diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/51487-h/51487-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/51487-h/51487-h.htm | 23779 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 23779 deletions
diff --git a/old/51487-h/51487-h.htm b/old/51487-h/51487-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index f23890e..0000000 --- a/old/51487-h/51487-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,23779 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Othmar, by Ouida. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -.half-title -{ - text-align: center; - font-size: x-large; - line-height:2; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - - .ph2,.ph3,.ph4 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - -.mt2 {margin-top: 2em;} -.mt4 {margin-top: 4em;} - -.mb2 {margin-bottom: 2em;} - - -.half-title {margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 4em;} - -.spaced -{ - line-height: 125%; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb {width: 15%; margin-left: 42.5%; margin-right: 42.5%; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em;} -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - -table.toc { /* Table of Contents */ - margin: auto; - width:auto; - max-width: 40em; - margin-top: 4em; -} -th { - padding-bottom: 10px; -} - -td.cht { - text-align: left; - vertical-align: top; - padding-left: 1em; - text-indent: -1em; -} -td.pag { - text-align: right; - vertical-align: bottom; - padding-left: 2em; -} - -td.pag a { - /* color: black; */ - font-weight: bold; - text-decoration: none; -} - - -.pagenum { /* page numbers */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} - -/* text formatting */ - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.quotsig {margin-right: -25%;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} -.oldeng {font-family: "Old English Text MT", serif;} - -.gesperrt -{ - letter-spacing: 0.1em; - margin-right: -0.1em; -} - -/* Images */ - -img {max-width: 100%; height: auto;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -/* Poetry */ -.poetry-container - { - text-align: center; - margin: -1em 0; - } - -.poetry - { - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; - } - -.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} - -.poetry .verse - { - text-indent: -3em; - padding-left: 3em; - } - -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -1em;} -.poetry .indent16 {text-indent: 4em;} -.poetry .indent38 {text-indent: 14em;} - -/* Transcriber's notes */ -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - -/* ePub stylings */ - -.break-before { page-break-before: always; } -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} - -@media screen -{ - .half-title - { - margin: 6em 0; - } -} - -@media handheld -{ - body - { - margin: 0; - padding: 0; - width: 95%; - } - - .poetry - { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; - } - - .half-title - { - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; - margin: 0; - padding-top: 6em; - } -} - -@media print -{ - .half-title - { - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; - margin: 0; - padding-top: 6em; - } -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Othmar, by Ouida - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Othmar - -Author: Ouida - -Release Date: March 17, 2016 [EBook #51487] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OTHMAR *** - - - - -Produced by MWS, Christopher Wright and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1 class="mt2 gesperrt smcap break-before">OTHMAR</h1> -</div> - - -<p class="ph4 mt4">BY</p> - -<p class="ph2 mb2 gesperrt">OUIDA</p> - - -<p class="ph3 mb2">'<em>I fear Life's many changes; not Death's changelessness</em>'<br /> - -<span class="smcap quotsig mb2">Lytton</span></p> - - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/title_emblem.jpg" alt="Publisher Emblem" /> -</div> - -<p class="ph4 mt4"><em>A NEW EDITION</em></p> - -<p class="ph4 oldeng mt4">London</p> - -<p class="ph4 spaced gesperrt">CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY</p> - -<p class="ph4 spaced">1886</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center spaced">PRINTED BY</p> -<p class="center spaced">SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE</p> -<p class="center spaced">LONDON</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<table class="toc break-before" summary="Contents"> -<tr> - <th colspan="2" class="smcap">Table of Contents</th> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER I.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER II.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER III.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER IV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER V.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER VI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER VII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER VIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER IX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER X.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XIV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XVI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XVII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XVIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XIX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXIV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXVI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXVII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXVIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXIX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXIV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXVI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXVII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XXXIX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XL.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLIV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_337">337</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLVI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_339">339</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLVII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLVIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER XLIX.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_354">354</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER L.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_362">362</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER LI.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_367">367</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER LII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_377">377</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER LIII.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td> -</tr><tr> - <td class="cht">CHAPTER LIV.</td> - <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_391">391</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">OTHMAR.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Under the forest-trees of a stately place there was held a Court -of Love, in imitation and revival of those pretty pageantries and -tournaments of tongues which were the chief social and royal -diversion of the Italy of Lucrezia Borgia and the France of -Marguerite de Valois.</p> - -<p>It was a golden August afternoon, towards the close of a day -which had been hot, fragrant, full of lovely lights and shadows. -Throned on a hill a mighty castle rose, aerial, fantastic, stately, -with its colonnades of stone rose-garlanded, and its stone staircases -descending into bowers of foliage and foam of flowers. Its -steep roofs were as sheets of silver in the sun, its many windows -caught the red glow from the west, and its bastions shelved -downward to meet smooth-shaven lawns and thickets of -oleanders luxuriant with blossom, crimson, white, or blush-colour. -In the woods around, the oaks and beeches were heavy -with their densest leafage; the deer couched under high -canopies of bracken and osmunda; and the wild boars, sunk -deep in tangles of wild clematis and beds of meadow-sweet, -were too drowsy in the mellow warmth to hear the sounds of -human laughter which were wafted to them on the windless -air. In the silent sunshiny vine-clad country which stretched -around those forests, in '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le pays de rire et de ne rien faire</i>,' from -many a steep church-steeple and many a little white chapel on -the edge of the great rivers or in the midst of the vast wheat-fields, -the vesper-bell was sounding to small townships and tiny -hamlets.</p> - -<p>It was seven o'clock, and the Court of Love was still open; -the chamber of council, or throne-room, being a grassy oval, -with grassy seats raised around it, like the seats of an amphitheatre; -an open space where the forest joined the gardens, -with walls, first of clipped bay, and then of dense oak foliage, -around it; the turf had been always kept shorn and rolled, and -the evergreens always clipped, and a marble fountain in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -centre of the grass, of fauns playing with naiads, bore an inscription -testifying that, in the summer of the year of grace -1530, the Marguerite des Marguerites had held a Court of Love -just there, using those same seats of turf, shadowed by those -same oak-boughs.</p> - -<p>'Why should we not hold one also? If we have advanced -in anything, since the Valois time, it is in the art of intellectual -hair-splitting. We ought to be able to argue as many days -together as they did. Only, I presume, their advantage was -that they meant what they said, and we never or seldom do. -They laughed or they sighed, and were sincere in both; but we -do neither, we are <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gouailleurs</i> always, which is not a happy -temperament, nor an intellectually productive one.'</p> - -<p>So had spoken the mistress of that stately place; and so, her -word being law, had it been in the sunset hours before the nine -o'clock dinner; and it was a pastime well suited to the luminous -evenings of late summer in</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">The hush of old warm woods that lie</div> - <div class="verse">Low in the lap of evening, bright</div> - <div class="verse">And bathed in vast tranquillity.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>She, herself, was seated on an ivory chair, carved with Hindoo -steel, and shaped like a curule chair of old Rome. Two little -pages, in costumes of the Valois time, stood behind her, holding -large fans of peacock's plumes.</p> - -<p>'They are anachronisms,' she had said with a passing frown -at the fans, 'but they may remain, though quite certainly the -Valois did not know anything of them any more than they knew -of blue china and yellow tea.'</p> - -<p>But the gorgeous green and gold and purple-eyed plumes -looked pretty, so she had let them stay.</p> - -<p>'We shall have so many jarring notes of "modernity" in -our discussions,' she had said, 'that one note the more in -decoration does not matter;' and, backed by them, she sat now -upon her ivory throne, an exquisite figure, poetic and delicate, -with her cream-white skirts of the same hue as her throne, and -her strings of great pearls at her throat. Next her was seated -an ecclesiastic of high eminence, who had in vain protested that -he was wholly out of place in such a diversion. 'Was Cardinal -Bembo out of place at Ferrara and Urbino?' she had objected; -and had so successfully, in the end, vanquished his scruples, -that the late sunbeams, slanting through the oak-leaves and on -to that gay assemblage, had found out in it his handsome head -and his crimson sash, and his blue eyes full of their and keen -witty observation, and his white hands folded together on his -knee.</p> - -<p>In a semicircle whose wings stretched right and left were -ranged the gentlemen and ladies who formed momentarily the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -house party of the château; great people all; all the women -young and all the men brilliant, no dull person amongst them, -dulness being the one vice condemned there without any chance -of pardon. They were charming people, distinguished people, -handsome people also, and they made a gay and gracious picture, -reclining or sitting in any attitudes they chose on these -grassy slopes, which had seen the court of Francis and of both -Marguerites:</p> - -<p>Above their heads floated a silken banner, on which, in -letters of gold, were embroidered the wise words, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Qu'on m'aime, -mais avec de l'esprit!</i>'</p> - -<p>'To return to our original demand—what is the definition of -Love?' asked their queen and president, turning her lovely -eyes on to the great ecclesiastic, who replied with becoming -gravity:</p> - -<p>'Madame, what can a humble priest possibly know of the -theme?'</p> - -<p>She smiled a little. 'You know as much as Bembo knew,' -she made answer.</p> - -<p>'Ah no, Madame! The times are changed.'</p> - -<p>'The times, perhaps; not human nature. However, this is -the question which must be first decided by the Court at large: -How is the nature of Love to be defined?'</p> - -<p>A gentleman on her left murmured:</p> - -<p>'No one can tell us so as well you, Madame, who have torn -the poor butterfly in pieces so often <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sans merci</i>.'</p> - -<p>'You have broken the first rule of all,' said the sovereign, -with severity. 'The discussion is to be kept wholly free from -all personalities.'</p> - -<p>'A wise rule, or the Court would probably end, like an -Italian village <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">festa</i>, in a free use of the knife all round.'</p> - -<p>'If you be not quiet you will be exiled for contempt of -court, and shut up in the library to write out Ovid's "Ars -Amatoria." Once more, I inquire, how are we to define -Love?'</p> - -<p>'It was never intended to be defined, but to be enjoyed.'</p> - -<p>'That is merely begging the question,' said their Queen. -'One enjoys music, flowers, a delicate wine, a fine sunset, a -noble sonnet; but all these things are nevertheless capable of -analysis and of reduction to known laws. So is Love. I ask -once more: How is it to be defined? Does no one seem to -know? What curious ignorance!'</p> - -<p>'In woman, Love may be defined to be the desire of annexation; -and to consist chiefly in a passionate clinging to a sense of -personal property in the creature loved.'</p> - -<p>'That is cynical, and may be true. But it is not general -enough. You must not separate the love of man and the love -of woman. We speak of Love general, human, concrete.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<p>'With all deference I would observe that, if we did not -separate the two, we should never arrive at any real definition -at all, for Love differs according to sex as much as the physiognomy -or the costume.'</p> - -<p>'Real Love is devotion!' said a beautiful blonde with blue -eyes that gazed from under black lashes with pathetic tenderness.</p> - -<p>'Euh! euh!' murmured one impertinent.</p> - -<p>'Oh, oh!' murmured another.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ouiche!</i>' said a third under his breath.</p> - -<p>The sovereign smiled ironically:</p> - -<p>'Ah, my dear Duchesse! all <em>that</em> died out with the poets of -1830. It belongs to the time when women wore muslin gowns, -looked at the moon, and played the harp.'</p> - -<p>'If I might venture on a definition in the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">langue verte</i>,' -suggested a handsome man, seated at the feet of the queen, -'though I fear I should be turned out of Court as Rabelais and -Scarron are turned out of the drawing-room——'</p> - -<p>'We can imagine what it would be, and will not give you -the trouble to say any more. If the definition of Love be, on -the contrary, left to me, I shall include it all in one word—Illusion.'</p> - -<p>'That is a cruel statement!'</p> - -<p>'It is a fact. We have our own ideal, which we temporarily -place in the person, and clothe with the likeness, of whoever is -fortunate enough to resemble it superficially enough to delude -us, unconsciously, into doing so. You remember the hackneyed -saying of the philosopher about the real John—the John as he -thinks himself to be, and the John as others imagine him: it is -never the real John that is loved; always an imaginary one -built up out of the fancies of those in love with him.'</p> - -<p>'That is fancy, your Majesty; it is not love.'</p> - -<p>'And what is love but fancy?—the fancy of attraction, the -fancy of selection; the same sort of fancy as allures the bird to -the brightest plumaged mate?'</p> - -<p>'I do not think any love is likely to last which is not based -on intellectual sympathy. When the mind is interested and -contented, it does not tire half so fast as the eyes or the passions. -In any very great love there is at the commencement a -delighted sense of meeting something long sought, some supplement -of ourselves long desired in vain. When this pleasure is -based on the charm of some mind wholly akin to our own, and -filled for us with ever-renewing well-springs of the intellect, -there is really hardly any reason why this mutual delight should -ever change, especially if circumstances conspire to free it from -those more oppressive and irritating forms of contact which the -prose of life entails.'</p> - -<p>'You mean marriage, only you put it with a great deal of -unnecessary euphuism. Tastes differ. Giovanni Dupré's ideal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -of bliss was to see his wife ironing linen, while his mother-in-law -looked on.'</p> - -<p>'Dupré was a simple soul, and a true artist, but intellect -was not his strong point. If he had chanced to be educated, -the good creature with her irons would have become very tiresome -to him.'</p> - -<p>'What an argument in favour of ignorance!'</p> - -<p>'Is it? The savage is content with roots and an earth-baked -bird; but it does not follow, therefore, that delicate food does -not merit the preference we give to it. I grant, however, that -a high culture of taste and intelligence does not result in the -adoration of the primitive virtues any more than of the earth-baked -bird.'</p> - -<p>'Is this a discussion on Love?'</p> - -<p>'It is a discussion which grows out of it, like the mistletoe -out of the oak. The ideal of Dupré was that of a simple, uneducated, -emotional and unimpassioned creature; it was what -we call essentially a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> ideal. It would have been suffocation -and starvation, torture and death, to Raffaelle, to Phidias, -to Shelley, to Goethe. There are men, born peasants, who soar -into angels; who hate, loathe, and spurn the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> ideal from -their earliest times of wretchedness; but there are others who -always remain peasants. Millet did, Dupré did, Wordsworth -did.'</p> - -<p>The queen tinkled her golden handbell and raised her ivory -sceptre.</p> - -<p>'These digressions are admirable in their way, but I must -recall the Court to the subject before them. Someone is bringing -in allusions to cookery, flat-irons, and the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> ideal -which I have always understood was M. Thiers. They are -certainly, however interesting, wholly irrelevant to the theme -which we are met here to discuss. Let us pass on to the question -next upon the list. If no one can define Love except as -devotion, that definition suits so few cases that we must accept -its existence without definition, and proceed to inquire what -are its characteristics and its results.'</p> - -<p>'The first is exigence and the second is <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i>.'</p> - -<p>'No, the first is sympathy and the second is happiness.'</p> - -<p>'That is very commonplace. Its chief characteristic appears -to me to be an extremely rapid transition from a state of imbecile -adoration to a state of irritable fatigue. I speak from the -masculine point of view.'</p> - -<p>'And I, from the feminine, classify it rather as a transition -(regretted but inevitable) from amiable illusions and generous -concessions to a wounded sense of offence at ingratitude.'</p> - -<p>'We are coming to the Italian <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coltellate</i>! You both only -mean that in love, as in everything else which is human, people -who expect too much are disappointed; disappointment is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -always irritation; it may even become malignity if it take a -very severe form.'</p> - -<p>'You seem all of you to have glided into an apology for -inconstancy. Is that inevitable to love?'</p> - -<p>'It looks as if it were; or, at all events, its forerunner, -fatigue, is so.'</p> - -<p>'You treat love as you would treat a man who asked you to -paint his portrait, whilst you persisted in painting that of his -shadow instead. The shadow which dogs his footsteps is not -himself.'</p> - -<p>'It is cast by himself, so it is a part of him.'</p> - -<p>'No, it is an accompanying ghost sent by Nature which he -cannot escape or dismiss.'</p> - -<p>'My good people,' said their sovereign impatiently, 'you -wander too far afield. You are like the group of physicians -who let the patient die while they disputed over the Greek root -from which the name of his malady was derived. Love, like -all other great monarchs, is ill sometimes; but let us consider -him in health, not sickness.'</p> - -<p>'For Love in a state of health there is no better definition -than one given just now—sympathy.'</p> - -<p>'The highest kind of love springs from the highest kind of -sympathy. Of that there is no doubt. But then that is only -to be found in the highest natures. They are not numerous.'</p> - -<p>'No; and even they require to possess a great reserve-fund -of interest, and a bottomless deposit of inexhaustible comprehension. -Such reserve-funds are rare in human nature, which -is usually a mere fretful and foolish chatterbox, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout en dehors</i>, -and self-absorbed.'</p> - -<p>'We are wandering far from the single-minded passion of -Ronsard and Petrarca.'</p> - -<p>'And we have arrived at no definition. Were I to give one, -I should be tempted to say that Love is, in health and perfection, -the sense that another life is absolutely necessary to our -own, is lovely despite its faults, and even in its follies is delightful -and precious to us, we cannot probably say why, and is to -us as the earth to the moon, as the moon to the tides, as the -lodestone to the steel, as the dew of night to the flower.'</p> - -<p>'Very well said, and applicable to both men and women, as -descriptive of their emotions at certain periods of their lives. -But——'</p> - -<p>'For all their lives, until the ice of age glides into their -veins.'</p> - -<p>'You are poetical enough for Ronsard. Well, let us pass to -another question. Does Love die sooner of starvation or of -repletion?'</p> - -<p>'Of repletion, unquestionably. Of a fit of indigestion he -perishes never to rise again. Starved, he will linger on sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -for a very long while indeed, and at the first glance of pity -revives in full vigour.'</p> - -<p>'Why, then, do women usually commit the error of surfeiting -him? For I agree with you that a surfeit is fatal.'</p> - -<p>'Because most women cannot be brought to understand that -too much of themselves may bring about a wayward wish to have -none of them. They call this natural and inevitable reaction -ingratitude and inconstancy, but it is nothing of the kind; it is -only human nature.'</p> - -<p>'Male human nature. The wish for pastures new, characteristic -of cattle, sheep and man.'</p> - -<p>'"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La femme est si souvent trompée parce qu'elle prend le désir -pour l'amour.</i>" Someone wrote that; I forget who did, but it -is entirely true. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une bouffée de désir</i>, an hour's caprice, a swift -flaming of mere animal passion which flares up and dies down -like any shooting star, seems to a woman to be the ideal love of -romance and of tragedy. She dreams of Othello, of Anthony, -of Stradella, and all the while it is Sir Harry Wildair, or Joseph -Surface, or at the best of things Almaviva. She is ready for -the tomb in Verona, but he is only ready for the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chambre -meublée</i>, or at most for the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">saison aux eaux</i>.'</p> - -<p>'Is she always ready for the tomb in Verona?' asked a -sceptical voice. 'Does she not sometimes, even very often, -marry Paris, and "carry on" with Romeo? If I may be -allowed to say so, there are a few impassioned and profound -temperaments in the world to many light ones; the bread and -the sack are, as usual, unevenly apportioned, but these graver -and deeper natures are not all necessarily feminine. It is when -you have two great and ardent natures involved (and then alone) -that you get passion, high devotion, tragedy; but this conjunction -is as rare as the passing of Venus across the sun. Usually -Romeo throws himself away on some Lady Frivolous, and -Juliet breaks her heart for some fop or some fool.'</p> - -<p>'That is only because all human life is a game of cross purposes; -one only wonders who first set the game going, to amuse -the gods or make them weep.'</p> - -<p>'That question will scarcely come under the head of amatory -analysis. Besides, the world has been wondering about that ever -since the beginning of time, and has never received any answer -to its queries.'</p> - -<p>'If a quotation be allowed,' suggested the ecclesiastic, 'in -lieu of an original opinion, I would beg leave to recall the -Prince de Ligne's "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Dans l'amour il n'y a que les commencements -qui sont charmants</i>." In the middle of the romance I see you -all yawn, at the end you usually quarrel. Some wise man—I -forget who—has said that it requires much more talent and -much more feeling to break off an attachment amiably than to -begin it.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Because we all feel so amiable at the beginning that it is -easy to be so.'</p> - -<p>'Admit also that there are very few characters which will -stand the test of intimacy; very few minds of sufficient charm -and originality to be able to bear the strain of long and familiar -intercourse.'</p> - -<p>'What has the mind to do with it?'</p> - -<p>'That question is flippant and even coarse. The mind has -something to do with it, even in animals; or why should the -lion prefer one lioness to another? When d'Aubiac went to the -gallows kissing a tiny velvet muff of Margaret de Valois, or -when young Calixte de Montmorin knelt on the scaffold pressing -to his lips a little bow of blue ribbon which had belonged to -Madame de Vintimille, the muff and the ribbon represented a -love with which certainly the soul had far more to do than the -senses.'</p> - -<p>'It was a sentiment.'</p> - -<p>'A sentiment if you will, but strong enough to overcome all -fear of death or personal regret. The muff, the ribbon, were -symbols of an imperishable and spiritual devotion; these trifles, -like Psyche's butterfly, were representative of an immortal -element in mortal life and mortal feeling.'</p> - -<p>'M. de Béthune would go to the scaffold like that himself,' -said the sovereign lady with a smile of approval and of indulgent -derision.</p> - -<p>'And our lady,' hinted the Duc de Béthune, 'forgets her -own rule, that all personalities are forbidden.'</p> - -<p>'It is of no use to have the power to make laws if one have -not also the power to transgress them. Well, if immortality is -to enter into love, let wit also enter there. One is not beheaded -every day, but every day one is liable to be bored. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">J'aime qu'on -m'aime, mais avec de l'esprit.</i> Every intellectual person must -exact that. To worship my ribbon is nothing if you also fatigue -my patience and my ear. The majority of people divorce love -and wit. They are very wrong. It is only wit which can tell -love when he has gone too far, or is losing ground, has repeated -himself <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad nauseam</i>, or requires absence to restore his charm.'</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ah, Majesté!</i> by the time he has become such a philosopher -has he not ceased to be love at all?'</p> - -<p>'Oh no. That motto was chosen as the legend of this Court -expressly for the truth it contains. Why does most love end so -drearily in a sudden death by quarrelling or in a lingering death -by tedium? Because it has had no wit, no judgment, no reserve, -no skill. By way of showing itself to be eternal, it has -hammered itself into pieces on the rock of repetition. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Qu'on -m'aime, mais avec de l'esprit!</i> What a world of endured <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i> -sighs forth in that appeal!'</p> - -<p>'No woman upon earth has had so much love given her as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -the châtelaine of Amyôt, and no woman on earth ever viewed -love with such unkind and airy contempt.'</p> - -<p>She smiled. She neither denied nor affirmed the accusation.</p> - -<p>'She has a crystal throne of her own from which she looks -down on the weaknesses of mortals and cannot be touched by -them,' said the Duc de Béthune.</p> - -<p>She replied again, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Qu'on m'aime, mais avec de l'esprit.</i>'</p> - -<p>'It is the motto of one who sets much greater store upon -amusement than upon affection. Who can say, moreover, what -may have the good fortune to be considered "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">esprit</i>" by her? -I fear she finds us all very dull to-day.'</p> - -<p>'Dull, no. Sentimental perhaps.'</p> - -<p>'Your heaviest word of censure!'</p> - -<p>'To return to our theme: do you not punish inconstancy?'</p> - -<p>'Certainly not. In the first place, inconstancy is a wholly -involuntary, and therefore innocent, inclination. In the second, -if any one be so stupid that he or she cannot keep the affections -they have once won, they deserve to lose them, and can claim -no pity.'</p> - -<p>'Surely they may be the victims of a sad and unmerited -fate?'</p> - -<p>'Unmerited—no. They have not known how to keep what -they had got. Probably they have worried it till it escaped in -desperation, as a child teases a bird in a cage till the bird pushes -itself through the bars, preferring the chance of losing itself -on the road to the certainty of being strangled in prison.'</p> - -<p>'Who would not prefer it?'</p> - -<p>'The difficulty in most cases is that, in all loves, the scales -of proportion are weighted unevenly: there is generally one -lighter than the other. Say it is a poor nature and a great -nature; say it is a strong passion and a passing caprice; say it -is a profound temperament and a shallow one; in some way or -other the scales are almost always imperfectly adjusted. When -they are quite even—which happens once out of a million times—then -there is a great and felicitous love; an exquisite and -imperishable sympathy.'</p> - -<p>'But who holds these magical scales? It is the holder who -is responsible.'</p> - -<p>'The holder is Fate.'</p> - -<p>'Chance.'</p> - -<p>'Opportunity.'</p> - -<p>'Destiny.'</p> - -<p>'Predestination.'</p> - -<p>'Circumstance.'</p> - -<p>'Affinity.'</p> - -<p>'Affinity can only hold them on that millionth occasion -when a perfect love is the result.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Usually Chance and Circumstance fill the scales, and they -are two roguish boys who like to make mischief. Affinity is the -angel; perhaps the only angel by which poor humanity is ever -led into an earthly paradise.'</p> - -<p>'That is worthy of Philip Sydney.'</p> - -<p>'Or of the Earl of Lytton.'</p> - -<p>'And is so charming that we will not risk having anything -coarse or commonplace said after it. Let us adjourn the debate -till to-morrow.'</p> - -<p>'Nay, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Majesté</i>; let us pass to another question: What is the -greatest dilemma of Love?'</p> - -<p>'To have to galvanise itself into an imitation of life when it -is dead.'</p> - -<p>'Is it worse to be the last to love, or the first to grow tired?'</p> - -<p>'In the former case one's self-esteem is hurt; in the latter -one's conscience.'</p> - -<p>'The wounds of conscience are sooner cured than those of -vanity.'</p> - -<p>'Whoever loves most loves longest.'</p> - -<p>'No, whoever is least loved loves longest.'</p> - -<p>'How is that to be explained?'</p> - -<p>'The contradictions of human nature will usually suffice to -explain everything.'</p> - -<p>'But there may be another explanation also; the one who is -least loved is the least cloyed, and the most apprehensive of -alteration.'</p> - -<p>'Love is best worked with egotism, as gold is worked with -alloy.'</p> - -<p>'Surely the essential loveliness of love is self-sacrifice?'</p> - -<p>'That is a theory. In fact, the only satisfactory love is one -which gives and receives mutual pleasure. When there is self-sacrifice -on one side the pleasure also is one-sided.'</p> - -<p>'Then the revellers of the Decamerone knew more of love -than Dante?'</p> - -<p>'That is approaching a theme too full of dangers to be discussed—the -difference between physical and spiritual love. I -do not consider that you have satisfactorily answered the previous -question: What is the greatest dilemma of Love?'</p> - -<p>'When, in the open doorway of its house of life, one passion, -grown old and grey, passes out limping, and meets another -passion newly come thither, and laughing, with the blossoms of -April in its sunny hair.'</p> - -<p>'What a sonnet in a sentence! What is Love to do in such -a case? Shall he detain the grey-haired crippled guest?'</p> - -<p>'He cannot. For the more he shall endeavour to retain -him the thinner and paler and more impalpable will the withered -and lame passion grow.'</p> - -<p>'And the newly-come one?'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Oh, he will enter, smiling and strong, and will fill the -house with the music of his pipe and the odour of his hyacinths -for awhile, until he too shall in turn pass outwards, when his -music is silent and his flowers are dead.'</p> - -<p>'Is Love then always to be mourned like Lycidas?'</p> - -<p>'He is in no sense like Lycidas; Lycidas died, a perfect -youth. Love, with time, grows pale and wan and feeble, and a -very shadow of itself, before it dies.'</p> - -<p>'There are some who say, if he have not immortality he is -not Love at all; but only Caprice, Vanity, Wantonness, or -faithless Fancy, masquerading in his dress.'</p> - -<p>'How can that be immortal which has no existence without -mortal forms?'</p> - -<p>'Here is one of the notes of modernity! The sad note of -self-consciousness; the consciousness of mortality and of insignificance; -the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">memento mori</i> which is always with us. And yet -we do not respect death, we only hate it and fear it; because it -will make of us a dreary, ugly, putrid thing. That is all we -know. And the knowledge dulls even our diversions. We can -be <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gouailleur</i>, but we cannot be gay if we would.'</p> - -<p>'There is too great a tendency here to use <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gros mots</i>—devotion, -death, immortality, &c. They are a mistake in a disquisition -which wishes to be witty. They are like the use of cannon -in an opera. But I think, even in France, the secret of lightness -of wit is lost. We have all read too much German philosophy.'</p> - -<p>'We will endeavour to be gayer to-morrow. We will wake -all the shades of Brantôme.'</p> - -<p>'Well,' their sovereign declared, as she rose, 'we have held -our Court to little avail; some pretty things have been said, -and some stupid ones, but we have arrived at no definite conclusion, -unless it be this: that love is only respectable when it -is unhappy, and ceases to exist the moment it is contented.'</p> - -<p>'A cruel sentence, Madame!'</p> - -<p>'Human nature is cruel; so is Time.'</p> - -<p>When the sun had wholly set, and only a warm yellow glow -through all the west told that its glory had passed, the Court -broke up for that day, and strolled in picturesque groups -towards the house as the chimes of the clock tower told the -hour of dinner.</p> - -<p>'How very characteristic of our time and of our world,' said -the queen, as she drew her ivory-hued, violet-laden skirts over -the smooth turf. 'We have talked for three whole hours of -Love, and nobody has ever thought of mentioning Marriage as -his kinsman!'</p> - -<p>'He who has had the honour to marry you might well have -done so, had he been here to-day,' murmured a courtier on her -right.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> - -<p>She laughed, looking up into the deep-blue evening sky -through the network of green leaves:</p> - -<p>'But he was not here, so he was saved the difficulty of -choice between an insincerity and a rudeness, always a very -serious dilemma to him. Marriage is the grave of love, my -dear friend, even if he be buried with roses for his pillow and -lilies for his shroud.'</p> - -<p>'But Love may be stronger than Death. Solomon has -said so.'</p> - -<p>'What is stronger than Death? Death is stronger than all -of us. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tout cela pourrira.</i> It is the despair of the lover and -the poet, and the consolation of the beggar when the rich and -the beautiful go past him.'</p> - -<p>She spoke with a certain melancholy, and absently struck -the tall heads of seeding grasses with her ivory sceptre.</p> - -<p>'We have only wearied you, I fear,' said her companion, -with contrition and mortification.</p> - -<p>'That is the fault of Love,' she answered, with a smile.</p> - -<p>As they left the shadow of the trees, crossing the grassland -was a herd of cows and calves already passing away in the distance, -going to their byres; far behind them, lingering willingly, -were the herdsman and his love; he a comely lad in a blue -blouse and a peaked cap, she a smiling buxom maiden with -dusky tresses under a linen coif, and cheeks glowing like a -'Catherine pear, the side that's next the sun.'</p> - -<p>'Lubin and Lisette,' said Béthune with a smile, 'practically -illustrating what we have been spoiling with the too fine wire-drawing -of analysis. I am sure that they come much nearer -than we to the story-tellers of the Heptameron.'</p> - -<p>The châtelaine of Amyôt looked at the two rustic lovers with -a little wistfulness and a good-natured contempt.</p> - -<p>They had passed out of the shade of the woods, and the -rose-glow of evening illumined their interlaced figures as they -followed their cows.