clipping down, and thrown himself comfortably into an arm-chair near +the fire. "Do you want to hear the story? It's not particularly +interesting--just a squabble over interests in the Blue Star." + +"But who is this Elwell? I don't know the name." + +"Oh, he's a fellow I put into it--gave him a hand up. I told you all +about him at the time." + +"I daresay. I must have forgotten." Vainly she strained back among her +memories. "But if you helped him, why does he make this return?" + +"Oh, probably some shyster lawyer got hold of him and talked him over. +It's all rather technical and complicated. I thought that kind of thing +bored you." + +His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the +American wife's detachment from her husband's professional interests, +but in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention +on Boyne's report of the transactions in which his varied interests +involved him. Besides, she had felt from the first that, in a community +where the amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of +efforts as arduous as her husband's professional labors, such brief +leisure as they could command should be used as an escape from immediate +preoccupations, a flight to the life they always dreamed of living. Once +or twice, now that this new life had actually drawn its magic circle +about them, she had asked herself if she had done right; but hitherto +such conjectures had been no more than the retrospective excursions of +an active fancy. Now, for the first time, it startled her a little +to find how little she knew of the material foundation on which her +happiness was built. + +She glanced again at her husband, and was reassured by the composure +of his face; yet she felt the need of more definite grounds for her +reassurance. + +"But doesn't this suit worry you? Why have you never spoken to me about +it?" + +He answered both questions at once: "I didn't speak of it at first +because it DID worry me--annoyed me, rather. But it's all ancient +history now. Your correspondent must have got hold of a back number of +the 'Sentinel.'" + +She felt a quick thrill of relief. "You mean it's over? He's lost his +case?" + +There was a just perceptible delay in Boyne's reply. "The suit's been +withdrawn--that's all." + +But she persisted, as if to exonerate herself from the inward charge of +being too easily put off. "Withdrawn because he saw he had no chance?" + +"Oh, he had no chance," Boyne answered. + +She was still struggling with a dimly felt perplexity at the back of her +thoughts. + +"How long ago was it withdrawn?" + +He paused, as if with a slight return of his former uncertainty. "I've +just had the news now; but I've been expecting it." + +"Just now--in one of your letters?" + +"Yes; in one of my letters." + +She made no answer, and was aware only, after a short interval of +waiting, that he had risen, and strolling across the room, had placed +himself on the sofa at her side. She felt him, as he did so, pass an arm +about her, she felt his hand seek hers and clasp it, and turning slowly, +drawn by the warmth of his cheek, she met the smiling clearness of his +eyes. + +"It's all right--it's all right?" she questioned, through the flood of +her dissolving doubts; and "I give you my word it never was righter!" he +laughed back at her, holding her close. + + + + +III + + +One of the strangest things she was afterward to recall out of all the +next day's incredible strangeness was the sudden and complete recovery +of her sense of security. + +It was in the air when she woke in her low-ceilinged, dusky room; it +accompanied her down-stairs to the breakfast-table, flashed out at her +from the fire, and re-duplicated itself brightly from the flanks of the +urn and the sturdy flutings of the Georgian teapot. It was as if, in +some roundabout way, all her diffused apprehensions of the previous +day, with their moment of sharp concentration about the newspaper +article,--as if this dim questioning of the future, and startled return +upon the past,--had between them liquidated the arrears of some haunting +moral obligation. If she had indeed been careless of her husband's +affairs, it was, her new state seemed to prove, because her faith in him +instinctively justified such carelessness; and his right to her faith +had overwhelmingly affirmed itself in the very face of menace and +suspicion. She had never seen him more untroubled, more naturally and +unconsciously in possession of himself, than after the cross-examination +to which she had subjected him: it was almost as if he had been aware of +her lurking doubts, and had wanted the air cleared as much as she did. + +It was as clear, thank Heaven! as the bright outer light that surprised +her almost with a touch of summer when she issued from the house for her +daily round of the gardens. She had left Boyne at his desk, indulging +herself, as she passed the library door, by a last peep at his quiet +face, where he bent, pipe in his mouth, above his papers, and now she +had her own morning's task to perform. The task involved on such charmed +winter days almost as much delighted loitering about the different +quarters of her demesne as if spring were already at work on shrubs and +borders. There were such inexhaustible possibilities still before her, +such opportunities to bring out the latent graces of the old place, +without a single irreverent touch of alteration, that the winter months +were all too short to plan what spring and autumn executed. And her +recovered sense of safety gave, on this particular morning, a peculiar +zest to her progress through the sweet, still place. She went first to +the kitchen-garden, where the espaliered pear-trees drew complicated +patterns on the walls, and pigeons were fluttering and preening about +the silvery-slated roof of their cot. There was something wrong about +the piping of the hothouse, and she was expecting an authority from +Dorchester, who was to drive out between trains and make a diagnosis of +the boiler. But when she dipped into the damp heat of the greenhouses, +among the spiced scents and waxy pinks and reds of old-fashioned +exotics,--even the flora of Lyng was in the note!--she learned that the +great man had not arrived, and the day being too rare to waste in an +artificial atmosphere, she came out again and paced slowly along the +springy turf of the bowling-green to the gardens behind the house. At +their farther end rose a grass terrace, commanding, over the fish-pond +and the yew hedges, a view of the long house-front, with its twisted +chimney-stacks and the blue shadows of its roof angles, all drenched in +the pale gold moisture of the air. + +Seen thus, across the level tracery of the yews, under the suffused, +mild light, it sent her, from its open windows and hospitably smoking +chimneys, the look of some warm human presence, of a mind slowly ripened +on a sunny wall of experience. She had never before had so deep a sense +of her intimacy with it, such a conviction that its secrets were +all beneficent, kept, as they said to children, "for one's good," so +complete a trust in its power to gather up her life and Ned's into the +harmonious pattern of the long, long story it sat there weaving in the +sun. + +She heard steps behind her, and turned, expecting to see the gardener, +accompanied by the engineer from Dorchester. But only one figure was +in sight, that of a youngish, slightly built man, who, for reasons she +could not on the spot have specified, did not remotely resemble her +preconceived notion of an authority on hot-house boilers. The +new-comer, on seeing her, lifted his hat, and paused with the air of a +gentleman--perhaps a traveler--desirous of having it immediately known +that his intrusion is involuntary. The local fame of Lyng occasionally +attracted the more intelligent sight-seer, and Mary half-expected to see +the stranger dissemble a camera, or justify his presence by producing +it. But he made no gesture of any sort, and after a moment she asked, +in a tone responding to the courteous deprecation of his attitude: "Is +there any one you wish to see?" + +"I came to see Mr. Boyne," he replied. His intonation, rather than his +accent, was faintly American, and Mary, at the familiar note, looked +at him more closely. The brim of his soft felt hat cast a shade on his +face, which, thus obscured, wore to her short-sighted gaze a look of +seriousness, as of a person arriving "on business," and civilly but +firmly aware of his rights. + +Past experience had made Mary equally sensible to such claims; but she +was jealous of her husband's morning hours, and doubtful of his having +given any one the right to intrude on them. + +"Have you an appointment with Mr. Boyne?" she asked. + +He hesitated, as if unprepared for the question. + +"Not exactly an appointment," he replied. + +"Then I'm afraid, this being his working-time, that he can't receive you +now. Will you give me a message, or come back later?" + +The visitor, again lifting his hat, briefly replied that he would come +back later, and walked away, as if to regain the front of the house. As +his figure receded down the walk between the yew hedges, Mary saw him +pause and look up an instant at the peaceful house-front bathed in faint +winter sunshine; and it struck her, with a tardy touch of compunction, +that it would have been more humane to ask if he had come from a +distance, and to offer, in that case, to inquire if her husband could +receive him. But as the thought occurred to her he passed out of +sight behind a pyramidal yew, and at the same moment her attention was +distracted by the approach of the gardener, attended by the bearded +pepper-and-salt figure of the boiler-maker from Dorchester. + +The encounter with this authority led to such far-reaching issues that +they resulted in his finding it expedient to ignore his train, and +beguiled Mary into spending the remainder of the morning in absorbed +confabulation among the greenhouses. She was startled to find, when the +colloquy ended, that it was nearly luncheon-time, and she half expected, +as she hurried back to the house, to see her husband coming out to meet +her. But she found no one in the court but an under-gardener raking +the gravel, and the hall, when she entered it, was so silent that she +guessed Boyne to be still at work behind the closed door of the library. + +Not wishing to disturb him, she turned into the drawing-room, and there, +at her writing-table, lost herself in renewed calculations of the outlay +to which the morning's conference had committed her. The knowledge that +she could permit herself such follies had not yet lost its novelty; and +somehow, in contrast to the vague apprehensions of the previous days, it +now seemed an element of her recovered security, of the sense that, as +Ned had said, things in general had never been "righter." + +She was still luxuriating in a lavish play of figures when the +parlor-maid, from the threshold, roused her with a dubiously worded +inquiry as to the expediency of serving luncheon. It was one of their +jokes that Trimmle announced luncheon as if she were divulging a +state secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers, merely murmured an +absent-minded assent. + +She felt Trimmle wavering expressively on the threshold as if in rebuke +of such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps sounded down the +passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, crossed the hall, and went +to the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered in her turn, +disliking to disturb her husband, yet anxious that he should not exceed +his normal measure of work. As she stood there, balancing her impulses, +the esoteric Trimmle returned with the announcement of luncheon, and +Mary, thus impelled, opened the door and went into the library. + +Boyne was not at his desk, and she peered about her, expecting to +discover him at the book-shelves, somewhere down the length of the room; +but her call brought no response, and gradually it became clear to her +that he was not in the library. + +She turned back to the parlor-maid. + +"Mr. Boyne must be up-stairs. Please tell him that luncheon is ready." + +The parlor-maid appeared to hesitate between the obvious duty of obeying +orders and an equally obvious conviction of the foolishness of +the injunction laid upon her. The struggle resulted in her saying +doubtfully, "If you please, Madam, Mr. Boyne's not up-stairs." + +"Not in his room? Are you sure?" + +"I'm sure, Madam." + +Mary consulted the clock. "Where is he, then?" + +"He's gone out," Trimmle announced, with the superior air of one who has +respectfully waited for the question that a well-ordered mind would have +first propounded. + +Mary's previous conjecture had been right, then. Boyne must have gone to +the gardens to meet her, and since she had missed him, it was clear that +he had taken the shorter way by the south door, instead of going round +to the court. She crossed the hall to the glass portal opening directly +on the yew garden, but the parlor-maid, after another moment of inner +conflict, decided to bring out recklessly, "Please, Madam, Mr. Boyne +didn't go that way." + +Mary turned back. "Where DID he go? And when?" + +"He went out of the front door, up the drive, Madam." It was a matter of +principle with Trimmle never to answer more than one question at a time. + +"Up the drive? At this hour?" Mary went to the door herself, and +glanced across the court through the long tunnel of bare limes. But +its perspective was as empty as when she had scanned it on entering the +house. + +"Did Mr. Boyne leave no message?" she asked. + +Trimmle seemed to surrender herself to a last struggle with the forces +of chaos. + +"No, Madam. He just went out with the gentleman." + +"The gentleman? What gentleman?" Mary wheeled about, as if to front this +new factor. + +"The gentleman who called, Madam," said Trimmle, resignedly. + +"When did a gentleman call? Do explain yourself, Trimmle!" + +Only the fact that Mary was very hungry, and that she wanted to consult +her husband about the greenhouses, would have caused her to lay so +unusual an injunction on her attendant; and even now she was detached +enough to note in Trimmle's eye the dawning defiance of the respectful +subordinate who has been pressed too hard. + +"I couldn't exactly say the hour, Madam, because I didn't let the +gentleman in," she replied, with the air of magnanimously ignoring the +irregularity of her mistress's course. + +"You didn't let him in?" + +"No, Madam. When the bell rang I was dressing, and Agnes--" + +"Go and ask Agnes, then," Mary interjected. Trimmle still wore her +look of patient magnanimity. "Agnes would not know, Madam, for she had +unfortunately burnt her hand in trying the wick of the new lamp from +town--" Trimmle, as Mary was aware, had always been opposed to the new +lamp--"and so Mrs. Dockett sent the kitchen-maid instead." + +Mary looked again at the clock. "It's after two! Go and ask the +kitchen-maid if Mr. Boyne left any word." + +She went into luncheon without waiting, and Trimmle presently brought +her there the kitchen-maid's statement that the gentleman had called +about one o'clock, that Mr. Boyne had gone out with him without leaving +any message. The kitchen-maid did not even know the caller's name, for +he had written it on a slip of paper, which he had folded and handed to +her, with the injunction to deliver it at once to Mr. Boyne. + +Mary finished her luncheon, still wondering, and when it was over, +and Trimmle had brought the coffee to the drawing-room, her wonder had +deepened to a first faint tinge of disquietude. It was unlike Boyne +to absent himself without explanation at so unwonted an hour, and the +difficulty of identifying the visitor whose summons he had apparently +obeyed made his disappearance the more unaccountable. Mary Boyne's +experience as the wife of a busy engineer, subject to sudden calls and +compelled to keep irregular hours, had trained her to the philosophic +acceptance of surprises; but since Boyne's withdrawal from business he +had adopted a Benedictine regularity of life. As if to make up for the +dispersed and agitated years, with their "stand-up" lunches and dinners +rattled down to the joltings of the dining-car, he cultivated the last +refinements of punctuality and monotony, discouraging his wife's fancy +for the unexpected; and declaring that to a delicate taste there were +infinite gradations of pleasure in the fixed recurrences of habit. + +Still, since no life can completely defend itself from the unforeseen, +it was evident that all Boyne's precautions would sooner or later prove +unavailable, and Mary concluded that he had cut short a tiresome visit +by walking with his caller to the station, or at least accompanying him +for part of the way. + +This conclusion relieved her from farther preoccupation, and she went +out herself to take up her conference with the gardener. Thence she +walked to the village post-office, a mile or so away; and when she +turned toward home, the early twilight was setting in. + +She had taken a foot-path across the downs, and as Boyne, meanwhile, +had probably returned from the station by the highroad, there was little +likelihood of their meeting on the way. She felt sure, however, of his +having reached the house before her; so sure that, when she entered it +herself, without even pausing to inquire of Trimmle, she made directly +for the library. But the library was still empty, and with an unwonted +precision of visual memory she immediately observed that the papers on +her husband's desk lay precisely as they had lain when she had gone in +to call him to luncheon. + +Then of a sudden she was seized by a vague dread of the unknown. She had +closed the door behind her on entering, and as she stood alone in the +long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take shape and sound, +to be there audibly breathing and lurking among the shadows. Her +short-sighted eyes strained through them, half-discerning an actual +presence, something aloof, that watched and knew; and in the recoil from +that intangible propinquity she threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope +and gave it a desperate pull. + +The long, quavering summons brought Trimmle in precipitately with a +lamp, and Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of the +usual. + +"You may bring tea if Mr. Boyne is in," she said, to justify her ring. + +"Very well, Madam. But Mr. Boyne is not in," said Trimmle, putting down +the lamp. + +"Not in? You mean he's come back and gone out again?" + +"No, Madam. He's never been back." + +The dread stirred again, and Mary knew that now it had her fast. + +"Not since he went out with--the gentleman?" + +"Not since he went out with the gentleman." + +"But who WAS the gentleman?" Mary gasped out, with the sharp note of +some one trying to be heard through a confusion of meaningless noises. + +"That I couldn't say, Madam." Trimmle, standing there by the lamp, +seemed suddenly to grow less round and rosy, as though eclipsed by the +same creeping shade of apprehension. + +"But the kitchen-maid knows--wasn't it the kitchen-maid who let him in?" + +"She doesn't know either, Madam, for he wrote his name on a folded +paper." + +Mary, through her agitation, was aware that they were both designating +the unknown visitor by a vague pronoun, instead of the conventional +formula which, till then, had kept their allusions within the bounds of +custom. And at the same moment her mind caught at the suggestion of the +folded paper. + +"But he must have a name! Where is the paper?" + +She moved to the desk, and began to turn over the scattered documents +that littered it. The first that caught her eye was an unfinished letter +in her husband's hand, with his pen lying across it, as though dropped +there at a sudden summons. + +"My dear Parvis,"--who was Parvis?--"I have just received your letter +announcing Elwell's death, and while I suppose there is now no farther +risk of trouble, it might be safer--" + +She tossed the sheet aside, and continued her search; but no folded +paper was discoverable among the letters and pages of manuscript which +had been swept together in a promiscuous heap, as if by a hurried or a +startled gesture. + +"But the kitchen-maid SAW him. Send her here," she commanded, wondering +at her dullness in not thinking sooner of so simple a solution. + +Trimmle, at the behest, vanished in a flash, as if thankful to be out +of the room, and when she reappeared, conducting the agitated underling, +Mary had regained her self-possession, and had her questions pat. + +The gentleman was a stranger, yes--that she understood. But what had he +said? And, above all, what had he looked like? The first question was +easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason that he had said so +little--had merely asked for Mr. Boyne, and, scribbling something on a +bit of paper, had requested that it should at once be carried in to him. + +"Then you don't know what he wrote? You're not sure it WAS his name?" + +The kitchen-maid was not sure, but supposed it was, since he had written +it in answer to her inquiry as to whom she should announce. + +"And when you carried the paper in to Mr. Boyne, what did he say?" + +The kitchen-maid did not think that Mr. Boyne had said anything, but she +could not be sure, for just as she had handed him the paper and he was +opening it, she had become aware that the visitor had followed her +into the library, and she had slipped out, leaving the two gentlemen +together. + +"But then, if you left them in the library, how do you know that they +went out of the house?" + +This question plunged the witness into momentary inarticulateness, +from which she was rescued by Trimmle, who, by means of ingenious +circumlocutions, elicited the statement that before she could cross the +hall to the back passage she had heard the gentlemen behind her, and had +seen them go out of the front door together. + +"Then, if you saw the gentleman twice, you must be able to tell me what +he looked like." + +But with this final challenge to her powers of expression it became +clear that the limit of the kitchen-maid's endurance had been reached. +The obligation of going to the front door to "show in" a visitor was +in itself so subversive of the fundamental order of things that it had +thrown her faculties into hopeless disarray, and she could only stammer +out, after various panting efforts at evocation, "His hat, mum, was +different-like, as you might say--" + +"Different? How different?" Mary flashed out at her, her own mind, in +the same instant, leaping back to an image left on it that morning, but +temporarily lost under layers of subsequent impressions. + +"His hat had a wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale--a youngish +face?" Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity of interrogation. +But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate answer to this challenge, +it was swept away for her listener down the rushing current of her own +convictions. The stranger--the stranger in the garden! Why had Mary not +thought of him before? She needed no one now to tell her that it was he +who had called for her husband and gone away with him. But who was he, +and why had Boyne obeyed his call? + + + + +IV + + +It leaped out at her suddenly, like a grin out of the dark, that they +had often called England so little--"such a confoundedly hard place to +get lost in." + +A CONFOUNDEDLY HARD PLACE TO GET LOST IN! That had been her husband's +phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of official investigation +sweeping its flash-lights from shore to shore, and across the dividing +straits; now, with Boyne's name blazing from the walls of every town +and village, his portrait (how that wrung her!) hawked up and down the +country like the image of a hunted criminal; now the little compact, +populous island, so policed, surveyed, and administered, revealed itself +as a Sphinx-like guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his +wife's anguished eyes as if with the malicious joy of knowing something +they would never know! + +In the fortnight since Boyne's disappearance there had been no word of +him, no trace of his movements. Even the usual misleading reports that +raise expectancy in tortured bosoms had been few and fleeting. No one +but the bewildered kitchen-maid had seen him leave the house, and no one +else had seen "the gentleman" who accompanied him. All inquiries in the +neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger's presence that +day in the neighborhood of Lyng. And no one had met Edward Boyne, either +alone or in company, in any of the neighboring villages, or on the road +across the downs, or at either of the local railway-stations. The sunny +English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into +Cimmerian night. + +Mary, while every external means of investigation was working at its +highest pressure, had ransacked her husband's papers for any trace of +antecedent complications, of entanglements or obligations unknown to +her, that might throw a faint ray into the darkness. But if any such +had existed in the background of Boyne's life, they had disappeared as +completely as the slip of paper on which the visitor had written his +name. There remained no possible thread of guidance except--if it were +indeed an exception--the letter which Boyne had apparently been in the +act of writing when he received his mysterious summons. That letter, +read and reread by his wife, and submitted by her to the police, yielded +little enough for conjecture to feed on. + +"I have just heard of Elwell's death, and while I suppose there is now +no farther risk of trouble, it might be safer--" That was all. The "risk +of trouble" was easily explained by the newspaper clipping which had +apprised Mary of the suit brought against her husband by one of his +associates in the Blue Star enterprise. The only new information +conveyed in the letter was the fact of its showing Boyne, when he wrote +it, to be still apprehensive of the results of the suit, though he +had assured his wife that it had been withdrawn, and though the letter +itself declared that the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks +of exhaustive cabling to fix the identity of the "Parvis" to whom the +fragmentary communication was addressed, but even after these inquiries +had shown him to be a Waukesha lawyer, no new facts concerning the +Elwell suit were elicited. He appeared to have had no direct concern +in it, but to have been conversant with the facts merely as an +acquaintance, and possible intermediary; and he declared himself unable +to divine with what object Boyne intended to seek his assistance. + +This negative information, sole fruit of the first fortnight's feverish +search, was not increased by a jot during the slow weeks that followed. +Mary knew that the investigations were still being carried on, but she +had a vague sense of their gradually slackening, as the actual march of +time seemed to slacken. It was as though the days, flying horror-struck +from the shrouded image of the one inscrutable day, gained assurance as +the distance lengthened, till at last they fell back into their normal +gait. And so with the human imaginations at work on the dark event. No +doubt it occupied them still, but week by week and hour by hour it grew +less absorbing, took up less space, was slowly but inevitably crowded +out of the foreground of consciousness by the new problems perpetually +bubbling up from the vaporous caldron of human experience. + +Even Mary Boyne's consciousness gradually felt the same lowering of +velocity. It still swayed with the incessant oscillations of conjecture; +but they were slower, more rhythmical in their beat. There were moments +of overwhelming lassitude when, like the victim of some poison which +leaves the brain clear, but holds the body motionless, she saw herself +domesticated with the Horror, accepting its perpetual presence as one of +the fixed conditions of life. + +These moments lengthened into hours and days, till she passed into a +phase of stolid acquiescence. She watched the familiar routine of life +with the incurious eye of a savage on whom the meaningless processes of +civilization make but the faintest impression. She had come to regard +herself as part of the routine, a spoke of the wheel, revolving with its +motion; she felt almost like the furniture of the room in which she sat, +an insensate object to be dusted and pushed about with the chairs and +tables. And this deepening apathy held her fast at Lyng, in spite of +the urgent entreaties of friends and the usual medical recommendation of +"change." Her friends supposed that her refusal to move was inspired by +the belief that her husband would one day return to the spot from which +he had vanished, and a beautiful legend grew up about this imaginary +state of waiting. But in reality she had no such belief: the depths of +anguish inclosing her were no longer lighted by flashes of hope. She was +sure that Boyne would never come back, that he had gone out of her sight +as completely as if Death itself had waited that day on the threshold. +She had even renounced, one by one, the various theories as to his +disappearance which had been advanced by the press, the police, and her +own agonized imagination. In sheer lassitude her mind turned from these +alternatives of horror, and sank back into the blank fact that he was +gone. + +No, she would never know what had become of him--no one would ever know. +But the house KNEW; the library in which she spent her long, lonely +evenings knew. For it was here that the last scene had been enacted, +here that the stranger had come, and spoken the word which had caused +Boyne to rise and follow him. The floor she trod had felt his tread; the +books on the shelves had seen his face; and there were moments when the +intense consciousness of the old, dusky walls seemed about to break out +into some audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation +never came, and she knew it would never come. Lyng was not one of the +garrulous old houses that betray the secrets intrusted to them. Its +very legend proved that it had always been the mute accomplice, the +incorruptible custodian of the mysteries it had surprised. And Mary +Boyne, sitting face to face with its portentous silence, felt the +futility of seeking to break it by any human means. + + + + +V + + +"I don't say it WASN'T straight, yet don't say it WAS straight. It was +business." + +Mary, at the words, lifted her head with a start, and looked intently at +the speaker. + +When, half an hour before, a card with "Mr. Parvis" on it had been +brought up to her, she had been immediately aware that the name had been +a part of her consciousness ever since she had read it at the head of +Boyne's unfinished letter. In the library she had found awaiting her a +small neutral-tinted man with a bald head and gold eye-glasses, and it +sent a strange tremor through her to know that this was the person to +whom her husband's last known thought had been directed. + +Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,--in the manner of a man who +has his watch in his hand,--had set forth the object of his visit. +He had "run over" to England on business, and finding himself in the +neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to leave it without paying +his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without asking her, if the occasion offered, +what she meant to do about Bob Elwell's family. + +The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary's bosom. +Did her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by his unfinished +phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his question, and noticed at +once that he seemed surprised at her continued ignorance of the subject. +Was it possible that she really knew as little as she said? + +"I know nothing--you must tell me," she faltered out; and her visitor +thereupon proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even to her confused +perceptions, and imperfectly initiated vision, a lurid glare on the +whole hazy episode of the Blue Star Mine. Her husband had made his money +in that brilliant speculation at the cost of "getting ahead" of some one +less alert to seize the chance; the victim of his ingenuity was young +Robert Elwell, who had "put him on" to the Blue Star scheme. + +Parvis, at Mary's first startled cry, had thrown her a sobering glance +through his impartial glasses. + +"Bob Elwell wasn't smart enough, that's all; if he had been, he might +have turned round and served Boyne the same way. It's the kind of thing +that happens every day in business. I guess it's what the scientists +call the survival of the fittest," said Mr. Parvis, evidently pleased +with the aptness of his analogy. + +Mary felt a physical shrinking from the next question she tried to +frame; it was as though the words on her lips had a taste that nauseated +her. + +"But then--you accuse my husband of doing something dishonorable?" + +Mr. Parvis surveyed the question dispassionately. "Oh, no, I don't. +I don't even say it wasn't straight." He glanced up and down the long +lines of books, as if one of them might have supplied him with the +definition he sought. "I don't say it WASN'T straight, and yet I don't +say it WAS straight. It was business." After all, no definition in his +category could be more comprehensive than that. + +Mary sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her like the +indifferent, implacable emissary of some dark, formless power. + +"But Mr. Elwell's lawyers apparently did not take your view, since I +suppose the suit was withdrawn by their advice." + +"Oh, yes, they knew he hadn't a leg to stand on, technically. It was +when they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got desperate. You +see, he'd borrowed most of the money he lost in the Blue Star, and he +was up a tree. That's why he shot himself when they told him he had no +show." + +The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves. + +"He shot himself? He killed himself because of THAT?" + +"Well, he didn't kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months before +he died." Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally as a gramophone +grinding out its "record." + +"You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried again?" + +"Oh, he didn't have to try again," said Parvis, grimly. + +They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eye-glass +thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms stretched along +her knees in an attitude of rigid tension. + +"But if you knew all this," she began at length, hardly able to force +her voice above a whisper, "how is it that when I wrote you at the +time of my husband's disappearance you said you didn't understand his +letter?" + +Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. "Why, I didn't +understand it--strictly speaking. And it wasn't the time to talk +about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when the suit was +withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have helped you to find +your husband." + +Mary continued to scrutinize him. "Then why are you telling me now?" + +Still Parvis did not hesitate. "Well, to begin with, I supposed you +knew more than you appear to--I mean about the circumstances of Elwell's +death. And then people are talking of it now; the whole matter's been +raked up again. And I thought, if you didn't know, you ought to." + +She remained silent, and he continued: "You see, it's only come out +lately what a bad state Elwell's affairs were in. His wife's a proud +woman, and she fought on as long as she could, going out to work, and +taking sewing at home, when she got too sick--something with the heart, +I believe. But she had his bedridden mother to look after, and the +children, and she broke down under it, and finally had to ask for help. +That attracted attention to the case, and the papers took it up, and a +subscription was started. Everybody out there liked Bob Elwell, and most +of the prominent names in the place are down on the list, and people +began to wonder why--" + +Parvis broke off to fumble in an inner pocket. "Here," he continued, +"here's an account of the whole thing from the 'Sentinel'--a little +sensational, of course. But I guess you'd better look it over." + +He held out a newspaper to Mary, who unfolded it slowly, remembering, +as she did so, the evening when, in that same room, the perusal of +a clipping from the "Sentinel" had first shaken the depths of her +security. + +As she opened the paper, her eyes, shrinking from the glaring +head-lines, "Widow of Boyne's Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid," ran down +the column of text to two portraits inserted in it. The first was +her husband's, taken from a photograph made the year they had come to +England. It was the picture of him that she liked best, the one that +stood on the writing-table up-stairs in her bedroom. As the eyes in the +photograph met hers, she felt it would be impossible to read what was +said of him, and closed her lids with the sharpness of the pain. + +"I thought if you felt disposed to put your name down--" she heard +Parvis continue. + +She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell on the other portrait. +It was that of a youngish man, slightly built, in rough clothes, with +features somewhat blurred by the shadow of a projecting hat-brim. Where +had she seen that outline before? She stared at it confusedly, her heart +hammering in her throat and ears. Then she gave a cry. + +"This is the man--the man who came for my husband!" + +She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had +slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending +above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and +reached out for the paper, which she had dropped. + +"It's the man! I should know him anywhere!" she cried in a voice that +sounded in her own ears like a scream. + +Parvis's voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless, +fog-muffled windings. + +"Mrs. Boyne, you're not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get a +glass of water?" + +"No, no, no!" She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically +clenching the newspaper. "I tell you, it's the man! I KNOW him! He spoke +to me in the garden!" + +Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the portrait. +"It can't be, Mrs. Boyne. It's Robert Elwell." + +"Robert Elwell?" Her white stare seemed to travel into space. "Then it +was Robert Elwell who came for him." + +"Came for Boyne? The day he went away?" Parvis's voice dropped as hers +rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax her +gently back into her seat. "Why, Elwell was dead! Don't you remember?" + +Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what he was +saying. + +"Don't you remember Boyne's unfinished letter to me--the one you found +on his desk that day? It was written just after he'd heard of Elwell's +death." She noticed an odd shake in Parvis's unemotional voice. "Surely +you remember that!" he urged her. + +Yes, she remembered: that was the profoundest horror of it. Elwell had +died the day before her husband's disappearance; and this was Elwell's +portrait; and it was the portrait of the man who had spoken to her in +the garden. She lifted her head and looked slowly about the library. The +library could have borne witness that it was also the portrait of the +man who had come in that day to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. +Through the misty surgings of her brain she heard the faint boom +of half-forgotten words--words spoken by Alida Stair on the lawn at +Pangbourne before Boyne and his wife had ever seen the house at Lyng, or +had imagined that they might one day live there. + +"This was the man who spoke to me," she repeated. + +She looked again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his disturbance +under what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; +but the edges of his lips were blue. "He thinks me mad; but I'm not +mad," she reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way of +justifying her strange affirmation. + +She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting till she +could trust her voice to keep its habitual level; then she said, looking +straight at Parvis: "Will you answer me one question, please? When was +it that Robert Elwell tried to kill himself?" + +"When--when?" Parvis stammered. + +"Yes; the date. Please try to remember." + +She saw that he was growing still more afraid of her. "I have a reason," +she insisted gently. + +"Yes, yes. Only I can't remember. About two months before, I should +say." + +"I want the date," she repeated. + +Parvis picked up the newspaper. "We might see here," he said, still +humoring her. He ran his eyes down the page. "Here it is. Last +October--the--" + +She caught the words from him. "The 20th, wasn't it?" With a sharp look +at her, he verified. "Yes, the 20th. Then you DID know?" + +"I know now." Her white stare continued to travel past him. "Sunday, the +20th--that was the day he came first." + +Parvis's voice was almost inaudible. "Came HERE first?" + +"Yes." + +"You saw him twice, then?" + +"Yes, twice." She breathed it at him with dilated eyes. "He came first +on the 20th of October. I remember the date because it was the day +we went up Meldon Steep for the first time." She felt a faint gasp +of inward laughter at the thought that but for that she might have +forgotten. + +Parvis continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to intercept her gaze. + +"We saw him from the roof," she went on. "He came down the lime-avenue +toward the house. He was dressed just as he is in that picture. My +husband saw him first. He was frightened, and ran down ahead of me; but +there was no one there. He had vanished." + +"Elwell had vanished?" Parvis faltered. + +"Yes." Their two whispers seemed to grope for each other. "I couldn't +think what had happened. I see now. He TRIED to come then; but he wasn't +dead enough--he couldn't reach us. He had to wait for two months; and +then he came back again--and Ned went with him." + +She nodded at Parvis with the look of triumph of a child who has +successfully worked out a difficult puzzle. But suddenly she lifted her +hands with a desperate gesture, pressing them to her bursting temples. + +"Oh, my God! I sent him to Ned--I told him where to go! I sent him to +this room!" she screamed out. + +She felt the walls of the room rush toward her, like inward falling +ruins; and she heard Parvis, a long way off, as if through the ruins, +crying to her, and struggling to get at her. But she was numb to his +touch, she did not know what he was saying. Through the tumult she heard +but one clear note, the voice of Alida Stair, speaking on the lawn at +Pangbourne. + +"You won't know till afterward," it said. "You won't know till long, +long afterward." + + +The End of Afterward + + + + + +THE FULNESS OF LIFE + +December 1893 + + + + +I. + + +For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike that sweet +lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer noon, when the +heat seems to have silenced the very birds and insects, and, lying sunk +in the tasselled meadow-grasses, one looks up through a level roofing +of maple-leaves at the vast shadowless, and unsuggestive blue. Now and +then, at ever-lengthening intervals, a flash of pain darted through her, +like the ripple of sheet-lightning across such a midsummer sky; but it +was too transitory to shake her stupor, that calm, delicious, bottomless +stupor into which she felt herself sinking more and more deeply, without +a disturbing impulse of resistance, an effort of reattachment to the +vanishing edges of consciousness. + +The resistance, the effort, had known their hour of violence; but +now they were at an end. Through her mind, long harried by grotesque +visions, fragmentary images of the life that she was leaving, tormenting +lines of verse, obstinate presentments of pictures once beheld, +indistinct impressions of rivers, towers, and cupolas, gathered in the +length of journeys half forgotten--through her mind there now only moved +a few primal sensations of colorless well-being; a vague satisfaction +in the thought that she had swallowed her noxious last draught of +medicine... and that she should never again hear the creaking of her +husband's boots--those horrible boots--and that no one would come to +bother her about the next day's dinner... or the butcher's book.... + +At last even these dim sensations spent themselves in the thickening +obscurity which enveloped her; a dusk now filled with pale geometric +roses, circling softly, interminably before her, now darkened to a +uniform blue-blackness, the hue of a summer night without stars. And +into this darkness she felt herself sinking, sinking, with the gentle +sense of security of one upheld from beneath. Like a tepid tide it +rose around her, gliding ever higher and higher, folding in its velvety +embrace her relaxed and tired body, now submerging her breast and +shoulders, now creeping gradually, with soft inexorableness, over her +throat to her chin, to her ears, to her mouth.... Ah, now it was rising +too high; the impulse to struggle was renewed;... her mouth was full;... +she was choking.... Help! + +"It is all over," said the nurse, drawing down the eyelids with official +composure. + +The clock struck three. They remembered it afterward. Someone opened the +window and let in a blast of that strange, neutral air which walks +the earth between darkness and dawn; someone else led the husband into +another room. He walked vaguely, like a blind man, on his creaking +boots. + + + + +II. + + +She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway was in +front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet penetrating as the +gathered glimmer of innumerable stars, expanded gradually before her +eyes, in blissful contrast to the cavernous darkness from which she had +of late emerged. + +She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her eyes +began to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light about her, +she distinguished the outlines of a landscape, at first swimming in +the opaline uncertainty of Shelley's vaporous creations, then gradually +resolved into distincter shape--the vast unrolling of a sunlit plain, +aerial forms of mountains, and presently the silver crescent of a +river in the valley, and a blue stencilling of trees along its +curve--something suggestive in its ineffable hue of an azure background +of Leonardo's, strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and +the imagination into regions of fabulous delight. As she gazed, her +heart beat with a soft and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a promise +she read in the summons of that hyaline distance. + +"And so death is not the end after all," in sheer gladness she heard +herself exclaiming aloud. "I always knew that it couldn't be. I believed +in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said that he +wasn't sure about the soul--at least, I think he did--and Wallace was a +spiritualist; and then there was St. George Mivart--" + +Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains. + +"How beautiful! How satisfying!" she murmured. "Perhaps now I shall +really know what it is to live." + +As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart-beats, and +looking up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of Life. + +"Have you never really known what it is to live?" the Spirit of Life +asked her. + +"I have never known," she replied, "that fulness of life which we all +feel ourselves capable of knowing; though my life has not been without +scattered hints of it, like the scent of earth which comes to one +sometimes far out at sea." + +"And what do you call the fulness of life?" the Spirit asked again. + +"Oh, I can't tell you, if you don't know," she said, almost +reproachfully. "Many words are supposed to define it--love and sympathy +are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the +right ones, and so few people really know what they mean." + +"You were married," said the Spirit, "yet you did not find the fulness +of life in your marriage?" + +"Oh, dear, no," she replied, with an indulgent scorn, "my marriage was a +very incomplete affair." + +"And yet you were fond of your husband?" + +"You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just as I +was fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born in, and my old +nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted a very happy couple. +But I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house +full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going +in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the +sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; +but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors +perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows +whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the +soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes." + +"And your husband," asked the Spirit, after a pause, "never got beyond +the family sitting-room?" + +"Never," she returned, impatiently; "and the worst of it was that he was +quite content to remain there. He thought it perfectly beautiful, and +sometimes, when he was admiring its commonplace furniture, insignificant +as the chairs and tables of a hotel parlor, I felt like crying out to +him: 'Fool, will you never guess that close at hand are rooms full of +treasures and wonders, such as the eye of man hath not seen, rooms that +no step has crossed, but that might be yours to live in, could you but +find the handle of the door?'" + +"Then," the Spirit continued, "those moments of which you lately spoke, +which seemed to come to you like scattered hints of the fulness of life, +were not shared with your husband?" + +"Oh, no--never. He was different. His boots creaked, and he always +slammed the door when he went out, and he never read anything but +railway novels and the sporting advertisements in the papers--and--and, +in short, we never understood each other in the least." + +"To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite sensations?" + +"I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a flower; sometimes to a +verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a picture or a sunset, +or to one of those calm days at sea, when one seems to be lying in +the hollow of a blue pearl; sometimes, but rarely, to a word spoken by +someone who chanced to give utterance, at the right moment, to what I +felt but could not express." + +"Someone whom you loved?" asked the Spirit. + +"I never loved anyone, in that way," she said, rather sadly, "nor was +I thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or three who, by +touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my being, had called +forth a single note of that strange melody which seemed sleeping in my +soul. It has seldom happened, however, that I have owed such feelings to +people; and no one ever gave me a moment of such happiness as it was my +lot to feel one evening in the Church of Or San Michele, in Florence." + +"Tell me about it," said the Spirit. + +"It was near sunset on a rainy spring afternoon in Easter week. The +clouds had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we entered the +church the fiery panes of the high windows shone out like lamps through +the dusk. A priest was at the high altar, his white cope a livid spot in +the incense-laden obscurity, the light of the candles flickering up and +down like fireflies about his head; a few people knelt near by. We stole +behind them and sat down on a bench close to the tabernacle of Orcagna. + +"Strange to say, though Florence was not new to me, I had never been in +the church before; and in that magical light I saw for the first time +the inlaid steps, the fluted columns, the sculptured bas-reliefs and +canopy of the marvellous shrine. The marble, worn and mellowed by the +subtle hand of time, took on an unspeakable rosy hue, suggestive in +some remote way of the honey-colored columns of the Parthenon, but more +mystic, more complex, a color not born of the sun's inveterate kiss, +but made up of cryptal twilight, and the flame of candles upon martyrs' +tombs, and gleams of sunset through symbolic panes of chrysoprase and +ruby; such a light as illumines the missals in the library of Siena, +or burns like a hidden fire through the Madonna of Gian Bellini in the +Church of the Redeemer, at Venice; the light of the Middle Ages, richer, +more solemn, more significant than the limpid sunshine of Greece. + +"The church was silent, but for the wail of the priest and the +occasional scraping of a chair against the floor, and as I sat there, +bathed in that light, absorbed in rapt contemplation of the marble +miracle which rose before me, cunningly wrought as a casket of ivory and +enriched with jewel-like incrustations and tarnished gleams of gold, I +felt myself borne onward along a mighty current, whose source seemed to +be in the very beginning of things, and whose tremendous waters gathered +as they went all the mingled streams of human passion and endeavor. +Life in all its varied manifestations of beauty and strangeness seemed +weaving a rhythmical dance around me as I moved, and wherever the spirit +of man had passed I knew that my foot had once been familiar. + +"As I gazed the mediaeval bosses of the tabernacle of Orcagna seemed to +melt and flow into their primal forms so that the folded lotus of +the Nile and the Greek acanthus were braided with the runic knots and +fish-tailed monsters of the North, and all the plastic terror and beauty +born of man's hand from the Ganges to the Baltic quivered and mingled +in Orcagna's apotheosis of Mary. And so the river bore me on, past the +alien face of antique civilizations and the familiar wonders of Greece, +till I swam upon the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its +swirling eddies of passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry +and art; I heard the rhythmic blow of the craftsmen's hammers in the +goldsmiths' workshops and on the walls of churches, the party-cries of +armed factions in the narrow streets, the organ-roll of Dante's verse, +the crackle of the fagots around Arnold of Brescia, the twitter of +the swallows to which St. Francis preached, the laughter of the +ladies listening on the hillside to the quips of the Decameron, while +plague-struck Florence howled beneath them--all this and much more I +heard, joined in strange unison with voices earlier and more remote, +fierce, passionate, or tender, yet subdued to such awful harmony that +I thought of the song that the morning stars sang together and felt as +though it were sounding in my ears. My heart beat to suffocation, the +tears burned my lids, the joy, the mystery of it seemed too intolerable +to be borne. I could not understand even then the words of the song; but +I knew that if there had been someone at my side who could have heard it +with me, we might have found the key to it together. + +"I turned to my husband, who was sitting beside me in an attitude of +patient dejection, gazing into the bottom of his hat; but at that moment +he rose, and stretching his stiffened legs, said, mildly: 'Hadn't we +better be going? There doesn't seem to be much to see here, and you know +the table d'hote dinner is at half-past six o'clock." + + +Her recital ended, there was an interval of silence; then the Spirit of +Life said: "There is a compensation in store for such needs as you have +expressed." + +"Oh, then you DO understand?" she exclaimed. "Tell me what compensation, +I entreat you!" + +"It is ordained," the Spirit answered, "that every soul which seeks +in vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare its inmost +being shall find that soul here and be united to it for eternity." + +A glad cry broke from her lips. "Ah, shall I find him at last?" she +cried, exultant. + +"He is here," said the Spirit of Life. + +She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in that +unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than his face) +drew her toward him with an invincible force. + +"Are you really he?" she murmured. + +"I am he," he answered. + +She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which overhung +the valley. + +"Shall we go down together," she asked him, "into that marvellous +country; shall we see it together, as if with the self-same eyes, and +tell each other in the same words all that we think and feel?" + +"So," he replied, "have I hoped and dreamed." + +"What?" she asked, with rising joy. "Then you, too, have looked for me?" + +"All my life." + +"How wonderful! And did you never, never find anyone in the other world +who understood you?" + +"Not wholly--not as you and I understand each other." + +"Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy," she sighed. + +They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the +shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into sapphirine +space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the threshold, heard +now and then a floating fragment of their talk blown backward like the +stray swallows which the wind sometimes separates from their migratory +tribe. + +"Did you never feel at sunset--" + +"Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?" + +"Do you remember that line in the third canto of the 'Inferno?'" + +"Ah, that line--my favorite always. Is it possible--" + +"You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike Apteros?" + +"You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have noticed, too, +that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in those flying folds of +her drapery?" + +"After a storm in autumn have you never seen--" + +"Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters--the +perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose, Titian; the +tuberose, Crivelli--" + +"I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it." + +"Have you never thought--" + +"Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had." + +"But surely you must have felt--" + +"Oh, yes, yes; and you, too--" + +"How beautiful! How strange--" + +Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains answering +each other across a garden full of flowers. At length, with a certain +tender impatience, he turned to her and said: "Love, why should we +linger here? All eternity lies before us. Let us go down into that +beautiful country together and make a home for ourselves on some blue +hill above the shining river." + +As he spoke, the hand she had forgotten in his was suddenly withdrawn, +and he felt that a cloud was passing over the radiance of her soul. + +"A home," she repeated, slowly, "a home for you and me to live in for +all eternity?" + +"Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?" + +"Y-yes--yes, I know--but, don't you see, home would not be like home to +me, unless--" + +"Unless?" he wonderingly repeated. + +She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of +whimsical inconsistency, "Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking +boots." + +But he had recovered his hold upon her hand, and by imperceptible +degrees was leading her toward the shining steps which descended to the +valley. + +"Come, O my soul's soul," he passionately implored; "why delay a moment? +Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too short to hold such +bliss as ours. It seems to me that I can see our home already. Have +I not always seem it in my dreams? It is white, love, is it not, with +polished columns, and a sculptured cornice against the blue? Groves +of laurel and oleander and thickets of roses surround it; but from the +terrace where we walk at sunset, the eye looks out over woodlands and +cool meadows where, deep-bowered under ancient boughs, a stream goes +delicately toward the river. Indoors our favorite pictures hang upon the +walls and the rooms are lined with books. Think, dear, at last we shall +have time to read them all. With which shall we begin? Come, help me to +choose. Shall it be 'Faust' or the 'Vita Nuova,' the 'Tempest' or 'Les +Caprices de Marianne,' or the thirty-first canto of the 'Paradise,' or +'Epipsychidion' or 'Lycidas'? Tell me, dear, which one?" + +As he spoke he saw the answer trembling joyously upon her lips; but it +died in the ensuing silence, and she stood motionless, resisting the +persuasion of his hand. + +"What is it?" he entreated. + +"Wait a moment," she said, with a strange hesitation in her voice. "Tell +me first, are you quite sure of yourself? Is there no one on earth whom +you sometimes remember?" + +"Not since I have seen you," he replied; for, being a man, he had indeed +forgotten. + +Still she stood motionless, and he saw that the shadow deepened on her +soul. + +"Surely, love," he rebuked her, "it was not that which troubled you? For +my part I have walked through Lethe. The past has melted like a cloud +before the moon. I never lived until I saw you." + +She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing herself with +a visible effort, she turned away from him and moved toward the Spirit +of Life, who still stood near the threshold. + +"I want to ask you a question," she said, in a troubled voice. + +"Ask," said the Spirit. + +"A little while ago," she began, slowly, "you told me that every soul +which has not found a kindred soul on earth is destined to find one +here." + +"And have you not found one?" asked the Spirit. + +"Yes; but will it be so with my husband's soul also?" + +"No," answered the Spirit of Life, "for your husband imagined that +he had found his soul's mate on earth in you; and for such delusions +eternity itself contains no cure." + +She gave a little cry. Was it of disappointment or triumph? + +"Then--then what will happen to him when he comes here?" + +"That I cannot tell you. Some field of activity and happiness he will +doubtless find, in due measure to his capacity for being active and +happy." + +She interrupted, almost angrily: "He will never be happy without me." + +"Do not be too sure of that," said the Spirit. + +She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: "He will not +understand you here any better than he did on earth." + +"No matter," she said; "I shall be the only sufferer, for he always +thought that he understood me." + +"His boots will creak just as much as ever--" + +"No matter." + +"And he will slam the door--" + +"Very likely." + +"And continue to read railway novels--" + +She interposed, impatiently: "Many men do worse than that." + +"But you said just now," said the Spirit, "that you did not love him." + +"True," she answered, simply; "but don't you understand that I shouldn't +feel at home without him? It is all very well for a week or two--but for +eternity! After all, I never minded the creaking of his boots, except +when my head ached, and I don't suppose it will ache HERE; and he +was always so sorry when he had slammed the door, only he never COULD +remember not to. Besides, no one else would know how to look after him, +he is so helpless. His inkstand would never be filled, and he would +always be out of stamps and visiting-cards. He would never remember to +have his umbrella re-covered, or to ask the price of anything before he +bought it. Why, he wouldn't even know what novels to read. I always had +to choose the kind he liked, with a murder or a forgery and a successful +detective." + +She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood listening with a mien +of wonder and dismay. + +"Don't you see," she said, "that I can't possibly go with you?" + +"But what do you intend to do?" asked the Spirit of Life. + +"What do I intend to do?" she returned, indignantly. "Why, I mean to +wait for my husband, of course. If he had come here first HE would have +waited for me for years and years; and it would break his heart not to +find me here when he comes." She pointed with a contemptuous gesture +to the magic vision of hill and vale sloping away to the translucent +mountains. "He wouldn't give a fig for all that," she said, "if he +didn't find me here." + +"But consider," warned the Spirit, "that you are now choosing for +eternity. It is a solemn moment." + +"Choosing!" she said, with a half-sad smile. "Do you still keep up here +that old fiction about choosing? I should have thought that YOU knew +better than that. How can I help myself? He will expect to find me here +when he comes, and he would never believe you if you told him that I had +gone away with someone else--never, never." + +"So be it," said the Spirit. "Here, as on earth, each one must decide +for himself." + +She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him gently, almost +wistfully. "I am sorry," she said. "I should have liked to talk with +you again; but you will understand, I know, and I dare say you will find +someone else a great deal cleverer--" + +And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him a swift farewell +and turned back toward the threshold. + +"Will my husband come soon?" she asked the Spirit of Life. + +"That you are not destined to know," the Spirit replied. + +"No matter," she said, cheerfully; "I have all eternity to wait in." + +And still seated alone on the threshold, she listens for the creaking of +his boots. + + +The End of The Fulness of Life + + + + + +A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT + +December 1903 + + + +This is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street +house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the famous +East India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn +to the oval parlour (and Maria's harp was throwing its gauzy web of +sound across the Common), used to relate to his grandsons, about the +year that Buonaparte marched upon Moscow. + + + + +I + + +"Him Venice!" said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony Bracknell, +leaning on the high gunwale of his father's East Indiaman, the Hepzibah +B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of towers and +domes dissolved in golden air. + +It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly +of age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old +Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled +into shape. VENICE! The name, since childhood, had been a magician's +wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung +a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought +home from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces, +of the Grand Turk's Seraglio, of St. Peter's Church in Rome; and, in +a corner--the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks hung--a +busy merry populous scene, entitled: ST. MARK'S SQUARE IN VENICE. This +picture, from the first, had singularly taken little Tony's fancy. His +unformulated criticism on the others was that they lacked action. +True, in the view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking gentleman in +a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a +bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to +it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels +observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. +But in Venice so many things were happening at once--more, Tony was +sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in +a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were people of every nation +on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a +parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall +personages in parsons' gowns who stalked through the crowd with an air +of mastery, a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people +seemed to be diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, +watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing doles +to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slippery-looking +fellows in black--the whole with such an air of ease and good-humour +that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a part of the show as the +tumbling acrobats and animals. + +As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost +its magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old +picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a +cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name +of Venice remained associated; and all that observation or report +subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a sober +warranty of fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between +reality and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender Venice glass, +gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the dust of sunbeams, that, +standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two Lowestoft caddies, seemed, +among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled butterfly. +There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of that same +sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped through the +fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant which +seemed held in air as if by magic. MAGIC! That was the word which the +thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place, Tony felt, in which +things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in which two and two +might make five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion give +the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a young heart that did not, +once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? Tony, at +least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms in +his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a +Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before +him, as the distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes +across the morning sea! + +The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bear-leader, was just +putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon +on Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s anchor rattled +overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge +with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from his +lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in +suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical +foreign city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many +Moslem idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce's summing up his +conclusions before the Muse of Theology took flight? He should be happy, +he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell the next +morning. + +The next morning, ha!--Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked at +the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down +with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next +deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah's gig. + +A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of +the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling +with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic +painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, +laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, +crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over +a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware +at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, +there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, +as in such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity +which seemed to include everybody in the circumference of one huge joke. +In such an air the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was +beginning to feel himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide bore +him against a droll-looking bell-ringing fellow who carried above his +head a tall metal tree hung with sherbet-glasses. + +The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and +clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints, +and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by +mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their orbits, +and just then a personable-looking young man who had observed the +transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in English: + +"I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency." + +"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed +and replied: "You have given him enough to retire from his business and +open a gaming-house over the arcade." + +Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries, +the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in +front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted +himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was +good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had +paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out +again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count +Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to +point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of ton +and ladies of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a kind +not openly mentioned in taking a census of Salem. + +Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, +had perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy; but +though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of +Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising +appearance and manners of the great people his friend named to him. The +gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, +short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor's +gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; while the +President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow +with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet +cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on. + +It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on forever; +but he had given his word to the captain to be at the landing-place at +sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the skies! Tony was a +man of honour; and having pressed on the Count a handsome damascened +dagger selected from one of the goldsmiths' shops in a narrow street +lined with such wares, he insisted on turning his face toward the +Hepzibah's gig. The Count yielded reluctantly; but as they came out +again on the square they were caught in a great throng pouring toward +the doors of the cathedral. + +"They go to Benediction," said the Count. "A beautiful sight, with many +lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it." + +Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled +back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood in a +haze of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty +undulations of the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and as +Tony flattened himself against a pillar, he heard a pretty voice at his +elbow:--"Oh, sir, oh, sir, your sword!" + +He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched the +voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard. +She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies +affected, and under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as +sweet as a nesting bird. + +In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself +a shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony's enchanted fingers. Looking +after her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompous-looking graybeard in +a long black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the +exchange of glances between the young people, drew the lady away with a +threatening look. + +The Count met Tony's eye with a smile. "One of our Venetian beauties," +said he; "the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to have the finest +eyes in Venice." + +"She spoke English," stammered Tony. + +"Oh--ah--precisely: she learned the language at the Court of Saint +James's, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as +Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England." + +"And that was her father?" + +"Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena's rank do not go abroad save +with their parents or a duenna." + +Just then a soft hand slid into Tony's. His heart gave a foolish bound, +and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under +the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful +page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and vanished +in the throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at the Count, +who appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a +bell, had in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony +seized the moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter. + +"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena"--he read; +but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his +shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind of +rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian. + +Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk +himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other's +grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed +his way through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: "For +God's sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep quiet and do as I +tell you." + +Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity +among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in +Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was +that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his +breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the Count's agitated +whisper. + +"This is one of the agents of the Ten.--For God's sake, no outcry." He +exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony. +"You have been seen concealing a letter about your person--" + +"And what of that?" says Tony furiously. + +"Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna +Polixena Cador.--A black business! Oh, a very black business! This Cador +is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice--I beseech you, not a word, +sir! Let me think--deliberate--" + +His hand on Tony's shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the +potentate in the cocked hat. + +"I am sorry, sir--but our young ladies of rank are as jealously guarded +as the Grand Turk's wives, and you must be answerable for this scandal. +The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador, +instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your youth +and inexperience"--Tony winced at this--"and I think the business may +still be arranged." + +Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-featured +shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a lawyer's clerk, +who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with many apologetic gestures +steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church. The Count held +him by the other arm, and in this fashion they emerged on the square, +which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the +arcade and in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it. + +Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go +where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of the +Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the +landing-place. + +The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook his +head and rattled off a sharp denial. + +"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. Any +resistance will tell against you in the end." + +Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of +escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and +boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to +outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry +the crowd would close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten +yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng was +thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for +an opening. Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show. Tony's +fist shot out at the black fellow's chest, and before the latter could +right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of heels +to his escort. On he sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in +Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye, +dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow +hump-back bridge which landed him in a black pocket between walls. But +now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The +walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath came +short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed him. +Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a servant +wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh chances. +Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, and the +two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses. + + + + +II + + +The servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They +climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor, +and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from +the painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his +surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started +up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was +the cause of all his troubles. + +She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her +face changed and she shrank back abashed. + +"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried +out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you are +here?" + +"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony, not +over-pleased by his reception. + +"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?" + +"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was +yours--" + +"Mine?" + +--"in sending me a letter--" + +"YOU--a letter?" + +--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your +father's very nose--" + +The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was YOU who received my +letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged her +under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon, +and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected in her the doubleted +page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark's. + +"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?" + +Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded +instantly and she returned to the charge. + +"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! +Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended +for you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my +mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh, how can I ever +excuse myself to you?" + +"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am +surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador." + +Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you +must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English, +and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner +in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English +Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome man." + +"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!" + +She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look +of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in +dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you also-- +Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale and leaned +tremblingly upon the little servant. + +Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment +later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by +half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the square. +At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst into +furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to the +young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly +plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung himself on the +intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on +his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming +face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress. +Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among themselves, +and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and Spanish cape, stalked +apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The latter was at his wit's +end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena's tears had +quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the +magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what they would be at. + +At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on +the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He +pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be +silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at +first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, +he walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of +earshot. + +"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a +perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a +great misfortune." + +"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose +blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the +beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up +to the forehead. + +"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his Illustriousness +does not speak your language, he understands a few words of it, and--" + +"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me if I +ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me." + +The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, +stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is that +you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the +most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the +most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--" and he waved a deferential hand at +the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff. + +"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with +the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--" but here he +stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at +him. + +"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to take +shelter behind a lady's reputation." + +"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was merely +about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has never seen me +before." + +Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died +to defend her. + +The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His +Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's misconduct +has been all the more reprehensible." + +"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?" + +"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter which +you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The incident +was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in +consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride." + +Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his +Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so +trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her +father's resentment." + +"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only +excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to +advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio." + +It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, +and the thought sharpened his retort. + +"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same +behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman +would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen +to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in +fact nothing to do with what you suppose." + +As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far +as he dared commit himself. + +There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the +Count then said:--"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to meet +certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of +immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her father?" + +There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to +look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance +toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by +unmistakable signs of apprehension. + +"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined, and +whatever happens I must keep her secret." + +He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in the +habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers." + +The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, dashing +his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess +continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. + +The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared. +This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal +imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation +incumbent upon you as a man of honour." + +Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the +Marquess. "And what obligation is that?" + +"To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the lady." + +Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in +heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he remembered that it +had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them +to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm +suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave plight effaced all thought of +his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so preposterous +that he could not repress a smile. + +"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome this +solution." + +The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty," +he said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were +justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in +this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father +has selected." + +"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman yonder +was in that enviable position." + +"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in +your favour." + +"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness +obliges me to decline--" + +"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a +misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted +than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that +you should marry her within the hour." + +Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. +He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself and the +door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the apartment, +and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her father's +feet. + +"And if I refuse?" said he. + +The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to +threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the +consequences would be to the lady." + +Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned +words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an +obdurate gesture. + +The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you--at what +cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an hour his +Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness +consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed." + +He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to +Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in +the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena. + + + + +III + + +The girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame +and agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own +extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, +drawing her hands from her face. + +"Oh, don't make me look at you!" she sobbed; but it was on his bosom +that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as +he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him +gently from her. + +"What humiliation!" she lamented. + +"Do you think I blame you for what has happened?" + +"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And +how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show the +letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me +from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even greater." + +"Ah--it was that you wrote for?" cried Tony with unaccountable relief. + +"Of course--what else did you think?" + +"But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?" + +"From YOU?" A smile flashed through her tears. "Alas, yes." She drew +back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of +shame. + +Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that window--" +he muttered. + +"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.--Oh, I must +speak!" She sprang up and paced the room. "But indeed you can scarce +think worse of me than you do already--" + +"I think ill of you?" + +"Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen +for me--" + +"Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married +him." + +"Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice." + +"It is infamous, I say--infamous!" + +"No, no--I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others." + +"Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!" + +"He has a dreadful name for violence--his gondolier has told my little +maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you I +should be thinking?" + +"Of me, poor child?" cried Tony, losing his head. + +"Yes, and how to save you--for I CAN save you! But every moment +counts--and yet what I have to say is so dreadful." + +"Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful." + +"Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!" + +"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little wildly; +but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him. + +"No, I am not free," she said; "but you are, if you will do as I tell +you." + +Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight +through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the +fall had stunned him. + +"What am I to do?" he said. + +"Look away from me, or I can never tell you." + +He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, +and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the +window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back +was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she +were reciting a lesson. + +"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is +not a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate +spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of +ready money.--If you turn round I shall not go on!