</p> - -<p>'"To know is much, yet to enjoy is more,"' she quoted. -'I suppose that is what you mean. Yet I rather incline to -think that love as a sentiment is the product of education. -The cows know almost as much of it as your Lubin and -Lisette.'</p> - -<p>'Brandès says,' observed one of her party, 'that love as a -sentiment was always unknown in a state of nature, and was -only created with the first petticoat. Petticoats have invariably -been responsible for a great deal. They ruined -France, according to the Great Frederic; but if they have -raised us from the level of the cattle they have redeemed their -repute.'</p> - -<p>'Poor cattle! They have as much poetry in their eyes as -there is in the Penseroso. Lubin and Lisette are <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Naturkinder</i>;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -but when both a cow and Lisette become the property of Lubin, -he will assign the higher place to the first, both in life and in -death.'</p> - -<p>'Well, he shall have both of them, for having met us at so -apropos an instant,' she answered with, a little smile. 'Perhaps -the only word of truth that has been said in the whole discussion -was the quotation: "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il n'y a que les commencements qui sont -charmants!</i>"'</p> - -<p>The great woodland which they traversed as she spoke -opened into an avenue of beeches, long and straight, the -branches meeting and interlacing overhead until the opening at -the farther end looked like an arched doorway closing a cathedral -aisle. The archway was filled with dim golden suffused -light, and within that archway of twilight and golden haze there -rose the snowy column of a high-reaching fountain; it was the -first of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grandes eaux</i> of the garden of Amyôt. And the -sovereign of the Court of Love was she who had once been the -Princess Napraxine.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>As they entered on the smoother sward of the stately gardens a -figure came out of the deep shadow of clipped walls of bay and -approached them.</p> - -<p>'Is the Court over? At what decision has it arrived?' said -the master of Amyôt as he saluted the party and kissed the -hand of his wife with a graceful formality of greeting.</p> - -<p>'It will have to sit for half a century if it be compelled to -come to any,' returned the châtelaine. 'We have said many -pretty things about love, Béthune in especial; but we met -Lubin with Lisette loitering behind their cows, and I fear -the living commentary was truer to nature than all our doctrines.'</p> - -<p>'The only issue of its resolutions is that you are to give away -a cow and a maiden to the admirable lover,' said M. de Béthune. -'He crossed our path just in time to point a moral for us: we -were all sadly in want of one.'</p> - -<p>'Could you not agree then? Surely you chose a very simple -subject?'</p> - -<p>'It might be simple in the days of Philemon and Baucis. It -is sufficiently complicated now. Is the sentiment which sent -d'Aubiac to the scaffold, pressing a little blue velvet muff to his -lips, the same thing as the unpoetic impulse which makes the -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">femelle de l'homme</i> sought by Tom, Dick, and Harry? You will -admit that a vast field of the most various emotions separates the -two kinds of passion?'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Certainly: there is a great difference between Montrose's -Farewell and Sir John Suckling's verses.'</p> - -<p>'Precisely: so we came to no decision. We have all too -much of the terrible modern tendency to hesitation and melancholy. -I do not know why; unless it come from the conviction -of all of us that love is always melancholy when it is not -absurd.'</p> - -<p>'What a cruel sentiment!'</p> - -<p>'A perfectly true assertion. The only loves respectable in -tradition are those which have ended wretchedly. Suppose -Romeo had been happy; or Stradella; what do you think the -poets could have made of them? Love must end somehow: if -it end in tragedy its dignity is saved like Cæsar's.'</p> - -<p>'But why need it end? You, at least, have seen that -through all disappointments it can endure,' murmured he who -had cited the love of d'Aubiac for Marguerite.</p> - -<p>She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders ever so -slightly.</p> - -<p>'Love is, so unhappily, like a comet. It mounts to its -perihelion, increasing in splendour as it goes, and then slowly, -little by little, the glory departs, the sovereign of the skies -grows less and less, until at last there is no more sign of it anywhere, -and all is darkness. But the comet is not really gone; -it has only gone—elsewhere.'</p> - -<p>Her slight delicate laugh robbed the speech of the melancholy -which it would otherwise have possessed.</p> - -<p>'My wife believes in no constancy,' said Othmar.</p> - -<p>She looked at him with her mysterious smile:</p> - -<p>'I believe in Romeo's, I believe in Stradella's, because the -kindness of death saved them from the ridicule of forswearing -themselves. What a pity you did not come home a little sooner. -You would have been an invaluable ally to the sentimentalists -headed by Béthune. He was eloquent, but his cause was -weak.'</p> - -<p>'My cause was strong,' said the Duc de Béthune; 'it was -my tongue which lacked persuasiveness.'</p> - -<p>'No, you were very poetical; you were only not convincing. -My dear friend, we are too scientific in these days for sentiment -to have any abiding place in us; we are pessimists, it is -true, but we mourn for ourselves, not for others. We are -neither gay enough nor sad enough to do justice to such discussions -as this which we have tried to revive; we are only -bored. We do not take our fooling joyously or our sorrows -deeply. We are uneasily conscious that we are childish and -unreal in both. Then there is the incurable modern tendency -to end everything with a laugh <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en gouailleur</i>, yet with tears in -our eyes. We are always ridiculing ourselves, yet we are -always vexed that, ridiculous as we are, we must still die.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> - -<p>'At the present moment we must still eat,' said Othmar, as -the boom of a silver-toned gong came over the gardens in deep -waves of sound.</p> - -<p>It was nine o'clock, and that repast which had been used to -be called in the Valois Amyôt <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">arrière-grand-souper</i>, and was now -called 'dinner,' awaited them.</p> - -<p>There were some twenty-five guests then staying there; she -did not approve of immense house parties, and she restricted -her house list to the very choicest of her favourites and -associates; she always asked double the number of men to that -of women, but she was proportionately careful that the latter -should be those whom men most liked and admired; she was -wholly above the petty envies and jealousies of her sex. Her -vanity rather consisted in having it said that she feared no -rivals.</p> - -<p>As the deep boom of the gong sounded from the house, she -and her guests passed onward, and in their Valois dresses were -soon seated in the summer banqueting-room: a modern addition -to the château, an open loggia in the Italian style, with marble -floor and marble columns, one side open to the air, the other -sides rich in white marble bas-reliefs by French sculptors; the -ceiling had been painted by Puvis de Chavannes with the story -of Europa. In each corner there were tall palms in large -square cases of white porcelain; the white columns were -garlanded by passion-flowers, which grew without; at either -end there was a fountain, their basins filled with gold fish and -water-lilies; through the columns the whole enchanting view -of the west gardens was seen stretching far away to where the -Loire waters spread wide as a lake and mirroring the newly-risen -moon.</p> - -<p>'I had it built,' she said, in answer to some one who complimented -her upon it. 'There is a great dining-hall and a -small dining-room indoors, but neither are fitted for summer -evenings. It is a barbarism to be shut up within four walls -just as the moon rises and the nightingales sing. The matter -of food is always a distressingly coarse question; nothing can -really spiritualise or redeem it, but at least it may be divested -of some of its brute aspects. A delicate cuisine does that for -us in some measure, and the scene we have around us may do -more. The London and Paris habit of sitting in mere boxes, -more or less well decorated, is horrible. Perfect ease, vast -space, and soft shadowy distances are absolutely necessary to -preserve illusions as we dine.'</p> - -<p>And to that end she had caused to be built the loggia of -Amyôt, with as much celerity and breathless obedience to her -commands as the architects of the East showed a sultan of -Bagdad or Benares when he bade a palace of marble uprise -from the sand. Her fine taste would not have allowed her to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -hurt the architecture of Amyôt with any incongruity, however -much her caprices might have desired it; but the marble loggia -accorded in exterior with the Renaissance outline of the -château, and the tone of Primaticcio and the epoch of Jean -Goujon had been faithfully followed in its internal decoration.</p> - -<p>'What a perfect place it is!' said one of her guests to her -after dinner.</p> - -<p>She smiled.</p> - -<p>'In August, yes. When the terraces are hung with ice, and -the forests black with winter storm, it is not so perfect. All -places have their season, like all lives.'</p> - -<p>'There are some places, like some lives, which can never -lose their beauty.'</p> - -<p>'Do you think so? I have never found them. When one -knows every leaf, every stone, every fence, the beauty of the -place fades for us as it does when one knows every impulse, -every prejudice, every fault, and every virtue of the life.'</p> - -<p>'A melancholy truth—if it be a truth. Perhaps it is only -half a one. There are people who love their homes.'</p> - -<p>'There are prisoners who have loved their cells! Amyôt is -delightful in many ways, but I have no more sense of home in -it than a swallow has in the eaves it builds under for one -summer. You must go to the vinedresser's wife in the cliff -cabin on the river for <em>that</em>.'</p> - -<p>'Then the vinedresser's wife has a jewel which the great -châtelaine's crown is without?'</p> - -<p>'A jewel? Are you sure it is a jewel? I think there is -much to be said in favour of the restlessness of our world, it -saves us from rust and reflection; it makes us unprejudiced and -cosmopolitan; it annihilates nationalities and antipathies. I -imagine, if Horace had lived now, he would never have been -still; he would have seen the farm in its pleasantest season, -and that only. He would have carried with him the undying -lamp of his enchanting temperament, and he would have been -happy anywhere.'</p> - -<p>'But is it really incomprehensible to you, the love of home?'</p> - -<p>'I think so. I have lived in too many places. We are a -few months here, a few months in Paris, a few weeks in the -Riviera, a few weeks in Russia, or Vienna, or London. It is -impossible to carry about the sense of home peripatetically with -you as the snail carries his shell. The sparrow feels it, the -swallow does not. I have always had a number of houses in -which I spend a number of months, of weeks, of days. I like -each of them to be perfect in its own way, and I like each to -have copies of my favourite books in it: the sight of Goethe, of -Molière, of Horace makes one feel <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chez soi</i>. That is as near -"home" as I approach. I imagine all happiness is much more -a matter of temperament than of place or of circumstance.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I do not believe you are happy even now!'</p> - -<p>It was a personal speech, and too bold a one to be justified -even by intimate and privileged friendship. But she was -moved to it by that ever ready and pitiless self-analysis which -made her as severe a critic of herself as of others.</p> - -<p>'Happy? Oh, I must be,' she said with a smile. 'Who -on earth should be happy if I am not? I have all the vulgar -attributes of happiness in profusion and all the more delicate -ones too. If I am not so, it can only be because my temperament -is the very opposite of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">porte-bonheur</i> like Horace's. I -have always expected too much of everything and of everybody, -and yet I am not at all what you would call an imaginative -person. I ought to be prosaically contented with the world as -it is. But I am not.'</p> - -<p>It was a sultry and lovely August night. The sky was -radiant and the white lustre of the full moon shone over all the -scene, making the gardens, the terraces, the fountains, the -parterres of flowers light as day, and leaving the masses of the -great forest which surrounded them in deepest shadow. It was -haunted ground, this stately and royal place where both -Marguerites had passed in turn summers dead three centuries -ago; where the one, witty, wise and faithful, had read the tales -of her Heptameron beneath its spreading oaks; and the other, -lovely, perilous and faithless, had gathered its roses and ruffled -them, murmuring the '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un peu—beaucoup—passionnément</i>,' as -one passion hotly chased another from her fickle breast, each -scarce living the life of the gathered rose.</p> - -<p>The present châtelaine of Amyôt, leaning against one of the -marble columns of her summer dining-hall, and listening to the -words of a friend who dared tell her truths, looked out into the -wide white moonlight, on to the trellised rose walks, the turf -smooth as velvet, bordered with ground ivy; the marble statues -standing against the high walls of close-clipped evergreens; -the deep and sombre forests which held the heart of so many -secrets, the story of so many lives and of so many deaths, safe -shut away for ever, dumb and dead in the eternal mystery of -its vernal solitudes. If she were not happy who should be?</p> - -<p>But happiness—what an immense word!—or what a little -one! A poet's dream of paradise, or the peasant's contentment -in the chimney-corner and the pot of soup! Which you will—but -never both at once.</p> - -<p>She was as happy as a very analytical and fastidious nature -can possibly be, but at times her old enemy dissatisfaction -looked in over the flowers and through the golden air. She -was pursued by her old consciousness that the human race was -after all exceedingly limited in its capabilities, and the lives of -men on the whole very wearisome. There was with her that -vague disappointment and dissatisfaction which come to most of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -us when we have done what we wished to do. There is a monotony -even in what is most agreeable, which makes all happiness -dull after awhile. Priests tells us that this unpleasant weariness -is intended to detach us from the joys of earth, and philosophers -are content to find its solution in the physiology of the -senses. But whether explained sentimentally or scientifically, -the result is the same: that expectation makes up so large a -component part of pleasure that, when there is nothing new to -expect, pleasure becomes so attenuated as to be scarcely visible.</p> - -<p>All loves which have been constant and become famous have -been those to which immense difficulties arose, where perils -supplied the element of an unending interest. It is when they -can only behold each other in the stolen hours of the moonlight, -that Romeo and Giulietta are to each other divinely fair. Were -they condemned to face each other at dinner every night for ten -years, what divinity would be left for either in the eyes of the -other?</p> - -<p>Habit and love cannot dwell together. As well ask the rose -to flower beneath a slab of stone.</p> - -<p>'Happiness is not of this world,' she said, with a little -dreamy lingering smile. 'Is not that what your brethren are -always telling us?'</p> - -<p>Melville answered with a sigh:</p> - -<p>'May this not prove that we may at least hope for it in some -other?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, I think,' she replied, rather to herself than to him, -'I think with you; the strongest argument (if any are strong) -in favour of the future development of the soul, is the absolute -impossibility for anybody with any average mind to be content -with what he or she finds in human existence. Life is a pretty -enough picture for people like ourselves; it is sometimes a -pageant, it is sometimes even a poem, but it is all wonderfully -unproductive and circumscribed. Except in a few hours of -passion or exultation, we are sensible of the flatness and insufficiency -of it all. We have ideals which may be only remembrance, -but if not must surely be prevision; ideals which, at -any rate, are larger and of another atmosphere than anything -which belongs to earth.'</p> - -<p>Her voice grew soft and dreamy, and had a tone in it of -wistful regret. It was not the mere dissatisfaction of the -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennuyée</i> which moved her. She had had her own way in life, -and the success of it had become monotonous.</p> - -<p>'Yes,' she repeated with a little laugh, which was not very -gay; 'I suppose it must be the soul in us; that odd, unquiet, -dissatisfied, nameless thing inside us, which is always crying, -"Give, give, give!" and never gets what it wants. Our discontent -must be the proof of something in us meant for better -things, just as the eternal revolutions of Paris are the proof of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -its people's genius. What a night it is! It wants Lorenzo and -Jessica, but they are not here. There are flirtations and intrigues -enough indoors, but Lorenzo and Jessica are not of our -world. It is a pity. The moon seems to look for them.'</p> - -<p>Then she left the marble loggia and went amongst her -guests, who were gathering together in the silver drawing-room, -as the sounds of music, in the ever-youthful 'Invitation à la -Valse,' called them, with midnight, to the ball-room. Gervase -Melville strayed away by himself through the moonlit aisles of -roses.</p> - -<p>'Always the pebble of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i> in the golden slipper of pleasure,' -he thought. 'Perhaps life is, after all, more evenly -balanced than the wooden shoe and the ragged stocking will -ever believe. Perhaps in life, as they said to-day that it is in -love, hunger is a happier state than satiety. Perhaps, if Lorenzo -had never married Jessica, he would have written sonnets to her -all his life, as Petrarca wrote them to Laura! The Lady of -Amyôt is the most interesting woman I have ever known, but -she is the one person on earth capable of making me doubt the -faith that I have lived and hope to die for; when I am amongst -the green savages of Formosa or the drunken Indians of Ottawa, -I can still believe in the human soul; but when I am with her -I doubt—I doubt—I doubt! She is as exquisitely organised as -this gloxinia which is full of dew and of moonbeams; but she -believes that she will have only her one brief passage on earth -like the gloxinia—the glory of a day—and alas! who shall prove -that she is wrong? When she holds my creed in the hollow of -her white hand and smiles, it grows small and shrunken as a -daisy that is dead!'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>'Bulwer has said that none preserve imagination after forty; -does anyone preserve illusions after thirty?' said a very pretty -woman on her thirty-second birthday.</p> - -<p>Her husband chivalrously replied, 'Any one who lives beside -you will preserve them until he is a hundred.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him dubiously, curiously, with a slight smile -which was a little cynical and a little pensive.</p> - -<p>'I was never famous for the culture of them,' she said, a -little regretfully. 'I do not know why you should have found -me so favourable to yours—if you have found me favourable,' -she added, after a pause.</p> - -<p>As the most eloquent and comprehensive answer he could -give, he kissed her hands.</p> - -<p>She glanced at her face in the mirror; she was certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -thirty-two years old on this last day of February. She did not -like it; no woman likes it. The way is not actually longer -because the traveller reads on a milestone the cipher which tells -him how many thousands of yards he has traversed and has still -to traverse, but the milestone suddenly and distastefully testifies -to distance, and increases the sense of fatigue which the -road has given.</p> - -<p>'If women had all a happy Euthanasia,' she said dreamily, -'when they reach the age I am now, what a good thing it would -be for the world. On her thirtieth birthday every woman ought -to be put to death; mercifully, poetically, as the girl dies in the -"Faute de l'Abbé Mouret," stifled in flowers, but securely put -to death.'</p> - -<p>'The world,' said Othmar, smiling, 'would certainly be rid -of its most perilous enchantresses if your proposal became law.'</p> - -<p>'And how much prettier our drawing-rooms would look, -and how much effort and heartburning would be spared, if -every woman died before she began to "make up!" Do you -know last night, in the mirror figure of the cotillion, as the men -looked over my shoulder one by one, I forgot all about them. -I only looked at my own face; it seemed to me that there was -a sort of dimness in it, as there is on a photograph which has -been some years done; not age exactly, but the shadow of age -which was coming up behind me as the men were coming, and -was looking over my shoulder as they looked. Why do you -laugh? It was not agreeable to me. I was startled when the -voice of Hugo de Rochefort came behind my ear, "Ah, Madame, -is it possible? Do you reject us all?" I had quite forgotten -where I was, and why they were all waiting. Perhaps Age -only meant to say to me, "Do not stay for the cotillions any -more!"'</p> - -<p>'If Age did, it certainly found no man living to agree with -it,' said her companion. 'If you will allow me to say so, I do -not recognise you in this unusual phase of self-depreciation. -What bee has stung you to-day?'</p> - -<p>'Self-knowledge, I suppose. Whatever philosophers may -declare to the contrary, it is a very uncomfortable companion.'</p> - -<p>'Surely that depends on one's mood?'</p> - -<p>'Everything in life depends on one's mood. When I am -in another mood I shall say to myself that I have ten years left -in which I shall be agreeable to myself and other people; that -the young girls do not understand men and do not influence -them; that a woman is always young so long as she retains her -power to please and to be pleased. There are five hundred -sophisms with which I can console myself, but just now I am -not in a humour to be consoled by them. I am only sensible -of what is very frightful to think of—that a woman is allotted -threescore and ten years as well as a man, but that he may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -enjoy himself to the end of them, if only he keep his health; -she comes to the close of her pleasures before her life is half -lived. With her, the preface is exquisite, the poem is delightful, -but the colophon is of such preposterous and odious length -and dulness, that it is out of all proportion to the brevity of the -romance.'</p> - -<p>He smiled. 'I know that it is always hopeless to convince -you when you are in a pessimistic humour.'</p> - -<p>'Oh yes; into one's character, as into the characters of -others, one gets little flashes of real light here and there, now -and then; the moments are not agreeable; they are the flashes -of a policeman's lanthorn; while they are shining disguise is -not possible.'</p> - -<p>'What do you see when they flash upon me?'</p> - -<p>'Not very much that I would have changed except your -sentimentalities.'</p> - -<p>'I am grateful.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him curiously. 'Did you doubt it?'</p> - -<p>He answered, 'Well, no; not precisely. But with such a -character as yours one never knows.'</p> - -<p>'Is not that the charm of my character?'</p> - -<p>'I think it is the secret of your ascendancy. No one can be -wholly, absolutely sure of what you are thinking far down in -the recesses of your immense thoughts.'</p> - -<p>'That was what people use to say of Louis Napoleon, and -there never was a shallower creature. I think I have more -profundity than he; but I have not so much as I had. Happiness -is not intellectual; it tends to make one content, and -content is stupidity; that is why Age looked into the cotillion -mirror to-night to remind me that I was getting stupid. No, -you are not to pay me any compliments, my dear; after ten -years of them they have a certain <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fadeur</i>, though I am sure you -are sincere when you make them.'</p> - -<p>She smiled and rose.</p> - -<p>This was her thirty-second birthday. That unpleasant and -unpoetic fact shadowed life to her for the moment. She was -still young enough, and had potent charm enough, of which -she was fully conscious, to own it frankly. The world was still -at her feet. She could afford to confess that she foresaw the -time when it would not be so. True, in a way she would -have a certain empire always. She would never altogether lose -her power over the minds of men when she should lose it over -their passions. But it would be a pale-grey kingdom, a sad -shore, with sea-lavender blowing above silvery sand instead of -her own Ogygia, with its world of roses and its smiling suns.</p> - -<p>Face it with what courage and charm she may, the thought -of age must always appal a woman. It takes so much; it offers -nothing. True, some of the greatest passions the world has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -seen have been born after youth had long passed, and have -burned on till death with deeper fires of sunset than ever dawn -has seen. But a woman is not consoled by that possibility as -morning slides past her and the shadows grow long.</p> - -<p>Othmar, without other reply, opened the door of her dressing-room, -and there entered two small children, a boy and a girl -with faces like flowers, and sweet rosy mouths, carrying a large -gilded basket between them, filled with white lilac and gardenia. -They came up to her hand in hand, not very certain upon -their feet or in their speech, and bowed their little golden heads -with pretty reverence, and stammered together with birdlike -voices, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Bonne fête, maman</i>.'</p> - -<p>'Here are your eternal courtiers,' said their father. 'Time -will make no difference in their worship of you.'</p> - -<p>She smiled again, and took them together on her lap, and -kissed them with tenderness, her hand playing with their soft, -light curls.</p> - -<p>But she said perversely, and a little sadly: 'My dear, how -can one tell? That is only a phrase also. One never knows -what children may become. In fifteen or twenty years' time -Otho may send me a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sommation respectueuse</i>, because he wants -to marry a circus-rider, and Xenia may hate me because I make -her accept a grand-duke whilst she is in love with an attaché. -One never can tell. They are fond of me now, certainly.'</p> - -<p>'They will as certainly love you always.'</p> - -<p>'What an optimist you have grown! It is flattering to me,' -she answered, as she caressed the children and gave them some -crystals of sugar. 'I cannot help seeing things as they are; -you know I never could help it; and the relations of parents -with their children, which are pretty and idyllic to begin with, -are often apt to alter to very grim prose as time goes on, and -separate interests arise to part them. Why does no sovereign -who ever lived like his or her immediate heir? Why is the -crown prince always arrayed against the crown?'</p> - -<p>'I am very fond of my crown prince,' said Othmar, as he -drew his young son to him.</p> - -<p>'He is not a crown prince yet; he is a baby. Wait until he -does want to marry that circus-rider, or until you see him take -an opposite side in European politics to yourself. It is when -the distinct Ego asserts itself in your child, in opposition to -your own entity, that the separation begins and the antagonism -rises.'</p> - -<p>'You will always analyse so mercilessly!'</p> - -<p>'I can never be content with the world's commonplaces and -sophisms, if you mean that. And on this day, when I am -thirty-two years old, no persuasion on earth would convince me -that, when the time should come which will make me twice -that age, I shall be anything but an unhappy woman. It will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -not console me in the least that my grandchildren may wish me -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonne fête</i>.'</p> - -<p>'I wonder if you are serious?'</p> - -<p>'I was never more so, I assure you. Life is a series of -losses; but a woman's losses outweigh a man's by a million. -From the first little line she sees between her eyebrows or -about her mouth, existence is nothing but a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dégringolade</i> for -her. To say that she is compensated for the loss of her empire -by becoming a grandmother is wholly absurd.'</p> - -<p>'You always allot such a small space to the affections!'</p> - -<p>'Madame de Sévigné allotted the largest that any clever -woman ever did or could. Do you think the chill philosophies -of Madame de Grignan rewarded her? Myself, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">je n'ai pas cette -bosse là</i>. You know it very well. I am fond of these children, -because they are yours; but I do not think them in the least -a compensation for growing old!'</p> - -<p>'As if years mattered to a woman of your wit!'</p> - -<p>She smiled.</p> - -<p>'That is so like a man's clumsy idea of consolation. True, -wit, in theory, is very much admired, but, practically, nobody -cares much about it, unless it comes out of a handsome mouth. -Men prefer white shoulders. And——'</p> - -<p>'And your shoulders?' said Othmar, with a smile. 'Are -they not of snow, and fit for Venus' self?'</p> - -<p>'Oh, they are white as yet,' she cried indifferently.</p> - -<p>'For myself,' he added, 'I shall be delighted when the -faces of no aspirants are reflected in your cotillion mirror. I -detest all those men——'</p> - -<p>'Oh no, you do not,' she said tranquilly. 'If there were -none of them you would say to yourself, "Really, she is very -much aged." A man's love is always so made up of pride and -prejudice that if no one envy him what he has he soon ceases to -value it. On the whole, men go much more by the opinion of -the world than women do. A woman, if she take a fancy to a -cripple, or a hunchback, or a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">crétin</i>, makes herself ridiculous -over him, without any regard to how she may be laughed at; -but a man is always thinking of what they say at the clubs. In -his most headlong follies he is always nervous about the opinion -of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">galerie</i>.'</p> - -<p>'You always think us such fools,' said Othmar, with some -ill humour.</p> - -<p>'Oh, no,' she said again with a smile, 'only I think you are, -in a way, more conscientious than we are, and in another way -more nervous. A woman, when she has a fancy for a thing, -would burn down half the world to get at it; a man would -hesitate to sacrifice so many cities and people, and would also -be preoccupied with the idea that he would be badly placed in -history for his exploit.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Then he is no true lover.'</p> - -<p>'Are there any true lovers?'</p> - -<p>'I think you should be the last woman who could doubt it.'</p> - -<p>'You want a compliment, but I shall not give it you. Or if -you mean the others—well, perhaps they have been, or they -are, true enough; but then that is only because a passion for -me has always been thought <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">d'un chic incroyable</i>. I should -believe in the love of a man if I were a milkmaid, but when to -be in love with one is a mere fashion like the height of your -wheels or the shape of your mail, one may question its single-mindedness. -I have never, either, observed that the most devoted -of them eat their dinner less regularly, or smoke less -often when they were unhappy. Even you, yourself, when you -were wasting with despair, did not refuse to dine or smoke.'</p> - -<p>'Do not speak of that time,' said Othmar, with a look of -distress. 'As for your complaint against us, we are mere -machines in a great deal; the machine goes on mechanically in -its daily exercise for its daily necessities; that movement of -mechanism has nothing to do with the suffering of the soul. -Nothing can be more unjust than to confuse the one with the -other. You say a man cannot be a poet or a lover because he -eats a truffled beefsteak. I say it is the mechanical part of him -which eats the beefsteak, and eating it impairs neither his sensitive -nerves nor his passions. As for smoking, it is a consolation -because it is a sedative.'</p> - -<p>'Admirably reasoned,' said Nadine, 'but you do not convince -me. I am certain that the conventionalities and habits of -modern life do diminish the forces of passion. When Tityæus -was forsaken by Musidora, and had only the primæval woods, -the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fons sylvæ</i>, the mountain solitudes, and the silent sheep, his -grief could reign over him undivided; but nowadays, when he -dines out every evening, is made to laugh whether he will or no, -finds a hundred engagements waiting for every hour, and has -the babble of the world eternally in his ear, his remembrance is -of a very attenuated sort. I do not say that he suffers nothing, -but I do say that he often forgets that he suffers.'</p> - -<p>'I am not at all sure of that,' said Othmar, 'and what is -more, I am almost disposed to think that the effort to affect -indifference which Society compels, is much more suffering than -the delightful permission which Nature gave your shepherd to -be as miserable as he pleased, unchecked and unremarked. -The world may cause the most excruciating torture to a man -who is compelled to be in it and of it, while some great preoccupation -makes every thought except one alien and hateful.'</p> - -<p>'If the man have a great nature, perhaps. But how many -have?'</p> - -<p>'As many, or as few, as in the days of the shepherds. The -ordinary Tityæus, I imagine, did not weep long for the ordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -Musidora, but soon tuned his pipe afresh and put new ribbons -on his crook.'</p> - -<p>'I do not quite think that; I think all feelings were stronger, -warmer, deeper, more concentrated in the earlier ages of the -world. Nowadays we contrive to make everything absurd—our -heroes, our poets, our sorrows, our loves, all are dwarfed -by our treatment of them. Even death itself we have managed -to make ridiculous, and strip of all its majesty. Ulysses' self -would have looked grotesque if buried with the civil rites which -attended Gambetta to his tomb, or the religious rites which -mocked the prince of mockers, Disraeli. Whenever I die, I -hope you will let me be carried by young children clad in white -to some green grave in your own woods, where only a stag will -come or a pretty hare. Will you be unconventional enough for -that? Or will you be afraid of the French municipalities and -the Russian popes? I should have courage to execute your last -wishes so, but whether you will have the courage to execute -mine——Men are so much more timid than women!'</p> - -<p>'Do not talk of death!' said Othmar, with a passing -shudder.</p> - -<p>'Did I not say that men are cowards?'</p> - -<p>'Not for ourselves; for those we love we are.'</p> - -<p>She smiled a little contemptuously, a little sadly.</p> - -<p>'Ah, my dear! who knows! Death would not be so dreadful -to me as if I lived to incur Horace's reproach to Lyce. What -is it? "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fis anus, et tamen</i>," &c., &c., though that reproach -perhaps belongs to a more unsophisticated age than our own. -Nowadays the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">perruquiers</i> let nobody get grey, and there are a -great many grandmothers, even great-grandmothers, who are -entirely charming—more charming than the girls who are just -out.'</p> - -<p>'I do not think you will ever go to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">perruquiers</i>, but you -will always be charming, and you will never be old.'</p> - -<p>'One would think you were my lover!'</p> - -<p>'Why will you never believe that I am still so?'</p> - -<p>'Because I do not believe in any miracles; I go to no -Loretto. Love is a volatile precipitate, and marriage a solvent -in which it disappears. If we are exceptions to that rule of -chemistry and life, we are so extraordinarily exceptional that -fate must have some dreadful punishment in store for us.'</p> - -<p>'Or some exceptional reward.'</p> - -<p>'Is not virtue always punished!' she said, with her enigmatical -smile. 'You are a very handsome man, and have been the -most poetic of lovers. But in the nature of things I grow used -to your good looks, and in the nature of things you do not -make love to me any longer. Love may be the most delightful -thing in the world, but it cannot resist the pressure of daily -intercourse. It is doomed when it has to look over a common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -visiting list, and scold the same house-steward about the weekly -expenditure. "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ah—ouiche</i>, Madame!" said one of the peasants -at Amyôt to me once, "where is love when you dip two spoons -in one soup-pot?—you only quarrel about the onions." That -is always the fault of marriage. It is always putting two spoons -in one pot. Whether it is an earthen pitcher or a Cellini vase -does not make the least difference. Poor love runs away from -the clash of the spoons.'</p> - -<p>Othmar laughed, but he was irritated. 'I should be miserable -if I believed you were in earnest,' he said impatiently. -'But I know you would sacrifice your own life to an epigram.'</p> - -<p>'I am entirely in earnest,' she replied. 'But if you do not -believe me that shows that you are a less changeable man than -most, or I a wiser woman. Ah, my dear,' she added, with a -smile and a sigh, 'when men do not admire me any longer then -you will not admire me either, I imagine; I wonder you do as -it is—you see so much of me!'</p> - -<p>'I shall adore you all my life,' said Othmar, with almost as -much fervour as when he had been the most impassioned and -the most hopeless of her lovers.</p> - -<p>'You fancy so; and that is very pretty in you, after so many -years; but it does not follow that you will think so still in twelve -months' time,' said his wife, with the smile of her incurable -scepticism upon her lips. 'And do not insist on it too much. -Things which are insisted on too much have a knack of making -themselves tiresome, and you know of old that repetition has -no great charm for me, and say what you will you cannot prevent -me from feeling that very soon I shall grow old!'</p> - -<p>She rose and looked over her shoulder at the silver-framed -mirror with its three glasses, showing her profile to her as she -turned.</p> - -<p>'I could not brave the sunrise after a ball <em>now</em>,' she thought, -with a little pang.</p> - -<p>'Has not a poet said,' she added aloud:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent38">I fear</div> - <div class="verse">Life's many changes; not Death's changelessness?'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>There was a touch of graver sadness in the tone with which -she quoted the line of verse, which forbade reply either by persiflage -or compliment.</p> - -<p>Othmar kissed her hand with almost the same emotion as -when he had declared to her a passion hopeless, and therefore -for the time changeless; and he remained mute.</p> - -<p>'The same poet says:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Love's words are weak, but not Love's silences,'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>she added, with a smile. 'Well, I will believe you——as yet.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> - -<p>She had in nowise resigned the power of, and the diversion -afforded her by, what in a lesser person would have been called -endless flirtation. She amused herself constantly with the -follies of men and their subjugation.</p> - -<p>'If you do not make yourself attractive to others, the man -to whom you care to be attractive will soon not find you so,' -she was wont to say. 'Those women who make themselves a -statue of fidelity, like the Queen in the "Winter's Tale," will -soon be left alone on their pedestals. Be as faithful as you -please, but show him that you have every temptation and -opportunity to be unfaithful if you did please.'</p> - -<p>It was on those lines that she had traced her conduct, and -whilst her world knew that she was unaltered in coquetry, if -coquetry her languid charm and domination could be called, -it also saw that she was equally unaltered in profound and -universal indifference to all those whom she subjugated. -Othmar, as he said, would have preferred that she should -subjugate none. But she frankly told him that it was of no -use to wish for subversion of the laws of nature. 'I am as -nature made me,' she said once to him. 'If you did not like -the way I was made, why did you not leave me alone? You -had plenty of time to study me. I am like Disraeli, I like -power. Now the only power possible to a woman is that which -she possesses over men. If men were more interesting, the -power would be more interesting too. But then it is not our -fault. It is perhaps the fault of the millions of stupid women -who swallow up the occasional originality of men as sand -swallows up the bits of agate and cornelian on the shore. It -is the fashion to say that it is the wicked, clever women who -hurt men. That is not the case; it is the good silly ones who -make of life the sahara of commonplaces and of blunders which -it is. Talent will at least always understand; blameless stupidity -understands nothing.'</p> - -<p>She was somewhat more, rather than less, of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charmeuse</i> -than she had been. It was so natural to her to charm the lives -of men that she could have as soon ceased to breathe as to cease -to use her power over them. There were times when Othmar -grew irritated and jealous, but she was unmoved by his anger.</p> - -<p>'It is a much greater compliment to you that men should -admire me,' she said to him, 'and it would look supremely -absurd if I lapsed into a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonne bourgeoise</i>, and always went -everywhere arm-in-arm with you. I should not know myself. -You would not know me. Be content. You are aware that I -think very little about any one of them; they are none of them so -interesting as you used to be. But I must have them about -me. They are like my fans; I never scarcely use a fan or look -at one, but still a fan is indispensable; it is a part of one's -toilette.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> - -<p>Othmar, who retained for her much of the imperious and -perfervid passion which he had had as a lover, resigned himself -with a bad grace to her arguments. Something of the old -tyrannical feeling with which he would once have liked to bear -her out of sight and hearing of the world for ever still moved in -him at times, though he had grown diffident of displaying it, -having grown afraid of her delicate ironies.</p> - -<p>'It is so good for him,' she said to herself; 'that sort of -irritation and jealousy keeps his affections and his admirations -alive: they are not allowed to go to sleep, as both have a knack -of going to sleep in marriage. Anything is less dangerous -than stagnant water. If a man be not made jealous he must -drift imperceptibly into indifference. Monotony is like a calm -at sea; everyone yawns, and in time even a shark would be -welcomed as a delightful interruption. To avoid sameness is -the first requisite for the endurance of love. If he love me as -much as he did nine years ago—and I think he does—it is only -because at the bottom of his heart he never feels absolutely -sure of me. He has always a faint unacknowledged sense that -I may any day do something entirely unexpected by him; may -even fly away, as a bird does, off a bough which it has tired of. -I am like a book of alchemy to him, of which he has mastered -all the secrets save just one or two lines, but in which those -lines always remain in unintelligible abracadabra to perplex and -interest him. He will never tire of the book till he thinks he -can decipher those lines. It is a mistake to suppose that men -are only allured by their senses; there is an intellectual -mystery which fascinates them, and which is not so easily -exhausted. All men are amused by me, all men are more or -less attracted by me. I should not wish my husband, alone of -all men, to become tired of me. Of course it is very difficult to -prevent it when he is so used to me, but I think it is possible.'</p> - -<p>A feeble woman, a dull woman, a woman of that kind of self-complacency -which goes with stupidity, would not have allowed -so much even in her own thoughts; but she, who was deemed -the vainest of her kind, had no such vanity wherewith to deceive -herself. Her high intelligence and her unerring penetration -were glasses forever turned upon herself no less than upon -others. Othmar was at times surprised and almost irritated -that she left him so often to go on her own visits or travels, -or sent him alone upon his. But she knew very well what she -did.</p> - -<p>'Frequent absences are like those pauses in the music -which in French we call <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">silences</i>, and in German <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Pausen</i>,' she -said to herself. 'They make us care for the music more than -we should do if it were always on our ear. Monotony is the -most terrible enemy that affection or enjoyment ever has. Unfortunately, -most women are so eternally monotonous that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -can never understand why men are not as pleased with the -defect as they are themselves. Lord Beaconsfield was not an -apostle of love, but he was a shrewd observer of mankind, and -I always think that he suggested the most admirable phase of -modern love possible, when he depicted two people who were -fond of one another as going their different ways every evening -to different houses, and meeting again to talk it all over with -champagne and chicken at dawn. If people are always together -in the same places, what have they left to tell one another in -their own house? Myself, I don't like either champagne or -chicken, but that is a mere matter of detail. You can say, -Rhine wine and green oysters, or yellow tea and Russian cigarettes. -It is, no doubt, only another form of vanity; but I -wish our lives not to break down and drift away in little bits of -wreck wood, as most peoples' lives do. It is not goodness in -me; it is only <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amour propre</i>.'</p> - -<p>She had more sympathy for him than she would in other -years have supposed herself capable of feeling, but with her -regard for him there was mingled that habit of analysis which -was so inveterate in her, and that indulgence to his weaknesses -which arose from her condescending comprehension of them. -She, as yet, made the preservation of his admiration her study, -but in her study there was blended the sense of amusement and -disdain, which always came to her before the inconsistencies and -the unwisdom of men. She loved him perhaps; but she never -failed to weigh him accurately. To Yseulte, he had been as a -lord and a god; to her he was dearer than other men, but not -more imposing. Even when the first winelike fumes of -awakened passion had touched her, she had been clear of judgment -and unerring in vision. She had said to herself: 'He -looked larger than others once, through the mists of my preference, -but he is not so really.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>When he saw the beauty of her children, Friedrich Othmar -relented in that unsparing bitterness which he felt against her. -As a woman he still hated her intensely, unspeakably, unchangeably, -but as their mother he had respect for her, and -almost pardon.</p> - -<p>'He will be childless all his days,' he had said with certainty -and scorn. 'That bloodless <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaine</i>, that ethereal coquette -will leave the name barren; she is all brain and nerve; she -will never give birth to anything save an epigram.'</p> - -<p>When his words had been disproved, he had rendered her a -sullen honour. He would take no joy in the children as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -would have taken joy in Yseulte's; but they were there to bear -the name he thought so precious, and he was forced to confess -that no lovelier or stronger or healthier creatures than the -young Otho and his sister Xenia ever could have played beneath -the oak-boughs of Amyôt.</p> - -<p>But the old man was faithful to the one innocent affection -which had ever lived in his selfish breast; with an aching heart -he would often turn from watching these children tumble -amongst the daisies in the sunshine, and find his way to a -solitary tomb made in white marble in the mausoleum of -Amyôt, in memory of her whose slender crushed body lay -buried amongst the violets by the sea of the southern shore.</p> - -<p>'All that weight of marble!' he thought, 'and not one little -sigh of regret!'</p> - -<p>Not one; unless he gave it.</p> - -<p>'I hate this Russian woman, but I am bound to say that the -children are beautiful,' he said once to Melville. 'I am bound -to say, too, that she has made a change for the better in Otho. -Since he has discovered (doubtless) that every <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grande passion</i> has -its perihelion and its decline, he has become more like other -men. He has interested himself in the welfare of the House. -He has condescended to be conscious that Europe exists. He -has lived the natural life of the world, and has, I think, ceased -to wish himself a wandering Wilhelm Meister, a François Villon -without a rag to his back. My poor dead child only loved him, -and could do nothing to attach him to life or to detach him -from his fantastic preoccupations and morbid demands for the -impossible. This woman has made him so in love with the -actual, with the real, that he has ceased to dream of the ideal. -He has even grown aware that his own fate is an enviable one, -which for thirty years of his life he obstinately denied.'</p> - -<p>'It is a questionable benefit to make a man abandon the -ideal,' said Melville. 'I think, however, that Othmar's feeling -was always rather impatience of existing facts than thirst of any -impalpable perfection. You believe that a discontented man is -necessarily an imaginative man. It does not follow. Imagination -may perhaps create discontent; but then, on the other -hand, it may console it. If he had had imagination enough, he -would have found out a thousand idealised ways of using his -great wealth.'</p> - -<p>'Thank heaven, then, that he has so little,' said Friedrich -Othmar. 'Myself, I always considered that he had a great deal -too much. I do not underrate imagination in its proper place. -None of the great events of the world would have taken place -without it: every great revolutionist, every great conqueror, -every great statesman, even, must possess it; but it is a perilous -quality, singularly similar to nitro-glycerine; you can never be -certain of the hour and the sphere of its action; it may pierce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -a new road for humanity to use after it, or it may wreck nations -and send humanity backward by a thousand years.'</p> - -<p>'I should not mind going back a thousand years,' murmured -Melville. 'Basil was living, and Augustine.'</p> - -<p>Since the death of Yseulte these two men, so dissimilar, even -so inharmonious, had become in a manner friends. Their -mutual pain had drawn them together. The thought which -was the same in the minds of each, and which each understood -in the other without speech, made a link of union between -them. Both divined the secret of her death. Neither ever -spoke of it.</p> - -<p>'He is a priest, but he is a man,' said Friedrich Othmar of -Melville, who in turn said of him:</p> - -<p>'He is encrusted all over with gold, egotism, and disbelief; -but beneath that crust there is the heart of humanity.'</p> - -<p>And they shook hands across the profound gulf of sentiment -and opinion which divided them.</p> - -<p>'I think that, for once, the wise Baron is mistaken,' reflected -Melville, without saying his thoughts aloud. 'Othmar may -have grown less imaginative, because most men do as they grow -older, unless they be truly poets. But I do not think he is a -whit more contented. I believe, if he could see into his heart, -that he has found his apple of paradise not very much richer in -flavour than a common rennet!'</p> - -<p>But he forbore to say so. What business was it of his? -Only, being the profound student of the comedy and tragedy -of humanity that he was, he could not help feeling a keen -interest in watching the issues of this marriage of love.</p> - -<p>Melville, like all persons of fine penetration and quick sympathies, -was deeply interested in all characters which were out -of the common lines of human nature, and whenever his busy -years had any leisure he spent it where he could observe all -those who interested him most.</p> - -<p>Of all these the Lady of Amyôt had the most powerful -interest for him. But for his years and his priest's frock, it -might have been a more tender and profound sentiment still -with which she inspired him. For Melville, as for all men of -intellect, the very despondency she cast over them, the very -intricacy and unsatisfying changeability of her character, possessed -the most powerful charm. But whether these were -qualities which would make <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bon ménage</i> in the familiarity and -the triviality of daily life—of this he was not so sure.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>She, who had been so exacting as a friend, was not in any way -exacting as a wife. There were a generosity and a breadth of -thought in her, which made her accord freedom in proportion to -what lesser minds would have considered her right to deny it. -She held the whole ordinary mass of womanhood in too absolute -a disdain for her ever to stoop to the same ways and weaknesses -as theirs. She might have been the most despotic of mistresses: -she was the most lenient of wives. Tyranny, which would have -seemed, did still seem, to her natural and amusing when used -over lives which in no way belonged to her, would have -appeared to her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> and ridiculous exercised over her husband: -that sort of thing was only fit for two shopkeepers of -Belleville. She had too supreme a scorn for the Penelopes of -the world, whose jealousy was as impotent as their charms, not -to let the reins which she drew so tightly over others lie loose -and unfelt on the shoulders of Othmar.</p> - -<p>'Penelope thinks that no object in all created nature is more -lovely and important than her distaff; naturally Ulysses gets -sick of the sight of it,' she said once. 'Why are all women, in -love with their husbands, much more miserable than those who -detest them? Only because they insist upon giving so much of -themselves, that the men grow to view them with absolute -terror, as the Strasbourg goose views the balls of maize paste. -Love is an art, and ought to be dealt with artistically; in -marriage, it has to contend with such insuperable difficulties -that it needs to be most delicate, most sagacious, most forbearing, -most intelligent, to surmount them. Instead of which, -women, usually, who have any love for their husbands at all, -look on them as so much property inalienably assigned to them, -and treat them as Cosmo dei Medici treated Florence: "<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Mi piace -più distruggerla che perderla!</i>"'</p> - -<p>Othmar himself had changed little; men at his years do not -alter physically, though great changes, moral and mental, may -in brief time transform their feelings and their ambitions.</p> - -<p>Women looked at him inquisitively many a day, to try and -see whether that great wonder-flower of romantic passion, which -had astonished his world in a generation in which such passions -are rare, had brought forth contentment or disenchantment. -But they could not be sure. No one had ever succeeded in -making him unfaithful to this great love, which had been -merged in marriage, but no one had ever penetrated his confidence -sufficiently to satisfy themselves whether any disillusion -had followed on the fulfilment of those dreams and desires, to -which he had been willing to sacrifice his life, his honour, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -his soul. All that society in general, or his most familiar friends -could see, was the outward pageantry of a life in the great -world; that life which leaves so little space for thought, so little -time for regret, so little leisure for conscience to speak or -memory to waken. If he were not entirely content he allowed -no one to suspect so; and he did not even like to admit it to -his own reflections: yet there were times when life did not seem -to him much more complete than it had done before he had -attained the supreme desire of his heart; there were times when -the old vague indefinite dissatisfaction came back to him—the -sense of emptiness which moved the Cæsars of Rome with the -world at their feet.</p> - -<p>'I suppose it is inevitable,' he said to himself. 'I suppose -she is right; nothing on earth is content except a sucking child -and an oyster.'</p> - -<p>It irritated him that he should be pursued by this foolish -and shapeless sense of still missing something, still desiring -something, still seeking something unknown and unknowable; -but it was there at the bottom of most of his thoughts, at the -core of most of his feelings.</p> - -<p>'You have had a great misfortune all your life,' Friedrich -Othmar said once to him. 'You have always had all your -wishes granted you. When a child is indulged in that way he -kicks his nurse, when a man is indulged in that way he sulks at -destiny. It is human nature.'</p> - -<p>'Human nature,' said Othmar, 'according to you and Nadège, -is such a consummate fool that it is scarcely worth the bread it -eats, much less the elaborate analysis which philosophers have -expended on it from Solomon to Renan.'</p> - -<p>Friedrich Othmar shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>'It is not always a fool,' he made answer; 'but it is, I think, -always an ingrate.'</p> - -<p>Was he himself an ingrate? Or did he only suffer from that -inevitable law of recoil and rebound which governs human life; -that cessation of tension which makes a great passion, once -satisfied and become familiar, like a bow unstrung?</p> - -<p>There is always a pathetic reaction, a curious sense of loss -in the midst of possession, which follows on the attainment of -every great desire. If anyone had told him that he was not -perfectly happy, he would have indignantly denied the accuracy -of their assertion. Whenever any misgiving that he was not -so arose in his own mind, he repulsed it with contempt as the -mere ungrateful rebelliousness of human nature. Yet now and -then a vague sense that his life was not much more perfect than -it had been before the desires of his heart had been given to him, -occasionally came over him, though he always thrust it away.</p> - -<p>She herself felt sometimes an almost irresistible inclination -to say to him; 'And you, you who set your soul on marriage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -with me, have you found the lasting joys that you expected, or -have you learned that the fulfilment of a dream is never quite -the dream itself—has always some glory wanting?'</p> - -<p>But she refrained. Women are always so unwise when they -ask those questions, she reflected; so like children who pull up -the plants in their garden to see what growth or what roots they -have.</p> - -<p>'We are just like anybody else, after all!' she did say once, -with a mingling of despondency and of humour. 'I suppose -we cannot escape from the age we live in, which is neither -original nor imaginative, nor anything that I know of, except -feverish and unhappy. Mr. Lawrence Oliphant, certainly, is -gone to live in Syria, and we might do the same, but would it -be any better? Do you think life is any larger there? I should -be afraid there are only more mosquitoes.'</p> - -<p>'I imagine we should only find in Syria what we took there, -as Madame de Swetchine said of Rome,' replied Othmar, with -some discontent. 'Life is an incomplete thing; unsatisfactory -because its passions are finite, its years few, and its time of -slow development and of slow decline wholly disproportionate, -as you said just now, to its short moment of attainment and -maturity; and also because habit, routine, prejudice, human -stupidity, have all contrived to weight it with unnecessary -burdens, to bind it with needless and intolerable laws, to take -all the glow and spontaneity and rebound out of it. Conventionality -is its curse.'</p> - -<p>'And marriage!' said his wife. 'Oh, my dear, I do not -mean to be unpleasant, but you know it is indisputably true -that I should have been much fonder of you, and you of me, if -we had never married each other. There is something stifling in -marriage; it confounds love with property. I often wonder -how the human race ever contrived to make such a mistake -popular or universal.'</p> - -<p>'It is not I who say that,' said Othmar with a touch of -embarrassment.</p> - -<p>'Oh no; but you think it. Every man thinks it,' she replied -tranquilly. 'I often wonder,' she continued more dreamily, -'how it will be when you love some other woman. You will -some day—of course you will. I wonder what will happen——'</p> - -<p>'How can you do such injustice to me and to yourself? I -shall never care for any other living thing.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him through the shadow of her drooped lids.</p> - -<p>'Oh yes, you will,' she repeated. 'It is inevitable. The -only thing I am not sure about is how I shall take it. It will -all depend, I think, on whether you confide in me, or hide it -from me.'</p> - -<p>'It would be a strange thing to confide in you!'</p> - -<p>'Not at all. That is a conventional idea, and the idea of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -stupid man. You are not stupid. I should certainly be the -person most interested in knowing such a fact, and if you did -tell me frankly, I think—I think I should be unconventional -and clever enough not to quarrel with you. I think I should -understand. But if you hid it from me, then——'</p> - -<p>The look passed over her face which the dead Napraxine had -used to fear as a hound fears the whip, and which Othmar had -never seen.</p> - -<p>'Then, I give you leave to deal me any death you like with -your own hand,' he said with a laugh, which was a little forced -because a certain chill had passed over him.</p> - -<p>She laughed also.</p> - -<p>'Well, be wise,' she said as she rose; 'you are warned in -time. Oh, my dear Otho, you grant yourself that every passion -is finite. I think it is; but I think also that the wise people, -when it fades, make it leave friendship and sympathy behind it, -as the beautiful blowing yellow corn when it is cut leaves the -wheat. The foolish people let it leave all kinds of rancour, -envy, and uncharitableness, as the brambles and weeds when -they are burnt only leave behind them a foul smoke. But it is -so easy to be philosophic in theory!'</p> - -<p>'Your philosophy far exceeds mine,' said Othmar with a -little impatience. 'I have not yet reached the period at which -I can calmly contemplate my green April fields laid sear to give -corn to the millstones; they are all in flower with the poppy -and the campion.'</p> - -<p>'Very prettily said,' replied his wife. 'You really are a -poet at heart.'</p> - -<p>Othmar went out from her presence that day with a vague -sense of depression and of apprehension.</p> - -<p>He had never wavered in his great love for her; the great -passion with which she had inspired him still remained with -him ardent and profound in much; the charm she had for his -intelligence sustained the seduction for his senses; he loved her, -only her, as much and as exclusively as in the early days of his -acquaintance with her; she still remained the one woman upon -earth for him. He could not hear her calmly speak of any -future in which she would be less than then to him without a -sense of irritation and offence. It seemed to him that such -deliberate and unsparing analysis as hers could not exist side -by side with any very intense feeling. Certainly he was used -to it in her; he was accustomed to her delicate and critical -dissection of every human motive and impulse, his, her own, or -those of others; but it touched him now with a sense of pain, -as though the scalpel had penetrated to some open nerve. His -consciousness of his own devotion to her made him indignantly -repulse the suggestion that he could ever change; yet his own -knowledge of the nature of humanity and of the work of time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -told him that she had had truth on her side when she had said -that such a change might come, would come; and he thrust the -consciousness of that truth away as an insult and affront. Was -there nothing which would endure and resist the cruel slow -sapping of the waves of time? Was there no union, passion, -or fidelity, strong enough to stand the dull fallings of the years -like drops of grey rain which beat down the drooping rose and -change it from a flower of paradise to a poor, pale, scentless -wreck of itself?</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>On this the unwelcome anniversary of her birth, she was at St. -Pharamond, which had been connected with the grounds of La -Jacquemerille by the purchase, at great cost, of all the intervening -flower-fields and olive-woods. It had been her whim to -do so, and Othmar had not opposed it, though he would have -preferred never again to see those shores; but, although she -never spoke to him on that subject, she herself chose to go -there with most winters, for the very reason that the world would -sooner have expected her to shun the scenes of Yseulte's early -and tragic death. She invariably did whatever her society expected -her not to do, and the vague sense of self-blame with which her -conscience was moved, whenever she remembered the dead girl, -was sting enough to make her display an absolute oblivion and -indifference which, for once, she did not feel.</p> - -<p>She never remained long upon the Riviera; she seldom -stayed long anywhere, except it were at Amyôt; but she went -thither always when the violets were thick in the valleys, and -the yellow blossoms of the butterwort were flung like so many -golden guineas over the brown furrows of the fields. The -children spent the whole winter there. This day, when they -had wished her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonne fête</i>, and brought her their great baskets -of white lilac and gardenias, she was indulgent to them, and -took them with her in her carriage for a drive after her noonday -breakfast. She was not a woman to whom the babble and play -of children could ever be very long interesting; her mind was -too speculative, too highly cultured, too exacting to give much -response to the simplicity, the ignorance, and the imperfect -thoughts of childhood. But in her own way she loved them. -In her own way she took great care of their education, physical -and mental. She wished her son to become a man whom the -world would honour; and she wished her daughter to be wholly -unlike herself.</p> - -<p>As yet they were hardly more than babies; lovely, happy, -gay, and gentle. 'Let them be young as long as they can,' she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -said to those entrusted with their training. 'I was never young. -It is a great loss. One never wholly recovers it in any after -years.'</p> - -<p>It was a fine day, mild, sunny, with light winds shaking the -odour from the orange buds; such a day as that on which -Platon Napraxine had died. She did not think of him.</p> - -<p>Several years had gone away since then; the whole world -seemed changed; the dead past had buried its dead; there were -the two golden-haired laughing children in symbol and witness -of the present.</p> - -<p>'Decidedly, however philosophic we may be, we are all -governed at heart by sentiment,' she thought, as the carriage -rolled through the delicate green of the blossoming woods. -'And by beauty,' she added, as her eyes dwelt on the faces of -Otho and Xenia, who were the very flower and perfection of -childish loveliness; ideal children also, who were always happy, -always caressing, always devoted to each other, and whose little -lives were as pretty as those of two harebells in a sunny wood. -Why were they dear to her, and sweet and charming? Why had -the physical pain of their birth been forgotten in the mental joys -of their possession? Why did her eyes delight to follow their -movements, and her ear delight to listen to their laughter?</p> - -<p>The other children had been as much hers, and she had -always disliked them; she disliked them still, such time as she -went to their Russian home to receive their annual homage, and -that of all her dependents.</p> - -<p>Othmar was devoted to the interests of Napraxine's two little -sons; an uneasy consciousness, often recurrent to him, that he -had not merited the frank and steady friendship of the dead -man, perpetually impelled him to the greatest care of their -fortunes and education. They were kindly, stupid, vigorous -little lads, likely to grow into the image of their dead father; -but all that could be done for them in mind and body, for their -present and their future, he took heed should be done; and -placing them under wise and gentle teachers, endeavoured to -counteract the fatal instincts to vanity and overbearing self-esteem -which the adulation and submission they received everywhere -on their estates had implanted in them long before they -could spell. He never saw them come into his presence without -painful memories and involuntary repugnance; but he repressed -all signs of either, and the children, if they feared him, liked -him. Of their mother they saw but very little: a lovely delicate -vision, in an atmosphere scented like a tea rose, with a little -sound in her voice which made them feel they must tread softly -and speak low, looked at them with an expression which they -did not understand, and touched them with cool fragrant lips -lightly and distantly, and they knew she was their mother because -they had always heard so: but Othmar seemed nearer to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -them than she did, and when they wished for anything, it was -to him that they addressed their little rude scrawled notes. For -the rest, they were always in Russia: it was the only stipulation -with which their father had hampered their mother's guardianship -of them.</p> - -<p>'Let them be Russians always,' he had said in his last letter -to her. 'Let them love no soil but Russia. The curse of -Russians is the foreign life, the foreign tongue, the foreign -ways, which draw them away from their people, make their -lands unknown and indifferent to them, and lead them to -squander on foreign cities and on foreign wantons the roubles -wrung by their stewards in their absence from their dependents. -Paris is the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">succursale</i> of Petersburg, and it is also its hell. -When the Russian nobles shall live in their own homes, the -Nihilist will have little justification, and the Jew will be unable -to drain the peasantry as a cancer drains the blood. I preach -what I have not practised. But if I could live my life again, I -would spend my strength, and my gold, and my years amongst -my own people.'</p> - -<p>'Poor Platon!' she had thought, more than once remembering -those words. 'He thinks he would have done so, but he -would not. The first <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">drôlesse</i> who should have crossed the -frontier would have taken him back with her in triumph. It is -quite true what he says; an absent nobility leaves an open door -behind them, through which Sedition creeps in to jump upon -their vacant chairs. But so long as ever they have the power, -men will go where they are amused, and the Russian <i lang="ru" xml:lang="ru">tchin</i> will -not stay in the provinces, in the snow, with the wolves, and the -Jews, and the drunken villagers all around his house, when he -can live in the Avenue Joséphine, and never hear or see anything -but what pleases him. Absenteeism ruined Ireland, and -will ruin Russia; but, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tant que le monde est monde</i>, the man -who has only one little short life of his own will like to enjoy -it.'</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, she and Othmar both respected his wishes, -and his boys were brought up in the midst of the vast lands of -their heritage, with everything done that could be done by -tuition to amend their naturally slow intelligence and outweigh -the stubbornness and arrogance begotten by centuries of absolute -dominion in the race they sprang from. She herself only -saw them very rarely, when, in midsummer weather, the flowering -seas of grass and the scent of the violets in the larch woods -brought life and warmth even to North-eastern Russia. They -were unpleasant to her: always unpleasant. They were the -living and intrusive records of years she would willingly have -effaced. They were involuntary but irresistible reproaches -spoken, as it were, by lips long dumb in death.</p> - -<p>Living, their father had never had power to do otherwise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -than offend, irritate, and disgust her: the least active sentiment -against himself that he had ever roused in her had been a -contemptuous pity. But dead, there were moments when -Platon Napraxine acquired both dignity and strength in her -eyes: the silence of his death and its cause had commanded her -respect: he had been wearisome, stupid, absurd, troublesome, -in all his life; but in his death he had gained a certain grandeur, -as features quite coarse and commonplace will look solemn and -white on their bier.</p> - -<p>He had died to defend her name, and she could not remember -ever once having given him one kind word! There -had been a greatness in his loyalty and in his sacrifice to its -demands which outweighed the clumsiness of his passion and -the grotesqueness of his ignorance. 'If he were living again, I -should be as intolerant of him as I ever was,' she thought at -times; 'he would annoy me as much as ever, he would be as -ridiculous, he would be as odious; and yet I should like for -once to be able to say to him "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pauvre ours! vous êtes mal léché, -mais vous avez bon cœur!</i>"'</p> - -<p>It was a vague remorse, but a sincere one; yet in her nature -it irritated and did not alter her. It was an intrusive thought, -and unwelcome as had been his presence. She thrust it away -as she had used to bid her women lock the doors of her chamber; -and the poor ghost went away obediently, timid, wistful, -not daring to insist, as the living man had used to do from the -street door.</p> - -<p>Remorse is a vast persistent shadow in the poet's metrical -romance and the dramatist's tragic story; but in the great world, -in the pleasant world, in the world of movement, of distraction, -of society, it is but a very faint mist, which at very distant -intervals clouds some tiny space in a luminous sky, and hurries -away before a breath of fashion, a whisper of news, a puff of -novelty, as though conscious of its own incongruity and want of -tact.</p> - -<p>When their drive was over this day she dismissed the young -Otho and his sister to their nurses and teachers, and remained -on the sea-terrace of St. Pharamond with some friends about -her. It was the last day in February, a day of warm winds and -full sunshine and fragrant warmth. The air was penetrated -with the sweet breath of primroses and the scented narcissus -which were blossoming by millions under the woods of St. -Pharamond. The place had been beautiful before, and under -her directions had become as perfect a sea palace as the south -coast of Europe could show anywhere. She had had a terrace -made; a long line of rose-coloured marble overhanging the sea, -backed by palms and araucarias, with sheltered seats that no -angry breeze could find out, and wide staircases descending to -the smooth sands below. Here, lying on the cushions and white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -bearskins, and leaning one elbow on the balustrade, she could -watch all the width of the waters as they stretched eastward and -westward, and see the manœuvres in the cupraces of her friends' -vessels without moving from her own garden. To the sea-terrace, -when it was known that she would receive them, came, -on such sunny afternoons as this, all those whom she deigned -to encourage of the pleasure-seekers on the coast.