--He wrangled horribly +with my father over my dowry--he wanted me to have more than either of +my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee +of Spain. But my father is a gambler too--oh, such fortunes as are +squandered over the arcade yonder! And so--and so--don't turn, I implore +you--oh, do you begin to see my meaning?" + +She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes +from her. + +"Go on," he said. + +"Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You +don't know us Venetians--we're all to be bought for a price. It is +not only the brides who are marketable--sometimes the husbands sell +themselves too. And they think you rich--my father does, and the +others--I don't know why, unless you have shown your money too +freely--and the English are all rich, are they not? And--oh, oh--do you +understand? Oh, I can't bear your eyes!" + +She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was +at her side. + +"My poor child, my poor Polixena!" he cried, and wept and clasped her. + +"You ARE rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?" she +persisted. + +"To enable you to marry the Marquess?" + +"To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see +your face again." She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and +paced the floor in a fever. + +Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a +clock against the wall. "The hour is nearly over. It is quite true that +my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by +me! There is no other way of escape." + +"And if I do as you say--?" + +"You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it." + +"And you--you are married to that villain?" + +"But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to +myself when I am alone." + +"My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow." + +"You forgive me, Anthony? You don't think too badly of me?" + +"I say you must not marry that fellow." + +She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Time presses," she adjured him, +"and I warn you there is no other way." + +For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a +Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson's sermons in the best parlour at +Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. +"Yes, there is," he cried, "if you are willing. Polixena, let the priest +come!" + +She shrank back from him, white and radiant. "Oh, hush, be silent!" she +said. + +"I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates," he cried. "My +father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts--but if +you--" + +"Oh, hush, I say! I don't know what your long words mean. But I bless +you, bless you, bless you on my knees!" And she knelt before him, and +fell to kissing his hands. + +He drew her up to his breast and held her there. + +"You are willing, Polixena?" he said. + +"No, no!" She broke from him with outstretched hands. "I am not willing. +You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!" + +"On my money?" he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him. + +"Yes, on your money," she said sadly. + +"Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?" + +She was silent. + +"If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?" he persisted. + +"You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past." + +"Let it pass. I'll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger +to help another man to marry you." + +"Oh, madman, madman!" she murmured. + +Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the +wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and +falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty. + +"Polixena, I love you!" he cried. + +A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the +verge of her troubled brows. + +"I love you! I love you!" he repeated. + +And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their +lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird's poise and before he +knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them. + +She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. "I took it from +your fob," she said. "It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any +of the money, you know." + +She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her +ashen face. + +"What are you talking of?" he said. + +"They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never +see you again, Anthony!" She gave him a dreadful look. "Oh, my poor boy, +my poor love--'I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, POLIXENA!'" + +He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with +soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm's length, and as he +gazed he read the truth in her face. + +He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on +his hands. + +"Only, for God's sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play +here," she said. + +As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of +voices on the threshold. + +"It is all a lie," she gasped out, "about my marriage, and the Marquess, +and the Ambassador, and the Senator--but not, oh, not about your danger +in this place--or about my love," she breathed to him. And as the key +rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow. + +The key rattled, and the door swung open--but the black-cassocked +gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of +idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias +Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much +on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident +relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was closed +by an escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and small-swords, +who led between them Tony's late friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a +looking company as the law ever landed in her net. + +The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of +satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony. + +"So, Mr. Bracknell," said he, "you have been seeing the Carnival with +this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has +landed you? H'm--a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head +of it." He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock +ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a princess. + +"Why, my girl," said he, amicably, "I think I saw you this morning in +the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain +Spavent--" and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess--"I've +watched him drive his bully's trade under the arcade ever since I +first dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well," he continued, his +indignation subsiding, "all's fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this +gentleman here is under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up your +little party." + +At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and +explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain. + +"I can assure you, sir," said the Count in his best English, "that this +incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you +will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends +here will be happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his +companions." + +Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud +guffaw. + +"Satisfaction?" says he. "Why, my cock, that's very handsome of you, +considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take advantage of +your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on +it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!" he spluttered suddenly, +"decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of yours--" His eye +fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. "Ah, well, we +must all see the Carnival once, I suppose," he said. "All's well that +ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. +Bracknell, if you'll take the reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll +bid adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for the +Hepzibah." + + +The End of A Venetian Night's Entertainment + + + + + +XINGU + +December, 1911 + + +Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as +though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded +the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other +indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four +winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that +the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted +functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated +"Osric Dane," on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to +be present at the next meeting. + +The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger's. The other members, behind +her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede +her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive +setting for the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret +observed, there was always the picture-gallery to fall back on. + +Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded +it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club's distinguished +guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was +of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one +possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth +could afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set +herself. An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, +was, in her opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly +stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep +footmen clearly intended her to maintain an equally specialized staff of +responsibilities. It was the more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, +whose obligations to society were bounded by the narrow scope of two +parlour-maids, should have been so tenacious of the right to entertain +Osric Dane. + +The question of that lady's reception had for a month past profoundly +moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt +themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity +plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the +alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as +Mrs. Leveret were fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the +author of "The Wings of Death," no forebodings of the kind disturbed the +conscious adequacy of Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. +"The Wings of Death" had, in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck's suggestion, been +chosen as the subject of discussion at the last club meeting, and +each member had thus been enabled to express her own opinion or to +appropriate whatever seemed most likely to be of use in the comments +of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had abstained from profiting by the +opportunity thus offered; but it was now openly recognised that, as a +member of the Lunch Club, Mrs. Roby was a failure. "It all comes," as +Miss Van Vluyck put it, "of accepting a woman on a man's estimation." +Mrs. Roby, returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged sojourn in exotic +regions--the other ladies no longer took the trouble to remember +where--had been emphatically commended by the distinguished biologist, +Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had ever met; and the +members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium that carried the weight +of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the Professor's social sympathies +would follow the line of his scientific bent, had seized the chance of +annexing a biological member. Their disillusionment was complete. At +Miss Van Vluyck's first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby +had confusedly murmured: "I know so little about metres--" and after +that painful betrayal of incompetence she had prudently withdrawn from +farther participation in the mental gymnastics of the club. + +"I suppose she flattered him," Miss Van Vluyck summed up--"or else it's +the way she does her hair." + +The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck's dining-room having restricted the +membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one member was +a serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already +been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to live, as it were, on the +intellectual bounty of the others. This feeling was augmented by the +discovery that she had not yet read "The Wings of Death." She owned +to having heard the name of Osric Dane; but that--incredible as it +appeared--was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated +novelist. The ladies could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. +Ballinger, whose pride in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby +in the best possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not +had time to acquaint herself with "The Wings of Death," she must at +least be familiar with its equally remarkable predecessor, "The Supreme +Instant." + +Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, +as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she HAD seen the book +at her brother's, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even +carried it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all +got to shying things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone +overboard, so she had never had the chance-- + +The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby's credit +with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by +Mrs. Plinth's remarking: "I can understand that, with all your other +pursuits, you should not find much time for reading; but I should have +thought you might at least have GOT UP 'The Wings of Death' before Osric +Dane's arrival." + +Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned +to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of +Trollope's that-- + +"No one reads Trollope now," Mrs. Ballinger interrupted impatiently. + +Mrs. Roby looked pained. "I'm only just beginning," she confessed. + +"And does he interest you?" Mrs. Plinth inquired. + +"He amuses me." + +"Amusement," said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, "is hardly what I look for +in my choice of books." + +"Oh, certainly, 'The Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured Mrs. +Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an +obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first +selection does not suit. + +"Was it MEANT to be?" enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking +questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. "Assuredly +not." + +"Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say," assented Mrs. Leveret, +hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. "It was meant +to--to elevate." + +Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black +cap of condemnation. "I hardly see," she interposed, "how a book steeped +in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, however much it may +instruct." + +"I meant, of course, to instruct," said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the +unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be +synonymous. Mrs. Leveret's enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently +marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other +ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes +troubled by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. It was +only the fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved +her from a sense of hopeless inferiority. + +"Do they get married in the end?" Mrs. Roby interposed. + +"They--who?" the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed. + +"Why, the girl and man. It's a novel, isn't it? I always think that's +the one thing that matters. If they're parted it spoils my dinner." + +Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the +latter said: "I should hardly advise you to read 'The Wings of Death,' +in that spirit. For my part, when there are so many books that one HAS +to read, I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely +amusing." + +"The beautiful part of it," Laura Glyde murmured, "is surely just +this--that no one can tell HOW 'The Wings of Death' ends. Osric Dane, +overcome by the dread significance of her own meaning, has mercifully +veiled it--perhaps even from herself--as Apelles, in representing the +sacrifice of Iphigenia, veiled the face of Agamemnon." + +"What's that? Is it poetry?" whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to Mrs. +Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: "You should +look it up. I always make it a point to look things up." Her tone +added--"though I might easily have it done for me by the footman." + +"I was about to say," Miss Van Vluyck resumed, "that it must always be a +question whether a book CAN instruct unless it elevates." + +"Oh--" murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van Vluyck's tone +a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining Osric +Dane; "I don't know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a +book which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any +novel since 'Robert Elsmere.'" + +"Oh, but don't you see," exclaimed Laura Glyde, "that it's just the +dark hopelessness of it all--the wonderful tone-scheme of black on +black--that makes it such an artistic achievement? It reminded me so +when I read it of Prince Rupert's maniere noire... the book is etched, +not painted, yet one feels the colour values so intensely..." + +"Who is HE?" Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. "Some one she's +met abroad?" + +"The wonderful part of the book," Mrs. Ballinger conceded, "is that it +may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of +determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with 'The Data of Ethics.'" + +"I'm told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies +before beginning to write it," said Mrs. Plinth. "She looks up +everything--verifies everything. It has always been my principle, as +you know. Nothing would induce me, now, to put aside a book before I'd +finished it, just because I can buy as many more as I want." + +"And what do YOU think of 'The Wings of Death'?" Mrs. Roby abruptly +asked her. + +It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the +ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a +breach of discipline. They all knew that there was nothing Mrs. Plinth +so much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were +written to read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be +questioned in detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her +as great an outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom +House. The club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth's. +Such opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like +her house, was furnished with monumental "pieces" that were not meant +to be suddenly disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of +the Lunch Club that, within her own province, each member's habits +of thought should be respected. The meeting therefore closed with +an increased sense, on the part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby's +hopeless unfitness to be one of them. + + + + +II + + +Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs. +Ballinger's, her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket. + +It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked +to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of +the turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she +felt herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of +Appropriate Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to +give her any reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled +to meet all the social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion +of Anniversaries, joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran), +of Banquets, social or municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of England +or sectarian, its student need never be at a loss for a pertinent +reference. Mrs. Leveret, though she had for years devoutly conned its +pages, valued it, however, rather for its moral support than for its +practical services; for though in the privacy of her own room she +commanded an army of quotations, these invariably deserted her at the +critical moment, and the only line she retained--CANST THOU DRAW OUT +LEVIATHAN WITH A HOOK?--was one she had never yet found the occasion to +apply. + +To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would +hardly have insured her self-possession; for she thought it probable, +even if she DID, in some miraculous way, remember an Allusion, it would +be only to find that Osric Dane used a different volume (Mrs. Leveret +was convinced that literary people always carried them), and would +consequently not recognise her quotations. + +Mrs. Leveret's sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance +of Mrs. Ballinger's drawing-room. To a careless eye its aspect was +unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs. Ballinger's way of +arranging her books would instantly have detected the marks of recent +perturbation. Mrs. Ballinger's province, as a member of the Lunch Club, +was the Book of the Day. On that, whatever it was, from a novel to +a treatise on experimental psychology, she was confidently, +authoritatively "up." What became of last year's books, or last week's +even; what she did with the "subjects" she had previously professed with +equal authority; no one had ever yet discovered. Her mind was an hotel +where facts came and went like transient lodgers, without leaving their +address behind, and frequently without paying for their board. It was +Mrs. Ballinger's boast that she was "abreast with the Thought of the +Day," and her pride that this advanced position should be expressed by +the books on her drawing-room table. These volumes, frequently renewed, +and almost always damp from the press, bore names generally unfamiliar +to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she furtively scanned them, a +disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge to be breathlessly +traversed in Mrs. Ballinger's wake. But to-day a number of +maturer-looking volumes were adroitly mingled with the primeurs of the +press--Karl Marx jostled Professor Bergson, and the "Confessions of St. +Augustine" lay beside the last work on "Mendelism"; so that even to Mrs. +Leveret's fluttered perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger didn't +in the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had +taken measures to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt like a +passenger on an ocean steamer who is told that there is no immediate +danger, but that she had better put on her life-belt. + +It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van Vluyck's +arrival. + +"Well, my dear," the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, "what subjects +are we to discuss to-day?" + +Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy +of Verlaine. "I hardly know," she said somewhat nervously. "Perhaps we +had better leave that to circumstances." + +"Circumstances?" said Miss Van Vluyck drily. "That means, I suppose, +that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we shall be deluged +with literature." + +Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck's province, and she +naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest's attention from +these topics. + +Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared. + +"Literature?" she protested in a tone of remonstrance. "But this is +perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane's +novel." + +Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. "We can +hardly make that our chief subject--at least not TOO intentionally," she +suggested. "Of course we can let our talk DRIFT in that direction; but +we ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is what +I wanted to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of Osric +Dane's tastes and interests that it is difficult to make any special +preparation." + +"It may be difficult," said Mrs. Plinth with decision, "but it is +absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle +leads to. As I told one of my nieces the other day, there are certain +emergencies for which a lady should always be prepared. It's in shocking +taste to wear colours when one pays a visit of condolence, or a last +year's dress when there are reports that one's husband is on the wrong +side of the market; and so it is with conversation. All I ask is that I +should know beforehand what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of +being able to say the proper thing." + +"I quite agree with you," Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented; "but--" + +And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid, Osric Dane +appeared upon the threshold. + +Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a glance +what was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them +half way. That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of +compulsion not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality. +She looked as though she were about to be photographed for a new edition +of her books. + +The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its +responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane's +entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club's eagerness to please her. Any +lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to +her entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret +said afterward to her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made +you feel as if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence +of greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a +shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their hostess led +the great personage into the dining-room, turned back to whisper to the +others: "What a brute she is!" + +The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict. It was +passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Ballinger's menu, +and by the members of the Club in the emission of tentative platitudes +which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive +courses of the luncheon. + +Mrs. Ballinger's deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown the +Club into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the +drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each +lady waited for the other to speak; and there was a general shock +of disappointment when their hostess opened the conversation by the +painfully commonplace inquiry: "Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?" + +Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; and a +vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: "It is a very +small place indeed." + +Mrs. Plinth bristled. "We have a great many representative people," she +said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order. + +Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. "What do they represent?" she +asked. + +Mrs. Plinth's constitutional dislike to being questioned was intensified +by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful glance passed the +question on to Mrs. Ballinger. + +"Why," said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, "as a +community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture." + +"For art--" Miss Glyde eagerly interjected. + +"For art and literature," Mrs. Ballinger emended. + +"And for sociology, I trust," snapped Miss Van Vluyck. + +"We have a standard," said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly secure +on the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret, thinking +there must be room for more than one on so broad a statement, took +courage to murmur: "Oh, certainly; we have a standard." + +"The object of our little club," Mrs. Ballinger continued, "is to +concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge--to centralise and +focus its complex intellectual effort." + +This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible +breath of relief. + +"We aspire," the President went on, "to stand for what is highest in +art, literature and ethics." + +Osric Dane again turned to her. "What ethics?" she asked. + +A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies required +any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; but when they +were called ethics it was different. The club, when fresh from +the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," the "Reader's Handbook" or Smith's +"Classical Dictionary," could deal confidently with any subject; but +when taken unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy +of the Early Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; +and such minor members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as +something vaguely pagan. + +Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane's question was unsettling, and there +was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned forward to say, +with her most sympathetic accent: "You must excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for +not being able, just at present, to talk of anything but 'The Wings of +Death.'" + +"Yes," said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the war into +the enemy's camp. "We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had +in mind in writing your wonderful book." + +"You will find," Mrs. Plinth interposed, "that we are not superficial +readers." + +"We are eager to hear from you," Miss Van Vluyck continued, "if +the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own +convictions or--" + +"Or merely," Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, "a sombre background brushed +in to throw your figures into more vivid relief. ARE you not primarily +plastic?" + +"I have always maintained," Mrs. Ballinger interposed, "that you +represent the purely objective method--" + +Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. "How do you define +objective?" she then inquired. + +There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: "In +reading YOU we don't define, we feel." + +Osric Dane smiled. "The cerebellum," she remarked, "is not infrequently +the seat of the literary emotions." And she took a second lump of sugar. + +The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost +neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical +language. + +"Ah, the cerebellum," said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. "The Club took +a course in psychology last winter." + +"Which psychology?" asked Osric Dane. + +There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the Club +secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. +Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger +said, with an attempt at a high tone: "Well, really, you know, it was +last year that we took psychology, and this winter we have been so +absorbed in--" + +She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club's +discussions; but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the petrifying +stare of Osric Dane. What HAD the club been absorbed in lately? Mrs. +Ballinger, with a vague purpose of gaining time, repeated slowly: "We've +been so intensely absorbed in--" + +Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a +smile. + +"In Xingu?" she gently prompted. + +A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused +glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief +and interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The expression of each +denoted a different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first +to compose her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment's hasty +adjustment her look almost implied that it was she who had given the +word to Mrs. Ballinger. + +"Xingu, of course!" exclaimed the latter with her accustomed promptness, +while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be plumbing the depths +of memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling apprehensively for Appropriate +Allusions, was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its +bulk against her person. + +Osric Dane's change of countenance was no less striking than that of +her entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a look of +distinct annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment, what Mrs. Roby +afterward described as the look of feeling for something in the back +of her head; and before she could dissemble these momentary signs of +weakness, Mrs. Roby, turning to her with a deferential smile, had said: +"And we've been so hoping that to-day you would tell us just what you +think of it." + +Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of course; but +the accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, and it became clear +to her observers that she was not quick at shifting her facial scenery. +It was as though her countenance had so long been set in an expression +of unchallenged superiority that the muscles had stiffened, and refused +to obey her orders. + +"Xingu--" she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time. + +Mrs. Roby continued to press her. "Knowing how engrossing the subject +is, you will understand how it happens that the Club has let everything +else go to the wall for the moment. Since we took up Xingu I might +almost say--were it not for your books--that nothing else seems to us +worth remembering." + +Osric Dane's stern features were darkened rather than lit up by an +uneasy smile. "I am glad to hear there is one exception," she gave out +between narrowed lips. + +"Oh, of course," Mrs. Roby said prettily; "but as you have shown us +that--so very naturally!--you don't care to talk about your own things, +we really can't let you off from telling us exactly what you think about +Xingu; especially," she added, with a persuasive smile, "as some people +say that one of your last books was simply saturated with it." + +It was an IT, then--the assurance sped like fire through the parched +minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least +little clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at the +discomfiture of Mrs. Dane. + +The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist's direct assault. +"May I ask," she faltered out in an embarrassed tone, "to which of my +books you refer?" + +Mrs. Roby did not falter. "That's just what I want you to tell us; +because, though I was present, I didn't actually take part." + +"Present at what?" Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the +trembling members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion Providence +had raised up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained herself +gaily: "At the discussion, of course. And so we're dreadfully anxious to +know just how it was that you went into the Xingu." + +There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable dangers +that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips, like +soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their +leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying +sharply: "Ah--you say THE Xingu, do you?" + +Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. "It IS a shade pedantic, isn't it? +Personally, I always drop the article; but I don't know how the other +members feel about it." + +The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed +with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a +bright glance about the group, went on: "They probably think, as I do, +that nothing really matters except the thing itself--except Xingu." + +No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger +gathered courage to say: "Surely every one must feel that about Xingu." + +Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and Laura +Glyde breathed emotionally: "I have known cases where it has changed a +whole life." + +"It has done me worlds of good," Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming +to herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it in the +winter before. + +"Of course," Mrs. Roby admitted, "the difficulty is that one must give +up so much time to it. It's very long." + +"I can't imagine," said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, "grudging the time given +to such a subject." + +"And deep in places," Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) "And +it isn't easy to skip." + +"I never skip," said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically. + +"Ah, it's dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places +where one can't. One must just wade through." + +"I should hardly call it WADING," said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically. + +Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. "Ah--you always found it went +swimmingly?" + +Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. "Of course there are difficult passages," she +conceded modestly. + +"Yes; some are not at all clear--even," Mrs. Roby added, "if one is +familiar with the original." + +"As I suppose you are?" Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with +a look of challenge. + +Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. "Oh, it's really not difficult +up to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little +known, and it's almost impossible to get at the source." + +"Have you ever tried?" Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of Mrs. +Roby's thoroughness. + +Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered lids: +"No--but a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he told me it +was best for women--not to..." + +A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the +parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; Miss Van +Vluyck's face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. Plinth looked as +if she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the most +remarkable result of Mrs. Roby's words was the effect they produced on +the Lunch Club's distinguished guest. Osric Dane's impassive features +suddenly melted to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and +edging her chair toward Mrs. Roby's she asked: "Did he really? And--did +you find he was right?" + +Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby's unwonted assumption +of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had +rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, +to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough +self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby's flippancy, at least the Lunch Club +would do so in the person of its President. + +Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby's arm. "We must not forget," +she said with a frigid amiability, "that absorbing as Xingu is to US, it +may be less interesting to--" + +"Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you," Osric Dane energetically +intervened. + +"--to others," Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; "and we must not allow +our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to say a few +words to us on a subject which, to-day, is much more present in all our +thoughts. I refer, of course, to 'The Wings of Death.'" + +The other members, animated by various degrees of the same sentiment, +and encouraged by the humanised mien of their redoubtable guest, +repeated after Mrs. Ballinger: "Oh, yes, you really MUST talk to us a +little about your book." + +Osric Dane's expression became as bored, though not as haughty, as when +her work had been previously mentioned. But before she could respond +to Mrs. Ballinger's request, Mrs. Roby had risen from her seat, and was +pulling her veil down over her frivolous nose. + +"I'm so sorry," she said, advancing toward her hostess with outstretched +hand, "but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I'd better run away. +Unluckily, as you know, I haven't read her books, so I should be at a +terrible disadvantage among you all; and besides, I've an engagement to +play bridge." + +If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane's works as +a reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her recent prowess, +might have approved such evidence of discretion; but to couple this +excuse with the brazen announcement that she was foregoing the privilege +for the purpose of joining a bridge-party, was only one more instance of +her deplorable lack of discrimination. + +The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure--now +that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely to render +them--would probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending +discussion, besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which +her presence always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore +restricted herself to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members +were just grouping themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the +latter, to their dismay, started up from the sofa on which she had been +deferentially enthroned. + +"Oh wait--do wait, and I'll go with you!" she called out to Mrs. Roby; +and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she administered +a series of farewell pressures with the mechanical haste of a +railway-conductor punching tickets. + +"I'm so sorry--I'd quite forgotten--" she flung back at them from the +threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in surprise at +her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of hearing her say, +in a voice which she did not take the pains to lower: "If you'll let +me walk a little way with you, I should so like to ask you a few more +questions about Xingu..." + + + + +III + + +The incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the departing +pair before the other members had had time to understand what was +happening. Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane's +unceremonious desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that +they had been cheated out of their due without exactly knowing how or +why. + +There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a +perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which +her distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck +tartly pronounced: "Well, I can't say that I consider Osric Dane's +departure a great loss." + +This confession crystallised the fluid resentment of the other members, +and Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: "I do believe she came on purpose to be +nasty!" + +It was Mrs. Plinth's private opinion that Osric Dane's attitude toward +the Lunch Club might have been very different had it welcomed her in the +majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; but not liking to reflect +on the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger's establishment she sought a +round-about satisfaction in depreciating her savoir faire. + +"I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. It's +what always happens when you're unprepared. Now if we'd only got up +Xingu--" + +The slowness of Mrs. Plinth's mental processes was always allowed for +by the Club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. Ballinger's +equanimity. + +"Xingu!" she scoffed. "Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more +about it than she did--unprepared though we were--that made Osric Dane +so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody!" + +This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an +impulse of generosity, said: "Yes, we really ought to be grateful +to Mrs. Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane +furious, but at least it made her civil." + +"I am glad we were able to show her," added Miss Van Vluyck, "that a +broad and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great intellectual +centres." + +This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they began +to forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of having +contributed to her defeat. + +Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. "What surprised me +most," she continued, "was that Fanny Roby should be so up on Xingu." + +This frank admission threw a slight chill on the company, but Mrs. +Ballinger said with an air of indulgent irony: "Mrs. Roby always has the +knack of making a little go a long way; still, we certainly owe her a +debt for happening to remember that she'd heard of Xingu." And this was +felt by the other members to be a graceful way of cancelling once for +all the Club's obligation to Mrs. Roby. + +Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony: "I fancy +Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at Hillbridge!" + +Mrs. Ballinger smiled. "When she asked me what we represented--do you +remember?--I wish I'd simply said we represented Xingu!" + +All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs. Plinth, +who said, after a moment's deliberation: "I'm not sure it would have +been wise to do so." + +Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had +launched at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, looked +ironically at Mrs. Plinth. "May I ask why?" she enquired. + +Mrs. Plinth looked grave. "Surely," she said, "I understood from Mrs. +Roby herself that the subject was one it was as well not to go into too +deeply?" + +Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: "I think that applied only to +an investigation of the origin of the--of the--"; and suddenly she found +that her usually accurate memory had failed her. "It's a part of the +subject I never studied myself," she concluded lamely. + +"Nor I," said Mrs. Ballinger. + +Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. "And yet it +seems--doesn't it?--the part that is fullest of an esoteric +fascination?" + +"I don't know on what you base that," said Miss Van Vluyck +argumentatively. + +"Well, didn't you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane became +as soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner--he WAS a foreigner, +wasn't he?--had told Mrs. Roby about the origin--the origin of the +rite--or whatever you call it?" + +Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly wavered. +Then she said in a decisive tone: "It may not be desirable to touch on +the--on that part of the subject in general conversation; but, from the +importance it evidently has to a woman of Osric Dane's distinction, +I feel as if we ought not to be afraid to discuss it among +ourselves--without gloves--though with closed doors, if necessary." + +"I'm quite of your opinion," Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her +support; "on condition, that is, that all grossness of language is +avoided." + +"Oh, I'm sure we shall understand without that," Mrs. Leveret tittered; +and Laura Glyde added significantly: "I fancy we can read between the +lines," while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors were +really closed. + +Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. "I hardly see," she +began, "what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar +customs--" + +But Mrs. Ballinger's patience had reached the extreme limit of tension. +"This at least," she returned; "that we shall not be placed again in the +humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects +than Fanny Roby!" + +Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered furtively +about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: "Have you got a +copy?" + +"A--a copy?" stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the other +members were looking at her expectantly, and that this answer was +inadequate, so she supported it by asking another question. "A copy of +what?" + +Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in turn, +appeared less sure of herself than usual. "Why, of--of--the book," she +explained. + +"What book?" snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric Dane. + +Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were interrogatively +fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being deferred to was so new to +the latter that it filled her with an insane temerity. "Why, Xingu, of +course!" she exclaimed. + +A profound silence followed this direct challenge to the resources +of Mrs. Ballinger's library, and the latter, after glancing nervously +toward the Books of the Day, returned in a deprecating voice: "It's not +a thing one cares to leave about." + +"I should think NOT!" exclaimed Mrs. Plinth. + +"It IS a book, then?" said Miss Van Vluyck. + +This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, with an +impatient sigh, rejoined: "Why--there IS a book--naturally..." + +"Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?" + +Laura Glyde started up. "A religion? I never--" + +"Yes, you did," Miss Van Vluyck insisted; "you spoke of rites; and Mrs. +Plinth said it was a custom." + +Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce her +statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length +she began in a deep murmur: "Surely they used to do something of the +kind at the Eleusinian mysteries--" + +"Oh--" said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and Mrs. +Plinth protested: "I understood there was to be no indelicacy!" + +Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. "Really, it is too +bad that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among +ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all--" + +"Oh, so do I!" cried Miss Glyde. + +"And I don't see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up +with the Thought of the Day--" + +Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. "There--that's it!" she +interposed. + +"What's it?" the President curtly took her up. + +"Why--it's a--a Thought: I mean a philosophy." + +This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura Glyde, +but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: "Excuse me if I tell you that +you're all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language." + +"A language!" the Lunch Club cried. + +"Certainly. Don't you remember Fanny Roby's saying that there were +several branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that +apply to but dialects?" + +Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. "Really, +if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny +Roby for instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease +to exist!" + +"It's really her fault for not being clearer," Laura Glyde put in. + +"Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!" Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. "I daresay we +shall find she was mistaken on almost every point." + +"Why not look it up?" said Mrs. Plinth. + +As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth's was ignored in the +heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the privacy of +each member's home. But on the present occasion the desire to ascribe +their own confusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature of +Mrs. Roby's statements caused the members of the Lunch Club to utter a +collective demand for a book of reference. + +At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. Leveret, +for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the centre front; but +she was not able to hold it long, for Appropriate Allusions contained no +mention of Xingu. + +"Oh, that's not the kind of thing we want!" exclaimed Miss Van Vluyck. +She cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger's assortment of +literature, and added impatiently: "Haven't you any useful books?" + +"Of course I have," replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; "but I keep them +in my husband's dressing-room." + +From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour-maid +produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in deference to the +fact that the demand for it had come from Miss Van Vluyck, laid the +ponderous tome before her. + +There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck rubbed her +spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a murmur of surprise +when she said: "It isn't here." + +"I suppose," said Mrs. Plinth, "it's not fit to be put in a book of +reference." + +"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. "Try X." + +Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short-sightedly +up and down the pages, till she came to a stop and remained motionless, +like a dog on a point. + +"Well, have you found it?" Mrs. Ballinger enquired, after a considerable +delay. + +"Yes. I've found it," said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice. + +Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: "I beg you won't read it aloud if +there's anything offensive." + +Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny. + +"Well, what IS it?" exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly. + +"DO tell us!" urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have something +awful to tell her sister. + +Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the +expectant group. + +"It's a river." + +"A RIVER?" + +"Yes: in Brazil. Isn't that where she's been living?" + +"Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You've been reading the +wrong thing," Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the +volume. + +"It's the only XINGU in the Encyclopaedia; and she HAS been living in +Brazil," Miss Van Vluyck persisted. + +"Yes: her brother has a consulship there," Mrs. Leveret eagerly +interposed. + +"But it's too ridiculous! I--we--why we ALL remember studying Xingu last +year--or the year before last," Mrs. Ballinger stammered. + +"I thought I did when YOU said so," Laura Glyde avowed. + +"I said so?" cried Mrs. Ballinger. + +"Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind." + +"Well, YOU said it had changed your whole life!" + +"For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time +she'd given it." + +Mrs. Plinth interposed: "I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of +the original." + +Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. "Oh, what does it +all matter if she's been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck's +right--she was talking of the river all the while!" + +"How could she? It's too preposterous," Miss Glyde exclaimed. + +"Listen." Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia, +and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. "'The +Xingu, one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of +Mato Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less +than one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon +near the mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is +auriferous and fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered +in 1884 by the German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and +dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the +Stone Age of culture.'" + +The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence +from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. "She certainly DID speak +of its having branches." + +The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. "And of +its great length," gasped Mrs. Ballinger. + +"She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn't skip--you just had to +wade through," Miss Glyde subjoined. + +The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth's compact +resistances. "How could there be anything improper about a river?" she +inquired. + +"Improper?" + +"Why, what she said about the source--that it was corrupt?" + +"Not corrupt, but hard to get at," Laura Glyde corrected. "Some +one who'd been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer +himself--doesn't it say the expedition was dangerous?" + +"'Difficult and dangerous,'" read Miss Van Vluyck. + +Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. "There's +nothing she said that wouldn't apply to a river--to this river!" She +swung about excitedly to the other members. "Why, do you remember her +telling us that she hadn't read 'The Supreme Instant' because she'd +taken it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother, +and some one had 'shied' it overboard--'shied' of course was her own +expression?" + +The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped +them. + +"Well--and then didn't she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was +simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of Mrs. Roby's +rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!" + +This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just +participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length +Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy +tone: "Osric Dane was taken in too." + +Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. "Perhaps that's what Mrs. Roby did +it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give +her a lesson." + +Miss Van Vluyck frowned. "It was hardly worth while to do it at our +expense." + +"At least," said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, "she succeeded +in interesting her, which was more than we did." + +"What chance had we?" rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. "Mrs. Roby monopolised +her from the first. And THAT, I've no doubt, was her purpose--to give +Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would +hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in +poor Professor Foreland." + +"She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday," Mrs. Leveret +piped up. + +Laura Glyde struck her hands together. "Why, this is Thursday, and it's +THERE she's gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!" + +"And they're shrieking over us at this moment," said Mrs. Ballinger +between her teeth. + +This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. "She would +hardly dare," said Miss Van Vluyck, "confess the imposture to Osric +Dane." + +"I'm not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she +hadn't made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?" + +"Well, you know, we'd all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and +she said she wanted to find out more about it," Mrs. Leveret said, with +a tardy impulse of justice to the absent. + +This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave +it a stronger impetus. + +"Yes--and that's exactly what they're both laughing over now," said +Laura Glyde ironically. + +Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her +monumental form. "I have no wish to criticise," she said; "but unless +the Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of +such--such unbecoming scenes, I for one--" + +"Oh, so do I!" agreed Miss Glyde, rising also. + +Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button herself +into her jacket. "My time is really too valuable--" she began. + +"I fancy we are all of one mind," said Mrs. Ballinger, looking +searchingly at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others. + +"I always deprecate anything like a scandal--" Mrs. Plinth continued. + +"She has been the cause of one to-day!" exclaimed Miss Glyde. + +Mrs. Leveret moaned: "I don't see how she COULD!" and Miss Van Vluyck +said, picking up her note-book: "Some women stop at nothing." + +"--but if," Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, "anything +of the kind had happened in MY house" (it never would have, her tone +implied), "I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for +Mrs. Roby's resignation--or to offer mine." + +"Oh, Mrs. Plinth--" gasped the Lunch Club. + +"Fortunately for me," Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity, +"the matter was taken out of my hands by our President's decision that +the right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in +her office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was +alone in this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way +of effacing its--its really deplorable consequences." + +A deep silence followed this unexpected outbreak of Mrs. Plinth's +long-stored resentment. + +"I don't see why I should be expected to ask her to resign--" Mrs. +Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her: +"You know she made you say that you'd got on swimmingly in Xingu." + +An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger +energetically continued "--but you needn't think for a moment that I'm +afraid to!" + +The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the +Lunch Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating +herself at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of "The Wings +of Death" to make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club's +note-paper, on which she began to write: "My dear Mrs. Roby--" + + +The End of Xingu + + + + + +THE VERDICT + +June 1908 + + +I had always thought Jack Gisburn rather a cheap genius--though a good +fellow enough--so it was no great surprise to me to hear that, in the +height of his glory, he had dropped his painting, married a rich widow, +and established himself in a villa on the Riviera. (Though I rather +thought it would have been Rome or Florence.) + +"The height of his glory"--that was what the women called it. I can hear +Mrs. Gideon Thwing--his last Chicago sitter--deploring his unaccountable +abdication. "Of course it's going to send the value of my picture 'way +up; but I don't think of that, Mr. Rickham--the loss to Arrt is all I +think of." The word, on Mrs. Thwing's lips, multiplied its RS as though +they were reflected in an endless vista of mirrors. And it was not only +the Mrs. Thwings who mourned. Had not the exquisite Hermia Croft, at the +last Grafton Gallery show, stopped me before Gisburn's "Moon-dancers" to +say, with tears in her eyes: "We shall not look upon its like again"? + +Well!--even through the prism of Hermia's tears I felt able to face the +fact with equanimity. Poor Jack Gisburn! The women had made him--it was +fitting that they should mourn him. Among his own sex fewer regrets +were heard, and in his own trade hardly a murmur. Professional jealousy? +Perhaps. If it were, the honour of the craft was vindicated by little +Claude Nutley, who, in all good faith, brought out in the Burlington a +very handsome "obituary" on Jack--one of those showy articles stocked +with random technicalities that I have heard (I won't say by whom) +compared to Gisburn's painting. And so--his resolve being apparently +irrevocable--the discussion gradually died out, and, as Mrs. Thwing had +predicted, the price of "Gisburns" went up. + +It was not till three years later that, in the course of a few weeks' +idling on the Riviera, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Gisburn +had given up his painting. On reflection, it really was a tempting +problem. To accuse his wife would have been too easy--his fair sitters +had been denied the solace of saying that Mrs. Gisburn had "dragged him +down." For Mrs. Gisburn--as such--had not existed till nearly a year +after Jack's resolve had been taken. It might be that he had married +her--since he liked his ease--because he didn't want to go on painting; +but it would have been hard to prove that he had given up his painting +because he had married her. + +Of course, if she had not dragged him down, she had equally, as Miss +Croft contended, failed to "lift him up"--she had not led him back to +the easel. To put the brush into his hand again--what a vocation for +a wife! But Mrs. Gisburn appeared to have disdained it--and I felt it +might be interesting to find out why. + +The desultory life of the Riviera lends itself to such purely academic +speculations; and having, on my way to Monte Carlo, caught a glimpse +of Jack's balustraded terraces between the pines, I had myself borne +thither the next day. + +I found the couple at tea beneath their palm-trees; and Mrs. Gisburn's +welcome was so genial that, in the ensuing weeks, I claimed it +frequently. It was not that my hostess was "interesting": on that point +I could have given Miss Croft the fullest reassurance. It was just +because she was NOT interesting--if I may be pardoned the bull--that I +found her so. For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by interesting +women: they had fostered his art, it had been reared in the hot-house +of their adulation. And it was therefore instructive to note what effect +the "deadening atmosphere of mediocrity" (I quote Miss Croft) was having +on him. + +I have mentioned that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was immediately +perceptible that her husband was extracting from this circumstance a +delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as a rule, the people who +scorn money who get most out of it; and Jack's elegant disdain of +his wife's big balance enabled him, with an appearance of perfect +good-breeding, to transmute it into objects of art and luxury. To the +latter, I must add, he remained relatively indifferent; but he was +buying Renaissance bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures with a +discrimination that bespoke the amplest resources. + +"Money's only excuse is to put beauty into circulation," was one of +the axioms he laid down across the Sevres and silver of an exquisitely +appointed luncheon-table, when, on a later day, I had again run over +from Monte Carlo; and Mrs. Gisburn, beaming on him, added for my +enlightenment: "Jack is so morbidly sensitive to every form of beauty." + +Poor Jack! It had always been his fate to have women say such things of +him: the fact should be set down in extenuation. What struck me now +was that, for the first time, he resented the tone. I had seen him, so +often, basking under similar tributes--was it the conjugal note that +robbed them of their savour? No--for, oddly enough, it became apparent +that he was fond of Mrs. Gisburn--fond enough not to see her absurdity. +It was his own absurdity he seemed to be wincing under--his own attitude +as an object for garlands and incense. + +"My dear, since I've chucked painting people don't say that stuff about +me--they say it about Victor Grindle," was his only protest, as he rose +from the table and strolled out onto the sunlit terrace. + +I glanced after him, struck by his last word. Victor Grindle was, in +fact, becoming the man of the moment--as Jack himself, one might put it, +had been the man of the hour. The younger artist was said to have formed +himself at my friend's feet, and I wondered if a tinge of jealousy +underlay the latter's mysterious abdication. But no--for it was not +till after that event that the rose Dubarry drawing-rooms had begun to +display their "Grindles." + +I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of sugar to +her spaniel in the dining-room. + +"Why HAS he chucked painting?" I asked abruptly. + +She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise. + +"Oh, he doesn't HAVE to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy himself," +she said quite simply. + +I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its famille-verte +vases repeating the tones of the pale damask curtains, and its +eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded frames. + +"Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven't seen a single one in the +house." + +A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn's open countenance. +"It's his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says they're not fit to have +about; he's sent them all away except one--my portrait--and that I have +to keep upstairs." + +His ridiculous modesty--Jack's modesty about his pictures? My curiosity +was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively to my hostess: "I +must really see your portrait, you know." + +She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her husband, +lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn the Russian +deerhound's head between his knees. + +"Well, come while he's not looking," she said, with a laugh that tried +to hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the marble Emperors +of the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra-cotta nymphs poised among +flowers at each landing. + +In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of delicate and +distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval canvases, in the +inevitable garlanded frame. The mere outline of the frame called up all +Gisburn's past! + +Mrs. Gisburn drew back the window-curtains, moved aside a jardiniere +full of pink azaleas, pushed an arm-chair away, and said: "If you stand +here you can just manage to see it. I had it over the mantel-piece, but +he wouldn't let it stay." + +Yes--I could just manage to see it--the first portrait of Jack's I +had ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the place +of honour--say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose Dubarry +drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it took the light +through curtains of old Venetian point. The more modest place became the +picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, all +the characteristic qualities came out--all the hesitations disguised +as audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with such +consummate skill, he managed to divert attention from the real business +of the picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, +presenting a neutral surface to work on--forming, as it were, so +inevitably the background of her own picture--had lent herself in an +unusual degree to the display of this false virtuosity. The picture +was one of Jack's "strongest," as his admirers would have put it--it +represented, on his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of +veins, a balancing, straddling and straining, that reminded one of the +circus-clown's ironic efforts to lift a feather. It met, in short, at +every point the demand of lovely woman to be painted "strongly" because +she was tired of being painted "sweetly"--and yet not to lose an atom of +the sweetness. + +"It's the last he painted, you know," Mrs. Gisburn said with pardonable +pride. "The last but one," she corrected herself--"but the other doesn't +count, because he destroyed it." + +"Destroyed it?" I was about to follow up this clue when I heard a +footstep and saw Jack himself on the threshold. + +As he stood there, his hands in the pockets of his velveteen coat, the +thin brown waves of hair pushed back from his white forehead, his +lean sunburnt cheeks furrowed by a smile that lifted the tips of a +self-confident moustache, I felt to what a degree he had the same +quality as his pictures--the quality of looking cleverer than he was. + +His wife glanced at him deprecatingly, but his eyes travelled past her +to the portrait. + +"Mr. Rickham wanted to see it," she began, as if excusing herself. He +shrugged his shoulders, still smiling. + +"Oh, Rickham found me out long ago," he said lightly; then, passing his +arm through mine: "Come and see the rest of the house." + +He showed it to me with a kind of naive suburban pride: the bath-rooms, +the speaking-tubes, the dress-closets, the trouser-presses--all the +complex simplifications of the millionaire's domestic economy. And +whenever my wonder paid the expected tribute he said, throwing out +his chest a little: "Yes, I really don't see how people manage to live +without that." + +Well--it was just the end one might have foreseen for him. Only he was, +through it all and in spite of it all--as he had been through, and in +spite of, his pictures--so handsome, so charming, so disarming, that one +longed to cry out: "Be dissatisfied with your leisure!" as once one had +longed to say: "Be dissatisfied with your work!" + +But, with the cry on my lips, my diagnosis suffered an unexpected check. + +"This is my own lair," he said, leading me into a dark plain room at +the end of the florid vista. It was square and brown and leathery: no +"effects"; no bric-a-brac, none of the air of posing for reproduction in +a picture weekly--above all, no least sign of ever having been used as a +studio. + +The fact brought home to me the absolute finality of Jack's break with +his old life. + +"Don't you ever dabble with paint any more?" I asked, still looking +about for a trace of such activity. + +"Never," he said briefly. + +"Or water-colour--or etching?" + +His confident eyes grew dim, and his cheeks paled a little under their +handsome sunburn. + +"Never think of it, my dear fellow--any more than if I'd never touched a +brush." + +And his tone told me in a flash that he never thought of anything else. + +I moved away, instinctively embarrassed by my unexpected discovery; and +as I turned, my eye fell on a small picture above the mantel-piece--the +only object breaking the plain oak panelling of the room. + +"Oh, by Jove!" I said. + +It was a sketch of a donkey--an old tired donkey, standing in the rain +under a wall. + +"By Jove--a Stroud!" I cried. + +He was silent; but I felt him close behind me, breathing a little +quickly. + +"What a wonder! Made with a dozen lines--but on everlasting foundations. +You lucky chap, where did you get it?" + +He answered slowly: "Mrs. Stroud gave it to me." + +"Ah--I didn't know you even knew the Strouds. He was such an inflexible +hermit." + +"I didn't--till after.... She sent for me to paint him when he was +dead." + +"When he was dead? You?" + +I must have let a little too much amazement escape through my surprise, +for he answered with a deprecating laugh: "Yes--she's an awful +simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by +a fashionable painter--ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way +of proclaiming his greatness--of forcing it on a purblind public. And at +the moment I was THE fashionable painter." + +"Ah, poor Stroud--as you say. Was THAT his history?" + +"That was his history. She believed in him, gloried in him--or thought +she did. But she couldn't bear not to have all the drawing-rooms with +her. She couldn't bear the fact that, on varnishing days, one could +always get near enough to see his pictures. Poor woman! She's just a +fragment groping for other fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever +knew." + +"You ever knew? But you just said--" + +Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes. + +"Oh, I knew him, and he knew me--only it happened after he was dead." + +I dropped my voice instinctively. "When she sent for you?" + +"Yes--quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated--and by +me!" + +He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch +of the donkey. "There were days when I couldn't look at that +thing--couldn't face it. But I forced myself to put it here; and now +it's cured me--cured me. That's the reason why I don't dabble any more, +my dear Rickham; or rather Stroud himself is the reason." + +For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned into a +serious desire to understand him better. + +"I wish you'd tell me how it happened," I said. + +He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his fingers a +cigarette he had forgotten to light. Suddenly he turned toward me. + +"I'd rather like to tell you--because I've always suspected you of +loathing my work." + +I made a deprecating gesture, which he negatived with a good-humoured +shrug. + +"Oh, I didn't care a straw when I believed in myself--and now it's an +added tie between us!" + +He laughed slightly, without bitterness, and pushed one of the deep +arm-chairs forward. "There: make yourself comfortable--and here are the +cigars you like." + +He placed them at my elbow and continued to wander up and down the room, +stopping now and then beneath the picture. + +"How it happened? I can tell you in five minutes--and it didn't take +much longer to happen.... I can remember now how surprised and pleased +I was when I got Mrs. Stroud's note. Of course, deep down, I had always +FELT there was no one like him--only I had gone with the stream, echoed +the usual platitudes about him, till I half got to think he was a +failure, one of the kind that are left behind. By Jove, and he WAS left +behind--because he had come to stay! The rest of us had to let ourselves +be swept along or go under, but he was high above the current--on +everlasting foundations, as you say. + +"Well, I went off to the house in my most egregious mood--rather moved, +Lord forgive me, at the pathos of poor Stroud's career of failure being +crowned by the glory of my painting him! Of course I meant to do the +picture for nothing--I told Mrs. Stroud so when she began to stammer +something about her poverty. I remember getting off a prodigious phrase +about the honour being MINE--oh, I was princely, my dear Rickham! I was +posing to myself like one of my own sitters. + +"Then I was taken up and left alone with him. I had sent all my traps in +advance, and I had only to set up the easel and get to work. He had been +dead only twenty-four hours, and he died suddenly, of heart disease, +so that there had been no preliminary work of destruction--his face +was clear and untouched. I had met him once or twice, years before, and +thought him insignificant and dingy. Now I saw that he was superb. + +"I was glad at first, with a merely aesthetic satisfaction: glad to have +my hand on such a 'subject.' Then his strange life-likeness began +to affect me queerly--as I blocked the head in I felt as if he were +watching me do it. The sensation was followed by the thought: if he WERE +watching me, what would he say to my way of working? My strokes began to +go a little wild--I felt nervous and uncertain. + +"Once, when I looked up, I seemed to see a smile behind his close +grayish beard--as if he had the secret, and were amusing himself by +holding it back from me. That exasperated me still more. The secret? +Why, I had a secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at the canvas +furiously, and tried some of my bravura tricks. But they failed me, +they crumbled. I saw that he wasn't watching the showy bits--I couldn't +distract his attention; he just kept his eyes on the hard passages +between. Those were the ones I had always shirked, or covered up with +some lying paint. And how he saw through my lies! + +"I looked up again, and caught sight of that sketch of the donkey +hanging on the wall near his bed. His wife told me afterward it was the +last thing he had done--just a note taken with a shaking hand, when he +was down in Devonshire recovering from a previous heart attack. Just +a note! But it tells his whole history. There are years of patient +scornful persistence in every line. A man who had swum with the current +could never have learned that mighty up-stream stroke.... + +"I turned back to my work, and went on groping and muddling; then I +looked at the donkey again. I saw that, when Stroud laid in the first +stroke, he knew just what the end would be. He had possessed his +subject, absorbed it, recreated it. When had I done that with any of my +things? They hadn't been born of me--I had just adopted them.... + +"Hang it, Rickham, with that face watching me I couldn't do another +stroke. The plain truth was, I didn't know where to put it--I HAD NEVER +KNOWN. Only, with my sitters and my public, a showy splash of colour +covered up the fact--I just threw paint into their faces.... Well, paint +was the one medium those dead eyes could see through--see straight to +the tottering foundations underneath. Don't you know how, in talking +a foreign language, even fluently, one says half the time not what one +wants to but what one can? Well--that was the way I painted; and as he +lay there and watched me, the thing they called my 'technique' collapsed +like a house of cards. He didn't sneer, you understand, poor Stroud--he +just lay there quietly watching, and on his lips, through the gray +beard, I seemed to hear the question: 'Are you sure you know where +you're coming out?' + +"If I could have painted that face, with that question on it, I should +have done a great thing. The next greatest thing was to see that I +couldn't--and that grace was given me. But, oh, at that minute, Rickham, +was there anything on earth I wouldn't have given to have Stroud alive +before me, and to hear him say: 'It's not too late--I'll show you how'? + +"It WAS too late--it would have been, even if he'd been alive. I packed +up my traps, and went down and told Mrs. Stroud. Of course I didn't +tell her THAT--it would have been Greek to her. I simply said I couldn't +paint him, that I was too moved. She rather liked the idea--she's so +romantic! It was that that made her give me the donkey. But she was +terribly upset at not getting the portrait--she did so want him 'done' +by some one showy! At first I was afraid she wouldn't let me off--and at +my wits' end I suggested Grindle. Yes, it was I who started Grindle: I +told Mrs. Stroud he was the 'coming' man, and she told somebody else, +and so it got to be true.... And he painted Stroud without wincing; and +she hung the picture among her husband's things...." + +He flung himself down in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head, +and clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the +chimney-piece. + +"I like to fancy that Stroud himself would have given it to me, if he'd +been able to say what he thought that day." + +And, in answer to a question I put half-mechanically--"Begin again?" +he flashed out. "When the one thing that brings me anywhere near him is +that I knew enough to leave off?" + +He stood up and laid his hand on my shoulder with a laugh. "Only the +irony of it is that I AM still painting--since Grindle's doing it +for me! The Strouds stand alone, and happen once--but there's no +exterminating our kind of art." + + +The End of The Verdict + + + + + +THE RECKONING + +August, 1902 + + + + +I + + +"The marriage law of the new dispensation will be: THOU SHALT NOT BE +UNFAITHFUL--TO THYSELF." + +A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze of +cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from his +improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of ladies. +Westall's informal talks on "The New Ethics" had drawn about him an +eager following of the mentally unemployed--those who, as he had once +phrased it, liked to have their brain-food cut up for them. The talks +had begun by accident. Westall's ideas were known to be "advanced," but +hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of publicity. He +had been, in his wife's opinion, almost pusillanimously careful not +to let his personal views endanger his professional standing. Of late, +however, he had shown a puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down +the gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the +relation of the sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few +admiring friends had persuaded him to give his after-dinner opinions a +larger circulation by summing them up in a series of talks at the Van +Sideren studio. + +The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on +the fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren's pictures were chiefly +valuable as accessories to the mise en scene which differentiated his +wife's "afternoons" from the blighting functions held in long New York +drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends whiskey-and-soda +instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making +the most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel +create; and if at times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and +lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, +she promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh +talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the "artistic" impression. It +was in quest of such aid that she had seized on Westall, coaxing him, +somewhat to his wife's surprise, into a flattered participation in her +fraud. It was vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren circle, that all the +audacities were artistic, and that a teacher who pronounced marriage +immoral was somehow as distinguished as a painter who depicted +purple grass and a green sky. The Van Sideren set were tired of the +conventional color-scheme in art and conduct. + +Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage; +she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple. In the early +days of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to +proclaim himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax +him with moral cowardice, with a failure to live up to the convictions +for which their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the +first burst of propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her +disobedience into a law. Now she felt differently. She could hardly +account for the change, yet being a woman who never allowed her impulses +to remain unaccounted for, she tried to do so by saying that she did not +care to have the articles of her faith misinterpreted by the vulgar. In +this connection, she was beginning to think that almost every one was +vulgar; certainly there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust +the defence of so esoteric a doctrine. And it was precisely at this +point that Westall, discarding his unspoken principles, had chosen to +descend from the heights of privacy, and stand hawking his convictions +at the street-corner! + +It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed +upon herself Mrs. Westall's wandering resentment. In the first place, +the girl had no business to be there. It was "horrid"--Mrs. Westall +found herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary--simply +"horrid" to think of a young girl's being allowed to listen to such +talk. The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional +cocktail did not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which +made her appear the victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents' +vulgarities. Julia Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something +ought to be done--that some one ought to speak to the girl's mother. And +just then Una glided up. + +"Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!" Una fixed her with large +limpid eyes. "You believe it all, I suppose?" she asked with seraphic +gravity. + +"All--what, my dear child?" + +The girl shone on her. "About the higher life--the freer expansion of +the individual--the law of fidelity to one's self," she glibly recited. + +Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush. + +"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what it's +all about!" + +Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't YOU, +then?" she murmured. + +Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always--or altogether! But I should like some +tea, please." + +Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As +Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully. It was +not such a girlish face, after all--definite lines were forming under +the rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty, +and wondered why she had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would +have as her dower! If THEY were to be a part of the modern girl's +trousseau-- + +Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one +else had been speaking--a stranger who had borrowed her own voice: she +felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism. Concluding +suddenly that the room was stifling and Una's tea too sweet, she set +down her cup, and looked about for Westall: to meet his eyes had long +been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but only, +as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger +flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which +Una had withdrawn--one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren +attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had +overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side. She bent +forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the +depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him +to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. +Julia winced at her own definition of the smile. + + +On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife +by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. "Did I open their eyes a bit? +Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he asked gaily. + +Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. "What I wanted--?" + +"Why, haven't you--all this time?" She caught the honest wonder of his +tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not talking more +openly--before-- You've made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing +principles to expediency." + +She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What made +you decide not to--any longer?" + +She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why--the wish to +please you!" he answered, almost too simply. + +"I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly. + +He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the +darkness. + +"Not go on--?" + +"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden rush of +physical weariness. + +Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally +hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had noticed once or +twice that she looked pale--she mustn't come to another Saturday. She +felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his +concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a +conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her +hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let +them fall. It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! + +That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the subject +of his talk. He combined a man's dislike of uncomfortable questions +with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew that if he +returned to the subject he must have some special reason for doing so. + +"You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put +the case badly?" + +"No--you put it very well." + +"Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go +on with it?" + +She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening +her sense of helplessness. + +"I don't think I care to hear such things discussed in public." + +"I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his +surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She +was not sure that she understood herself. + +"Won't you explain?" he said with a tinge of impatience. Her eyes +wandered about the familiar drawing-room which had been the scene of so +many of their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the quiet-colored +walls hung with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers scattered here and +there in Venice glasses and bowls of old Sevres, recalled, she hardly +knew why, the apartment in which the evenings of her first marriage had +been passed--a wilderness of rosewood and upholstery, with a picture of +a Roman peasant above the mantel-piece, and a Greek slave in "statuary +marble" between the folding-doors of the back drawing-room. It was a +room with which she had never been able to establish any closer relation +than that between a traveller and a railway station; and now, as +she looked about at the surroundings which stood for her deepest +affinities--the room for which she had left that other room--she was +startled by the same sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity. The prints, +the flowers, the subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a +superficial refinement that had no relation to the deeper significances +of life. + +Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question. + +"I don't know that I can explain," she faltered. + +He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the hearth. +The light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face, which had +a kind of surface-sensitiveness akin to the surface-refinement of its +setting. + +"Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?" he asked. + +"In our ideas--?" + +"The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to +stand for." He paused a moment. "The ideas on which our marriage was +founded." + +The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then--she was sure now +that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how +often had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was +founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to +examine its foundation? The foundation is there, of course--the house +rests on it--but one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It +was she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the +situation now and then, on recapitulating the reasons which justified +her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the +religion of personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel +the need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted her marriage as +frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the primitive needs +of the heart, and needed no special sanction to explain or justify it. + +"Of course I still believe in our ideas!" she exclaimed. + +"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your theory +that the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of +marriage. Have you changed your mind in that respect?" + +She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances--on the public one is +addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them don't +care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply +by its novelty." + +"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and +learned the truth from each other." + +"That was different." + +"In what way?" + +"I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly unfitting that +young girls should be present at--at such times--should hear such things +discussed--" + +"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such +things never ARE discussed before young girls; but that is beside +the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience +to-day--" + +"Except Una Van Sideren!" + +He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. + +"Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--" + +"Why naturally?" + +"The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with her +governess?" + +"If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my +house!" + +Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I fancy +Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself." + +"No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late." + +"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of +self-defence?" + +"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?" + +"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the +marriage tie." + +She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that kind +of a girl?" + +"Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects." + +She took up the argument at another point. + +"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young +girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--" She broke +off, wondering why she had spoken. + +Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning +of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my +oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you +that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. +She's quite capable of doing it herself." + +"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed unguardedly +from his wife. + +He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. + +"I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me." + + + + +II + + +If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to +Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to +excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John +Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the +thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine. + +There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side +had accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as +"statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their +allegiance to a State which recognized desertion as a cause for divorce, +and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of desertion were +shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment's second marriage did +not make traditional morality stir in its sleep. It was known that she +had not met her second husband till after she had parted from the first, +and she had, moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement +Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it was generally felt +that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his reputation. The +Westalls would probably always have to live quietly and go out to +dinner in cabs. Could there be better evidence of Mrs. Arment's complete +disinterestedness? + +If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat +cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the matter, both +explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible. The +only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was something +deeper than a social disqualification. She had once said, in ironical +defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her from +the necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not then +realized at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was +impossible; but the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he +made it impossible for those about him to be other than himself. By +an unconscious process of elimination he had excluded from the world +everything of which he did not feel a personal need: had become, as it +were, a climate in which only his own requirements survived. This might +seem to imply a deliberate selfishness; but there was nothing deliberate +about Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child. It was this +childish element in his nature which sometimes for a moment unsettled +his wife's estimate of him. Was it possible that he was simply +undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than is usual, the +laborious process of growing up? He had the kind of sporadic shrewdness +which causes it to be said of a dull man that he is "no fool"; and it +was this quality that his wife found most trying. Even to the naturalist +it is annoying to have his deductions disturbed by some unforeseen +aberrancy of form or function; and how much more so to the wife whose +estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with her judgment of her +husband! + +Arment's shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual +power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of suffering, +perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia's sensibilities +naturally declined to linger. She so fully understood her own +reasons for leaving him that she disliked to think they were not as +comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her analytic moments, +by the look of perplexity, too inarticulate for words, with which he had +acquiesced to her explanations. + +These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too +concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been +unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it +had been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia was +wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her husband's personality seemed +to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting off +the air, till she felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of +her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by some world-old +conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. +If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in +ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, for one, +would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had been a +victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest +of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they +may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature tree +outgrows the iron brace about the sapling. + +It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met +Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was "interested," and had +fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her +back into the bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril +she had, with an almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to +him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted +by the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted that +he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem to +surprise him: he had thought out all that she had felt, and they had +reached the same conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke +that was an easy fit for the one might soon become galling to the other. +That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. +As soon as their necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would +gain in dignity as well as in harmony. There would be no farther need +of the ignoble concessions and connivances, the perpetual sacrifice of +personal delicacy and moral pride, by means of which imperfect marriages +were now held together. Each partner to the contract would be on his +mettle, forced to live up to the highest standard of self-development, +on pain of losing the other's respect and affection. The low nature +could no longer drag the higher down, but must struggle to rise, or +remain alone on its inferior level. The only necessary condition to a +harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn +agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith with themselves, +and not to live together for a moment after complete accord had ceased +to exist between them. The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self. + +It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that +they had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to social +prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need +be an imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any +diminution of self-respect. The nature of their attachment placed +them so far beyond the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to +discuss them with an open mind; and Julia's sense of security made her +dwell with a tender insistence on Westall's promise to claim his release +when he should cease to love her. The exchange of these vows seemed +to make them, in a sense, champions of the new law, pioneers in the +forbidden realm of individual freedom: they felt that they had somehow +achieved beatitude without martyrdom. + +This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her +theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously, insidiously, +that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed another +conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct of +passionate dependency and possessorship that now made her blood revolt +at the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they +had called it, in their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination +rather--this rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with another's being! +Another? But he was not other! He and she were one, one in the mystic +sense which alone gave marriage its significance. The new law was not +for them, but for the disunited creatures forced into a mockery of +union. The gospel she had felt called on to proclaim had no bearing on +her own case.... She sent for the doctor and told him she was sure she +needed a nerve tonic. + +She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative +to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her +anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject +of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a +softening of his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, +that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because +she looked badly--because he knew about the doctor and the nerve +tonic--that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to +screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the +way for fresh inferences. + +The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday +the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia +ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was to +be some music after his "talk"? Westall was just leaving for his office +when his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door and called +him back to deliver the message. + +He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I shall have +to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Will you +write and say it's all right?" + +Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against +which she leaned. + +"You mean to go on with these talks?" she asked. + +"I--why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his surprise +was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find words. + +"You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me--" + +"Well?" + +"I told you last week that they didn't please me." + +"Last week? Oh--" He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I thought you +were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day." + +"It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance--" + +"My assurance?" + +Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair with +a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her like +straws down a whirling flood. + +"Clement," she cried, "isn't it enough for you to know that I hate it?" + +He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and +sat down. "What is it that you hate?" he asked gently. + +She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument. + +"I can't bear to have you speak as if--as if--our marriage--were like +the other kind--the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the other +afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming +that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they +were tired--or had seen some one else--" + +Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet. + +"You HAVE ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke +off. "You no longer believe that husbands and wives ARE justified in +separating--under such conditions?" + +"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes--I still believe that--but +how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances--?" + +He interrupted her. "I thought it was a fundamental article of our +creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to +interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty." He paused a +moment. "I thought that was your reason for leaving Arment." + +She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal turn +to the argument. + +"It was my reason," she said simply. + +"Well, then--why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?" + +"I don't--I don't--I only say that one can't judge for others." + +He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hair-splitting. What you +mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you needed +it, you now repudiate it." + +"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does it +matter to us?" + +Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before +his wife with something of the formality of a stranger. + +"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do NOT repudiate +it." + +"Well--?" + +"And because I had intended to invoke it as"-- + +He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened by +her heart-beats. + +--"as a complete justification of the course I am about to take." + +Julia remained motionless. "What course is that?" she asked. + +He cleared his throat. "I mean to claim the fulfilment of your promise." + +For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a +torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings pressed +upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the +hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a separate wound to +each sense. + +"My promise--" she faltered. + +"Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the +other should wish to be released." + +She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position +nervously; then he said, with a touch of irritability: "You acknowledge +the agreement?" + +The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it +proudly. "I acknowledge the agreement," she said. + +"And--you don't mean to repudiate it?" + +A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and +pushed it back. + +"No," she answered slowly, "I don't mean to repudiate it." + +There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on the +mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that he had +given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered vaguely if +he noticed it. + +"You intend to leave me, then?" she said at length. + +His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. + +"To marry some one else?" + +Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. + +"Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?" + +He was silent. + +"I wish you good luck," she said. + + + + +III + + +She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how +he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire +still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the +wall. + +Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that +she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no +crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or +evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns. + +Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked +about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed to +be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. "This is my +room--this is my house," she heard herself saying. Her room? Her house? +She could almost hear the walls laugh back at her. + +She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room +frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close +a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her +husband must have left the house, then--her HUSBAND? She no longer knew +in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. She +sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock +struck ten--it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly she remembered that +she had not ordered dinner... or were they dining out that evening? +DINNER--DINING OUT--the old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She +must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a some +one dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose wants +and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the ways of a +strange animal... + +The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and walked +to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. HER room? +Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow +hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall's +sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The +same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French +print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual +continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same +untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she +could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the +lounge, a stupor creeping over her... + +Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the +interval--a wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments, +ideas--a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon +themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize these chaotic +forces. There must be help somewhere, if only she could master the inner +tumult. Life could not be broken off short like this, for a whim, a +fancy; the law itself would side with her, would defend her. The law? +What claim had she upon it? She was the prisoner of her own choice: she +had been her own legislator, and she was the predestined victim of +the code she had devised. But this was grotesque, intolerable--a mad +mistake, for which she could not be held accountable! The law she had +despised was still there, might still be invoked... invoked, but to what +end? Could she ask it to chain Westall to her side? SHE had been +allowed to go free when she claimed her freedom--should she show less +magnanimity than she had exacted? Magnanimity? The word lashed her with +its irony--one does not strike an attitude when one is fighting for +life! She would threaten, grovel, cajole... she would yield anything to +keep her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay deeper! The law +could not help her--her own apostasy could not help her. She was the +victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though some giant +machine of her own making had caught her up in its wheels and was +grinding her to atoms... + +It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with +an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant, +metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to +reveal the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our +architecture. The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared +and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren's +address. She did not know what had led up to the act; but she found +herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too +late to save herself--but the girl might still be told. The hansom +rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding +recognition. At the Van Siderens' door she sprang out and rang the bell. +Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and self-possessed. She +knew now exactly what she meant to say. + +The ladies were both out... the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card. +Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a +moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the +cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. +He touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty +street. She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where +she was not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had +returned. Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of Broadway, +swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a +succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite direction... + +A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since +morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of +ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the +sign LADIES' RESTAURANT: a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against the +dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological museum. She entered, +and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table for +her near the window. The table was covered with a red and white cotton +cloth and adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick tumbler and a +salt-cellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a +long time waiting for it. She was glad to be away from the noise and +confusion of the streets. The low-ceilinged room was empty, and two or +three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the background staring +at her and whispering together. At last the tea was brought in a +discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup and drank it hastily. It was +black and bitter, but it flowed through her veins like an elixir. She +was almost dizzy with exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how unutterably tired +she had been! + +She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once +more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she had +stood on the Van Siderens' door-step--but the wish to return there had +subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt--the humiliation +to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was that she did +not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading, and she +realized that she could not remain much longer in the restaurant without +attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out into the street. +The lamps were alight, and here and there a basement shop cast an +oblong of gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the dusk there was +something sinister about the aspect of the street, and she hastened back +toward Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out alone at that hour. + +At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream +of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her +that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, +but she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the +farther corner. There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied the +policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the nearest +side street... After that she walked a long time, vaguely... Night had +fallen, and now and then, through the windows of a passing carriage, she +caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera +cloak... + +Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a +moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing +whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house +in which she had once lived--her first husband's house. The blinds were +drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom +above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a +man walked by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a +heavy middle-aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, +the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. +He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew forth a +latch-key, and let himself in... + +There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against the +area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house. The +feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea still +throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural clearness. +Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving quickly away, she +too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse +which had carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the +electric bell--then she felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and grasped +the balustrade for support. The door opened and a young footman with +a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an +instant that he would admit her. + +"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to see +me for a moment?" + +The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for +dinner, madam." + +Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me--I will not +detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the +tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on +the drawing-room door. + +"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?" + +Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady," she +returned carelessly. + +The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant +the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He +drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with +the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his +temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears. + +It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the change +in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down into +the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one conscious +thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she must not let +him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body throbbed with +the urgency of her message. + +She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she said. + +Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and +her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a "scene" +predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: "Will you +come this way?" + +He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as she +advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: time +had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the +chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the +inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from +every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of +the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying +these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred +in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would refuse +to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt +before it, words and arguments running into each other in the heat of +her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself +thrust out before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, +Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: "You are not well." + +The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind--a +voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen developments. +She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a deep +breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued, with a cold +embarrassed politeness. + +Julia raised an entreating hand. "No--no--thank you. I am quite well." + +He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. "Then may I ask--?" + +"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see you. +There is something I must tell you." + +Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he said. +"I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make +could have been made through our lawyers." + +"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think they could +help me--this time." + +Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any question of +help--of course--" + +It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby +devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him +to put his name down for so much in sympathy--or even in money... +The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to +perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she remembered, +suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering scenery +with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel. +"There IS a question of help," she said in a softer key: "you can help +me; but only by listening... I want to tell you something..." + +Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier +to--write?" he suggested. + +She shook her head. "There is no time to write... and it won't take +long." She raised her head and their eyes met. "My husband has left me," +she said. + +"Westall--?" he stammered, reddening again. + +"Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me." + +The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the +limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed +glance returned to Julia. + +"I am very sorry," he said awkwardly. + +"Thank you," she murmured. + +"But I don't see--" + +"No--but you will--in a moment. Won't you listen to me? Please!" +Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between +him and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short +breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything--I thought we +were--perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... there +is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her..." As she spoke, the +lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion +of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and +two painful tears burnt a way down her face. + +Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This--this is very +unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law--" + +"The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his freedom?" + +"You are not obliged to give it." + +"You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did." + +He made a protesting gesture. + +"You saw that the law couldn't help you--didn't you?" she went on. +"That is what I see now. The law represents material rights--it can't go +beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law... the obligation that love +creates... being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to +prevent our spreading ruin unhindered... is there?" She raised her head +plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see +now... what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired... but +I was not tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's the dreadful +part of it--the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it meant. +But I've been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to +me--things I hadn't noticed... when you and I..." She moved closer to +him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond +words. "I see now that YOU didn't understand--did you?" + +Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be +lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled. + +"No," he said, "I didn't understand." + +She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You +wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came... You saw your life +falling in ruins... the world slipping from you... and you couldn't +speak or move!" + +She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now I +know--now I know," she repeated. + +"I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer. + +She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you to +be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me... for not understanding that +YOU didn't understand... That's all I wanted to say." She rose with a +vague sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward the +door. + +Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile. + +"You forgive me?" + +"There is nothing to forgive--" + +"Then will you shake hands for good-by?" She felt his hand in hers: it +was nerveless, reluctant. + +"Good-by," she repeated. "I understand now." + +She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment +took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was +evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let +her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, +and she found herself outside in the darkness. + +The End of The Reckoning + + + + + +VERSE + + + + +BOTTICELLI'S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. + + + WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies + On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, + Forefeeling the Light's terrible eclipse + On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, + And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes + The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, + And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps + When the cross darkens her unclouded skies? + + Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, + Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, + And think--"My child at home clings so to me, + With the same smile... and yet in vain, in vain, + Since even this Jesus died on Calvary"-- + Say to her then: "He also rose again." + + + + +THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. + + + ILARIA, thou that wert so fair and dear + That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise + With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes + And bade him call the master's art to rear + Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, + With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise + Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, + And lips that at love's call should answer, "Here!" + + First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul + Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, + Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, + Regenerate in art's sunrise clear and wide + As saints who, having kept faith's raiment whole, + Change it above for garments glorified. + + + + +THE SONNET. + + PURE form, that like some chalice of old time + Contain'st the liquid of the poet's thought + Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought + With interwoven traceries of rhyme, + While o'er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, + What thing am I, that undismayed have sought + To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught + Into a shape so small yet so sublime? + Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, + Because thy sacred chalice gathered up + The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley--then + Receive these tears of failure as they drop + (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain + To pour them in a consecrated cup. + + + + +TWO BACKGROUNDS. + + + I. LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR. + + + HERE by the ample river's argent sweep, + Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, + A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep + The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, + With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee + The friendly gables clustered at their base, + And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place, + The Gothic minster's winged immensity; + And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, + Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned, + Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find + Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude. + + + II. MONA LISA. + + + Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep + No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; + Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, + But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; + And tales are told of those who thought to gain + At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell + Far off they saw each fading pinnacle + Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; + Yet there two souls, whom life's perversities + Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, + Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, + And drain Joy's awful chalice to the lees. + + + + +EXPERIENCE. + + + I. + + LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand + Upon the desert verge of death, and say: + "What shall avail the woes of yesterday + To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land + Whose currency is strange unto our hand? + In life's small market they have served to pay + Some late-found rapture, could we but delay + Till Time hath matched our means to our demand." + + But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, + Our gathered strength of individual pain, + When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold, + Dies with us--hoarded all these years in vain, + Since those that might be heir to it the mould + Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. + + + II. + + O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, + Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, + Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, + And love's oblivion, and remembering hate, + Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight + Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears + Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, + And sell us the one joy for which we wait. + Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, + With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, + But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, + And all our longings lie within thy keep-- + Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? + + "Not so," Death answered, "they shall purchase sleep." + + + + +CHARTRES. + + + I. + + IMMENSE, august, like some Titanic bloom, + The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, + Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, + Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, + And stamened with keen flamelets that illume + The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, + By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, + A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, + The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea-- + For these alone the finials fret the skies, + The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, + While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, + Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, + The cloud of witnesses still testifies. + + + II. + + The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize + The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. + A rigid fetich in her robe of gold + The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, + Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, + Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. + The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, + Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. + Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows + To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn + From hot humanity's impatient woes; + The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, + And in the east one giant window shows + The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn. + + + + +LIFE. + + + LIFE, like a marble block, is given to all, + A blank, inchoate mass of years and days, + Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays + Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; + One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; + One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, + And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia's gaze, + Carves it apace in toys fantastical. + + But least is he who, with enchanted eyes + Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, + Muses which god he shall immortalize + In the proud Parian's perpetuity, + Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies + That the night cometh wherein none shall see. + + + + +AN AUTUMN SUNSET + + + I + + LEAGUERED in fire + The wild black promontories of the coast extend + Their savage silhouettes; + The sun in universal carnage sets, + And, halting higher, + The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, + Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, + That, balked, yet stands at bay. + Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day + In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, + A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine + Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, + And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead, + Above the waste of war, + The silver torch-light of the evening star + Wherewith to search the faces of the dead. + + + II + + Lagooned in gold, + Seem not those jetty promontories rather + The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, + Uncomforted of morn, + Where old oblivions gather, + The melancholy, unconsoling fold + Of all things that go utterly to death + And mix no more, no more + With life's perpetually awakening breath? + Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, + Over such sailless seas, + To walk with hope's slain importunities + In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not + All things be there forgot, + Save the sea's golden barrier and the black + Closecrouching promontories? + Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, + Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade, + A spectre self-destroyed, + So purged of all remembrance and sucked back + Into the primal void, + That should we on that shore phantasmal meet + I should not know the coming of your feet? + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith +Wharton, Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + +***** This file should be named 306.txt or 306.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/306/ + +Produced by John Hamm + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #306] +Last Updated: October 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + + + + +Produced by John Hamm, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE EARLY SHORT FICTION<br /> OF EDITH WHARTON + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Edith Wharton + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + A Ten-Part Collection + </h4> + <h3> + Volume Two + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AFTERWARD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE FULNESS OF LIFE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> I. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A VENETIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> III </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XINGU </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> III </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> THE VERDICT </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE RECKONING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> III </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> <b>VERSE</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> THE SONNET. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> TWO BACKGROUNDS. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> EXPERIENCE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> CHARTRES. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> LIFE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> AN AUTUMN SUNSET </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + AFTERWARD + </h2> + <h3> + January 1910 + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “Oh, there <i>is</i> one, of course, but you’ll never know it.” + </p> + <p> + The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a bright June + garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp perception of its latent + significance as she stood, in the December dusk, waiting for the lamps to + be brought into the library. + </p> + <p> + The words had been spoken by their friend Alida Stair, as they sat at tea + on her lawn at Pangbourne, in reference to the very house of which the + library in question was the central, the pivotal “feature.” Mary Boyne and + her husband, in quest of a country place in one of the southern or + southwestern counties, had, on their arrival in England, carried their + problem straight to Alida Stair, who had successfully solved it in her own + case; but it was not until they had rejected, almost capriciously, several + practical and judicious suggestions that she threw it out: “Well, there’s + Lyng, in Dorsetshire. It belongs to Hugo’s cousins, and you can get it for + a song.” + </p> + <p> + The reasons she gave for its being obtainable on these terms—its + remoteness from a station, its lack of electric light, hot-water pipes, + and other vulgar necessities—were exactly those pleading in its + favor with two romantic Americans perversely in search of the economic + drawbacks which were associated, in their tradition, with unusual + architectural felicities. + </p> + <p> + “I should never believe I was living in an old house unless I was + thoroughly uncomfortable,” Ned Boyne, the more extravagant of the two, had + jocosely insisted; “the least hint of ‘convenience’ would make me think it + had been bought out of an exhibition, with the pieces numbered, and set up + again.” And they had proceeded to enumerate, with humorous precision, + their various suspicions and exactions, refusing to believe that the house + their cousin recommended was <i>really</i> Tudor till they learned it had no + heating system, or that the village church was literally in the grounds + till she assured them of the deplorable uncertainty of the water-supply. + </p> + <p> + “It’s too uncomfortable to be true!” Edward Boyne had continued to exult + as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively wrung from her; but he + had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with a sudden relapse to distrust: “And + the ghost? You’ve been concealing from us the fact that there is no + ghost!” + </p> + <p> + Mary, at the moment, had laughed with him, yet almost with her laugh, + being possessed of several sets of independent perceptions, had noted a + sudden flatness of tone in Alida’s answering hilarity. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Dorsetshire’s full of ghosts, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes; but that won’t do. I don’t want to have to drive ten miles to + see somebody else’s ghost. I want one of my own on the premises. <i>Is</i> there + a ghost at Lyng?” + </p> + <p> + His rejoinder had made Alida laugh again, and it was then that she had + flung back tantalizingly: “Oh, there <i>is</i> one, of course, but you’ll never + know it.” + </p> + <p> + “Never know it?” Boyne pulled her up. “But what in the world constitutes a + ghost except the fact of its being known for one?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say. But that’s the story.” + </p> + <p> + “That there’s a ghost, but that nobody knows it’s a ghost?” + </p> + <p> + “Well—not till afterward, at any rate.” + </p> + <p> + “Till afterward?” + </p> + <p> + “Not till long, long afterward.” + </p> + <p> + “But if it’s once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn’t its + signalement been handed down in the family? How has it managed to preserve + its incognito?” + </p> + <p> + Alida could only shake her head. “Don’t ask me. But it has.” + </p> + <p> + “And then suddenly—” Mary spoke up as if from some cavernous depth + of divination—“suddenly, long afterward, one says to one’s self, + ‘<i>that was</i> it?’” + </p> + <p> + She was oddly startled at the sepulchral sound with which her question + fell on the banter of the other two, and she saw the shadow of the same + surprise flit across Alida’s clear pupils. “I suppose so. One just has to + wait.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, hang waiting!” Ned broke in. “Life’s too short for a ghost who can + only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can’t we do better than that, Mary?” + </p> + <p> + But it turned out that in the event they were not destined to, for within + three months of their conversation with Mrs. Stair they were established + at Lyng, and the life they had yearned for to the point of planning it out + in all its daily details had actually begun for them. + </p> + <p> + It was to sit, in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide-hooded + fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the sense that beyond + the mullioned panes the downs were darkening to a deeper solitude: it was + for the ultimate indulgence in such sensations that Mary Boyne had endured + for nearly fourteen years the soul-deadening ugliness of the Middle West, + and that Boyne had ground on doggedly at his engineering till, with a + suddenness that still made her blink, the prodigious windfall of the Blue + Star Mine had put them at a stroke in possession of life and the leisure + to taste it. They had never for a moment meant their new state to be one + of idleness; but they meant to give themselves only to harmonious + activities. She had her vision of painting and gardening (against a + background of gray walls), he dreamed of the production of his + long-planned book on the “Economic Basis of Culture”; and with such + absorbing work ahead no existence could be too sequestered; they could not + get far enough from the world, or plunge deep enough into the past. + </p> + <p> + Dorsetshire had attracted them from the first by a semblance of remoteness + out of all proportion to its geographical position. But to the Boynes it + was one of the ever-recurring wonders of the whole incredibly compressed + island—a nest of counties, as they put it—that for the + production of its effects so little of a given quality went so far: that + so few miles made a distance, and so short a distance a difference. + </p> + <p> + “It’s that,” Ned had once enthusiastically explained, “that gives such + depth to their effects, such relief to their least contrasts. They’ve been + able to lay the butter so thick on every exquisite mouthful.” + </p> + <p> + The butter had certainly been laid on thick at Lyng: the old gray house, + hidden under a shoulder of the downs, had almost all the finer marks of + commerce with a protracted past. The mere fact that it was neither large + nor exceptional made it, to the Boynes, abound the more richly in its + special sense—the sense of having been for centuries a deep, dim + reservoir of life. The life had probably not been of the most vivid order: + for long periods, no doubt, it had fallen as noiselessly into the past as + the quiet drizzle of autumn fell, hour after hour, into the green + fish-pond between the yews; but these back-waters of existence sometimes + breed, in their sluggish depths, strange acuities of emotion, and Mary + Boyne had felt from the first the occasional brush of an intenser memory. + </p> + <p> + The feeling had never been stronger than on the December afternoon when, + waiting in the library for the belated lamps, she rose from her seat and + stood among the shadows of the hearth. Her husband had gone off, after + luncheon, for one of his long tramps on the downs. She had noticed of late + that he preferred to be unaccompanied on these occasions; and, in the + tried security of their personal relations, had been driven to conclude + that his book was bothering him, and that he needed the afternoons to turn + over in solitude the problems left from the morning’s work. Certainly the + book was not going as smoothly as she had imagined it would, and the lines + of perplexity between his eyes had never been there in his engineering + days. Then he had often looked fagged to the verge of illness, but the + native demon of “worry” had never branded his brow. Yet the few pages he + had so far read to her—the introduction, and a synopsis of the + opening chapter—gave evidences of a firm possession of his subject, + and a deepening confidence in his powers. + </p> + <p> + The fact threw her into deeper perplexity, since, now that he had done + with “business” and its disturbing contingencies, the one other possible + element of anxiety was eliminated. Unless it were his health, then? But + physically he had gained since they had come to Dorsetshire, grown + robuster, ruddier, and fresher-eyed. It was only within a week that she + had felt in him the undefinable change that made her restless in his + absence, and as tongue-tied in his presence as though it were <i>she</i> who had + a secret to keep from him! + </p> + <p> + The thought that there <i>was</i> a secret somewhere between them struck her with + a sudden smart rap of wonder, and she looked about her down the dim, long + room. + </p> + <p> + “Can it be the house?” she mused. + </p> + <p> + The room itself might have been full of secrets. They seemed to be piling + themselves up, as evening fell, like the layers and layers of velvet + shadow dropping from the low ceiling, the dusky walls of books, the + smoke-blurred sculpture of the hooded hearth. + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course—the house is haunted!” she reflected. + </p> + <p> + The ghost—Alida’s imperceptible ghost—after figuring largely + in the banter of their first month or two at Lyng, had been gradually + discarded as too ineffectual for imaginative use. Mary had, indeed, as + became the tenant of a haunted house, made the customary inquiries among + her few rural neighbors, but, beyond a vague, “They du say so, Ma’am,” the + villagers had nothing to impart. The elusive specter had apparently never + had sufficient identity for a legend to crystallize about it, and after a + time the Boynes had laughingly set the matter down to their + profit-and-loss account, agreeing that Lyng was one of the few houses good + enough in itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements. + </p> + <p> + “And I suppose, poor, ineffectual demon, that’s why it beats its beautiful + wings in vain in the void,” Mary had laughingly concluded. + </p> + <p> + “Or, rather,” Ned answered, in the same strain, “why, amid so much that’s + ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence as <i>the</i> ghost.” And + thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped out of their + references, which were numerous enough to make them promptly unaware of + the loss. + </p> + <p> + Now, as she stood on the hearth, the subject of their earlier curiosity + revived in her with a new sense of its meaning—a sense gradually + acquired through close daily contact with the scene of the lurking + mystery. It was the house itself, of course, that possessed the + ghost-seeing faculty, that communed visually but secretly with its own + past; and if one could only get into close enough communion with the + house, one might surprise its secret, and acquire the ghost-sight on one’s + own account. Perhaps, in his long solitary hours in this very room, where + she never trespassed till the afternoon, her husband <i>had</i> acquired it + already, and was silently carrying the dread weight of whatever it had + revealed to him. Mary was too well-versed in the code of the spectral + world not to know that one could not talk about the ghosts one saw: to do + so was almost as great a breach of good-breeding as to name a lady in a + club. But this explanation did not really satisfy her. “What, after all, + except for the fun of the frisson,” she reflected, “would he really care + for any of their old ghosts?” And thence she was thrown back once more on + the fundamental dilemma: the fact that one’s greater or less + susceptibility to spectral influences had no particular bearing on the + case, since, when one <i>did</i> see a ghost at Lyng, one did not know it. + </p> + <p> + “Not till long afterward,” Alida Stair had said. Well, supposing Ned <i>had</i> + seen one when they first came, and had known only within the last week + what had happened to him? More and more under the spell of the hour, she + threw back her searching thoughts to the early days of their tenancy, but + at first only to recall a gay confusion of unpacking, settling, arranging + of books, and calling to each other from remote corners of the house as + treasure after treasure of their habitation revealed itself to them. It + was in this particular connection that she presently recalled a certain + soft afternoon of the previous October, when, passing from the first + rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of the old house, + she had pressed (like a novel heroine) a panel that opened at her touch, + on a narrow flight of stairs leading to an unsuspected flat ledge of the + roof—the roof which, from below, seemed to slope away on all sides + too abruptly for any but practised feet to scale. + </p> + <p> + The view from this hidden coign was enchanting, and she had flown down to + snatch Ned from his papers and give him the freedom of her discovery. She + remembered still how, standing on the narrow ledge, he had passed his arm + about her while their gaze flew to the long, tossed horizon-line of the + downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace the arabesque of yew + hedges about the fish-pond, and the shadow of the cedar on the lawn. + </p> + <p> + “And now the other way,” he had said, gently turning her about within his + arm; and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed, like some long, + satisfying draft, the picture of the gray-walled court, the squat lions on + the gates, and the lime-avenue reaching up to the highroad under the + downs. + </p> + <p> + It was just then, while they gazed and held each other, that she had felt + his arm relax, and heard a sharp “Hullo!” that made her turn to glance at + him. + </p> + <p> + Distinctly, yes, she now recalled she had seen, as she glanced, a shadow + of anxiety, of perplexity, rather, fall across his face; and, following + his eyes, had beheld the figure of a man—a man in loose, grayish + clothes, as it appeared to her—who was sauntering down the + lime-avenue to the court with the tentative gait of a stranger seeking his + way. Her short-sighted eyes had given her but a blurred impression of + slightness and grayness, with something foreign, or at least unlocal, in + the cut of the figure or its garb; but her husband had apparently seen + more—seen enough to make him push past her with a sharp “Wait!” and + dash down the twisting stairs without pausing to give her a hand for the + descent. + </p> + <p> + A slight tendency to dizziness obliged her, after a provisional clutch at + the chimney against which they had been leaning, to follow him down more + cautiously; and when she had reached the attic landing she paused again + for a less definite reason, leaning over the oak banister to strain her + eyes through the silence of the brown, sun-flecked depths below. She + lingered there till, somewhere in those depths, she heard the closing of a + door; then, mechanically impelled, she went down the shallow flights of + steps till she reached the lower hall. + </p> + <p> + The front door stood open on the mild sunlight of the court, and hall and + court were empty. The library door was open, too, and after listening in + vain for any sound of voices within, she quickly crossed the threshold, + and found her husband alone, vaguely fingering the papers on his desk. + </p> + <p> + He looked up, as if surprised at her precipitate entrance, but the shadow + of anxiety had passed from his face, leaving it even, as she fancied, a + little brighter and clearer than usual. + </p> + <p> + “What was it? Who was it?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Who?” he repeated, with the surprise still all on his side. + </p> + <p> + “The man we saw coming toward the house.” + </p> + <p> + He seemed honestly to reflect. “The man? Why, I thought I saw Peters; I + dashed after him to say a word about the stable-drains, but he had + disappeared before I could get down.” + </p> + <p> + “Disappeared? Why, he seemed to be walking so slowly when we saw him.” + </p> + <p> + Boyne shrugged his shoulders. “So I thought; but he must have got up steam + in the interval. What do you say to our trying a scramble up Meldon Steep + before sunset?” + </p> + <p> + That was all. At the time the occurrence had been less than nothing, had, + indeed, been immediately obliterated by the magic of their first vision + from Meldon Steep, a height which they had dreamed of climbing ever since + they had first seen its bare spine heaving itself above the low roof of + Lyng. Doubtless it was the mere fact of the other incident’s having + occurred on the very day of their ascent to Meldon that had kept it stored + away in the unconscious fold of association from which it now emerged; for + in itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment there could have + been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash himself from the roof + in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It was the period when they were + always on the watch for one or the other of the specialists employed about + the place; always lying in wait for them, and dashing out at them with + questions, reproaches, or reminders. And certainly in the distance the + gray figure had looked like Peters. + </p> + <p> + Yet now, as she reviewed the rapid scene, she felt her husband’s + explanation of it to have been invalidated by the look of anxiety on his + face. Why had the familiar appearance of Peters made him anxious? Why, + above all, if it was of such prime necessity to confer with that authority + on the subject of the stable-drains, had the failure to find him produced + such a look of relief? Mary could not say that any one of these + considerations had occurred to her at the time, yet, from the promptness + with which they now marshaled themselves at her summons, she had a sudden + sense that they must all along have been there, waiting their hour. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Weary with her thoughts, she moved toward the window. The library was now + completely dark, and she was surprised to see how much faint light the + outer world still held. + </p> + <p> + As she peered out into it across the court, a figure shaped itself in the + tapering perspective of bare lines: it looked a mere blot of deeper gray + in the grayness, and for an instant, as it moved toward her, her heart + thumped to the thought, “It’s the ghost!” + </p> + <p> + She had time, in that long instant, to feel suddenly that the man of whom, + two months earlier, she had a brief distant vision from the roof was now, + at his predestined hour, about to reveal himself as <i>not</i> having been + Peters; and her spirit sank under the impending fear of the disclosure. + But almost with the next tick of the clock the ambiguous figure, gaining + substance and character, showed itself even to her weak sight as her + husband’s; and she turned away to meet him, as he entered, with the + confession of her folly. + </p> + <p> + “It’s really too absurd,” she laughed out from the threshold, “but I never + <i>can</i> remember!” + </p> + <p> + “Remember what?” Boyne questioned as they drew together. + </p> + <p> + “That when one sees the Lyng ghost one never knows it.” + </p> + <p> + Her hand was on his sleeve, and he kept it there, but with no response in + his gesture or in the lines of his fagged, preoccupied face. + </p> + <p> + “Did you think you’d seen it?” he asked, after an appreciable interval. + </p> + <p> + “Why, I actually took <i>you</i> for it, my dear, in my mad determination to spot + it!” + </p> + <p> + “Me—just now?” His arm dropped away, and he turned from her with a + faint echo of her laugh. “Really, dearest, you’d better give it up, if + that’s the best you can do.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I give it up—I give it up. Have <i>you</i>?” she asked, turning round + on him abruptly. + </p> + <p> + The parlor-maid had entered with letters and a lamp, and the light struck + up into Boyne’s face as he bent above the tray she presented. + </p> + <p> + “Have <i>you</i>?” Mary perversely insisted, when the servant had disappeared on + her errand of illumination. + </p> + <p> + “Have I what?” he rejoined absently, the light bringing out the sharp + stamp of worry between his brows as he turned over the letters. + </p> + <p> + “Given up trying to see the ghost.” Her heart beat a little at the + experiment she was making. + </p> + <p> + Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the shadow of the + hearth. + </p> + <p> + “I never tried,” he said, tearing open the wrapper of a newspaper. + </p> + <p> + “Well, of course,” Mary persisted, “the exasperating thing is that there’s + no use trying, since one can’t be sure till so long afterward.” + </p> + <p> + He was unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but after a + pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically between his hands, he + lifted his head to say abruptly, “Have you any idea <i>how long</i>?” + </p> + <p> + Mary had sunk into a low chair beside the fireplace. From her seat she + looked up, startled, at her husband’s profile, which was darkly projected + against the circle of lamplight. + </p> + <p> + “No; none. Have <i>you</i>?” she retorted, repeating her former phrase with an + added keenness of intention. + </p> + <p> + Boyne crumpled the paper into a bunch, and then inconsequently turned back + with it toward the lamp. + </p> + <p> + “Lord, no! I only meant,” he explained, with a faint tinge of impatience, + “is there any legend, any tradition, as to that?” + </p> + <p> + “Not that I know of,” she answered; but the impulse to add, “What makes + you ask?” was checked by the reappearance of the parlor-maid with tea and + a second lamp. + </p> + <p> + With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily domestic + office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that sense of something + mutely imminent which had darkened her solitary afternoon. For a few + moments she gave herself silently to the details of her task, and when she + looked up from it she was struck to the point of bewilderment by the + change in her husband’s face. He had seated himself near the farther lamp, + and was absorbed in the perusal of his letters; but was it something he + had found in them, or merely the shifting of her own point of view, that + had restored his features to their normal aspect? The longer she looked, + the more definitely the change affirmed itself. The lines of painful + tension had vanished, and such traces of fatigue as lingered were of the + kind easily attributable to steady mental effort. He glanced up, as if + drawn by her gaze, and met her eyes with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “I’m dying for my tea, you know; and here’s a letter for you,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She took the letter he held out in exchange for the cup she proffered him, + and, returning to her seat, broke the seal with the languid gesture of the + reader whose interests are all inclosed in the circle of one cherished + presence. + </p> + <p> + Her next conscious motion was that of starting to her feet, the letter + falling to them as she rose, while she held out to her husband a long + newspaper clipping. + </p> + <p> + “Ned! What’s this? What does it mean?” + </p> + <p> + He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry before she + uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and she studied each + other, like adversaries watching for an advantage, across the space + between her chair and his desk. + </p> + <p> + “What’s what? You fairly made me jump!” Boyne said at length, moving + toward her with a sudden, half-exasperated laugh. The shadow of + apprehension was on his face again, not now a look of fixed foreboding, + but a shifting vigilance of lips and eyes that gave her the sense of his + feeling himself invisibly surrounded. + </p> + <p> + Her hand shook so that she could hardly give him the clipping. + </p> + <p> + “This article—from the ‘Waukesha Sentinel’—that a man named + Elwell has brought suit against you—that there was something wrong + about the Blue Star Mine. I can’t understand more than half.” + </p> + <p> + They continued to face each other as she spoke, and to her astonishment, + she saw that her words had the almost immediate effect of dissipating the + strained watchfulness of his look. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, <i>that</i>!” He glanced down the printed slip, and then folded it with the + gesture of one who handles something harmless and familiar. “What’s the + matter with you this afternoon, Mary? I thought you’d got bad news.” + </p> + <p> + She stood before him with her undefinable terror subsiding slowly under + the reassuring touch of his composure. + </p> + <p> + “You knew about this, then—it’s all right?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly I knew about it; and it’s all right.” + </p> + <p> + “But what <i>is</i> it? I don’t understand. What does this man accuse you of?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, pretty nearly every crime in the calendar.” Boyne had tossed the + clipping down, and thrown himself comfortably into an arm-chair near the + fire. “Do you want to hear the story? It’s not particularly interesting—just + a squabble over interests in the Blue Star.” + </p> + <p> + “But who is this Elwell? I don’t know the name.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he’s a fellow I put into it—gave him a hand up. I told you all + about him at the time.” + </p> + <p> + “I daresay. I must have forgotten.” Vainly she strained back among her + memories. “But if you helped him, why does he make this return?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, probably some shyster lawyer got hold of him and talked him over. + It’s all rather technical and complicated. I thought that kind of thing + bored you.” + </p> + <p> + His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she deprecated the + American wife’s detachment from her husband’s professional interests, but + in practice she had always found it difficult to fix her attention on + Boyne’s report of the transactions in which his varied interests involved + him. Besides, she had felt from the first that, in a community where the + amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of efforts as + arduous as her husband’s professional labors, such brief leisure as they + could command should be used as an escape from immediate preoccupations, a + flight to the life they always dreamed of living. Once or twice, now that + this new life had actually drawn its magic circle about them, she had + asked herself if she had done right; but hitherto such conjectures had + been no more than the retrospective excursions of an active fancy. Now, + for the first time, it startled her a little to find how little she knew + of the material foundation on which her happiness was built. + </p> + <p> + She glanced again at her husband, and was reassured by the composure of + his face; yet she felt the need of more definite grounds for her + reassurance. + </p> + <p> + “But doesn’t this suit worry you? Why have you never spoken to me about + it?” + </p> + <p> + He answered both questions at once: “I didn’t speak of it at first because + it <i>did</i> worry me—annoyed me, rather. But it’s all ancient history + now. Your correspondent must have got hold of a back number of the + ‘Sentinel.’” + </p> + <p> + She felt a quick thrill of relief. “You mean it’s over? He’s lost his + case?” + </p> + <p> + There was a just perceptible delay in Boyne’s reply. “The suit’s been + withdrawn—that’s all.” + </p> + <p> + But she persisted, as if to exonerate herself from the inward charge of + being too easily put off. “Withdrawn because he saw he had no chance?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he had no chance,” Boyne answered. + </p> + <p> + She was still struggling with a dimly felt perplexity at the back of her + thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “How long ago was it withdrawn?” + </p> + <p> + He paused, as if with a slight return of his former uncertainty. “I’ve + just had the news now; but I’ve been expecting it.” + </p> + <p> + “Just now—in one of your letters?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; in one of my letters.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer, and was aware only, after a short interval of waiting, + that he had risen, and strolling across the room, had placed himself on + the sofa at her side. She felt him, as he did so, pass an arm about her, + she felt his hand seek hers and clasp it, and turning slowly, drawn by the + warmth of his cheek, she met the smiling clearness of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “It’s all right—it’s all right?” she questioned, through the flood + of her dissolving doubts; and “I give you my word it never was righter!” + he laughed back at her, holding her close. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + One of the strangest things she was afterward to recall out of all the + next day’s incredible strangeness was the sudden and complete recovery of + her sense of security. + </p> + <p> + It was in the air when she woke in her low-ceilinged, dusky room; it + accompanied her down-stairs to the breakfast-table, flashed out at her + from the fire, and re-duplicated itself brightly from the flanks of the + urn and the sturdy flutings of the Georgian teapot. It was as if, in some + roundabout way, all her diffused apprehensions of the previous day, with + their moment of sharp concentration about the newspaper article,—as + if this dim questioning of the future, and startled return upon the past,—had + between them liquidated the arrears of some haunting moral obligation. If + she had indeed been careless of her husband’s affairs, it was, her new + state seemed to prove, because her faith in him instinctively justified + such carelessness; and his right to her faith had overwhelmingly affirmed + itself in the very face of menace and suspicion. She had never seen him + more untroubled, more naturally and unconsciously in possession of + himself, than after the cross-examination to which she had subjected him: + it was almost as if he had been aware of her lurking doubts, and had + wanted the air cleared as much as she did. + </p> + <p> + It was as clear, thank Heaven! as the bright outer light that surprised + her almost with a touch of summer when she issued from the house for her + daily round of the gardens. She had left Boyne at his desk, indulging + herself, as she passed the library door, by a last peep at his quiet face, + where he bent, pipe in his mouth, above his papers, and now she had her + own morning’s task to perform. The task involved on such charmed winter + days almost as much delighted loitering about the different quarters of + her demesne as if spring were already at work on shrubs and borders. There + were such inexhaustible possibilities still before her, such opportunities + to bring out the latent graces of the old place, without a single + irreverent touch of alteration, that the winter months were all too short + to plan what spring and autumn executed. And her recovered sense of safety + gave, on this particular morning, a peculiar zest to her progress through + the sweet, still place. She went first to the kitchen-garden, where the + espaliered pear-trees drew complicated patterns on the walls, and pigeons + were fluttering and preening about the silvery-slated roof of their cot. + There was something wrong about the piping of the hothouse, and she was + expecting an authority from Dorchester, who was to drive out between + trains and make a diagnosis of the boiler. But when she dipped into the + damp heat of the greenhouses, among the spiced scents and waxy pinks and + reds of old-fashioned exotics,—even the flora of Lyng was in the + note!—she learned that the great man had not arrived, and the day + being too rare to waste in an artificial atmosphere, she came out again + and paced slowly along the springy turf of the bowling-green to the + gardens behind the house. At their farther end rose a grass terrace, + commanding, over the fish-pond and the yew hedges, a view of the long + house-front, with its twisted chimney-stacks and the blue shadows of its + roof angles, all drenched in the pale gold moisture of the air. + </p> + <p> + Seen thus, across the level tracery of the yews, under the suffused, mild + light, it sent her, from its open windows and hospitably smoking chimneys, + the look of some warm human presence, of a mind slowly ripened on a sunny + wall of experience. She had never before had so deep a sense of her + intimacy with it, such a conviction that its secrets were all beneficent, + kept, as they said to children, “for one’s good,” so complete a trust in + its power to gather up her life and Ned’s into the harmonious pattern of + the long, long story it sat there weaving in the sun. + </p> + <p> + She heard steps behind her, and turned, expecting to see the gardener, + accompanied by the engineer from Dorchester. But only one figure was in + sight, that of a youngish, slightly built man, who, for reasons she could + not on the spot have specified, did not remotely resemble her preconceived + notion of an authority on hot-house boilers. The new-comer, on seeing her, + lifted his hat, and paused with the air of a gentleman—perhaps a + traveler—desirous of having it immediately known that his intrusion + is involuntary. The local fame of Lyng occasionally attracted the more + intelligent sight-seer, and Mary half-expected to see the stranger + dissemble a camera, or justify his presence by producing it. But he made + no gesture of any sort, and after a moment she asked, in a tone responding + to the courteous deprecation of his attitude: “Is there any one you wish + to see?” + </p> + <p> + “I came to see Mr. Boyne,” he replied. His intonation, rather than his + accent, was faintly American, and Mary, at the familiar note, looked at + him more closely. The brim of his soft felt hat cast a shade on his face, + which, thus obscured, wore to her short-sighted gaze a look of + seriousness, as of a person arriving “on business,” and civilly but firmly + aware of his rights. + </p> + <p> + Past experience had made Mary equally sensible to such claims; but she was + jealous of her husband’s morning hours, and doubtful of his having given + any one the right to intrude on them. + </p> + <p> + “Have you an appointment with Mr. Boyne?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + He hesitated, as if unprepared for the question. + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly an appointment,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “Then I’m afraid, this being his working-time, that he can’t receive you + now. Will you give me a message, or come back later?” + </p> + <p> + The visitor, again lifting his hat, briefly replied that he would come + back later, and walked away, as if to regain the front of the house. As + his figure receded down the walk between the yew hedges, Mary saw him + pause and look up an instant at the peaceful house-front bathed in faint + winter sunshine; and it struck her, with a tardy touch of compunction, + that it would have been more humane to ask if he had come from a distance, + and to offer, in that case, to inquire if her husband could receive him. + But as the thought occurred to her he passed out of sight behind a + pyramidal yew, and at the same moment her attention was distracted by the + approach of the gardener, attended by the bearded pepper-and-salt figure + of the boiler-maker from Dorchester. + </p> + <p> + The encounter with this authority led to such far-reaching issues that + they resulted in his finding it expedient to ignore his train, and + beguiled Mary into spending the remainder of the morning in absorbed + confabulation among the greenhouses. She was startled to find, when the + colloquy ended, that it was nearly luncheon-time, and she half expected, + as she hurried back to the house, to see her husband coming out to meet + her. But she found no one in the court but an under-gardener raking the + gravel, and the hall, when she entered it, was so silent that she guessed + Boyne to be still at work behind the closed door of the library. + </p> + <p> + Not wishing to disturb him, she turned into the drawing-room, and there, + at her writing-table, lost herself in renewed calculations of the outlay + to which the morning’s conference had committed her. The knowledge that + she could permit herself such follies had not yet lost its novelty; and + somehow, in contrast to the vague apprehensions of the previous days, it + now seemed an element of her recovered security, of the sense that, as Ned + had said, things in general had never been “righter.” + </p> + <p> + She was still luxuriating in a lavish play of figures when the + parlor-maid, from the threshold, roused her with a dubiously worded + inquiry as to the expediency of serving luncheon. It was one of their + jokes that Trimmle announced luncheon as if she were divulging a state + secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers, merely murmured an absent-minded + assent. + </p> + <p> + She felt Trimmle wavering expressively on the threshold as if in rebuke of + such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps sounded down the + passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, crossed the hall, and went to + the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered in her turn, + disliking to disturb her husband, yet anxious that he should not exceed + his normal measure of work. As she stood there, balancing her impulses, + the esoteric Trimmle returned with the announcement of luncheon, and Mary, + thus impelled, opened the door and went into the library. + </p> + <p> + Boyne was not at his desk, and she peered about her, expecting to discover + him at the book-shelves, somewhere down the length of the room; but her + call brought no response, and gradually it became clear to her that he was + not in the library. + </p> + <p> + She turned back to the parlor-maid. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Boyne must be up-stairs. Please tell him that luncheon is ready.” + </p> + <p> + The parlor-maid appeared to hesitate between the obvious duty of obeying + orders and an equally obvious conviction of the foolishness of the + injunction laid upon her. The struggle resulted in her saying doubtfully, + “If you please, Madam, Mr. Boyne’s not up-stairs.” + </p> + <p> + “Not in his room? Are you sure?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure, Madam.” + </p> + <p> + Mary consulted the clock. “Where is he, then?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s gone out,” Trimmle announced, with the superior air of one who has + respectfully waited for the question that a well-ordered mind would have + first propounded. + </p> + <p> + Mary’s previous conjecture had been right, then. Boyne must have gone to + the gardens to meet her, and since she had missed him, it was clear that + he had taken the shorter way by the south door, instead of going round to + the court. She crossed the hall to the glass portal opening directly on + the yew garden, but the parlor-maid, after another moment of inner + conflict, decided to bring out recklessly, “Please, Madam, Mr. Boyne + didn’t go that way.” + </p> + <p> + Mary turned back. “Where <i>did</i> he go? And when?” + </p> + <p> + “He went out of the front door, up the drive, Madam.” It was a matter of + principle with Trimmle never to answer more than one question at a time. + </p> + <p> + “Up the drive? At this hour?” Mary went to the door herself, and glanced + across the court through the long tunnel of bare limes. But its + perspective was as empty as when she had scanned it on entering the house. + </p> + <p> + “Did Mr. Boyne leave no message?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + Trimmle seemed to surrender herself to a last struggle with the forces of + chaos. + </p> + <p> + “No, Madam. He just went out with the gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “The gentleman? What gentleman?” Mary wheeled about, as if to front this + new factor. + </p> + <p> + “The gentleman who called, Madam,” said Trimmle, resignedly. + </p> + <p> + “When did a gentleman call? Do explain yourself, Trimmle!” + </p> + <p> + Only the fact that Mary was very hungry, and that she wanted to consult + her husband about the greenhouses, would have caused her to lay so unusual + an injunction on her attendant; and even now she was detached enough to + note in Trimmle’s eye the dawning defiance of the respectful subordinate + who has been pressed too hard. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t exactly say the hour, Madam, because I didn’t let the + gentleman in,” she replied, with the air of magnanimously ignoring the + irregularity of her mistress’s course. + </p> + <p> + “You didn’t let him in?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Madam. When the bell rang I was dressing, and Agnes—” + </p> + <p> + “Go and ask Agnes, then,” Mary interjected. Trimmle still wore her look of + patient magnanimity. “Agnes would not know, Madam, for she had + unfortunately burnt her hand in trying the wick of the new lamp from town—” + Trimmle, as Mary was aware, had always been opposed to the new lamp—“and + so Mrs. Dockett sent the kitchen-maid instead.” + </p> + <p> + Mary looked again at the clock. “It’s after two! Go and ask the + kitchen-maid if Mr. Boyne left any word.” + </p> + <p> + She went into luncheon without waiting, and Trimmle presently brought her + there the kitchen-maid’s statement that the gentleman had called about one + o’clock, that Mr. Boyne had gone out with him without leaving any message. + The kitchen-maid did not even know the caller’s name, for he had written + it on a slip of paper, which he had folded and handed to her, with the + injunction to deliver it at once to Mr. Boyne. + </p> + <p> + Mary finished her luncheon, still wondering, and when it was over, and + Trimmle had brought the coffee to the drawing-room, her wonder had + deepened to a first faint tinge of disquietude. It was unlike Boyne to + absent himself without explanation at so unwonted an hour, and the + difficulty of identifying the visitor whose summons he had apparently + obeyed made his disappearance the more unaccountable. Mary Boyne’s + experience as the wife of a busy engineer, subject to sudden calls and + compelled to keep irregular hours, had trained her to the philosophic + acceptance of surprises; but since Boyne’s withdrawal from business he had + adopted a Benedictine regularity of life. As if to make up for the + dispersed and agitated years, with their “stand-up” lunches and dinners + rattled down to the joltings of the dining-car, he cultivated the last + refinements of punctuality and monotony, discouraging his wife’s fancy for + the unexpected; and declaring that to a delicate taste there were infinite + gradations of pleasure in the fixed recurrences of habit. + </p> + <p> + Still, since no life can completely defend itself from the unforeseen, it + was evident that all Boyne’s precautions would sooner or later prove + unavailable, and Mary concluded that he had cut short a tiresome visit by + walking with his caller to the station, or at least accompanying him for + part of the way. + </p> + <p> + This conclusion relieved her from farther preoccupation, and she went out + herself to take up her conference with the gardener. Thence she walked to + the village post-office, a mile or so away; and when she turned toward + home, the early twilight was setting in. + </p> + <p> + She had taken a foot-path across the downs, and as Boyne, meanwhile, had + probably returned from the station by the highroad, there was little + likelihood of their meeting on the way. She felt sure, however, of his + having reached the house before her; so sure that, when she entered it + herself, without even pausing to inquire of Trimmle, she made directly for + the library. But the library was still empty, and with an unwonted + precision of visual memory she immediately observed that the papers on her + husband’s desk lay precisely as they had lain when she had gone in to call + him to luncheon. + </p> + <p> + Then of a sudden she was seized by a vague dread of the unknown. She had + closed the door behind her on entering, and as she stood alone in the + long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take shape and sound, to + be there audibly breathing and lurking among the shadows. Her + short-sighted eyes strained through them, half-discerning an actual + presence, something aloof, that watched and knew; and in the recoil from + that intangible propinquity she threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope + and gave it a desperate pull. + </p> + <p> + The long, quavering summons brought Trimmle in precipitately with a lamp, + and Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of the usual. + </p> + <p> + “You may bring tea if Mr. Boyne is in,” she said, to justify her ring. + </p> + <p> + “Very well, Madam. But Mr. Boyne is not in,” said Trimmle, putting down + the lamp. + </p> + <p> + “Not in? You mean he’s come back and gone out again?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Madam. He’s never been back.” + </p> + <p> + The dread stirred again, and Mary knew that now it had her fast. + </p> + <p> + “Not since he went out with—the gentleman?” + </p> + <p> + “Not since he went out with the gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “But who <i>was</i> the gentleman?” Mary gasped out, with the sharp note of some + one trying to be heard through a confusion of meaningless noises. + </p> + <p> + “That I couldn’t say, Madam.” Trimmle, standing there by the lamp, seemed + suddenly to grow less round and rosy, as though eclipsed by the same + creeping shade of apprehension. + </p> + <p> + “But the kitchen-maid knows—wasn’t it the kitchen-maid who let him + in?” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t know either, Madam, for he wrote his name on a folded paper.” + </p> + <p> + Mary, through her agitation, was aware that they were both designating the + unknown visitor by a vague pronoun, instead of the conventional formula + which, till then, had kept their allusions within the bounds of custom. + And at the same moment her mind caught at the suggestion of the folded + paper. + </p> + <p> + “But he must have a name! Where is the paper?” + </p> + <p> + She moved to the desk, and began to turn over the scattered documents that + littered it. The first that caught her eye was an unfinished letter in her + husband’s hand, with his pen lying across it, as though dropped there at a + sudden summons. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Parvis,”—who was Parvis?—“I have just received your + letter announcing Elwell’s death, and while I suppose there is now no + farther risk of trouble, it might be safer—” + </p> + <p> + She tossed the sheet aside, and continued her search; but no folded paper + was discoverable among the letters and pages of manuscript which had been + swept together in a promiscuous heap, as if by a hurried or a startled + gesture. + </p> + <p> + “But the kitchen-maid <i>saw</i> him. Send her here,” she commanded, wondering at + her dullness in not thinking sooner of so simple a solution. + </p> + <p> + Trimmle, at the behest, vanished in a flash, as if thankful to be out of + the room, and when she reappeared, conducting the agitated underling, Mary + had regained her self-possession, and had her questions pat. + </p> + <p> + The gentleman was a stranger, yes—that she understood. But what had + he said? And, above all, what had he looked like? The first question was + easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason that he had said so + little—had merely asked for Mr. Boyne, and, scribbling something on + a bit of paper, had requested that it should at once be carried in to him. + </p> + <p> + “Then you don’t know what he wrote? You’re not sure it <i>was</i> his name?” + </p> + <p> + The kitchen-maid was not sure, but supposed it was, since he had written + it in answer to her inquiry as to whom she should announce. + </p> + <p> + “And when you carried the paper in to Mr. Boyne, what did he say?” + </p> + <p> + The kitchen-maid did not think that Mr. Boyne had said anything, but she + could not be sure, for just as she had handed him the paper and he was + opening it, she had become aware that the visitor had followed her into + the library, and she had slipped out, leaving the two gentlemen together. + </p> + <p> + “But then, if you left them in the library, how do you know that they went + out of the house?” + </p> + <p> + This question plunged the witness into momentary inarticulateness, from + which she was rescued by Trimmle, who, by means of ingenious + circumlocutions, elicited the statement that before she could cross the + hall to the back passage she had heard the gentlemen behind her, and had + seen them go out of the front door together. + </p> + <p> + “Then, if you saw the gentleman twice, you must be able to tell me what he + looked like.” + </p> + <p> + But with this final challenge to her powers of expression it became clear + that the limit of the kitchen-maid’s endurance had been reached. The + obligation of going to the front door to “show in” a visitor was in itself + so subversive of the fundamental order of things that it had thrown her + faculties into hopeless disarray, and she could only stammer out, after + various panting efforts at evocation, “His hat, mum, was different-like, + as you might say—” + </p> + <p> + “Different? How different?” Mary flashed out at her, her own mind, in the + same instant, leaping back to an image left on it that morning, but + temporarily lost under layers of subsequent impressions. + </p> + <p> + “His hat had a wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale—a youngish + face?” Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity of interrogation. + But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate answer to this challenge, it + was swept away for her listener down the rushing current of her own + convictions. The stranger—the stranger in the garden! Why had Mary + not thought of him before? She needed no one now to tell her that it was + he who had called for her husband and gone away with him. But who was he, + and why had Boyne obeyed his call? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + It leaped out at her suddenly, like a grin out of the dark, that they had + often called England so little—“such a confoundedly hard place to + get lost in.” + </p> + <p> + <i>A confoundedly hard place to get lost in!</i> That had been her husband’s + phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of official investigation + sweeping its flash-lights from shore to shore, and across the dividing + straits; now, with Boyne’s name blazing from the walls of every town and + village, his portrait (how that wrung her!) hawked up and down the country + like the image of a hunted criminal; now the little compact, populous + island, so policed, surveyed, and administered, revealed itself as a + Sphinx-like guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his wife’s + anguished eyes as if with the malicious joy of knowing something they + would never know! + </p> + <p> + In the fortnight since Boyne’s disappearance there had been no word of + him, no trace of his movements. Even the usual misleading reports that + raise expectancy in tortured bosoms had been few and fleeting. No one but + the bewildered kitchen-maid had seen him leave the house, and no one else + had seen “the gentleman” who accompanied him. All inquiries in the + neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger’s presence that day + in the neighborhood of Lyng. And no one had met Edward Boyne, either alone + or in company, in any of the neighboring villages, or on the road across + the downs, or at either of the local railway-stations. The sunny English + noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into Cimmerian + night. + </p> + <p> + Mary, while every external means of investigation was working at its + highest pressure, had ransacked her husband’s papers for any trace of + antecedent complications, of entanglements or obligations unknown to her, + that might throw a faint ray into the darkness. But if any such had + existed in the background of Boyne’s life, they had disappeared as + completely as the slip of paper on which the visitor had written his name. + There remained no possible thread of guidance except—if it were + indeed an exception—the letter which Boyne had apparently been in + the act of writing when he received his mysterious summons. That letter, + read and reread by his wife, and submitted by her to the police, yielded + little enough for conjecture to feed on. + </p> + <p> + “I have just heard of Elwell’s death, and while I suppose there is now no + farther risk of trouble, it might be safer—” That was all. The “risk + of trouble” was easily explained by the newspaper clipping which had + apprised Mary of the suit brought against her husband by one of his + associates in the Blue Star enterprise. The only new information conveyed + in the letter was the fact of its showing Boyne, when he wrote it, to be + still apprehensive of the results of the suit, though he had assured his + wife that it had been withdrawn, and though the letter itself declared + that the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks of exhaustive cabling + to fix the identity of the “Parvis” to whom the fragmentary communication + was addressed, but even after these inquiries had shown him to be a + Waukesha lawyer, no new facts concerning the Elwell suit were elicited. He + appeared to have had no direct concern in it, but to have been conversant + with the facts merely as an acquaintance, and possible intermediary; and + he declared himself unable to divine with what object Boyne intended to + seek his assistance. + </p> + <p> + This negative information, sole fruit of the first fortnight’s feverish + search, was not increased by a jot during the slow weeks that followed. + Mary knew that the investigations were still being carried on, but she had + a vague sense of their gradually slackening, as the actual march of time + seemed to slacken. It was as though the days, flying horror-struck from + the shrouded image of the one inscrutable day, gained assurance as the + distance lengthened, till at last they fell back into their normal gait. + And so with the human imaginations at work on the dark event. No doubt it + occupied them still, but week by week and hour by hour it grew less + absorbing, took up less space, was slowly but inevitably crowded out of + the foreground of consciousness by the new problems perpetually bubbling + up from the vaporous caldron of human experience. + </p> + <p> + Even Mary Boyne’s consciousness gradually felt the same lowering of + velocity. It still swayed with the incessant oscillations of conjecture; + but they were slower, more rhythmical in their beat. There were moments of + overwhelming lassitude when, like the victim of some poison which leaves + the brain clear, but holds the body motionless, she saw herself + domesticated with the Horror, accepting its perpetual presence as one of + the fixed conditions of life. + </p> + <p> + These moments lengthened into hours and days, till she passed into a phase + of stolid acquiescence. She watched the familiar routine of life with the + incurious eye of a savage on whom the meaningless processes of + civilization make but the faintest impression. She had come to regard + herself as part of the routine, a spoke of the wheel, revolving with its + motion; she felt almost like the furniture of the room in which she sat, + an insensate object to be dusted and pushed about with the chairs and + tables. And this deepening apathy held her fast at Lyng, in spite of the + urgent entreaties of friends and the usual medical recommendation of + “change.” Her friends supposed that her refusal to move was inspired by + the belief that her husband would one day return to the spot from which he + had vanished, and a beautiful legend grew up about this imaginary state of + waiting. But in reality she had no such belief: the depths of anguish + inclosing her were no longer lighted by flashes of hope. She was sure that + Boyne would never come back, that he had gone out of her sight as + completely as if Death itself had waited that day on the threshold. She + had even renounced, one by one, the various theories as to his + disappearance which had been advanced by the press, the police, and her + own agonized imagination. In sheer lassitude her mind turned from these + alternatives of horror, and sank back into the blank fact that he was + gone. + </p> + <p> + No, she would never know what had become of him—no one would ever + know. But the house <i>knew</i>; the library in which she spent her long, lonely + evenings knew. For it was here that the last scene had been enacted, here + that the stranger had come, and spoken the word which had caused Boyne to + rise and follow him. The floor she trod had felt his tread; the books on + the shelves had seen his face; and there were moments when the intense + consciousness of the old, dusky walls seemed about to break out into some + audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation never came, and she + knew it would never come. Lyng was not one of the garrulous old houses + that betray the secrets intrusted to them. Its very legend proved that it + had always been the mute accomplice, the incorruptible custodian of the + mysteries it had surprised. And Mary Boyne, sitting face to face with its + portentous silence, felt the futility of seeking to break it by any human + means. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + “I don’t say it <i>wasn’t</i> straight, yet don’t say it <i>was</i> straight. It was + business.” + </p> + <p> + Mary, at the words, lifted her head with a start, and looked intently at + the speaker. + </p> + <p> + When, half an hour before, a card with “Mr. Parvis” on it had been brought + up to her, she had been immediately aware that the name had been a part of + her consciousness ever since she had read it at the head of Boyne’s + unfinished letter. In the library she had found awaiting her a small + neutral-tinted man with a bald head and gold eye-glasses, and it sent a + strange tremor through her to know that this was the person to whom her + husband’s last known thought had been directed. + </p> + <p> + Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,—in the manner of a man + who has his watch in his hand,—had set forth the object of his + visit. He had “run over” to England on business, and finding himself in + the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to leave it without paying + his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without asking her, if the occasion offered, + what she meant to do about Bob Elwell’s family. + </p> + <p> + The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary’s bosom. Did + her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by his unfinished + phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his question, and noticed at once + that he seemed surprised at her continued ignorance of the subject. Was it + possible that she really knew as little as she said? + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing—you must tell me,” she faltered out; and her visitor + thereupon proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even to her confused + perceptions, and imperfectly initiated vision, a lurid glare on the whole + hazy episode of the Blue Star Mine. Her husband had made his money in that + brilliant speculation at the cost of “getting ahead” of some one less + alert to seize the chance; the victim of his ingenuity was young Robert + Elwell, who had “put him on” to the Blue Star scheme. + </p> + <p> + Parvis, at Mary’s first startled cry, had thrown her a sobering glance + through his impartial glasses. + </p> + <p> + “Bob Elwell wasn’t smart enough, that’s all; if he had been, he might have + turned round and served Boyne the same way. It’s the kind of thing that + happens every day in business. I guess it’s what the scientists call the + survival of the fittest,” said Mr. Parvis, evidently pleased with the + aptness of his analogy. + </p> + <p> + Mary felt a physical shrinking from the next question she tried to frame; + it was as though the words on her lips had a taste that nauseated her. + </p> + <p> + “But then—you accuse my husband of doing something dishonorable?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Parvis surveyed the question dispassionately. “Oh, no, I don’t. I + don’t even say it wasn’t straight.” He glanced up and down the long lines + of books, as if one of them might have supplied him with the definition he + sought. “I don’t say it <i>wasn’t</i> straight, and yet I don’t say it <i>was</i> + straight. It was business.” After all, no definition in his category could + be more comprehensive than that. + </p> + <p> + Mary sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her like the + indifferent, implacable emissary of some dark, formless power. + </p> + <p> + “But Mr. Elwell’s lawyers apparently did not take your view, since I + suppose the suit was withdrawn by their advice.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, they knew he hadn’t a leg to stand on, technically. It was when + they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got desperate. You see, he’d + borrowed most of the money he lost in the Blue Star, and he was up a tree. + That’s why he shot himself when they told him he had no show.” + </p> + <p> + The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves. + </p> + <p> + “He shot himself? He killed himself because of <i>that</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he didn’t kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months before he + died.” Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally as a gramophone + grinding out its “record.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried again?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he didn’t have to try again,” said Parvis, grimly. + </p> + <p> + They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eye-glass + thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms stretched along + her knees in an attitude of rigid tension. + </p> + <p> + “But if you knew all this,” she began at length, hardly able to force her + voice above a whisper, “how is it that when I wrote you at the time of my + husband’s disappearance you said you didn’t understand his letter?” + </p> + <p> + Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. “Why, I didn’t + understand it—strictly speaking. And it wasn’t the time to talk + about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when the suit was + withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have helped you to find + your husband.” + </p> + <p> + Mary continued to scrutinize him. “Then why are you telling me now?” + </p> + <p> + Still Parvis did not hesitate. “Well, to begin with, I supposed you knew + more than you appear to—I mean about the circumstances of Elwell’s + death. And then people are talking of it now; the whole matter’s been + raked up again. And I thought, if you didn’t know, you ought to.” + </p> + <p> + She remained silent, and he continued: “You see, it’s only come out lately + what a bad state Elwell’s affairs were in. His wife’s a proud woman, and + she fought on as long as she could, going out to work, and taking sewing + at home, when she got too sick—something with the heart, I believe. + But she had his bedridden mother to look after, and the children, and she + broke down under it, and finally had to ask for help. That attracted + attention to the case, and the papers took it up, and a subscription was + started. Everybody out there liked Bob Elwell, and most of the prominent + names in the place are down on the list, and people began to wonder why—” + </p> + <p> + Parvis broke off to fumble in an inner pocket. “Here,” he continued, + “here’s an account of the whole thing from the ‘Sentinel’—a little + sensational, of course. But I guess you’d better look it over.” + </p> + <p> + He held out a newspaper to Mary, who unfolded it slowly, remembering, as + she did so, the evening when, in that same room, the perusal of a clipping + from the “Sentinel” had first shaken the depths of her security. + </p> + <p> + As she opened the paper, her eyes, shrinking from the glaring head-lines, + “Widow of Boyne’s Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid,” ran down the column of + text to two portraits inserted in it. The first was her husband’s, taken + from a photograph made the year they had come to England. It was the + picture of him that she liked best, the one that stood on the + writing-table up-stairs in her bedroom. As the eyes in the photograph met + hers, she felt it would be impossible to read what was said of him, and + closed her lids with the sharpness of the pain. + </p> + <p> + “I thought if you felt disposed to put your name down—” she heard + Parvis continue. + </p> + <p> + She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell on the other portrait. + It was that of a youngish man, slightly built, in rough clothes, with + features somewhat blurred by the shadow of a projecting hat-brim. Where + had she seen that outline before? She stared at it confusedly, her heart + hammering in her throat and ears. Then she gave a cry. + </p> + <p> + “This is the man—the man who came for my husband!” + </p> + <p> + She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had + slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending + above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and + reached out for the paper, which she had dropped. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the man! I should know him anywhere!” she cried in a voice that + sounded in her own ears like a scream. + </p> + <p> + Parvis’s voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless, + fog-muffled windings. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Boyne, you’re not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get a + glass of water?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically clenching + the newspaper. “I tell you, it’s the man! I <i>know</i> him! He spoke to me in + the garden!” + </p> + <p> + Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the portrait. + “It can’t be, Mrs. Boyne. It’s Robert Elwell.” + </p> + <p> + “Robert Elwell?” Her white stare seemed to travel into space. “Then it was + Robert Elwell who came for him.” + </p> + <p> + “Came for Boyne? The day he went away?” Parvis’s voice dropped as hers + rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax her + gently back into her seat. “Why, Elwell was dead! Don’t you remember?” + </p> + <p> + Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what he was + saying. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you remember Boyne’s unfinished letter to me—the one you + found on his desk that day? It was written just after he’d heard of + Elwell’s death.” She noticed an odd shake in Parvis’s unemotional voice. + “Surely you remember that!” he urged her. + </p> + <p> + Yes, she remembered: that was the profoundest horror of it. Elwell had + died the day before her husband’s disappearance; and this was Elwell’s + portrait; and it was the portrait of the man who had spoken to her in the + garden. She lifted her head and looked slowly about the library. The + library could have borne witness that it was also the portrait of the man + who had come in that day to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. Through + the misty surgings of her brain she heard the faint boom of half-forgotten + words—words spoken by Alida Stair on the lawn at Pangbourne before + Boyne and his wife had ever seen the house at Lyng, or had imagined that + they might one day live there. + </p> + <p> + “This was the man who spoke to me,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + She looked again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his disturbance under + what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; but the + edges of his lips were blue. “He thinks me mad; but I’m not mad,” she + reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way of justifying her + strange affirmation. + </p> + <p> + She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting till she + could trust her voice to keep its habitual level; then she said, looking + straight at Parvis: “Will you answer me one question, please? When was it + that Robert Elwell tried to kill himself?” + </p> + <p> + “When—when?” Parvis stammered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; the date. Please try to remember.” + </p> + <p> + She saw that he was growing still more afraid of her. “I have a reason,” + she insisted gently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. Only I can’t remember. About two months before, I should say.” + </p> + <p> + “I want the date,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + Parvis picked up the newspaper. “We might see here,” he said, still + humoring her. He ran his eyes down the page. “Here it is. Last October—the—” + </p> + <p> + She caught the words from him. “The 20th, wasn’t it?” With a sharp look at + her, he verified. “Yes, the 20th. Then you <i>did</i> know?” + </p> + <p> + “I know now.” Her white stare continued to travel past him. “Sunday, the + 20th—that was the day he came first.” + </p> + <p> + Parvis’s voice was almost inaudible. “Came <i>here</i> first?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “You saw him twice, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, twice.” She breathed it at him with dilated eyes. “He came first on + the 20th of October. I remember the date because it was the day we went up + Meldon Steep for the first time.” She felt a faint gasp of inward laughter + at the thought that but for that she might have forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Parvis continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to intercept her gaze. + </p> + <p> + “We saw him from the roof,” she went on. “He came down the lime-avenue + toward the house. He was dressed just as he is in that picture. My husband + saw him first. He was frightened, and ran down ahead of me; but there was + no one there. He had vanished.” + </p> + <p> + “Elwell had vanished?” Parvis faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” Their two whispers seemed to grope for each other. “I couldn’t + think what had happened. I see now. He <i>tried</i> to come then; but he wasn’t + dead enough—he couldn’t reach us. He had to wait for two months; and + then he came back again—and Ned went with him.” + </p> + <p> + She nodded at Parvis with the look of triumph of a child who has + successfully worked out a difficult puzzle. But suddenly she lifted her + hands with a desperate gesture, pressing them to her bursting temples. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my God! I sent him to Ned—I told him where to go! I sent him to + this room!” she screamed out. + </p> + <p> + She felt the walls of the room rush toward her, like inward falling ruins; + and she heard Parvis, a long way off, as if through the ruins, crying to + her, and struggling to get at her. But she was numb to his touch, she did + not know what he was saying. Through the tumult she heard but one clear + note, the voice of Alida Stair, speaking on the lawn at Pangbourne. + </p> + <p> + “You won’t know till afterward,” it said. “You won’t know till long, long + afterward.” + </p> + <p> + The End of Afterward + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE FULNESS OF LIFE + </h2> + <h3> + December 1893 + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike that sweet + lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer noon, when the heat + seems to have silenced the very birds and insects, and, lying sunk in the + tasselled meadow-grasses, one looks up through a level roofing of + maple-leaves at the vast shadowless, and unsuggestive blue. Now and then, + at ever-lengthening intervals, a flash of pain darted through her, like + the ripple of sheet-lightning across such a midsummer sky; but it was too + transitory to shake her stupor, that calm, delicious, bottomless stupor + into which she felt herself sinking more and more deeply, without a + disturbing impulse of resistance, an effort of reattachment to the + vanishing edges of consciousness. + </p> + <p> + The resistance, the effort, had known their hour of violence; but now they + were at an end. Through her mind, long harried by grotesque visions, + fragmentary images of the life that she was leaving, tormenting lines of + verse, obstinate presentments of pictures once beheld, indistinct + impressions of rivers, towers, and cupolas, gathered in the length of + journeys half forgotten—through her mind there now only moved a few + primal sensations of colorless well-being; a vague satisfaction in the + thought that she had swallowed her noxious last draught of medicine... and + that she should never again hear the creaking of her husband’s boots—those + horrible boots—and that no one would come to bother her about the + next day’s dinner... or the butcher’s book.... + </p> + <p> + At last even these dim sensations spent themselves in the thickening + obscurity which enveloped her; a dusk now filled with pale geometric + roses, circling softly, interminably before her, now darkened to a uniform + blue-blackness, the hue of a summer night without stars. And into this + darkness she felt herself sinking, sinking, with the gentle sense of + security of one upheld from beneath. Like a tepid tide it rose around her, + gliding ever higher and higher, folding in its velvety embrace her relaxed + and tired body, now submerging her breast and shoulders, now creeping + gradually, with soft inexorableness, over her throat to her chin, to her + ears, to her mouth.... Ah, now it was rising too high; the impulse to + struggle was renewed;... her mouth was full;... she was choking.... Help! + </p> + <p> + “It is all over,” said the nurse, drawing down the eyelids with official + composure. + </p> + <p> + The clock struck three. They remembered it afterward. Someone opened the + window and let in a blast of that strange, neutral air which walks the + earth between darkness and dawn; someone else led the husband into another + room. He walked vaguely, like a blind man, on his creaking boots. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway was in + front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet penetrating as the + gathered glimmer of innumerable stars, expanded gradually before her eyes, + in blissful contrast to the cavernous darkness from which she had of late + emerged. + </p> + <p> + She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her eyes began + to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light about her, she + distinguished the outlines of a landscape, at first swimming in the + opaline uncertainty of Shelley’s vaporous creations, then gradually + resolved into distincter shape—the vast unrolling of a sunlit plain, + aerial forms of mountains, and presently the silver crescent of a river in + the valley, and a blue stencilling of trees along its curve—something + suggestive in its ineffable hue of an azure background of Leonardo’s, + strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and the imagination + into regions of fabulous delight. As she gazed, her heart beat with a soft + and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a promise she read in the summons of + that hyaline distance. + </p> + <p> + “And so death is not the end after all,” in sheer gladness she heard + herself exclaiming aloud. “I always knew that it couldn’t be. I believed + in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said that he + wasn’t sure about the soul—at least, I think he did—and + Wallace was a spiritualist; and then there was St. George Mivart—” + </p> + <p> + Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains. + </p> + <p> + “How beautiful! How satisfying!” she murmured. “Perhaps now I shall really + know what it is to live.” + </p> + <p> + As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart-beats, and looking + up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + “Have you never really known what it is to live?” the Spirit of Life asked + her. + </p> + <p> + “I have never known,” she replied, “that fulness of life which we all feel + ourselves capable of knowing; though my life has not been without + scattered hints of it, like the scent of earth which comes to one + sometimes far out at sea.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do you call the fulness of life?” the Spirit asked again. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I can’t tell you, if you don’t know,” she said, almost reproachfully. + “Many words are supposed to define it—love and sympathy are those in + commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the right ones, and so + few people really know what they mean.” + </p> + <p> + “You were married,” said the Spirit, “yet you did not find the fulness of + life in your marriage?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear, no,” she replied, with an indulgent scorn, “my marriage was a + very incomplete affair.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet you were fond of your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just as I was + fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born in, and my old + nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted a very happy couple. But + I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature is like a great house full + of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and + out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, + where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, + far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never + turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and + in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits + for a footstep that never comes.” + </p> + <p> + “And your husband,” asked the Spirit, after a pause, “never got beyond the + family sitting-room?” + </p> + <p> + “Never,” she returned, impatiently; “and the worst of it was that he was + quite content to remain there. He thought it perfectly beautiful, and + sometimes, when he was admiring its commonplace furniture, insignificant + as the chairs and tables of a hotel parlor, I felt like crying out to him: + ‘Fool, will you never guess that close at hand are rooms full of treasures + and wonders, such as the eye of man hath not seen, rooms that no step has + crossed, but that might be yours to live in, could you but find the handle + of the door?’” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” the Spirit continued, “those moments of which you lately spoke, + which seemed to come to you like scattered hints of the fulness of life, + were not shared with your husband?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no—never. He was different. His boots creaked, and he always + slammed the door when he went out, and he never read anything but railway + novels and the sporting advertisements in the papers—and—and, + in short, we never understood each other in the least.” + </p> + <p> + “To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite sensations?” + </p> + <p> + “I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a flower; sometimes to a + verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a picture or a sunset, or + to one of those calm days at sea, when one seems to be lying in the hollow + of a blue pearl; sometimes, but rarely, to a word spoken by someone who + chanced to give utterance, at the right moment, to what I felt but could + not express.” + </p> + <p> + “Someone whom you loved?” asked the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “I never loved anyone, in that way,” she said, rather sadly, “nor was I + thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or three who, by + touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my being, had called forth + a single note of that strange melody which seemed sleeping in my soul. It + has seldom happened, however, that I have owed such feelings to people; + and no one ever gave me a moment of such happiness as it was my lot to + feel one evening in the Church of Or San Michele, in Florence.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about it,” said the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “It was near sunset on a rainy spring afternoon in Easter week. The clouds + had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we entered the church the + fiery panes of the high windows shone out like lamps through the dusk. A + priest was at the high altar, his white cope a livid spot in the + incense-laden obscurity, the light of the candles flickering up and down + like fireflies about his head; a few people knelt near by. We stole behind + them and sat down on a bench close to the tabernacle of Orcagna. + </p> + <p> + “Strange to say, though Florence was not new to me, I had never been in + the church before; and in that magical light I saw for the first time the + inlaid steps, the fluted columns, the sculptured bas-reliefs and canopy of + the marvellous shrine. The marble, worn and mellowed by the subtle hand of + time, took on an unspeakable rosy hue, suggestive in some remote way of + the honey-colored columns of the Parthenon, but more mystic, more complex, + a color not born of the sun’s inveterate kiss, but made up of cryptal + twilight, and the flame of candles upon martyrs’ tombs, and gleams of + sunset through symbolic panes of chrysoprase and ruby; such a light as + illumines the missals in the library of Siena, or burns like a hidden fire + through the Madonna of Gian Bellini in the Church of the Redeemer, at + Venice; the light of the Middle Ages, richer, more solemn, more + significant than the limpid sunshine of Greece. + </p> + <p> + “The church was silent, but for the wail of the priest and the occasional + scraping of a chair against the floor, and as I sat there, bathed in that + light, absorbed in rapt contemplation of the marble miracle which rose + before me, cunningly wrought as a casket of ivory and enriched with + jewel-like incrustations and tarnished gleams of gold, I felt myself borne + onward along a mighty current, whose source seemed to be in the very + beginning of things, and whose tremendous waters gathered as they went all + the mingled streams of human passion and endeavor. Life in all its varied + manifestations of beauty and strangeness seemed weaving a rhythmical dance + around me as I moved, and wherever the spirit of man had passed I knew + that my foot had once been familiar. + </p> + <p> + “As I gazed the mediaeval bosses of the tabernacle of Orcagna seemed to + melt and flow into their primal forms so that the folded lotus of the Nile + and the Greek acanthus were braided with the runic knots and fish-tailed + monsters of the North, and all the plastic terror and beauty born of man’s + hand from the Ganges to the Baltic quivered and mingled in Orcagna’s + apotheosis of Mary. And so the river bore me on, past the alien face of + antique civilizations and the familiar wonders of Greece, till I swam upon + the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its swirling eddies of + passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry and art; I heard the + rhythmic blow of the craftsmen’s hammers in the goldsmiths’ workshops and + on the walls of churches, the party-cries of armed factions in the narrow + streets, the organ-roll of Dante’s verse, the crackle of the fagots around + Arnold of Brescia, the twitter of the swallows to which St. Francis + preached, the laughter of the ladies listening on the hillside to the + quips of the Decameron, while plague-struck Florence howled beneath them—all + this and much more I heard, joined in strange unison with voices earlier + and more remote, fierce, passionate, or tender, yet subdued to such awful + harmony that I thought of the song that the morning stars sang together + and felt as though it were sounding in my ears. My heart beat to + suffocation, the tears burned my lids, the joy, the mystery of it seemed + too intolerable to be borne. I could not understand even then the words of + the song; but I knew that if there had been someone at my side who could + have heard it with me, we might have found the key to it together. + </p> + <p> + “I turned to my husband, who was sitting beside me in an attitude of + patient dejection, gazing into the bottom of his hat; but at that moment + he rose, and stretching his stiffened legs, said, mildly: ‘Hadn’t we + better be going? There doesn’t seem to be much to see here, and you know + the table d’hote dinner is at half-past six o’clock.” + </p> + <p> + Her recital ended, there was an interval of silence; then the Spirit of + Life said: “There is a compensation in store for such needs as you have + expressed.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, then you <i>do</i> understand?” she exclaimed. “Tell me what compensation, I + entreat you!” + </p> + <p> + “It is ordained,” the Spirit answered, “that every soul which seeks in + vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare its inmost being + shall find that soul here and be united to it for eternity.” + </p> + <p> + A glad cry broke from her lips. “Ah, shall I find him at last?” she cried, + exultant. + </p> + <p> + “He is here,” said the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in that + unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than his face) drew + her toward him with an invincible force. + </p> + <p> + “Are you really he?” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “I am he,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which overhung + the valley. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go down together,” she asked him, “into that marvellous country; + shall we see it together, as if with the self-same eyes, and tell each + other in the same words all that we think and feel?” + </p> + <p> + “So,” he replied, “have I hoped and dreamed.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” she asked, with rising joy. “Then you, too, have looked for me?” + </p> + <p> + “All my life.” + </p> + <p> + “How wonderful! And did you never, never find anyone in the other world + who understood you?” + </p> + <p> + “Not wholly—not as you and I understand each other.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy,” she sighed. + </p> + <p> + They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the + shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into sapphirine + space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the threshold, heard + now and then a floating fragment of their talk blown backward like the + stray swallows which the wind sometimes separates from their migratory + tribe. + </p> + <p> + “Did you never feel at sunset—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember that line in the third canto of the ‘Inferno?’” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that line—my favorite always. Is it possible—” + </p> + <p> + “You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike Apteros?” + </p> + <p> + “You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have noticed, too, + that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in those flying folds of her + drapery?” + </p> + <p> + “After a storm in autumn have you never seen—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters—the + perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose, Titian; the + tuberose, Crivelli—” + </p> + <p> + “I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you never thought—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had.” + </p> + <p> + “But surely you must have felt—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, yes; and you, too—” + </p> + <p> + “How beautiful! How strange—” + </p> + <p> + Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains answering + each other across a garden full of flowers. At length, with a certain + tender impatience, he turned to her and said: “Love, why should we linger + here? All eternity lies before us. Let us go down into that beautiful + country together and make a home for ourselves on some blue hill above the + shining river.” + </p> + <p> + As he spoke, the hand she had forgotten in his was suddenly withdrawn, and + he felt that a cloud was passing over the radiance of her soul. + </p> + <p> + “A home,” she repeated, slowly, “a home for you and me to live in for all + eternity?” + </p> + <p> + “Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?” + </p> + <p> + “Y-yes—yes, I know—but, don’t you see, home would not be like + home to me, unless—” + </p> + <p> + “Unless?” he wonderingly repeated. + </p> + <p> + She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of + whimsical inconsistency, “Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking + boots.” + </p> + <p> + But he had recovered his hold upon her hand, and by imperceptible degrees + was leading her toward the shining steps which descended to the valley. + </p> + <p> + “Come, O my soul’s soul,” he passionately implored; “why delay a moment? + Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too short to hold such + bliss as ours. It seems to me that I can see our home already. Have I not + always seem it in my dreams? It is white, love, is it not, with polished + columns, and a sculptured cornice against the blue? Groves of laurel and + oleander and thickets of roses surround it; but from the terrace where we + walk at sunset, the eye looks out over woodlands and cool meadows where, + deep-bowered under ancient boughs, a stream goes delicately toward the + river. Indoors our favorite pictures hang upon the walls and the rooms are + lined with books. Think, dear, at last we shall have time to read them + all. With which shall we begin? Come, help me to choose. Shall it be + ‘Faust’ or the ‘Vita Nuova,’ the ‘Tempest’ or ‘Les Caprices de Marianne,’ + or the thirty-first canto of the ‘Paradise,’ or ‘Epipsychidion’ or + ‘Lycidas’? Tell me, dear, which one?” + </p> + <p> + As he spoke he saw the answer trembling joyously upon her lips; but it + died in the ensuing silence, and she stood motionless, resisting the + persuasion of his hand. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he entreated. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment,” she said, with a strange hesitation in her voice. “Tell + me first, are you quite sure of yourself? Is there no one on earth whom + you sometimes remember?” + </p> + <p> + “Not since I have seen you,” he replied; for, being a man, he had indeed + forgotten. + </p> + <p> + Still she stood motionless, and he saw that the shadow deepened on her + soul. + </p> + <p> + “Surely, love,” he rebuked her, “it was not that which troubled you? For + my part I have walked through Lethe. The past has melted like a cloud + before the moon. I never lived until I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing herself with a + visible effort, she turned away from him and moved toward the Spirit of + Life, who still stood near the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “I want to ask you a question,” she said, in a troubled voice. + </p> + <p> + “Ask,” said the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “A little while ago,” she began, slowly, “you told me that every soul + which has not found a kindred soul on earth is destined to find one here.” + </p> + <p> + “And have you not found one?” asked the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but will it be so with my husband’s soul also?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered the Spirit of Life, “for your husband imagined that he had + found his soul’s mate on earth in you; and for such delusions eternity + itself contains no cure.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a little cry. Was it of disappointment or triumph? + </p> + <p> + “Then—then what will happen to him when he comes here?” + </p> + <p> + “That I cannot tell you. Some field of activity and happiness he will + doubtless find, in due measure to his capacity for being active and + happy.” + </p> + <p> + She interrupted, almost angrily: “He will never be happy without me.” + </p> + <p> + “Do not be too sure of that,” said the Spirit. + </p> + <p> + She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: “He will not + understand you here any better than he did on earth.” + </p> + <p> + “No matter,” she said; “I shall be the only sufferer, for he always + thought that he understood me.” + </p> + <p> + “His boots will creak just as much as ever—” + </p> + <p> + “No matter.” + </p> + <p> + “And he will slam the door—” + </p> + <p> + “Very likely.” + </p> + <p> + “And continue to read railway novels—” + </p> + <p> + She interposed, impatiently: “Many men do worse than that.” + </p> + <p> + “But you said just now,” said the Spirit, “that you did not love him.” + </p> + <p> + “True,” she answered, simply; “but don’t you understand that I shouldn’t + feel at home without him? It is all very well for a week or two—but + for eternity! After all, I never minded the creaking of his boots, except + when my head ached, and I don’t suppose it will ache <i>here</i>; and he was + always so sorry when he had slammed the door, only he never <i>could</i> remember + not to. Besides, no one else would know how to look after him, he is so + helpless. His inkstand would never be filled, and he would always be out + of stamps and visiting-cards. He would never remember to have his umbrella + re-covered, or to ask the price of anything before he bought it. Why, he + wouldn’t even know what novels to read. I always had to choose the kind he + liked, with a murder or a forgery and a successful detective.” + </p> + <p> + She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood listening with a mien + of wonder and dismay. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you see,” she said, “that I can’t possibly go with you?” + </p> + <p> + “But what do you intend to do?” asked the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + “What do I intend to do?” she returned, indignantly. “Why, I mean to wait + for my husband, of course. If he had come here first <i>he</i> would have waited + for me for years and years; and it would break his heart not to find me + here when he comes.” She pointed with a contemptuous gesture to the magic + vision of hill and vale sloping away to the translucent mountains. “He + wouldn’t give a fig for all that,” she said, “if he didn’t find me here.” + </p> + <p> + “But consider,” warned the Spirit, “that you are now choosing for + eternity. It is a solemn moment.” + </p> + <p> + “Choosing!” she said, with a half-sad smile. “Do you still keep up here + that old fiction about choosing? I should have thought that <i>you</i> knew + better than that. How can I help myself? He will expect to find me here + when he comes, and he would never believe you if you told him that I had + gone away with someone else—never, never.” + </p> + <p> + “So be it,” said the Spirit. “Here, as on earth, each one must decide for + himself.” + </p> + <p> + She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him gently, almost wistfully. + “I am sorry,” she said. “I should have liked to talk with you again; but + you will understand, I know, and I dare say you will find someone else a + great deal cleverer—” + </p> + <p> + And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him a swift farewell and + turned back toward the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “Will my husband come soon?” she asked the Spirit of Life. + </p> + <p> + “That you are not destined to know,” the Spirit replied. + </p> + <p> + “No matter,” she said, cheerfully; “I have all eternity to wait in.” + </p> + <p> + And still seated alone on the threshold, she listens for the creaking of + his boots. + </p> + <p> + The End of The Fulness of Life + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A VENETIAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT + </h2> + <h3> + December 1903 + </h3> + <p> + This is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street house + (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the famous East + India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn to + the oval parlour (and Maria’s harp was throwing its gauzy web of sound + across the Common), used to relate to his grandsons, about the year that + Buonaparte marched upon Moscow. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “Him Venice!” said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony Bracknell, + leaning on the high gunwale of his father’s East Indiaman, the Hepzibah + B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of towers and + domes dissolved in golden air. + </p> + <p> + It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of + age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old + Bracknell’s fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled + into shape. <i>Venice!</i> The name, since childhood, had been a magician’s wand + to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung a + series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought home + from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces, of the + Grand Turk’s Seraglio, of St. Peter’s Church in Rome; and, in a corner—the + corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks hung—a busy merry + populous scene, entitled: <i>St. Mark’s Square in Venice</i>. This picture, from + the first, had singularly taken little Tony’s fancy. His unformulated + criticism on the others was that they lacked action. True, in the view of + St. Peter’s an experienced-looking gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was + pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had + presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of + the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy + the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things + were happening at once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened + in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by + their garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, + Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, + lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons’ gowns who + stalked through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at + their heels. And all these people seemed to be diverting themselves + hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained dogs + and monkeys, distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their pockets + picked by slippery-looking fellows in black—the whole with such an + air of ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a + part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals. + </p> + <p> + As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost its + magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old picture + had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a cloud-ladder + leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name of Venice remained + associated; and all that observation or report subsequently brought him + concerning the place seemed, on a sober warranty of fact, to confirm its + claim to stand midway between reality and illusion. There was, for + instance, a slender Venice glass, gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the + dust of sunbeams, that, standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two + Lowestoft caddies, seemed, among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate + like an impaled butterfly. There was, farther, a gold chain of his + mother’s, spun of that same sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that + it slipped through the fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a + heavy pendant which seemed held in air as if by magic. <i>Magic!</i> That was the + word which the thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place, Tony + felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in + which two and two might make five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a + conclusion give the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a young heart + that did not, once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? + Tony, at least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms + in his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a + Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before him, + as the distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes across the + morning sea! + </p> + <p> + The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony’s governor and bear-leader, was just + putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon on + Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.’s anchor rattled + overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge + with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from his + lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in + suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical foreign + city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many Moslem idolators, + to the important fact of Mr. Mounce’s summing up his conclusions before + the Muse of Theology took flight? He should be happy, he said, if the tide + served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell the next morning. + </p> + <p> + The next morning, ha!—Tony murmured a submissive “Yes, sir,” winked + at the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down with + a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next + deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah’s gig. + </p> + <p> + A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of + the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling with + merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic painted + buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, + jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and + sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. + Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, + spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no + undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in such crowds + on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity which seemed to + include everybody in the circumference of one huge joke. In such an air + the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was beginning to feel + himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide bore him against a + droll-looking bell-ringing fellow who carried above his head a tall metal + tree hung with sherbet-glasses. + </p> + <p> + The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and + clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints, and + Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by mistake + for a sequin. The fellow’s eyes shot out of their orbits, and just then a + personable-looking young man who had observed the transaction stepped up + to Tony and said pleasantly, in English: + </p> + <p> + “I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency.” + </p> + <p> + “Does he want more?” says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed and + replied: “You have given him enough to retire from his business and open a + gaming-house over the arcade.” + </p> + <p> + Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries, + the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in + front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted himself + lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was + good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had + paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out again + to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, + appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to point out + to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of ton and ladies + of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a kind not openly + mentioned in taking a census of Salem. + </p> + <p> + Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, had + perused the “Merchant of Venice” and Mr. Otway’s fine tragedy; but though + these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of Venice + differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising + appearance and manners of the great people his friend named to him. The + gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, + short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor’s + gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; while the + President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow + with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet + cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on. + </p> + <p> + It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on forever; + but he had given his word to the captain to be at the landing-place at + sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the skies! Tony was a man + of honour; and having pressed on the Count a handsome damascened dagger + selected from one of the goldsmiths’ shops in a narrow street lined with + such wares, he insisted on turning his face toward the Hepzibah’s gig. The + Count yielded reluctantly; but as they came out again on the square they + were caught in a great throng pouring toward the doors of the cathedral. + </p> + <p> + “They go to Benediction,” said the Count. “A beautiful sight, with many + lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it.” + </p> + <p> + Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled + back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood in a haze of + gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty undulations of + the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and as Tony flattened + himself against a pillar, he heard a pretty voice at his elbow:—“Oh, + sir, oh, sir, your sword!” + </p> + <p> + He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched the + voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard. She wore + one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies affected, and + under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as sweet as a nesting + bird. + </p> + <p> + In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself a + shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony’s enchanted fingers. Looking after + her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompous-looking graybeard in a long + black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the exchange of + glances between the young people, drew the lady away with a threatening + look. + </p> + <p> + The Count met Tony’s eye with a smile. “One of our Venetian beauties,” + said he; “the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to have the finest + eyes in Venice.” + </p> + <p> + “She spoke English,” stammered Tony. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—ah—precisely: she learned the language at the Court of + Saint James’s, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as + Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England.” + </p> + <p> + “And that was her father?” + </p> + <p> + “Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena’s rank do not go abroad save + with their parents or a duenna.” + </p> + <p> + Just then a soft hand slid into Tony’s. His heart gave a foolish bound, + and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under the + hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful page’s + dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and vanished in the + throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at the Count, who + appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a bell, had + in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the + moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter. + </p> + <p> + “I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena”—he read; + but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his + shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind of + rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian. + </p> + <p> + Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk + himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other’s grip, + and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed his way + through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: “For God’s + sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep quiet and do as I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity among + the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in Venice + what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was that this + black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his breast; and this + suspicion was confirmed by the Count’s agitated whisper. + </p> + <p> + “This is one of the agents of the Ten.—For God’s sake, no outcry.” + He exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony. + “You have been seen concealing a letter about your person—” + </p> + <p> + “And what of that?” says Tony furiously. + </p> + <p> + “Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna + Polixena Cador.—A black business! Oh, a very black business! This + Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice—I beseech you, + not a word, sir! Let me think—deliberate—” + </p> + <p> + His hand on Tony’s shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the + potentate in the cocked hat. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry, sir—but our young ladies of rank are as jealously + guarded as the Grand Turk’s wives, and you must be answerable for this + scandal. The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo + Cador, instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your + youth and inexperience”—Tony winced at this—“and I think the + business may still be arranged.” + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-featured + shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a lawyer’s clerk, + who laid a grimy hand on Tony’s arm, and with many apologetic gestures + steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church. The Count held + him by the other arm, and in this fashion they emerged on the square, + which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the + arcade and in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it. + </p> + <p> + Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go + where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of the + Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the + landing-place. + </p> + <p> + The Count repeated this to Tony’s custodian, but the latter shook his head + and rattled off a sharp denial. + </p> + <p> + “Impossible, sir,” said the Count. “I entreat you not to insist. Any + resistance will tell against you in the end.” + </p> + <p> + Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of escape. + In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and boyhood’s + ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to outwitting a + dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry the crowd would + close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten yards, and he would + have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng was thick as glue, and he + walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for an opening. Suddenly the + mob swerved aside after some new show. Tony’s fist shot out at the black + fellow’s chest, and before the latter could right himself the young New + Englander was showing a clean pair of heels to his escort. On he sped, + cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in Gloucester bay, diving under the + first arch that caught his eye, dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, + and plunging across a narrow hump-back bridge which landed him in a black + pocket between walls. But now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by + the yelping mob. The walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage + Tony’s breath came short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck + had landed him. Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of + a servant wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh + chances. Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, + and the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + The servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They + climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor, and + entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from the + painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his + surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started up + at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was the + cause of all his troubles. + </p> + <p> + She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her face + changed and she shrank back abashed. + </p> + <p> + “This is a misunderstanding—a dreadful misunderstanding,” she cried + out in her pretty broken English. “Oh, how does it happen that you are + here?” + </p> + <p> + “Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!” retorted Tony, not + over-pleased by his reception. + </p> + <p> + “But why—how—how did you make this unfortunate mistake?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, madam, if you’ll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was yours—” + </p> + <p> + “Mine?” + </p> + <p> + —“in sending me a letter—” + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i>—a letter?” + </p> + <p> + —“by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your + father’s very nose—” + </p> + <p> + The girl broke in on him with a cry. “What! It was <i>you</i> who received my + letter?” She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged her + under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon, + and as she did so, Tony’s astonished eye detected in her the doubleted + page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark’s. + </p> + <p> + “What!” he cried, “the lad was this girl in disguise?” + </p> + <p> + Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded + instantly and she returned to the charge. + </p> + <p> + “This wicked, careless girl—she has ruined me, she will be my + undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not + intended for you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old + friend of my mother’s, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, + how can I ever excuse myself to you?” + </p> + <p> + “No excuses are needed, madam,” said Tony, bowing; “though I am surprised, + I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador.” + </p> + <p> + Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena’s face. “Oh, sir, you must + pardon my poor girl’s mistake. She heard you speaking English, and—and—I + had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner in the + church.” Tony bowed again, more profoundly. “The English Ambassador,” + Polixena added simply, “is a very handsome man.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!” + </p> + <p> + She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look of + anguish. “Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in + dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you also— + Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!” She turned pale and leaned + tremblingly upon the little servant. + </p> + <p> + Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment later + the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by half-a-dozen + of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the square. At sight of + him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst into furious outcries; + and though their jargon was unintelligible to the young man, their tones + and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly plain. The Senator, with a + start of anger, first flung himself on the intruder; then, snatched back + by his companions, turned wrathfully on his daughter, who, at his feet, + with outstretched arms and streaming face, pleaded her cause with all the + eloquence of young distress. Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated + vehemently among themselves, and one, a truculent-looking personage in + ruff and Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The + latter was at his wit’s end how to comport himself, for the lovely + Polixena’s tears had quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond + guessing that the magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what + they would be at. + </p> + <p> + At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on the + scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He pulled + a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be silent, + and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at first, + would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, he walked + apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of earshot. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir,” said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a perturbed + countenance, “it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a great + misfortune.” + </p> + <p> + “A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!” shouted Tony, whose blood, + by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the beautiful + Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up to the + forehead. + </p> + <p> + “Be careful,” said the Count, in a low tone. “Though his Illustriousness + does not speak your language, he understands a few words of it, and—” + </p> + <p> + “So much the better!” broke in Tony; “I hope he will understand me if I + ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me.” + </p> + <p> + The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, + stepping between, answered quickly: “His grievance against you is that you + have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the most + noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the most + illustrious Marquess Zanipolo—” and he waved a deferential hand at + the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff. + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” said Tony, “if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with the + young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal—” but here he + stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at + him. + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” interposed the Count, “we are not accustomed in Venice to take + shelter behind a lady’s reputation.” + </p> + <p> + “No more are we in Salem,” retorted Tony in a white heat. “I was merely + about to remark that, by the young lady’s avowal, she has never seen me + before.” + </p> + <p> + Polixena’s eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died to + defend her. + </p> + <p> + The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: “His + Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter’s misconduct has + been all the more reprehensible.” + </p> + <p> + “Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?” + </p> + <p> + “Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark’s, a letter which + you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The incident was + witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in + consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride.” + </p> + <p> + Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. “If his Illustriousness + is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so trivial a pretext, + it is he and not I who should be the object of her father’s resentment.” + </p> + <p> + “That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only + excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to + advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio.” + </p> + <p> + It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, and + the thought sharpened his retort. + </p> + <p> + “I had supposed,” said he, “that men of sense had much the same behaviour + in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman would be taken + at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen to read reflects + in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in fact nothing to do + with what you suppose.” + </p> + <p> + As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far as + he dared commit himself. + </p> + <p> + There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the Count + then said:—“We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to meet + certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of + immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her father?” + </p> + <p> + There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to look + straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance toward + Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by + unmistakable signs of apprehension. + </p> + <p> + “Poor girl!” he thought, “she is in a worse case than I imagined, and + whatever happens I must keep her secret.” + </p> + <p> + He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. “I am not,” said he, “in the + habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers.” + </p> + <p> + The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena’s father, dashing + his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess + continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. + </p> + <p> + The Count shook his head funereally. “Alas, sir, it is as I feared. This + is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal + imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation + incumbent upon you as a man of honour.” + </p> + <p> + Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the + Marquess. “And what obligation is that?” + </p> + <p> + “To repair the wrong you have done—in other words, to marry the + lady.” + </p> + <p> + Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: “Why in + heaven does she not bid me show the letter?” Then he remembered that it + had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them to + have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm + suspicion. The sense of the girl’s grave plight effaced all thought of his + own risk, but the Count’s last words struck him as so preposterous that he + could not repress a smile. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot flatter myself,” said he, “that the lady would welcome this + solution.” + </p> + <p> + The Count’s manner became increasingly ceremonious. “Such modesty,” he + said, “becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were justified + it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in this country + that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father has selected.” + </p> + <p> + “But I understood just now,” Tony interposed, “that the gentleman yonder + was in that enviable position.” + </p> + <p> + “So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in your + favour.” + </p> + <p> + “He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness + obliges me to decline—” + </p> + <p> + “You are still,” interrupted the Count, “labouring under a + misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted than + the lady’s. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that you + should marry her within the hour.” + </p> + <p> + Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. + He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself and the + door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the apartment, and + then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her father’s feet. + </p> + <p> + “And if I refuse?” said he. + </p> + <p> + The Count made a significant gesture. “I am not so foolish as to threaten + a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the consequences + would be to the lady.” + </p> + <p> + Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned + words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an + obdurate gesture. + </p> + <p> + The Count turned to Tony. “The lady herself pleads for you—at what + cost you do not guess—but as you see it is vain. In an hour his + Illustriousness’s chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness + consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed.” + </p> + <p> + He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to + Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in the + lock, and found himself alone with Polixena. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + The girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and + agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own + extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, + drawing her hands from her face. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don’t make me look at you!” she sobbed; but it was on his bosom that + she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as he might + have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him gently from + her. + </p> + <p> + “What humiliation!” she lamented. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think I blame you for what has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And + how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show the + letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me from + this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even greater.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—it was that you wrote for?” cried Tony with unaccountable + relief. + </p> + <p> + “Of course—what else did you think?” + </p> + <p> + “But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?” + </p> + <p> + “From <i>you</i>?” A smile flashed through her tears. “Alas, yes.” She drew back + and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of shame. + </p> + <p> + Tony glanced about him. “If I could wrench a bar out of that window—” + he muttered. + </p> + <p> + “Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.—Oh, I + must speak!” She sprang up and paced the room. “But indeed you can scarce + think worse of me than you do already—” + </p> + <p> + “I think ill of you?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen for + me—” + </p> + <p> + “Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice.” + </p> + <p> + “It is infamous, I say—infamous!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no—I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others.” + </p> + <p> + “Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!” + </p> + <p> + “He has a dreadful name for violence—his gondolier has told my + little maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of + you I should be thinking?” + </p> + <p> + “Of me, poor child?” cried Tony, losing his head. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and how to save you—for I <i>can</i> save you! But every moment + counts—and yet what I have to say is so dreadful.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now at least you are free of him,” said Tony, a little wildly; but + at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him. + </p> + <p> + “No, I am not free,” she said; “but you are, if you will do as I tell + you.” + </p> + <p> + Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight + through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the fall + had stunned him. + </p> + <p> + “What am I to do?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Look away from me, or I can never tell you.” + </p> + <p> + He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, and + reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the window. She + stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back was turned she + began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she were reciting a + lesson. + </p> + <p> + “You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not a + rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate spendthrift + and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of ready money.—If + you turn round I shall not go on!—He wrangled horribly with my + father over my dowry—he wanted me to have more than either of my + sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee of Spain. + But my father is a gambler too—oh, such fortunes as are squandered + over the arcade yonder! And so—and so—don’t turn, I implore + you—oh, do you begin to see my meaning?” + </p> + <p> + She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes from + her. + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You don’t + know us Venetians—we’re all to be bought for a price. It is not only + the brides who are marketable—sometimes the husbands sell themselves + too. And they think you rich—my father does, and the others—I + don’t know why, unless you have shown your money too freely—and the + English are all rich, are they not? And—oh, oh—do you + understand? Oh, I can’t bear your eyes!” + </p> + <p> + She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was at + her side. + </p> + <p> + “My poor child, my poor Polixena!” he cried, and wept and clasped her. + </p> + <p> + “You <i>are</i> rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?” she + persisted. + </p> + <p> + “To enable you to marry the Marquess?” + </p> + <p> + “To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see your + face again.” She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and paced the + floor in a fever. + </p> + <p> + Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a + clock against the wall. “The hour is nearly over. It is quite true that my + father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by me! + There is no other way of escape.” + </p> + <p> + “And if I do as you say—?” + </p> + <p> + “You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it.” + </p> + <p> + “And you—you are married to that villain?” + </p> + <p> + “But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to + myself when I am alone.” + </p> + <p> + “My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow.” + </p> + <p> + “You forgive me, Anthony? You don’t think too badly of me?” + </p> + <p> + “I say you must not marry that fellow.” + </p> + <p> + She laid a trembling hand on his arm. “Time presses,” she adjured him, + “and I warn you there is no other way.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a + Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson’s sermons in the best parlour at + Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. + “Yes, there is,” he cried, “if you are willing. Polixena, let the priest + come!” + </p> + <p> + She shrank back from him, white and radiant. “Oh, hush, be silent!” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates,” he cried. “My father + is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts—but if you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, hush, I say! I don’t know what your long words mean. But I bless you, + bless you, bless you on my knees!” And she knelt before him, and fell to + kissing his hands. + </p> + <p> + He drew her up to his breast and held her there. + </p> + <p> + “You are willing, Polixena?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” She broke from him with outstretched hands. “I am not willing. + You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!” + </p> + <p> + “On my money?” he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, on your money,” she said sadly. + </p> + <p> + “Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?” + </p> + <p> + She was silent. + </p> + <p> + “If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?” he persisted. + </p> + <p> + “You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past.” + </p> + <p> + “Let it pass. I’ll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger to + help another man to marry you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, madman, madman!” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the + wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and + falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty. + </p> + <p> + “Polixena, I love you!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the verge + of her troubled brows. + </p> + <p> + “I love you! I love you!” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their + lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird’s poise and before he knew + it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them. + </p> + <p> + She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. “I took it from your + fob,” she said. “It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any of the + money, you know.” + </p> + <p> + She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her + ashen face. + </p> + <p> + “What are you talking of?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never see + you again, Anthony!” She gave him a dreadful look. “Oh, my poor boy, my + poor love—‘<i>I love you, I love you, Polixena!</i>’” + </p> + <p> + He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with soothing + words; but she held him quietly at arm’s length, and as he gazed he read + the truth in her face. + </p> + <p> + He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on + his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Only, for God’s sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play + here,” she said. + </p> + <p> + As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of + voices on the threshold. + </p> + <p> + “It is all a lie,” she gasped out, “about my marriage, and the Marquess, + and the Ambassador, and the Senator—but not, oh, not about your + danger in this place—or about my love,” she breathed to him. And as + the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow. + </p> + <p> + The key rattled, and the door swung open—but the black-cassocked + gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of + idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias + Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much on + the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident relief, + by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was closed by an + escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and small-swords, who led + between them Tony’s late friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a looking + company as the law ever landed in her net. + </p> + <p> + The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of satisfaction + as he clapped eyes on Tony. + </p> + <p> + “So, Mr. Bracknell,” said he, “you have been seeing the Carnival with this + pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has landed + you? H’m—a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head of + it.” He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock ceremony + to Polixena, who faced him like a princess. + </p> + <p> + “Why, my girl,” said he, amicably, “I think I saw you this morning in the + square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain + Spavent—” and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess—“I’ve + watched him drive his bully’s trade under the arcade ever since I first + dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well,” he continued, his indignation + subsiding, “all’s fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this gentleman here is + under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up your little party.” + </p> + <p> + At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and + explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain. + </p> + <p> + “I can assure you, sir,” said the Count in his best English, “that this + incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you will + oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends here will be + happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his companions.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud + guffaw. + </p> + <p> + “Satisfaction?” says he. “Why, my cock, that’s very handsome of you, + considering the rope’s at your throats. But we’ll not take advantage of + your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it too + long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!” he spluttered suddenly, “decoying + young innocents with that devil’s bait of yours—” His eye fell on + Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. “Ah, well, we must all see + the Carnival once, I suppose,” he said. “All’s well that ends well, as the + fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. Bracknell, if you’ll + take the reverend gentleman’s arm there, we’ll bid adieu to our hospitable + entertainers, and right about face for the Hepzibah.” + </p> + <p> + The End of A Venetian Night’s Entertainment + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XINGU + </h2> + <h3> + December, 1911 + </h3> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though + it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch + Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable + huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of + lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the + entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted + functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated + “Osric Dane,” on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to be + present at the next meeting. + </p> + <p> + The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger’s. The other members, behind her + back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede her rights + in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive setting for + the entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there + was always the picture-gallery to fall back on. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always regarded + it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club’s distinguished + guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as she was of + her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the one + possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth could + afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set herself. + An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her + opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly stationed; but the + power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep footmen clearly intended + her to maintain an equally specialized staff of responsibilities. It was + the more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society + were bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have been so + tenacious of the right to entertain Osric Dane. + </p> + <p> + The question of that lady’s reception had for a month past profoundly + moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt themselves + unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity plunged them + into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the alternatives of + a well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as Mrs. Leveret were + fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the author of “The Wings + of Death,” no forebodings of the kind disturbed the conscious adequacy of + Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. “The Wings of Death” had, + in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck’s suggestion, been chosen as the subject of + discussion at the last club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled + to express her own opinion or to appropriate whatever seemed most likely + to be of use in the comments of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had abstained + from profiting by the opportunity thus offered; but it was now openly + recognised that, as a member of the Lunch Club, Mrs. Roby was a failure. + “It all comes,” as Miss Van Vluyck put it, “of accepting a woman on a + man’s estimation.” Mrs. Roby, returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged + sojourn in exotic regions—the other ladies no longer took the + trouble to remember where—had been emphatically commended by the + distinguished biologist, Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman + he had ever met; and the members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium + that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the + Professor’s social sympathies would follow the line of his scientific + bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological member. Their + disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van Vluyck’s first off-hand mention + of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had confusedly murmured: “I know so little + about metres—” and after that painful betrayal of incompetence she + had prudently withdrawn from farther participation in the mental + gymnastics of the club. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose she flattered him,” Miss Van Vluyck summed up—“or else + it’s the way she does her hair.” + </p> + <p> + The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck’s dining-room having restricted the + membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one member was a + serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already + been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to live, as it were, on the + intellectual bounty of the others. This feeling was augmented by the + discovery that she had not yet read “The Wings of Death.” She owned to + having heard the name of Osric Dane; but that—incredible as it + appeared—was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated + novelist. The ladies could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. Ballinger, + whose pride in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby in the best + possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not had time to + acquaint herself with “The Wings of Death,” she must at least be familiar + with its equally remarkable predecessor, “The Supreme Instant.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, as + a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she <i>had</i> seen the book at her + brother’s, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even carried + it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all got to shying + things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she + had never had the chance— + </p> + <p> + The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby’s credit + with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by Mrs. + Plinth’s remarking: “I can understand that, with all your other pursuits, + you should not find much time for reading; but I should have thought you + might at least have <i>got up</i> ‘The Wings of Death’ before Osric Dane’s + arrival.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned to + glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of + Trollope’s that— + </p> + <p> + “No one reads Trollope now,” Mrs. Ballinger interrupted impatiently. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby looked pained. “I’m only just beginning,” she confessed. + </p> + <p> + “And does he interest you?” Mrs. Plinth inquired. + </p> + <p> + “He amuses me.” + </p> + <p> + “Amusement,” said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, “is hardly what I look for in + my choice of books.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, certainly, ‘The Wings of Death’ is not amusing,” ventured Mrs. + Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an + obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first + selection does not suit. + </p> + <p> + “Was it <i>meant</i> to be?” enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking + questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. “Assuredly + not.” + </p> + <p> + “Assuredly not—that is what I was going to say,” assented Mrs. + Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. “It was + meant to—to elevate.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black cap + of condemnation. “I hardly see,” she interposed, “how a book steeped in + the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, however much it may + instruct.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant, of course, to instruct,” said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the + unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be + synonymous. Mrs. Leveret’s enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently + marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other + ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes troubled + by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. It was only the + fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved her from a + sense of hopeless inferiority. + </p> + <p> + “Do they get married in the end?” Mrs. Roby interposed. + </p> + <p> + “They—who?” the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Why, the girl and man. It’s a novel, isn’t it? I always think that’s the + one thing that matters. If they’re parted it spoils my dinner.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the + latter said: “I should hardly advise you to read ‘The Wings of Death,’ in + that spirit. For my part, when there are so many books that one <i>has</i> to + read, I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely + amusing.” + </p> + <p> + “The beautiful part of it,” Laura Glyde murmured, “is surely just this—that + no one can tell <i>how</i> ‘The Wings of Death’ ends. Osric Dane, overcome by the + dread significance of her own meaning, has mercifully veiled it—perhaps + even from herself—as Apelles, in representing the sacrifice of + Iphigenia, veiled the face of Agamemnon.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s that? Is it poetry?” whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to Mrs. + Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: “You should look it + up. I always make it a point to look things up.” Her tone added—“though + I might easily have it done for me by the footman.” + </p> + <p> + “I was about to say,” Miss Van Vluyck resumed, “that it must always be a + question whether a book <i>can</i> instruct unless it elevates.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—” murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van Vluyck’s tone a + tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining Osric Dane; + “I don’t know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a book + which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any novel + since ‘Robert Elsmere.’” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but don’t you see,” exclaimed Laura Glyde, “that it’s just the dark + hopelessness of it all—the wonderful tone-scheme of black on black—that + makes it such an artistic achievement? It reminded me so when I read it of + Prince Rupert’s <i>manière noire</i>... the book is etched, not painted, yet one + feels the colour values so intensely...” + </p> + <p> + “Who is <i>he</i>?” Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. “Some one she’s met + abroad?” + </p> + <p> + “The wonderful part of the book,” Mrs. Ballinger conceded, “is that it may + be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of + determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with ‘The Data of Ethics.’” + </p> + <p> + “I’m told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies before + beginning to write it,” said Mrs. Plinth. “She looks up everything—verifies + everything. It has always been my principle, as you know. Nothing would + induce me, now, to put aside a book before I’d finished it, just because I + can buy as many more as I want.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do <i>you</i> think of ‘The Wings of Death’?” Mrs. Roby abruptly asked + her. + </p> + <p> + It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the + ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a + breach of discipline. They all knew that there was nothing Mrs. Plinth so + much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were written to + read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be questioned in + detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an + outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. The club + had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth’s. Such opinions as + she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her house, was + furnished with monumental “pieces” that were not meant to be suddenly + disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of the Lunch Club that, + within her own province, each member’s habits of thought should be + respected. The meeting therefore closed with an increased sense, on the + part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby’s hopeless unfitness to be one of + them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs. Ballinger’s, + her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket. + </p> + <p> + It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked + to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of the + turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she felt + herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of Appropriate + Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to give her any + reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled to meet all the + social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion of Anniversaries, + joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran), of Banquets, social or + municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of England or sectarian, its student + need never be at a loss for a pertinent reference. Mrs. Leveret, though + she had for years devoutly conned its pages, valued it, however, rather + for its moral support than for its practical services; for though in the + privacy of her own room she commanded an army of quotations, these + invariably deserted her at the critical moment, and the only line she + retained—<i>Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?</i>—was one + she had never yet found the occasion to apply. + </p> + <p> + To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would hardly + have insured her self-possession; for she thought it probable, even if she + <i>did</i>, in some miraculous way, remember an Allusion, it would be only to + find that Osric Dane used a different volume (Mrs. Leveret was convinced + that literary people always carried them), and would consequently not + recognise her quotations. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret’s sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance of + Mrs. Ballinger’s drawing-room. To a careless eye its aspect was unchanged; + but those acquainted with Mrs. Ballinger’s way of arranging her books + would instantly have detected the marks of recent perturbation. Mrs. + Ballinger’s province, as a member of the Lunch Club, was the Book of the + Day. On that, whatever it was, from a novel to a treatise on experimental + psychology, she was confidently, authoritatively “up.” What became of last + year’s books, or last week’s even; what she did with the “subjects” she + had previously professed with equal authority; no one had ever yet + discovered. Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient + lodgers, without leaving their address behind, and frequently without + paying for their board. It was Mrs. Ballinger’s boast that she was + “abreast with the Thought of the Day,” and her pride that this advanced + position should be expressed by the books on her drawing-room table. These + volumes, frequently renewed, and almost always damp from the press, bore + names generally unfamiliar to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she + furtively scanned them, a disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge + to be breathlessly traversed in Mrs. Ballinger’s wake. But to-day a number + of maturer-looking volumes were adroitly mingled with the primeurs of the + press—Karl Marx jostled Professor Bergson, and the “Confessions of + St. Augustine” lay beside the last work on “Mendelism”; so that even to + Mrs. Leveret’s fluttered perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger + didn’t in the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had + taken measures to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt like a + passenger on an ocean steamer who is told that there is no immediate + danger, but that she had better put on her life-belt. + </p> + <p> + It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van Vluyck’s + arrival. + </p> + <p> + “Well, my dear,” the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, “what subjects + are we to discuss to-day?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy of + Verlaine. “I hardly know,” she said somewhat nervously. “Perhaps we had + better leave that to circumstances.” + </p> + <p> + “Circumstances?” said Miss Van Vluyck drily. “That means, I suppose, that + Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we shall be deluged with + literature.” + </p> + <p> + Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck’s province, and she + naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest’s attention from + these topics. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared. + </p> + <p> + “Literature?” she protested in a tone of remonstrance. “But this is + perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane’s novel.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. “We can + hardly make that our chief subject—at least not <i>too</i> intentionally,” + she suggested. “Of course we can let our talk <i>drift</i> in that direction; but + we ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is what I + wanted to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of Osric + Dane’s tastes and interests that it is difficult to make any special + preparation.” + </p> + <p> + “It may be difficult,” said Mrs. Plinth with decision, “but it is + absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle leads to. + As I told one of my nieces the other day, there are certain emergencies + for which a lady should always be prepared. It’s in shocking taste to wear + colours when one pays a visit of condolence, or a last year’s dress when + there are reports that one’s husband is on the wrong side of the market; + and so it is with conversation. All I ask is that I should know beforehand + what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of being able to say the + proper thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I quite agree with you,” Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented; “but—” + </p> + <p> + And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid, Osric Dane + appeared upon the threshold. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a glance what + was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them half way. + That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of compulsion + not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality. She looked as + though she were about to be photographed for a new edition of her books. + </p> + <p> + The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to its + responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane’s + entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club’s eagerness to please her. Any + lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to her + entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret said + afterward to her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made you + feel as if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence of + greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a + shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their hostess led the + great personage into the dining-room, turned back to whisper to the + others: “What a brute she is!” + </p> + <p> + The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict. It was + passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Ballinger’s menu, + and by the members of the Club in the emission of tentative platitudes + which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive + courses of the luncheon. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger’s deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown the Club + into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the + drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each + lady waited for the other to speak; and there was a general shock of + disappointment when their hostess opened the conversation by the painfully + commonplace inquiry: “Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?” + </p> + <p> + Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; and a vague + impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: “It is a very small + place indeed.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth bristled. “We have a great many representative people,” she + said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order. + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. “What do they represent?” she + asked. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth’s constitutional dislike to being questioned was intensified + by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful glance passed the + question on to Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “Why,” said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, “as a + community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture.” + </p> + <p> + “For art—” Miss Glyde eagerly interjected. + </p> + <p> + “For art and literature,” Mrs. Ballinger emended. + </p> + <p> + “And for sociology, I trust,” snapped Miss Van Vluyck. + </p> + <p> + “We have a standard,” said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly secure on + the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret, thinking there + must be room for more than one on so broad a statement, took courage to + murmur: “Oh, certainly; we have a standard.” + </p> + <p> + “The object of our little club,” Mrs. Ballinger continued, “is to + concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge—to centralise and + focus its complex intellectual effort.” + </p> + <p> + This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible breath + of relief. + </p> + <p> + “We aspire,” the President went on, “to stand for what is highest in art, + literature and ethics.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane again turned to her. “What ethics?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies required + any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; but when they were + called ethics it was different. The club, when fresh from the + “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” the “Reader’s Handbook” or Smith’s “Classical + Dictionary,” could deal confidently with any subject; but when taken + unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the Early + Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; and such minor + members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as something + vaguely pagan. + </p> + <p> + Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane’s question was unsettling, and there + was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned forward to say, + with her most sympathetic accent: “You must excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for not + being able, just at present, to talk of anything but ‘The Wings of + Death.’” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the war into + the enemy’s camp. “We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had in + mind in writing your wonderful book.” + </p> + <p> + “You will find,” Mrs. Plinth interposed, “that we are not superficial + readers.” + </p> + <p> + “We are eager to hear from you,” Miss Van Vluyck continued, “if the + pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own convictions + or—” + </p> + <p> + “Or merely,” Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, “a sombre background brushed in + to throw your figures into more vivid relief. <i>Are</i> you not primarily + plastic?” + </p> + <p> + “I have always maintained,” Mrs. Ballinger interposed, “that you represent + the purely objective method—” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. “How do you define + objective?” she then inquired. + </p> + <p> + There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: “In + reading <i>you</i> we don’t define, we feel.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane smiled. “The cerebellum,” she remarked, “is not infrequently + the seat of the literary emotions.” And she took a second lump of sugar. + </p> + <p> + The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost + neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical + language. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, the cerebellum,” said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. “The Club took a + course in psychology last winter.” + </p> + <p> + “Which psychology?” asked Osric Dane. + </p> + <p> + There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the Club + secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. + Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, + with an attempt at a high tone: “Well, really, you know, it was last year + that we took psychology, and this winter we have been so absorbed in—” + </p> + <p> + She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club’s discussions; + but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the petrifying stare of Osric + Dane. What <i>had</i> the club been absorbed in lately? Mrs. Ballinger, with a + vague purpose of gaining time, repeated slowly: “We’ve been so intensely + absorbed in—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a smile. + </p> + <p> + “In Xingu?” she gently prompted. + </p> + <p> + A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused glances, + and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief and + interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The expression of each denoted + a different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first to + compose her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment’s hasty + adjustment her look almost implied that it was she who had given the word + to Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “Xingu, of course!” exclaimed the latter with her accustomed promptness, + while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be plumbing the depths of + memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling apprehensively for Appropriate + Allusions, was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its bulk + against her person. + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane’s change of countenance was no less striking than that of her + entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a look of distinct + annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment, what Mrs. Roby afterward + described as the look of feeling for something in the back of her head; + and before she could dissemble these momentary signs of weakness, Mrs. + Roby, turning to her with a deferential smile, had said: “And we’ve been + so hoping that to-day you would tell us just what you think of it.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of course; but the + accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, and it became clear to + her observers that she was not quick at shifting her facial scenery. It + was as though her countenance had so long been set in an expression of + unchallenged superiority that the muscles had stiffened, and refused to + obey her orders. + </p> + <p> + “Xingu—” she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby continued to press her. “Knowing how engrossing the subject is, + you will understand how it happens that the Club has let everything else + go to the wall for the moment. Since we took up Xingu I might almost say—were + it not for your books—that nothing else seems to us worth + remembering.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane’s stern features were darkened rather than lit up by an uneasy + smile. “I am glad to hear there is one exception,” she gave out between + narrowed lips. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, of course,” Mrs. Roby said prettily; “but as you have shown us that—so + very naturally!—you don’t care to talk about your own things, we + really can’t let you off from telling us exactly what you think about + Xingu; especially,” she added, with a persuasive smile, “as some people + say that one of your last books was simply saturated with it.” + </p> + <p> + It was an <i>it</i>, then—the assurance sped like fire through the parched + minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least little + clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at the discomfiture + of Mrs. Dane. + </p> + <p> + The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist’s direct assault. “May + I ask,” she faltered out in an embarrassed tone, “to which of my books you + refer?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby did not falter. “That’s just what I want you to tell us; + because, though I was present, I didn’t actually take part.” + </p> + <p> + “Present at what?” Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the trembling + members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion Providence had raised + up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained herself gaily: “At + the discussion, of course. And so we’re dreadfully anxious to know just + how it was that you went into the Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable dangers + that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips, like + soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their + leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying + sharply: “Ah—you say <i>The</i> Xingu, do you?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. “It <i>is</i> a shade pedantic, isn’t it? + Personally, I always drop the article; but I don’t know how the other + members feel about it.” + </p> + <p> + The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed + with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a + bright glance about the group, went on: “They probably think, as I do, + that nothing really matters except the thing itself—except Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger + gathered courage to say: “Surely every one must feel that about Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and Laura + Glyde breathed emotionally: “I have known cases where it has changed a + whole life.” + </p> + <p> + “It has done me worlds of good,” Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming to + herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it in the winter + before. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” Mrs. Roby admitted, “the difficulty is that one must give up + so much time to it. It’s very long.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine,” said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, “grudging the time given + to such a subject.” + </p> + <p> + “And deep in places,” Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) “And it + isn’t easy to skip.” + </p> + <p> + “I never skip,” said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, it’s dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places where + one can’t. One must just wade through.” + </p> + <p> + “I should hardly call it <i>wading</i>,” said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. “Ah—you always found it went + swimmingly?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. “Of course there are difficult passages,” she + conceded modestly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; some are not at all clear—even,” Mrs. Roby added, “if one is + familiar with the original.” + </p> + <p> + “As I suppose you are?” Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with a + look of challenge. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. “Oh, it’s really not difficult up + to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little known, and + it’s almost impossible to get at the source.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever tried?” Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of Mrs. + Roby’s thoroughness. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered lids: “No—but + a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he told me it was best for + women—not to...” + </p> + <p> + A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the + parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; Miss Van + Vluyck’s face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. Plinth looked as if + she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the most + remarkable result of Mrs. Roby’s words was the effect they produced on the + Lunch Club’s distinguished guest. Osric Dane’s impassive features suddenly + melted to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and edging her + chair toward Mrs. Roby’s she asked: “Did he really? And—did you find + he was right?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby’s unwonted assumption of + prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had + rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, + to monopolise the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough + self-respect to resent Mrs. Roby’s flippancy, at least the Lunch Club + would do so in the person of its President. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby’s arm. “We must not forget,” she + said with a frigid amiability, “that absorbing as Xingu is to <i>us</i>, it may + be less interesting to—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you,” Osric Dane energetically + intervened. + </p> + <p> + “—to others,” Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; “and we must not allow + our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to say a few words + to us on a subject which, to-day, is much more present in all our + thoughts. I refer, of course, to ‘The Wings of Death.’” + </p> + <p> + The other members, animated by various degrees of the same sentiment, and + encouraged by the humanised mien of their redoubtable guest, repeated + after Mrs. Ballinger: “Oh, yes, you really <i>must</i> talk to us a little about + your book.” + </p> + <p> + Osric Dane’s expression became as bored, though not as haughty, as when + her work had been previously mentioned. But before she could respond to + Mrs. Ballinger’s request, Mrs. Roby had risen from her seat, and was + pulling her veil down over her frivolous nose. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so sorry,” she said, advancing toward her hostess with outstretched + hand, “but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I’d better run away. Unluckily, + as you know, I haven’t read her books, so I should be at a terrible + disadvantage among you all; and besides, I’ve an engagement to play + bridge.” + </p> + <p> + If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane’s works as a + reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her recent prowess, + might have approved such evidence of discretion; but to couple this excuse + with the brazen announcement that she was foregoing the privilege for the + purpose of joining a bridge-party, was only one more instance of her + deplorable lack of discrimination. + </p> + <p> + The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure—now + that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely to render them—would + probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending discussion, + besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which her presence + always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore restricted herself + to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members were just grouping + themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the latter, to their dismay, + started up from the sofa on which she had been deferentially enthroned. + </p> + <p> + “Oh wait—do wait, and I’ll go with you!” she called out to Mrs. + Roby; and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she administered + a series of farewell pressures with the mechanical haste of a + railway-conductor punching tickets. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so sorry—I’d quite forgotten—” she flung back at them + from the threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in + surprise at her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of hearing + her say, in a voice which she did not take the pains to lower: “If you’ll + let me walk a little way with you, I should so like to ask you a few more + questions about Xingu...” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + The incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the departing pair + before the other members had had time to understand what was happening. + Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane’s unceremonious + desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that they had been + cheated out of their due without exactly knowing how or why. + </p> + <p> + There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a + perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which her + distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck + tartly pronounced: “Well, I can’t say that I consider Osric Dane’s + departure a great loss.” + </p> + <p> + This confession crystallised the fluid resentment of the other members, + and Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: “I do believe she came on purpose to be + nasty!” + </p> + <p> + It was Mrs. Plinth’s private opinion that Osric Dane’s attitude toward the + Lunch Club might have been very different had it welcomed her in the + majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; but not liking to reflect on + the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger’s establishment she sought a round-about + satisfaction in depreciating her savoir faire. + </p> + <p> + “I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. It’s + what always happens when you’re unprepared. Now if we’d only got up Xingu—” + </p> + <p> + The slowness of Mrs. Plinth’s mental processes was always allowed for by + the Club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. Ballinger’s + equanimity. + </p> + <p> + “Xingu!” she scoffed. “Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more + about it than she did—unprepared though we were—that made + Osric Dane so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to + everybody!” + </p> + <p> + This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an + impulse of generosity, said: “Yes, we really ought to be grateful to Mrs. + Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane furious, but + at least it made her civil.” + </p> + <p> + “I am glad we were able to show her,” added Miss Van Vluyck, “that a broad + and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great intellectual centres.” + </p> + <p> + This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they began to + forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of having + contributed to her defeat. + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. “What surprised me + most,” she continued, “was that Fanny Roby should be so up on Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + This frank admission threw a slight chill on the company, but Mrs. + Ballinger said with an air of indulgent irony: “Mrs. Roby always has the + knack of making a little go a long way; still, we certainly owe her a debt + for happening to remember that she’d heard of Xingu.” And this was felt by + the other members to be a graceful way of cancelling once for all the + Club’s obligation to Mrs. Roby. + </p> + <p> + Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony: “I fancy + Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at Hillbridge!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger smiled. “When she asked me what we represented—do you + remember?—I wish I’d simply said we represented Xingu!” + </p> + <p> + All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs. Plinth, + who said, after a moment’s deliberation: “I’m not sure it would have been + wise to do so.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had launched + at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, looked ironically + at Mrs. Plinth. “May I ask why?” she enquired. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth looked grave. “Surely,” she said, “I understood from Mrs. Roby + herself that the subject was one it was as well not to go into too + deeply?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: “I think that applied only to an + investigation of the origin of the—of the—“; and suddenly she + found that her usually accurate memory had failed her. “It’s a part of the + subject I never studied myself,” she concluded lamely. + </p> + <p> + “Nor I,” said Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. “And yet it seems—doesn’t + it?—the part that is fullest of an esoteric fascination?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know on what you base that,” said Miss Van Vluyck + argumentatively. + </p> + <p> + “Well, didn’t you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane became as + soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner—he <i>was</i> a foreigner, + wasn’t he?—had told Mrs. Roby about the origin—the origin of + the rite—or whatever you call it?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly wavered. Then + she said in a decisive tone: “It may not be desirable to touch on the—on + that part of the subject in general conversation; but, from the importance + it evidently has to a woman of Osric Dane’s distinction, I feel as if we + ought not to be afraid to discuss it among ourselves—without gloves—though + with closed doors, if necessary.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m quite of your opinion,” Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her support; + “on condition, that is, that all grossness of language is avoided.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m sure we shall understand without that,” Mrs. Leveret tittered; + and Laura Glyde added significantly: “I fancy we can read between the + lines,” while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors were + really closed. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. “I hardly see,” she began, + “what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar customs—” + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Ballinger’s patience had reached the extreme limit of tension. + “This at least,” she returned; “that we shall not be placed again in the + humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects than + Fanny Roby!” + </p> + <p> + Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered furtively + about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: “Have you got a + copy?” + </p> + <p> + “A—a copy?” stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the other + members were looking at her expectantly, and that this answer was + inadequate, so she supported it by asking another question. “A copy of + what?” + </p> + <p> + Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in turn, + appeared less sure of herself than usual. “Why, of—of—the + book,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + “What book?” snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric Dane. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were interrogatively + fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being deferred to was so new to the + latter that it filled her with an insane temerity. “Why, Xingu, of + course!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + A profound silence followed this direct challenge to the resources of Mrs. + Ballinger’s library, and the latter, after glancing nervously toward the + Books of the Day, returned in a deprecating voice: “It’s not a thing one + cares to leave about.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think <i>not</i>!” exclaimed Mrs. Plinth. + </p> + <p> + “It <i>is</i> a book, then?” said Miss Van Vluyck. + </p> + <p> + This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, with an + impatient sigh, rejoined: “Why—there <i>is</i> a book—naturally...” + </p> + <p> + “Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?” + </p> + <p> + Laura Glyde started up. “A religion? I never—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, you did,” Miss Van Vluyck insisted; “you spoke of rites; and Mrs. + Plinth said it was a custom.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce her + statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length + she began in a deep murmur: “Surely they used to do something of the kind + at the Eleusinian mysteries—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—” said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and Mrs. + Plinth protested: “I understood there was to be no indelicacy!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. “Really, it is too bad + that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among + ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so do I!” cried Miss Glyde. + </p> + <p> + “And I don’t see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up with + the Thought of the Day—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. “There—that’s it!” + she interposed. + </p> + <p> + “What’s it?” the President curtly took her up. + </p> + <p> + “Why—it’s a—a Thought: I mean a philosophy.” + </p> + <p> + This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura Glyde, + but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: “Excuse me if I tell you that + you’re all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language.” + </p> + <p> + “A language!” the Lunch Club cried. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly. Don’t you remember Fanny Roby’s saying that there were several + branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that apply to but + dialects?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. “Really, if + the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny Roby for + instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease to exist!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s really her fault for not being clearer,” Laura Glyde put in. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!” Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. “I daresay we + shall find she was mistaken on almost every point.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not look it up?” said Mrs. Plinth. + </p> + <p> + As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth’s was ignored in the + heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the privacy of each + member’s home. But on the present occasion the desire to ascribe their own + confusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature of Mrs. Roby’s + statements caused the members of the Lunch Club to utter a collective + demand for a book of reference. + </p> + <p> + At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. Leveret, + for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the centre front; but + she was not able to hold it long, for Appropriate Allusions contained no + mention of Xingu. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s not the kind of thing we want!” exclaimed Miss Van Vluyck. She + cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger’s assortment of literature, + and added impatiently: “Haven’t you any useful books?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I have,” replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; “but I keep them + in my husband’s dressing-room.” + </p> + <p> + From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour-maid + produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in deference to the fact + that the demand for it had come from Miss Van Vluyck, laid the ponderous + tome before her. + </p> + <p> + There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck rubbed her + spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a murmur of surprise when + she said: “It isn’t here.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Mrs. Plinth, “it’s not fit to be put in a book of + reference.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. “Try X.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short-sightedly up + and down the pages, till she came to a stop and remained motionless, like + a dog on a point. + </p> + <p> + “Well, have you found it?” Mrs. Ballinger enquired, after a considerable + delay. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I’ve found it,” said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: “I beg you won’t read it aloud if there’s + anything offensive.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what <i>is</i> it?” exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Do</i> tell us!” urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have something + awful to tell her sister. + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the + expectant group. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a river.” + </p> + <p> + “A <i>river</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes: in Brazil. Isn’t that where she’s been living?” + </p> + <p> + “Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You’ve been reading the + wrong thing,” Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the + volume. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the only <i>Xingu</i> in the Encyclopaedia; and she <i>has</i> been living in + Brazil,” Miss Van Vluyck persisted. + </p> + <p> + “Yes: her brother has a consulship there,” Mrs. Leveret eagerly + interposed. + </p> + <p> + “But it’s too ridiculous! I—we—why we <i>all</i> remember studying + Xingu last year—or the year before last,” Mrs. Ballinger stammered. + </p> + <p> + “I thought I did when <i>you</i> said so,” Laura Glyde avowed. + </p> + <p> + “I said so?” cried Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, <i>you</i> said it had changed your whole life!” + </p> + <p> + “For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time + she’d given it.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth interposed: “I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever of + the original.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. “Oh, what does it all + matter if she’s been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck’s right—she + was talking of the river all the while!” + </p> + <p> + “How could she? It’s too preposterous,” Miss Glyde exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Listen.” Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia, + and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. “‘The Xingu, + one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of Mato + Grosso, and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less than + one thousand one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon near the + mouth of the latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is auriferous and + fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered in 1884 by the + German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and dangerous + expedition through a region inhabited by tribes still in the Stone Age of + culture.’” + </p> + <p> + The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence + from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. “She certainly <i>did</i> speak + of its having branches.” + </p> + <p> + The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. “And of its + great length,” gasped Mrs. Ballinger. + </p> + <p> + “She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn’t skip—you just had to + wade through,” Miss Glyde subjoined. + </p> + <p> + The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth’s compact + resistances. “How could there be anything improper about a river?” she + inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Improper?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what she said about the source—that it was corrupt?” + </p> + <p> + “Not corrupt, but hard to get at,” Laura Glyde corrected. “Some one who’d + been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer himself—doesn’t + it say the expedition was dangerous?” + </p> + <p> + “‘Difficult and dangerous,’” read Miss Van Vluyck. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. “There’s + nothing she said that wouldn’t apply to a river—to this river!” She + swung about excitedly to the other members. “Why, do you remember her + telling us that she hadn’t read ‘The Supreme Instant’ because she’d taken + it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother, and some one + had ‘shied’ it overboard—‘shied’ of course was her own expression?” + </p> + <p> + The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped + them. + </p> + <p> + “Well—and then didn’t she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was + simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of Mrs. Roby’s + rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!” + </p> + <p> + This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just + participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length + Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy + tone: “Osric Dane was taken in too.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. “Perhaps that’s what Mrs. Roby did it + for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give her + a lesson.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck frowned. “It was hardly worth while to do it at our + expense.” + </p> + <p> + “At least,” said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, “she succeeded in + interesting her, which was more than we did.” + </p> + <p> + “What chance had we?” rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. “Mrs. Roby monopolised her + from the first. And <i>that</i>, I’ve no doubt, was her purpose—to give + Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would + hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in poor + Professor Foreland.” + </p> + <p> + “She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday,” Mrs. Leveret + piped up. + </p> + <p> + Laura Glyde struck her hands together. “Why, this is Thursday, and it’s + <i>there</i> she’s gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!” + </p> + <p> + “And they’re shrieking over us at this moment,” said Mrs. Ballinger + between her teeth. + </p> + <p> + This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. “She would hardly + dare,” said Miss Van Vluyck, “confess the imposture to Osric Dane.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she + hadn’t made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you know, we’d all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and + she said she wanted to find out more about it,” Mrs. Leveret said, with a + tardy impulse of justice to the absent. + </p> + <p> + This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave it + a stronger impetus. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—and that’s exactly what they’re both laughing over now,” said + Laura Glyde ironically. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her monumental + form. “I have no wish to criticise,” she said; “but unless the Lunch Club + can protect its members against the recurrence of such—such + unbecoming scenes, I for one—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so do I!” agreed Miss Glyde, rising also. + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button herself + into her jacket. “My time is really too valuable—” she began. + </p> + <p> + “I fancy we are all of one mind,” said Mrs. Ballinger, looking searchingly + at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others. + </p> + <p> + “I always deprecate anything like a scandal—” Mrs. Plinth continued. + </p> + <p> + “She has been the cause of one to-day!” exclaimed Miss Glyde. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leveret moaned: “I don’t see how she <i>could</i>!” and Miss Van Vluyck + said, picking up her note-book: “Some women stop at nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “—but if,” Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, “anything + of the kind had happened in <i>my</i> house” (it never would have, her tone + implied), “I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for + Mrs. Roby’s resignation—or to offer mine.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mrs. Plinth—” gasped the Lunch Club. + </p> + <p> + “Fortunately for me,” Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity, + “the matter was taken out of my hands by our President’s decision that the + right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in her + office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was alone in + this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way of + effacing its—its really deplorable consequences.” + </p> + <p> + A deep silence followed this unexpected outbreak of Mrs. Plinth’s + long-stored resentment. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see why I should be expected to ask her to resign—” Mrs. + Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her: “You + know she made you say that you’d got on swimmingly in Xingu.” + </p> + <p> + An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger + energetically continued “—but you needn’t think for a moment that + I’m afraid to!” + </p> + <p> + The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the Lunch + Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating herself + at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of “The Wings of Death” to + make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club’s note-paper, on + which she began to write: “My dear Mrs. Roby—” + </p> + <p> + The End of Xingu + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE VERDICT + </h2> + <h3> + June 1908 + </h3> + <p> + I had always thought Jack Gisburn rather a cheap genius—though a + good fellow enough—so it was no great surprise to me to hear that, + in the height of his glory, he had dropped his painting, married a rich + widow, and established himself in a villa on the Riviera. (Though I rather + thought it would have been Rome or Florence.) + </p> + <p> + “The height of his glory”—that was what the women called it. I can + hear Mrs. Gideon Thwing—his last Chicago sitter—deploring his + unaccountable abdication. “Of course it’s going to send the value of my + picture ‘way up; but I don’t think of that, Mr. Rickham—the loss to + Arrt is all I think of.” The word, on Mrs. Thwing’s lips, multiplied its + <i>rs</i> as though they were reflected in an endless vista of mirrors. And it + was not only the Mrs. Thwings who mourned. Had not the exquisite Hermia + Croft, at the last Grafton Gallery show, stopped me before Gisburn’s + “Moon-dancers” to say, with tears in her eyes: “We shall not look upon its + like again”? + </p> + <p> + Well!—even through the prism of Hermia’s tears I felt able to face + the fact with equanimity. Poor Jack Gisburn! The women had made him—it + was fitting that they should mourn him. Among his own sex fewer regrets + were heard, and in his own trade hardly a murmur. Professional jealousy? + Perhaps. If it were, the honour of the craft was vindicated by little + Claude Nutley, who, in all good faith, brought out in the Burlington a + very handsome “obituary” on Jack—one of those showy articles stocked + with random technicalities that I have heard (I won’t say by whom) + compared to Gisburn’s painting. And so—his resolve being apparently + irrevocable—the discussion gradually died out, and, as Mrs. Thwing + had predicted, the price of “Gisburns” went up. + </p> + <p> + It was not till three years later that, in the course of a few weeks’ + idling on the Riviera, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Gisburn + had given up his painting. On reflection, it really was a tempting + problem. To accuse his wife would have been too easy—his fair + sitters had been denied the solace of saying that Mrs. Gisburn had + “dragged him down.” For Mrs. Gisburn—as such—had not existed + till nearly a year after Jack’s resolve had been taken. It might be that + he had married her—since he liked his ease—because he didn’t + want to go on painting; but it would have been hard to prove that he had + given up his painting because he had married her. + </p> + <p> + Of course, if she had not dragged him down, she had equally, as Miss Croft + contended, failed to “lift him up”—she had not led him back to the + easel. To put the brush into his hand again—what a vocation for a + wife! But Mrs. Gisburn appeared to have disdained it—and I felt it + might be interesting to find out why. + </p> + <p> + The desultory life of the Riviera lends itself to such purely academic + speculations; and having, on my way to Monte Carlo, caught a glimpse of + Jack’s balustraded terraces between the pines, I had myself borne thither + the next day. + </p> + <p> + I found the couple at tea beneath their palm-trees; and Mrs. Gisburn’s + welcome was so genial that, in the ensuing weeks, I claimed it frequently. + It was not that my hostess was “interesting”: on that point I could have + given Miss Croft the fullest reassurance. It was just because she was <i>not</i> + interesting—if I may be pardoned the bull—that I found her so. + For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by interesting women: they had + fostered his art, it had been reared in the hot-house of their adulation. + And it was therefore instructive to note what effect the “deadening + atmosphere of mediocrity” (I quote Miss Croft) was having on him. + </p> + <p> + I have mentioned that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was immediately + perceptible that her husband was extracting from this circumstance a + delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as a rule, the people who + scorn money who get most out of it; and Jack’s elegant disdain of his + wife’s big balance enabled him, with an appearance of perfect + good-breeding, to transmute it into objects of art and luxury. To the + latter, I must add, he remained relatively indifferent; but he was buying + Renaissance bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures with a discrimination + that bespoke the amplest resources. + </p> + <p> + “Money’s only excuse is to put beauty into circulation,” was one of the + axioms he laid down across the Sèvres and silver of an exquisitely + appointed luncheon-table, when, on a later day, I had again run over from + Monte Carlo; and Mrs. Gisburn, beaming on him, added for my enlightenment: + “Jack is so morbidly sensitive to every form of beauty.” + </p> + <p> + Poor Jack! It had always been his fate to have women say such things of + him: the fact should be set down in extenuation. What struck me now was + that, for the first time, he resented the tone. I had seen him, so often, + basking under similar tributes—was it the conjugal note that robbed + them of their savour? No—for, oddly enough, it became apparent that + he was fond of Mrs. Gisburn—fond enough not to see her absurdity. It + was his own absurdity he seemed to be wincing under—his own attitude + as an object for garlands and incense. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, since I’ve chucked painting people don’t say that stuff about me—they + say it about Victor Grindle,” was his only protest, as he rose from the + table and strolled out onto the sunlit terrace. + </p> + <p> + I glanced after him, struck by his last word. Victor Grindle was, in fact, + becoming the man of the moment—as Jack himself, one might put it, + had been the man of the hour. The younger artist was said to have formed + himself at my friend’s feet, and I wondered if a tinge of jealousy + underlay the latter’s mysterious abdication. But no—for it was not + till after that event that the rose Dubarry drawing-rooms had begun to + display their “Grindles.” + </p> + <p> + I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of sugar to her + spaniel in the dining-room. + </p> + <p> + “Why <i>has</i> he chucked painting?” I asked abruptly. + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he doesn’t <i>have</i> to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy himself,” + she said quite simply. + </p> + <p> + I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its <i>famille-verte</i> + vases repeating the tones of the pale damask curtains, and its + eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded frames. + </p> + <p> + “Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven’t seen a single one in the + house.” + </p> + <p> + A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn’s open countenance. + “It’s his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says they’re not fit to have + about; he’s sent them all away except one—my portrait—and that + I have to keep upstairs.” + </p> + <p> + His ridiculous modesty—Jack’s modesty about his pictures? My + curiosity was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively to my + hostess: “I must really see your portrait, you know.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her husband, + lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn the Russian + deerhound’s head between his knees. + </p> + <p> + “Well, come while he’s not looking,” she said, with a laugh that tried to + hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the marble Emperors of + the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra-cotta nymphs poised among + flowers at each landing. + </p> + <p> + In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of delicate and + distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval canvases, in the + inevitable garlanded frame. The mere outline of the frame called up all + Gisburn’s past! + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Gisburn drew back the window-curtains, moved aside a <i>jardinière</i> full + of pink azaleas, pushed an arm-chair away, and said: “If you stand here + you can just manage to see it. I had it over the mantel-piece, but he + wouldn’t let it stay.” + </p> + <p> + Yes—I could just manage to see it—the first portrait of Jack’s + I had ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the place of + honour—say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose Dubarry + drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it took the light + through curtains of old Venetian point. The more modest place became the + picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, all the + characteristic qualities came out—all the hesitations disguised as + audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with such consummate + skill, he managed to divert attention from the real business of the + picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, presenting a + neutral surface to work on—forming, as it were, so inevitably the + background of her own picture—had lent herself in an unusual degree + to the display of this false virtuosity. The picture was one of Jack’s + “strongest,” as his admirers would have put it—it represented, on + his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of veins, a balancing, + straddling and straining, that reminded one of the circus-clown’s ironic + efforts to lift a feather. It met, in short, at every point the demand of + lovely woman to be painted “strongly” because she was tired of being + painted “sweetly”—and yet not to lose an atom of the sweetness. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the last he painted, you know,” Mrs. Gisburn said with pardonable + pride. “The last but one,” she corrected herself—“but the other + doesn’t count, because he destroyed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Destroyed it?” I was about to follow up this clue when I heard a footstep + and saw Jack himself on the threshold. + </p> + <p> + As he stood there, his hands in the pockets of his velveteen coat, the + thin brown waves of hair pushed back from his white forehead, his lean + sunburnt cheeks furrowed by a smile that lifted the tips of a + self-confident moustache, I felt to what a degree he had the same quality + as his pictures—the quality of looking cleverer than he was. + </p> + <p> + His wife glanced at him deprecatingly, but his eyes travelled past her to + the portrait. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Rickham wanted to see it,” she began, as if excusing herself. He + shrugged his shoulders, still smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Rickham found me out long ago,” he said lightly; then, passing his + arm through mine: “Come and see the rest of the house.” + </p> + <p> + He showed it to me with a kind of naive suburban pride: the bath-rooms, + the speaking-tubes, the dress-closets, the trouser-presses—all the + complex simplifications of the millionaire’s domestic economy. And + whenever my wonder paid the expected tribute he said, throwing out his + chest a little: “Yes, I really don’t see how people manage to live without + that.” + </p> + <p> + Well—it was just the end one might have foreseen for him. Only he + was, through it all and in spite of it all—as he had been through, + and in spite of, his pictures—so handsome, so charming, so + disarming, that one longed to cry out: “Be dissatisfied with your + leisure!” as once one had longed to say: “Be dissatisfied with your work!” + </p> + <p> + But, with the cry on my lips, my diagnosis suffered an unexpected check. + </p> + <p> + “This is my own lair,” he said, leading me into a dark plain room at the + end of the florid vista. It was square and brown and leathery: no + “effects”; no bric-a-brac, none of the air of posing for reproduction in a + picture weekly—above all, no least sign of ever having been used as + a studio. + </p> + <p> + The fact brought home to me the absolute finality of Jack’s break with his + old life. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you ever dabble with paint any more?” I asked, still looking about + for a trace of such activity. + </p> + <p> + “Never,” he said briefly. + </p> + <p> + “Or water-colour—or etching?” + </p> + <p> + His confident eyes grew dim, and his cheeks paled a little under their + handsome sunburn. + </p> + <p> + “Never think of it, my dear fellow—any more than if I’d never + touched a brush.” + </p> + <p> + And his tone told me in a flash that he never thought of anything else. + </p> + <p> + I moved away, instinctively embarrassed by my unexpected discovery; and as + I turned, my eye fell on a small picture above the mantel-piece—the + only object breaking the plain oak panelling of the room. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, by Jove!” I said. + </p> + <p> + It was a sketch of a donkey—an old tired donkey, standing in the + rain under a wall. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove—a Stroud!” I cried. + </p> + <p> + He was silent; but I felt him close behind me, breathing a little quickly. + </p> + <p> + “What a wonder! Made with a dozen lines—but on everlasting + foundations. You lucky chap, where did you get it?” + </p> + <p> + He answered slowly: “Mrs. Stroud gave it to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—I didn’t know you even knew the Strouds. He was such an + inflexible hermit.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t—till after.... She sent for me to paint him when he was + dead.” + </p> + <p> + “When he was dead? You?” + </p> + <p> + I must have let a little too much amazement escape through my surprise, + for he answered with a deprecating laugh: “Yes—she’s an awful + simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by a + fashionable painter—ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way + of proclaiming his greatness—of forcing it on a purblind public. And + at the moment I was <i>the</i> fashionable painter.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, poor Stroud—as you say. Was <i>that</i> his history?” + </p> + <p> + “That was his history. She believed in him, gloried in him—or + thought she did. But she couldn’t bear not to have all the drawing-rooms + with her. She couldn’t bear the fact that, on varnishing days, one could + always get near enough to see his pictures. Poor woman! She’s just a + fragment groping for other fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever + knew.” + </p> + <p> + “You ever knew? But you just said—” + </p> + <p> + Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I knew him, and he knew me—only it happened after he was dead.” + </p> + <p> + I dropped my voice instinctively. “When she sent for you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated—and + by me!” + </p> + <p> + He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the sketch of the + donkey. “There were days when I couldn’t look at that thing—couldn’t + face it. But I forced myself to put it here; and now it’s cured me—cured + me. That’s the reason why I don’t dabble any more, my dear Rickham; or + rather Stroud himself is the reason.” + </p> + <p> + For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned into a + serious desire to understand him better. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you’d tell me how it happened,” I said. + </p> + <p> + He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his fingers a + cigarette he had forgotten to light. Suddenly he turned toward me. + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather like to tell you—because I’ve always suspected you of + loathing my work.” + </p> + <p> + I made a deprecating gesture, which he negatived with a good-humoured + shrug. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I didn’t care a straw when I believed in myself—and now it’s an + added tie between us!” + </p> + <p> + He laughed slightly, without bitterness, and pushed one of the deep + arm-chairs forward. “There: make yourself comfortable—and here are + the cigars you like.” + </p> + <p> + He placed them at my elbow and continued to wander up and down the room, + stopping now and then beneath the picture. + </p> + <p> + “How it happened? I can tell you in five minutes—and it didn’t take + much longer to happen.... I can remember now how surprised and pleased I + was when I got Mrs. Stroud’s note. Of course, deep down, I had always <i>felt</i> + there was no one like him—only I had gone with the stream, echoed + the usual platitudes about him, till I half got to think he was a failure, + one of the kind that are left behind. By Jove, and he <i>was</i> left behind—because + he had come to stay! The rest of us had to let ourselves be swept along or + go under, but he was high above the current—on everlasting + foundations, as you say. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I went off to the house in my most egregious mood—rather + moved, Lord forgive me, at the pathos of poor Stroud’s career of failure + being crowned by the glory of my painting him! Of course I meant to do the + picture for nothing—I told Mrs. Stroud so when she began to stammer + something about her poverty. I remember getting off a prodigious phrase + about the honour being <i>mine</i>—oh, I was princely, my dear Rickham! I + was posing to myself like one of my own sitters. + </p> + <p> + “Then I was taken up and left alone with him. I had sent all my traps in + advance, and I had only to set up the easel and get to work. He had been + dead only twenty-four hours, and he died suddenly, of heart disease, so + that there had been no preliminary work of destruction—his face was + clear and untouched. I had met him once or twice, years before, and + thought him insignificant and dingy. Now I saw that he was superb. + </p> + <p> + “I was glad at first, with a merely aesthetic satisfaction: glad to have + my hand on such a ‘subject.’ Then his strange life-likeness began to + affect me queerly—as I blocked the head in I felt as if he were + watching me do it. The sensation was followed by the thought: if he <i>were</i> + watching me, what would he say to my way of working? My strokes began to + go a little wild—I felt nervous and uncertain. + </p> + <p> + “Once, when I looked up, I seemed to see a smile behind his close grayish + beard—as if he had the secret, and were amusing himself by holding + it back from me. That exasperated me still more. The secret? Why, I had a + secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at the canvas furiously, and tried + some of my bravura tricks. But they failed me, they crumbled. I saw that + he wasn’t watching the showy bits—I couldn’t distract his attention; + he just kept his eyes on the hard passages between. Those were the ones I + had always shirked, or covered up with some lying paint. And how he saw + through my lies! + </p> + <p> + “I looked up again, and caught sight of that sketch of the donkey hanging + on the wall near his bed. His wife told me afterward it was the last thing + he had done—just a note taken with a shaking hand, when he was down + in Devonshire recovering from a previous heart attack. Just a note! But it + tells his whole history. There are years of patient scornful persistence + in every line. A man who had swum with the current could never have + learned that mighty up-stream stroke.... + </p> + <p> + “I turned back to my work, and went on groping and muddling; then I looked + at the donkey again. I saw that, when Stroud laid in the first stroke, he + knew just what the end would be. He had possessed his subject, absorbed + it, recreated it. When had I done that with any of my things? They hadn’t + been born of me—I had just adopted them.... + </p> + <p> + “Hang it, Rickham, with that face watching me I couldn’t do another + stroke. The plain truth was, I didn’t know where to put it—I <i>had + never known</i>. Only, with my sitters and my public, a showy splash of colour + covered up the fact—I just threw paint into their faces.... Well, + paint was the one medium those dead eyes could see through—see + straight to the tottering foundations underneath. Don’t you know how, in + talking a foreign language, even fluently, one says half the time not what + one wants to but what one can? Well—that was the way I painted; and + as he lay there and watched me, the thing they called my ‘technique’ + collapsed like a house of cards. He didn’t sneer, you understand, poor + Stroud—he just lay there quietly watching, and on his lips, through + the gray beard, I seemed to hear the question: ‘Are you sure you know + where you’re coming out?’ + </p> + <p> + “If I could have painted that face, with that question on it, I should + have done a great thing. The next greatest thing was to see that I + couldn’t—and that grace was given me. But, oh, at that minute, + Rickham, was there anything on earth I wouldn’t have given to have Stroud + alive before me, and to hear him say: ‘It’s not too late—I’ll show + you how’? + </p> + <p> + “It <i>was</i> too late—it would have been, even if he’d been alive. I + packed up my traps, and went down and told Mrs. Stroud. Of course I didn’t + tell her <i>that</i>—it would have been Greek to her. I simply said I + couldn’t paint him, that I was too moved. She rather liked the idea—she’s + so romantic! It was that that made her give me the donkey. But she was + terribly upset at not getting the portrait—she did so want him + ‘done’ by some one showy! At first I was afraid she wouldn’t let me off—and + at my wits’ end I suggested Grindle. Yes, it was I who started Grindle: I + told Mrs. Stroud he was the ‘coming’ man, and she told somebody else, and + so it got to be true.... And he painted Stroud without wincing; and she + hung the picture among her husband’s things....” + </p> + <p> + He flung himself down in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head, and + clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the + chimney-piece. + </p> + <p> + “I like to fancy that Stroud himself would have given it to me, if he’d + been able to say what he thought that day.” + </p> + <p> + And, in answer to a question I put half-mechanically—“Begin again?” + he flashed out. “When the one thing that brings me anywhere near him is + that I knew enough to leave off?” + </p> + <p> + He stood up and laid his hand on my shoulder with a laugh. “Only the irony + of it is that I <i>am</i> still painting—since Grindle’s doing it for me! + The Strouds stand alone, and happen once—but there’s no + exterminating our kind of art.” + </p> + <p> + The End of The Verdict + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE RECKONING + </h2> + <h3> + August, 1902 + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + “The marriage law of the new dispensation will be: <i>Thou shalt not be + unfaithful—to thyself.</i>” + </p> + <p> + A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze of + cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from his + improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of ladies. + Westall’s informal talks on “The New Ethics” had drawn about him an eager + following of the mentally unemployed—those who, as he had once + phrased it, liked to have their brain-food cut up for them. The talks had + begun by accident. Westall’s ideas were known to be “advanced,” but + hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of publicity. He had + been, in his wife’s opinion, almost pusillanimously careful not to let his + personal views endanger his professional standing. Of late, however, he + had shown a puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to + flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the relation of the + sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few admiring friends had + persuaded him to give his after-dinner opinions a larger circulation by + summing them up in a series of talks at the Van Sideren studio. + </p> + <p> + The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on the + fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren’s pictures were chiefly valuable + as accessories to the <i>mise en scène</i> which differentiated his wife’s + “afternoons” from the blighting functions held in long New York + drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends whiskey-and-soda + instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making the + most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel create; and + if at times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and lost courage to + the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, she promptly + overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh talent, some + extraneous re-enforcement of the “artistic” impression. It was in quest of + such aid that she had seized on Westall, coaxing him, somewhat to his + wife’s surprise, into a flattered participation in her fraud. It was + vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren circle, that all the audacities were + artistic, and that a teacher who pronounced marriage immoral was somehow + as distinguished as a painter who depicted purple grass and a green sky. + The Van Sideren set were tired of the conventional color-scheme in art and + conduct. + </p> + <p> + Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage; + she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple. In the early days + of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to proclaim + himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax him with + moral cowardice, with a failure to live up to the convictions for which + their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the first burst of + propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her disobedience into a + law. Now she felt differently. She could hardly account for the change, + yet being a woman who never allowed her impulses to remain unaccounted + for, she tried to do so by saying that she did not care to have the + articles of her faith misinterpreted by the vulgar. In this connection, + she was beginning to think that almost every one was vulgar; certainly + there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust the defence of so + esoteric a doctrine. And it was precisely at this point that Westall, + discarding his unspoken principles, had chosen to descend from the heights + of privacy, and stand hawking his convictions at the street-corner! + </p> + <p> + It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed upon + herself Mrs. Westall’s wandering resentment. In the first place, the girl + had no business to be there. It was “horrid”—Mrs. Westall found + herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary—simply + “horrid” to think of a young girl’s being allowed to listen to such talk. + The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional cocktail did + not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which made her appear + the victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents’ vulgarities. Julia + Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something ought to be done—that + some one ought to speak to the girl’s mother. And just then Una glided up. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!” Una fixed her with large limpid + eyes. “You believe it all, I suppose?” she asked with seraphic gravity. + </p> + <p> + “All—what, my dear child?” + </p> + <p> + The girl shone on her. “About the higher life—the freer expansion of + the individual—the law of fidelity to one’s self,” she glibly + recited. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Una,” she said, “you don’t in the least understand what it’s all + about!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. “Don’t <i>you</i>, then?” + she murmured. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westall laughed. “Not always—or altogether! But I should like + some tea, please.” + </p> + <p> + Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As + Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully. It was not + such a girlish face, after all—definite lines were forming under the + rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty, and + wondered why she had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would have as + her dower! If <i>they</i> were to be a part of the modern girl’s trousseau— + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one + else had been speaking—a stranger who had borrowed her own voice: + she felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism. + Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling and Una’s tea too sweet, + she set down her cup, and looked about for Westall: to meet his eyes had + long been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but only, + as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger + flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which + Una had withdrawn—one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren + attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had + overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl’s side. She bent + forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the + depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to + swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. Julia + winced at her own definition of the smile. + </p> + <p> + On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife + by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. “Did I open their eyes a bit? Did + I tell them what you wanted me to?” he asked gaily. + </p> + <p> + Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. “What I wanted—?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, haven’t you—all this time?” She caught the honest wonder of + his tone. “I somehow fancied you’d rather blamed me for not talking more + openly—before— You’ve made me feel, at times, that I was + sacrificing principles to expediency.” + </p> + <p> + She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: “What made you + decide not to—any longer?” + </p> + <p> + She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. “Why—the wish to + please you!” he answered, almost too simply. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would not go on, then,” she said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the darkness. + </p> + <p> + “Not go on—?” + </p> + <p> + “Call a hansom, please. I’m tired,” broke from her with a sudden rush of + physical weariness. + </p> + <p> + Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally hot—and + then that confounded cigarette smoke—he had noticed once or twice + that she looked pale—she mustn’t come to another Saturday. She felt + herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his concern + for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a conscious + intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her hand stole + into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let them fall. It + was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! + </p> + <p> + That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the subject + of his talk. He combined a man’s dislike of uncomfortable questions with + an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew that if he returned + to the subject he must have some special reason for doing so. + </p> + <p> + “You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put the + case badly?” + </p> + <p> + “No—you put it very well.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go on + with it?” + </p> + <p> + She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening her + sense of helplessness. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I care to hear such things discussed in public.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand you,” he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his + surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She was + not sure that she understood herself. + </p> + <p> + “Won’t you explain?” he said with a tinge of impatience. Her eyes wandered + about the familiar drawing-room which had been the scene of so many of + their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the quiet-colored walls hung + with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers scattered here and there in + Venice glasses and bowls of old Sèvres, recalled, she hardly knew why, the + apartment in which the evenings of her first marriage had been passed—a + wilderness of rosewood and upholstery, with a picture of a Roman peasant + above the mantel-piece, and a Greek slave in “statuary marble” between the + folding-doors of the back drawing-room. It was a room with which she had + never been able to establish any closer relation than that between a + traveller and a railway station; and now, as she looked about at the + surroundings which stood for her deepest affinities—the room for + which she had left that other room—she was startled by the same + sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity. The prints, the flowers, the + subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a superficial + refinement that had no relation to the deeper significances of life. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know that I can explain,” she faltered. + </p> + <p> + He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the hearth. The + light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face, which had a kind of + surface-sensitiveness akin to the surface-refinement of its setting. + </p> + <p> + “Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “In our ideas—?” + </p> + <p> + “The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to stand + for.” He paused a moment. “The ideas on which our marriage was founded.” + </p> + <p> + The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then—she was sure + now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how often + had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was founded? + How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to examine its + foundation? The foundation is there, of course—the house rests on it—but + one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was she, indeed, who in + the beginning had insisted on reviewing the situation now and then, on + recapitulating the reasons which justified her course, on proclaiming, + from time to time, her adherence to the religion of personal independence; + but she had long ceased to feel the need of any such ideal standards, and + had accepted her marriage as frankly and naturally as though it had been + based on the primitive needs of the heart, and needed no special sanction + to explain or justify it. + </p> + <p> + “Of course I still believe in our ideas!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Then I repeat that I don’t understand. It was a part of your theory that + the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of marriage. + Have you changed your mind in that respect?” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated. “It depends on circumstances—on the public one is + addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them don’t + care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply + by its novelty.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and + learned the truth from each other.” + </p> + <p> + “That was different.” + </p> + <p> + “In what way?” + </p> + <p> + “I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly unfitting that + young girls should be present at—at such times—should hear + such things discussed—” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such + things never <i>are</i> discussed before young girls; but that is beside the + point, for I don’t remember seeing any young girl in my audience to-day—” + </p> + <p> + “Except Una Van Sideren!” + </p> + <p> + He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Miss Van Sideren—naturally—” + </p> + <p> + “Why naturally?” + </p> + <p> + “The daughter of the house—would you have had her sent out with her + governess?” + </p> + <p> + “If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my house!” + </p> + <p> + Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. “I fancy + Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself.” + </p> + <p> + “No girl knows how to take care of herself—till it’s too late.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of + self-defence?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you call the surest means of self-defence?” + </p> + <p> + “Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the + marriage tie.” + </p> + <p> + She made an impatient gesture. “How should you like to marry that kind of + a girl?” + </p> + <p> + “Immensely—if she were my kind of girl in other respects.” + </p> + <p> + She took up the argument at another point. + </p> + <p> + “You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young + girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation—” She broke + off, wondering why she had spoken. + </p> + <p> + Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of + their discussion. “What you tell me is immensely flattering to my + oratorical talent—but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure + you that Miss Van Sideren doesn’t have to have her thinking done for her. + She’s quite capable of doing it herself.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem very familiar with her mental processes!” flashed unguardedly + from his wife. + </p> + <p> + He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. + </p> + <p> + “I should like to be,” he answered. “She interests me.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to + Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to + excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John + Arment was “impossible,” and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the + thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine. + </p> + <p> + There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side had + accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as “statutory.” + The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their allegiance to a + State which recognized desertion as a cause for divorce, and construed the + term so liberally that the seeds of desertion were shown to exist in every + union. Even Mrs. Arment’s second marriage did not make traditional + morality stir in its sleep. It was known that she had not met her second + husband till after she had parted from the first, and she had, moreover, + replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement Westall was acknowledged + to be a rising lawyer, it was generally felt that his fortunes would not + rise as rapidly as his reputation. The Westalls would probably always have + to live quietly and go out to dinner in cabs. Could there be better + evidence of Mrs. Arment’s complete disinterestedness? + </p> + <p> + If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat + cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the matter, both + explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible. The + only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was something + deeper than a social disqualification. She had once said, in ironical + defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her from the + necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not then realized + at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was impossible; but + the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he made it impossible + for those about him to be other than himself. By an unconscious process of + elimination he had excluded from the world everything of which he did not + feel a personal need: had become, as it were, a climate in which only his + own requirements survived. This might seem to imply a deliberate + selfishness; but there was nothing deliberate about Arment. He was as + instinctive as an animal or a child. It was this childish element in his + nature which sometimes for a moment unsettled his wife’s estimate of him. + Was it possible that he was simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, + somewhat longer than is usual, the laborious process of growing up? He had + the kind of sporadic shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man + that he is “no fool”; and it was this quality that his wife found most + trying. Even to the naturalist it is annoying to have his deductions + disturbed by some unforeseen aberrancy of form or function; and how much + more so to the wife whose estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with + her judgment of her husband! + </p> + <p> + Arment’s shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual power; + it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of suffering, perhaps, in + a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia’s sensibilities naturally declined + to linger. She so fully understood her own reasons for leaving him that + she disliked to think they were not as comprehensible to her husband. She + was haunted, in her analytic moments, by the look of perplexity, too + inarticulate for words, with which he had acquiesced to her explanations. + </p> + <p> + These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too + concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been unhappy + for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it had been + uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia was wounded in + every fibre of her spirit. Her husband’s personality seemed to be closing + gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting off the air, till she + felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A + sense of having been decoyed by some world-old conspiracy into this + bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage was the slow + life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a + crime against human nature. She, for one, would have no share in + maintaining the pretence of which she had been a victim: the pretence that + a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must + remain there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of each + other’s natures as the mature tree outgrows the iron brace about the + sapling. + </p> + <p> + It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met Clement + Westall. She had seen at once that he was “interested,” and had fought off + the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her back into the + bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril she had, with an + almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to him. To her surprise, + she found that he shared them. She was attracted by the frankness of a + suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted that he did not believe in + marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem to surprise him: he had + thought out all that she had felt, and they had reached the same + conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy + fit for the one might soon become galling to the other. That was what + divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. As soon as their + necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would gain in dignity as + well as in harmony. There would be no farther need of the ignoble + concessions and connivances, the perpetual sacrifice of personal delicacy + and moral pride, by means of which imperfect marriages were now held + together. Each partner to the contract would be on his mettle, forced to + live up to the highest standard of self-development, on pain of losing the + other’s respect and affection. The low nature could no longer drag the + higher down, but must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior + level. The only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank + recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting + parties to keep faith with themselves, and not to live together for a + moment after complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new + adultery was unfaithfulness to self. + </p> + <p> + It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that they + had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to social + prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need be an + imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any diminution + of self-respect. The nature of their attachment placed them so far beyond + the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to discuss them with an + open mind; and Julia’s sense of security made her dwell with a tender + insistence on Westall’s promise to claim his release when he should cease + to love her. The exchange of these vows seemed to make them, in a sense, + champions of the new law, pioneers in the forbidden realm of individual + freedom: they felt that they had somehow achieved beatitude without + martyrdom. + </p> + <p> + This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her + theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously, insidiously, + that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed another + conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct of + passionate dependency and possessorship that now made her blood revolt at + the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they had called + it, in their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination rather—this + rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with another’s being! Another? But + he was not other! He and she were one, one in the mystic sense which alone + gave marriage its significance. The new law was not for them, but for the + disunited creatures forced into a mockery of union. The gospel she had + felt called on to proclaim had no bearing on her own case.... She sent for + the doctor and told him she was sure she needed a nerve tonic. + </p> + <p> + She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative to + her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her anxiety the + more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject of his + Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a softening of + his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, that sickened + her with new fears. She told herself that it was because she looked badly—because + he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic—that he showed this + deference to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her from moral draughts; + but the explanation simply cleared the way for fresh inferences. + </p> + <p> + The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday the + morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia ask + Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was to be + some music after his “talk”? Westall was just leaving for his office when + his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door and called him + back to deliver the message. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. “What a bore! I shall have to + cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Will you + write and say it’s all right?” + </p> + <p> + Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against + which she leaned. + </p> + <p> + “You mean to go on with these talks?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I—why not?” he returned; and this time it struck her that his + surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find words. + </p> + <p> + “You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me—” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I told you last week that they didn’t please me.” + </p> + <p> + “Last week? Oh—” He seemed to make an effort of memory. “I thought + you were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day.” + </p> + <p> + “It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance—” + </p> + <p> + “My assurance?” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair with a + choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her like straws + down a whirling flood. + </p> + <p> + “Clement,” she cried, “isn’t it enough for you to know that I hate it?” + </p> + <p> + He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and sat + down. “What is it that you hate?” he asked gently. + </p> + <p> + She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t bear to have you speak as if—as if—our marriage—were + like the other kind—the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the + other afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, + proclaiming that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other + whenever they were tired—or had seen some one else—” + </p> + <p> + Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet. + </p> + <p> + “You <i>have</i> ceased to take this view, then?” he said as she broke off. “You + no longer believe that husbands and wives <i>are</i> justified in separating—under + such conditions?” + </p> + <p> + “Under such conditions?” she stammered. “Yes—I still believe that—but + how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances—?” + </p> + <p> + He interrupted her. “I thought it was a fundamental article of our creed + that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to interfere + with the full assertion of individual liberty.” He paused a moment. “I + thought that was your reason for leaving Arment.” + </p> + <p> + She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal turn + to the argument. + </p> + <p> + “It was my reason,” she said simply. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then—why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t—I don’t—I only say that one can’t judge for others.” + </p> + <p> + He made an impatient movement. “This is mere hair-splitting. What you mean + is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you needed it, you + now repudiate it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she exclaimed, flushing again, “what if I do? What does it matter + to us?” + </p> + <p> + Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before his + wife with something of the formality of a stranger. + </p> + <p> + “It matters to me,” he said in a low voice, “because I do <i>not</i> repudiate + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well—?” + </p> + <p> + “And because I had intended to invoke it as”— + </p> + <p> + He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened by + her heart-beats. + </p> + <p> + —“as a complete justification of the course I am about to take.” + </p> + <p> + Julia remained motionless. “What course is that?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + He cleared his throat. “I mean to claim the fulfilment of your promise.” + </p> + <p> + For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a + torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings pressed + upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the + hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a separate wound to each + sense. + </p> + <p> + “My promise—” she faltered. + </p> + <p> + “Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the + other should wish to be released.” + </p> + <p> + She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position nervously; + then he said, with a touch of irritability: “You acknowledge the + agreement?” + </p> + <p> + The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it + proudly. “I acknowledge the agreement,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “And—you don’t mean to repudiate it?” + </p> + <p> + A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and pushed + it back. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered slowly, “I don’t mean to repudiate it.” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on the + mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that he had + given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered vaguely if + he noticed it. + </p> + <p> + “You intend to leave me, then?” she said at length. + </p> + <p> + His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. + </p> + <p> + “To marry some one else?” + </p> + <p> + Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. + </p> + <p> + “Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?” + </p> + <p> + He was silent. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you good luck,” she said. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how he + had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire still + smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the wall. + </p> + <p> + Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that she + had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no crying + out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or evasion. She + had marched straight up to the guns. + </p> + <p> + Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked about + her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed to be + slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. “This is my room—this + is my house,” she heard herself saying. Her room? Her house? She could + almost hear the walls laugh back at her. + </p> + <p> + She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room + frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close a + long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her husband + must have left the house, then—her <i>husband</i>? She no longer knew in + what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. She sank + back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock struck ten—it + was only ten o’clock! Suddenly she remembered that she had not ordered + dinner... or were they dining out that evening? <i>Dinner</i>—<i>dining out</i>—the + old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She must try to think of herself + as she would think of some one else, a some one dissociated from all the + familiar routine of the past, whose wants and habits must gradually be + learned, as one might spy out the ways of a strange animal... + </p> + <p> + The clock struck another hour—eleven. She stood up again and walked + to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. <i>Her</i> room? + Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow hall, + and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall’s sticks and + umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The same + stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French print, in + its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual continuity + was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same untroubled and + familiar surface. She must get away from it before she could attempt to + think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the lounge, a stupor + creeping over her... + </p> + <p> + Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the interval—a + wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments, ideas—a + fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon themselves. She had + tried, at first, to rally, to organize these chaotic forces. There must be + help somewhere, if only she could master the inner tumult. Life could not + be broken off short like this, for a whim, a fancy; the law itself would + side with her, would defend her. The law? What claim had she upon it? She + was the prisoner of her own choice: she had been her own legislator, and + she was the predestined victim of the code she had devised. But this was + grotesque, intolerable—a mad mistake, for which she could not be + held accountable! The law she had despised was still there, might still be + invoked... invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to chain Westall to + her side? <i>She</i> had been allowed to go free when she claimed her freedom—should + she show less magnanimity than she had exacted? Magnanimity? The word + lashed her with its irony—one does not strike an attitude when one + is fighting for life! She would threaten, grovel, cajole... she would + yield anything to keep her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay + deeper! The law could not help her—her own apostasy could not help + her. She was the victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though + some giant machine of her own making had caught her up in its wheels and + was grinding her to atoms... + </p> + <p> + It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with an + aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant, + metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to reveal the + shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our architecture. + The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared and glittered. She + called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren’s address. She did not + know what had led up to the act; but she found herself suddenly resolved + to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too late to save herself—but + the girl might still be told. The hansom rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat + with her eyes fixed, avoiding recognition. At the Van Siderens’ door she + sprang out and rang the bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she felt + calm and self-possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to say. + </p> + <p> + The ladies were both out... the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card. + Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a + moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the + cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. He + touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty street. + She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where she was + not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had returned. + Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of Broadway, swept past + tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a succession of + meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite direction... + </p> + <p> + A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since morning. + She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of ash-barrels + behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the sign <i>Ladies’ + Restaurant</i>: a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against the dusty pane like + petrified food in an ethnological museum. She entered, and a young woman + with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table for her near the + window. The table was covered with a red and white cotton cloth and + adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick tumbler and a salt-cellar full + of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a long time waiting for + it. She was glad to be away from the noise and confusion of the streets. + The low-ceilinged room was empty, and two or three waitresses with thin + pert faces lounged in the background staring at her and whispering + together. At last the tea was brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia + poured a cup and drank it hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed + through her veins like an elixir. She was almost dizzy with exhilaration. + Oh, how tired, how unutterably tired she had been! + </p> + <p> + She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once + more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she had + stood on the Van Siderens’ door-step—but the wish to return there + had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt—the + humiliation to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was that + she did not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading, and she + realized that she could not remain much longer in the restaurant without + attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out into the street. The + lamps were alight, and here and there a basement shop cast an oblong of + gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the dusk there was something + sinister about the aspect of the street, and she hastened back toward + Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out alone at that hour. + </p> + <p> + At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream of + carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her that + he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, but she + obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the farther corner. + There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied the policeman was + watching her, and this sent her hastening down the nearest side street... + After that she walked a long time, vaguely... Night had fallen, and now + and then, through the windows of a passing carriage, she caught the + expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera cloak... + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a moment, + breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing whither it + led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in which she had + once lived—her first husband’s house. The blinds were drawn, and + only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom above the + door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a man walked by + in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a heavy middle-aged + gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, the red crease of his + neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. He crossed the street, + went up the steps of the house, drew forth a latch-key, and let himself + in... + </p> + <p> + There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against the + area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house. The + feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea still + throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural clearness. + Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving quickly away, she + too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse + which had carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the + electric bell—then she felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and grasped + the balustrade for support. The door opened and a young footman with a + fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an instant + that he would admit her. + </p> + <p> + “I saw Mr. Arment going in just now,” she said. “Will you ask him to see + me for a moment?” + </p> + <p> + The footman hesitated. “I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for + dinner, madam.” + </p> + <p> + Julia advanced into the hall. “I am sure he will see me—I will not + detain him long,” she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the + tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on + the drawing-room door. + </p> + <p> + “I will tell him, madam. What name, please?” + </p> + <p> + Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. “Merely say a lady,” she + returned carelessly. + </p> + <p> + The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant the + door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He drew + back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with the shock; + then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his temples and + reddening the lobes of his thick ears. + </p> + <p> + It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the change + in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down into the + enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one conscious thought + was that, now she was face to face with him, she must not let him escape + till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body throbbed with the urgency + of her message. + </p> + <p> + She went up to him as he drew back. “I must speak to you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and + her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a “scene” + predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: “Will you + come this way?” + </p> + <p> + He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as she + advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: time had + not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the + chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the inner + room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from every fold + of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of the rosewood + furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying these + impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred in the + act of dominating Arment’s will. The fear that he would refuse to hear her + mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt before it, + words and arguments running into each other in the heat of her longing. + For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself thrust out + before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, Arment + pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: “You are not well.” + </p> + <p> + The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind—a + voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen developments. + She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a deep + breath. “Shall I send for something?” he continued, with a cold + embarrassed politeness. + </p> + <p> + Julia raised an entreating hand. “No—no—thank you. I am quite + well.” + </p> + <p> + He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. “Then may I ask—?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she interrupted him. “I came here because I wanted to see you. + There is something I must tell you.” + </p> + <p> + Arment continued to scrutinize her. “I am surprised at that,” he said. “I + should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make could + have been made through our lawyers.” + </p> + <p> + “Our lawyers!” She burst into a little laugh. “I don’t think they could + help me—this time.” + </p> + <p> + Arment’s face took on a barricaded look. “If there is any question of help—of + course—” + </p> + <p> + It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby + devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him + to put his name down for so much in sympathy—or even in money... The + thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to + perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she remembered, + suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering scenery + with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel. + “There <i>is</i> a question of help,” she said in a softer key: “you can help me; + but only by listening... I want to tell you something...” + </p> + <p> + Arment’s resistance was not yielding. “Would it not be easier to—write?” + he suggested. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “There is no time to write... and it won’t take long.” + She raised her head and their eyes met. “My husband has left me,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “Westall—?” he stammered, reddening again. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me.” + </p> + <p> + The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the limit + of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed glance + returned to Julia. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry,” he said awkwardly. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t see—” + </p> + <p> + “No—but you will—in a moment. Won’t you listen to me? Please!” + Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between him and + the door. “It happened this morning,” she went on in short breathless + phrases. “I never suspected anything—I thought we were—perfectly + happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... there is a girl he + likes better... He has gone to her...” As she spoke, the lurking anguish + rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every other + emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and two painful tears + burnt a way down her face. + </p> + <p> + Arment’s constraint was increasing visibly. “This—this is very + unfortunate,” he began. “But I should say the law—” + </p> + <p> + “The law?” she echoed ironically. “When he asks for his freedom?” + </p> + <p> + “You are not obliged to give it.” + </p> + <p> + “You were not obliged to give me mine—but you did.” + </p> + <p> + He made a protesting gesture. + </p> + <p> + “You saw that the law couldn’t help you—didn’t you?” she went on. + “That is what I see now. The law represents material rights—it can’t + go beyond. If we don’t recognize an inner law... the obligation that love + creates... being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to prevent + our spreading ruin unhindered... is there?” She raised her head + plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. “That is what I see + now... what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he’s tired... but I + was not tired; and I don’t understand why he is. That’s the dreadful part + of it—the not understanding: I hadn’t realized what it meant. But + I’ve been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me—things + I hadn’t noticed... when you and I...” She moved closer to him, and fixed + her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. “I see now + that <i>you</i> didn’t understand—did you?” + </p> + <p> + Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be + lifted between them. Arment’s lip trembled. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, “I didn’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. “I knew it! I knew it! You + wondered—you tried to tell me—but no words came... You saw + your life falling in ruins... the world slipping from you... and you + couldn’t speak or move!” + </p> + <p> + She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. “Now I know—now + I know,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry for you,” she heard Arment stammer. + </p> + <p> + She looked up quickly. “That’s not what I came for. I don’t want you to be + sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me... for not understanding that <i>you</i> + didn’t understand... That’s all I wanted to say.” She rose with a vague + sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward the door. + </p> + <p> + Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile. + </p> + <p> + “You forgive me?” + </p> + <p> + “There is nothing to forgive—” + </p> + <p> + “Then will you shake hands for good-by?” She felt his hand in hers: it was + nerveless, reluctant. + </p> + <p> + “Good-by,” she repeated. “I understand now.” + </p> + <p> + She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment + took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was + evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let + her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, and + she found herself outside in the darkness. + </p> + <p> + The End of The Reckoning + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VERSE + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOTTICELLI’S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>What</i> strange presentiment, O Mother, lies + On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, + Forefeeling the Light’s terrible eclipse + On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, + And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes + The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, + And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps + When the cross darkens her unclouded skies? + + Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, + Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, + And think—“My child at home clings so to me, + With the same smile... and yet in vain, in vain, + Since even this Jesus died on Calvary”— + Say to her then: “He also rose again.” + </pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Ilaria</i>, thou that wert so fair and dear + That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise + With prophecy thy husband’s widowed eyes + And bade him call the master’s art to rear + Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, + With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise + Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, + And lips that at love’s call should answer, “Here!” + + First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul + Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, + Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, + Regenerate in art’s sunrise clear and wide + As saints who, having kept faith’s raiment whole, + Change it above for garments glorified. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SONNET. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Pure</i> form, that like some chalice of old time + Contain’st the liquid of the poet’s thought + Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought + With interwoven traceries of rhyme, + While o’er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, + What thing am I, that undismayed have sought + To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught + Into a shape so small yet so sublime? + Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, + Because thy sacred chalice gathered up + The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley—then + Receive these tears of failure as they drop + (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain + To pour them in a consecrated cup. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TWO BACKGROUNDS. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I. LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Here</i> by the ample river’s argent sweep, + Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, + A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep + The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, + With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee + The friendly gables clustered at their base, + And, equipoised o’er tower and market-place, + The Gothic minster’s winged immensity; + And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, + Two placid hearts, to all life’s good resigned, + Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find + Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II. MONA LISA. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep + No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; + Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, + But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; + And tales are told of those who thought to gain + At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell + Far off they saw each fading pinnacle + Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; + Yet there two souls, whom life’s perversities + Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, + Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, + And drain Joy’s awful chalice to the lees. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EXPERIENCE. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I. + + <i>Like</i> Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand + Upon the desert verge of death, and say: + “What shall avail the woes of yesterday + To buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land + Whose currency is strange unto our hand? + In life’s small market they have served to pay + Some late-found rapture, could we but delay + Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.” + + But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, + Our gathered strength of individual pain, + When Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold, + Dies with us—hoarded all these years in vain, + Since those that might be heir to it the mould + Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II. + + O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, + Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, + Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, + And love’s oblivion, and remembering hate, + Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight + Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears + Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, + And sell us the one joy for which we wait. + Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, + With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, + But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, + And all our longings lie within thy keep— + Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? + + “Not so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.” + </pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHARTRES. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I. + + <i>Immense</i>, august, like some Titanic bloom, + The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, + Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, + Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, + And stamened with keen flamelets that illume + The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, + By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, + A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, + The stranded driftwood of Faith’s ebbing sea— + For these alone the finials fret the skies, + The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, + While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, + Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, + The cloud of witnesses still testifies. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II. + + The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize + The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. + A rigid fetich in her robe of gold + The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, + Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, + Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. + The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, + Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. + Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows + To be a part of nature’s self, withdrawn + From hot humanity’s impatient woes; + The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, + And in the east one giant window shows + The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LIFE. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>Life</i>, like a marble block, is given to all, + A blank, inchoate mass of years and days, + Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays + Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; + One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; + One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, + And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia’s gaze, + Carves it apace in toys fantastical. + + But least is he who, with enchanted eyes + Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, + Muses which god he shall immortalize + In the proud Parian’s perpetuity, + Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies + That the night cometh wherein none shall see. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN AUTUMN SUNSET + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I + + <i>Leaguered</i> in fire + The wild black promontories of the coast extend + Their savage silhouettes; + The sun in universal carnage sets, + And, halting higher, + The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, + Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, + That, balked, yet stands at bay. + Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day + In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, + A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine + Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, + And in her lifted hand swings high o’erhead, + Above the waste of war, + The silver torch-light of the evening star + Wherewith to search the faces of the dead. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + II + + Lagooned in gold, + Seem not those jetty promontories rather + The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, + Uncomforted of morn, + Where old oblivions gather, + The melancholy, unconsoling fold + Of all things that go utterly to death + And mix no more, no more + With life’s perpetually awakening breath? + Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, + Over such sailless seas, + To walk with hope’s slain importunities + In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not + All things be there forgot, + Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black + Closecrouching promontories? + Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, + Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade, + A spectre self-destroyed, + So purged of all remembrance and sucked back + Into the primal void, + That should we on that shore phantasmal meet + I should not know the coming of your feet? +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Short Fiction of Edith +Wharton, Part 2 (of 10), by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY SHORT FICTION *** + +***** This file should be named 306-h.htm or 306-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/306/ + +Produced by John Hamm, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton + A Ten-Part Collection + Part Two + + + + Contents of Part Two + + Stories + AFTERWARD............................January 1910 + THE FULNESS OF LIFE..................December 1893 + A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT.....December 1903 + XINGU................................December 1911 + THE VERDICT..........................June 1908 + THE RECKONING........................August 1902 + + + Verse + + BOTTICELLI'S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE...January 1891 + THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI...........February 1891 + THE SONNET...........................November 1891 + TWO BACKGROUNDS......................November 1892 + EXPERIENCE...........................January 1893 + CHARTRES.............................September 1893 + LIFE.................................June 1894 + AN AUTUMN SUNSET.....................October 1894 + + + + +AFTERWARD +January 1910 + + +I + + +"Oh, there IS one, of course, but you'll never know it." + +The assertion, laughingly flung out six months earlier in a +bright June garden, came back to Mary Boyne with a sharp +perception of its latent significance as she stood, in the +December dusk, waiting for the lamps to be brought into the +library. + +The words had been spoken by their friend Alida Stair, as they +sat at tea on her lawn at Pangbourne, in reference to the very +house of which the library in question was the central, the +pivotal "feature." Mary Boyne and her husband, in quest of a +country place in one of the southern or southwestern counties, +had, on their arrival in England, carried their problem straight +to Alida Stair, who had successfully solved it in her own case; +but it was not until they had rejected, almost capriciously, +several practical and judicious suggestions that she threw it +out: "Well, there's Lyng, in Dorsetshire. It belongs to Hugo's +cousins, and you can get it for a song." + +The reasons she gave for its being obtainable on these terms--its +remoteness from a station, its lack of electric light, hot-water +pipes, and other vulgar necessities--were exactly those pleading +in its favor with two romantic Americans perversely in search of +the economic drawbacks which were associated, in their tradition, +with unusual architectural felicities. + +"I should never believe I was living in an old house unless I was +thoroughly uncomfortable," Ned Boyne, the more extravagant of the +two, had jocosely insisted; "the least hint of 'convenience' +would make me think it had been bought out of an exhibition, with +the pieces numbered, and set up again." And they had proceeded +to enumerate, with humorous precision, their various suspicions +and exactions, refusing to believe that the house their cousin +recommended was REALLY Tudor till they learned it had no heating +system, or that the village church was literally in the grounds +till she assured them of the deplorable uncertainty of the water- +supply. + +"It's too uncomfortable to be true!" Edward Boyne had continued +to exult as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively +wrung from her; but he had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with a +sudden relapse to distrust: "And the ghost? You've been +concealing from us the fact that there is no ghost!" + +Mary, at the moment, had laughed with him, yet almost with her +laugh, being possessed of several sets of independent +perceptions, had noted a sudden flatness of tone in Alida's +answering hilarity. + +"Oh, Dorsetshire's full of ghosts, you know." + +"Yes, yes; but that won't do. I don't want to have to drive ten +miles to see somebody else's ghost. I want one of my own on the +premises. IS there a ghost at Lyng?" + +His rejoinder had made Alida laugh again, and it was then that +she had flung back tantalizingly: "Oh, there IS one, of course, +but you'll never know it." + +"Never know it?" Boyne pulled her up. "But what in the world +constitutes a ghost except the fact of its being known for one?" + +"I can't say. But that's the story." + +"That there's a ghost, but that nobody knows it's a ghost?" + +"Well--not till afterward, at any rate." + +"Till afterward?" + +"Not till long, long afterward." + +"But if it's once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why +hasn't its signalement been handed down in the family? How has +it managed to preserve its incognito?" + +Alida could only shake her head. "Don't ask me. But it has." + +"And then suddenly--" Mary spoke up as if from some cavernous +depth of divination--"suddenly, long afterward, one says to one's +self, 'THAT WAS it?'" + +She was oddly startled at the sepulchral sound with which her +question fell on the banter of the other two, and she saw the +shadow of the same surprise flit across Alida's clear pupils. +"I suppose so. One just has to wait." + +"Oh, hang waiting!" Ned broke in. "Life's too short for a ghost +who can only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can't we do better than +that, Mary?" + +But it turned out that in the event they were not destined to, +for within three months of their conversation with Mrs. Stair +they were established at Lyng, and the life they had yearned for +to the point of planning it out in all its daily details had +actually begun for them. + +It was to sit, in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide- +hooded fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the +sense that beyond the mullioned panes the downs were darkening to +a deeper solitude: it was for the ultimate indulgence in such +sensations that Mary Boyne had endured for nearly fourteen years +the soul-deadening ugliness of the Middle West, and that Boyne +had ground on doggedly at his engineering till, with a suddenness +that still made her blink, the prodigious windfall of the Blue +Star Mine had put them at a stroke in possession of life and the +leisure to taste it. They had never for a moment meant their new +state to be one of idleness; but they meant to give themselves +only to harmonious activities. She had her vision of painting +and gardening (against a background of gray walls), he dreamed of +the production of his long-planned book on the "Economic Basis of +Culture"; and with such absorbing work ahead no existence could +be too sequestered; they could not get far enough from the world, +or plunge deep enough into the past. + +Dorsetshire had attracted them from the first by a semblance of +remoteness out of all proportion to its geographical position. +But to the Boynes it was one of the ever-recurring wonders of the +whole incredibly compressed island--a nest of counties, as they +put it--that for the production of its effects so little of a +given quality went so far: that so few miles made a distance, and +so short a distance a difference. + +"It's that," Ned had once enthusiastically explained, "that gives +such depth to their effects, such relief to their least +contrasts. They've been able to lay the butter so thick on every +exquisite mouthful." + +The butter had certainly been laid on thick at Lyng: the old gray +house, hidden under a shoulder of the downs, had almost all the +finer marks of commerce with a protracted past. The mere fact +that it was neither large nor exceptional made it, to the Boynes, +abound the more richly in its special sense--the sense of having +been for centuries a deep, dim reservoir of life. The life had +probably not been of the most vivid order: for long periods, no +doubt, it had fallen as noiselessly into the past as the quiet +drizzle of autumn fell, hour after hour, into the green fish-pond +between the yews; but these back-waters of existence sometimes +breed, in their sluggish depths, strange acuities of emotion, and +Mary Boyne had felt from the first the occasional brush of an +intenser memory. + +The feeling had never been stronger than on the December +afternoon when, waiting in the library for the belated lamps, she +rose from her seat and stood among the shadows of the hearth. +Her husband had gone off, after luncheon, for one of his long +tramps on the downs. She had noticed of late that he preferred +to be unaccompanied on these occasions; and, in the tried +security of their personal relations, had been driven to conclude +that his book was bothering him, and that he needed the +afternoons to turn over in solitude the problems left from the +morning's work. Certainly the book was not going as smoothly as +she had imagined it would, and the lines of perplexity between +his eyes had never been there in his engineering days. Then he +had often looked fagged to the verge of illness, but the native +demon of "worry" had never branded his brow. Yet the few pages +he had so far read to her--the introduction, and a synopsis of +the opening chapter--gave evidences of a firm possession of his +subject, and a deepening confidence in his powers. + +The fact threw her into deeper perplexity, since, now that he had +done with "business" and its disturbing contingencies, the one +other possible element of anxiety was eliminated. Unless it were +his health, then? But physically he had gained since they had +come to Dorsetshire, grown robuster, ruddier, and fresher-eyed. +It was only within a week that she had felt in him the +undefinable change that made her restless in his absence, and as +tongue-tied in his presence as though it were SHE who had a +secret to keep from him! + +The thought that there WAS a secret somewhere between them struck +her with a sudden smart rap of wonder, and she looked about her +down the dim, long room. + +"Can it be the house?" she mused. + +The room itself might have been full of secrets. They seemed to +be piling themselves up, as evening fell, like the layers and +layers of velvet shadow dropping from the low ceiling, the dusky +walls of books, the smoke-blurred sculpture of the hooded hearth. + +"Why, of course--the house is haunted!" she reflected. + +The ghost--Alida's imperceptible ghost--after figuring largely in +the banter of their first month or two at Lyng, had been +gradually discarded as too ineffectual for imaginative use. Mary +had, indeed, as became the tenant of a haunted house, made the +customary inquiries among her few rural neighbors, but, beyond a +vague, "They du say so, Ma'am," the villagers had nothing to +impart. The elusive specter had apparently never had sufficient +identity for a legend to crystallize about it, and after a time +the Boynes had laughingly set the matter down to their profit- +and-loss account, agreeing that Lyng was one of the few houses +good enough in itself to dispense with supernatural enhancements. + +"And I suppose, poor, ineffectual demon, that's why it beats its +beautiful wings in vain in the void," Mary had laughingly +concluded. + +"Or, rather," Ned answered, in the same strain, "why, amid so +much that's ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence +as THE ghost." And thereupon their invisible housemate had +finally dropped out of their references, which were numerous +enough to make them promptly unaware of the loss. + +Now, as she stood on the hearth, the subject of their earlier +curiosity revived in her with a new sense of its meaning--a sense +gradually acquired through close daily contact with the scene of +the lurking mystery. It was the house itself, of course, that +possessed the ghost-seeing faculty, that communed visually but +secretly with its own past; and if one could only get into close +enough communion with the house, one might surprise its secret, +and acquire the ghost-sight on one's own account. Perhaps, in +his long solitary hours in this very room, where she never +trespassed till the afternoon, her husband HAD acquired it +already, and was silently carrying the dread weight of whatever +it had revealed to him. Mary was too well-versed in the code of +the spectral world not to know that one could not talk about the +ghosts one saw: to do so was almost as great a breach of good- +breeding as to name a lady in a club. But this explanation did +not really satisfy her. "What, after all, except for the fun of +the frisson," she reflected, "would he really care for any of +their old ghosts?" And thence she was thrown back once more on +the fundamental dilemma: the fact that one's greater or less +susceptibility to spectral influences had no particular bearing +on the case, since, when one DID see a ghost at Lyng, one did not +know it. + +"Not till long afterward," Alida Stair had said. Well, supposing +Ned HAD seen one when they first came, and had known only within +the last week what had happened to him? More and more under the +spell of the hour, she threw back her searching thoughts to the +early days of their tenancy, but at first only to recall a gay +confusion of unpacking, settling, arranging of books, and calling +to each other from remote corners of the house as treasure after +treasure of their habitation revealed itself to them. It was in +this particular connection that she presently recalled a certain +soft afternoon of the previous October, when, passing from the +first rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of +the old house, she had pressed (like a novel heroine) a panel +that opened at her touch, on a narrow flight of stairs leading to +an unsuspected flat ledge of the roof--the roof which, from +below, seemed to slope away on all sides too abruptly for any but +practised feet to scale. + +The view from this hidden coign was enchanting, and she had flown +down to snatch Ned from his papers and give him the freedom of +her discovery. She remembered still how, standing on the narrow +ledge, he had passed his arm about her while their gaze flew to +the long, tossed horizon-line of the downs, and then dropped +contentedly back to trace the arabesque of yew hedges about the +fish-pond, and the shadow of the cedar on the lawn. + +"And now the other way," he had said, gently turning her about +within his arm; and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed, +like some long, satisfying draft, the picture of the gray-walled +court, the squat lions on the gates, and the lime-avenue reaching +up to the highroad under the downs. + +It was just then, while they gazed and held each other, that she +had felt his arm relax, and heard a sharp "Hullo!" that made her +turn to glance at him. + +Distinctly, yes, she now recalled she had seen, as she glanced, a +shadow of anxiety, of perplexity, rather, fall across his face; +and, following his eyes, had beheld the figure of a man--a man in +loose, grayish clothes, as it appeared to her--who was sauntering +down the lime-avenue to the court with the tentative gait of a +stranger seeking his way. Her short-sighted eyes had given her +but a blurred impression of slightness and grayness, with +something foreign, or at least unlocal, in the cut of the figure +or its garb; but her husband had apparently seen more--seen +enough to make him push past her with a sharp "Wait!" and dash +down the twisting stairs without pausing to give her a hand for +the descent. + +A slight tendency to dizziness obliged her, after a provisional +clutch at the chimney against which they had been leaning, to +follow him down more cautiously; and when she had reached the +attic landing she paused again for a less definite reason, +leaning over the oak banister to strain her eyes through the +silence of the brown, sun-flecked depths below. She lingered +there till, somewhere in those depths, she heard the closing of a +door; then, mechanically impelled, she went down the shallow +flights of steps till she reached the lower hall. + +The front door stood open on the mild sunlight of the court, and +hall and court were empty. The library door was open, too, and +after listening in vain for any sound of voices within, she +quickly crossed the threshold, and found her husband alone, +vaguely fingering the papers on his desk. + +He looked up, as if surprised at her precipitate entrance, but +the shadow of anxiety had passed from his face, leaving it even, +as she fancied, a little brighter and clearer than usual. + +"What was it? Who was it?" she asked. + +"Who?" he repeated, with the surprise still all on his side. + +"The man we saw coming toward the house." + +He seemed honestly to reflect. "The man? Why, I thought I saw +Peters; I dashed after him to say a word about the stable-drains, +but he had disappeared before I could get down." + +"Disappeared? Why, he seemed to be walking so slowly when we saw +him." + +Boyne shrugged his shoulders. "So I thought; but he must have +got up steam in the interval. What do you say to our trying a +scramble up Meldon Steep before sunset?" + +That was all. At the time the occurrence had been less than +nothing, had, indeed, been immediately obliterated by the magic +of their first vision from Meldon Steep, a height which they had +dreamed of climbing ever since they had first seen its bare spine +heaving itself above the low roof of Lyng. Doubtless it was the +mere fact of the other incident's having occurred on the very day +of their ascent to Meldon that had kept it stored away in the +unconscious fold of association from which it now emerged; for in +itself it had no mark of the portentous. At the moment there +could have been nothing more natural than that Ned should dash +himself from the roof in the pursuit of dilatory tradesmen. It +was the period when they were always on the watch for one or the +other of the specialists employed about the place; always lying +in wait for them, and dashing out at them with questions, +reproaches, or reminders. And certainly in the distance the gray +figure had looked like Peters. + +Yet now, as she reviewed the rapid scene, she felt her husband's +explanation of it to have been invalidated by the look of anxiety +on his face. Why had the familiar appearance of Peters made him +anxious? Why, above all, if it was of such prime necessity to +confer with that authority on the subject of the stable-drains, +had the failure to find him produced such a look of relief? Mary +could not say that any one of these considerations had occurred +to her at the time, yet, from the promptness with which they now +marshaled themselves at her summons, she had a sudden sense that +they must all along have been there, waiting their hour. + + + +II + + +Weary with her thoughts, she moved toward the window. The +library was now completely dark, and she was surprised to see how +much faint light the outer world still held. + +As she peered out into it across the court, a figure shaped +itself in the tapering perspective of bare lines: it looked a +mere blot of deeper gray in the grayness, and for an instant, as +it moved toward her, her heart thumped to the thought, "It's the +ghost!" + +She had time, in that long instant, to feel suddenly that the man +of whom, two months earlier, she had a brief distant vision from +the roof was now, at his predestined hour, about to reveal +himself as NOT having been Peters; and her spirit sank under the +impending fear of the disclosure. But almost with the next tick +of the clock the ambiguous figure, gaining substance and +character, showed itself even to her weak sight as her husband's; +and she turned away to meet him, as he entered, with the +confession of her folly. + +"It's really too absurd," she laughed out from the threshold, +"but I never CAN remember!" + +"Remember what?" Boyne questioned as they drew together. + +"That when one sees the Lyng ghost one never knows it." + +Her hand was on his sleeve, and he kept it there, but with no +response in his gesture or in the lines of his fagged, +preoccupied face. + +"Did you think you'd seen it?" he asked, after an appreciable +interval. + +"Why, I actually took YOU for it, my dear, in my mad +determination to spot it!" + +"Me--just now?" His arm dropped away, and he turned from her +with a faint echo of her laugh. "Really, dearest, you'd better +give it up, if that's the best you can do." + +"Yes, I give it up--I give it up. Have YOU?" she asked, turning +round on him abruptly. + +The parlor-maid had entered with letters and a lamp, and the +light struck up into Boyne's face as he bent above the tray she +presented. + +"Have YOU?" Mary perversely insisted, when the servant had +disappeared on her errand of illumination. + +"Have I what?" he rejoined absently, the light bringing out the +sharp stamp of worry between his brows as he turned over the +letters. + +"Given up trying to see the ghost." Her heart beat a little at +the experiment she was making. + +Her husband, laying his letters aside, moved away into the shadow +of the hearth. + +"I never tried," he said, tearing open the wrapper of a +newspaper. + +"Well, of course," Mary persisted, "the exasperating thing is +that there's no use trying, since one can't be sure till so long +afterward." + +He was unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but +after a pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically +between his hands, he lifted his head to say abruptly, "Have you +any idea HOW LONG?" + +Mary had sunk into a low chair beside the fireplace. From her +seat she looked up, startled, at her husband's profile, which was +darkly projected against the circle of lamplight. + +"No; none. Have YOU?" she retorted, repeating her former phrase +with an added keenness of intention. + +Boyne crumpled the paper into a bunch, and then inconsequently +turned back with it toward the lamp. + +"Lord, no! I only meant," he explained, with a faint tinge of +impatience, "is there any legend, any tradition, as to that?" + +"Not that I know of," she answered; but the impulse to add, "What +makes you ask?" was checked by the reappearance of the parlor- +maid with tea and a second lamp. + +With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily +domestic office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that +sense of something mutely imminent which had darkened her +solitary afternoon. For a few moments she gave herself silently +to the details of her task, and when she looked up from it she +was struck to the point of bewilderment by the change in her +husband's face. He had seated himself near the farther lamp, and +was absorbed in the perusal of his letters; but was it something +he had found in them, or merely the shifting of her own point of +view, that had restored his features to their normal aspect? The +longer she looked, the more definitely the change affirmed +itself. The lines of painful tension had vanished, and such +traces of fatigue as lingered were of the kind easily +attributable to steady mental effort. He glanced up, as if drawn +by her gaze, and met her eyes with a smile. + +"I'm dying for my tea, you know; and here's a letter for you," he +said. + +She took the letter he held out in exchange for the cup she +proffered him, and, returning to her seat, broke the seal with +the languid gesture of the reader whose interests are all +inclosed in the circle of one cherished presence. + +Her next conscious motion was that of starting to her feet, the +letter falling to them as she rose, while she held out to her +husband a long newspaper clipping. + +"Ned! What's this? What does it mean?" + +He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry +before she uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and +she studied each other, like adversaries watching for an +advantage, across the space between her chair and his desk. + +"What's what? You fairly made me jump!" Boyne said at length, +moving toward her with a sudden, half-exasperated laugh. The +shadow of apprehension was on his face again, not now a look of +fixed foreboding, but a shifting vigilance of lips and eyes that +gave her the sense of his feeling himself invisibly surrounded. + +Her hand shook so that she could hardly give him the clipping. + +"This article--from the 'Waukesha Sentinel'--that a man named +Elwell has brought suit against you--that there was something +wrong about the Blue Star Mine. I can't understand more than +half." + +They continued to face each other as she spoke, and to her +astonishment, she saw that her words had the almost immediate +effect of dissipating the strained watchfulness of his look. + +"Oh, THAT!" He glanced down the printed slip, and then folded it +with the gesture of one who handles something harmless and +familiar. "What's the matter with you this afternoon, Mary? I +thought you'd got bad news." + +She stood before him with her undefinable terror subsiding slowly +under the reassuring touch of his composure. + +"You knew about this, then--it's all right?" + +"Certainly I knew about it; and it's all right." + +"But what IS it? I don't understand. What does this man accuse +you of?" + +"Oh, pretty nearly every crime in the calendar." Boyne had +tossed the clipping down, and thrown himself comfortably into an +arm-chair near the fire. "Do you want to hear the story? It's +not particularly interesting--just a squabble over interests in +the Blue Star." + +"But who is this Elwell? I don't know the name." + +"Oh, he's a fellow I put into it--gave him a hand up. I told you +all about him at the time." + +"I daresay. I must have forgotten." Vainly she strained back +among her memories. "But if you helped him, why does he make +this return?" + +"Oh, probably some shyster lawyer got hold of him and talked him +over. It's all rather technical and complicated. I thought that +kind of thing bored you." + +His wife felt a sting of compunction. Theoretically, she +deprecated the American wife's detachment from her husband's +professional interests, but in practice she had always found it +difficult to fix her attention on Boyne's report of the +transactions in which his varied interests involved him. +Besides, she had felt from the first that, in a community where +the amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of +efforts as arduous as her husband's professional labors, such +brief leisure as they could command should be used as an escape +from immediate preoccupations, a flight to the life they always +dreamed of living. Once or twice, now that this new life had +actually drawn its magic circle about them, she had asked herself +if she had done right; but hitherto such conjectures had been no +more than the retrospective excursions of an active fancy. Now, +for the first time, it startled her a little to find how little +she knew of the material foundation on which her happiness was +built. + +She glanced again at her husband, and was reassured by the +composure of his face; yet she felt the need of more definite +grounds for her reassurance. + +"But doesn't this suit worry you? Why have you never spoken to +me about it?" + +He answered both questions at once: "I didn't speak of it at +first because it DID worry me--annoyed me, rather. But it's all +ancient history now. Your correspondent must have got hold of a +back number of the 'Sentinel.'" + +She felt a quick thrill of relief. "You mean it's over? He's +lost his case?" + +There was a just perceptible delay in Boyne's reply. "The suit's +been withdrawn--that's all." + +But she persisted, as if to exonerate herself from the inward +charge of being too easily put off. "Withdrawn because he saw he +had no chance?" + +"Oh, he had no chance," Boyne answered. + +She was still struggling with a dimly felt perplexity at the back +of her thoughts. + +"How long ago was it withdrawn?" + +He paused, as if with a slight return of his former uncertainty. +"I've just had the news now; but I've been expecting it." + +"Just now--in one of your letters?" + +"Yes; in one of my letters." + +She made no answer, and was aware only, after a short interval of +waiting, that he had risen, and strolling across the room, had +placed himself on the sofa at her side. She felt him, as he did +so, pass an arm about her, she felt his hand seek hers and clasp +it, and turning slowly, drawn by the warmth of his cheek, she met +the smiling clearness of his eyes. + +"It's all right--it's all right?" she questioned, through the +flood of her dissolving doubts; and "I give you my word it never +was righter!" he laughed back at her, holding her close. + + + +III + + +One of the strangest things she was afterward to recall out of +all the next day's incredible strangeness was the sudden and +complete recovery of her sense of security. + +It was in the air when she woke in her low-ceilinged, dusky room; +it accompanied her down-stairs to the breakfast-table, flashed +out at her from the fire, and re-duplicated itself brightly from +the flanks of the urn and the sturdy flutings of the Georgian +teapot. It was as if, in some roundabout way, all her diffused +apprehensions of the previous day, with their moment of sharp +concentration about the newspaper article,--as if this dim +questioning of the future, and startled return upon the past,-- +had between them liquidated the arrears of some haunting moral +obligation. If she had indeed been careless of her husband's +affairs, it was, her new state seemed to prove, because her faith +in him instinctively justified such carelessness; and his right +to her faith had overwhelmingly affirmed itself in the very face +of menace and suspicion. She had never seen him more untroubled, +more naturally and unconsciously in possession of himself, than +after the cross-examination to which she had subjected him: it +was almost as if he had been aware of her lurking doubts, and had +wanted the air cleared as much as she did. + +It was as clear, thank Heaven! as the bright outer light that +surprised her almost with a touch of summer when she issued from +the house for her daily round of the gardens. She had left Boyne +at his desk, indulging herself, as she passed the library door, +by a last peep at his quiet face, where he bent, pipe in his +mouth, above his papers, and now she had her own morning's task +to perform. The task involved on such charmed winter days almost +as much delighted loitering about the different quarters of her +demesne as if spring were already at work on shrubs and borders. +There were such inexhaustible possibilities still before her, +such opportunities to bring out the latent graces of the old +place, without a single irreverent touch of alteration, that the +winter months were all too short to plan what spring and autumn +executed. And her recovered sense of safety gave, on this +particular morning, a peculiar zest to her progress through the +sweet, still place. She went first to the kitchen-garden, where +the espaliered pear-trees drew complicated patterns on the walls, +and pigeons were fluttering and preening about the silvery-slated +roof of their cot. There was something wrong about the piping of +the hothouse, and she was expecting an authority from Dorchester, +who was to drive out between trains and make a diagnosis of the +boiler. But when she dipped into the damp heat of the +greenhouses, among the spiced scents and waxy pinks and reds of +old-fashioned exotics,--even the flora of Lyng was in the note!-- +she learned that the great man had not arrived, and the day being +too rare to waste in an artificial atmosphere, she came out again +and paced slowly along the springy turf of the bowling-green to +the gardens behind the house. At their farther end rose a grass +terrace, commanding, over the fish-pond and the yew hedges, a +view of the long house-front, with its twisted chimney-stacks and +the blue shadows of its roof angles, all drenched in the pale +gold moisture of the air. + +Seen thus, across the level tracery of the yews, under the +suffused, mild light, it sent her, from its open windows and +hospitably smoking chimneys, the look of some warm human +presence, of a mind slowly ripened on a sunny wall of experience. +She had never before had so deep a sense of her intimacy with it, +such a conviction that its secrets were all beneficent, kept, as +they said to children, "for one's good," so complete a trust in +its power to gather up her life and Ned's into the harmonious +pattern of the long, long story it sat there weaving in the sun. + +She heard steps behind her, and turned, expecting to see the +gardener, accompanied by the engineer from Dorchester. But only +one figure was in sight, that of a youngish, slightly built man, +who, for reasons she could not on the spot have specified, did +not remotely resemble her preconceived notion of an authority on +hot-house boilers. The new-comer, on seeing her, lifted his hat, +and paused with the air of a gentleman--perhaps a traveler-- +desirous of having it immediately known that his intrusion is +involuntary. The local fame of Lyng occasionally attracted the +more intelligent sight-seer, and Mary half-expected to see the +stranger dissemble a camera, or justify his presence by producing +it. But he made no gesture of any sort, and after a moment she +asked, in a tone responding to the courteous deprecation of his +attitude: "Is there any one you wish to see?" + +"I came to see Mr. Boyne," he replied. His intonation, rather +than his accent, was faintly American, and Mary, at the familiar +note, looked at him more closely. The brim of his soft felt hat +cast a shade on his face, which, thus obscured, wore to her +short-sighted gaze a look of seriousness, as of a person arriving +"on business," and civilly but firmly aware of his rights. + +Past experience had made Mary equally sensible to such claims; +but she was jealous of her husband's morning hours, and doubtful +of his having given any one the right to intrude on them. + +"Have you an appointment with Mr. Boyne?" she asked. + +He hesitated, as if unprepared for the question. + +"Not exactly an appointment," he replied. + +"Then I'm afraid, this being his working-time, that he can't +receive you now. Will you give me a message, or come back +later?" + +The visitor, again lifting his hat, briefly replied that he would +come back later, and walked away, as if to regain the front of +the house. As his figure receded down the walk between the yew +hedges, Mary saw him pause and look up an instant at the peaceful +house-front bathed in faint winter sunshine; and it struck her, +with a tardy touch of compunction, that it would have been more +humane to ask if he had come from a distance, and to offer, in +that case, to inquire if her husband could receive him. But as +the thought occurred to her he passed out of sight behind a +pyramidal yew, and at the same moment her attention was +distracted by the approach of the gardener, attended by the +bearded pepper-and-salt figure of the boiler-maker from +Dorchester. + +The encounter with this authority led to such far-reaching issues +that they resulted in his finding it expedient to ignore his +train, and beguiled Mary into spending the remainder of the +morning in absorbed confabulation among the greenhouses. She was +startled to find, when the colloquy ended, that it was nearly +luncheon-time, and she half expected, as she hurried back to the +house, to see her husband coming out to meet her. But she found +no one in the court but an under-gardener raking the gravel, and +the hall, when she entered it, was so silent that she guessed +Boyne to be still at work behind the closed door of the library. + +Not wishing to disturb him, she turned into the drawing-room, and +there, at her writing-table, lost herself in renewed calculations +of the outlay to which the morning's conference had committed +her. The knowledge that she could permit herself such follies +had not yet lost its novelty; and somehow, in contrast to the +vague apprehensions of the previous days, it now seemed an +element of her recovered security, of the sense that, as Ned had +said, things in general had never been "righter." + +She was still luxuriating in a lavish play of figures when the +parlor-maid, from the threshold, roused her with a dubiously +worded inquiry as to the expediency of serving luncheon. It was +one of their jokes that Trimmle announced luncheon as if she were +divulging a state secret, and Mary, intent upon her papers, +merely murmured an absent-minded assent. + +She felt Trimmle wavering expressively on the threshold as if in +rebuke of such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps +sounded down the passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, +crossed the hall, and went to the library door. It was still +closed, and she wavered in her turn, disliking to disturb her +husband, yet anxious that he should not exceed his normal measure +of work. As she stood there, balancing her impulses, the +esoteric Trimmle returned with the announcement of luncheon, and +Mary, thus impelled, opened the door and went into the library. + +Boyne was not at his desk, and she peered about her, expecting to +discover him at the book-shelves, somewhere down the length of +the room; but her call brought no response, and gradually it +became clear to her that he was not in the library. + +She turned back to the parlor-maid. + +"Mr. Boyne must be up-stairs. Please tell him that luncheon is +ready." + +The parlor-maid appeared to hesitate between the obvious duty of +obeying orders and an equally obvious conviction of the +foolishness of the injunction laid upon her. The struggle +resulted in her saying doubtfully, "If you please, Madam, Mr. +Boyne's not up-stairs." + +"Not in his room? Are you sure?" + +"I'm sure, Madam." + +Mary consulted the clock. "Where is he, then?" + +"He's gone out," Trimmle announced, with the superior air of one +who has respectfully waited for the question that a well-ordered +mind would have first propounded. + +Mary's previous conjecture had been right, then. Boyne must have +gone to the gardens to meet her, and since she had missed him, it +was clear that he had taken the shorter way by the south door, +instead of going round to the court. She crossed the hall to the +glass portal opening directly on the yew garden, but the parlor- +maid, after another moment of inner conflict, decided to bring +out recklessly, "Please, Madam, Mr. Boyne didn't go that way." + +Mary turned back. "Where DID he go? And when?" + +"He went out of the front door, up the drive, Madam." It was a +matter of principle with Trimmle never to answer more than one +question at a time. + +"Up the drive? At this hour?" Mary went to the door herself, +and glanced across the court through the long tunnel of bare +limes. But its perspective was as empty as when she had scanned +it on entering the house. + +"Did Mr. Boyne leave no message?" she asked. + +Trimmle seemed to surrender herself to a last struggle with the +forces of chaos. + +"No, Madam. He just went out with the gentleman." + +"The gentleman? What gentleman?" Mary wheeled about, as if to +front this new factor. + +"The gentleman who called, Madam," said Trimmle, resignedly. + +"When did a gentleman call? Do explain yourself, Trimmle!" + +Only the fact that Mary was very hungry, and that she wanted to +consult her husband about the greenhouses, would have caused her +to lay so unusual an injunction on her attendant; and even now +she was detached enough to note in Trimmle's eye the dawning +defiance of the respectful subordinate who has been pressed too +hard. + +"I couldn't exactly say the hour, Madam, because I didn't let the +gentleman in," she replied, with the air of magnanimously +ignoring the irregularity of her mistress's course. + +"You didn't let him in?" + +"No, Madam. When the bell rang I was dressing, and Agnes--" + +"Go and ask Agnes, then," Mary interjected. Trimmle still wore +her look of patient magnanimity. "Agnes would not know, Madam, +for she had unfortunately burnt her hand in trying the wick of +the new lamp from town--" Trimmle, as Mary was aware, had always +been opposed to the new lamp--"and so Mrs. Dockett sent the +kitchen-maid instead." + +Mary looked again at the clock. "It's after two! Go and ask the +kitchen-maid if Mr. Boyne left any word." + +She went into luncheon without waiting, and Trimmle presently +brought her there the kitchen-maid's statement that the gentleman +had called about one o'clock, that Mr. Boyne had gone out with +him without leaving any message. The kitchen-maid did not even +know the caller's name, for he had written it on a slip of paper, +which he had folded and handed to her, with the injunction to +deliver it at once to Mr. Boyne. + +Mary finished her luncheon, still wondering, and when it was +over, and Trimmle had brought the coffee to the drawing-room, her +wonder had deepened to a first faint tinge of disquietude. It +was unlike Boyne to absent himself without explanation at so +unwonted an hour, and the difficulty of identifying the visitor +whose summons he had apparently obeyed made his disappearance the +more unaccountable. Mary Boyne's experience as the wife of a +busy engineer, subject to sudden calls and compelled to keep +irregular hours, had trained her to the philosophic acceptance of +surprises; but since Boyne's withdrawal from business he had +adopted a Benedictine regularity of life. As if to make up for +the dispersed and agitated years, with their "stand-up" lunches +and dinners rattled down to the joltings of the dining-car, he +cultivated the last refinements of punctuality and monotony, +discouraging his wife's fancy for the unexpected; and declaring +that to a delicate taste there were infinite gradations of +pleasure in the fixed recurrences of habit. + +Still, since no life can completely defend itself from the +unforeseen, it was evident that all Boyne's precautions would +sooner or later prove unavailable, and Mary concluded that he had +cut short a tiresome visit by walking with his caller to the +station, or at least accompanying him for part of the way. + +This conclusion relieved her from farther preoccupation, and she +went out herself to take up her conference with the gardener. +Thence she walked to the village post-office, a mile or so away; +and when she turned toward home, the early twilight was setting +in. + +She had taken a foot-path across the downs, and as Boyne, +meanwhile, had probably returned from the station by the +highroad, there was little likelihood of their meeting on the +way. She felt sure, however, of his having reached the house +before her; so sure that, when she entered it herself, without +even pausing to inquire of Trimmle, she made directly for the +library. But the library was still empty, and with an unwonted +precision of visual memory she immediately observed that the +papers on her husband's desk lay precisely as they had lain when +she had gone in to call him to luncheon. + +Then of a sudden she was seized by a vague dread of the unknown. +She had closed the door behind her on entering, and as she stood +alone in the long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take +shape and sound, to be there audibly breathing and lurking among +the shadows. Her short-sighted eyes strained through them, half- +discerning an actual presence, something aloof, that watched and +knew; and in the recoil from that intangible propinquity she +threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope and gave it a desperate +pull. + +The long, quavering summons brought Trimmle in precipitately with +a lamp, and Mary breathed again at this sobering reappearance of +the usual. + +"You may bring tea if Mr. Boyne is in," she said, to justify her +ring. + +"Very well, Madam. But Mr. Boyne is not in," said Trimmle, +putting down the lamp. + +"Not in? You mean he's come back and gone out again?" + +"No, Madam. He's never been back." + +The dread stirred again, and Mary knew that now it had her fast. + +"Not since he went out with--the gentleman?" + +"Not since he went out with the gentleman." + +"But who WAS the gentleman?" Mary gasped out, with the sharp note +of some one trying to be heard through a confusion of meaningless +noises. + +"That I couldn't say, Madam." Trimmle, standing there by the +lamp, seemed suddenly to grow less round and rosy, as though +eclipsed by the same creeping shade of apprehension. + +"But the kitchen-maid knows--wasn't it the kitchen-maid who let +him in?" + +"She doesn't know either, Madam, for he wrote his name on a +folded paper." + +Mary, through her agitation, was aware that they were both +designating the unknown visitor by a vague pronoun, instead of +the conventional formula which, till then, had kept their +allusions within the bounds of custom. And at the same moment +her mind caught at the suggestion of the folded paper. + +"But he must have a name! Where is the paper?" + +She moved to the desk, and began to turn over the scattered +documents that littered it. The first that caught her eye was an +unfinished letter in her husband's hand, with his pen lying +across it, as though dropped there at a sudden summons. + +"My dear Parvis,"--who was Parvis?--"I have just received your +letter announcing Elwell's death, and while I suppose there is +now no farther risk of trouble, it might be safer--" + +She tossed the sheet aside, and continued her search; but no +folded paper was discoverable among the letters and pages of +manuscript which had been swept together in a promiscuous heap, +as if by a hurried or a startled gesture. + +"But the kitchen-maid SAW him. Send her here," she commanded, +wondering at her dullness in not thinking sooner of so simple a +solution. + +Trimmle, at the behest, vanished in a flash, as if thankful to be +out of the room, and when she reappeared, conducting the agitated +underling, Mary had regained her self-possession, and had her +questions pat. + +The gentleman was a stranger, yes--that she understood. But what +had he said? And, above all, what had he looked like? The first +question was easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason +that he had said so little--had merely asked for Mr. Boyne, and, +scribbling something on a bit of paper, had requested that it +should at once be carried in to him. + +"Then you don't know what he wrote? You're not sure it WAS his +name?" + +The kitchen-maid was not sure, but supposed it was, since he had +written it in answer to her inquiry as to whom she should +announce. + +"And when you carried the paper in to Mr. Boyne, what did he +say?" + +The kitchen-maid did not think that Mr. Boyne had said anything, +but she could not be sure, for just as she had handed him the +paper and he was opening it, she had become aware that the +visitor had followed her into the library, and she had slipped +out, leaving the two gentlemen together. + +"But then, if you left them in the library, how do you know that +they went out of the house?" + +This question plunged the witness into momentary +inarticulateness, from which she was rescued by Trimmle, who, by +means of ingenious circumlocutions, elicited the statement that +before she could cross the hall to the back passage she had heard +the gentlemen behind her, and had seen them go out of the front +door together. + +"Then, if you saw the gentleman twice, you must be able to tell +me what he looked like." + +But with this final challenge to her powers of expression it +became clear that the limit of the kitchen-maid's endurance had +been reached. The obligation of going to the front door to "show +in" a visitor was in itself so subversive of the fundamental +order of things that it had thrown her faculties into hopeless +disarray, and she could only stammer out, after various panting +efforts at evocation, "His hat, mum, was different-like, as you +might say--" + +"Different? How different?" Mary flashed out at her, her own +mind, in the same instant, leaping back to an image left on it +that morning, but temporarily lost under layers of subsequent +impressions. + +"His hat had a wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale--a +youngish face?" Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity +of interrogation. But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate +answer to this challenge, it was swept away for her listener down +the rushing current of her own convictions. The stranger--the +stranger in the garden! Why had Mary not thought of him before? +She needed no one now to tell her that it was he who had called +for her husband and gone away with him. But who was he, and why +had Boyne obeyed his call? + + + +IV + + +It leaped out at her suddenly, like a grin out of the dark, that +they had often called England so little--"such a confoundedly +hard place to get lost in." + +A CONFOUNDEDLY HARD PLACE TO GET LOST IN! That had been her +husband's phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of official +investigation sweeping its flash-lights from shore to shore, and +across the dividing straits; now, with Boyne's name blazing from +the walls of every town and village, his portrait (how that wrung +her!) hawked up and down the country like the image of a hunted +criminal; now the little compact, populous island, so policed, +surveyed, and administered, revealed itself as a Sphinx-like +guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his wife's +anguished eyes as if with the malicious joy of knowing something +they would never know! + +In the fortnight since Boyne's disappearance there had been no +word of him, no trace of his movements. Even the usual +misleading reports that raise expectancy in tortured bosoms had +been few and fleeting. No one but the bewildered kitchen-maid +had seen him leave the house, and no one else had seen "the +gentleman" who accompanied him. All inquiries in the +neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger's presence +that day in the neighborhood of Lyng. And no one had met Edward +Boyne, either alone or in company, in any of the neighboring +villages, or on the road across the downs, or at either of the +local railway-stations. The sunny English noon had swallowed him +as completely as if he had gone out into Cimmerian night. + +Mary, while every external means of investigation was working at +its highest pressure, had ransacked her husband's papers for any +trace of antecedent complications, of entanglements or +obligations unknown to her, that might throw a faint ray into the +darkness. But if any such had existed in the background of +Boyne's life, they had disappeared as completely as the slip of +paper on which the visitor had written his name. There remained +no possible thread of guidance except--if it were indeed an +exception--the letter which Boyne had apparently been in the act +of writing when he received his mysterious summons. That letter, +read and reread by his wife, and submitted by her to the police, +yielded little enough for conjecture to feed on. + +"I have just heard of Elwell's death, and while I suppose there +is now no farther risk of trouble, it might be safer--" That was +all. The "risk of trouble" was easily explained by the newspaper +clipping which had apprised Mary of the suit brought against her +husband by one of his associates in the Blue Star enterprise. +The only new information conveyed in the letter was the fact of +its showing Boyne, when he wrote it, to be still apprehensive of +the results of the suit, though he had assured his wife that it +had been withdrawn, and though the letter itself declared that +the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks of exhaustive +cabling to fix the identity of the "Parvis" to whom the +fragmentary communication was addressed, but even after these +inquiries had shown him to be a Waukesha lawyer, no new facts +concerning the Elwell suit were elicited. He appeared to have +had no direct concern in it, but to have been conversant with the +facts merely as an acquaintance, and possible intermediary; and +he declared himself unable to divine with what object Boyne +intended to seek his assistance. + +This negative information, sole fruit of the first fortnight's +feverish search, was not increased by a jot during the slow weeks +that followed. Mary knew that the investigations were still +being carried on, but she had a vague sense of their gradually +slackening, as the actual march of time seemed to slacken. It +was as though the days, flying horror-struck from the shrouded +image of the one inscrutable day, gained assurance as the +distance lengthened, till at last they fell back into their +normal gait. And so with the human imaginations at work on the +dark event. No doubt it occupied them still, but week by week +and hour by hour it grew less absorbing, took up less space, was +slowly but inevitably crowded out of the foreground of +consciousness by the new problems perpetually bubbling up from +the vaporous caldron of human experience. + +Even Mary Boyne's consciousness gradually felt the same lowering +of velocity. It still swayed with the incessant oscillations of +conjecture; but they were slower, more rhythmical in their beat. +There were moments of overwhelming lassitude when, like the +victim of some poison which leaves the brain clear, but holds the +body motionless, she saw herself domesticated with the Horror, +accepting its perpetual presence as one of the fixed conditions +of life. + +These moments lengthened into hours and days, till she passed +into a phase of stolid acquiescence. She watched the familiar +routine of life with the incurious eye of a savage on whom the +meaningless processes of civilization make but the faintest +impression. She had come to regard herself as part of the +routine, a spoke of the wheel, revolving with its motion; she +felt almost like the furniture of the room in which she sat, an +insensate object to be dusted and pushed about with the chairs +and tables. And this deepening apathy held her fast at Lyng, in +spite of the urgent entreaties of friends and the usual medical +recommendation of "change." Her friends supposed that her +refusal to move was inspired by the belief that her husband would +one day return to the spot from which he had vanished, and a +beautiful legend grew up about this imaginary state of waiting. +But in reality she had no such belief: the depths of anguish +inclosing her were no longer lighted by flashes of hope. She was +sure that Boyne would never come back, that he had gone out of +her sight as completely as if Death itself had waited that day on +the threshold. She had even renounced, one by one, the various +theories as to his disappearance which had been advanced by the +press, the police, and her own agonized imagination. In sheer +lassitude her mind turned from these alternatives of horror, and +sank back into the blank fact that he was gone. + +No, she would never know what had become of him--no one would +ever know. But the house KNEW; the library in which she spent +her long, lonely evenings knew. For it was here that the last +scene had been enacted, here that the stranger had come, and +spoken the word which had caused Boyne to rise and follow him. +The floor she trod had felt his tread; the books on the shelves +had seen his face; and there were moments when the intense +consciousness of the old, dusky walls seemed about to break out +into some audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation +never came, and she knew it would never come. Lyng was not one +of the garrulous old houses that betray the secrets intrusted to +them. Its very legend proved that it had always been the mute +accomplice, the incorruptible custodian of the mysteries it had +surprised. And Mary Boyne, sitting face to face with its +portentous silence, felt the futility of seeking to break it by +any human means. + + + +V + + +"I don't say it WASN'T straight, yet don't say it WAS straight. +It was business." + +Mary, at the words, lifted her head with a start, and looked +intently at the speaker. + +When, half an hour before, a card with "Mr. Parvis" on it had +been brought up to her, she had been immediately aware that the +name had been a part of her consciousness ever since she had read +it at the head of Boyne's unfinished letter. In the library she +had found awaiting her a small neutral-tinted man with a bald +head and gold eye-glasses, and it sent a strange tremor through +her to know that this was the person to whom her husband's last +known thought had been directed. + +Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,--in the manner of a +man who has his watch in his hand,--had set forth the object of +his visit. He had "run over" to England on business, and finding +himself in the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to +leave it without paying his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without +asking her, if the occasion offered, what she meant to do about +Bob Elwell's family. + +The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary's +bosom. Did her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by +his unfinished phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his +question, and noticed at once that he seemed surprised at her +continued ignorance of the subject. Was it possible that she +really knew as little as she said? + +"I know nothing--you must tell me," she faltered out; and her +visitor thereupon proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even +to her confused perceptions, and imperfectly initiated vision, a +lurid glare on the whole hazy episode of the Blue Star Mine. Her +husband had made his money in that brilliant speculation at the +cost of "getting ahead" of some one less alert to seize the +chance; the victim of his ingenuity was young Robert Elwell, who +had "put him on" to the Blue Star scheme. + +Parvis, at Mary's first startled cry, had thrown her a sobering +glance through his impartial glasses. + +"Bob Elwell wasn't smart enough, that's all; if he had been, he +might have turned round and served Boyne the same way. It's the +kind of thing that happens every day in business. I guess it's +what the scientists call the survival of the fittest," said Mr. +Parvis, evidently pleased with the aptness of his analogy. + +Mary felt a physical shrinking from the next question she tried +to frame; it was as though the words on her lips had a taste that +nauseated her. + +"But then--you accuse my husband of doing something +dishonorable?" + +Mr. Parvis surveyed the question dispassionately. "Oh, no, I +don't. I don't even say it wasn't straight." He glanced up and +down the long lines of books, as if one of them might have +supplied him with the definition he sought. "I don't say it +WASN'T straight, and yet I don't say it WAS straight. It was +business." After all, no definition in his category could be +more comprehensive than that. + +Mary sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her +like the indifferent, implacable emissary of some dark, formless +power. + +"But Mr. Elwell's lawyers apparently did not take your view, +since I suppose the suit was withdrawn by their advice." + +"Oh, yes, they knew he hadn't a leg to stand on, technically. It +was when they advised him to withdraw the suit that he got +desperate. You see, he'd borrowed most of the money he lost in +the Blue Star, and he was up a tree. That's why he shot himself +when they told him he had no show." + +The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves. + +"He shot himself? He killed himself because of THAT? " + +"Well, he didn't kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months +before he died." Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally +as a gramophone grinding out its "record." + +"You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried +again?" + +"Oh, he didn't have to try again," said Parvis, grimly. + +They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eye- +glass thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms +stretched along her knees in an attitude of rigid tension. + +"But if you knew all this," she began at length, hardly able to +force her voice above a whisper, "how is it that when I wrote you +at the time of my husband's disappearance you said you didn't +understand his letter?" + +Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. "Why, I +didn't understand it--strictly speaking. And it wasn't the time +to talk about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when +the suit was withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have +helped you to find your husband." + +Mary continued to scrutinize him. "Then why are you telling me +now?" + +Still Parvis did not hesitate. "Well, to begin with, I supposed +you knew more than you appear to--I mean about the circumstances +of Elwell's death. And then people are talking of it now; the +whole matter's been raked up again. And I thought, if you didn't +know, you ought to." + +She remained silent, and he continued: "You see, it's only come +out lately what a bad state Elwell's affairs were in. His wife's +a proud woman, and she fought on as long as she could, going out +to work, and taking sewing at home, when she got too sick-- +something with the heart, I believe. But she had his bedridden +mother to look after, and the children, and she broke down under +it, and finally had to ask for help. That attracted attention to +the case, and the papers took it up, and a subscription was +started. Everybody out there liked Bob Elwell, and most of the +prominent names in the place are down on the list, and people +began to wonder why--" + +Parvis broke off to fumble in an inner pocket. "Here," he +continued, "here's an account of the whole thing from the +'Sentinel'--a little sensational, of course. But I guess you'd +better look it over." + +He held out a newspaper to Mary, who unfolded it slowly, +remembering, as she did so, the evening when, in that same room, +the perusal of a clipping from the "Sentinel" had first shaken +the depths of her security. + +As she opened the paper, her eyes, shrinking from the glaring +head-lines, "Widow of Boyne's Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid," +ran down the column of text to two portraits inserted in it. The +first was her husband's, taken from a photograph made the year +they had come to England. It was the picture of him that she +liked best, the one that stood on the writing-table up-stairs in +her bedroom. As the eyes in the photograph met hers, she felt it +would be impossible to read what was said of him, and closed her +lids with the sharpness of the pain. + +"I thought if you felt disposed to put your name down--" she +heard Parvis continue. + +She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell on the other +portrait. It was that of a youngish man, slightly built, in +rough clothes, with features somewhat blurred by the shadow of a +projecting hat-brim. Where had she seen that outline before? +She stared at it confusedly, her heart hammering in her throat +and ears. Then she gave a cry. + +"This is the man--the man who came for my husband!" + +She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she +had slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was +bending above her in alarm. With an intense effort she +straightened herself, and reached out for the paper, which she +had dropped. + +"It's the man! I should know him anywhere!" she cried in a voice +that sounded in her own ears like a scream. + +Parvis's voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless, +fog-muffled windings. + +"Mrs. Boyne, you're not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall +I get a glass of water?" + +"No, no, no!" She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically +clenching the newspaper. "I tell you, it's the man! I KNOW him! +He spoke to me in the garden!" + +Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the +portrait. "It can't be, Mrs. Boyne. It's Robert Elwell." + +"Robert Elwell?" Her white stare seemed to travel into space. +"Then it was Robert Elwell who came for him." + +"Came for Boyne? The day he went away?" Parvis's voice dropped +as hers rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as +if to coax her gently back into her seat. "Why, Elwell was dead! +Don't you remember?" + +Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what +he was saying. + +"Don't you remember Boyne's unfinished letter to me--the one you +found on his desk that day? It was written just after he'd heard +of Elwell's death." She noticed an odd shake in Parvis's +unemotional voice. "Surely you remember that!" he urged her. + +Yes, she remembered: that was the profoundest horror of it. +Elwell had died the day before her husband's disappearance; and +this was Elwell's portrait; and it was the portrait of the man +who had spoken to her in the garden. She lifted her head and +looked slowly about the library. The library could have borne +witness that it was also the portrait of the man who had come in +that day to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. Through the +misty surgings of her brain she heard the faint boom of half- +forgotten words--words spoken by Alida Stair on the lawn at +Pangbourne before Boyne and his wife had ever seen the house at +Lyng, or had imagined that they might one day live there. + +"This was the man who spoke to me," she repeated. + +She looked again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his +disturbance under what he imagined to be an expression of +indulgent commiseration; but the edges of his lips were blue. +"He thinks me mad; but I'm not mad," she reflected; and suddenly +there flashed upon her a way of justifying her strange +affirmation. + +She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting +till she could trust her voice to keep its habitual level; then +she said, looking straight at Parvis: "Will you answer me one +question, please? When was it that Robert Elwell tried to kill +himself?" + +"When--when?" Parvis stammered. + +"Yes; the date. Please try to remember." + +She saw that he was growing still more afraid of her. "I have a +reason," she insisted gently. + +"Yes, yes. Only I can't remember. About two months before, I +should say." + +"I want the date," she repeated. + +Parvis picked up the newspaper. "We might see here," he said, +still humoring her. He ran his eyes down the page. "Here it is. +Last October--the--" + +She caught the words from him. "The 20th, wasn't it?" With a +sharp look at her, he verified. "Yes, the 20th. Then you DID +know?" + +"I know now." Her white stare continued to travel past him. +"Sunday, the 20th--that was the day he came first." + +Parvis's voice was almost inaudible. "Came HERE first?" + +"Yes." + +"You saw him twice, then?" + +"Yes, twice." She breathed it at him with dilated eyes. "He +came first on the 20th of October. I remember the date because +it was the day we went up Meldon Steep for the first time." She +felt a faint gasp of inward laughter at the thought that but for +that she might have forgotten. + +Parvis continued to scrutinize her, as if trying to intercept her +gaze. + +"We saw him from the roof," she went on. "He came down the lime- +avenue toward the house. He was dressed just as he is in that +picture. My husband saw him first. He was frightened, and ran +down ahead of me; but there was no one there. He had vanished." + +"Elwell had vanished?" Parvis faltered. + +"Yes." Their two whispers seemed to grope for each other. "I +couldn't think what had happened. I see now. He TRIED to come +then; but he wasn't dead enough--he couldn't reach us. He had to +wait for two months; and then he came back again--and Ned went +with him." + +She nodded at Parvis with the look of triumph of a child who has +successfully worked out a difficult puzzle. But suddenly she +lifted her hands with a desperate gesture, pressing them to her +bursting temples. + +"Oh, my God! I sent him to Ned--I told him where to go! I sent +him to this room!" she screamed out. + +She felt the walls of the room rush toward her, like inward +falling ruins; and she heard Parvis, a long way off, as if +through the ruins, crying to her, and struggling to get at her. +But she was numb to his touch, she did not know what he was +saying. Through the tumult she heard but one clear note, the +voice of Alida Stair, speaking on the lawn at Pangbourne. + +"You won't know till afterward," it said. "You won't know till +long, long afterward." + + + +The End of Afterward + + + + +THE FULNESS OF LIFE +December 1893 + + +I. + + +For hours she had lain in a kind of gentle torpor, not unlike +that sweet lassitude which masters one in the hush of a midsummer +noon, when the heat seems to have silenced the very birds and +insects, and, lying sunk in the tasselled meadow-grasses, one +looks up through a level roofing of maple-leaves at the vast +shadowless, and unsuggestive blue. Now and then, at ever- +lengthening intervals, a flash of pain darted through her, like +the ripple of sheet-lightning across such a midsummer sky; but it +was too transitory to shake her stupor, that calm, delicious, +bottomless stupor into which she felt herself sinking more and +more deeply, without a disturbing impulse of resistance, an +effort of reattachment to the vanishing edges of consciousness. + +The resistance, the effort, had known their hour of violence; but +now they were at an end. Through her mind, long harried by +grotesque visions, fragmentary images of the life that she was +leaving, tormenting lines of verse, obstinate presentments of +pictures once beheld, indistinct impressions of rivers, towers, +and cupolas, gathered in the length of journeys half forgotten-- +through her mind there now only moved a few primal sensations of +colorless well-being; a vague satisfaction in the thought that +she had swallowed her noxious last draught of medicine . . . and +that she should never again hear the creaking of her husband's +boots--those horrible boots--and that no one would come to bother +her about the next day's dinner . . . or the butcher's book. . . . + +At last even these dim sensations spent themselves in the +thickening obscurity which enveloped her; a dusk now filled with +pale geometric roses, circling softly, interminably before her, +now darkened to a uniform blue-blackness, the hue of a summer +night without stars. And into this darkness she felt herself +sinking, sinking, with the gentle sense of security of one upheld +from beneath. Like a tepid tide it rose around her, gliding ever +higher and higher, folding in its velvety embrace her relaxed and +tired body, now submerging her breast and shoulders, now creeping +gradually, with soft inexorableness, over her throat to her chin, +to her ears, to her mouth. . . . Ah, now it was rising too high; +the impulse to struggle was renewed;. . . her mouth was full;. . . +she was choking. . . . Help! + +"It is all over," said the nurse, drawing down the eyelids with +official composure. + +The clock struck three. They remembered it afterward. Someone +opened the window and let in a blast of that strange, neutral air +which walks the earth between darkness and dawn; someone else led +the husband into another room. He walked vaguely, like a blind +man, on his creaking boots. + + + +II. + + +She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway +was in front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet +penetrating as the gathered glimmer of innumerable stars, +expanded gradually before her eyes, in blissful contrast to the +cavernous darkness from which she had of late emerged. + +She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her +eyes began to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light +about her, she distinguished the outlines of a landscape, at +first swimming in the opaline uncertainty of Shelley's vaporous +creations, then gradually resolved into distincter shape--the +vast unrolling of a sunlit plain, aerial forms of mountains, and +presently the silver crescent of a river in the valley, and a +blue stencilling of trees along its curve--something suggestive +in its ineffable hue of an azure background of Leonardo's, +strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and the +imagination into regions of fabulous delight. As she gazed, her +heart beat with a soft and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a +promise she read in the summons of that hyaline distance. + +"And so death is not the end after all," in sheer gladness she +heard herself exclaiming aloud. "I always knew that it couldn't +be. I believed in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then +Darwin himself said that he wasn't sure about the soul--at least, +I think he did--and Wallace was a spiritualist; and then there +was St. George Mivart--" + +Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains. + +"How beautiful! How satisfying!" she murmured. "Perhaps now I +shall really know what it is to live." + +As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart-beats, and +looking up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of +Life. + +"Have you never really known what it is to live?" the Spirit of +Life asked her. + +"I have never known," she replied, "that fulness of life which we +all feel ourselves capable of knowing; though my life has not +been without scattered hints of it, like the scent of earth which +comes to one sometimes far out at sea." + +"And what do you call the fulness of life?" the Spirit asked +again. + +"Oh, I can't tell you, if you don't know," she said, almost +reproachfully. "Many words are supposed to define it--love and +sympathy are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that +they are the right ones, and so few people really know what they +mean." + +"You were married," said the Spirit, "yet you did not find the +fulness of life in your marriage?" + +"Oh, dear, no," she replied, with an indulgent scorn, "my +marriage was a very incomplete affair." + +"And yet you were fond of your husband?" + +"You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just +as I was fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born +in, and my old nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted +a very happy couple. But I have sometimes thought that a woman's +nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, +through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing- +room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where +the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond +that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors +perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one +knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of +holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never +comes." + +"And your husband," asked the Spirit, after a pause, "never got +beyond the family sitting-room?" + +"Never," she returned, impatiently; "and the worst of it was that +he was quite content to remain there. He thought it perfectly +beautiful, and sometimes, when he was admiring its commonplace +furniture, insignificant as the chairs and tables of a hotel +parlor, I felt like crying out to him: 'Fool, will you never +guess that close at hand are rooms full of treasures and wonders, +such as the eye of man hath not seen, rooms that no step has +crossed, but that might be yours to live in, could you but find +the handle of the door?'" + +"Then," the Spirit continued, "those moments of which you lately +spoke, which seemed to come to you like scattered hints of the +fulness of life, were not shared with your husband?" + +"Oh, no--never. He was different. His boots creaked, and he +always slammed the door when he went out, and he never read +anything but railway novels and the sporting advertisements in +the papers--and--and, in short, we never understood each other in +the least." + +"To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite +sensations?" + +"I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a flower; +sometimes to a verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a +picture or a sunset, or to one of those calm days at sea, when +one seems to be lying in the hollow of a blue pearl; sometimes, +but rarely, to a word spoken by someone who chanced to give +utterance, at the right moment, to what I felt but could not +express." + +"Someone whom you loved?" asked the Spirit. + +"I never loved anyone, in that way," she said, rather sadly, "nor +was I thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or +three who, by touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my +being, had called forth a single note of that strange melody +which seemed sleeping in my soul. It has seldom happened, +however, that I have owed such feelings to people; and no one +ever gave me a moment of such happiness as it was my lot to feel +one evening in the Church of Or San Michele, in Florence." + +"Tell me about it," said the Spirit. + +"It was near sunset on a rainy spring afternoon in Easter week. +The clouds had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we +entered the church the fiery panes of the high windows shone out +like lamps through the dusk. A priest was at the high altar, his +white cope a livid spot in the incense-laden obscurity, the light +of the candles flickering up and down like fireflies about his +head; a few people knelt near by. We stole behind them and sat +down on a bench close to the tabernacle of Orcagna. + +"Strange to say, though Florence was not new to me, I had never +been in the church before; and in that magical light I saw for +the first time the inlaid steps, the fluted columns, the +sculptured bas-reliefs and canopy of the marvellous shrine. The +marble, worn and mellowed by the subtle hand of time, took on an +unspeakable rosy hue, suggestive in some remote way of the honey- +colored columns of the Parthenon, but more mystic, more complex, +a color not born of the sun's inveterate kiss, but made up of +cryptal twilight, and the flame of candles upon martyrs' tombs, +and gleams of sunset through symbolic panes of chrysoprase and +ruby; such a light as illumines the missals in the library of +Siena, or burns like a hidden fire through the Madonna of Gian +Bellini in the Church of the Redeemer, at Venice; the light of +the Middle Ages, richer, more solemn, more significant than the +limpid sunshine of Greece. + +"The church was silent, but for the wail of the priest and the +occasional scraping of a chair against the floor, and as I sat +there, bathed in that light, absorbed in rapt contemplation of +the marble miracle which rose before me, cunningly wrought as a +casket of ivory and enriched with jewel-like incrustations and +tarnished gleams of gold, I felt myself borne onward along a +mighty current, whose source seemed to be in the very beginning +of things, and whose tremendous waters gathered as they went all +the mingled streams of human passion and endeavor. Life in all +its varied manifestations of beauty and strangeness seemed +weaving a rhythmical dance around me as I moved, and wherever the +spirit of man had passed I knew that my foot had once been +familiar. + +"As I gazed the mediaeval bosses of the tabernacle of Orcagna +seemed to melt and flow into their primal forms so that the +folded lotus of the Nile and the Greek acanthus were braided with +the runic knots and fish-tailed monsters of the North, and all +the plastic terror and beauty born of man's hand from the Ganges +to the Baltic quivered and mingled in Orcagna's apotheosis of +Mary. And so the river bore me on, past the alien face of +antique civilizations and the familiar wonders of Greece, till I +swam upon the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its +swirling eddies of passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry +and art; I heard the rhythmic blow of the craftsmen's hammers in +the goldsmiths' workshops and on the walls of churches, the +party-cries of armed factions in the narrow streets, the organ- +roll of Dante's verse, the crackle of the fagots around Arnold of +Brescia, the twitter of the swallows to which St. Francis +preached, the laughter of the ladies listening on the hillside to +the quips of the Decameron, while plague-struck Florence howled +beneath them--all this and much more I heard, joined in strange +unison with voices earlier and more remote, fierce, passionate, +or tender, yet subdued to such awful harmony that I thought of +the song that the morning stars sang together and felt as though +it were sounding in my ears. My heart beat to suffocation, the +tears burned my lids, the joy, the mystery of it seemed too +intolerable to be borne. I could not understand even then the +words of the song; but I knew that if there had been someone at +my side who could have heard it with me, we might have found the +key to it together. + +"I turned to my husband, who was sitting beside me in an attitude +of patient dejection, gazing into the bottom of his hat; but at +that moment he rose, and stretching his stiffened legs, said, +mildly: 'Hadn't we better be going? There doesn't seem to be +much to see here, and you know the table d'hote dinner is at +half-past six o'clock." + + + +Her recital ended, there was an interval of silence; then the +Spirit of Life said: "There is a compensation in store for such +needs as you have expressed." + +"Oh, then you DO understand?" she exclaimed. "Tell me what +compensation, I entreat you!" + +"It is ordained," the Spirit answered, "that every soul which +seeks in vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare +its inmost being shall find that soul here and be united to it +for eternity." + +A glad cry broke from her lips. "Ah, shall I find him at last?" +she cried, exultant. + +"He is here," said the Spirit of Life. + +She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in +that unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than +his face) drew her toward him with an invincible force. + +"Are you really he?" she murmured. + +"I am he," he answered. + +She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which +overhung the valley. + +"Shall we go down together," she asked him, "into that marvellous +country; shall we see it together, as if with the self-same eyes, +and tell each other in the same words all that we think and feel?" + +"So," he replied, "have I hoped and dreamed." + +"What?" she asked, with rising joy. "Then you, too, have looked +for me?" + +"All my life." + +"How wonderful! And did you never, never find anyone in the +other world who understood you?" + +"Not wholly--not as you and I understand each other." + +"Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy," she sighed. + +They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the +shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into +sapphirine space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the +threshold, heard now and then a floating fragment of their talk +blown backward like the stray swallows which the wind sometimes +separates from their migratory tribe. + +"Did you never feel at sunset--" + +"Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?" + +"Do you remember that line in the third canto of the 'Inferno?'" + +"Ah, that line--my favorite always. Is it possible--" + +"You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike +Apteros?" + +"You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have +noticed, too, that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in +those flying folds of her drapery?" + +"After a storm in autumn have you never seen--" + +"Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters-- +the perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose, +Titian; the tuberose, Crivelli--" + +"I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it." + +"Have you never thought--" + +"Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had." + +"But surely you must have felt--" + +"Oh, yes, yes; and you, too--" + +"How beautiful! How strange--" + +Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains +answering each other across a garden full of flowers. At length, +with a certain tender impatience, he turned to her and said: +"Love, why should we linger here? All eternity lies before us. +Let us go down into that beautiful country together and make a +home for ourselves on some blue hill above the shining river." + +As he spoke, the hand she had forgotten in his was suddenly +withdrawn, and he felt that a cloud was passing over the radiance +of her soul. + +"A home," she repeated, slowly, "a home for you and me to live in +for all eternity?" + +"Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?" + +"Y-yes--yes, I know--but, don't you see, home would not be like +home to me, unless--" + +"Unless?" he wonderingly repeated. + +She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse +of whimsical inconsistency, "Unless you slammed the door and wore +creaking boots." + +But he had recovered his hold upon her hand, and by imperceptible +degrees was leading her toward the shining steps which descended +to the valley. + +"Come, O my soul's soul," he passionately implored; "why delay a +moment? Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too +short to hold such bliss as ours. It seems to me that I can see +our home already. Have I not always seem it in my dreams? It is +white, love, is it not, with polished columns, and a sculptured +cornice against the blue? Groves of laurel and oleander and +thickets of roses surround it; but from the terrace where we walk +at sunset, the eye looks out over woodlands and cool meadows +where, deep-bowered under ancient boughs, a stream goes +delicately toward the river. Indoors our favorite pictures hang +upon the walls and the rooms are lined with books. Think, dear, +at last we shall have time to read them all. With which shall we +begin? Come, help me to choose. Shall it be 'Faust' or the +'Vita Nuova,' the 'Tempest' or 'Les Caprices de Marianne,' or the +thirty-first canto of the 'Paradise,' or 'Epipsychidion' or +"Lycidas'? Tell me, dear, which one?" + +As he spoke he saw the answer trembling joyously upon her lips; +but it died in the ensuing silence, and she stood motionless, +resisting the persuasion of his hand. + +"What is it?" he entreated. + +"Wait a moment," she said, with a strange hesitation in her +voice. "Tell me first, are you quite sure of yourself? Is there +no one on earth whom you sometimes remember?" + +"Not since I have seen you," he replied; for, being a man, he had +indeed forgotten. + +Still she stood motionless, and he saw that the shadow deepened +on her soul. + +"Surely, love," he rebuked her, "it was not that which troubled +you? For my part I have walked through Lethe. The past has +melted like a cloud before the moon. I never lived until I saw +you." + +She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing +herself with a visible effort, she turned away from him and moved +toward the Spirit of Life, who still stood near the threshold. + +"I want to ask you a question," she said, in a troubled voice. + +"Ask," said the Spirit. + +"A little while ago," she began, slowly, "you told me that every +soul which has not found a kindred soul on earth is destined to +find one here." + +"And have you not found one?" asked the Spirit. + +"Yes; but will it be so with my husband's soul also?" + +"No," answered the Spirit of Life, "for your husband imagined +that he had found his soul's mate on earth in you; and for such +delusions eternity itself contains no cure." + +She gave a little cry. Was it of disappointment or triumph? + +"Then--then what will happen to him when he comes here?" + +"That I cannot tell you. Some field of activity and happiness he +will doubtless find, in due measure to his capacity for being +active and happy." + +She interrupted, almost angrily: "He will never be happy without me." + +"Do not be too sure of that," said the Spirit. + +She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: "He will +not understand you here any better than he did on earth." + +"No matter," she said; "I shall be the only sufferer, for he +always thought that he understood me." + +"His boots will creak just as much as ever--" + +"No matter." + +"And he will slam the door--" + +"Very likely." + +"And continue to read railway novels--" + +She interposed, impatiently: "Many men do worse than that." + +"But you said just now," said the Spirit, "that you did not love +him." + +"True," she answered, simply; "but don't you understand that I +shouldn't feel at home without him? It is all very well for a +week or two--but for eternity! After all, I never minded the +creaking of his boots, except when my head ached, and I don't +suppose it will ache HERE; and he was always so sorry when he had +slammed the door, only he never COULD remember not to. Besides, +no one else would know how to look after him, he is so helpless. +His inkstand would never be filled, and he would always be out of +stamps and visiting-cards. He would never remember to have his +umbrella re-covered, or to ask the price of anything before he +bought it. Why, he wouldn't even know what novels to read. I +always had to choose the kind he liked, with a murder or a +forgery and a successful detective." + +She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood listening with +a mien of wonder and dismay. + +"Don't you see," she said, "that I can't possibly go with you?" + +"But what do you intend to do?" asked the Spirit of Life. + +"What do I intend to do?" she returned, indignantly. "Why, I +mean to wait for my husband, of course. If he had come here +first HE would have waited for me for years and years; and it +would break his heart not to find me here when he comes." She +pointed with a contemptuous gesture to the magic vision of hill +and vale sloping away to the translucent mountains. "He wouldn't +give a fig for all that," she said, "if he didn't find me here." + +"But consider," warned the Spirit, "that you are now choosing for +eternity. It is a solemn moment." + +"Choosing!" she said, with a half-sad smile. "Do you still keep +up here that old fiction about choosing? I should have thought +that YOU knew better than that. How can I help myself? He will +expect to find me here when he comes, and he would never believe +you if you told him that I had gone away with someone else-- +never, never." + +"So be it," said the Spirit. "Here, as on earth, each one must +decide for himself." + +She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him gently, almost +wistfully. "I am sorry," she said. "I should have liked to talk +with you again; but you will understand, I know, and I dare say +you will find someone else a great deal cleverer--" + +And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him a swift +farewell and turned back toward the threshold. + +"Will my husband come soon?" she asked the Spirit of Life. + +"That you are not destined to know," the Spirit replied. + +"No matter," she said, cheerfully; "I have all eternity to wait +in." + +And still seated alone on the threshold, she listens for the +creaking of his boots. + + + +The End of The Fulness of Life + + + + +A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT +December 1903 + + + +This is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon +Street house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, +of the famous East India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the +ladies had withdrawn to the oval parlour (and Maria's harp was +throwing its gauzy web of sound across the Common), used to +relate to his grandsons, about the year that Buonaparte marched +upon Moscow. + + + +I + + +"Him Venice!" said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony +Bracknell, leaning on the high gunwale of his father's East +Indiaman, the Hepzibah B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a +faint vision of towers and domes dissolved in golden air. + +It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, +newly of age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack +merchantman of old Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as +the distant city trembled into shape. VENICE! The name, since +childhood, had been a magician's wand to him. In the hall of the +old Bracknell house at Salem there hung a series of yellowing +prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought home from one of +his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces, of the +Grand Turk's Seraglio, of St. Peter's Church in Rome; and, in a +corner--the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks +hung--a busy merry populous scene, entitled: ST. MARK'S SQUARE IN +VENICE. This picture, from the first, had singularly taken +little Tony's fancy. His unformulated criticism on the others +was that they lacked action. True, in the view of St. Peter's an +experienced-looking gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was pointing +out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had +presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the +doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with +less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in +Venice so many things were happening at once--more, Tony was +sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in +Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were people +of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many +more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, +chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons' gowns who +stalked through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of +parasites at their heels. And all these people seemed to be +diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, +watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing +doles to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by +slippery-looking fellows in black--the whole with such an air of +ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a +part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals. + +As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming +lost its magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. +For the old picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the +first step of a cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With +these dreams the name of Venice remained associated; and all that +observation or report subsequently brought him concerning the +place seemed, on a sober warranty of fact, to confirm its claim +to stand midway between reality and illusion. There was, for +instance, a slender Venice glass, gold-powdered as with lily- +pollen or the dust of sunbeams, that, standing in the corner +cabinet betwixt two Lowestoft caddies, seemed, among its lifeless +neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled butterfly. There was, +farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of that same sun- +pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped through the +fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant +which seemed held in air as if by magic. MAGIC! That was the +word which the thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of +place, Tony felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might +naturally happen, in which two and two might make five, a paradox +elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion give the lie to its own +premiss. Was there ever a young heart that did not, once and +again, long to get away into such a world as that? Tony, at +least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms +in his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy +responsibilities as a Christian and a sinner. And now here was +his wish taking shape before him, as the distant haze of gold +shaped itself into towers and domes across the morning sea! + +The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bear-leader, was +just putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a +sermon on Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s +anchor rattled overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would +have made one plunge with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on +being roused from his lucubrations, earnestly protested against +leaving his argument in suspense. What was the trifle of an +arrival at some Papistical foreign city, where the very churches +wore turbans like so many Moslem idolators, to the important fact +of Mr. Mounce's summing up his conclusions before the Muse of +Theology took flight? He should be happy, he said, if the tide +served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell the next morning. + +The next morning, ha!--Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," +winked at the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed +his hat down with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had +arrived at his next deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in +the Hepzibah's gig. + +A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very +world of the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, +and bubbling with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square +enclosed in fantastic painted buildings, and peopled with a +throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob, +parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and sputtering under +the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. Tony, +agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, +spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was +no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in +such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious +suavity which seemed to include everybody in the circumference of +one huge joke. In such an air the sense of strangeness soon wore +off, and Tony was beginning to feel himself vastly at home, when +a lift of the tide bore him against a droll-looking bell-ringing +fellow who carried above his head a tall metal tree hung with +sherbet-glasses. + +The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off +and clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all +the saints, and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, +tossed him a ducat by mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes +shot out of their orbits, and just then a personable-looking +young man who had observed the transaction stepped up to Tony and +said pleasantly, in English: + +"I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency." + +"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other +laughed and replied: "You have given him enough to retire from +his business and open a gaming-house over the arcade." + +Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the +preliminaries, the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a +glass of Canary in front of one of the coffee-houses about the +square. Tony counted himself lucky to have run across an +English-speaking companion who was good-natured enough to give +him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had paid for the Canary +(in the coin his friend selected) they set out again to view the +town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, +appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to +point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men +of ton and ladies of fashion, as well as a number of other +characters of a kind not openly mentioned in taking a census of +Salem. + +Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better +offered, had perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's +fine tragedy; but though these pieces had given him a notion that +the social usages of Venice differed from those at home, he was +unprepared for the surprising appearance and manners of the great +people his friend named to him. The gravest Senators of the +Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, short cloaks and +feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor's gown, +another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; while the +President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting +fellow with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a +trailing scarlet cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on. + +It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on +forever; but he had given his word to the captain to be at the +landing-place at sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over +the skies! Tony was a man of honour; and having pressed on the +Count a handsome damascened dagger selected from one of the +goldsmiths' shops in a narrow street lined with such wares, he +insisted on turning his face toward the Hepzibah's gig. The +Count yielded reluctantly; but as they came out again on the +square they were caught in a great throng pouring toward the +doors of the cathedral. + +"They go to Benediction," said the Count. "A beautiful sight, +with many lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a +peep at it." + +Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had +pulled back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they +stood in a haze of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall +on the mighty undulations of the organ. Here the press was as +thick as without; and as Tony flattened himself against a pillar, +he heard a pretty voice at his elbow:--"Oh, sir, oh, sir, your +sword!" + +He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who +matched the voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of +his scabbard. She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which +the Venetian ladies affected, and under its projecting eaves her +face spied out at him as sweet as a nesting bird. + +In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed +herself a shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony's enchanted +fingers. Looking after her, he saw she was on the arm of a +pompous-looking graybeard in a long black gown and scarlet +stockings, who, on perceiving the exchange of glances between the +young people, drew the lady away with a threatening look. + +The Count met Tony's eye with a smile. "One of our Venetian +beauties," said he; "the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought +to have the finest eyes in Venice." + +"She spoke English," stammered Tony. + +"Oh--ah--precisely: she learned the language at the Court of +Saint James's, where her father, the Senator, was formerly +accredited as Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal +princes of England." + +"And that was her father?" + +"Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena's rank do not go +abroad save with their parents or a duenna." + +Just then a soft hand slid into Tony's. His heart gave a foolish +bound, and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry +eyes under the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some +kind of fanciful page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between +his fingers and vanished in the throng. Tony, in a tingle, +glanced surreptitiously at the Count, who appeared absorbed in +his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a bell, had in fact +been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the +moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter. + +"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena"--he +read; but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand +fell on his shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, +and bearing a kind of rod or mace, pronounced a few words in +Venetian. + +Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to +jerk himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the +other's grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had +happened, pushed his way through the crowd, and whispered hastily +to his companion: "For God's sake, make no struggle. This is +serious. Keep quiet and do as I tell you." + +Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for +pugnacity among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the +man to stand in Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but +the devil of it was that this black fellow seemed to be pointing +to the letter in his breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by +the Count's agitated whisper. + +"This is one of the agents of the Ten.--For God's sake, no +outcry." He exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and +again turned to Tony. "You have been seen concealing a letter +about your person--" + +"And what of that?" says Tony furiously. + +"Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page +of Donna Polixena Cador.--A black business! Oh, a very black +business! This Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in +Venice--I beseech you, not a word, sir! Let me think-- +deliberate--" + +His hand on Tony's shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with +the potentate in the cocked hat. + +"I am sorry, sir--but our young ladies of rank are as jealously +guarded as the Grand Turk's wives, and you must be answerable for +this scandal. The best I can do is to have you taken privately +to the Palazzo Cador, instead of being brought before the +Council. I have pleaded your youth and inexperience"--Tony +winced at this--"and I think the business may still be arranged." + +Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp- +featured shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a +lawyer's clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with +many apologetic gestures steered him through the crowd to the +doors of the church. The Count held him by the other arm, and in +this fashion they emerged on the square, which now lay in +darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the arcade and +in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it. + +Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he +would go where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to +the mate of the Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two +hours or more at the landing-place. + +The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook +his head and rattled off a sharp denial. + +"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. +Any resistance will tell against you in the end." + +Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances +of escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his +captors, and boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he +felt himself equal to outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had +the sense to see that at a cry the crowd would close in on him. +Space was what he wanted: a clear ten yards, and he would have +laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng was thick as glue, +and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for an +opening. Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show. +Tony's fist shot out at the black fellow's chest, and before the +latter could right himself the young New Englander was showing a +clean pair of heels to his escort. On he sped, cleaving the +crowd like a flood-tide in Gloucester bay, diving under the first +arch that caught his eye, dashing down a lane to an unlit water- +way, and plunging across a narrow hump-back bridge which landed +him in a black pocket between walls. But now his pursuers were +at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The walls were too +high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath came short +as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed him. +Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a +servant wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to +weigh chances. Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed +and bolted it, and the two stood in a narrow paved well between +high houses. + + + +II + + +The servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. +They climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a +corridor, and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil- +lamp hung from the painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of +former splendour in his surroundings, but he had no time to +examine them, for a figure started up at his approach and in the +dim light he recognized the girl who was the cause of all his +troubles. + +She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced +her face changed and she shrank back abashed. + +"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she +cried out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen +that you are here?" + +"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted +Tony, not over-pleased by his reception. + +"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?" + +"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was +yours--" + +"Mine?" + +--"in sending me a letter--" + +"YOU--a letter?" + +--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under +your father's very nose--" + +The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was YOU who +received my letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant +and submerged her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed +back in the same jargon, and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye +detected in her the doubleted page who had handed him the letter +in Saint Mark's. + +"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?" + +Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face +clouded instantly and she returned to the charge. + +"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my +undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was +not intended for you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an +old friend of my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain +assistance--oh, how can I ever excuse myself to you?" + +"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am +surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an +ambassador." + +Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, +you must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking +English, and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the +handsomest foreigner in the church." Tony bowed again, more +profoundly. "The English Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is +a very handsome man." + +"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!" + +She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a +look of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a +moment? I am in dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought +trouble on you also-- Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" +She turned pale and leaned tremblingly upon the little servant. + +Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a +moment later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room +attended by half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen +abroad in the square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to +their swords and burst into furious outcries; and though their +jargon was unintelligible to the young man, their tones and +gestures made their meaning unpleasantly plain. The Senator, +with a start of anger, first flung himself on the intruder; then, +snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on his +daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming +face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress. +Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among +themselves, and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and +Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The +latter was at his wit's end how to comport himself, for the +lovely Polixena's tears had quite drowned her few words of +English, and beyond guessing that the magnificoes meant him a +mischief he had no notion what they would be at. + +At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in +on the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the +room. He pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the +young man to be silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the +Senator. The latter, at first, would not draw breath to hear +him; but presently, sobering, he walked apart with the Count, and +the two conversed together out of earshot. + +"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a +perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen +into a great misfortune." + +"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, +whose blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the +word the beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that +he blushed up to the forehead. + +"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his +Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a +few words of it, and--" + +"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand +me if I ask him in plain English what is his grievance against +me." + +The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the +Count, stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against +you is that you have been detected in secret correspondence with +his daughter, the most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride +of this gentleman, the most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--" and +he waved a deferential hand at the frowning hidalgo of the cape +and ruff. + +"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies +with the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--" +but here he stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a +terrified glance at him. + +"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to +take shelter behind a lady's reputation." + +"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was +merely about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has +never seen me before." + +Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would +have died to defend her. + +The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His +Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's +misconduct has been all the more reprehensible." + +"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?" + +"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a +letter which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your +bosom. The incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the +Marquess Zanipolo, who, in consequence, has already repudiated +his unhappy bride." + +Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his +Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady +on so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the +object of her father's resentment." + +"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. +Your only excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is +scarcely for you to advise us how to behave in matters of +punctilio." + +It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his +enemies, and the thought sharpened his retort. + +"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same +behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a +gentleman would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the +letter I was seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of +this young lady, and has in fact nothing to do with what you +suppose." + +As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was +as far as he dared commit himself. + +There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and +the Count then said:--"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is +obliged to meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at +your command the means of immediately clearing the lady. Will +you show the letter to her father?" + +There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing +to look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory +glance toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, +accompanied by unmistakable signs of apprehension. + +"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined, +and whatever happens I must keep her secret." + +He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, +"in the habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers." + +The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, +dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while +the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. + +The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I +feared. This is not the first time that youth and propinquity +have led to fatal imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, +point out the obligation incumbent upon you as a man of honour." + +Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the +Marquess. "And what obligation is that?" + +"To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the +lady." + +Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why +in heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he +remembered that it had no superscription, and that the words it +contained, supposing them to have been addressed to himself, were +hardly of a nature to disarm suspicion. The sense of the girl's +grave plight effaced all thought of his own risk, but the Count's +last words struck him as so preposterous that he could not +repress a smile. + +"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome +this solution." + +The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such +modesty," he said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even +if it were justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is +always assumed in this country that a young lady wishes to marry +the man whom her father has selected." + +"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman +yonder was in that enviable position." + +"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege +in your favour." + +"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my +unworthiness obliges me to decline--" + +"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a +misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be +consulted than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it +is necessary that you should marry her within the hour." + +Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his +veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between +himself and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred +windows of the apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had +fallen sobbing at her father's feet. + +"And if I refuse?" said he. + +The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to +threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what +the consequences would be to the lady." + +Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few +impassioned words to the Count and her father; but the latter put +her aside with an obdurate gesture. + +The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you--at +what cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an +hour his Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his +Illustriousness consents to leave you in the custody of your +betrothed." + +He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep +ceremony to Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony +heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone with +Polixena. + + + +III + + +The girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of +shame and agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again +forgot his own extremity in the view of her distress. He went +and kneeled beside her, drawing her hands from her face. + +"Oh, don't make me look at you!" she sobbed; but it was on his +bosom that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing- +space, as he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew +back and put him gently from her. + +"What humiliation!" she lamented. + +"Do you think I blame you for what has happened?" + +"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this +plight? And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of +you not to show the letter! If my father knew I had written to +the Ambassador to save me from this dreadful marriage his anger +against me would be even greater." + +"Ah--it was that you wrote for?" cried Tony with unaccountable +relief. + +"Of course--what else did you think?" + +"But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?" + +"From YOU?" A smile flashed through her tears. "Alas, yes." +She drew back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a +fresh wave of shame. + +Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that +window--" he muttered. + +"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.-- +Oh, I must speak!" She sprang up and paced the room. "But +indeed you can scarce think worse of me than you do already--" + +"I think ill of you?" + +"Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has +chosen for me--" + +"Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you +married him." + +"Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no +choice." + +"It is infamous, I say--infamous!" + +"No, no--I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others." + +"Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!" + +"He has a dreadful name for violence--his gondolier has told my +little maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when +it is of you I should be thinking?" + +"Of me, poor child?" cried Tony, losing his head. + +"Yes, and how to save you--for I CAN save you! But every moment +counts--and yet what I have to say is so dreadful." + +"Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful." + +"Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!" + +"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little +wildly; but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him. + +"No, I am not free," she said; "but you are, if you will do as I +tell you." + +Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad +flight through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety +again, and the fall had stunned him. + +"What am I to do?" he said. + +"Look away from me, or I can never tell you." + +He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded +him, and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure +of the window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon +as his back was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous +voice, as though she were reciting a lesson. + +"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, +is not a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a +desperate spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a +round sum of ready money.--If you turn round I shall not go on!-- +He wrangled horribly with my father over my dowry--he wanted me +to have more than either of my sisters, though one married a +Procurator and the other a grandee of Spain. But my father is a +gambler too--oh, such fortunes as are squandered over the arcade +yonder! And so--and so--don't turn, I implore you--oh, do you +begin to see my meaning?" + +She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his +eyes from her. + +"Go on," he said. + +"Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! +You don't know us Venetians--we're all to be bought for a price. +It is not only the brides who are marketable--sometimes the +husbands sell themselves too. And they think you rich--my father +does, and the others--I don't know why, unless you have shown +your money too freely--and the English are all rich, are they +not? And--oh, oh--do you understand? Oh, I can't bear your +eyes!" + +She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a +flash was at her side. + +"My poor child, my poor Polixena!" he cried, and wept and clasped +her. + +"You ARE rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?" +she persisted. + +"To enable you to marry the Marquess?" + +"To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never +see your face again." She fell to weeping once more, and he drew +away and paced the floor in a fever. + +Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and +pointed to a clock against the wall. "The hour is nearly over. +It is quite true that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. +Oh, I implore you, be warned by me! There is no other way of +escape." + +"And if I do as you say--?" + +"You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it." + +"And you--you are married to that villain?" + +"But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say +it to myself when I am alone." + +"My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow." + +"You forgive me, Anthony? You don't think too badly of me?" + +"I say you must not marry that fellow." + +She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Time presses," she +adjured him, "and I warn you there is no other way." + +For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, +on a Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson's sermons in the best +parlour at Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both +her hands in his. "Yes, there is," he cried, "if you are +willing. Polixena, let the priest come!" + +She shrank back from him, white and radiant. "Oh, hush, be +silent!" she said. + +"I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates," he cried. +"My father is a plain India merchant in the colony of +Massachusetts--but if you--" + +"Oh, hush, I say! I don't know what your long words mean. But I +bless you, bless you, bless you on my knees!" And she knelt +before him, and fell to kissing his hands. + +He drew her up to his breast and held her there. + +"You are willing, Polixena?" he said. + +"No, no!" She broke from him with outstretched hands. "I am not +willing. You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell +you!" + +"On my money?" he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him. + +"Yes, on your money," she said sadly. + +"Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?" + +She was silent. + +"If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?" he +persisted. + +"You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past." + +"Let it pass. I'll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a +finger to help another man to marry you." + +"Oh, madman, madman!" she murmured. + +Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned +against the wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed +under its lace and falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and +entreaty. + +"Polixena, I love you!" he cried. + +A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to +the verge of her troubled brows. + +"I love you! I love you!" he repeated. + +And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in +their lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird's poise +and before he knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was +between them. + +She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. "I took it +from your fob," she said. "It is of no value, is it? And I +shall not get any of the money, you know." + +She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire +in her ashen face. + +"What are you talking of?" he said. + +"They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall +never see you again, Anthony!" She gave him a dreadful look. +"Oh, my poor boy, my poor love--'I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, +POLIXENA!'" + +He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with +soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm's length, and as +he gazed he read the truth in her face. + +He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his +head on his hands. + +"Only, for God's sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul +play here," she said. + +As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a +burst of voices on the threshold. + +"It is all a lie," she gasped out, "about my marriage, and the +Marquess, and the Ambassador, and the Senator--but not, oh, not +about your danger in this place--or about my love," she breathed +to him. And as the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on +his brow. + +The key rattled, and the door swung open--but the black-cassocked +gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary +of idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend +Ozias Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, +and very much on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was +supported, to his evident relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah +B., and the procession was closed by an escort of stern-looking +fellows in cocked hats and small-swords, who led between them +Tony's late friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a looking +company as the law ever landed in her net. + +The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of +satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony. + +"So, Mr. Bracknell," said he, "you have been seeing the Carnival +with this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your +pleasuring has landed you? H'm--a pretty establishment, and a +pretty lady at the head of it." He glanced about the apartment +and doffed his hat with mock ceremony to Polixena, who faced him +like a princess. + +"Why, my girl," said he, amicably, "I think I saw you this +morning in the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as +for that Captain Spavent--" and he pointed a derisive finger at +the Marquess--"I've watched him drive his bully's trade under the +arcade ever since I first dropped anchor in these waters. Well, +well," he continued, his indignation subsiding, "all's fair in +Carnival, I suppose, but this gentleman here is under sailing +orders, and I fear we must break up your little party." + +At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small +and explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain. + +"I can assure you, sir," said the Count in his best English, +"that this incident is the result of an unfortunate +misunderstanding, and if you will oblige us by dismissing these +myrmidons, any of my friends here will be happy to offer +satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his companions." + +Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a +loud guffaw. + +"Satisfaction?" says he. "Why, my cock, that's very handsome of +you, considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take +advantage of your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has +already trespassed on it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, +you!" he spluttered suddenly, "decoying young innocents with that +devil's bait of yours--" His eye fell on Polixena, and his voice +softened unaccountably. "Ah, well, we must all see the Carnival +once, I suppose," he said. "All's well that ends well, as the +fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. Bracknell, +if you'll take the reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll bid +adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for +the Hepzibah." + + + +The End of A Venetian Night's Entertainment + + + + +XINGU +December, 1911 + + +Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, +as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had +founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and +several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch +Club, after three or four winters of lunching and debate, had +acquired such local distinction that the entertainment of +distinguished strangers became one of its accepted functions; in +recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated "Osric +Dane," on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to +be present at the next meeting. + +The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger's. The other members, +behind her back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness +to cede her rights in favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a +more impressive setting for the entertainment of celebrities; +while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there was always the picture- +gallery to fall back on. + +Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always +regarded it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch +Club's distinguished guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of +her obligations as she was of her picture-gallery; she was in +fact fond of implying that the one possession implied the other, +and that only a woman of her wealth could afford to live up to a +standard as high as that which she had set herself. An all-round +sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her +opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly +stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to +keep footmen clearly intended her to maintain an equally +specialized staff of responsibilities. It was the more to be +regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society were +bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have +been so tenacious of the right to entertain Osric Dane. + +The question of that lady's reception had for a month past +profoundly moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that +they felt themselves unequal to the task, but that their sense of +the opportunity plunged them into the agreeable uncertainty of +the lady who weighs the alternatives of a well-stocked wardrobe. +If such subsidiary members as Mrs. Leveret were fluttered by the +thought of exchanging ideas with the author of "The Wings of +Death," no forebodings of the kind disturbed the conscious +adequacy of Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. +"The Wings of Death" had, in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck's +suggestion, been chosen as the subject of discussion at the last +club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled to express +her own opinion or to appropriate whatever seemed most likely to +be of use in the comments of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had +abstained from profiting by the opportunity thus offered; but it +was now openly recognised that, as a member of the Lunch Club, +Mrs. Roby was a failure. "It all comes," as Miss Van Vluyck put +it, "of accepting a woman on a man's estimation." Mrs. Roby, +returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged sojourn in exotic +regions--the other ladies no longer took the trouble to remember +where--had been emphatically commended by the distinguished +biologist, Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had +ever met; and the members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium +that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that +the Professor's social sympathies would follow the line of his +scientific bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological +member. Their disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van +Vluyck's first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had +confusedly murmured: "I know so little about metres--" and after +that painful betrayal of incompetence she had prudently withdrawn +from farther participation in the mental gymnastics of the club. + +"I suppose she flattered him," Miss Van Vluyck summed up--"or +else it's the way she does her hair." + +The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck's dining-room having restricted +the membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one +member was a serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some +wonder had already been expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to +live, as it were, on the intellectual bounty of the others. This +feeling was augmented by the discovery that she had not yet read +"The Wings of Death." She owned to having heard the name of +Osric Dane; but that--incredible as it appeared--was the extent +of her acquaintance with the celebrated novelist. The ladies +could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. Ballinger, whose pride +in the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby in the best +possible light, gently insinuated that, though she had not had +time to acquaint herself with "The Wings of Death," she must at +least be familiar with its equally remarkable predecessor, "The +Supreme Instant." + +Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of +memory, as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she HAD +seen the book at her brother's, when she was staying with him in +Brazil, and had even carried it off to read one day on a boating +party; but they had all got to shying things at each other in the +boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she had never had the +chance-- + +The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby's +credit with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was +broken by Mrs. Plinth's remarking: "I can understand that, with +all your other pursuits, you should not find much time for +reading; but I should have thought you might at least have GOT UP +'The Wings of Death' before Osric Dane's arrival." + +Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she +owned to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in +a novel of Trollope's that-- + +"No one reads Trollope now," Mrs. Ballinger interrupted +impatiently. + +Mrs. Roby looked pained. "I'm only just beginning," she +confessed. + +"And does he interest you?" Mrs. Plinth inquired. + +"He amuses me." + +"Amusement," said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, "is hardly what I +look for in my choice of books." + +"Oh, certainly, 'The Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured +Mrs. Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like +that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to +submit if his first selection does not suit. + +"Was it MEANT to be?" enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of +asking questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. +"Assuredly not." + +"Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say," assented Mrs. +Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. +"It was meant to--to elevate." + +Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the +black cap of condemnation. "I hardly see," she interposed, "how +a book steeped in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, +however much it may instruct." + +"I meant, of course, to instruct," said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by +the unexpected distinction between two terms which she had +supposed to be synonymous. Mrs. Leveret's enjoyment of the Lunch +Club was frequently marred by such surprises; and not knowing her +own value to the other ladies as a mirror for their mental +complacency she was sometimes troubled by a doubt of her +worthiness to join in their debates. It was only the fact of +having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved her from a +sense of hopeless inferiority. + +"Do they get married in the end?" Mrs. Roby interposed. + +"They--who?" the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed. + +"Why, the girl and man. It's a novel, isn't it? I always think +that's the one thing that matters. If they're parted it spoils +my dinner." + +Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and +the latter said: "I should hardly advise you to read 'The Wings +of Death,' in that spirit. For my part, when there are so many +books that one HAS to read, I wonder how any one can find time +for those that are merely amusing." + +"The beautiful part of it," Laura Glyde murmured, "is surely just +this--that no one can tell HOW 'The Wings of Death' ends. Osric +Dane, overcome by the dread significance of her own meaning, has +mercifully veiled it--perhaps even from herself--as Apelles, in +representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia, veiled the face of +Agamemnon." + +"What's that? Is it poetry?" whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to +Mrs. Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: "You +should look it up. I always make it a point to look things up." +Her tone added--"though I might easily have it done for me by the +footman." + +"I was about to say," Miss Van Vluyck resumed, "that it must +always be a question whether a book CAN instruct unless it +elevates." + +"Oh--" murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly +astray. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van +Vluyck's tone a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of +entertaining Osric Dane; "I don't know that such a question can +seriously be raised as to a book which has attracted more +attention among thoughtful people than any novel since 'Robert +Elsmere.'" + +"Oh, but don't you see," exclaimed Laura Glyde, "that it's just +the dark hopelessness of it all--the wonderful tone-scheme of +black on black--that makes it such an artistic achievement? It +reminded me so when I read it of Prince Rupert's maniere noire . . . +the book is etched, not painted, yet one feels the colour +values so intensely . . ." + +"Who is HE?" Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. "Some one +she's met abroad?" + +"The wonderful part of the book," Mrs. Ballinger conceded, "is +that it may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear +that as a study of determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with +'The Data of Ethics.'" + +"I'm told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies +before beginning to write it," said Mrs. Plinth. "She looks up +everything--verifies everything. It has always been my +principle, as you know. Nothing would induce me, now, to put +aside a book before I'd finished it, just because I can buy as +many more as I want." + +"And what do YOU think of 'The Wings of Death'?" Mrs. Roby +abruptly asked her. + +It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, +and the ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any +share in such a breach of discipline. They all knew that there +was nothing Mrs. Plinth so much disliked as being asked her +opinion of a book. Books were written to read; if one read them +what more could be expected? To be questioned in detail +regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an +outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. +The club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth's. +Such opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, +like her house, was furnished with monumental "pieces" that were +not meant to be suddenly disarranged; and it was one of the +unwritten rules of the Lunch Club that, within her own province, +each member's habits of thought should be respected. The meeting +therefore closed with an increased sense, on the part of the +other ladies, of Mrs. Roby's hopeless unfitness to be one of +them. + + + +II + + +Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs. +Ballinger's, her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket. + +It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: +she liked to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the +others assembled, of the turn the conversation was likely to +take. To-day, however, she felt herself completely at a loss; +and even the familiar contact of Appropriate Allusions, which +stuck into her as she sat down, failed to give her any +reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled to meet +all the social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion of +Anniversaries, joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran), +of Banquets, social or municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of +England or sectarian, its student need never be at a loss for a +pertinent reference. Mrs. Leveret, though she had for years +devoutly conned its pages, valued it, however, rather for its +moral support than for its practical services; for though in the +privacy of her own room she commanded an army of quotations, +these invariably deserted her at the critical moment, and the +only line she retained--CANST THOU DRAW OUT LEVIATHAN WITH A +HOOK?--was one she had never yet found the occasion to apply. + +To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume +would hardly have insured her self-possession; for she thought it +probable, even if she DID, in some miraculous way, remember an +Allusion, it would be only to find that Osric Dane used a +different volume (Mrs. Leveret was convinced that literary people +always carried them), and would consequently not recognise her +quotations. + +Mrs. Leveret's sense of being adrift was intensified by the +appearance of Mrs. Ballinger's drawing-room. To a careless eye +its aspect was unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs. +Ballinger's way of arranging her books would instantly have +detected the marks of recent perturbation. Mrs. Ballinger's +province, as a member of the Lunch Club, was the Book of the Day. +On that, whatever it was, from a novel to a treatise on +experimental psychology, she was confidently, authoritatively +"up." What became of last year's books, or last week's even; +what she did with the "subjects" she had previously professed +with equal authority; no one had ever yet discovered. Her mind +was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers, +without leaving their address behind, and frequently without +paying for their board. It was Mrs. Ballinger's boast that she +was "abreast with the Thought of the Day," and her pride that +this advanced position should be expressed by the books on her +drawing-room table. These volumes, frequently renewed, and +almost always damp from the press, bore names generally +unfamiliar to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she furtively +scanned them, a disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge +to be breathlessly traversed in Mrs. Ballinger's wake. But to- +day a number of maturer-looking volumes were adroitly mingled +with the primeurs of the press--Karl Marx jostled Professor +Bergson, and the "Confessions of St. Augustine" lay beside the +last work on "Mendelism"; so that even to Mrs. Leveret's +fluttered perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger didn't in +the least know what Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had +taken measures to be prepared for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt +like a passenger on an ocean steamer who is told that there is no +immediate danger, but that she had better put on her life-belt. + +It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van +Vluyck's arrival. + +"Well, my dear," the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, "what +subjects are we to discuss to-day?" + +Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by +a copy of Verlaine. "I hardly know," she said somewhat +nervously. "Perhaps we had better leave that to circumstances." + +"Circumstances?" said Miss Van Vluyck drily. "That means, I +suppose, that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we +shall be deluged with literature." + +Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck's province, and +she naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest's +attention from these topics. + +Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared. + +"Literature?" she protested in a tone of remonstrance. "But this +is perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric +Dane's novel." + +Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. +"We can hardly make that our chief subject--at least not TOO +intentionally," she suggested. "Of course we can let our talk +DRIFT in that direction; but we ought to have some other topic as +an introduction, and that is what I wanted to consult you about. +The fact is, we know so little of Osric Dane's tastes and +interests that it is difficult to make any special preparation." + +"It may be difficult," said Mrs. Plinth with decision, "but it is +absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle +leads to. As I told one of my nieces the other day, there are +certain emergencies for which a lady should always be prepared. +It's in shocking taste to wear colours when one pays a visit of +condolence, or a last year's dress when there are reports that +one's husband is on the wrong side of the market; and so it is +with conversation. All I ask is that I should know beforehand +what is to be talked about; then I feel sure of being able to say +the proper thing." + +"I quite agree with you," Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented; +"but--" + +And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid, +Osric Dane appeared upon the threshold. + +Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a +glance what was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to +meet them half way. That distinguished personage had indeed +entered with an air of compulsion not calculated to promote the +easy exercise of hospitality. She looked as though she were +about to be photographed for a new edition of her books. + +The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio +to its responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced +by Osric Dane's entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club's +eagerness to please her. Any lingering idea that she might +consider herself under an obligation to her entertainers was at +once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret said afterward to +her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made you feel as +if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence of +greatness produced such an immediate impression on the ladies +that a shudder of awe ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their +hostess led the great personage into the dining-room, turned back +to whisper to the others: "What a brute she is!" + +The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict. +It was passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. +Ballinger's menu, and by the members of the Club in the emission +of tentative platitudes which their guest seemed to swallow as +perfunctorily as the successive courses of the luncheon. + +Mrs. Ballinger's deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown +the Club into a mental disarray which increased with the return +to the drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was +to open. Each lady waited for the other to speak; and there was +a general shock of disappointment when their hostess opened the +conversation by the painfully commonplace inquiry: "Is this your +first visit to Hillbridge?" + +Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; +and a vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: "It +is a very small place indeed." + +Mrs. Plinth bristled. "We have a great many representative +people," she said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order. + +Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. "What do they represent?" +she asked. + +Mrs. Plinth's constitutional dislike to being questioned was +intensified by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful +glance passed the question on to Mrs. Ballinger. + +"Why," said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, "as +a community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for +culture." + +"For art--" Miss Glyde eagerly interjected. + +"For art and literature," Mrs. Ballinger emended. + +"And for sociology, I trust," snapped Miss Van Vluyck. + +"We have a standard," said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly +secure on the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret, +thinking there must be room for more than one on so broad a +statement, took courage to murmur: "Oh, certainly; we have a +standard." + +"The object of our little club," Mrs. Ballinger continued, "is to +concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge--to centralise +and focus its complex intellectual effort." + +This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost +audible breath of relief. + +"We aspire," the President went on, "to stand for what is highest +in art, literature and ethics." + +Osric Dane again turned to her. "What ethics?" she asked. + +A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies +required any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; +but when they were called ethics it was different. The club, +when fresh from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," the "Reader's +Handbook" or Smith's "Classical Dictionary," could deal +confidently with any subject; but when taken unawares it had been +known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the Early Church and +Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; and such minor +members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as +something vaguely pagan. + +Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane's question was unsettling, and +there was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned +forward to say, with her most sympathetic accent: "You must +excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for not being able, just at present, to +talk of anything but 'The Wings of Death.'" + +"Yes," said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the +war into the enemy's camp. "We are so anxious to know the exact +purpose you had in mind in writing your wonderful book." + +"You will find," Mrs. Plinth interposed, "that we are not +superficial readers." + +"We are eager to hear from you," Miss Van Vluyck continued, "if +the pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own +convictions or--" + +"Or merely," Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, "a sombre background +brushed in to throw your figures into more vivid relief. ARE you +not primarily plastic?" + +"I have always maintained," Mrs. Ballinger interposed, "that you +represent the purely objective method--" + +Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. "How do you +define objective?" she then inquired. + +There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: +"In reading YOU we don't define, we feel." + +Osric Dane smiled. "The cerebellum," she remarked, "is not +infrequently the seat of the literary emotions." And she took a +second lump of sugar. + +The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost +neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such +technical language. + +"Ah, the cerebellum," said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. "The +Club took a course in psychology last winter." + +"Which psychology?" asked Osric Dane. + +There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the +Club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the +others. Only Mrs. Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. +At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with an attempt at a high tone: +"Well, really, you know, it was last year that we took +psychology, and this winter we have been so absorbed in--" + +She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club's +discussions; but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the +petrifying stare of Osric Dane. What HAD the club been absorbed +in lately? Mrs. Ballinger, with a vague purpose of gaining time, +repeated slowly: "We've been so intensely absorbed in--" + +Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with +a smile. + +"In Xingu?" she gently prompted. + +A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused +glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled +relief and interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The +expression of each denoted a different phase of the same emotion. +Mrs. Plinth was the first to compose her features to an air of +reassurance: after a moment's hasty adjustment her look almost +implied that it was she who had given the word to Mrs. Ballinger. + +"Xingu, of course!" exclaimed the latter with her accustomed +promptness, while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be +plumbing the depths of memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling +apprehensively for Appropriate Allusions, was somehow reassured +by the uncomfortable pressure of its bulk against her person. + +Osric Dane's change of countenance was no less striking than that +of her entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a +look of distinct annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment, +what Mrs. Roby afterward described as the look of feeling for +something in the back of her head; and before she could dissemble +these momentary signs of weakness, Mrs. Roby, turning to her with +a deferential smile, had said: "And we've been so hoping that +to-day you would tell us just what you think of it." + +Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of +course; but the accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, +and it became clear to her observers that she was not quick at +shifting her facial scenery. It was as though her countenance +had so long been set in an expression of unchallenged superiority +that the muscles had stiffened, and refused to obey her orders. + +"Xingu--" she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time. + +Mrs. Roby continued to press her. "Knowing how engrossing the +subject is, you will understand how it happens that the Club has +let everything else go to the wall for the moment. Since we took +up Xingu I might almost say--were it not for your books--that +nothing else seems to us worth remembering." + +Osric Dane's stern features were darkened rather than lit up by +an uneasy smile. "I am glad to hear there is one exception," she +gave out between narrowed lips. + +"Oh, of course," Mrs. Roby said prettily; "but as you have shown +us that--so very naturally!--you don't care to talk about your +own things, we really can't let you off from telling us exactly +what you think about Xingu; especially," she added, with a +persuasive smile, "as some people say that one of your last books +was simply saturated with it." + +It was an IT, then--the assurance sped like fire through the +parched minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain +the least little clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of +assisting at the discomfiture of Mrs. Dane. + +The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist's direct +assault. "May I ask," she faltered out in an embarrassed tone, +"to which of my books you refer?" + +Mrs. Roby did not falter. "That's just what I want you to tell +us; because, though I was present, I didn't actually take part." + +"Present at what?" Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the +trembling members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion +Providence had raised up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. +Roby explained herself gaily: "At the discussion, of course. And +so we're dreadfully anxious to know just how it was that you went +into the Xingu." + +There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable +dangers that the members with one accord checked the words on +their lips, like soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single +combat between their leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to +their inmost dread by saying sharply: "Ah--you say THE Xingu, do +you?" + +Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. "It IS a shade pedantic, isn't it? +Personally, I always drop the article; but I don't know how the +other members feel about it." + +The other members looked as though they would willingly have +dispensed with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. +Roby, after a bright glance about the group, went on: "They +probably think, as I do, that nothing really matters except the +thing itself--except Xingu." + +No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. +Ballinger gathered courage to say: "Surely every one must feel +that about Xingu." + +Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, +and Laura Glyde breathed emotionally: "I have known cases where +it has changed a whole life." + +"It has done me worlds of good," Mrs. Leveret interjected, +seeming to herself to remember that she had either taken it or +read it in the winter before. + +"Of course," Mrs. Roby admitted, "the difficulty is that one must +give up so much time to it. It's very long." + +"I can't imagine," said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, "grudging the +time given to such a subject." + +"And deep in places," Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) +"And it isn't easy to skip." + +"I never skip," said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically. + +"Ah, it's dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are +places where one can't. One must just wade through." + +"I should hardly call it WADING," said Mrs. Ballinger +sarcastically. + +Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. "Ah--you always found it +went swimmingly?" + +Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. "Of course there are difficult +passages," she conceded modestly. + +"Yes; some are not at all clear--even," Mrs. Roby added, "if one +is familiar with the original." + +"As I suppose you are?" Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing +her with a look of challenge. + +Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. "Oh, it's really not +difficult up to a certain point; though some of the branches are +very little known, and it's almost impossible to get at the +source." + +"Have you ever tried?" Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of +Mrs. Roby's thoroughness. + +Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered +lids: "No--but a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he +told me it was best for women--not to . . ." + +A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the +parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; +Miss Van Vluyck's face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. +Plinth looked as if she were passing some one she did not care to +bow to. But the most remarkable result of Mrs. Roby's words was +the effect they produced on the Lunch Club's distinguished guest. +Osric Dane's impassive features suddenly melted to an expression +of the warmest human sympathy, and edging her chair toward Mrs. +Roby's she asked: "Did he really? And--did you find he was +right?" + +Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby's unwonted +assumption of prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for +the aid she had rendered, could not consent to her being allowed, +by such dubious means, to monopolise the attention of their +guest. If Osric Dane had not enough self-respect to resent Mrs. +Roby's flippancy, at least the Lunch Club would do so in the +person of its President. + +Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby's arm. "We must not +forget," she said with a frigid amiability, "that absorbing as +Xingu is to US, it may be less interesting to--" + +"Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you," Osric Dane energetically +intervened. + +"--to others," Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; "and we must not +allow our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to +say a few words to us on a subject which, to-day, is much more +present in all our thoughts. I refer, of course, to 'The Wings +of Death.'" + +The other members, animated by various degrees of the same +sentiment, and encouraged by the humanised mien of their +redoubtable guest, repeated after Mrs. Ballinger: "Oh, yes, you +really MUST talk to us a little about your book." + +Osric Dane's expression became as bored, though not as haughty, +as when her work had been previously mentioned. But before she +could respond to Mrs. Ballinger's request, Mrs. Roby had risen +from her seat, and was pulling her veil down over her frivolous +nose. + +"I'm so sorry," she said, advancing toward her hostess with +outstretched hand, "but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I'd +better run away. Unluckily, as you know, I haven't read her +books, so I should be at a terrible disadvantage among you all; +and besides, I've an engagement to play bridge." + +If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane's +works as a reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her +recent prowess, might have approved such evidence of discretion; +but to couple this excuse with the brazen announcement that she +was foregoing the privilege for the purpose of joining a bridge- +party, was only one more instance of her deplorable lack of +discrimination. + +The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure-- +now that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely +to render them--would probably make for greater order and dignity +in the impending discussion, besides relieving them of the sense +of self-distrust which her presence always mysteriously produced. +Mrs. Ballinger therefore restricted herself to a formal murmur of +regret, and the other members were just grouping themselves +comfortably about Osric Dane when the latter, to their dismay, +started up from the sofa on which she had been deferentially +enthroned. + +"Oh wait--do wait, and I'll go with you!" she called out to Mrs. +Roby; and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she +administered a series of farewell pressures with the mechanical +haste of a railway-conductor punching tickets. + +"I'm so sorry--I'd quite forgotten--" she flung back at them from +the threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in +surprise at her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of +hearing her say, in a voice which she did not take the pains to +lower: "If you'll let me walk a little way with you, I should so +like to ask you a few more questions about Xingu . . ." + + + +III + + +The incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the +departing pair before the other members had had time to +understand what was happening. Then a sense of the indignity put +upon them by Osric Dane's unceremonious desertion began to +contend with the confused feeling that they had been cheated out +of their due without exactly knowing how or why. + +There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a +perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at +which her distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then +Miss Van Vluyck tartly pronounced: "Well, I can't say that I +consider Osric Dane's departure a great loss." + +This confession crystallised the fluid resentment of the other +members, and Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: "I do believe she came on +purpose to be nasty!" + +It was Mrs. Plinth's private opinion that Osric Dane's attitude +toward the Lunch Club might have been very different had it +welcomed her in the majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; +but not liking to reflect on the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger's +establishment she sought a round-about satisfaction in +depreciating her savoir faire. + +"I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. +It's what always happens when you're unprepared. Now if we'd +only got up Xingu--" + +The slowness of Mrs. Plinth's mental processes was always allowed +for by the Club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. +Ballinger's equanimity. + +"Xingu!" she scoffed. "Why, it was the fact of our knowing so +much more about it than she did--unprepared though we were--that +made Osric Dane so furious. I should have thought that was plain +enough to everybody!" + +This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by +an impulse of generosity, said: "Yes, we really ought to be +grateful to Mrs. Roby for introducing the topic. It may have +made Osric Dane furious, but at least it made her civil." + +"I am glad we were able to show her," added Miss Van Vluyck, +"that a broad and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great +intellectual centres." + +This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they +began to forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of +having contributed to her defeat. + +Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. "What +surprised me most," she continued, "was that Fanny Roby should be +so up on Xingu." + +This frank admission threw a slight chill on the company, but +Mrs. Ballinger said with an air of indulgent irony: "Mrs. Roby +always has the knack of making a little go a long way; still, we +certainly owe her a debt for happening to remember that she'd +heard of Xingu." And this was felt by the other members to be a +graceful way of cancelling once for all the Club's obligation to +Mrs. Roby. + +Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony: +"I fancy Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at +Hillbridge!" + +Mrs. Ballinger smiled. "When she asked me what we represented-- +do you remember?