</p> - -<p>To see the sun set from that rose-marble terrace, and to take -a Russian cigarette or a cup of caravan tea beneath those araucaria -branches, was the most coveted distinction and one of the -surest brevets of fashion in the world. She refused so many; -she received so few; she was so inexorable in her social laws; -mere rank alone had no weight with her; ambassadors could -pass people to courts, but not up those rose-coloured stairs; -princes and princesses, if they were dull, had no chance to be -made welcome; and, in fine, to become an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">habitué</i> there required -so many perfections that the majority of the great world never -passed the gates at all.</p> - -<p>'The first qualification for admittance is that they must find -something new to say every day,' she said to the Duc de Béthune, -who was in an informal way her first chamberlain. 'The second -is, that they must always amuse me.'</p> - -<p>'The first clause a few might perhaps fulfil; but who shall -attain to fulfilment of the second?'</p> - -<p>'That will remain to be seen,' she said with a little yawn, -while she reclined on the white furs and the Eastern tissues, her -feet on a silver globe of hot water and her hands clasped idly -on a tortoiseshell field-glass. It was five o'clock; the western -sky was a burning vault of rose and gold; the zenith had the -deep divine blue that is like nothing else in all creation; the -sea was radiant, purple here, azure there, opal elsewhere, as -the light fell on it; delicate winds blew across it violet-scented -from the land; the afternoon sun was warm, and as its light -deepened made the pale rose of the marbles glow like the flowers -of a pomegranate tree. She forgot her companions; she leaned -her head against her cushions and dreamily thought of many -things; of the day she had first come thither most of all. It -had been nine years before.</p> - -<p>Nine years!—what an eternity! She remembered the -bouquet which Othmar had given her on the head of the sea-stairs. -What a lover he had been!—a lover out of a romance—Lelio, -Ruy Blas, Romeo—anything you would. What a pity to -have married him! It had been commonplace, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">banal</i>, stupid—anybody -would have done it. There had been a complete absence -of originality in such a conclusion to their story.</p> - -<p>If Laura had married Petrarca, who would have cared for -the sonnets?</p> - -<p>She laughed a little as she thought so. Her companions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -hoped they had succeeded in amusing her. She had not heard -a word they were saying. She gazed dreamily at the sea through -her eyelids, which looked shut, and pursued her own reflections.</p> - -<p>Her companions of the moment were all men; the most -notable of them were Melville, the Duc de Béthune, and a -Russian, Loris Loswa.</p> - -<p>Melville, on the wing between Rome and Paris, loitered a -week or two in Nice, doing his best to shake alms for good -works out of the sinners there, and lifting up the silver clarion -of his voice against the curse of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tripot</i> with unsparing -denunciation.</p> - -<p>The Duc de Béthune was there because for twelve years of -his still young life he had been uneasy whenever many miles -were between him and the face of his lady, whom he adored -with the hopeless and chivalrous passion of which he had sustained -the defence at the Court of Love at Amyôt. He would -have carried her muff or her ribbon to the scaffold, like d'Aubiac -and Montmorin, whom he had cited there. He had been -almost the only one of her lovers whom she had deigned to take -the trouble to preserve as a friend. He had been inspired at -first sight with an intense passion for her, which had coloured -and embittered some of the best years of his life. On the death -of Napraxine he had been amongst the first to lay the offer of -his life at her feet. She had rejected him, but without her -customary mockery, even with a certain regret; and she had -employed all the infinite power of her charms and tact of her -intelligence to retain him as a companion whilst rejecting him -as a suitor. Such a position had seemed at first impossible to -him, and had been long painful; but at last he chose rather to -see her on those distant terms than never, and gradually, as time -passed on, he grew familiarised to the sight of her as the wife -of Othmar, and the love he bore to her softened into regard, -and lost its sting and its torment.</p> - -<p>In person he was handsome and distinguished-looking to a -great degree; he resembled the portrait of Henri Quatre, and bore -himself like the fine soldier he was; he had a grave temperament -and a romantic fancy; the cradle of his race was a vast -dark fortress overhanging the iron-bound rocks of Finisterre, -and his early manhood had been ushered in by the terrible -tragedies of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">année terrible</i>. As volunteer with the Army of -the North, Gui de Béthune had seen the darkest side of war and -life; he had been but a mere youth then, but the misfortunes -of his country had added to the natural seriousness of his -northern temper. The most elegant of gentlemen in the great -world of Paris, he yet had never abandoned himself as utterly -as most men of his age and rank to the empire of pleasure; -there was a certain reserve and dignity in him which became<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -the cast of his features and the gravity and sweetness of his -voice.</p> - -<p>But he never loved any other woman. And unconsciously -to herself she was so used to consider that implicit and exclusive -devotion to her as one of her rights, that she would have -been astonished, even perhaps annoyed, had she seen that he -took his worship elsewhere. Her remembrance had spoiled -twelve years of the promise of his manhood, but if anyone had -reproached her with that, she would have said sincerely enough, -'I cannot help his adoring me.' She would have even taken -credit to herself for the unusual kindliness with which she had -endeavoured to turn the sirocco of love into the mild and harmless -breeze of friendly sympathy.</p> - -<p>The Duc de Béthune was one of those conquests which -flattered even her sated and fastidious vanity; and she had been -touched to unwonted feeling by the delicate, chivalrous, and -lofty character of the loyalty he gave her so long.</p> - -<p>She jested at him often, but she respected him always; -occasionally she irritated Othmar by saying to him, half in joke -and half in earnest:</p> - -<p>'Sometimes I almost wish that I had married Béthune!'</p> - -<p>That he remained unmarried for her sake was always -agreeable to her.</p> - -<p>Loris Loswa was, on the contrary, one of the gayest of her -many servitors. By birth noble and poor, he had been early -compromised in a students' revolt at Kieff, and through family -influence had been allowed self-exile instead of deportation to -Tobolsk. He had turned his steps to Paris, and, possessing -great facility for art, had pursued the study seriously and so -successfully, that before he was thirty he had become one of the -most noted artists in France.</p> - -<p>He had a wonderful talent for the portraiture of women. -No one rendered with so much grace, so much charm, so much -delicate flattery, running deftly in the lines of truth, the peculiar -beauties of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaine</i>, in which, however much nude -nature may have done, art always does still more. All that -subtle, indescribable loveliness of the woman of society, which -is made up of so many details of tint and costume, and manner -and style, and a thousand other subtle indescribable things, -was caught and fixed by the brush or by the crayon of Loris -Loswa with a power all his own, and a fidelity which became -the most charming of compliments. Ruder artists, truer perhaps -to art than he, grumbled at his method and despised his -renown. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Faiseur de chiffons</i>' some students wrote once upon -his door; and there were many of his brethren who pretended -that his creations were nothing more than audacious, and unreally -brilliant, trickeries.</p> - -<p>But detraction did not lock the wheels of his triumphal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -chariot; it glided along with inconceivable rapidity through the -pleasant avenues of popular admiration. And his art pleased -too many connoisseurs of elegant taste and cultured sight not to -have in it some higher and finer qualities than his enemies -allowed to it. He had magical colouring, and as magical a -touch; a woman's portrait, under his treatment, became gorgeous -as a sunbird, delicate as an orchid, ethereal as a butterfly -floating down a sunbeam. Then he was at times arrogant in -his pretensions, fastidious in his selections of sitters; he was -given to call himself an amateur, which at once disarmed his -critics and increased his vogue; he was an aristocrat, and very -good-looking, which did not diminish his popularity with any -class of women; and what increased it still more was, that he -refused many more sitters than he accepted. Not to have been -painted in water colours, or drawn in pastel by Count Loris -Loswa, was to any <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">élégante</i> to be a step behindhand in fashion; -to have a pearl missing from her crown of distinction.</p> - -<p>'If anyone could paint dew on a cobweb it would be Loswa,' -a great critic had said one day. 'Have you never seen dew on -a cobweb? It is the most beautiful thing in the world, especially -when a sunbeam trembles through it.'</p> - -<p>His present hostess had a high opinion of his powers, -mingled with a certain depreciation of them. 'Perhaps it is -only a trick,' she admitted; 'but it is a divine trick—a trick of -Hermes.'</p> - -<p>He leaned now over the balustrade of the terrace of St. -Pharamond, the warmth of the western sun shining on his fair -curls and straight profile.</p> - -<p>'A coxcomb can never be a genius,' murmured the Duc de -Béthune, glancing towards him with sovereign contempt and -dislike.</p> - -<p>'You are always very <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">porté</i> against poor Loris,' returned his -hostess with a smile. 'Yes, he has genius in a way, the same -sort of genius that Watteau had, and Coustou and Boucher; he -should have been born under Louis Quinze; that is his only -mistake.'</p> - -<p>'He is a coxcomb,' repeated Béthune.</p> - -<p>'He seems so to you, because all your life has been filled -with grave thoughts and strong actions. All artists are apt to -seem mere triflers to all soldiers. Who is that girl he is looking -at?—what a handsome face!'</p> - -<p>She raised herself a little on her elbow, and looked down -over the balustrade; a small boat with a single red sail and two -women under it were passing under the terrace; one of them -was old, brown and ugly, the other was young, fair, and with -golden-brown hair curling under a red woollen fisher's cap. -The water was shallow under the marble walls of St. Pharamond; -the boat was drifting very slowly; there was a pile of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -oranges and lemons in it as its cargo; the elder woman, with -one oar in the water, was with her other hand counting copper -coins into a leathern bag in her lap; the younger, who steered -with a string tied to her foot, was managing the sail with a -practised skill which showed that all maritime exercises were -familiar to her. When she sat down again she looked up at -the terrace above her.</p> - -<p>She had a beautiful and uncommon countenance, full of -light; the light of youth, of health, of enjoyment; she wore a -gown of rough dark-blue sea-stuff much stained with salt water, -and the sleeves of it were rolled up high, showing the whole of -her bare and admirably moulded arms. The memories of -Melville and of his hostess both went back to the day when -they had seen another boat upon those waters with the happy -loveliness of youth within it.</p> - -<p>Loris Loswa, full of outspoken admiration, exhausted all his -epithets of praise as he watched the little vessel drift by them, -slowly, very slowly, for there was no wind to aid it, and the oar -was motionless in the water.</p> - -<p>'Stay, oh stay!' he cried to the boat, and began to murmur -the 'Enfant, si j'étais roi——'</p> - -<p>'If you were a king you could hardly do better than what, -I am quite sure, you will do as it is,' said Nadine. 'Find out -where she lives, and make her portrait for next year's Salon. -She is very handsome, and that old scarlet cap is charming. Let -us recompense her for passing, and astonish her.'</p> - -<p>As she spoke she drew a massive gold bracelet off her own -arm, and leaning farther down over the marble parapet, threw -it towards the girl. Her aim was good; the boat was almost -motionless, the bracelet was very weighty; it fell with admirable -precision where it was intended to fall—on the knees of -the girl as she sat in the prow behind the pile of golden fruit.</p> - -<p>'How astonished and pleased she will be!' said Loswa. 'It -is only you, Madame, who have such apropos inspirations.'</p> - -<p>Even as he spoke the maiden in the boat had taken up the -bracelet, looked at it a moment with a frown upon her face, then -without a second's pause had sprung to her feet to obtain a -better attitude for her effort, and with a magnificent sweep of -her bare arm upward and backward cast the thing back again -on high on to the balustrade, where it rolled to the feet of its -mistress.</p> - -<p>Without waiting an instant, she plucked the oars up, one -from the hand of the old woman the other from the bottom of -the boat, and with vigorous strokes drove her sluggish old -vessel past the terrace wall, never once looking up, and not -heeding the cries of her companion. In a few moments, under -her fierce swift movements, the boat was several yards away, -leaving the shallow water for the deeper, and hidden altogether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -from the gaze of her admirers by the red sail flaked with amber -and bistre stains, where wind, and sun, and storm had marked -it for their own.</p> - -<p>'What has happened?' said Melville, who had not understood -the episode of the bracelet, rising and coming towards -them.</p> - -<p>'We are in Arcadia, Monsignor!' cried Nadine. 'A peasant -girl rejects a jewel!'</p> - -<p>'Is she a peasant? I should doubt it,' said Béthune.</p> - -<p>Melville looked through one of the spy-glasses.</p> - -<p>'No, no! It is Damaris Bérarde,' he said as he laid it aside. -'She is by no means a peasant. She is a great heiress in her -own little way, and as proud as if she were dauphine of -France.'</p> - -<p>'Damaris! What a pretty name!' said Loswa. 'It makes -one think of damask roses, and she is rather like one. Where -does she live, Monsignor?'</p> - -<p>'She lives with her grandfather on a little island which -belongs to him. He is a very well-to-do man, but a great brute -in many ways; he is not cruel to the girl, but were she to cross -his will I imagine he would be. Krapotkine is his hero and -Karl Marx his prophet; he is the most ferocious anarchist. -You know the sort of man. It is a sort very common in France, -and especially so in the South. Did you give her a jewel, -Madame Nadège? Ah, that was a very great offence! She -must have been mortally offended. When that child is en fête -she has a row of pearls as big as any in your jewel-cases.'</p> - -<p>'She looked a poor girl, and I thought I should please her,' -said Nadine, with impatience. 'Who was to tell that the -owner of pearls as big as sparrows' eggs was rowing in a fruit-boat, -bare-armed and bare-headed?'</p> - -<p>'Where did you say that she lived?' asked Loswa, curious -and interested.</p> - -<p>'Oh, on an island a long way off from here,' said Melville, -regretting that he had spoken of this source of dissension.</p> - -<p>'Take me to that island, Monsignor,' murmured Loris -Loswa in his ear.</p> - -<p>'Oh, indeed no,' said the priest hastily. 'You are a -"cursed aristocrat;" the old man would receive you with a -thrust of a pike.'</p> - -<p>'I would take my chance of the pike,' said Loswa, 'and I -would assure him that the future lies with the Anarchists, for I -believe it, and I would not add that I also think that their millennium -will be most highly uncomfortable.'</p> - -<p>'Will you take <em>me</em> to that island, Monsignor?' said Nadine. -'It will not be favourable to fashionable impressionists like -Loris.'</p> - -<p>Loswa coloured a little with irritation; he had not thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -she would overhear his request. He was, besides, despite his -vanity, always vaguely sensible that her admiration of his -powers was tinged with contempt.</p> - -<p>'You, Madame!' cried Melville, cordially wishing that the -island of Damaris Bérarde was far away in the Pacific in lieu of -a score of leagues off the shores of Savoy. 'Would I take the -world incarnate, the most seductive and irresistible of all its -votaries, into a convent of Oblates to torture all the good -Sisters condemned to eternal seclusion? That poor little girl is -a little recluse, a little barbarian, but she is happy in her solitude, -in her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sauvagerie</i>. Were she once to see the Countess -Othmar she would know peace no more.'</p> - -<p>'She must see many very like me if she live a mile or so off -these shores,' said Nadine, dismissing the subject with indifference. -'I am sure it is she who is to be envied if she can find -any entertainment in rowing about in a boat full of oranges. -I would do it this moment if it would amuse me, but it would -not. That is the penalty of having sophisticated and corrupted -tastes. How old is your paragon?'</p> - -<p>'Did I say she was a paragon? She is a good little girl. -Her age? I should think fifteen, sixteen; certainly not more. -Her birth is rather curious. Her mother was an actress, and -her father the master of a fruit-carrying brig; dissimilar enough -progenitors. Her father was drowned, and her mother died of -nostalgia for the stage; and Damaris was left to the care of -her grandfather, the fierce old Communist I have described to -you. However, he is not so terrible a bigot after all, for he -allowed her to be taught by the Sisters at the Villefranche -Convent, as a concession to me when I knew him first, in return -for a little service I had done him. He thinks it does not much -matter what women do; to him they are only beasts of burden; -he likes to see his hung with pearls only as he puts tassels and -ribbons on his cows when they are taken to market.'</p> - -<p>'And what service did you render him?'</p> - -<p>'Oh, nothing worth mentioning; a trifle,' said Melville, -who never spoke of his own deeds of heroism, which were -many. The old man's younger and only remaining son had -lain dying of Asiatic cholera, brought to the coast in some infected -load of Eastern rags, with which they had manured the -olives one hot August day. Not a soul had dared to approach -the plague-stricken bed, except the courtly churchman whose -smile was so sought by great ladies and whose wit was so prized -at dinner-parties. He had not abandoned it until all was over, -and with his own hands had aided Jean Bérarde to lay the body -of his boy in mother-earth. When the grave was filled up, the -old socialist, to whom priests had been as loathliest vermin, -gave his knotted work-worn hand to the slender white hand of -Melville:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> - -<p>'The only one that had the courage!' he muttered. 'Do -not try to do anything with me, it would be no use; but do -what you like about the child. I will say nothing. You alone -stayed by me to see her uncle die.'</p> - -<p>So the girl Damaris had been allowed to go in her boat to -learn of the Sisters on the mainland, and had been allowed to -go also to Mass on high days and holy days. But Melville saw -no necessity to say all this to his worldly friends upon the sea-terrace -of St. Pharamond. Nay, he even reproached himself -that, in a momentary unconsidered impulse, he had given the -name of the girl to Loswa. Loswa was not perhaps a man to -go in cold blood on a seducer's errand, but he was conceited, -sensual, egotistic, and accustomed to take his own way without -much consideration for its consequences, whether to himself or -to others. And the worldly wisdom of Melville told him he -had committed an imprudence.</p> - -<p>'Jean Bérarde,' he continued, 'of course, abhors priests, -and would have a general massacre of the Church. But I -chanced to do him a service, as I said, some time ago, and so he -allows me now and then to go and sit under his big olives and -talk to the child, and even, grudgingly, lets her go to Mass now -and then. His past is written clearly enough in the history of -Savoy, but he either does not know or does not care anything -about his descent. All he does care about are his profits from -olives and oranges, and also, I suspect, from smuggling. What -is infinitely droll is, that the principles which slew his forefathers -and destroyed the cradle of his race have become his -own. Perhaps the fury of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ça ira</i> got into him, being begotten, -as he was, in that time of blood and flame through -which his progenitors passed. Anyhow he is the fiercest of -socialists now.</p> - -<p>'The Counts de la Bérarde were very mighty people; almost -as great as their suzerains and neighbours, the Counts of Dauphiné. -The cradle of their race, of which you may see one -tower standing now, was set amongst the glaciers and gorges of -the Val St. Christophe; it stood above the Romanche on a -great slope of gneiss, with the snow mountains at its back. Up -to the time of Richelieu the Bérardes were omnipotent, and they -had sway as far down as the sea coast, and it is said that sea -piracy, as well as stoppage of land travellers going on their -horses and sumpter mules through the passes, swelled their -wealth and their power not a little. All these mountain lords -were robbers in those days. If you have never been up as far -as the St. Christophe valley, you should go as soon as the -weather opens and the roads are passable; all the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cols</i> and the -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">combes</i> are fine, well worth a little Alpine climbing; and the -Pointe des Écrins may hold its own with the peaks of the -Engadine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Well, to revert to the Counts de Bérarde: Richelieu broke -the back of their power—it is odd that a Churchman, doing all -he could to strengthen the hands of a king, did in truth lay the -first stone of what became centuries after the Revolution!—their -chiefs were beheaded on the ramparts of Briançon, their -castle in the Alps was razed, and only two or three of their -younger scions survived the general destruction of the race. -From one of these distant branches, Jean de la Bérarde, who -had a small stronghold on the sea, and who became, by all these -executions, the head of the family, this old man who owns -Bonaventure, and is the rudest and roughest of cruisers and -farmers, is lineally descended. I have been at pains to make -out his genealogy. These matters always have interest for me, -and it is curious to trace how the old patrician strain comes out -in the girl, his grand-daughter, though he himself is nothing -more than a boor. The Bérardes never recovered the massacres -and confiscations of the reign of Louis XIII., though they -were small suzerains on the sea-coast up to the days of Louis XV. -They then fell into poverty, and lost their hold over their -neighbours; the Terror extinguished them entirely; they were -swallowed up in the night of anarchy. But Jean Bérarde of -Bonaventure is legally heir of the Count Alain de la Bérarde, -who was taken to Toulon, and shot there by the Maratists of -Freron and Barras. His only son, being a lad at the time, was -saved by disguising himself as a fisherman, and, being utterly -beggared by the Jacobins, took to the coasting trade, and in -time saved money, married a peasant, and bought the island: -my socialist friend was <em>his</em> son.</p> - -<p>'That is the story of these people, who in two generations -have dropped the very memory of the fierce nobles they sprang -from so entirely that the old man on Bonaventure is as rabid a -Communist as any man can be who has property and clings to -it. There—I have been terribly prosy, and Madame will say -that all this genealogy is of no earthly interest to her; and, -indeed, it cannot be to any of you, only that to a student of -human nature it is always, in a measure, interesting to see how -old races look under new hoods.'</p> - -<p>'In this instance,' said Nadine smiling, 'the old race looks -very pretty under the Phrygian cap. The girl is unusually -handsome. You would be wild to paint her, Loswa, if only she -were a duchess!'</p> - -<p>'I would ask no better fate as it is,' he replied. 'But perhaps -it might not be so easy. The grandfather Bérarde is sure -to be a Cerberus.'</p> - -<p>'You must air your destructive doctrines before him; he -will be fascinated; he will not know that you live with the -duchesses, and would not trouble yourself actually to walk the -length of a boulevard to save All The Russias.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I am not a political hypocrite, Madame, though you are -pleased to ridicule me as an artistic impostor,' said Loswa, with -an angry flush on his face.</p> - -<p>She cast the end of her cigarette into the sea.</p> - -<p>'Oh no; you are not a hypocrite; you would very much -like to see the destruction of the whole world, provided only -that your own armchair should withstand the shock. There -are so many anarchists of that type; and, indeed, why should -you die for politics or creed when you can live and paint such -charming pictures? For your pictures are very charming, -though they are all pearl-powder and point-lace, all satins and -brocades, and we are all going to Court in every one of them.'</p> - -<p>'Vandyke did not paint beggars,' said Loswa, who would -have lost his temper had he dared.</p> - -<p>She looked at him with amusement.</p> - -<p>'But you are not Vandyke, my dear Loris; you are, at -most, Lely or Boucher, and the pearl-powder has got into your -brushes a little more than it should have done. You have only -one defect as an artist, but it is a capital offence, and you will -not outgrow it—you are <em>never natural</em>!'</p> - -<p>He was silent from vexation.</p> - -<p>He had an exaggerated opinion of his own genius, and saw -in himself a mingling of Clouet and Boucher, Leonardo and -Largillière, and was often restless and nervous under his sense -of her depreciative criticism; but he was very proud of the -intimacy he was allowed to enjoy with her, and usually bore -her chastisement with a spaniel's humility; a quality rare in -him, spoilt and courted darling of high dames as he was.</p> - -<p>'If you do take a portrait of that child,' she pursued, pointing -to the distant boat, 'you will be utterly unable to portray -her as she is; you will never give the sea-stains on her gown, -the sea-tan on her face, the rough dull red of that old worn -sea-cap. You will idealise her, which with you means that you -will make her utterly artificial. She will become a goddess of -liberty, and she will look like a maid of honour frisking under -a republican disguise to amuse a frisky Court. The simple -sea-born creature yonder, rowing through blue water, and -thinking of the sale of her oranges or the capture of her fish, -will be altogether and forever beyond you. It is always beyond -the Lelys and the Bouchers, though it would not have been -beyond Vandyke. Do you think you could paint a forest-tree -or a field-flower? Not you; your daisy would become a gardenia, -and your larch would be a lime on the boulevards.'</p> - -<p>'Am I to understand, Madame, that you have suddenly -become a patroness of nature? Then surely even I, poor -creature of the boulevards though I be, need not despair of -becoming <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">natürlich</i>?'</p> - -<p>'You mistake,' said Nadine with a little sadness. 'I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -lived in a hothouse, but I have always envied those who lived -in the open air. Besides, I am not an artist; I am a mere -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaine</i>. I was born in the world as an oyster is in its shallows. -But an artist, if he be worthy the name, should abhor -the world. He should live and work and think and dream in -the open air, and in full contact with nature. Do you suppose -Millet could have breathed an hour in your studio with its -velvets and tapestries and lacquer work, with its draperies and -screens and rugs, and carefully shaded windows? He would -have been stifled. Why is nearly all modern work so valueless? -Because it is nearly all of it studio-work; work done at high -pressure and in an artificial light. Do you think that Michel -Angelo could have endured to dwell in Cromwell Road? Or do -you think that Murillo or Domenichino would have built themselves -an hotel in the Avenue Villiers? Why is Basil Vereschaguin, -with all his faults and deformities, original and in a way -sublime? Because he works in the open air; in no light tempered -otherwise than by the clouds as they pass, or by the -leaves as they move.'</p> - -<p>'For heaven's sake!' cried Loswa with a gesture of appeal.</p> - -<p>She laughed a little.</p> - -<p>'Ah, my poor Court poodle, with your pretty tricks and -graces!—of course, the very name of our wolf of the forests is -terrible to you. But I suppose the Court has made the poodle what -he is; I suppose it is as much your duchesses' fault as your own.'</p> - -<p>Then she turned away and left this favourite of fortune and -great ladies to his own reflections. They were irritated and -mortified; bitter with that bitterest of all earthly things, -wounded vanity.</p> - -<p>Good heavens! he thought, with a sharp stinging sense of a -woman's base ingratitude, was it for this that he had painted -her portrait in such wise that season after season each succeeding -one had been the centre of all eyes in the Paris Salon? -Was it for this that he had immortalised her face looking out -from a cloud of shadow like a narcissus in the mists of March?—that -he had drawn her in every attitude and every costume, -from the loose white draperies of her hours of langour to the -golden tissues and crowding jewels of her court-dress at imperial -palaces? Was it for this that he had composed that divinest -portrait of them all, in which, with a knot of stephanotis at her -breast and a collar of pearls at her throat, she seemed to smile -at all who looked on her that slight, amused, disdainful smile -which had killed men as surely as any silver-hilted dagger lying -in an ivory case, which once was steeped in <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">aqua Tofana</i> for -Lucrezia or Bianca? Was it for this!—to be called opprobrious, -derisive names, and have Basil Vereschaguin, the -painter of death, of carnage, of horror, of brown Hindoos and -hideous Tartars, vaunted before him as his master!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<p>He hated Vereschaguin as a Sèvres vase, had it a mind and -soul to hate, might hate the bronze statue of a gladiator; and -his tormentor, in a moment of mercilessness and candour, had -wounded him with a weapon whose use he never forgave.</p> - -<p>'He is a coxcomb! Béthune is quite right,' she said of him -when Melville hinted that she had been too cruel. 'He has -marvellous talent and <em>technique</em>, but he dares to think that these -two are genius. If he had not likened himself to Vandyke I -might perhaps never have told him what I think of his place -in art. He is a pretty painter, a very pretty painter, and his -portraits of me are charming; but if they be looked at at all in -the twentieth century they will hardly rank higher than we -rank now the pastels of Rosalba; certainly not higher than we -rank the portraits of Greuze.'</p> - -<p>'If I were a painter I would be content to be Greuze,' said -Melville with a smile.</p> - -<p>'No you would not,' said Nadine; 'you would not be content -to be a d'Estrées in your own profession, nor any other -mere Court cardinal.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The following morning Loris Loswa rose much earlier than his -wont, and went out of the gilded gate of the pretty little villa -which he had taken for the season at St. Raphael; a coquettish -place with large gardens and trellised paths overhung with -creepers; and down below, a small cutter ready for use in a -nook of the bay where the aloes and the mimosa grew thickest. -It all belonged to a friend of his, who was away in distant lands -to escape his creditors, and by whose misfortunes Loswa had -profited with that easy egotism which had been so advantageous -to him throughout his life, and which looked so good-natured -that no one resented it. He descended this morning to the -shore by the winding cactus-lined path which led down to it, -and asked the sailors if they knew of an island called Bonaventure. -They knew nothing about it; they, however, consulted -the admiralty maps and found it: a tiny dot some leagues -to the south-westward.</p> - -<p>A fisherman who was on the beach at the time told him -more. He knew the island, everybody knew it; but nobody -ever was allowed to land there; its owner was an odd man, -morose and suspicious; the demoiselle was good and kind; the -islet belonged to Jean Bérarde, who owned every inch of it. He -would leave it to the girl of course. It was small, but of very -considerable profit. Loswa listened with impatience, and told -his skipper to make for the isle as fast as he could. He himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -knew nothing of the sea, and hated it; but he was <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">piqué au jeu</i>. -Melville had almost forbidden him to go thither, and the great -lady who had ridiculed him had doubted his power to paint the -picture of a peasant-girl. The irritation of antagonism had -aroused all the obstinacy and all the capricious self-will of an -undisciplined and vain nature.</p> - -<p>'To Bonaventure!' he said with triumph, as in the glad and -cloudless morning air his little vessel danced over the waves, -the great seagulls wheeling and screaming in her wake. There -were a buoyant sea and a favouring breeze.</p> - -<p>Loswa detested both sea and country, and was never at heart -content off the asphalte of the boulevards. But since it would -have looked very vulgar to spend his whole winter in Paris, he -selected the south coast usually for the colder months, because -the world went with him there, because he saw so many faces -that were familiar, and because on this shore so thickly set with -châlets and villas, so artificially adorned, so trimmed, and -trained, and levelled, and planted by architect and landscape -gardener, it was possible for him to forget that he was not in -Paris; the very sea itself, so blue, so tranquil, so idly basking -in broad light and luminous horizons, seemed like the painted -sea of an operetta by Lecocq.</p> - -<p>Besides, though he had no pleasure in rural or maritime -things, found no joy in solitude and no consolation in nature -for the loss of the movement of the world, he could not have -been the fine colourist he was without possessing a fine sense of -colour, and the power to appreciate beautiful lines, and all the -changeful effects of light and shade. He did not see Nature as -Millet or Corot saw it, but as Lancret or Coypel saw it. It was -only a background for a nymph or a goddess to him as to them; -but he was not insensible to the forms which made up that -background: the sunlit vapour, the blue mountain, the golden -woodland, or the shadowy lake.</p> - -<p>The sea was full of life: market-boats, fishing-boats, skiffs of -all kinds, with striped curved lateen sails, were crossing each -other on it. There were a few yachts, French, English, American, -at anchor in the bays, in waiting for the cup-races; there were -some merchant ships afar off, brown-canvased brigs bearing in -from Genoa or Ajaccio, and the ugly black smoke of a big -steamer here and there defaced the marvellous blue and rose of -the air at the birth of day. The sea was buoyant but not rough, -his light cutter few airily as a curlew over the azure plain. -There were mists to the southward, lovely white mists, airy and -suggestive as the veil of a bride, but they floated away before -the sun, so rapidly as the day grew on, that the bold indented -lines of Corsica became visible, bathed in a rosy and golden -warmth. He had enough soul in him to feel the beauty of the -morning though he had been playing baccarat at the club till an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -hour or two previously; to be conscious of the charm of this -full clear sunrise which bathed the world of waters in its radiance, -of the silver-shining wings of the white gulls dipping in -the hollow of the wave, of the grandeur of the land as he looked -back at it with its semicircles of snow-capped hills towering to -the skies. But he would not have cared for them had there -been no human interest beside them.</p> - -<p>After sailing steadily some two hours or so they sighted, and -in another two hours neared, a little island which was certainly -the one marked on the French chart as Bonaventure, lying all -alone far out to the south-west. Loswa did not need the -positive assertion of his crew to tell him that he had arrived at -his desired goal. It was small, conical-shaped, high, and steep, -with a broad reef of sand to the northward. It rose aloft in -the air, grey with olives, green with orange-trees. No habitation -was visible upon it; but on the sand there was drawn up -high and dry an old boat with a sail of Venetian red stained -brown by wear and tear.</p> - -<p>The island had evidently been made fruitful at the cost of -many centuries of labour; the natural rock of it was terraced -with many ridges rising one above another, each planted with -productive trees; the soil had no doubt been carried up load by -load with infinite trouble; but the effect of the whole was -luxuriant and picturesque, as the conelike mass of verdure, -here silver-grey and there emerald green, towered upward in -the thin sun-pierced vapours of the early day.</p> - -<p>The soundings showed deep water almost up to the rock -itself.</p> - -<p>'I am going to sketch,' said Loswa to his skipper as he -pointed to the level strip of sand. 'Let me land there.'</p> - -<p>Their assertions that no one ever did land there he disregarded. -A small boat was rowed up to the strip of beach, and -he got out, bidding his sailors wait round the edge of a jutting -rock, which would give them shade as the day should advance.</p> - -<p>He glanced at the old red coble drawn up on the shore. It -was the same he had seen three days before; he felt sure of it -by its colour and its build.</p> - -<p>He looked about him and around him for a means of ascent, -and saw a zigzag path that wound up through the hanging -orchards of olive, of lemon, and of orange, and higher still the -rope-ladder called <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passerelle</i>, so often used in the Riviera to -climb steep rocks. The air was full of the intense perfume of -the trees, which were starred all over with their white blossoms. -He thought of Sicily, where you have to shut your door against -the fragrance of the fields in spring, lest you should faint and -sleep for ever from their fragrance.</p> - -<p>The path and the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passerelle</i> would certainly, he reasoned, lead -up to any house there might be at the summit. He slung his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -sketching things over his shoulder and began to mount the -crooked rocky road of moss-grown stone with cyclamen growing -in its crevices, and the rose-hued flowers of the leafless cereus -springing up here and there.</p> - -<p>But he was not allowed to ascend unchallenged; high above -him there was a rustling sound, then a deep angry growl, and -in a moment or two a great white Pyrenean dog showed himself, -stared down at him with frank hostility, and bounded headlong -from ridge to ridge underneath the boughs, with full intent to -reach him and devour him. But a voice called aloud: 'Tò, tò, -Clovis!' and Loswa smiled. He knew he had succeeded.</p> - -<p>Through the labyrinth of branches, springing after the dog, -came the girl who had thrown back the gold bracelet to the lady -of St. Pharamond.</p> - -<p>'The dog will not hurt you whilst I am here,' she called out -to him. 'But he might kill you if I were not. Do you want -my grandfather? Why have you landed here? It is private -ground. He has gone to Grasse for two days to see an oil merchant.'</p> - -<p>Loswa felt that he could not have timed his visit more -felicitously.</p> - -<p>'Good heavens! what a handsome child,' he thought, as he -bowed to her with his easy grace and that eloquent glance -which had power to stir the most languid pulses of his patrician -sitters.</p> - -<p>'I landed in hopes that I might be allowed to paint the -view from this exquisite little spot,' he said with well-acted -hesitation in his manner. 'A friend of mine, who is, I think, -a friend of yours too, a priest of the name of Melville, has -spoken to me so often of the beauty of your island.'</p> - -<p>Standing above him, holding the big dog by the collar, she -smiled at the name of Melville, and came a few steps nearer -with more confidence. She never for a moment doubted the -entire truth of what he said.</p> - -<p>Her blue-and-brown-striped linen gown was but a wisp; it -had been drenched through in its time with sea-water, and had -the stains of grasses, and dews, and sands, and fruits upon it; -it was bound round her waist by a leathern belt, and its short -sleeves were pulled up to the shoulder, as they had been the day -before. But no artist would have wished for a better dress, and -even a sculptor would not have desired to remove it from the -limbs that it clung to so closely that it hid nothing of their -perfect shape and the curves of the throat and breast that had -the indecision and softness of childhood with the fulness of -feminine growth. Her hair was tucked away under a red fisher -cap, a veritable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonnet rouge</i>; and her large brilliant eyes, of an -indescribable colour, were shining, as if the sun was imprisoned -in them, under level, dark delicate eyebrows. Her skin was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -fair, her hair auburn. He thought he had seen nothing so -perfectly lovely in all his life: it was a living Titian, a virgin -Giorgione.</p> - -<p>'Anyone who knows Monsignor Melville is welcome to -Bonaventure,' she said frankly. 'It is a pity my grandfather is -away. He does not like strangers, but a friend of Monsignor's -would not seem so to him. No one has ever been here to -paint anything before. What is it you want to paint—the -house?'</p> - -<p>Loswa knew that he had done a dishonourable thing, and a -mean one, in using Melville's name as a passport to a place -where Melville would never have allowed him to go had he -known it; but, like everyone else, having begun on a wrong -course he went on in it. He had succeeded so well at the commencement -that he would not listen to that delicacy of good -breeding which represented conscience to him.</p> - -<p>'Do not be afraid of Clovis. He will not hurt you now he -sees that I speak to you; he is so sensible. Will you come now -or another day?' she asked him with the frankness of a boy.</p> - -<p>'We have a Latin poet who tells us that to-day alone is our -own,' said Loswa with a smile. 'I will come now at once, and -most gladly. Clovis is a grand dog and a good guard for his -young mistress,' he added; thinking to himself, 'how lovely she -is, and she knows it no more than if she were a sea anemone on -the shore; and she looks at me and speaks to me with no more -embarrassment than if I were but the wooden figure of a -ship!'</p> - -<p>'I will come up most gladly,' he said again, with more -ardour than he showed in a duchess's drawing-rooms. 'It is so -very kind of you. I am sure the view from the summit must -be magnificent. I fear though,' he added, with hypocritical -modesty, 'that it will be beyond my powers.'</p> - -<p>'I hope not. I shall like to see anyone paint,' she said with -cordiality; and added, a little ashamed, 'I have never seen -anyone paint; I have heard of such a thing of course, and there -are the pictures in the churches and chapels which one knows -were painted by men; but I have no idea of how it is done.'</p> - -<p>'You should have been shown by Raphael himself,' said -Loswa.</p> - -<p>'Raphael?' she echoed. 'Oh no, he is our fruit-packer; -he would not know how to do it any better than I do,' she said -as she turned and began to ascend to show him the way.</p> - -<p>'Can you climb?' she added, looking at him doubtfully. 'I -mean climb where it is like a stone wall?'</p> - -<p>She had taken him under her protection and into her favour, -but he felt that he would have preferred to this frank innocent -friendliness a certain hesitation and embarrassment such as -would have indicated a different kind of sentiment as possible.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -She was as kind to him, as simple and frank and candid with -him, as if he were any old fisherman that she had known from -her birth. It was not what he desired, yet it had a certain -charm; it was so childlike, so honest, so free from all affectation -or self-consciousness, or lurking suspicion or intention of -any sort.</p> - -<p>'Clovis is so good,' she pursued, all unconscious of his reflections. -'His wife (she is called Brunehildt) had four puppies -yesterday. Two were drowned; it was such a pity! I am -going to give one of the two left to Monsignor; he is always -fond of dogs. Take care how you come up, it is very steep; -for me I am used to it. I run up and down a dozen times a -day; but a person not used to it may slip.'</p> - -<p>It was, indeed, steep, and often there were ledges of rock -in the way which had to be jumped over or scrambled over in -any handiest fashion, whilst on others the perpendicular face of -the cliff could only be ascended by the rope-ladder so often in -use in the Riviera; but Loswa, in an indolent way, was athletic; -he had in his youth been skilled in gymnastic exercises, and -though now enervated by his life in cities, he kept apace with -her, and soon had gained the level summit of the island, a broad -green tableland planted with olives and oranges, with here and -there a great stone pine, relic of the wild pine woods which, -before the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petite culture</i> had stepped thither with axe and spade, -had clothed doubtless the whole of Bonaventure down to the -water's edge.</p> - -<p>There was some ground planted with cabbages and artichokes, -some place where maize would be planted later in the -season, but the chief of the land was orchard; and in the midst -of it stood a long, low whitewashed house, with pink shutters -and a tiled roof.</p> - -<p>'Now look!' she said, with a little pride in her voice as she -stretched her hand out to the northward view.</p> - -<p>Everywhere far below them, stretching out to infinite indefinite -horizons, was the blue sea studded with various sails; -and the beautiful coast stretched likewise away into endless -realms of sparkling light; the range of the mountains rose blue -and snow-crowned behind that fairy shore; and this enchanted -paradise was always there to call men's thoughts to nature, and -they in it only thought of the hell of the punters, the caress of -the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cocotte</i>, the shining gold rolling in under the croupier's rake!</p> - -<p>Familiar as he was with this sea and land, he could not restrain -an exclamation of wondering admiration.</p> - -<p>'No wonder you have become the beautiful thing you are, -looking on all that beauty from your birth!' he said in an impulse -of frank admiration, mingled with his habitual language -of flattery.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> - -<p>The girl laughed.</p> - -<p>'Do you think I am beautiful? Everybody always says -that. But grandfather grumbles; he says it is the devil's gift. -Myself, I do not know; the flowers are beautiful, but I do not -think that human beings are so.'</p> - -<p>'And you have grown up like a flower——'</p> - -<p>'How did you know about me?' she interrupted him. 'Did -Monsignor Melville speak so much of me? He was with my -uncle in his last illness, you know, and whenever he is on this -coast he comes to us. You like the view?' she continued with -satisfaction and a sense of possession of it. 'Yes; it is good -to see, is it not? But I am happier when I am down on the -shore.'</p> - -<p>'Indeed! Why?'</p> - -<p>'Because there one only wants to swim, and here one wants -to fly. Now, one does swim; one cannot fly.'</p> - -<p>'To covet the impossible is the only divine thing in man,' -said he with a smile. 'It is just because we have that longing -to fly that we may hope we are made to do something more than -walk.'</p> - -<p>'Do you mean that discontent is good?' she said with -surprise.</p> - -<p>'In a certain measure, perhaps.'</p> - -<p>'Content is better,' she said sturdily.</p> - -<p>'I hope you will always be blessed with it. It is like a -swallow, it brings peace where it rests,' said her guest with a -little sigh; and he thought: 'My lady yonder is never content; -it is the penalty of culture. Will this child be so always in her -ignorance? Will she marry the skipper of a merchant-ship or -the owner of an olive-yard, and live happily ever afterwards, -with a tribe of little brown-eyed children that will run out into -the road with flowers for the carriages? I suppose so; why -not? Melville said in her little way she was an heiress. Of -course, all the louts that own a fishing-coble or an acre of -orange-trees will be eager to annex her and her island.'</p> - -<p>She was walking by his side under the gnarled olives which -had been stripped a month before of their black berries. She -was looking at him frankly, curiously, with doubtful glances.</p> - -<p>'I am afraid you are of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">noblesse</i>,' she said, abruptly -stopping short within a yard of the house.</p> - -<p>'What makes you think that?' he said, aware that he received -the prettiest of indirect compliments which a much -flattered life had ever given him.</p> - -<p>'You look like it,' she answered. 'You have an air about -you, and your linen is so fine, and your voice is soft and slow. -It is only the noble people who have that kind of music in -their voices.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I wish I were a peasant if it would please you better,' he -said gallantly.</p> - -<p>She answered very literally:</p> - -<p>'That is nonsense. You cannot wish such a thing; no one -ever wishes to go down. And, for myself, I do not mind; it is -my grandfather who hates the aristocrats.'</p> - -<p>'So I have heard,' said Loswa. 'But he is out to-day, you -say. Will you not let me sketch this superb view?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, if you like. I never saw anyone paint, as I told you; -I shall be glad to see it. But will you not come in and eat and -drink something first? I have heard that the nobles, when -they are not dressing and dancing, are always eating and -drinking.'</p> - -<p>'Nothing more cruel was ever said of them by all their -satirists,' answered Loswa. 'It will be very kind indeed if -you will give me a glass of water; I need nothing else.'</p> - -<p>'You shall have some of Catherine's cakes,' said the girl, -'and some coffee and a fresh egg. Catherine—she is our servant—makes -beautiful cakes when she is not cross. Why are -people who are old so often cross? Is it the trouble of living so -long that makes them so? If it be that, I would rather die -young. I think one ought to be like the olive-trees; the older -they are the better fruit they bear.'</p> - -<p>Then she called aloud, 'Catherine! Catherine! here is a -stranger who wants some breakfast,' and ran across the bit of -rough grass before the house, where cocks and hens, pigeons -and rabbits, a tethered ass and a pet kid, were enjoying the -fine morning together in harmony.</p> - -<p>An old woman in a white cap showed herself for a moment -in the doorway, grumbled inarticulately, and disappeared.</p> - -<p>'She is gone to get it,' said Damaris. 'She is very cross, as -I tell you, but she is very good for all that. I have known her -all my life. Her honey is the best in the country. She always -prays for the bees. My grandfather does not know it, but -when it is swarming time she says a paternoster over each hive, -and the honey comes so yellow, so smooth, so fine; its taste is -like the smell of thyme. Come through the house to my terrace; -you shall have your breakfast there.'</p> - -<p>He followed her through the house, an ugly whitewashed -place, with nothing of grace or colour about it, though cleaner -than most such dwellings are upon the mainland; it smelt -sweetly, too, from the flood of fragrant, orange-scented air -which poured through past its open doors, and the odour from -the bales of packed oranges which were stored in its passages and -lumber-rooms, awaiting transport to the beach below. In the -guest-chamber there was some old oaken furniture of which he -recognised the age and value, and some chairs of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">repoussé</i> -leather, which would have fetched a high price; but it was all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -dreary, dull, stiff, and the figure of the girl, with her brilliant, -luminous beauty, and her vividly-coloured clothes, looked like -a pomegranate flaming in a dusky cellar.</p> - -<p>'Come out here,' she said to him, and led him out on to a -little terrace.</p> - -<p>It was whitewashed, like all the stone of the house, but it -was gay and bright. Its gallery was covered with a Canadian -vine still red; it seemed to hang above the sea, so steeply did -that side of the island slope downward beneath it; it had some -cane chairs in it and a little marble table, a red-striped awning -was stretched above it.</p> - -<p>'This is all mine,' she said, with pride. 'You shall eat here. -Take that long chair: it came off one of the great ships that go -the voyages to India; the mate of the ship gave it me. I -made that awning myself out of a sail. I bring my books here -and read. Sometimes I sit here half the night instead of going -to bed—that is, when the nightingales are singing in the orange-trees. -My grandfather will always have the house-door shut -and bolted by eight o'clock, even in summer. So I come here; -it seems such folly to go to bed in the short nights, they are as -bright as day. The time to sleep then is noon. You rest, and -I will go and bring Catherine, and your breakfast.'</p> - -<p>He caught her hand as she was about to go away.</p> - -<p>'Pray, stay,' he murmured. 'It is to hear you talk that I -care; I want nothing else, not even that glass of water; I only -made it an excuse to come into your house.'</p> - -<p>She drew her hand from him and frowned a little.</p> - -<p>'Why should you make an excuse? If you had said you -wished to come I would have let you; if you do not want to -eat there is nothing to come for; I am never indoors except to -eat, or if it rain very heavily.'</p> - -<p>Then she went, and he dared not detain her lest he should -alarm her. She seemed to him like a bird which alights near a -stranger so long as there is no movement, but at a single sound -takes flight. Left alone he sat still in the chair she had assigned -to him, and gazed over the sea; there was nothing except sea -visible from this little terrace.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>In a little while she returned, bearing in her strong grasp an -old silver tray, with coffee, cream, and sugar in old silver pots.</p> - -<p>The servant followed her, cross, wrinkled and suspicious, -carrying bread and honey and oranges, and a pile of sweet flat -cakes. Damaris set down her tray on the marble table.</p> - -<p>'We have a few things like this,' she said, touching the old -silver. 'We were noble, too, once, very, very long ago, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -say; but my grandfather does not believe it. I like to believe -it. It may be nonsense, but one likes to fancy that ever, ever -so long ago one's forefathers were fighting men, not labourers; -it seems to make one ready to fight too. It must make a difference, -I think, in oneself whether they were soldiers or slaves. -Not, you know,' she added, after a moment's pause, 'that I do -not think <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la petite culture</i> the happiest life in the world; but the -labourer is narrow, mean, horribly fond of money, and very -rough to his women, and I suppose the poor were still worse in -that distant time.'</p> - -<p>She poured him out his coffee as she spoke, and filled up the -cup with foaming milk, and pressed on him the rolls, the cakes, -the honey. The china was the heavy earthenware which rustic -people use, and did not suit the old silver of the tray and of the -vessels; but Loswa, for once, was not critical; he thought he -had never tasted anything more delicious than was this island -fare.</p> - -<p>Damaris, having served him, ate and drank herself, sitting -on a wooden stool beside the balustrade covered with the reddened -creeper. She did not want anything, but not to break -bread with a guest seemed to her bad manners. She had pulled -her sleeves down and put on shoes and stockings. She had -thrown aside her woollen cap; her silky, golden curls shone in -the sun; her eyes looked at him with honest inquisitiveness -and astonishment. Suddenly she said aloud:</p> - -<p>'Ah! I remember now! It was you who were with that -lady yesterday when she threw me the gold bracelet over the -wall.'</p> - -<p>Loswa assented, but he would have preferred to forget his -friend at that moment, being uneasily conscious of the contempt -with which his present position on this terrace would be regarded -by her did she ever know of it.</p> - -<p>'Did she take me for a beggar?' said Damaris, with anger -glistening under her long lashes.</p> - -<p>'Oh no, she only wished to please you—to surprise you. -You see, she could not tell who you were.'</p> - -<p>The girl's cheeks grew a deeper rose.</p> - -<p>'That is true,' she said, with her first touch of embarrassment; -'I was rowing, and one cannot row in fine clothes. -Perhaps, if she saw me at Mass——'</p> - -<p>'If she saw you now!' said he, with a glance of meaning -thrown away upon her. 'Remember, she hardly saw you at -all; only an old boat, a pile of oranges, a ragged sail——'</p> - -<p>'My sail <em>is</em> very shabby,' said Damaris with shame. 'I -took the new one to make this awning, and my grandfather was -angry and would not let me have another. Who is that lady? -She looked very pretty. Is she your wife?'</p> - -<p>'She is the Countess Othmar.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> - -<p>'The Countess Othmar!' she repeated in a little awe. -Even she in her solitude had heard that name of power. The -narrative was very vague to her; she had never known more -than the bare outline of it, but she remembered, when she was -a child sitting amongst the daffodils and plucking them on the -grass before the house on Bonaventure one evening in the -springtime, hearing Catherine, who had been with a load of -fruit to the mainland, cry aloud to Raphael:</p> - -<p>'Holy Virgin, what think you? The <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petiote</i> of Nicole, the -wife of Othmar, is dead!'</p> - -<p>And the child, pausing with the daffodils lying in tumbled -gold upon her lap, had listened and heard all that was known -of that early death, which only the swallows had witnessed and -the blind house-dog had mourned. She had always remembered -it, and often, when she had seen the daffodils yellow in the -grass of March, had thought of it again, and her imagination -had been busy with it, creating bodily forms for the people of -whom she knew naught but the names. Therefore, when the -word 'Othmar' fell now upon her ear, it moved her with a -certain thrill, almost as of personal pain.</p> - -<p>'You have heard of her?' said Loswa.</p> - -<p>'Not of her,' said Damaris gravely; 'of the one who died—who -killed herself, they say, because he loved another woman.'</p> - -<p>'Bah!' said Loswa, with the light contempt for all such -tragic follies which the boulevardier always affects, even when -he does not feel it.</p> - -<p>'They said so,' repeated Damaris, with her eyes very large -and serious.</p> - -<p>'Do you like this lady very much?' she asked, after a -pause.</p> - -<p>'She is a charming person; yes.'</p> - -<p>'Is she a very great lady? Does she reign over anything?'</p> - -<p>'Over everyone she approaches, if she can,' said he with some -impatience; 'and nearly always she can, for she is a person of -very strong will, and influences others more than she knows or -they know.'</p> - -<p>'And what does she do when she has influenced them? -Monsignor says that to possess influence is to have the ten -talents, and that we shall have to account for the use of every -one of them.'</p> - -<p>'That is just the chief mischief,' said Loswa, gloomily thinking -of himself, not of his auditor. 'It is the getting the influence -that amuses her; that she cares about. When once -she has got it you are nothing at all to her; no more than a -glove she has worn.'</p> - -<p>'She must be a very cruel woman,' said Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Oh no,' he protested, with a sudden sense of his disloyalty, -'she is not cruel at all, she is only indifferent.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Indifferent? That is to neither like nor dislike? I do -not understand how one can be like that. One must either -have good weather or bad; one must either love or hate.'</p> - -<p>'She does neither,' said he with a sigh; then, with a sense -that it was altogether wrong to blame a great lady and a -countrywoman of his own to a little country girl whom he had -never seen before, he changed the subject abruptly.</p> - -<p>'Are you not very dull on your island? It is a long way off -the mainland.'</p> - -<p>'Dull? Oh, people must be very stupid who are ever dull. -There is always so much to do out among the fruit-trees or -down by the beach. The days are always too short for me.'</p> - -<p>'That is the charm of being fifteen. Are you always on this -island? Do you never go to Nice?'</p> - -<p>'I have never seen Nice. I did want to see the Carnival -last year, but my grandfather would not hear of it. It was -Raphael told me about it. It must have been very fine; but, -of course, we have nothing to do with the mainland, that is -only for the rich idle people. I hear they sleep all the day and -buzz about all the night, like moths or like bats. What a -strange life it must be!'</p> - -<p>Loswa thought of the great gaslit glittering Salle des Jeux -which was not more than a dozen leagues off this primitive -orange-island.</p> - -<p>'You are happier here, in the middle of your blue water, -putting out your oil lamps as the moon rises,' he replied. -'Chateaubriand might have lived on Bonaventure. Who would -have believed there was anything so solitary and so innocent as -this within a few hours' sail of the Blanc paradise?'</p> - -<p>'What is that?' said Damaris, who, although she could see -afar off the palms and domes of Monte Carlo gleaming in the -sun on the northward horizon every time she sailed that way, -was as profoundly ignorant of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tripot</i> and its works as if -Bonaventure had been in the Pacific.</p> - -<p>'I have heard,' she continued, 'that there are very strange -things and people over there, that it is a feast-day every day -with them, and all their life like a fair. My grandfather -always says he would shoot them all down as they shot the -hostages in the Commune, but I do not think that would be -right. If they are silly, one should pity them.'</p> - -<p>'They are silly indeed, and I fear your sweet pity would -not avail to save them. The feast-day is a sorry affair at its -close.'</p> - -<p>'Oh, I know. I have seen Raphael come home drunk and -beat Jacqueline (that is his wife) because she cried; and he is -as good as gold when he is sober, and as gentle as a sheep when -there is no drink.'</p> - -<p>'In some way we all drink, we unfortunates,' said Loswa;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -then, seeing her look of surprise, he added, 'I did not speak -literally, my dear; your Raphael's drink is a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petit vin bleu</i>, and -ours is a costly thing we call Pleasure, but it comes to the same -result; only, I suppose, Raphael has some five or six days in -the week that he is good for work, and we cannot say as much -as that. We are all the week round at the fair.'</p> - -<p>She ruffled her pretty loose short locks that hung over her -forehead, and her brilliant eyes looked at him perplexedly.</p> - -<p>'I am glad I live on the island,' she said as the issue of her -perplexity.</p> - -<p>'And I too am glad you do,' said he, with more sincerity -than he usually put into his pretty speeches.</p> - -<p>He felt that before he approached the great object of his -voyage he must justify his pretences and win her confidence by -painting something which would please her fancy. To his -facility of touch it was easy and rapid work to sketch on his -block of paper the sea view, the terrace wall, the interior of the -sitting-room, the old chairs, and the silver tankards. Sheet -after sheet was filled and cut off and sent fluttering into her -eager hands. To her it seemed the work of magic. Just a -little water and a few pans of colour could make all the sea and -sky, all the plants and stones, all the pots and pans and household -things, seem real again on fragments of paper! She did -not heed or even know that he was a man, young and handsome, -whose eyes spoke a bold and amorous language; she was absorbed -in his creations; he seemed to her the most marvellous -of sorcerers. With delighted cries of recognition she welcomed -the likeness of all the places and the objects so familiar to her; -she was filled with a rapture of childish ecstasy. She hung -over his work and watched him with a wonder which was only -not awe, because it was such frank and childish delight.</p> - -<p>Whilst he sketched, he let her talk at her will, in her own -fashion, putting a few careless questions now and then. She -was by nature gay and communicative; the seclusion and -severity of her rearing had not extinguished the natural buoyancy -and originality of her temper, and it was a pleasure to her -to have anyone to speak to of other things than the land labours -and the household work.</p> - -<p>In a few brief phrases she had described to him all her short -simple life; how her mother had died at her birth, they said, -and her father when she had been eight years old; how she had -never been baptised 'or anything,' until, to please Melville, -her grandsire had allowed her to enter the Church's fold like a -little stray sheep; how she had been brought up by old Catherine, -and taught to read by her, and how she had managed to -read all the books her mother had left: Corneille, Racine, -Lamartine, Lamotte, Fouquet, La Fontaine, and knew them -almost all by heart, for she had no new ones; she told him all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -about the culture of the olive and the various kinds of oranges, -and all the different methods of pruning, tending, packing them; -the big fragrant golden balls were much nearer to her heart -than the black oily olives, but she was learned about both; she -told him also all about the poor people she knew on the coast, -of the young men whom the conscription had taken just as they -were of use to their people, of the old women who took the -flowers into the towns, of the children who could swim and dive -like little fish, and were her playmates when she had time to -play; the boat-builders, the fisherfolk, the flower-sellers, the -toilers of the working world of whom all the fashionable world -that flocks to the Riviera knows nothing, unless it throws them -a few pence in the dust of the road, or thinks they form a pretty -point of colour against the white walls and the flower-filled grass, -or bids them make a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bouillabaisse</i> for a picnic in some little -wooden cabin high up upon the red rocks, amongst the cactus -spikes and the sea-pinks.</p> - -<p>All this simple talk interested Loswa as it would never have -done had not the mouth which uttered it been as lovely to look -at as a half-opened damask rose.</p> - -<p>'How came Monsignor Melville to speak of me to you?' -she asked once with a persistency which was a strong trait of -her character.</p> - -<p>'He recognised you,' he answered her. 'He told us that -you were prouder than any princess of them all, and that where -we had meant but a joke you had, very naturally, seen an affront. -He is much attached to you, I am sure, and felt quite as angry -as you were.</p> - -<p>'I was very angry,' she said passionately, with the colour -hot in her cheeks. 'I thought the lady took me for a beggar. -When one goes in a boat one cannot be <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">endimanchée</i>. I was -taking the oranges to the Petite Afrique; there is a little old -woman who keeps a little old shop there, and has nothing but -what she makes by the sale of the fruit people give her. There -are three trees here that are my own; my father planted them -when he was home from a voyage, and to all their fruit I have a -right. Grandfather lets me sell it or give it away.'</p> - -<p>'And I am sure you do always the latter?'</p> - -<p>'Oh, not quite always. Sometimes I want money for something, -and then I sell the oranges; but it is only if there be a -wreck, or a boat lost at sea, or a death or a birth. Of course I -want nothing for myself; grandfather does not let me want, but -he is not fond of giving to others, he likes to keep money locked -up, and see it grow slowly bit upon bit like the coral. Do you -like that? Myself, I think there is no pleasure at all in money -except to give it away.'</p> - -<p>'But whom do you give it to? You are all alone on your -island.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> - -<p>'There are the people who work for us; and then I know so -many on the coast. I have come and gone between this and -the mainland so many many times, ever since I was a baby. It -is such a good life being on the sea; so long as I have the -water I never want anything else. Some of them call me <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la -mouette.</i>'</p> - -<p>'It is the best of all lives. I am much on the sea myself,' -said her companion, who hated the sea.</p> - -<p>'You have a boat then?'</p> - -<p>'I have a yacht; yes.'</p> - -<p>'All to yourself?'</p> - -<p>'Yes; to go about in as I fancy. I shall be delighted if you -will sail in it some day.'</p> - -<p>'Ah! it is a pleasure-ship then? I see those little ships -racing often; they are beautiful. You must be very rich to -have one all to yourself, not trading anywhere, or even dredging. -How much money have you? And how do you keep it? -In boxes, in coffers? Some of my grandfather's is down the -well; he took bricks out of the side of the well, put the money -in the hole, and then put back the bricks again. He did it at -night; no one knows it but me. Do you keep your money like -that?'</p> - -<p>'No; in our world we give it to other men to take care of -for us.'</p> - -<p>'That seems very stupid. Why not take care of your own?'</p> - -<p>She was sitting on the parapet of the terrace, her feet hung -down; she leaned one hand on the stone she sat on; behind -her was the broad blue of the sky, and about her all the shining -of the effulgent light. She looked like a rhododendron flower -growing up into the sunshine out of a corner of a dusky old -garden.</p> - -<p>'You have not told me how much money you have,' she -pursued. 'If you let other folks take care of it for you, it is no -wonder that you gentle people come to poverty so often.'</p> - -<p>'We have too many caretakers, no doubt,' said Loswa, 'and -they feather their own nests. But I am not a very rich man; -pray do not think I am. I am only an artist. Nobody is rich -now except the Jews here, and the rogues across the Atlantic. -Would you let me make a sketch of yourself just as you sit -now? It would be charming.'</p> - -<p>'Will you give it to that lady?'</p> - -<p>'No, on my honour. I will give it to you, and make a copy -for myself.'</p> - -<p>'Well, if you like; but would it not be better if I put on -my Sunday frock?'</p> - -<p>'Not for worlds. Sunday frocks have no affinity with art, -my dear; yours is, no doubt, a very pretty one, but I should -prefer to make your portrait as I have seen you first.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Oh, I do not mind; only this gown is very shabby and old. -I am grown too big for it. I am always growing. Monsignor -says that if I grew in grace as I do in centimètres I should soon -be a saint like our St. Veronica.'</p> - -<p>'It is not for me to disparage the saints,' said Loswa, 'but I -think you will have another mission in this life than to be of -their community. Keep still a little while; I will not detain -you long. So!—that is just right. I wish I were Raffaelle and -Leonardo in one, to be worthier of the occasion.'</p> - -<p>'Who are they?' said Damaris, as he set his folding easel -straight before him and began to sketch in the flowerlike figure -on the wall, fresh and wholesome as the sea-lavender that grew -in the sand below. He who was all his life in a hothouse recognised -the value and fragrance of that sea-born plant, though it -was too homely and simple for him; recognised it with his mind, -though not with his soul.</p> - -<p>The girl knew nothing of all that made up the world to him; -the names most common to him in modern literature and art -were to her dead letters that said nothing; the allusions familiar -to him would have been to her phrases without meaning; all -that constitutes modern culture was to her as an unknown -country, and the only whisper she had ever heard of all that -poets and artists tell the world was what she had felt rather -than understood of the read and re-read pages of 'Athalie,' and -of 'Attila,' of 'Cinna,' and of 'Sintram.' Yet there was a -certain richness, as of virgin soil, in that absolute freedom from -conventional education, and from received ideas; she expressed -herself with simplicity and vigour, and this unworn, untrained -mind, only nurtured on the high thoughts of great poets, had -escaped all the bondage of tradition and of secondhand knowledge, -and remained what it had been made by nature.</p> - -<p>It required a higher intelligence than Loswa's was wholly to -appreciate this charm; he was too conventional to be greatly -attracted by unconventional things; he was too used to all the -artificial attractions of artificial women, and too artificial himself -to enjoy and admire all this freshness of fancy. It would have -needed a poet to have done so, and he had nothing of the poet -in him. But he was enough of a student of human nature to -understand that with which he scarcely sympathised, and she -was so handsome that her physical beauty created in him a -compassion for the solitude in which it dwelt, such compassion -as her intellectual solitude, and her half-unconscious longing for -wider worlds than her own, would have failed to awaken.</p> - -<p>'Is it possible that all that is to go to a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gros bourgeois</i> who -builds boats?' he thought, as he looked at the beautiful lines of -her features and her form, and that fairness of her skin just -warmed by sun and air into the bloom as of a peach, which he -strove in vain to reproduce to his own satisfaction in his drawing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -A face that would turn all Paris after it like sunflowers after the -sun, to be left to pass from the glow of youth to the greyness of -age on a little island in mid-sea! It seemed impossible—it -would become impossible if she once learned her own charms.</p> - -<p>'Your isle is worthy of Paul and Virginia,' he said to her, -speaking to her in the phrase that she could understand, for she -knew every line of Bernardin de St. Pierre. 'But where is -Paul? Is there no Paul?'</p> - -<p>'No, there is nobody at all like Paul,' she answered, with a -little laugh at the idea. 'The youngest man is Raphael, and he -has a fat wife and five children. They live down on the other -side of the cliffs.'</p> - -<p>'But Paul will come,' said Loswa. 'He always comes. -Would you let me substitute myself for him?' he added with -that somewhat impertinent audacity which had made his success -so great amongst women of the world.</p> - -<p>It did not please Damaris. Her brows drew together in that -instantaneous and tempestuous anger which her face had expressed -as the bracelet had fallen on her lap.</p> - -<p>'You are not at all like Paul,' she said a little contemptuously. -'You are not young enough, and you have wrinkles -about your eyes.'</p> - -<p>Loswa reddened with irritation. He was still young, but -life in the world ages fast, and he was conscious that to this -child, in the first flush and sunrise of her earliest girlhood, he -might well seem old.</p> - -<p>'You are cruel,' he said humbly, 'and I am unhappy; I can -only envy the Paul of the future.'</p> - -<p>'Oh,' said Damaris very tranquilly, 'I know all about my -future. I am to marry my cousin, Louis Roze; he has a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chantier</i> -at St. Tropez; he is quite rich; he is very ugly and stout; -he builds boats and barques; myself, I would sooner sail in -them.'</p> - -<p>She said all the sentences in the same even voice; marriage -seemed to her to be hardly of as much interest as the boats.</p> - -<p>'Good heavens!' said Loswa involuntarily. 'Athene to a -Satyr!'