--I wish I'd simply said we represented Xingu!" + +All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs. +Plinth, who said, after a moment's deliberation: "I'm not sure it +would have been wise to do so." + +Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had +launched at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, +looked ironically at Mrs. Plinth. "May I ask why?" she enquired. + +Mrs. Plinth looked grave. "Surely," she said, "I understood from +Mrs. Roby herself that the subject was one it was as well not to +go into too deeply?" + +Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: "I think that applied +only to an investigation of the origin of the--of the--"; and +suddenly she found that her usually accurate memory had failed +her. "It's a part of the subject I never studied myself," she +concluded lamely. + +"Nor I," said Mrs. Ballinger. + +Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. "And yet it +seems--doesn't it?--the part that is fullest of an esoteric +fascination?" + +"I don't know on what you base that," said Miss Van Vluyck +argumentatively. + +"Well, didn't you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane +became as soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner--he WAS +a foreigner, wasn't he?--had told Mrs. Roby about the origin--the +origin of the rite--or whatever you call it?" + +Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly +wavered. Then she said in a decisive tone: "It may not be +desirable to touch on the--on that part of the subject in general +conversation; but, from the importance it evidently has to a +woman of Osric Dane's distinction, I feel as if we ought not to +be afraid to discuss it among ourselves--without gloves--though +with closed doors, if necessary." + +"I'm quite of your opinion," Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her +support; "on condition, that is, that all grossness of language +is avoided." + +"Oh, I'm sure we shall understand without that," Mrs. Leveret +tittered; and Laura Glyde added significantly: "I fancy we can +read between the lines," while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure +herself that the doors were really closed. + +Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. "I hardly see," she +began, "what benefit is to be derived from investigating such +peculiar customs--" + +But Mrs. Ballinger's patience had reached the extreme limit of +tension. "This at least," she returned; "that we shall not be +placed again in the humiliating position of finding ourselves +less up on our own subjects than Fanny Roby!" + +Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered +furtively about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: +"Have you got a copy?" + +"A--a copy?" stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the +other members were looking at her expectantly, and that this +answer was inadequate, so she supported it by asking another +question. "A copy of what?" + +Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in +turn, appeared less sure of herself than usual. "Why, of--of-- +the book," she explained. + +"What book?" snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric +Dane. + +Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were +interrogatively fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being +deferred to was so new to the latter that it filled her with an +insane temerity. "Why, Xingu, of course!" she exclaimed. + +A profound silence followed this direct challenge to the +resources of Mrs. Ballinger's library, and the latter, after +glancing nervously toward the Books of the Day, returned in a +deprecating voice: "It's not a thing one cares to leave about." + +"I should think NOT!" exclaimed Mrs. Plinth. + +"It IS a book, then?" said Miss Van Vluyck. + +This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, +with an impatient sigh, rejoined: "Why--there IS a book-- +naturally . . ." + +"Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?" + +Laura Glyde started up. "A religion? I never--" + +"Yes, you did," Miss Van Vluyck insisted; "you spoke of rites; +and Mrs. Plinth said it was a custom." + +Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce +her statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest +point. At length she began in a deep murmur: "Surely they used +to do something of the kind at the Eleusinian mysteries--" + +"Oh--" said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and +Mrs. Plinth protested: "I understood there was to be no +indelicacy!" + +Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. "Really, it is +too bad that we should not be able to talk the matter over +quietly among ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes +into Xingu at all--" + +"Oh, so do I!" cried Miss Glyde. + +"And I don't see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to +keep up with the Thought of the Day--" + +Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. "There--that's +it!" she interposed. + +"What's it?" the President curtly took her up. + +"Why--it's a--a Thought: I mean a philosophy." + +This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura +Glyde, but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: "Excuse me if I +tell you that you're all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a +language." + +"A language!" the Lunch Club cried. + +"Certainly. Don't you remember Fanny Roby's saying that there +were several branches, and that some were hard to trace? What +could that apply to but dialects?" + +Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. +"Really, if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to +go to Fanny Roby for instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had +almost better cease to exist!" + +"It's really her fault for not being clearer," Laura Glyde put +in. + +"Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!" Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. "I +daresay we shall find she was mistaken on almost every point." + +"Why not look it up?" said Mrs. Plinth. + +As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth's was ignored +in the heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the +privacy of each member's home. But on the present occasion the +desire to ascribe their own confusion of thought to the vague and +contradictory nature of Mrs. Roby's statements caused the members +of the Lunch Club to utter a collective demand for a book of +reference. + +At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. +Leveret, for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the +centre front; but she was not able to hold it long, for +Appropriate Allusions contained no mention of Xingu. + +"Oh, that's not the kind of thing we want!" exclaimed Miss Van +Vluyck. She cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger's +assortment of literature, and added impatiently: "Haven't you any +useful books?" + +"Of course I have," replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; "but I +keep them in my husband's dressing-room." + +From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour- +maid produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in +deference to the fact that the demand for it had come from Miss +Van Vluyck, laid the ponderous tome before her. + +There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck +rubbed her spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a +murmur of surprise when she said: "It isn't here." + +"I suppose," said Mrs. Plinth, "it's not fit to be put in a book +of reference." + +"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. "Try X." + +Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short- +sightedly up and down the pages, till she came to a stop and +remained motionless, like a dog on a point. + +"Well, have you found it?" Mrs. Ballinger enquired, after a +considerable delay. + +"Yes. I've found it," said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice. + +Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: "I beg you won't read it aloud if +there's anything offensive." + +Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent +scrutiny. + +"Well, what IS it?" exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly. + +"DO tell us!" urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have +something awful to tell her sister. + +Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward +the expectant group. + +"It's a river." + +"A RIVER?" + +"Yes: in Brazil. Isn't that where she's been living?" + +"Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You've been +reading the wrong thing," Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over +her to seize the volume. + +"It's the only XINGU in the Encyclopaedia; and she HAS been +living in Brazil," Miss Van Vluyck persisted. + +"Yes: her brother has a consulship there," Mrs. Leveret eagerly +interposed. + +"But it's too ridiculous! I--we--why we ALL remember studying +Xingu last year--or the year before last," Mrs. Ballinger +stammered. + +"I thought I did when YOU said so," Laura Glyde avowed. + +"I said so?" cried Mrs. Ballinger. + +"Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind." + +"Well, YOU said it had changed your whole life!" + +"For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the +time she'd given it." + +Mrs. Plinth interposed: "I made it clear that I knew nothing +whatever of the original." + +Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. "Oh, what +does it all matter if she's been making fools of us? I believe +Miss Van Vluyck's right--she was talking of the river all the +while!" + +"How could she? It's too preposterous," Miss Glyde exclaimed. + +"Listen." Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the +Encyclopaedia, and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by +excitement. "'The Xingu, one of the principal rivers of Brazil, +rises on the plateau of Mato Grosso, and flows in a northerly +direction for a length of no less than one thousand one hundred +and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon near the mouth of the +latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is auriferous and +fed by numerous branches. Its source was first discovered in +1884 by the German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult +and dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes +still in the Stone Age of culture.'" + +The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied +silence from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. "She +certainly DID speak of its having branches." + +The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. +"And of its great length," gasped Mrs. Ballinger. + +"She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn't skip--you just +had to wade through," Miss Glyde subjoined. + +The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth's compact +resistances. "How could there be anything improper about a +river?" she inquired. + +"Improper?" + +"Why, what she said about the source--that it was corrupt?" + +"Not corrupt, but hard to get at," Laura Glyde corrected. "Some +one who'd been there had told her so. I daresay it was the +explorer himself--doesn't it say the expedition was dangerous?" + +"'Difficult and dangerous,'" read Miss Van Vluyck. + +Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. +"There's nothing she said that wouldn't apply to a river--to this +river!" She swung about excitedly to the other members. "Why, +do you remember her telling us that she hadn't read 'The Supreme +Instant' because she'd taken it on a boating party while she was +staying with her brother, and some one had 'shied' it overboard-- +'shied' of course was her own expression?" + +The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not +escaped them. + +"Well--and then didn't she tell Osric Dane that one of her books +was simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of +Mrs. Roby's rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!" + +This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had +just participated left the members of the Lunch Club +inarticulate. At length Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring +with the problem, said in a heavy tone: "Osric Dane was taken in +too." + +Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. "Perhaps that's what Mrs. +Roby did it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may +have wanted to give her a lesson." + +Miss Van Vluyck frowned. "It was hardly worth while to do it at +our expense." + +"At least," said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, "she +succeeded in interesting her, which was more than we did." + +"What chance had we?" rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. "Mrs. Roby +monopolised her from the first. And THAT, I've no doubt, was her +purpose--to give Osric Dane a false impression of her own +standing in the Club. She would hesitate at nothing to attract +attention: we all know how she took in poor Professor Foreland." + +"She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday," Mrs. +Leveret piped up. + +Laura Glyde struck her hands together. "Why, this is Thursday, +and it's THERE she's gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!" + +"And they're shrieking over us at this moment," said Mrs. +Ballinger between her teeth. + +This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. "She +would hardly dare," said Miss Van Vluyck, "confess the imposture +to Osric Dane." + +"I'm not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. +If she hadn't made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out +after her?" + +"Well, you know, we'd all been telling her how wonderful Xingu +was, and she said she wanted to find out more about it," Mrs. +Leveret said, with a tardy impulse of justice to the absent. + +This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other +members, gave it a stronger impetus. + +"Yes--and that's exactly what they're both laughing over now," +said Laura Glyde ironically. + +Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her +monumental form. "I have no wish to criticise," she said; "but +unless the Lunch Club can protect its members against the +recurrence of such--such unbecoming scenes, I for one--" + +"Oh, so do I!" agreed Miss Glyde, rising also. + +Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button +herself into her jacket. "My time is really too valuable--" she +began. + +"I fancy we are all of one mind," said Mrs. Ballinger, looking +searchingly at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others. + +"I always deprecate anything like a scandal--" Mrs. Plinth +continued. + +"She has been the cause of one to-day!" exclaimed Miss Glyde. + +Mrs. Leveret moaned: "I don't see how she COULD!" and Miss Van +Vluyck said, picking up her note-book: "Some women stop at +nothing." + +"--but if," Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, +"anything of the kind had happened in MY house" (it never would +have, her tone implied), "I should have felt that I owed it to +myself either to ask for Mrs. Roby's resignation--or to offer +mine." + +"Oh, Mrs. Plinth--" gasped the Lunch Club. + +"Fortunately for me," Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful +magnanimity, "the matter was taken out of my hands by our +President's decision that the right to entertain distinguished +guests was a privilege vested in her office; and I think the +other members will agree that, as she was alone in this opinion, +she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way of effacing +its--its really deplorable consequences." + +A deep silence followed this unexpected outbreak of Mrs. Plinth's +long-stored resentment. + +"I don't see why I should be expected to ask her to resign--" +Mrs. Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to +remind her: "You know she made you say that you'd got on +swimmingly in Xingu." + +An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger +energetically continued "--but you needn't think for a moment +that I'm afraid to!" + +The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of +the Lunch Club, and the President of that distinguished +association, seating herself at her writing-table, and pushing +away a copy of "The Wings of Death" to make room for her elbow, +drew forth a sheet of the club's note-paper, on which she began +to write: "My dear Mrs. Roby--" + + + +The End of Xingu + + + + +THE VERDICT +June 1908 + + +I had always thought Jack Gisburn rather a cheap genius--though a +good fellow enough--so it was no great surprise to me to hear +that, in the height of his glory, he had dropped his painting, +married a rich widow, and established himself in a villa on the +Riviera. (Though I rather thought it would have been Rome or +Florence.) + +"The height of his glory"--that was what the women called it. I +can hear Mrs. Gideon Thwing--his last Chicago sitter--deploring +his unaccountable abdication. "Of course it's going to send the +value of my picture 'way up; but I don't think of that, Mr. +Rickham--the loss to Arrt is all I think of." The word, on Mrs. +Thwing's lips, multiplied its RS as though they were reflected in +an endless vista of mirrors. And it was not only the Mrs. Thwings +who mourned. Had not the exquisite Hermia Croft, at the last +Grafton Gallery show, stopped me before Gisburn's "Moon-dancers" +to say, with tears in her eyes: "We shall not look upon +its like again"? + +Well!--even through the prism of Hermia's tears I felt able to +face the fact with equanimity. Poor Jack Gisburn! The women had +made him--it was fitting that they should mourn him. Among his +own sex fewer regrets were heard, and in his own trade hardly a +murmur. Professional jealousy? Perhaps. If it were, the honour +of the craft was vindicated by little Claude Nutley, who, in all +good faith, brought out in the Burlington a very handsome +"obituary" on Jack--one of those showy articles stocked with +random technicalities that I have heard (I won't say by whom) +compared to Gisburn's painting. And so--his resolve being +apparently irrevocable--the discussion gradually died out, and, +as Mrs. Thwing had predicted, the price of "Gisburns" went up. + +It was not till three years later that, in the course of a few +weeks' idling on the Riviera, it suddenly occurred to me to +wonder why Gisburn had given up his painting. On reflection, it +really was a tempting problem. To accuse his wife would have +been too easy--his fair sitters had been denied the solace of +saying that Mrs. Gisburn had "dragged him down." For Mrs. +Gisburn--as such--had not existed till nearly a year after Jack's +resolve had been taken. It might be that he had married her-- +since he liked his ease--because he didn't want to go on +painting; but it would have been hard to prove that he had given +up his painting because he had married her. + +Of course, if she had not dragged him down, she had equally, as +Miss Croft contended, failed to "lift him up"--she had not led +him back to the easel. To put the brush into his hand again-- +what a vocation for a wife! But Mrs. Gisburn appeared to have +disdained it--and I felt it might be interesting to find out why. + +The desultory life of the Riviera lends itself to such purely +academic speculations; and having, on my way to Monte Carlo, +caught a glimpse of Jack's balustraded terraces between the +pines, I had myself borne thither the next day. + +I found the couple at tea beneath their palm-trees; and Mrs. +Gisburn's welcome was so genial that, in the ensuing weeks, I +claimed it frequently. It was not that my hostess was +"interesting": on that point I could have given Miss Croft the +fullest reassurance. It was just because she was NOT +interesting--if I may be pardoned the bull--that I found her so. +For Jack, all his life, had been surrounded by interesting women: +they had fostered his art, it had been reared in the hot-house of +their adulation. And it was therefore instructive to note what +effect the "deadening atmosphere of mediocrity" (I quote Miss +Croft) was having on him. + +I have mentioned that Mrs. Gisburn was rich; and it was +immediately perceptible that her husband was extracting from this +circumstance a delicate but substantial satisfaction. It is, as +a rule, the people who scorn money who get most out of it; and +Jack's elegant disdain of his wife's big balance enabled him, +with an appearance of perfect good-breeding, to transmute it into +objects of art and luxury. To the latter, I must add, he +remained relatively indifferent; but he was buying Renaissance +bronzes and eighteenth-century pictures with a discrimination +that bespoke the amplest resources. + +"Money's only excuse is to put beauty into circulation," was one +of the axioms he laid down across the Sevres and silver of an +exquisitely appointed luncheon-table, when, on a later day, I had +again run over from Monte Carlo; and Mrs. Gisburn, beaming on +him, added for my enlightenment: "Jack is so morbidly sensitive +to every form of beauty." + +Poor Jack! It had always been his fate to have women say such +things of him: the fact should be set down in extenuation. What +struck me now was that, for the first time, he resented the tone. +I had seen him, so often, basking under similar tributes--was it +the conjugal note that robbed them of their savour? No--for, +oddly enough, it became apparent that he was fond of Mrs. +Gisburn--fond enough not to see her absurdity. It was his own +absurdity he seemed to be wincing under--his own attitude as an +object for garlands and incense. + +"My dear, since I've chucked painting people don't say that stuff +about me--they say it about Victor Grindle," was his only +protest, as he rose from the table and strolled out onto the +sunlit terrace. + +I glanced after him, struck by his last word. Victor Grindle +was, in fact, becoming the man of the moment--as Jack himself, +one might put it, had been the man of the hour. The younger +artist was said to have formed himself at my friend's feet, and I +wondered if a tinge of jealousy underlay the latter's mysterious +abdication. But no--for it was not till after that event that +the rose Dubarry drawing-rooms had begun to display their +"Grindles." + +I turned to Mrs. Gisburn, who had lingered to give a lump of +sugar to her spaniel in the dining-room. + +"Why HAS he chucked painting?" I asked abruptly. + +She raised her eyebrows with a hint of good-humoured surprise. + +"Oh, he doesn't HAVE to now, you know; and I want him to enjoy +himself," she said quite simply. + +I looked about the spacious white-panelled room, with its +famille-verte vases repeating the tones of the pale damask +curtains, and its eighteenth-century pastels in delicate faded +frames. + +"Has he chucked his pictures too? I haven't seen a single one in +the house." + +A slight shade of constraint crossed Mrs. Gisburn's open +countenance. "It's his ridiculous modesty, you know. He says +they're not fit to have about; he's sent them all away except +one--my portrait--and that I have to keep upstairs." + +His ridiculous modesty--Jack's modesty about his pictures? My +curiosity was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively +to my hostess: "I must really see your portrait, you know." + +She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her +husband, lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn +the Russian deerhound's head between his knees. + +"Well, come while he's not looking," she said, with a laugh that +tried to hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the +marble Emperors of the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra- +cotta nymphs poised among flowers at each landing. + +In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of +delicate and distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval +canvases, in the inevitable garlanded frame. The mere outline of +the frame called up all Gisburn's past! + +Mrs. Gisburn drew back the window-curtains, moved aside a +jardiniere full of pink azaleas, pushed an arm-chair away, and +said: "If you stand here you can just manage to see it. I had it +over the mantel-piece, but he wouldn't let it stay." + +Yes--I could just manage to see it--the first portrait of Jack's +I had ever had to strain my eyes over! Usually they had the +place of honour--say the central panel in a pale yellow or rose +Dubarry drawing-room, or a monumental easel placed so that it +took the light through curtains of old Venetian point. The more +modest place became the picture better; yet, as my eyes grew +accustomed to the half-light, all the characteristic qualities +came out--all the hesitations disguised as audacities, the tricks +of prestidigitation by which, with such consummate skill, he +managed to divert attention from the real business of the picture +to some pretty irrelevance of detail. Mrs. Gisburn, presenting a +neutral surface to work on--forming, as it were, so inevitably +the background of her own picture--had lent herself in an unusual +degree to the display of this false virtuosity. The picture was +one of Jack's "strongest," as his admirers would have put it--it +represented, on his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of +veins, a balancing, straddling and straining, that reminded one +of the circus-clown's ironic efforts to lift a feather. It met, +in short, at every point the demand of lovely woman to be painted +"strongly" because she was tired of being painted "sweetly"--and +yet not to lose an atom of the sweetness. + +"It's the last he painted, you know," Mrs. Gisburn said with +pardonable pride. "The last but one," she corrected herself-- +"but the other doesn't count, because he destroyed it." + +"Destroyed it?" I was about to follow up this clue when I heard +a footstep and saw Jack himself on the threshold. + +As he stood there, his hands in the pockets of his velveteen +coat, the thin brown waves of hair pushed back from his white +forehead, his lean sunburnt cheeks furrowed by a smile that +lifted the tips of a self-confident moustache, I felt to what a +degree he had the same quality as his pictures--the quality of +looking cleverer than he was. + +His wife glanced at him deprecatingly, but his eyes travelled +past her to the portrait. + +"Mr. Rickham wanted to see it," she began, as if excusing +herself. He shrugged his shoulders, still smiling. + +"Oh, Rickham found me out long ago," he said lightly; then, +passing his arm through mine: "Come and see the rest of the +house." + +He showed it to me with a kind of naive suburban pride: the +bath-rooms, the speaking-tubes, the dress-closets, the trouser- +presses--all the complex simplifications of the millionaire's +domestic economy. And whenever my wonder paid the expected +tribute he said, throwing out his chest a little: "Yes, I really +don't see how people manage to live without that." + +Well--it was just the end one might have foreseen for him. Only +he was, through it all and in spite of it all--as he had been +through, and in spite of, his pictures--so handsome, so charming, +so disarming, that one longed to cry out: "Be dissatisfied with +your leisure!" as once one had longed to say: "Be dissatisfied +with your work!" + +But, with the cry on my lips, my diagnosis suffered an unexpected +check. + +"This is my own lair," he said, leading me into a dark plain room +at the end of the florid vista. It was square and brown and +leathery: no "effects"; no bric-a-brac, none of the air of posing +for reproduction in a picture weekly--above all, no least sign of +ever having been used as a studio. + +The fact brought home to me the absolute finality of Jack's break +with his old life. + +"Don't you ever dabble with paint any more?" I asked, still +looking about for a trace of such activity. + +"Never," he said briefly. + +"Or water-colour--or etching?" + +His confident eyes grew dim, and his cheeks paled a little under +their handsome sunburn. + +"Never think of it, my dear fellow--any more than if I'd never +touched a brush." + +And his tone told me in a flash that he never thought of anything +else. + +I moved away, instinctively embarrassed by my unexpected +discovery; and as I turned, my eye fell on a small picture above +the mantel-piece--the only object breaking the plain oak +panelling of the room. + +"Oh, by Jove!" I said. + +It was a sketch of a donkey--an old tired donkey, standing in the +rain under a wall. + +"By Jove--a Stroud!" I cried. + +He was silent; but I felt him close behind me, breathing a little +quickly. + +"What a wonder! Made with a dozen lines--but on everlasting +foundations. You lucky chap, where did you get it?" + +He answered slowly: "Mrs. Stroud gave it to me." + +"Ah--I didn't know you even knew the Strouds. He was such an +inflexible hermit." + +"I didn't--till after. . . . She sent for me to paint him when +he was dead." + +"When he was dead? You?" + +I must have let a little too much amazement escape through my +surprise, for he answered with a deprecating laugh: "Yes--she's +an awful simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to +have him done by a fashionable painter--ah, poor Stroud! She +thought it the surest way of proclaiming his greatness--of +forcing it on a purblind public. And at the moment I was THE +fashionable painter." + +"Ah, poor Stroud--as you say. Was THAT his history?" + +"That was his history. She believed in him, gloried in him--or +thought she did. But she couldn't bear not to have all the +drawing-rooms with her. She couldn't bear the fact that, on +varnishing days, one could always get near enough to see his +pictures. Poor woman! She's just a fragment groping for other +fragments. Stroud is the only whole I ever knew." + +"You ever knew? But you just said--" + +Gisburn had a curious smile in his eyes. + +"Oh, I knew him, and he knew me--only it happened after he was +dead." + +I dropped my voice instinctively. "When she sent for you?" + +"Yes--quite insensible to the irony. She wanted him vindicated-- +and by me!" + +He laughed again, and threw back his head to look up at the +sketch of the donkey. "There were days when I couldn't look at +that thing--couldn't face it. But I forced myself to put it +here; and now it's cured me--cured me. That's the reason why I +don't dabble any more, my dear Rickham; or rather Stroud himself +is the reason." + +For the first time my idle curiosity about my companion turned +into a serious desire to understand him better. + +"I wish you'd tell me how it happened," I said. + +He stood looking up at the sketch, and twirling between his +fingers a cigarette he had forgotten to light. Suddenly he +turned toward me. + +"I'd rather like to tell you--because I've always suspected you +of loathing my work." + +I made a deprecating gesture, which he negatived with a good- +humoured shrug. + +"Oh, I didn't care a straw when I believed in myself--and now +it's an added tie between us!" + +He laughed slightly, without bitterness, and pushed one of the +deep arm-chairs forward. "There: make yourself comfortable--and +here are the cigars you like." + +He placed them at my elbow and continued to wander up and down +the room, stopping now and then beneath the picture. + +"How it happened? I can tell you in five minutes--and it didn't +take much longer to happen. . . . I can remember now how +surprised and pleased I was when I got Mrs. Stroud's note. Of +course, deep down, I had always FELT there was no one like him-- +only I had gone with the stream, echoed the usual platitudes +about him, till I half got to think he was a failure, one of the +kind that are left behind. By Jove, and he WAS left behind-- +because he had come to stay! The rest of us had to let ourselves +be swept along or go under, but he was high above the current--on +everlasting foundations, as you say. + +"Well, I went off to the house in my most egregious mood--rather +moved, Lord forgive me, at the pathos of poor Stroud's career of +failure being crowned by the glory of my painting him! Of course +I meant to do the picture for nothing--I told Mrs. Stroud so when +she began to stammer something about her poverty. I remember +getting off a prodigious phrase about the honour being MINE--oh, +I was princely, my dear Rickham! I was posing to myself like one +of my own sitters. + +"Then I was taken up and left alone with him. I had sent all my +traps in advance, and I had only to set up the easel and get to +work. He had been dead only twenty-four hours, and he died +suddenly, of heart disease, so that there had been no preliminary +work of destruction--his face was clear and untouched. I had met +him once or twice, years before, and thought him insignificant +and dingy. Now I saw that he was superb. + +"I was glad at first, with a merely aesthetic satisfaction: glad +to have my hand on such a 'subject.' Then his strange life- +likeness began to affect me queerly--as I blocked the head in I +felt as if he were watching me do it. The sensation was followed +by the thought: if he WERE watching me, what would he say to my +way of working? My strokes began to go a little wild--I felt +nervous and uncertain. + +"Once, when I looked up, I seemed to see a smile behind his close +grayish beard--as if he had the secret, and were amusing himself +by holding it back from me. That exasperated me still more. The +secret? Why, I had a secret worth twenty of his! I dashed at +the canvas furiously, and tried some of my bravura tricks. But +they failed me, they crumbled. I saw that he wasn't watching the +showy bits--I couldn't distract his attention; he just kept his +eyes on the hard passages between. Those were the ones I had +always shirked, or covered up with some lying paint. And how he +saw through my lies! + +"I looked up again, and caught sight of that sketch of the donkey +hanging on the wall near his bed. His wife told me afterward it +was the last thing he had done--just a note taken with a shaking +hand, when he was down in Devonshire recovering from a previous +heart attack. Just a note! But it tells his whole history. +There are years of patient scornful persistence in every line. A +man who had swum with the current could never have learned that +mighty up-stream stroke. . . . + +"I turned back to my work, and went on groping and muddling; then +I looked at the donkey again. I saw that, when Stroud laid in +the first stroke, he knew just what the end would be. He had +possessed his subject, absorbed it, recreated it. When had I +done that with any of my things? They hadn't been born of me--I +had just adopted them. . . . + +"Hang it, Rickham, with that face watching me I couldn't do +another stroke. The plain truth was, I didn't know where to put +it--I HAD NEVER KNOWN. Only, with my sitters and my public, a +showy splash of colour covered up the fact--I just threw paint +into their faces. . . . Well, paint was the one medium those +dead eyes could see through--see straight to the tottering +foundations underneath. Don't you know how, in talking a foreign +language, even fluently, one says half the time not what one +wants to but what one can? Well--that was the way I painted; and +as he lay there and watched me, the thing they called my +'technique' collapsed like a house of cards. He didn't sneer, +you understand, poor Stroud--he just lay there quietly watching, +and on his lips, through the gray beard, I seemed to hear the +question: 'Are you sure you know where you're coming out?' + +"If I could have painted that face, with that question on it, I +should have done a great thing. The next greatest thing was to +see that I couldn't--and that grace was given me. But, oh, at +that minute, Rickham, was there anything on earth I wouldn't have +given to have Stroud alive before me, and to hear him say: 'It's +not too late--I'll show you how'? + +"It WAS too late--it would have been, even if he'd been alive. I +packed up my traps, and went down and told Mrs. Stroud. Of +course I didn't tell her THAT--it would have been Greek to her. +I simply said I couldn't paint him, that I was too moved. She +rather liked the idea--she's so romantic! It was that that made +her give me the donkey. But she was terribly upset at not +getting the portrait--she did so want him 'done' by some one +showy! At first I was afraid she wouldn't let me off--and at my +wits' end I suggested Grindle. Yes, it was I who started +Grindle: I told Mrs. Stroud he was the 'coming' man, and she told +somebody else, and so it got to be true. . . . And he painted +Stroud without wincing; and she hung the picture among her +husband's things. . . ." + +He flung himself down in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his +head, and clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture +above the chimney-piece. + +"I like to fancy that Stroud himself would have given it to me, +if he'd been able to say what he thought that day." + +And, in answer to a question I put half-mechanically--"Begin +again?" he flashed out. "When the one thing that brings me +anywhere near him is that I knew enough to leave off?" + +He stood up and laid his hand on my shoulder with a laugh. "Only +the irony of it is that I AM still painting--since Grindle's +doing it for me! The Strouds stand alone, and happen once--but +there's no exterminating our kind of art." + + + +The End of The Verdict + + + + +THE RECKONING +August, 1902 + + +I + + +"The marriage law of the new dispensation will be: THOU SHALT NOT +BE UNFAITHFUL--TO THYSELF." + +A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the +haze of cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband +descended from his improvised platform, saw him merged in a +congratulatory group of ladies. Westall's informal talks on "The +New Ethics" had drawn about him an eager following of the +mentally unemployed--those who, as he had once phrased it, liked +to have their brain-food cut up for them. The talks had begun by +accident. Westall's ideas were known to be "advanced," but +hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of +publicity. He had been, in his wife's opinion, almost +pusillanimously careful not to let his personal views endanger +his professional standing. Of late, however, he had shown a +puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to +flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the relation +of the sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few +admiring friends had persuaded him to give his after-dinner +opinions a larger circulation by summing them up in a series of +talks at the Van Sideren studio. + +The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, +on the fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren's pictures were +chiefly valuable as accessories to the mise en scene which +differentiated his wife's "afternoons" from the blighting +functions held in long New York drawing-rooms, and permitted her +to offer their friends whiskey-and-soda instead of tea. Mrs. Van +Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making the most of the kind +of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel create; and if at +times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and lost courage +to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, she +promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some +fresh talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the "artistic" +impression. It was in quest of such aid that she had seized on +Westall, coaxing him, somewhat to his wife's surprise, into a +flattered participation in her fraud. It was vaguely felt, in +the Van Sideren circle, that all the audacities were artistic, +and that a teacher who pronounced marriage immoral was somehow as +distinguished as a painter who depicted purple grass and a green +sky. The Van Sideren set were tired of the conventional color- +scheme in art and conduct. + +Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of +marriage; she might indeed have claimed her husband as a +disciple. In the early days of their union she had secretly +resented his disinclination to proclaim himself a follower of the +new creed; had been inclined to tax him with moral cowardice, +with a failure to live up to the convictions for which their +marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the first burst of +propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her +disobedience into a law. Now she felt differently. She could +hardly account for the change, yet being a woman who never +allowed her impulses to remain unaccounted for, she tried to do +so by saying that she did not care to have the articles of her +faith misinterpreted by the vulgar. In this connection, she was +beginning to think that almost every one was vulgar; certainly +there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust the +defence of so esoteric a doctrine. And it was precisely at this +point that Westall, discarding his unspoken principles, had +chosen to descend from the heights of privacy, and stand hawking +his convictions at the street-corner! + +It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously +focussed upon herself Mrs. Westall's wandering resentment. In +the first place, the girl had no business to be there. It was +"horrid"--Mrs. Westall found herself slipping back into the old +feminine vocabulary--simply "horrid" to think of a young girl's +being allowed to listen to such talk. The fact that Una smoked +cigarettes and sipped an occasional cocktail did not in the least +tarnish a certain radiant innocency which made her appear the +victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents' vulgarities. +Julia Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something ought to +be done--that some one ought to speak to the girl's mother. And +just then Una glided up. + +"Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!" Una fixed her with +large limpid eyes. "You believe it all, I suppose?" she asked +with seraphic gravity. + +"All--what, my dear child?" + +The girl shone on her. "About the higher life--the freer +expansion of the individual--the law of fidelity to one's self," +she glibly recited. + +Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning +blush. + +"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what +it's all about!" + +Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't +YOU, then?" she murmured. + +Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always--or altogether! But I should +like some tea, please." + +Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were +dispensed. As Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl +more carefully. It was not such a girlish face, after all-- +definite lines were forming under the rosy haze of youth. She +reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty, and wondered why she +had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would have as her +dower! If THEY were to be a part of the modern girl's trousseau-- + +Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though +some one else had been speaking--a stranger who had borrowed her +own voice: she felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental +ventriloquism. Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling +and Una's tea too sweet, she set down her cup, and looked about +for Westall: to meet his eyes had long been her refuge from every +uncertainty. She met them now, but only, as she felt, in +transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger flight. +She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which +Una had withdrawn--one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van +Sideren attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a +moment later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the +girl's side. She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, +listening, with the depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to +flattery, enabling him to swallow the strongest doses without +apparent grossness of appetite. Julia winced at her own +definition of the smile. + + +On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised +his wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. "Did I open +their eyes a bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he +asked gaily. + +Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. "What I +wanted--?" + +"Why, haven't you--all this time?" She caught the honest wonder +of his tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not +talking more openly--before-- You've made me feel, at times, that +I was sacrificing principles to expediency." + +She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What +made you decide not to--any longer?" + +She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why--the wish +to please you!" he answered, almost too simply. + +"I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly. + +He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the +darkness. + +"Not go on--?" + +"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden +rush of physical weariness. + +Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been +infernally hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had +noticed once or twice that she looked pale--she mustn't come to +another Saturday. She felt herself yielding, as she always did, +to the warm influence of his concern for her, the feminine in her +leaning on the man in him with a conscious intensity of +abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her hand stole into +his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let them fall. +It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! + +That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the +subject of his talk. He combined a man's dislike of +uncomfortable questions with an almost feminine skill in eluding +them; and she knew that if he returned to the subject he must +have some special reason for doing so. + +"You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did +I put the case badly?" + +"No--you put it very well." + +"Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have +me go on with it?" + +She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention +deepening her sense of helplessness. + +"I don't think I care to hear such things discussed in public." + +"I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that +his surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own +attitude. She was not sure that she understood herself. + +"Won't you explain?" he said with a tinge of impatience. +Her eyes wandered about the familiar drawing-room which had been +the scene of so many of their evening confidences. The shaded +lamps, the quiet-colored walls hung with mezzotints, the pale +spring flowers scattered here and there in Venice glasses and +bowls of old Sevres, recalled, she hardly knew why, the apartment +in which the evenings of her first marriage had been passed--a +wilderness of rosewood and upholstery, with a picture of a Roman +peasant above the mantel-piece, and a Greek slave in "statuary +marble" between the folding-doors of the back drawing-room. It +was a room with which she had never been able to establish any +closer relation than that between a traveller and a railway +station; and now, as she looked about at the surroundings which +stood for her deepest affinities--the room for which she had left +that other room--she was startled by the same sense of +strangeness and unfamiliarity. The prints, the flowers, the +subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a +superficial refinement that had no relation to the deeper +significances of life. + +Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question. + +"I don't know that I can explain," she faltered. + +He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the +hearth. The light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn +face, which had a kind of surface-sensitiveness akin to the +surface-refinement of its setting. + +"Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?" he asked. + +"In our ideas--?" + +"The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are +supposed to stand for." He paused a moment. "The ideas on which +our marriage was founded." + +The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then--she was +sure now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their +marriage, how often had either of them stopped to consider the +ideas on which it was founded? How often does a man dig about +the basement of his house to examine its foundation? The +foundation is there, of course--the house rests on it--but one +lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was she, indeed, who +in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the situation now and +then, on recapitulating the reasons which justified her course, +on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the religion +of personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel the +need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted her marriage +as frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the +primitive needs of the heart, and needed no special sanction to +explain or justify it. + +"Of course I still believe in our ideas!" she exclaimed. + +"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your +theory that the greatest possible publicity should be given to +our view of marriage. Have you changed your mind in that +respect?" + +She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances--on the public one +is addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about +them don't care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They +are attracted simply by its novelty." + +"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, +and learned the truth from each other." + +"That was different." + +"In what way?" + +"I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly +unfitting that young girls should be present at--at such times-- +should hear such things discussed--" + +"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs +that such things never ARE discussed before young girls; but that +is beside the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl +in my audience to-day--" + +"Except Una Van Sideren!" + +He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. + +"Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--" + +"Why naturally?" + +"The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with +her governess?" + +"If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in +my house!" + +Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. +"I fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of +herself." + +"No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late." + +"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of +self-defence?" + +"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?" + +"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to +the marriage tie." + +She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry +that kind of a girl?" + +"Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects." + +She took up the argument at another point. + +"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect +young girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--" +She broke off, wondering why she had spoken. + +Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the +beginning of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely +flattering to my oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its +effect. I can assure you that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to +have her thinking done for her. She's quite capable of doing it +herself." + +"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed +unguardedly from his wife. + +He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. + +"I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me." + + + +II + + +If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one +denied to Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every +one was ready to excuse and even to defend her. The world she +adorned agreed that John Arment was "impossible," and hostesses +gave a sigh of relief at the thought that it would no longer be +necessary to ask him to dine. + +There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither +side had accused the other of the offence euphemistically +described as "statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to +transfer their allegiance to a State which recognized desertion +as a cause for divorce, and construed the term so liberally that +the seeds of desertion were shown to exist in every union. Even +Mrs. Arment's second marriage did not make traditional morality +stir in its sleep. It was known that she had not met her second +husband till after she had parted from the first, and she had, +moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement +Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it was generally +felt that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his +reputation. The Westalls would probably always have to live +quietly and go out to dinner in cabs. Could there be better +evidence of Mrs. Arment's complete disinterestedness? + +If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was +somewhat cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the +matter, both explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment +was impossible. The only difference was that, to his wife, his +impossibility was something deeper than a social +disqualification. She had once said, in ironical defence of her +marriage, that it had at least preserved her from the necessity +of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not then realized +at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was +impossible; but the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact +that he made it impossible for those about him to be other than +himself. By an unconscious process of elimination he had +excluded from the world everything of which he did not feel a +personal need: had become, as it were, a climate in which only +his own requirements survived. This might seem to imply a +deliberate selfishness; but there was nothing deliberate about +Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child. It was +this childish element in his nature which sometimes for a moment +unsettled his wife's estimate of him. Was it possible that he +was simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than +is usual, the laborious process of growing up? He had the kind +of sporadic shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man +that he is "no fool"; and it was this quality that his wife found +most trying. Even to the naturalist it is annoying to have his +deductions disturbed by some unforeseen aberrancy of form or +function; and how much more so to the wife whose estimate of +herself is inevitably bound up with her judgment of her husband! + +Arment's shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent +intellectual power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of +feeling, of suffering, perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on +which Julia's sensibilities naturally declined to linger. She so +fully understood her own reasons for leaving him that she +disliked to think they were not as comprehensible to her husband. +She was haunted, in her analytic moments, by the look of +perplexity, too inarticulate for words, with which he had +acquiesced to her explanations. + +These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been +too concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had +been unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as +though it had been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than +flesh, and Julia was wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her +husband's personality seemed to be closing gradually in on her, +obscuring the sky and cutting off the air, till she felt herself +shut up among the decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A sense +of having been decoyed by some world-old conspiracy into this +bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage +was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in +ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, +for one, would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which +she had been a victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, +forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must remain +there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of +each other's natures as the mature tree outgrows the iron brace +about the sapling. + +It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had +met Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was +"interested," and had fought off the discovery, dreading any +influence that should draw her back into the bondage of +conventional relations. To ward off the peril she had, with an +almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to him. To her +surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted by +the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted +that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did +not seem to surprise him: he had thought out all that she had +felt, and they had reached the same conclusion. People grew at +varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy fit for the one +might soon become galling to the other. That was what divorce +was for: the readjustment of personal relations. As soon as +their necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would +gain in dignity as well as in harmony. There would be no farther +need of the ignoble concessions and connivances, the perpetual +sacrifice of personal delicacy and moral pride, by means of which +imperfect marriages were now held together. Each partner to the +contract would be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest +standard of self-development, on pain of losing the other's +respect and affection. The low nature could no longer drag the +higher down, but must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its +inferior level. The only necessary condition to a harmonious +marriage was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn +agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith with +themselves, and not to live together for a moment after complete +accord had ceased to exist between them. The new adultery was +unfaithfulness to self. + +It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding +that they had married. The ceremony was an unimportant +concession to social prejudice: now that the door of divorce +stood open, no marriage need be an imprisonment, and the contract +therefore no longer involved any diminution of self-respect. The +nature of their attachment placed them so far beyond the reach of +such contingencies that it was easy to discuss them with an open +mind; and Julia's sense of security made her dwell with a tender +insistence on Westall's promise to claim his release when he +should cease to love her. The exchange of these vows seemed to +make them, in a sense, champions of the new law, pioneers in the +forbidden realm of individual freedom: they felt that they had +somehow achieved beatitude without martyrdom. + +This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been +her theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously, +insidiously, that her ten years of happiness with Westall had +developed another conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to +the old instinct of passionate dependency and possessorship that +now made her blood revolt at the mere hint of change. Change? +Renewal? Was that what they had called it, in their foolish +jargon? Destruction, extermination rather--this rending of a +myriad fibres interwoven with another's being! Another? But he +was not other! He and she were one, one in the mystic sense +which alone gave marriage its significance. The new law was not +for them, but for the disunited creatures forced into a mockery +of union. The gospel she had felt called on to proclaim had no +bearing on her own case. . . . She sent for the doctor and told +him she was sure she needed a nerve tonic. + +She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a +sedative to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but +that made her anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not +reverted to the subject of his Saturday talks. He was unusually +kind and considerate, with a softening of his quick manner, a +touch of shyness in his consideration, that sickened her with new +fears. She told herself that it was because she looked badly-- +because he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic--that he +showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her +from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the way +for fresh inferences. + +The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On +Saturday the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. +Would dear Julia ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier +than usual, as there was to be some music after his "talk"? +Westall was just leaving for his office when his wife read the +note. She opened the drawing-room door and called him back to +deliver the message. + +He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I +shall have to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can't +be helped. Will you write and say it's all right?" + +Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back +against which she leaned. + +"You mean to go on with these talks?" she asked. + +"I--why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his +surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to +find words. + +"You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me--" + +"Well?" + +"I told you last week that they didn't please me." + +"Last week? Oh--" He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I +thought you were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next +day." + +"It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance--" + +"My assurance?" + +Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the +chair with a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away +from her like straws down a whirling flood. + +"Clement," she cried, "isn't it enough for you to know that I +hate it?" + +He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward +her and sat down. "What is it that you hate?" he asked gently. + +She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument. + +"I can't bear to have you speak as if--as if--our marriage--were +like the other kind--the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the +other afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, +proclaiming that husbands and wives had a right to leave each +other whenever they were tired--or had seen some one else--" + +Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the +carpet. + +"You HAVE ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke +off. "You no longer believe that husbands and wives ARE +justified in separating--under such conditions?" + +"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes--I still believe +that--but how can we judge for others? What can we know of the +circumstances--?" + +He interrupted her. "I thought it was a fundamental article of +our creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage +were not to interfere with the full assertion of individual +liberty." He paused a moment. "I thought that was your reason +for leaving Arment." + +She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a +personal turn to the argument. + +"It was my reason," she said simply. + +"Well, then--why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?" + +"I don't--I don't--I only say that one can't judge for others." + +He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hair-splitting. +What you mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose +when you needed it, you now repudiate it." + +"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does +it matter to us?" + +Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood +before his wife with something of the formality of a stranger. + +"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do NOT +repudiate it." + +"Well--?" + +"And because I had intended to invoke it as"-- + +He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost +deafened by her heart-beats. + +--"as a complete justification of the course I am about to take." + +Julia remained motionless. "What course is that?" she asked. + +He cleared his throat. "I mean to claim the fulfilment of your +promise." + +For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered +a torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her +surroundings pressed upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant +of sunlight on the wall, the hardness of the chair-arms that she +grasped, were a separate wound to each sense. + +"My promise--" she faltered. + +"Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one +or the other should wish to be released." + +She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position +nervously; then he said, with a touch of irritability: "You +acknowledge the agreement?" + +The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head +to it proudly. "I acknowledge the agreement," she said. + +"And--you don't mean to repudiate it?" + +A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced +and pushed it back. + +"No," she answered slowly, "I don't mean to repudiate it." + +There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow +resting on the mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little +cup of jade that he had given her on one of their wedding +anniversaries. She wondered vaguely if he noticed it. + +"You intend to leave me, then?" she said at length. + +His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. + +"To marry some one else?" + +Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. + +"Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?" + +He was silent. + +"I wish you good luck," she said. + + + +III + + +She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when +or how he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat +there. The fire still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of +sunlight had left the wall. + +Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, +that she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There +had been no crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at +temporizing or evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns. + +Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She +looked about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her +identity seemed to be slipping from her, as it disappears in a +physical swoon. "This is my room--this is my house," she heard +herself saying. Her room? Her house? She could almost hear the +walls laugh back at her. + +She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room +frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door +close a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her +brain. Her husband must have left the house, then--her HUSBAND? +She no longer knew in what terms to think: the simplest phrases +had a poisoned edge. She sank back into her chair, overcome by a +strange weakness. The clock struck ten--it was only ten o'clock! +Suddenly she remembered that she had not ordered dinner . . . or +were they dining out that evening? DINNER--DINING OUT--the old +meaningless phraseology pursued her! She must try to think of +herself as she would think of some one else, a some one +dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose +wants and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out +the ways of a strange animal. . . + +The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and +walked to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her +room. HER room? Again the word derided her. She opened the +door, crossed the narrow hall, and walked up the stairs. As she +passed, she noticed Westall's sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his +gloves lay on the hall table. The same stair-carpet mounted +between the same walls; the same old French print, in its narrow +black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual continuity +was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same +untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it +before she could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she +sat down on the lounge, a stupor creeping over her. . . + +Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the +interval--a wild marching and countermarching of emotions, +arguments, ideas--a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back +spent upon themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to +organize these chaotic forces. There must be help somewhere, if +only she could master the inner tumult. Life could not be broken +off short like this, for a whim, a fancy; the law itself would +side with her, would defend her. The law? What claim had she +upon it? She was the prisoner of her own choice: she had been +her own legislator, and she was the predestined victim of the +code she had devised. But this was grotesque, intolerable--a mad +mistake, for which she could not be held accountable! The law +she had despised was still there, might still be invoked . . . +invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to chain Westall to +her side? SHE had been allowed to go free when she claimed her +freedom--should she show less magnanimity than she had exacted? +Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony--one does not +strike an attitude when one is fighting for life! She would +threaten, grovel, cajole . . . she would yield anything to keep +her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay deeper! The +law could not help her--her own apostasy could not help her. She +was the victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though +some giant machine of her own making had caught her up in its +wheels and was grinding her to atoms. . . + +It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked +with an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day +was radiant, metallic: one of those searching American days so +calculated to reveal the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and +the excesses of our architecture. The streets looked bare and +hideous; everything stared and glittered. She called a passing +hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren's address. She did not know +what had led up to the act; but she found herself suddenly +resolved to speak, to cry out a warning. it was too late to save +herself--but the girl might still be told. The hansom rattled up +Fifth Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding recognition. +At the Van Siderens' door she sprang out and rang the bell. +Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and self- +possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to say. + +The ladies were both out . . . the parlor-maid stood waiting for +a card. Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door +and lingered a moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that +she had not paid the cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her +purse and handed it to him. He touched his hat and drove off, +leaving her alone in the long empty street. She wandered away +westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where she was not likely +to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had returned. +Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of Broadway, +swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a +succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite +direction. . . + +A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since +morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with +rows of ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement +window she saw the sign LADIES' RESTAURANT: a pie and a dish of +doughnuts lay against the dusty pane like petrified food in an +ethnological museum. She entered, and a young woman with a weak +mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table for her near the window. +The table was covered with a red and white cotton cloth and +adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick tumbler and a salt- +cellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a +long time waiting for it. She was glad to be away from the noise +and confusion of the streets. The low-ceilinged room was empty, +and two or three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the +background staring at her and whispering together. At last the +tea was brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup +and drank it hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed +through her veins like an elixir. She was almost dizzy with +exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how unutterably tired she had been! + +She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind +was once more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as +decisive, as when she had stood on the Van Siderens' door-step-- +but the wish to return there had subsided. She saw now the +futility of such an attempt--the humiliation to which it might +have exposed her. . . The pity of it was that she did not know +what to do next. The short winter day was fading, and she +realized that she could not remain much longer in the restaurant +without attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out +into the street. The lamps were alight, and here and there a +basement shop cast an oblong of gas-light across the fissured +pavement. In the dusk there was something sinister about the +aspect of the street, and she hastened back toward Fifth Avenue. +She was not used to being out alone at that hour. + +At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the +stream of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and +signed to her that he would take her across. She had not meant +to cross the street, but she obeyed automatically, and presently +found herself on the farther corner. There she paused again for +a moment; but she fancied the policeman was watching her, and +this sent her hastening down the nearest side street. . . After +that she walked a long time, vaguely. . . Night had fallen, and +now and then, through the windows of a passing carriage, she +caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an +opera cloak. . . + +Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still +a moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without +noticing whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she +saw the house in which she had once lived--her first husband's +house. The blinds were drawn, and only a faint translucence +marked the windows and the transom above the door. As she stood +there she heard a step behind her, and a man walked by in the +direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a heavy middle- +aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, the red +crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. +He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew forth +a latch-key, and let himself in. . . + +There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time +against the area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front +of the house. The feeling of physical weariness had returned, +but the strong tea still throbbed in her veins and lit her brain +with an unnatural clearness. Presently she heard another step +draw near, and moving quickly away, she too crossed the street +and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse which had +carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the +electric bell--then she felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and +grasped the balustrade for support. The door opened and a young +footman with a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. +Julia knew in an instant that he would admit her. + +"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask +him to see me for a moment?" + +The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress +for dinner, madam." + +Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me--I will +not detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, +authoritatively, in the tone which a good servant does not +mistake. The footman had his hand on the drawing-room door. + +"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?" + +Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a +lady," she returned carelessly. + +The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that +instant the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into +the hall. He drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face +turning sallow with the shock; then the blood poured back to it, +swelling the veins on his temples and reddening the lobes of his +thick ears. + +It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the +change in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled +down into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: +her one conscious thought was that, now she was face to face with +him, she must not let him escape till he had heard her. Every +pulse in her body throbbed with the urgency of her message. + +She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she +said. + +Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the +footman, and her look acted as a warning. The instinctive +shrinking from a "scene" predominated over every other impulse, +and Arment said slowly: "Will you come this way?" + +He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. +Julia, as she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least +was unchanged: time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina +still lurched from the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave +obstructed the threshold of the inner room. The place was alive +with memories: they started out from every fold of the yellow +satin curtains and glided between the angles of the rosewood +furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying these +impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred +in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would +refuse to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her +purpose melt before it, words and arguments running into each +other in the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed +her, and she imagined herself thrust out before she could speak; +but as she was struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair +forward, and said quietly: "You are not well." + +The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor +unkind--a voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting +unforeseen developments. She supported herself against the back +of the chair and drew a deep breath. "Shall I send for +something?" he continued, with a cold embarrassed politeness. + +Julia raised an entreating hand. "No--no--thank you. I am quite +well." + +He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. "Then may I +ask--?" + +"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see +you. There is something I must tell you." + +Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he +said. "I should have supposed that any communication you may +wish to make could have been made through our lawyers." + +"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think +they could help me--this time." + +Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any +question of help--of course--" + +It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some +shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought +she wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy--or +even in money. . . The thought made her laugh again. She saw +his look change slowly to perplexity. All his facial changes +were slow, and she remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted +her to shift that lumbering scenery with a word. For the first +time it struck her that she had been cruel. "There IS a question +of help," she said in a softer key: "you can help me; but only by +listening. . . I want to tell you something. . ." + +Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier +to--write?" he suggested. + +She shook her head. "There is no time to write . . . and it +won't take long." She raised her head and their eyes met. "My +husband has left me," she said. + +"Westall--?" he stammered, reddening again. + +"Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired +of me." + +The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to +the limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his +embarrassed glance returned to Julia. + +"I am very sorry," he said awkwardly. + +"Thank you," she murmured. + +"But I don't see--" + +"No--but you will--in a moment. Won't you listen to me? +Please!" Instinctively she had shifted her position putting +herself between him and the door. "It happened this morning," +she went on in short breathless phrases. "I never suspected +anything--I thought we were--perfectly happy. . . Suddenly he +told me he was tired of me . . . there is a girl he likes better. . . +He has gone to her. . ." As she spoke, the lurking anguish +rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every +other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and +two painful tears burnt a way down her face. + +Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This--this is very +unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law--" + +"The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his +freedom?" + +"You are not obliged to give it." + +"You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did." + +He made a protesting gesture. + +"You saw that the law couldn't help you--didn't you?" she went +on. "That is what I see now. The law represents material +rights--it can't go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law . . . +the obligation that love creates . . . being loved as well as +loving . . . there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin +unhindered . . . is there?" She raised her head plaintively, +with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see now . . . +what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired . . . +but I was not tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's +the dreadful part of it--the not understanding: I hadn't realized +what it meant. But I've been thinking of it all day, and things +have come back to me--things I hadn't noticed . . . when you and +I. . ." She moved closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with +the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. "I see now that YOU +didn't understand--did you?" + +Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed +to be lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled. + +"No," he said, "I didn't understand." + +She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew +it! You wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came. . . +You saw your life falling in ruins . . . the world slipping from +you . . . and you couldn't speak or move!" + +She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. +"Now I know--now I know," she repeated. + +"I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer. + +She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't +want you to be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me . . . for +not understanding that YOU didn't understand. . . That's all I +wanted to say." She rose with a vague sense that the end had +come, and put out a groping hand toward the door. + +Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile. + +"You forgive me?" + +"There is nothing to forgive--" + +"Then will you shake hands for good-by?" She felt his hand in +hers: it was nerveless, reluctant. + +"Good-by," she repeated. "I understand now." + +She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, +Arment took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, +who was evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the +background to let her out. She heard Arment fall back. The +footman threw open the door, and she found herself outside in the +darkness. + + + +The End of The Reckoning + + + + +Verse + + + +BOTTICELLI'S MADONNA IN THE LOUVRE. + + +WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies +On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips, +Forefeeling the Light's terrible eclipse +On Calvary, as if love made thee wise, +And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes +The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, +And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps +When the cross darkens her unclouded skies? + +Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, +Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, +And think--"My child at home clings so to me, +With the same smile . . . and yet in vain, in vain, +Since even this Jesus died on Calvary"-- +Say to her then: "He also rose again." + + + + +THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI. + + +ILARIA, thou that wert so fair and dear +That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise +With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes +And bade him call the master's art to rear +Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, +With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise +Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, +And lips that at love's call should answer, "Here!" + +First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul +Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside, +Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole, +Regenerate in art's sunrise clear and wide +As saints who, having kept faith's raiment whole, +Change it above for garments glorified. + + + + +THE SONNET. + +PURE form, that like some chalice of old time + Contain'st the liquid of the poet's thought + Within thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought + With interwoven traceries of rhyme, +While o'er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb, + What thing am I, that undismayed have sought + To pour my verse with trembling hand untaught + Into a shape so small yet so sublime? +Because perfection haunts the hearts of men, + Because thy sacred chalice gathered up + The wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley--then +Receive these tears of failure as they drop + (Sole vintage of my life), since I am fain + To pour them in a consecrated cup. + + + + +TWO BACKGROUNDS. + +I. + +LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR. + + +HERE by the ample river's argent sweep, +Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, +A tower-crowned Cybele in armored sleep +The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, +With calm, parochial spires that hold in fee +The friendly gables clustered at their base, +And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place, +The Gothic minster's winged immensity; +And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, +Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned, +Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find +Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude. + + + +II. + +MONA LISA. + + +Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep +No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed; +Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep, +But at the gate an Angel bares his blade; +And tales are told of those who thought to gain +At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell +Far off they saw each fading pinnacle +Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain; +Yet there two souls, whom life's perversities +Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth, +Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth, +And drain Joy's awful chalice to the lees. + + + + +EXPERIENCE. + + +I. + +LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand +Upon the desert verge of death, and say: +"What shall avail the woes of yesterday +To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land +Whose currency is strange unto our hand? +In life's small market they have served to pay +Some late-found rapture, could we but delay +Till Time hath matched our means to our demand." + +But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, +Our gathered strength of individual pain, +When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold, +Dies with us--hoarded all these years in vain, +Since those that might be heir to it the mould +Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. + + +II. + +O, Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, +Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, +Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, +And love's oblivion, and remembering hate, +Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight +Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears +Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, +And sell us the one joy for which we wait. +Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, +With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, +But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, +And all our longings lie within thy keep-- +Death, can it be the years shall naught avail? + +"Not so," Death answered, "they shall purchase sleep." + + + + +CHARTRES. + + +I. + +IMMENSE, august, like some Titanic bloom, + The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, +Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, + Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, +And stamened with keen flamelets that illume + The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, +By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore, + A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, +The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea-- + For these alone the finials fret the skies, +The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, + While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, +Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, + The cloud of witnesses still testifies. + + +II. + +The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize + The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold. +A rigid fetich in her robe of gold + The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, +Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, + Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold. +The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, + Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies. +Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows + To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn +From hot humanity's impatient woes; + The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, +And in the east one giant window shows + The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn. + + + + +LIFE. + + +LIFE, like a marble block, is given to all, +A blank, inchoate mass of years and days, +Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays +Some shape of strength or symmetry to call; +One shatters it in bits to mend a wall; +One in a craftier hand the chisel lays, +And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia's gaze, +Carves it apace in toys fantastical. + +But least is he who, with enchanted eyes +Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be, +Muses which god he shall immortalize +In the proud Parian's perpetuity, +Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies +That the night cometh wherein none shall see. + + + + +AN AUTUMN SUNSET + + +I + +LEAGUERED in fire +The wild black promontories of the coast extend +Their savage silhouettes; +The sun in universal carnage sets, +And, halting higher, +The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, +Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, +That, balked, yet stands at bay. +Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day +In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, +A wan valkyrie whose wide pinions shine +Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, +And in her lifted hand swings high o'erhead, +Above the waste of war, +The silver torch-light of the evening star +Wherewith to search the faces of the dead. + + +II + +Lagooned in gold, +Seem not those jetty promontories rather +The outposts of some ancient land forlorn, +Uncomforted of morn, +Where old oblivions gather, +The melancholy, unconsoling fold +Of all things that go utterly to death +And mix no more, no more +With life's perpetually awakening breath? +Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore, +Over such sailless seas, +To walk with hope's slain importunities +In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not +All things be there forgot, +Save the sea's golden barrier and the black +Closecrouching promontories? +Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories, +Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade, +A spectre self-destroyed, +So purged of all remembrance and sucked back +Into the primal void, +That should we on that shore phantasmal meet +I should not know the coming of your feet? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton +Part Two + diff --git a/old/whrt210.zip b/old/whrt210.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..606fd61 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whrt210.zip |