</p> - -<p>He could imagine the shipwright of St. Tropez without much -effort of imagination; a black-browed son of the soil, smoking a -short pipe, supping up prawn-soup noisily on feast days; a -Socialist, no doubt, and an argumentative politician when he -had drunk his glass of brandy, or he would not be to the taste -of the Sieur Bérarde, her grandfather. This her future! As -well might a young nightingale, singing under acacia flowers in -spring, talk of its future when it should be roasting on the spit -to give a mouthful to a boor!</p> - -<p>'Do you not intend to refuse?' he said abruptly, without -thinking whither such suggestion might lead her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> - -<p>She turned quickly and looked at him with astonished eyes; -her breath came and went more quickly.</p> - -<p>'Refuse!' she repeated. 'Refuse! oh no; what would be -the use? No one refuses to do what my grandfather has decided -for them.'</p> - -<p>'But you cannot be willing to make such a marriage?'</p> - -<p>She was astonished and troubled by the rebellious suggestion.</p> - -<p>'I do not think about it,' she replied at last, shaking the -hair out of her eyes. 'It is a thing which is to be, you know. -What is the use of thinking I am not to leave Bonaventure. -I should not like to marry anyone who would not live on Bonaventure; -but if I stay here and live as I always have done, it -will not make any difference at all.'</p> - -<p>He was silent. This absolute ignorance of what she talked -about seemed to him pathetic and sacred. He did not wish to -be the one to break away the wall which stood between her and -the realities of life.</p> - -<p>'He thinks of making a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chantier</i> here,' she explained; 'the -only doubt is whether anyone will ever come such a distance to -order a boat or a brig; and whether it would really pay to bring -the timber out so far as this——'</p> - -<p>'Good heavens!' said Loswa again.</p> - -<p>'Why are you so surprised?' she said, looking at him in -perplexity.</p> - -<p>'How can you think about timber and shipwrights?' he -said, irrationally enough he knew. 'What a life for you! I -thought you loved Racine and Corneille.'</p> - -<p>'But there is no one else here who loves them,' she answered -with a little sigh. 'It is only making money that they care about—money—always -money—and when it is made nobody enjoys it.'</p> - -<p>'But who can oblige you to marry this man of St. Tropez?'</p> - -<p>She ruffled her hair, not very well knowing what to reply.</p> - -<p>'It is decided so,' she answered at last.</p> - -<p>'But many things are decided for us which we do not accept. -No one has any right to dispose of our own future against our -own will.'</p> - -<p>She looked vaguely troubled: the sense of herself as of an -independent entity had never before presented itself to her.</p> - -<p>'All those things are settled for one,' she said with some -impatience. 'It is not worth talking about. Whether it is -Gros Louis or another, it is the same to me. They are all stupid, -they all smoke, they all drink when they can, they all say there -is no God, and that there must never be any kings. They are -all just alike.'</p> - -<p>She was not conscious of the sombre revolt and vague contempt -which were at work in her as the heat of the distant -thunder cloud dulls slightly the sunny blue of a June sky.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> - -<p>'But there is another world than theirs,' said Loswa.</p> - -<p>'Out of the books?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, beside the dreamland of the books. All the earth -is not peopled with shipwrights and skippers. There is a -world——'</p> - -<p>He hesitated, for he was afraid of alarming her; it seemed -to him that, were she displeased, she would send him spinning -down the cliff with short ceremony.</p> - -<p>'There is a world where life is always <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en fête</i>, where women -are treated not as goods and chattels and beasts of burden, but -as sovereigns and sorceresses; where you yourself——'</p> - -<p>'I shall never go there,' she said, abruptly interrupting him. -'Do not talk about it. It makes me restless. I feel as I do -when I look over there.'</p> - -<p>She pointed northward, where the unseen shore was.</p> - -<p>'I see the sun shine on the mountains, and I see a dazzle of -gold, a gleam of white, a long low line under the blue of the -hills, and I know that is what they call the world, the big -world; but I never land there; it is not for me.'</p> - -<p>'Let me take you,' he said softly.</p> - -<p>'No,' she said with petulance and resolution. 'Grandfather -does not allow me ever to see the mainland without him; he -says it is accursed, that the people are all mad. And now, as -you have eaten and drunk all you will, it will be best that you -should go: he may return any time, and he does not love -strangers.'</p> - -<p>'But I may come back and bring you your portrait?'</p> - -<p>Her eyes smiled, but she said carelessly, 'That can be as -you like. You are very welcome to what you have had. I will -show you the way to the shore, though I dare say you would -find it again by yourself.'</p> - -<p>He endeavoured to linger, but she gave him no leisure to do -so. She escorted him to the edge of the steep descent, and -there bade him a decided adieu.</p> - -<p>Loswa, with all his grace and ease and habits of the world, -felt at a loss before this child. He would have kissed her hand -in farewell, but her arms were folded on her chest as she stood -on the rock above him, and nodded to him a good-humoured -good-bye; cheerfully, indifferently, as any boy of her years -might have done.</p> - -<p>'It is easy to see that you come from Paris!' she called -after him, watching his descent along the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passerelle</i> with a -kindly little laugh at the hesitation of his steps.</p> - -<p>'Let her marry Gros Louis!' he thought angrily as that -clear childish laughter echoed through the sunlit air from above -his head. 'I have her portrait—that is all that matters.'</p> - -<p>What a feature of the next year's Salon would be that brilliant, -bold head when it should be hung in the full light of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -May day, for all Paris to gaze upon, marked '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">D'après Nature</i>,' -and signed Loswa!</p> - -<p>He soon, despite his indolent limbs, which were more used -to the boulevards than the sand and the shingle, regained his -boat, and pushed it in deep water.</p> - -<p>Damaris Bérarde stood above on the brow of the cliff, -amongst the olive-boughs and the great leaves of the fig-trees, -looking towards that pale golden far-off shore where 'the world' -was a world with other men than Raphael and Gros Louis, with -other fruits than the round orange and the black olive, with -other music than the tinkle of the throat-bells of the goats.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Two days later Loswa entered the drawing-rooms of St. Pharamond, -bearing with him a covered panel, which, after his -ceremonious salutation of his hostess, he uncovered and placed -on an unoccupied easel before her.</p> - -<p>'Ah! my charming sea-born savage!' said Nadine as she -approached it.</p> - -<p>It still looked only a sketch, but it is a very sincere man -who will display a sketch without touching it up and embellishing -it, and Loswa was not sincere in that way, or in many -others. He had copied his original drawing done upon the -island, enlarging and improving it, and, though the portrait -had the look of an impromptu creation, an <em>impression</em> vivid and -masterly, it was in reality the product of many hours of painstaking -labour and elaborate thought. Produced however it -might be, it was one of the most brilliant studies which had -ever come from his hand. It was not idealised or made artificial; -it was the head of the girl as he had seen it in the full -light of the morning on Bonaventure. The eyes had the frank, -fearless, childish regard which hers had, and the whole face -seemed speaking with courage, ardour, health, and imagination.</p> - -<p>There was a chorus of admiration from all the great people -who were there; it was her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jour</i>, and the rooms were full. -Anything drawn by Loswa instantly elicited the homage of that -world of fashion in which his powers were deemed godlike, and -this sketch had qualities so rare and true that even his enemies -and hostile critics would have been forced to concede to it a -great triumph of art.</p> - -<p>'You have succeeded,' said Nadine, as she put out her hand -to him with a smile. 'You were right and I was wrong. You -have painted the portrait without spoiling it by any affectations. -No living painter could have done it better, and few dead ones.'</p> - -<p>Loswa inclined his graceful person to the ground before her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -and murmured his undying gratitude for the condescension of -her praise.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tout de même, elle me le paiera</i>,' he thought, remembering -the words she had spoken to him on the sea-terrace.</p> - -<p>'And how did Perseus find Andromeda?' she asked. 'It -must be a story to be told in verse in the old fashion. Relate -it!'</p> - -<p>'There has been very little romance about it,' said Loswa, -'and Andromeda, alas! is contentedly going to marry a boat-builder, -stout, ugly, and old!'</p> - -<p>'My dear Loris, that will be for you to prevent,' said Nadine, -still gazing at the sketch. 'I have never seen a face with more -character or more suggestion. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C'est un type</i>, as the novelists say. -If she do marry the boat-builder, he will have a stormy existence. -There are daring and genius in her face. Come—sit there and -narrate your adventures with her.'</p> - -<p>Never unwilling to be the hero of his own stories, Loswa -seated himself where she bade him, and, becoming the centre of -a circle of lovely ladies, he embellished and heightened the -narrative of his expedition to Bonaventure as he had done the -sketch, making his own part in it more romantic, and the reception -of Damaris warmer than either had been. He had a very -picturesque fashion of speech, and the little incident, under his -skilful treatment, obtained the grace and the colour of a story -of Ludovic Halévy's. The portrait could not open its lips and -contradict him. Only his hostess thought to herself, with -amusement: 'I wonder how much of all that is true!'</p> - -<p>Whilst he was talking and drawing towards a close in his -admirably-coloured narrative, Melville and Othmar together -entered the room behind him, and the former caught the name -of his favourite of the isle.</p> - -<p>He listened in silence till Loswa paused to take breath at the -end of a sentence; then, with a very angry gleam in his clear -eyes, he interposed:</p> - -<p>'So, M. Loswa, you have found the latitude and longitude -of Bonaventure without a pilot! Your portrait on that easel is -very like, but I confess I do not recognise the same verisimilitude -in your narrative.'</p> - -<p>Loswa, who had paused to meditate on the end of his -adventure, which he felt could not be told with the tame finale -which it had had in real life, was disconcerted, and for a moment -silent.</p> - -<p>'I have seen your heroine this morning,' pursued Melville; -'I am distressed to disturb your romance, but she is not the -mingling of Gretchen and Graziella you have just described. I -left her busied in feeding the pigs.'</p> - -<p>'I dare say Gretchen and Graziella both fed pigs,' said -Loswa with some ill-humour. 'At least, Monsignor, you will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -admit that I have proved to the Countess Othmar that I was -capable of making a study of the betrothed of Gros Louis.'</p> - -<p>'That is feeding the pigs with pearls indeed,' said Nadine.</p> - -<p>'The pigs are a better destiny than many another,' said -Melville.</p> - -<p>'You cannot seriously think so?'</p> - -<p>'I do, indeed. If you had seen the dark side of life, -Madame, as I have done, you would think so too.'</p> - -<p>'No, never. That young girl has genius, or something very -like it, in her face. I will send for her, and show her that -there are other fates possible for a young Hebe with the brows -of Athene.'</p> - -<p>'That would be a cruel kindness if you like,' said Othmar, -who had been attentively studying the portrait.</p> - -<p>'And that is for once a commonplace remark, my dear -Otho. Nothing which takes the band off the eyes is really -unkind.'</p> - -<p>'I do not know,' said Othmar. 'Great ladies like you have -pets which are not the happier fated for the petting; the dog is -shaved and frizzed, the bird is caged and killed, the marmoset -is adored and neglected; if they were all left to their natural -fates they would be less honoured but longer lived. Yonder -palms are honoured too, no doubt, by being allowed to stand in -a corner of your room behind a lacquered screen and in a gilded -basket, but they have neither light nor air, and will be dead, -and when they are so, will be replaced in a month.'</p> - -<p>She smiled. 'How little you know about it! and what -perilous things metaphors always are! The palms go back to -their glass-houses and thrive as well as they did before, while -other palms take their place in my rooms. You talk a little like -a Socialist lecturer; your arguments are all invectives and—what -is the logician's word?—pathetic fallacies!'</p> - -<p>'Which is the glass-house to which you could send any -human being whom you had taken from obscurity and contentment?'</p> - -<p>'The glass-house is the world, which is always ready for -novelties as the hothouses are ready for new seedlings. How -can you tell that this handsome child may not be destined to -make the world her slave? Besides, even in the interests of -Gros Louis himself, it is as well that the consciousness should -come before instead of after.'</p> - -<p>'And certainly,' said Loswa, 'no one can say that Gros -Louis is a fate meet for this exquisite child?'</p> - -<p>Melville hesitated: 'Gros Louis is not a very admirable -person; he is an unbeliever, of course very avaricious, and of a -rough coarse exterior; but he is a good-tempered man and a -very laborious worker. On the whole, worse things might -happen to Damaris Bérarde than to live always on her island<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -and rear her children there, as she now rears her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">poussins</i> and -her puppies.'</p> - -<p>'That is looked at from a very low plane, Monsignor; -unusually low for you.'</p> - -<p>'I can imagine so many things worse for her, that is all,' -said Melville, with an apology in his tone. 'Certainly she -ought to have a mate like a shepherd in Theocritus' pastorals, -but as those shepherds exist not, at least this side of the -Alps——'</p> - -<p>'Why a shepherd at all?'</p> - -<p>'Because they are better than hunters,' said Melville curtly.</p> - -<p>Loswa smiled.</p> - -<p>'Monsignor is prejudiced to-day,' said his hostess. 'Decidedly -this Galatea must be worth seeing, and the island itself -sounds idyllic. I did not know there was anything so near us -still so like Bernardin de St. Pierre. Dear Melville, go and -bring your treasure to us just as she is; just as Loswa has -sketched her, red cap, bare feet, and striped sea-gown. The -moment these people are <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">endimanchées</i> they are horrible.'</p> - -<p>'She does not belong to "those people,"' said Melville, a -little impatiently. 'Her mother was an actress of Paris. I -think you might dress her how you would, she would look well. -She has a patrician look like those girls of Magna Grecia, who -are as ignorant as the stones they tread, but have the port of -goddesses.'</p> - -<p>'I will see this especial young goddess,' said Nadine, who -never relinquished a whim when it encountered opposition.</p> - -<p>Melville was seriously annoyed.</p> - -<p>'Will you make Gros Louis more acceptable to her?' he said -angrily.</p> - -<p>'No; we shall make him impossible.'</p> - -<p>'You will create one more <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>, then, when there are -already so many!'</p> - -<p>'What? By seeing her once?'</p> - -<p>'Yes,' replied Melville with a certain sternness. 'Once is -enough. Discontent is born at a touch. Content is a thing -which no one can create; but discontent almost anyone can -bring about with a word. Merely to see you, Madame, would -be to render this poor child wretched and ashamed all the -rest of her days. I mean no compliment; only a fact. You -float in the very empyrean of culture; you can only make -this young barbarian conscious of her barbarianism. What is -the curse of our age? That every class is wretched because -it is straining forever on tiptoe, striving to reach into the class -above it.'</p> - -<p>'Dear Monsignor, I think they always did. Colbert stretched -the draper's yard measure till it reached the throne, and Wolsey -stood on the chopping-block till he was tall enough to touch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -hands with king and pope. It is nothing new, though modern -democracy thinks it is.'</p> - -<p>'The just ambition of the man of genius is not the restless -monomania of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>.'</p> - -<p>'Who can tell what ambition may lie under this Phrygian -cap?' said his tormentor, as she looked once more at the sketch -of Damaris. 'Dear Monsignor, I am so delighted when you -become a little cross! It makes us feel that, after all, you are -really human!'</p> - -<p>'I am exceedingly cross,' said Melville; 'or, to speak more -truly, infinitely distressed.'</p> - -<p>'After all, Monsignor, it is not absolutely just to this involuntary -recluse never to give her an occasion to estimate Gros -Louis at his actual worth. According to what you and Loswa -say, there are the gases of revolt already smouldering in her; -surely it will be better for them to take flame before than after.'</p> - -<p>'There are a great many lives,' said Melville, with a tinge of -personal bitterness, 'in which those gases are never extinct, yet -in which they are, nevertheless, not allowed to come to the -surface and take fire. It may very well be so with hers.'</p> - -<p>'Oh, the cruelty of a priest! Decidedly you will not let -her come to us if you can help it. Well, we will go to her. I -owe her an apology.'</p> - -<p>Melville trusted to his usual experience of his hostess; he -knew that with her, very often, a caprice ardently desired at -sunset was forgotten by sunrise; that, in default of opposition, -such a mere whim as this would most likely expire as soon as -conceived. He said nothing more to her, and Loswa took his -sketch down from the easel.</p> - -<p>'I fear you are angry with me, Monsignor,' he murmured to -Melville, to whom he was always courteous and deferential. -'Indeed, but for the challenge that Madame Nadège cast at me, -I should not have ventured to find out your inviolate isle.'</p> - -<p>'There is no harm done,' said Melville curtly. 'You will -not find there either Gretchen or Graziella.'</p> - -<p>Othmar had no sympathy with this new fancy.</p> - -<p>'With all the world at your feet, what can you want with -a fisher-girl?' he said, when they were alone, to his wife, who -replied:</p> - -<p>'She may be original and amuse me. There is hardly anything -original in these days. One never sees anything; and I -do not think she is a fisher-girl. She may even be a genius—an -Aimée Desclée—a Rachel.'</p> - -<p>'And do you think it is better to be a Desclée than to live -and die, a happy wife and mother, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en bonne bourgeoise</i>?'</p> - -<p>'Oh, my dear, it is you who are <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> if you see anything -enviable in the prose of Fate! You may be sure that, if -she be a genius, and I help to open her prison doors, I am only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -the instrument of Destiny. Someone else would open them if -not I.'</p> - -<p>'I thought you always ridiculed the idea of Destiny?'</p> - -<p>'For ordinary mortals-yes. But genius is accompanied by -the Parcæ. It cannot escape them. Men may kill the body of -Chatterton, but they cannot prevent the dead boy being greater -than they.'</p> - -<p>'I think your project cruel,' said Othmar. 'If you go to -this child, or bring her here, you will interfere unwarrantably -with her peace and quietude, you will take her out of her -sphere; and you can never make a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i> happy. Melville is -quite right.'</p> - -<p>'A <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>! My dear Otho, what a very conventional -reply. A <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i> is a person uprooted from her own sphere, to -be placed in, or to long to be placed in, one for which she is not -the least adapted. Genius is much more than adapted, it is -armed in advance for any world it choose to take as its own. -Rachel was an unlettered and unwashed Jewess, and Desclée -was a tattered little Bohemian: but the one ruled the world, -and the other made it weep like a child!'</p> - -<p>'But I do not know why you should suppose this little girl -on her island is necessarily destined to possess genius?'</p> - -<p>'It is in her face, and it would be amusing to discover it. -It would give one a Marco Polo sort of feeling.'</p> - -<p>'It is a dangerous kind of exploration. You cannot tell -what mischief may not come out of it.'</p> - -<p>'And you do not understand that the supreme charm of a -caprice lies precisely in never knowing in the least what one -may come out of it.'</p> - -<p>'But where your toys are human souls——'</p> - -<p>'There are no such things as human souls. It is an exploded -expression. There are only conglomerates of gases and tissues, -moved by automatic action, and adhering together for a few -years, more or less. That is the new creed. It is not an exhilarating -one, but <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">il en vaut bien un autre</i>.'</p> - -<p>'All this does not explain why you have taken a fancy to -disturb the destiny of a little girl whom you have seen once in a -boat.'</p> - -<p>'Because, I think it may amuse me; all original creatures -and unconventional types are amusing for a little time at any -rate.'</p> - -<p>'Oh,' said Othmar, half in jest and half in earnest, 'when -you have once taken the idea that anything is amusing, I know -cities may burn and men may die, you will not relinquish your -idea till you have exhausted it.'</p> - -<p>'No. I do not think I easily relinquish my ideas; it is only -weak people who do that. It is true few ideas live long; they -are all <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">belles du jour</i>, the bloom of a day.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> - -<p>Melville had for once erred in his estimate of his hostess. -As tenacious when she was opposed as she was indifferent when -unopposed, she that evening announced her intention of taking -Loswa as her pilot, and of going in person to Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>The opposition of Melville, and of her husband, the attraction -of something new, and that charm which always existed -for her in the discovery and examination of anything unusual -in human nature, all contributed to make her dwell on an idea -which, had it not been opposed, might probably have never -taken serious shape.</p> - -<p>The master passion of her temperament remained the pleasure -she took in the excitation and the analysis of character. -She had always liked to bring about singular scenes, unusual -situations, strange emotions, merely for the sake of observing -them with the same subtle and intellectual pleasure, as a -writer of romance feels in the complications and characters -which he creates at will, and at will destroys. She had always -brought about a perilous position when she could do so, because -to enter upon one was as agreeable to her as it is to a good -mountaineer to ascend to perilous heights. She had been often -tempted to regret her own physical coldness, which rendered -such heat of emotion and of danger as d'Aubiac's royal mistress -had known impossible to her. It was less the tragedy of passion -than the psychological intricacies of character which interested -her. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tous les amoureux sont bêtes</i>,' she had so often said, and so -continually thought. Of all things which had bored her throughout -her life the love of the male human animal had bored -her the most.</p> - -<p>But a complicated situation, a set of emotions on an ascending -scale—a spectacle of troubled consciences and of disturbing -elements—these it had always diverted her to watch, calm and -untouched by them as any marble statue which looks from a -glass window upon a storm at sea. In the language which she -used the most, she said to herself that she would have given -nearly all she possessed to be for once '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">empoignée</i>' by an intense -emotion.</p> - -<p>Sometimes she would look at Othmar and think: 'It is not -his fault; it has certainly not been his fault, and yet there has -never been a second when my heart beat really any quicker for -his coming.' In the highest heights of his own exaltation and -ecstasy he had always left her irresponsive. 'You want Mignon -or Juliet for all that,' she had said to him once.</p> - -<p>It amused her now; this fancy of that unknown little island -lying hidden in these gay and crowded seas. She had a fancy -to see it and to divert herself with the human creature on it -who she had said was '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un type</i>.' In the afternoon of the following -day she sailed thither. Who could have hoped for an undiscovered -isle on these crowded seas? She was accompanied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -by Béthune, Loswa, and three other of her courtiers. Othmar -refused to condone what he did not approve; and Melville had -been suddenly called away to Rome.</p> - -<p>'To the new Desclée!' she said, as her yacht glided out -of its harbour and bore southward through smooth sparkling -sapphire waters.</p> - -<p>'A name of melancholy omen,' said Gui de Béthune. 'Sometimes -I think Aimée Desclée is the most pathetic figure of our -century.'</p> - -<p>'She was a sensitive, and she was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">poitrinaire</i>,' answered -Nadine with her sceptical little smile. 'What does physiology -tell us? That genius is only a question of brain tissue and -blood-globules, and that the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mois de Mai</i> and the <cite>Prometheus -Unbound</cite> are only the consequence of a kind of disease. It is -so consoling for us; who have no disease, perhaps, but have -also, alas, no genius! That is why the world is so fond of the -physiologists. They are the great consolers of all mediocrity.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Damaris was gathering oranges and carrying them to the packing-sheds. -She was bearing an empty skip upon her head, and -kicking one of the golden balls before her through the grass, -when a woman, unlike any woman that she had seen before, -appeared to her astonished eyes amidst the emerald foliage of -the orange-boughs and the lilac of the hepaticas which filled the -grass.</p> - -<p>'I am sure you know me again?' said the sweetest and -coldest of voices. 'I am come to apologise to you for my rudeness. -Here is Loswa, who is afraid to approach you; he will -vouch for me.'</p> - -<p>Damaris stood still and mute; she put the basket off her -head, and looked in blank stupor at her visitant; her colour -came and went painfully; all in a moment she seemed to herself -to grow ugly, awkward, coarse, foolish, everything which -was hideous and painful. She had no words at her command, -she might have been born dumb. No man had any power to -confuse her, but this beautiful woman paralysed her every -nerve.</p> - -<p>'I am come to apologise to you for my involuntary rudeness,' -said her visitant in her sweetest manner. 'Your rebuke was -apt and very deserved, but you may be sure that, had I really -seen you I should not have incurred it.'</p> - -<p>'It was I who was rude,' said Damaris, with her cheeks -scarlet.</p> - -<p>Loswa had been unable to embarrass her, but a cruel con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>fusion -possessed her before this woman, who was so unlike herself, -who was so languid, so delicate, so marvellous.</p> - -<p>'Not that she is so very beautiful either,' thought the child -even in her bewilderment. 'But she is—she is—wonderful! -She is like those gauze-winged dragon-flies, all silver and -gossamer; she is like the delicate white lilies of the tree -datura; she is like, like——I did not think a woman could be -like that!'</p> - -<p>'Do you forgive me?' said her visitor with her sweetest -smile. 'I did not really see you, or I should not have made -such a blunder—I who detest such mistakes.'</p> - -<p>'I was rude,' stammered the girl again, with difficulty finding -her tongue, whilst her colour came and went with violence.</p> - -<p>'Oh no, you were justly on the defensive. You were -offended, and took a just reprisal; the only one in your power. -My dear child, M. Loswa has shown me the sketch he made of -you, and told me of your hospitality to him. Will you not be -as hospitable to me? I want much to make friends with you.' -The words were spoken with all the exquisite charm and -graciousness in which she could put such magic, when she -chose, that no one living would have resisted them, and all such -little courage or such vague prejudice as might have moved -Damaris against her melted before them like little snowflakes in -spring before the sun amidst the lilac-buds.</p> - -<p>'If Madame will honour me,' she stammered, not even seeing -the men who were present, only thinking of her own rough -gown, of her tumbled hair, of the state of the house filled with -wood smoke, as the oven was getting ready for the baking; of -the lines of washed linen that were stretching from one wall to -another.</p> - -<p>'How did Clovis let you pass?' she said, struck with a -sudden thought.</p> - -<p>'Clovis knew me again,' said Loswa. 'Besides, a man was -at the foot of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passerelle</i>, and brought us up to you.'</p> - -<p>'He did not do his duty,' said the girl with a little frown, -which drew together her pencilled eyebrows.</p> - -<p>'The man or the dog?' asked Nadine, amused.</p> - -<p>'Neither,' said Damaris. She was angered, though she did -not divine how many napoleons had passed into Raphael's hand, -who had been pruning olives, and had had much trouble to -hold back the faithful Clovis, for whom gold had no charm.</p> - -<p>'If Brunehildt had not been shut up with her puppies,' she -added regretfully; 'she is much more savage than Clovis.'</p> - -<p>'You seem very sorrowful that we did not all have the fate -of Penelope's suitors,' said Nadine, much amused. 'We are -the friends of Monsignor Melville; may not that fact protect -us? Is your grandfather at home?'</p> - -<p>No; he was away in the sloop; gone to St. Jean with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -cargo. Damaris did not add that he would have been much -worse to pass than even Brunehildt.</p> - -<p>'But I pray you come into the house, Madame,' she added, -her natural courtesy gaining the ascendancy over her embarrassment. -'It is a poor place, but there is a fine view, and if I had -only known——'</p> - -<p>'You would have been <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">endimanchée</i> and hideous,' thought -Nadine, as she answered with her sweetest grace that she would -go willingly to that balcony of the beauties of which she had -heard so much from Loswa.</p> - -<p>'All her eyes are for me,' she whispered to Béthune. 'She -does not see that any of you exist.'</p> - -<p>'I suppose,' rejoined Béthune, 'that we, after all, do not -differ so very much from Raphael and Gros Louis; but between a -woman and a woman of the world there is as much difference as -between a raw egg and a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">soufflé</i>, between a hen and a peahen.'</p> - -<p>'You might find a more poetic comparison; say a poppy and -a gardenia,' said Nadine smiling. 'She is not at the age to -think of you. Have patience; <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ça viendra</i>. She is really very -handsome, lovelier than Loswa's sketch.'</p> - -<p>Damaris, meanwhile, was thinking with agony that there -were ready no cakes, no cream, no white bread, nothing which -this delicate and ethereal visitant would be able to touch—thinking -of the linen swinging in the wind, and of the bacon -grey with smoke, and of Catherine, who, on washing-days, was -in her crossest mood!</p> - -<p>Nadine, with that swift intuition into, the thoughts of others -which made her the most sympathetic of companions where she -deigned to be sympathetic at all, guessed what was passing -through the girl's mind, and hastened to relieve her embarrassment -by asking to be permitted to remain out of doors, alleging -that the air was so soft and the scent of the orange-blossoms so -sweet, that she was reluctant to leave either.</p> - -<p>'Will Madame really prefer it?' said Damaris, unable to -conceal her relief.</p> - -<p>'There is the same view to be seen from here,' she added as -she opened a door in the wall and showed them the southern -sea stretching far away, shining blue and violet through arches -of olive-boughs lying all hushed and bright and warm in the -glow of the afternoon sun.</p> - -<p>Then she caught a little boy by the shoulder, the son of -Raphael, who was looking on stupidly.</p> - -<p>'Run and bring some wine and some fruit,' she whispered -to him, 'and ask Catherine to send the old silver.'</p> - -<p>Her sense of the obligations of hospitality was stronger than -the dread of her great lady.</p> - -<p>'It is not because she is great,' she told herself, angry with -her own timidity. 'But she is so wonderful, so wonderful!'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> - -<p>That supreme distinction in the wife of Othmar, which, -when she walked down a throne-room, made half the other -women there look vulgar, had its charm even for this child, who -could not have given a name to the superiority which awed and -fascinated her, even whilst it made her ready to hide her head -beneath the stones like the lizards.</p> - -<p>Nadine, pleased with everything, or so professing herself, -sat on a stone bench within sight of the sea and quartered a -mandarin orange with her white fingers, whilst the sun played -on the jewels of her great rings.</p> - -<p>'Of all your many conquests, perhaps you have had none -more flattering than the adoration and amazement of this child,' -whispered Béthune to her.</p> - -<p>She smiled.</p> - -<p>'And I should not think,' she answered, 'that she was by -nature easily daunted or easily impressed. She has reigned -here, the innocent Alcina of a bucolic paradise. She has character, -whether she have genius or no. Look how coolly she -puts poor Loswa aside! As he discovered Alcina, it will be hard -on him if he be not her Rinaldo!'</p> - -<p>'You are kinder to him than to her,' said Béthune.</p> - -<p>'You always think ill of him.'</p> - -<p>'I think of his character much as I do of his art.'</p> - -<p>'Surely his art is admirable?'</p> - -<p>'It is clever; it is not sincere.'</p> - -<p>'My dear Duke, is not that a little hypercritical? You -mean that it is a mannerism.'</p> - -<p>'And what is a mannerism but an affectation? And what is -an affectation but a want of truth?'</p> - -<p>'That is a wide subject. I cannot discuss it with you just -now, because I want to speak to this child.—My dear, I am a -neighbour of yours; I live on the coast which you see every -day; will you come and stay a few hours with me? We would -show you things which would amuse you.'</p> - -<p>'Stay with you?'</p> - -<p>The eyes of Damaris opened to their fullest, her face flushed -scarlet; she was so amazed that she forgot her awe of the -speaker.</p> - -<p>'Why should you want me?' she said bluntly.</p> - -<p>'When you are older you will know that people want many -things without knowing why they want them. But I can give -you very good reasons: Monsignor Melville has interested me -in you, and I think it a pity anyone so gifted as you are by -nature should never see anything better than your yard-dogs -and—what is your <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiancé's</i> name?—Gros Louis? My poor child, -how can you know what it is you do with yourself? You cannot -tell what the world is like.'</p> - -<p>'I am very happy,' said Damaris.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> - -<p>The world was a name of magic to her. How often had she -not looked over the strip of sea which severed her from that -dazzling shore where amethystine hills and ivory snows and -silvery olive woods spoke of a world from which she was forever -severed!</p> - -<p>'I would come to you if I were ever alone,' she said after a -pause.</p> - -<p>'Well, come with us,' said her temptress smiling. 'It -is three o'clock only now. We will take you with us for a -while and send you back by twilight. Loris has told you who -I am.'</p> - -<p>The name of Othmar was, even to the ears of Damaris, a -spell of might upon those shores. She was flattered, amazed, -touched to intense emotion, but she stammered out that, -although she was most grateful, yet she dared not; her grandfather -would kill her if she left the island; he was most severe; -he never forgave.</p> - -<p>'I promise to disarm your grandfather if that is all your -fear,' said Nadine, as she thought to herself, 'These good Communists, -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">je les connais</i>! They would string us all up to the -lamp-posts, if they could, and yet, when we speak to them, -they are in heaven!'</p> - -<p>The more terrified and resolute in resistance Damaris grew, -the more decided was her visitant to carry her point and succeed -in her caprice.</p> - -<p>'It is really cruel,' murmured Béthune. 'The child is happy: -oh Madame! why pluck this wild rose only to droop in your -glass-house, and be good for nothing ever afterwards? You cannot -put it back upon its stem if once you break it off——'</p> - -<p>'Do you think to flower for Gros Louis's buttonhole is a -better fate?' said Nadine with amusement. 'I think you all -are very hard to please. Usually I never notice anybody, and -you say I am cruel; when I do notice anybody you say that is -cruel also! I am just in the mood to play at being a benefactress, -and you all oppose my charitable inclinations. To-morrow -I may not be in the humour.'</p> - -<p>'Precisely,' said Béthune. 'To-morrow you will wonder -what you ever saw in a hedge rose, but that will not put the -rose back in bloom on the hedge again.'</p> - -<p>'The rose will cease to bloom certainly anywhere, and that -is nature's fault, and not mine.'</p> - -<p>'I hear you love the old poets,' she said, turning to Damaris. -'Will you recite something to me? I love them too.'</p> - -<p>'And you yawn before every stage in Paris!' murmured -Béthune. But Damaris did not hear him.</p> - -<p>'I shall say it very ill, Madame,' she murmured. She was -diffident, terrified indeed; yet her vague consciousness that she -had some sort of power in her, as the lark had, as the night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>ingale -had, made the old remembered poetry come thronging in -her brain and trembling on her lips as she spoke of it.</p> - -<p>'If, after all, I have talent?' she thought, her heart seeming -to beat up to her throat.</p> - -<p>'Give us something from Esther,' said her visitor; 'that is -the one play permissible to young girls.'</p> - -<p>Damaris smiled, as if at the name of a dear friend. Those -verses, which generation after generation of children have -spoken since the young disciples of the early years of St. Cyr -first wept over the perils of the Jewish heroine, were amongst -those which most touched her heart and pleased her imagination. -Unknown to herself, she had something of the sense of -loneliness of an exile, of an alien, on this little island, which -yet she loved so well.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voyons, voyons!</i>' said Nadine impatiently, not accustomed -to, or tolerant of, being made to wait. 'Do not be afraid. I -will tell you frankly whether you have any artistic aptitude, or -whether you had better stay and gather oranges and never open -a poem all your life. These gentlemen will flatter you, but I -shall not. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voyons!</i>'</p> - -<p>She spoke imperatively, and with the imperial air of her -most resolute will. Damaris grew very pale, even to her lips, -but she did not dare refuse to obey. She opened her mouth -once, twice, with a deep-drawn, fluttering, frightened breath; -then she began to recite, with tremulous voice, the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Notre ennemi cruel devant vous se déclare:</div> - <div class="verse">C'est lui, c'est le ministre infidèle et barbare</div> - <div class="verse">Qui, d'un zèle trompeur à vos yeux revêtu,</div> - <div class="verse">Contre notre innocence arma votre vertu.</div> - <div class="verse">Et quel autre, grand Dieu! qu'un Scythe impitoyable</div> - <div class="verse">Aurait de tant d'horreurs dicté l'ordre effroyable?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>and passed on to the passage,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">O Dieu, confonds l'audace et l'imposture!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>At first her timidity was so great that she was almost inaudible, -but at the fifth and sixth lines the charm which the words -possessed for her began to absorb her thoughts, to take her out -of herself into the region of poetic feeling, to spur and stimulate -and strengthen her. Nature had given her tones full of tenderness -and power, and capable of many varying emotions, and the -dramatic instinct, which was either inherited or innate in her, -made her give wholly unconsciously the just expression, the -true emphasis, the accent which best aided the meaning of the -verse, and best shaped its harmonies and grace.</p> - -<p>Her first embarrassment once passed, the animation and -spirit natural to her returned; her intuitive perception made -her lend the required force and feeling to each verse; she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -have recited the whole of the play with ease, so familiar to her -were the lines of all the few volumes she possessed. Night after -night, in her little balcony, when everyone slept except herself -and the nightingales, she had declaimed the speeches <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto voce</i> -for her own delight, living for the hour in the scenes they suggested, -and forgetting all the more sordid details of the existence -which surrounded her, seeing only the moon and the sea and -the orange flowers. At any other time her meridional accent, -her childish exaggeration of emphasis, and southerner's excess -of gesture, would have incurred the ridicule of her hypercritical -auditor. But now the critic was in the mood to be kind and to -be easily pleased. She closed her ears to the defects, and only -noted with approbation the much there was to praise and to -approve in the untaught recitation of a girl of fifteen, who had -never seen a stage or heard a recital in the whole of her short -life.</p> - -<p>Damaris paused abruptly, and with a startled look, like one -awakened out of dreamland into rough reality.</p> - -<p>'I beg your pardon, I forgot myself,' she said stupidly, not -well knowing what she meant and hardly where she was.</p> - -<p>She did not hear the eager praises of the gentlemen about -her; she only heard the sweet cool voice of the woman who was -her judge, and who had listened in impassive silence:</p> - -<p>'My dear, you have talent,' said that voice. 'Perhaps you -have even genius. With all that music in your shut soul you -must not marry Gros Louis.'</p> - -<p>Damaris looked at her wistfully, with all the colour hot in -her face, and her heart beating visibly. Then, she could not -have told her why, she burst into tears.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une sensitive!</i>' murmured her visitant a little impatiently. -'You see, my dear Duke!—it is Aimée Desclée, not Rachel; -Adrienne Lecouvreur, not Mlle. Mars.'</p> - -<p>'The greater pity then to take her from her orange-groves,' -answered Béthune. 'What will Paris or the world give that -will compensate for all her loss!'</p> - -<p>Damaris did not hear. With shame at her own emotion, -and unwillingness that it should be pitied or observed, she had -turned away, and had been sobbing silently over the uplifted -head and questioning face of Clovis, who had come upward to -inspect the strangers.</p> - -<p>'If Esther can move her so greatly,' said Nadine with her -little ironical smile, 'what will Dona Sol do and Marion de -l'Orme?'</p> - -<p>'I do not think,' said Béthune, 'that it is Esther which -moves her now; it is your abrupt revelation to her of her own -powers. Surely to discover you have genius must be like discovering -that you have a snake in your breast and eternal life -in your hand.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> - -<p>She laughed, and went to where Damaris stood with the -dog, striving to conquer her weakness.</p> - -<p>'My dear child, surely you cannot weep for Gros Louis? -Nay, I understand; I startled you because I told you that if -you study and strive you can do great things. I believe so. -If you wish I will help you to do them.'</p> - -<p>The girl was silent. So immense was the vision which -opened before her, and so enormous to her fancy were the -perils and difficulties which stretched between her and this -promised land, that she was mute from awe and from amazement.</p> - -<p>Always to dwell on Bonaventure, always to steer and sail -on the sea, always to gather the olives and oranges, always to -see the sun rise over the wild shores of Italy and set over the -coast of Spain far away in immeasurable golden distances, -always to run up and down the rocks like the goats, and swim -like the dolphins, and go to bed with the birds and get up with -them—this had been the only life she had known. For the -moment she could attain no conception of any other. She had -seen the churches at Villefranche and Eza, and she had seen -the building yards of Villefranche and St. Tropez, and that -was all; her only idea of the great world was of a perpetual -fête-day, with the priests always in their broidered canonicals, -and the church bells always ringing, and the people always -thronging in holiday attire, and going up and down sunny streets -noisily and laughing.</p> - -<p>That was all she could think of; and yet Imagination, that -kindliest of all the ministers of humanity, had told her there -must be more than this somewhere; had filled her mind with -many dim, gorgeous, marvellous pageantries which grew up for -her from the black printed lines of 'Sintram' and 'The Cid.' -There must be something better than the Sundays of the mainland—— -And yet to leave her island seemed to her like leaving -life itself!</p> - -<p>All these conflicting thoughts striving together in a mind -which was vivid in its fancies and childish in its ignorance -moved her to an emotion which she could neither have controlled -nor have described; she could find no words with which -to answer this great lady, who seemed to her to have thrown -open great golden gates before her, and let in a flood of light -which dazzled her, streaming on her from unknown skies. And -at last she yielded.</p> - -<p>'Catherine, I am going on the sea,' she cried, as she ran -indoors, blushing to the roots of her hair at the subterfuge, for -she was very truthful.</p> - -<p>The old woman, invisible for the smoke as she stooped over -the great oven, with the handle of its door in her hand, -grumbled some cross words which were neither assent nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -dissent. Damaris took them as the former, and waited for no -more; she passed half her life on the sea, the old servant would -find nothing strange in her absence if she were out till sunset.</p> - -<p>'You are sure I shall be back by Ave Maria?' she said -timidly to her temptress.</p> - -<p>'Certainly,' said Nadine, who knew well that it was not -possible.</p> - -<p>'I am sure I ought not to come,' said the girl wistfully.</p> - -<p>Her temptress smiled a little.</p> - -<p>'Oh, my dear, if you be as feminine as you look, that -consideration will only add <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la pointe à la sauce</i>.'</p> - -<p>Damaris gazed at her with pathetic, impassioned eyes. She -did not understand; she said nothing; she only sighed.</p> - -<p>'Come,' said the enchantress.</p> - -<p>'I think Othmar was right. It is cruel,' murmured -Béthune.</p> - -<p>'Men are always so timid,' said Nadine with her customary -indulgent contempt for them. 'Ignorance is not bliss, my -dear friend, although the copybooks say so.—Come, my pretty -demoiselle, come and see our enchanted coasts; we will not -harm you, and we will only give you a little spray of moly such -as Ulysses gathered; and perhaps a magic ring and a wishing-cap, -nothing worse.'</p> - -<p>The child hesitated still; she knew that she was doing very -wrong; she knew that if what she was doing were discovered, -her grandfather's chastisement would be pitiless; but curiosity, -imagination, interest, were all enlisted on the side of disobedience, -and she had a certain turbulence and ardour of -self-will in her nature which had brought her many hard words -from Catherine, and even blows from Jean Bérarde. All these -together conquered her conscience, her judgment, and her -prudence; the gates of the enchanted world stood open; she -might never pass through them, or see what was beyond them -unless she went now.</p> - -<p>With that reasoning she sprang down the first ledges of the -stone staircase, and as lightly as a kid would have done leaped -from one step to the other till she reached the edge of the -sea.</p> - -<p>She allowed her feet to be guided into the barge, and felt it -dance beneath them with a strange thrill; it seemed all to be -as unreal as a chapter of 'Sintram;' the lovely lady who wooed -and tempted her appeared like a being from another world; the -gilded prow, the embroidered flag, the rich awnings fringed -with silver wavered before her in the sunlight.</p> - -<p>Before she had known what she had actually done, the oars -of the men cleft the sunshiny water, letting it flow in streams -of diamonds off their blades, and the vessel had already glided -away from her home.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> - -<p>Clovis, who was accustomed never to leave the island, but -never failed to give voice to his grief when he saw her leave -him for the sea, either by swimming or sailing, stood on the -strip of sand beneath the rocky steep of Bonaventure and -howled in dismal solitude. She put her hands to her ears not -to hear him; it seemed as if he reproached and rebuked her.</p> - -<p>Soon he became but a little white speck beneath the red -sandstone of the cliff, and the boat had reached the side of the -stately schooner which awaited them in the midst of gay sunshine -and azure water, whilst a flute-player discoursed sweet -music from some unseen retreat.</p> - -<p>When the island also began to recede from sight she then, -and only then, began to realise what she had done.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C'est Bernardin de St.-Pierre tout pur</i>,' said Nadine, surveying -with diversion the amazement and the awe of her captive.</p> - -<p>Nothing could be more enchantingly kind than her manner, -or more gentle and encouraging in its patience with the girl's -stupor and timidity. She had gratified her caprice, she had -won her wager, and she was sweet and gracious to the object -of it. Obedience had always found her benignant if at times it -had found her as quickly oblivious. This had been a little -thing indeed; a very little thing; but she would have been -irritated if it had escaped or beaten her; would almost have -been mortified.</p> - -<p>All her world had told her that to bring the girl thither -would be a folly if not a cruelty; and for that reason beyond -all others she had persevered.</p> - -<p>Damaris, seated in the prow of the barge, had the charm for -her of representing the triumph of her own will. So might -some young slave, hardly acquired, on whom her fancy had -been strongly and waywardly set, have represented hers to -Cleopatra.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Othmar was leaning over the balustrade of the sea-terrace as -the vessel returned. He looked and saw the captive from -Bonaventure. A sort of vague pity mingled with irritation as -he did so. Why had Nadine brought this hapless child from -her safe sea silences and solitudes? It was a jest, but the jest -was cruel; as cruel as that which ties the little living bird on -to the bouquet that is tossed from hand to hand in jests of -Carnival.</p> - -<p>The poor sea-born curlew would do well enough left to its -own nest upon the rocks, but once taken prisoner its day was -done.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> - -<p>There were moments when the caprices of her wayward and -dominant will irritated him; when her profound indifference to -the consequences of any action which amused herself, and compromised -others, repelled him by its coldness. What could -this poor little peasant be to her? A toy for five minutes, a -plaything sought out of mere contradiction, and destined to be -cast aside ere the day was done!</p> - -<p>He watched the graceful shape of the schooner as it bore -down upon the coast with a sense of regret as from some definite -misfortune which might have been averted by exercise of his -own will. But he had never used his will in any opposition to -his wife.</p> - -<p>Wisely or unwisely, he had never made the slightest opposition -to her desires or even her fancies. Begun in the blind -adoration of a lover, the habit of deference to her had continued -with him, not out of feebleness or uxoriousness, but out of that -gradual growth of custom which is one of the most potent -influences of life. She had power over him to make him -relinquish many a project, abandon many a desire, but this -power was not reciprocal; it seldom or never is so between two -human beings. The old proverb, that of any twain one is -booted and spurred and the other saddled and bridled, has a -rough truth in it.</p> - -<p>Othmar knew nothing of, and cared as little for, this girl -whose face looked with so frank an audacity, so wistful an -innocence, out of the brilliant drawing of Loswa. But he was -sorry that she was not let alone. He had suffered many a bitter -moment, even since his marriage, from the uncertainty of his -wife's moods, from the mutability of her fancies. Constant in -his own tastes, and very unwilling to wound others, her rapid -changes from interest to weariness, and her profound indifference -for the bruises she gave to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amour propre</i> of her -fellow-creatures, frequently troubled and distressed him. He -was often kind to persons he disliked, to compensate them for -her unkindness, or to prevent them from perceiving it.</p> - -<p>Nadine, he knew, would think this poor child of no more -account than the briar-rose to which he had likened her; but -to him it seemed wanton and cruel to have disturbed the -peacefulness of her life, merely as a child casts a stone at a bird, -and then runs on, not even looking to see whether the bird be -bruised or has fallen.</p> - -<p>'Life is but a spectacle,' she had once said to him. 'When -you go to the Gymnase do you distress yourself as to whether -the actors catch cold at the wings or take a contagious disease -in a cab as they go home? Of course you do not? Then why -not view life in the same manner? People bore us or please -us; that is all we are concerned with. We do not follow them -home in fact; we need not, even in imagination.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> - -<p>But Othmar did not agree with her. Life seemed to him -much more often tragedy rather than comedy; he could not -divest himself of a compassion for the players, with which -much fellow-feeling mingled.</p> - -<p>'Since I married him he has become very amiable,' she once -said jestingly. 'It is due to the spirit of contradiction which -always exists in human nature, and which is never so strongly -developed as in marriage.'</p> - -<p>It was a jest; but there was a truth in the jest. Often he -felt so much irritated at his wife's indifference, that it stimulated -him to more interest or sympathy than he would otherwise -have felt on many subjects and in many persons.</p> - -<p>As he saw the yacht approach the sea-wall now, he turned -away impatiently and went into the house to his books. He -did not choose to assist at the festive procession which was conducting -this poor little wild goat of the cliffs to be offered upon -the altars of caprice and flattery.</p> - -<p>As if, he thought, a life out of the world were not such an -enviable thing that we should be as afraid to destroy it as we -are afraid to break a Tanagra statuette!</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, unretarded by his displeasure, the schooner -approached as nearly as the draught of water would permit, -and the boat from it landed Damaris Bérarde at the foot of the -rose-marble stairs. Béthune would have assisted her, but she -sprang from the boat to the landing-stair with the assured and -graceful agility of one who passed all her life in the open air, -and was practised in the free exercise of all her muscles. Her -eyes gazed in delighted wonder at the beauty of the place.</p> - -<p>'It is like Alcina's palace,' she said with a quick breath of -admiration.</p> - -<p>'What do you know of Alcina?' asked her hostess, amused.</p> - -<p>'I have read Ariosto,' she answered, and then, with her -extreme care for perfect truthfulness, added, 'I mean I have -read his poems, translated.'</p> - -<p>'It is rather your island which is like Alcina's,' said her -hostess.</p> - -<p>Then they led her through the gardens, which seemed all a -maze of rose, of yellow, and of white from the innumerable -thickets of azalea which were in bloom. Here and there, out -of their gorgeous glow of colour, there rose the white form of a -statue or the white column of a fountain. The sun was still -high in the west; the gardens seemed to laugh like children in -its warmth.</p> - -<p>It was all so beautiful, so magical, so strange; the child -whose imagination had been fed on poets' fancies, and had -grown unchecked in an almost complete solitude, expected some -marvellous message, some wondrous destiny to meet her there -on this threshold of a new life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> - -<p>She found herself the centre of attention and of homage; -everyone looked at her, spoke to her, strove to gain her notice. -A vague fancy came into her mind—perhaps she was a king's -daughter after all, like the Goose Girl in Grimm's stories, of -whom Melville had told her once. Anything would have -seemed possible to her, and nothing too incredible to happen -at the close of this astonishing day.</p> - -<p>They led her into the house, which was entered from the -garden through conservatories filled with Asiatic and South -American plants and gaily peopled by green paroquets and -rose-crested cockatoos, and scarlet cardinals, which flew at their -will amongst the feathery foliage.</p> - -<p>They were all kind to her; full of compliment and of thoughtfulness -for her; even her hostess took trouble to interest her, -to explain things to her, to make her feel that she was welcome -and admired. In her serge frock and her thick shoes, -with her rope of pearls twisted round her throat, and her face -in a rose glow of surprise and of innocent vanity and pleasure, -she sat the centre of their interest, their approval, and their -praise. She was a very picturesque figure with her short blue -rough gown and her scarlet worsted cap. She had twisted her -big pearls round her throat, and she had slipped on her Sunday -shoes. She was tall, and lithe, and erect; she looked astonished, -but not intimidated. If a smile were exchanged -between them at her expense she did not see it, and if they -looked at her much as they would have done at a ouistiti or a -topaza pyra from wild woods, she was unconscious of it.</p> - -<p>The whole scene was enchantment to her eyes. Her natural -sense of the beauties of form and of colour was at once soothed -and excited by the beauty of these chambers, which had all -the subdued glow of old jewels. It was still daylight, but rose-shaded -lamps were burning there, and shed a mellow hue over -all the brilliant colours. They brought her tea, and ices, and -bonbons, things all as strange to her as they would have been -to a savage from South Sea isles.</p> - -<p>Her ignorance, her simplicity, her frank surprise amused -them, and the natural shrewdness and pertinence of her replies -stimulated them with the sense of a new intellectual distraction. -But when they pressed her to recite, she grew shy and silent. -She was not a machine to be set in action by pressure of a -spring; and a certain suspicion that she had only been brought -here as a plaything dawned upon her; the idea suddenly came -to her that these great people were amusing themselves with -her ignorance and astonishment, and when once that sting of -mortified doubt had come into her mind, peace fled, and pride -kept her mute and still.</p> - -<p>Other persons came in, pretty women, and handsome men; -there was a murmur of laughter and a confusion of voices in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -the rooms. She began to feel less at her ease, less satisfied, -less sure of her own self. Some of the new-comers stared at -her and sauntered away laughing; her one little hour of triumph -was already over; she had been seen, she had ceased to be a -novelty.</p> - -<p>But it was too late to repent. She could not ask such -strangers to retrace their steps for her; and she felt by intuition -that this lovely sovereign, with her delicate face and her -gracious smile, could have become as chill as the north wind -and as terrible as the white storms, were she offended by -caprice or ingratitude.</p> - -<p>Damaris had strong natural courage, and all the hardiness -of a resolute and defiant youth; but she felt a vague fear of -Nadine Napraxine, which only served to intensify the fascination -by which she was subdued in her presence.</p> - -<p>Her hostess still spoke kindly to her from time to time, but -soon ceased to think much about her: having once been -captured and brought thither, she had ceased to be an object -of great interest.</p> - -<p>It was five o'clock; more people had driven over from other -villas; great ladies, with their attendant gentlemen. There -were the usual laughter and murmurs of conversation, and -general buzz of voices; the rose-shaded lamps were shining -through the daylight; the sounds of a grand piano magnificently -played came from the music-room; the air was full of the scent -of roses and gardenias, of incense and perfume. Damaris, after -a few glances cast at her, a few smiles caused by her, was forgotten -and left to herself. Her head turned; her breath -seemed oppressed in this atmosphere so different to her own; -she felt lonely, ashamed, miserable; she shrank into a corner -behind some palms and gloxinias, it was the saddest fall to -pride and expectation.</p> - -<p>Othmar and Béthune, watching her, both thought, 'She -has found out she is only a plaything, and she is resentful.' -Othmar thought, in addition, 'If only she knew how very little -time she will even be as much as that!'</p> - -<p>They saw without surprise, but with contempt, that Loswa, -through whose imprudence she was there, avoided her, was -evidently ashamed to seem acquainted with her, and devoted himself -assiduously to two or three of the great ladies. Loswa wished -to show her that if he had sought her for sake of his art, he had -better interests and occupation than a little peasant in knitted -stockings could afford him. In himself he was angered against -her for the slightness of the impression he had made on her, -and the indifference with which she had treated him after he -had honoured her by taking her for a model.</p> - -<p>'She is a little sea-mouse that came up in Miladi's deep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>water -net to-day,' he said with a slighting laugh to the great -ladies who asked him about her.</p> - -<p>Damaris overheard, and her child's heart burnt with rage -and scorn against them.</p> - -<p>'He broke bread with me yesterday, and he ridicules me to-day!' -she thought, with her primitive islander's notions as to -the sanctity of the rites of hospitality. She hated this soft-eyed, -soft-voiced man, who had made an effigy of her with his -colours, and had brought to her these cruel strangers, who had -in a single hour made such havoc of her peace. And they had -told her that she should be back at Ave Maria, and it was now -night; deep night, she thought it; for she did not know that -though these rooms were all lit artificially, and the windows had -now been long closed, behind these thick draperies of golden -plush the last glow of daylight had scarcely then faded from -the western skies.</p> - -<p>What would they think on the island?—and what would -Catherine and Raphael do?</p> - -<p>No one now noticed her since they had ceased to stare at -her as a young barbarian; no one now remembered her, sought -her, or cared for her; she seemed likely to pass the whole -afternoon in a corner, undisturbed and unremembered, like a -little sea-mouse, as he called her, too insignificant even to be -expelled!</p> - -<p>On her island nothing could have daunted her, silenced her, -troubled her; she was mistress there of the soil and of herself; -she was proud and intrepid as any sovereign in her own tiny -kingdom; but here all her courage deserted her; she only -realised how utterly she was unlike all these people around her; -she was only conscious of the rude texture of her gown, of the -rough wool of her hose, of the sea-brown on her hands and -arms, of the red on her cheeks blown there by the wind and -the weather.</p> - -<p>All these women were delicate and pale as the waxen bells -of the begonia, as the creamy column of the tuberose.</p> - -<p>She had been innocently vain, unconsciously proud of herself; -everybody had told her she was handsome, and her own -sense had told her that she was born with finer mind and -higher organisation than were possessed by those who were her -daily companions. And now she felt that she was nothing—nothing—only -an ignorant and common peasant. She was well -enough at Bonaventure, but she was a poor little savage here.</p> - -<p>Suddenly there was a general murmur of excitation and a -general movement of personages, and from where she had -been placed she saw the mistress of the house going forward -to greet a young man who had entered as various voices had -exclaimed:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Prince Paul is come!'</p> - -<p>They all surrounded this new-comer with murmurs of ardent -congratulation. He was the Rubenstein of the great world, a -rare and most sympathetic genius, and, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ce qui ne gâte rien</i>, he -was the son of a grand duke, though he held it as a much higher -title that he had been also the pupil of Liszt and the beloved of -Wagner. He was one of the innumerable cousins which Nadine -could claim here, there, and everywhere in the pages of the -Almanach de Gotha, and he was a person whose visits were -always agreeable to her.</p> - -<p>This visit was unexpected, and was, therefore, all the more -welcome. In the reception of Paul of Lemberg she altogether -forgot her poor little bit of seaweed off Bonaventure, and everyone -did the same.</p> - -<p>Othmar, coming through his rooms to welcome his new and -unlooked-for visitor, who was a great favourite with himself, -caught sight of the figure so unlike all others there, which was -seated forlorn and alone on a low couch, with a group of palms -and some draperies of Ottoman silks behind her.</p> - -<p>'So soon abandoned!' he thought with compassion. 'Poor -child; she looks sadly astray. She is very handsome—as handsome -as Loswa's sketch,' he thought also, with a few swift -glances at her.</p> - -<p>When he too had greeted Prince Paul he turned to his wife -and said in an undertone:</p> - -<p>'Have you forgotten another guest whom you have left -there all alone?'</p> - -<p>She looked fatigued and annoyed at the suggestion.</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho, go and console her; you were always a -squire of distressed damsels.'</p> - -<p>Othmar turned away and passed back through the apartments -to the place where he had seen Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Poor little <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>!' he thought pitifully. 'You have no -power to amuse them for more than five minutes. It was cruel -to bring you away from your own orange and olive shadows -into a world with which you have no single pulse in common!'</p> - -<p>With his gentlest manner he addressed her:</p> - -<p>'May I present myself to you, mademoiselle? My wife, I -understand, persuaded you to favour us by leaving your solitudes. -I am afraid we have not much to offer you in return.'</p> - -<p>Damaris was silent. She was grateful for the kindness, but -she was too offended and pained by the position in which she -had been placed to be easily reconciled to herself.</p> - -<p>'You are Count Othmar?' she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>She was thinking of the story told her, when she was a child, -by Catherine.</p> - -<p>'That is what men call me,' said he. 'Believe me, I am -your friend no less than my wife is so, and I am most happy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -to see you beneath my roof. I first made your acquaintance -through Loswa's sketch.'</p> - -<p>'He was not honest about that,' she said angrily.</p> - -<p>Othmar smiled.</p> - -<p>'No artists are honest when they are tempted by beautiful -subjects. He will make you the admiration of all the Paris art -world next year.'</p> - -<p>She did not reply at once. Then she repeated:</p> - -<p>'It was not honest. I did not think he was going to show -it, and bring people to me.'</p> - -<p>'No; in that I think he took unfair advantage of your -hospitality.'</p> - -<p>'That is what I mean. I shall not let him ever go back.'</p> - -<p>'Poor Loswa! The punishment will perhaps be greater -than the offence.'</p> - -<p>She was again silent. She knew nothing of the light give -and take of social intercourse. To her the things of life were -all very serious.</p> - -<p>He felt an extreme compassion for her, and with great -patience, kindness, and tact, strove to overcome her half-fierce -shyness. He talked to her in a way which she could understand -and of things she knew; of the life of the sea, of the -fruits and their seasons, of dogs and their ways, of old poets -and simple writers such as she loved and reverenced. Little -by little her sullenness gave way, her face lightened with its -natural smile; she felt confidence in him and spoke to him with -that candour and directness which were as common to her as its -blue tint to the sea-water; but all the while she thought with -sinking heart:</p> - -<p>'I wonder if I might ask him how late the hour is? I wonder -if I might tell him how much I do want to go home?'</p> - -<p>But she did not dare to do so; she thought it would be -rude.</p> - -<p>Othmar placed before her some volumes of Doré's illustrations -to beguile her time, and rejoined his wife, who was -still occupied with the Prince of Lemberg. He was at all -times one of her favourites, and he had just come from Vienna, -and had many <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chroniques scandaleuses</i> of that patrician court to -tell.</p> - -<p>'What is to be done with this unhappy child?' Othmar said -to her somewhat sternly. 'She is miserable and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dépaysée</i>.'</p> - -<p>'I sent you to amuse her,' replied Nadine. 'If you did -not——'</p> - -<p>'You must allow me to say,' returned Othmar, 'that it was -not worthy of you to bring that poor little peasant here, only -to neglect her and make her miserable. I should have thought -you were too great a lady to commit such a—will you pardon -me the word?—such a vulgarity.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was not as angry as he had expected; she even smiled; -but she remained as indifferent.</p> - -<p>'Vulgarity is indeed a terrible charge! I do not think anybody -ever brought it against me before. I thought she was very -well entertained. I supposed Loswa took care of her. He is -responsible for her.'</p> - -<p>'No,' said Othmar, 'we are responsible. She is in our -house, and she came here by your invitation; on your insistence. -There is surely the law of hospitality——'</p> - -<p>'Among savages,' said his wife, amused. 'I believe it -exists somewhere still on the Red River, or amongst the Red -Indians; I am not sure which. We know nothing about it. -We only invite people because we think they will amuse us, -and we usually find that they do not. I fancied this girl would -be amusing, but she is not at all so here. She is dull, and she -is frightened.'</p> - -<p>'What else could you expect?'</p> - -<p>'I expected—I do not know what I expected. Genius -should not be abashed by mere tables and chairs.'</p> - -<p>'Perhaps she has no genius. Even if she have any, to be -stared at and laughed at by a number of strange people may be -sufficiently embarrassing. I confess that I think you have done -a very cruel thing.'</p> - -<p>She laughed. When men are angry they amuse immeasurably -a clever woman whose temper is serene. And it seemed -such a trifle to her.</p> - -<p>'Pending your arrangements for her future,' said Othmar -after a pause of excessive irritation, 'where is she to be this -evening? The second gong has sounded.'</p> - -<p>She gave a little gesture of impatience.</p> - -<p>'How very tiresome you are! Can she not go to the -servants?'</p> - -<p>'In my house? Certainly not. I will have no guests sent -to the servants' hall. This young girl is as well born as any -other of your visitors.'</p> - -<p>'How odd you are! You will make me insist on separate -establishments if you develop such quaint notions! I am sure -she would be infinitely happier with the maids, and she would -run no risk of becoming <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>.'</p> - -<p>'It is the only time in my life that I have found your expressions -in bad taste,' said Othmar as he turned to leave the -room.</p> - -<p>She laughed: 'You had better take her into dinner yourself.'</p> - -<p>'I shall do so if she will come.'</p> - -<p>The door closed on him, and she looked after him with a -frown of impatience and a smile of astonishment.</p> - -<p>What a fuss about a little fisher-girl! she thought. As if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -the girl could not go to the maids—go to the nurseries—go to -the still-room—anywhere, anywhere. What could it matter?</p> - -<p>She was accustomed to see her playthings no more when -once they had passed an idle hour for her. Why could not -somebody take away this one? She would not have been here -had it not been for Loswa. It was all Loswa's fault, no one -else's. And who could tell that the girl would be such a dumb, -stupid, frightened creature? On the island she had had force -and courage and talkativeness enough.</p> - -<p>Why would Otho always take everything <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">au grand sérieux</i>? -He should have lived on that island.</p> - -<p>He was quite capable of taking her in to dinner, though -there were high ladies of every degree staying in the house! -And she hated the idea of his making himself ridiculous. She -would override all customs and conventionalities herself when -she chose, but she was too thoroughly a woman of the world -not to regard a social solecism, a drawing-room blunder, with -much more horror than she would have felt for greater crimes. -Anything which made an absurd story for society was to her -detestable.</p> - -<p>'Murder all your enemies to three generations, like a -Montenegrin,' she would say <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à propos</i> of such matters, 'but -never make a fault in precedence at your table.'</p> - -<p>Othmar meanwhile dressed very hurriedly, and hastened to -the drawing-rooms before they could fill again. The latent -chivalry of his temper was active; he would have been capable -for the moment of any eccentricity to show his honour for this -forlorn child.</p> - -<p>'What wretched artificial creatures we all are!' he thought. -'No wonder, when any natural life comes amongst us, it feels -dazed and astray.'</p> - -<p>The existence he led looked to him for the instant supremely -absurd. The instincts towards wider freedom and plainer -habits, and higher thoughts than those possible in his society, -had always been in him from his youth, though they had found -no issue and no sympathy; and in his marriage he had tightened -around him the bondage of the world.</p> - -<p>The brilliant rooms were deserted when he re-entered them: -here and there a servant moved, attending to a lamp or carrying -away a stray teacup; there was no one else.</p> - -<p>In his gentlest tones he again addressed Damaris:</p> - -<p>'We are about to go to dinner,' he said to her kindly; -'will you do me the honour to accompany me?'</p> - -<p>No hunted antelope could have looked more terrified than -she.</p> - -<p>'Dinner,' she echoed. 'I dined at noon.'</p> - -<p>'But you can dine again? The sea air always gives one an -appetite. You must not starve like this in my house.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I could not! I could not!' she said with tremulous lips. -She glanced in an agony of dread through the rooms where all -those gay people were. The idea of dining with them appalled -her more than it would have done to find herself on a wrecked -vessel, in the midst of the winds and waves. What would they -think of her? What errors would she not make? What could -she know of their manners and fashions?</p> - -<p>'I could not! I could not!' she repeated, her colour -changing a dozen times a minute.</p> - -<p>He endeavoured to persuade her, but found that it only -caused her more pain. After all, he reflected, it was natural -enough that she, who had never been at any table save her own, -should be appalled at the prospect of dining before a score of -fine ladies and gentlemen.</p> - -<p>He was sorry for her. He knew the rapidity with which -his wife's caprices altered and her preferences evaporated. He -had seen so many please her, for an hour, to weary her immeasurably -whenever they afterwards presumed to recall to her -the fact of their existence.</p> - -<p>'Well, you shall do as you please in this house,' he said to -her. 'Remain here, and I will tell them to bring your dinner -to you.'</p> - -<p>'Indeed—indeed I want nothing,' she protested; 'I could -not eat.'</p> - -<p>She was about to say to him much more than that; to say -that the sun had set, the night had come, the hours were passing -fast—but she could not find courage. After all, what was she?—a -stupid, ignorant little sea-born savage in the eyes of all -these people.</p> - -<p>She remained where she was, silent, and miserable, yet -watching with curious eyes the pageant so new to her of the -lighted <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salons</i>, the lovely ladies, the pretty procession that -passed out of the drawing-rooms as they went to dinner. Could -these be human beings who lived always like this? She -wondered—she envied—and yet she longed for her own free -life on the waves, under the olives, climbing with the goats, -diving with the gannets, rocking in the orange-boughs with the -thrush and the greenfinch. It was beautiful here, magical, -marvellous, incredible; yet she wanted fresh air, she wanted -free movement; like a mountain-born rose shut up in a hothouse, -she felt suffocated in this sultry and perfumed air.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>As Othmar had promised, a servant brought to her, served on -silver and Japanese porcelain with damask, which she took to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -be satin, a repast of which the dishes succeeded each other in -bewildering rapidity, and looked so ethereal and pretty that it -seemed to her quite grievous to break them up and eat them. -The fairies themselves might have feasted off these tempting -viands, and her appetite, which was the robust one of youth, -proved to her that it is possible to dine at noon and yet be -ready to dine again at eight. She had satisfied her hunger, -however, long before the full complement of the services had -been brought to her, and the fruit and bonbons best pleased -her childish tastes. She gained courage to leave her corner and -come from beyond the palms and move timidly about the rooms, -looking now at this picture, now at that statue, and ever confronted -by her own likeness in the mirrors, and beholding it -with impatience. She touched the flowers embroidered on the -plush of the chairs, astonished that the blossoms were not real. -She looked with wonder at the grand piano, marvelling that out -of its painted panels and ivory keyboard such melodies as she had -heard could have been drawn. She gazed at the figures on the -Gobelin tapestries in entranced delight, and, with the unerring -selection of a nature instinctively artistic, paused enraptured -before the marble copy by Clésinger of the Vatican Hermes.</p> - -<p>She who had never seen anything but Bonaventure and -the fisher-people's cabins on the mainland, and the little dusky -shops where the fruit was sold, was dazzled by the beauty of -St. Pharamond within and without. Everything around her -was strange and wonderful; the very flowers were unfamiliar; -gorgeous blossoms to which she could give no names.</p> - -<p>But when she caught sight of her own figure in the mirrors, -standing amidst all the glow and delicacy of colour of these -marvellous chambers, she seemed to herself barbarous, incongruous, -grotesque, a blot upon the scene, a savage set amidst -civilisation. All the flatteries which had been poured out to her -ear had passed by her, making little impression. There were -the mirrors, which were truer counsellors than he; they showed -her that she was not as these people were. She did not think she -had any beauty at all, she only saw that she had none of this -grace which was around her, that she was like a bit of ribbon -weed from the sea amongst lilies and lilac.</p> - -<p>She was so interested and so absorbed that she was startled -as by a blow when she saw the double doors at the end of the -drawing-rooms thrown open by a man with a silver chain and a -white wand, and the figure of her hostess appeared led by the -Prince of Lemberg and followed by all the ladies and gentlemen -who had dined with her that evening.</p> - -<p>With the swift movement of a hunted thing Damaris drew -back behind a screen of plush embroidered like the walls and -chairs and couches with silken garlands of spring flowers.</p> - -<p>No one was thinking of her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> - -<p>Even Othmar passed by the spot where he had left her without -looking for her. He was talking to a very tall slight blonde -woman, who was the Princesse de Laon, and had been Blanchette -de Vannes. They all went by the screen and passed on into the -farthest room of all, where the Erard stood. Damaris, like a -forsaken child, crouched down on the stool she had found there, -and the big hot tears forced themselves from under her eyelids. -It was foolish, she knew; unreasonable, no doubt; but the -most piteous sense of mortification and of insignificance was -upon her, like a heavy hand crushing her down into the earth.</p> - -<p>At Bonaventure, despite the harshness at any disobedience -with which she was treated by her grandfather, she had been in -much a spoilt child; the few people on the island were all her -ministers and servants. On the rare occasions when she visited -the mainland, everyone treated with reverence and flattery the -heiress to Jean Bérarde's wealth and acres; even when these -great people had come to her they had praised her talent, they had -suggested wild hopes to her, they had given her honeyed words; -unconsciously she had expected something very great to happen -to her when she should be seen at this house where her presence -was said to be so desired—to realise that she was nothing here, -less than the servants, who at least had their place and their -duties in it, was the most cruel of disillusions.</p> - -<p>Overcome by the unusual warmth and closeness of the -atmosphere, which sent her blood to her temples and filled her -with a strange drowsiness, she let her head fall back upon the -cushion of her couch and fell asleep. She dreamed strange -things. There was nothing to distract her. The servants -glanced at her contemptuously and let her alone; they had no -orders about her, and in the house of Nadine no one ever dared -to act without orders.</p> - -<p>The perfumed air, the dry warmth from the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">calorifères</i>, the -profound stillness, invited slumber; and she slept on as soundly -as any tired child that throws itself upon a primrose bank on an -April day.</p> - -<p>She was roused by a sound of sweet notes like the voices of -her nightingales when they sung under the orange-leaves.</p> - -<p>In the farthest room of all, where the pianoforte stood, Paul -of Lemberg had begun to play; melodies of Tristan and Isolde -thrilled through the silence to her ear and awakened her in her -hiding-place. She who had never heard any such music in her -life listened with a surprised sense of delight so intense that it -was also pain. The delicate rain of harmonious notes falling one -on another, the strange mystery with which the chords of the -instrument repeat and concentrate all the sighs of passion and -the woes of feeling, all the inexplicable and marvellous humanity -and sympathy with which all perfect music is filled, were heard -by her for the first time in their most exquisite forms. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -listened entranced, awed, and penetrated with an ecstasy which -was as sharp as suffering. She forgot where she was. When -silence followed she was weeping bitterly; all the wounds of her -heart at once deepened a thousandfold, yet healed by a touch -divine.</p> - -<p>All the longing, all the dreams, all the vague desires and unsatisfied -fancies which had been in her mind and heart untold -to anyone, and misunderstood even by herself, burned to obtain -utterance in this the first music she had ever heard. She -crouched in her corner unseen; a servant, who had placed a -lamp behind the screen, had been too discreet in his office, and -too contemptuous of herself, to disturb her. She sat still on her -low stool, and listened as the harmonies succeeded each other -from the distance.</p> - -<p>Paul of Lemberg was in the mood to recall a thousand -memories and invent a thousand fancies in music, and his companions -were capable of giving him that comprehension and -appreciation which the finest scientific knowledge of the tonic art -alone can render.</p> - -<p>In the pauses which at times ensued, the conversation was -animated and absorbing; they spoke of music, always of music, -and Othmar, whose greatest interest had always been found in -music, forgot as well as others the guest whom his house -sheltered.</p> - -<p>When at length Lemberg rose and drank a cup of coffee, and -lit a cigarette, and proceeded to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faire la cour</i> to the Princesse de -Laon, and four violins in a quatuor of well-known artists were -tuning to fill up the blank of silence he had left, Othmar, with a -pang of compunction, recalled the hours during which the child -had been neither seen nor sought by any one of them. It had -been half-past eight when they had gone into dinner; it was -now past eleven o'clock.</p> - -<p>He went through his drawing-rooms hastily, looking for her -in every place, and failing to find her. At length, when he was -about to inquire for her of his household, he saw a shadow -behind the embroidered screen, and moving the screen aside, -discovered her in her solitude.</p> - -<p>'My dear child!' he exclaimed, ashamed at his own neglect -of her, 'where have you been? I have not seen you for hours. -What a dull evening you have passed!'</p> - -<p>The tears were dry on her cheeks, but they had left her eyes -humid and heavy; her face had grown very pale.</p> - -<p>'I have heard all that,' she said with a little gesture towards -the distant music-room. 'I did not think there was anything as -beautiful in the world.'</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une sensitive!</i>' thought Othmar, recalling his wife's half-unkind -and half-compassionate expression as he answered. His -knowledge of such sensitive natures induced him now to observe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -with an instinct of pity the trouble visible on the young girl's -face. She had an isolated, pathetic, bewildered look which -touched him, and with it there was an expression of anger and -hurt pride. No child lost at dark in a wood where it had -strayed through disobedience, was ever more bewildered, lonely, -or punished for its sin, than she was in those radiant drawing-rooms, -surrounded with the light laughter and the, to her, unintelligible -chatter in which she had no share; oppressed by this -overheated, over-perfumed air in which she felt stifled and sick, -abashed, and yet angered by the neglect and obscurity to which -they had abandoned her.</p> - -<p>'I fear you want to go home, my dear,' he said compassionately. -'Is it not so?'</p> - -<p>She hesitated, then answered curtly: 'Yes.'</p> - -<p>'How long have you been asked, or have you promised, to -stay with us?'</p> - -<p>'She said I should go back by sunset.'</p> - -<p>'My wife said so?'</p> - -<p>'Yes.' She paused, then added with a tremor of terror in -her voice, 'If I be out when he comes home my grandfather will -kill me.'</p> - -<p>'But he will know you have been safe here with us?'</p> - -<p>She shook her head. 'That will make no difference, -Monsieur. You do not know him. Of course it is all my fault; -I did wickedly——'</p> - -<p>'You did, as I understand it, a natural childlike piece of -disobedience; you ought not certainly to have been tempted by -others to do it, but as your grandsire will learn whom you have -been with, I cannot see that he can be so very greatly angered, -even if you should stay here all night.'</p> - -<p>'You do not know him,' said Damaris.</p> - -<p>She was nervous and pale; her hands played restlessly with -the pearls at her throat; her beautiful eyebrows were drawn -together in anger and distress. She did not say so, but more -than once her shoulders had felt the stroke of Jean Bérarde's -heavy cudgel.</p> - -<p>'He must know our name very well,' added Othmar. 'It -will surely be voucher enough to him that you have passed your -time in safe keeping——?'</p> - -<p>'You are "aristos." He hates you.'</p> - -<p>He smiled; he had seen many of these red Republicans who -hated him furiously in theory, yet were never averse to worshipping -the golden calf of the Maison d'Othmar.</p> - -<p>'Seriously,' he said, 'do you think that you will be punished -cruelly if you should be here all night? Are you sure that your -grandfather will not be open to reason?'</p> - -<p>'You do not know him, or you would not ask.'</p> - -<p>'No; I do not know him, and so I have no right to form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -any opinion. But I see that what you do know of him makes -you miserable at the idea of his anger. Well, then, home you -must go in some manner. Our promise to you must in some -way or other be kept. Wait a moment here, and I will return -to you.'</p> - -<p>Damaris looked after him with interest and gratitude. -Young though she had been when the death of Yseulte had -moved the hearts of the whole people on those shores, something -of its sadness and of its tragedy had reached her, and still -remained in memory with her like the echo of some melancholy -song heard at evening in the shade of the olive-woods. They -had been mere names to her, but they had been names of pathos -and of meaning, like the names of Athalie, of Ondine, of -Calypso, and of Helen—names attached to a story, leaving a -recollection, suggesting something outside common life and -ordinary fate.</p> - -<p>'I suppose he has forgotten her long ago,' she thought as she -looked at him as he passed through the salons.</p> - -<p>Othmar approached his wife, and waited impatiently until -there was a pause in the conversation buzzing around her. -Then he bent towards her:</p> - -<p>'Nadège, did you really promise this child from Bonaventure -that she should go home at sunset?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, I think I did. What of it?'</p> - -<p>'Only that I thought you always kept your word, and I find -you have not done so.'</p> - -<p>There was that in his tone which irritated her extremely; -she thought he spoke to her as if she were a person at fault -whom he reproved. Those nearest her could hear every word -he uttered. She turned away from him with her coldest -manner:</p> - -<p>'Tell the girl that she may sleep here; the women will see -to it. She can say that she has my commands.'</p> - -<p>Othmar did not reply; he moved aside and let her pass on -to the room where they were playing baccarat. Had they been -alone he would have said what he thought; as it was, he went -out of his drawing-rooms and across the gardens to the boathouse -on the quay.</p> - -<p>The yacht could find no anchorage there, and was gone to -Villefranche. No sailors remained there in the night-time; -even the keeper of the boats did not sleep there. All the pretty -painted toys were locked up in the boathouse, and the keeper -had the keys, he could not even get at one of them.</p> - -<p>'This is the use of being master of the place!' he said to -himself with natural irritation. It had never chanced before at -St. Pharamond that anyone had ever wanted to go on the sea -after twilight.</p> - -<p>He retraced his steps to the house and called two of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -servants, and gave them orders to break open the door of the -boathouse and take out the Una boat as the lightest and -swiftest.</p> - -<p>Then he returned to where Damaris awaited him.</p> - -<p>'You are not afraid to go on the sea in an open boat?' he -asked her. 'The water is like glass, and there is a full moon.'</p> - -<p>'Afraid—on the sea!'</p> - -<p>She could have laughed at the idea; the sea was her comrade -and playfellow, and had never harmed her. She was no -more afraid of its storms than of Clovis's teeth.</p> - -<p>'Then you shall go home,' he said briefly. 'Come with -me.'</p> - -<p>'I can go home?' she exclaimed in ecstasy.</p> - -<p>'Yes, if you are not afraid of an open boat; there are no -other means.'</p> - -<p>'Oh, I can sail it myself! I steer with my foot, and sail -very well.'</p> - -<p>'You shall not go wholly alone,' said Othmar with a smile. -'I regret that to speed the parting guest is the only form of -old-fashioned hospitality which it is possible for me to show -you.'</p> - -<p>Damaris hesitated a moment.</p> - -<p>'Must I not say farewell to Madame?'</p> - -<p>'Madame is occupied,' he said as curtly. 'Come, my dear. -Unless you are sure you would not sooner stop here and return -in the morning?' he added. 'My wife bade me say she would -be happy if you would so decide.'</p> - -<p>'Oh no!' said Damaris, with terror in her eyes. 'I could -not, I dare not! My grandfather may be home at sunrise.'</p> - -<p>'Come, then,' said Othmar.</p> - -<p>She needed no second bidding, but willingly followed him -through the gardens to the landing-place of the little harbour. -The moon was brilliant; the cedars and other evergreen trees -spread their boughs over the marble balustrades; the aloes and -cacti raised their broad spears and showed their fantastic shapes -in the clear white light; there was a marble copy of the Faun -which laughed at the stars; the waves were gently rippling over -the last stair, the sea spread smooth as a lake as far as the eye -could reach; the lights of Villefranche glittered in the darkness -in the curve of the shore; the air was fragrant with the scent of -millions of violets and of the tall bay thickets under which they -bloomed.</p> - -<p>Othmar paused involuntarily.</p> - -<p>'How seldom we look at the night!' he said with an unconscious -sigh.</p> - -<p>'It is so beautiful here!' she said with a sigh which echoed -his, but had a very different emotion for its source as she looked -with timidity at the marble Faun. She had never seen a statue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -before; she was not sure what its meaning was, but the sweet -laughing face whose lips seemed to move in the moonlight bewitched -her.</p> - -<p>'It is as beautiful on your island, no doubt,' he answered, -'and far more natural. This place is almost wholly conventional.'</p> - -<p>The word said nothing to her; she had never heard it before. -She was gazing at the marble statue.</p> - -<p>'What does that mean?' she said with hesitation.</p> - -<p>'It means youth—the treasure you have,' said Othmar. -'Do not want any other. They have tried to teach you discontent. -They have been very wrong. You have not been happy -here.'</p> - -<p>'No—not quite,' she said, afraid to seem ungrateful, yet -obliged to tell the truth.</p> - -<p>'No; you have felt remorse; you have been wounded by -neglect; and you have been allured by the artificial and the -insincere. Take warning: the world would give you just what -this house has given you.'</p> - -<p>The Una boat was at the foot of the stairs; its little sail was -spread, there were cushions and shawls inside it; the men of -the household whom Othmar had summoned had made everything -ready, and waited there.</p> - -<p>'Tell your lady,' he continued to his men, 'that I am gone -on the sea; shall be back probably before dawn.'</p> - -<p>Then he waved them aside and launched his boat into deep -water.</p> - -<p>Othmar gave his hand to Damaris; she touched it, but -vaulted into the boat without his aid. When she saw that he -followed her she grew scarlet, and her large eyes opened with -that look of amaze which so well became her.</p> - -<p>'You—you——' she stammered, and could utter no other -word.</p> - -<p>'Certainly,' said Othmar. 'Since you have been deceived -into coming to my house, I will at least see you safely back to -your own.'</p> - -<p>She was still so astonished that she could form no protest -and shape no thanks.</p> - -<p>'You must steer,' he said to Damaris as he handled the sail.</p> - -<p>She still said nothing, but she took the tiller-ropes. The -little vessel glided easily through the peaceful waves; the wind, -by a favouring chance, blew lightly from the north-west; it -plunged with the grace and swiftness of a gannet into the silvery -moonlight and the phosphorescent water.</p> - -<p>Othmar gave his companion a little gold compass set at the -back of a watch.</p> - -<p>'You must guide our course,' he said to her. 'Bonaventure -is as unknown to me as Japan to Marco Polo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>.'</p> - -<p>'I shall make no mistake,' she said, finding her voice for the -first time since she had seen him enter the boat. 'I have -steered on Sundays from Villefranche home. But—but—I -cannot bear to trouble you; it is not right.'</p> - -<p>'You give me a charming moonlight sail,' said Othmar; -'and you will show me a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">terra incognita</i>. I am immeasurably -your debtor. But for you I should still be indoors in warm -rooms with artificial light and an artificial laughter round me. -One can have enough of that any evening.'</p> - -<p>'If I did not like it I would not have any of it,' said Damaris, -with her natural manner returning to her.</p> - -<p>'I am not sure that I do not like it,' said Othmar; 'and, at -all events, the person I most wish to please likes it. That must -be sufficient for me.'</p> - -<p>Damaris looked at him; she did not say anything. She was -thinking of that day when she had gathered the daffodils, and -the swallows had flown about her head, and the old woman -Catherine had said: 'Holy Virgin, to think she was so unhappy!' -Were they all unhappy, these great people, although -they had everything on earth that they could want or -wish?</p> - -<p>Life outside the island seemed to be a terrible perplexity.</p> - -<p>'Mind how you steer,' said Othmar, as in the multiplicity -and gravity of her thoughts they drifted perilously near the -troubled water churning in the wake of a steam yacht. With -prompt dexterity and coolness she corrected her oversight in -time.</p> - -<p>'There are few things more delightful than being at sea at -night when the moon is bright, and the vessel is small enough -to make one very near the water,' he said, as they pursued -their course and he aided the passage of the boat with the oars. -'Just like this, between the sea and sky, with all those stars -above, and all the silent night around one—one ought to be a -poet to be worthy to enjoy it, or able to put the charm of it -into fitting words.'</p> - -<p>'Yes.'</p> - -<p>She had felt herself what he said so often, and she too had -never been able to find speech for that deep delight, that nameless -melancholy, which came to her with the solitude of the sea -at night.</p> - -<p>He looked at her as she sat at the tiller with the moonlight -falling full upon her face, and making it older and more spiritual -than it had been by day. So she would look when years had -saddened her, chastened her, etherealised her, taken from her -the boylike buoyancy of her spirit, the frank audacity of her -childhood. Or rather, no;—she would not look like that, she -would have wedded Gros Louis, have had sturdy, healthy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -riotous children plucking at her skirts; have grown heavier, -stouter, coarser, duller; have ceased to care about the moonlight -on the sea; have heeded only the sea's harvest of tunny, -crawfish, cod, and haddock. Poor Galatea, whom the Polyphemus -of a common marriage would bind upon her rock with -all the greedy waves of common cares leaping at her and licking -her with unkind tongues! Yet there was no fate better for -Galatea than her rock; he was persuaded of it; he wished her -to be so persuaded.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>As the boat went smoothly and fleetly over the calm water, -through the silvery night, beneath the immense vault of the -starry heavens, he talked to her with kindly gentleness, and -heard from her all there was to hear of her short life and of her -great love for Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>The course they took was almost wholly free of vessels; -some heavy brig, fish or fruit laden, alone crossed their path, -and the great green or red lights of the steamships were always -afar off. The navigation of their little vessel did not so engross -either of them that they had not leisure to converse, and -Damaris, in the dusk of the night, in the familiar sea breeze -and sea scent, in the motion of the boat which was as welcome -and soothing to her as the rocking of its nurse's arms to a child, -felt an exhilaration which restored her spirits and loosened her -power of speech. She ceased to be afraid of the chastisement -she would receive at Bonaventure, and she felt a confidence in -the kindness and the protection of her companion which was -very different to the flattered vanity and fascinated awe which -his wife had aroused in her.</p> - -<p>That he was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grand seigneur</i> did not affect her with any -sense of diffidence, both because the granddaughter of Jean -Bérarde had been reared in an utter indifference to such divisions -of rank, and also because in her own heart she fondly -nourished the legend of her own pure descent. The sea lords -of the mountain above San Remo were as true and near to her -in her belief as Hugh Lupus to the Grosvenors, as Hugues -Capet to Don Carlos.</p> - -<p>It had been eleven o'clock when they had left the quay of -St. Pharamond. It was dawn when they came in sight of the -island; its grey olive-crowned side fused softly with the silvery -dusk which preceded the sunrise. There was no sail in sight, -except in the offing to the eastward some score of barques looking -no larger than a flock of sea-swallows: they were those of a -coral fleet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Is that your little kingdom?' asked Othmar, looking towards -the cloudlike isle which seemed to float between the sea and -sky. 'Well, it must be a charming life all alone there amidst -the waters, far away from the world and all its fret and fume. -You must be happy there?'</p> - -<p>'Oh yes,' she answered rather doubtfully, without the -spontaneous whole-heartedness which had characterised her -replies to Loswa. 'But, you see—there is a good deal of the -fret and the fume—because we trade with the mainland, and -when prices are bad my grandfather is out of temper. It is -not like Fénelon's island at all.'</p> - -<p>'Even if not, be sure it is happier to be on it than amidst -the world,' said Othmar, anxious to undo what his wife and her -friends had done. 'The pastoral life is the best there is, and -when it is joined to the liberty of a seafaring life, it seems to -me to be perfect.</p> - -<p>'I believe, at least I know,' he continued with some hesitation, -'that my wife spoke to you of your talents, and of all they -might do for you in that bigger world which is to you only -"the mainland." Perhaps they might do much, perhaps they -might do nothing; that world is very capricious, and its rewards -are not always just. Poets are charming companions, but they -are not infallible guides. Fate has given you a safe home, a -tranquil lot, a sure provision. Do not tempt fortune to desert -you by showing it any ingratitude. I fear my words seem very -cold and dull ones after the gorgeous flatteries you have heard, -but they at least are wise as I see wisdom for you; and, believe -me, they are well meant.'</p> - -<p>He spoke with earnestness as the boat approached the island, -and, with the sail lowered, drifted lightly before the wind towards -the beach.</p> - -<p>'Will you tell your grandfather?' asked Othmar, as they -neared the isle.</p> - -<p>'Do you think that I ought?' she said in a very low voice, -in which was an unspoken supplication.</p> - -<p>'I think you ought,' he answered. 'Do not begin your life -with a secret.'</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p>'Surely,' he continued, 'he will not be very angry when he -knows that you were so much pressed by the Countess Othmar, -and that I have myself brought you home. He will be sure you -have been as safe as with himself. I will come and see you -again some day.'</p> - -<p>The face of Damaris clouded. She was silent, occupying -herself with guiding the vessel through the surf which broke on -the broad shell beach of Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>The mists were white and soft, the head of the cliffs was -invisible in the tender silvery fog; she could hear the voices<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -above her of Clovis and Brunehildt. The boat was run ashore, -and she leaped out before Othmar could aid her.</p> - -<p>'You are vexed with me,' he said with a smile. 'But, -indeed, my dear, it would be a life-long regret to me if, through -any suggestion or persuasion of my wife's, you were brought -into a life which failed to answer your ideal of it, and rendered -you unfitted to return to the simplicity and quiet of this happy -little place. There are neither knights nor lions nowadays for -Una. She must defend herself in a bitter warfare in which her -sex is only a weapon against her, while her enemies are without -scruple. Adieu, you will prefer to go up alone.'</p> - -<p>She turned quickly, and looked up at him with a contrite, -timid little smile.</p> - -<p>'I have no doubt you are right, only—one dreams things—sometimes. -I ought to thank you so much: you have been -very good to me.'</p> - -<p>'Not at all. I have had a charming night upon the sea, -and am your debtor.'</p> - -<p>Then he begged her to keep the little gold compass in memory -of that evening, raised his hat, and left her.</p> - -<p>'Can you manage the boat alone?' she cried to him in -anxiety.</p> - -<p>'Quite well,' said Othmar, as he pushed it through the surf.</p> - -<p>When he was some roods from the shore he looked back; -he saw the figure of Damaris still standing where he had left -her, the silvery green mass of the olive-clothed cliffs rising -behind her till they were lost in the hovering clouds of mist. -The barking of the dogs came faintly over the sea, and a bell -tolled from above the daybreak call to work.</p> - -<p>'I have done what I can,' thought Othmar, 'but the poison -is there. No antidote, even if it succeed, can ever make the -blood quite what it was before the virus entered. And what -are ambition and discontent but as the bite of a snake when they -seize on a woman—a child?'</p> - -<p>Then he went back over the calm blue water, while with -every moment the white light in the east spread further, and -the mists lifted and the winds dropped, and soon in all its glory -rose the sun.</p> - -<p>To this man, whose youth had been full of high ideals, -which his manhood had found it utterly impossible for him to -fulfil, there was something which touched him profoundly in all -youth which, as once his own had done, looked forward to the -world as to some field of combat, where the fair flowers of faith -and of justice would possess a magical strength like the lilies -and roses wherewith the nymphs smote Rinaldo.</p> - -<p>To the eyes of men, Othmar appeared the most enviable of -all persons; to the society around him, as to the multitudes to -whom he was but one of the great names which govern the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -destinies of nations, it seemed that few living beings had ever -enjoyed so complete a happiness and prosperity as did he. But -in the bottom of his own heart there was a latent bitterness, -which was disappointment. He could not have said where or -how precisely this sense of failure came to him, in the midst of -what was absolute success and entire fruition of all his wishes. -Yet it was there. It is the accompaniment of all power and of -all possession. Contentment looks from a narrow lattice on a -tiny garden bounded by a high box hedge. Culture has the -vast horizon of the universe and finds it small, it can measure -the stars, and sighs to wander beyond their spheres. Dissatisfaction -is the shadow which goes with all light of the intelligence. -The uncultured mind can be content; the cultured, -never.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Damaris went slowly from the cliffs through the moonlight; -her heart was heavy. She had had a great temptation, a great -joy, a great disillusion, and a great grief, each following close -on the heels of the other in the short space of a few hours.</p> - -<p>She came back to her poor little isle with something of that -remorse, that dejection, that sense of all the golden fruits being -but ashes at the core, with which the great ones of earth, after -reaching the highest heights of power or of fame, will come -back to their lowly village birthplace and think with a sigh, -'Could I but be as once I was!'</p> - -<p>The night seemed far severed from the day which had -heralded it as if by long years: never more could she rise in the -daybreak quite the same child who had leaped to the lattice, -and laughed at the sunrise on the sea, that morning.</p> - -<p>She did not reason on the change in her, nor understand it, -but she felt it.</p> - -<p>When the little velvet-hided calf has been branded in the -stock-yard with the cruel iron, never more (though turned loose -again) will it frolic the same in the prairie grass unwitting of -pain or ill.</p> - -<p>She took her way slowly over the head of the cliff across the -breadth of pasture where a few days before she had led Loswa. -There was a dusky crouching figure waiting in the shadow of -the orange-boughs; it was that of old Catherine the servant, -who sprang towards her and gripped her arm with both hands.</p> - -<p>'He is come home!' she said in a loud, terrified whisper.</p> - -<p>'My grandfather!'</p> - -<p>Bold though she was by nature, her lips and cheeks grow -cold and her heart stood still.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Who else!' cried the old woman roughly. 'For who else -would I keep out of my bed at such an hour to watch for you? -Where have you been all the while?'</p> - -<p>'I have been with the lady.'</p> - -<p>Her voice sounded very dull and hopeless; it melted the -heart of the peasant who loved her.</p> - -<p>'Well, well, you have had your will and your vanity, and -have paid for them both!' she said, less harshly. 'Poor little -fool! It is your mother's light blood working in you, I suppose; -you're not to blame. They are to blame who bred you. -I have watched for you ever since I gave him his supper. He -asked where you were. I said you were asleep. He has had a -good deal of brandy. If you get in by the scullery door, and -take your shoes off, and go softly up the stairs, he will not hear, -and nobody knows you have been away save Raphael and myself. -That is why I waited outside, to stop and tell you that -you might creep in unseen.'</p> - -<p>Damaris stooped her tall head and kissed the woman's -withered cheek:</p> - -<p>'That was like you, dear Catherine!'</p> - -<p>'More fool I, perhaps. I will punish you come morning, -never fear. But I should be loath for you to see Bérarde -to-night. Get in.'</p> - -<p>Seeing that Damaris did not move, she pushed her by the -shoulder.</p> - -<p>But the words which Othmar had spoken were echoing -in the ear, and sounding at the conscience, of the girl, bearing -a harvest which he had never dreamed of when he had -uttered them. There was that in them which had aroused -all the courage and exaggerated sentiment of her mind and -character.</p> - -<p>The instincts of heroism, always strong in her, and that -instinct to martyrdom ever dear to anything of womanhood, -rose in her with irresistible force.</p> - -<p>'If Count Othmar ever heard that I did not tell, he would -think it so mean and so false,' she pondered, while the eager -grip of the woman's fingers closed on her and tried to pull her -to the open side-entrance of the house.</p> - -<p>She resisted.</p> - -<p>'No, no; not so, not so; not in secret,' she muttered. 'I -wish to see my grandfather. Let me pass.'</p> - -<p>'Are you mad?' screamed Catherine, dragging her backward -by her skirts. 'He is hot with brandy, I tell you; you know -what brandy makes him; if he knows you have been off the -island he will beat you. Has he not beaten you before, that -you should doubt it?'</p> - -<p>'I do not doubt,' said Damaris. 'But it is only just that he -should be told——</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I owe him everything, you know,' she added, 'and I did -wrong to go away from home in his absence.'</p> - -<p>'Wrong! of course you did wrong. But you would listen -to nobody, you were so taken up with those fine folks. Of -course you did wrong, but since the harm is done, and it is of -no use to cry over spilt milk and broken eggs, get you into your -bed; your grandfather will never know anything. Raphael and -I, be sure, shall not tell. Get in and hold your own counsel. -In the morning it will all be as one.'</p> - -<p>'No, it would not be fair,' said Damaris.</p> - -<p>Her face was very pale, but the exaltation of a romantic -devotion to honour had come upon her, and gave her a strength -not her own. She passed the figure of Catherine in the entrance -of the scullery, and walked with firm steps through the stone -passages, between the crowded bales of oranges and lemons, -straightway into the great kitchen, where Jean Bérarde sat. -The light from an oil lamp which swung from the rafters shone -on his strong, harsh, brown features, his grizzled eyebrows, his -white beard; the broad-leaved hat he had drawn over his face -threw a dark gloom over the upper part of his features, and -added to the natural hardness and fierceness of their expression. -He had been running smuggled brandies successfully in -his brig, a sport very dear to him, though prudence made him -but seldom indulge in it; he had been drinking a good deal, -and though not wholly drunk his temper was in readiness for -any outbreak, like flax soaked in petroleum. He looked up -from under his heavy brows at Damaris as she entered; the -light and shadows were wavering before his sight, but he recognised -her.</p> - -<p>'The woman said you were a-bed,' he muttered with a great -oath. 'What do you mean—up at this time of night?'</p> - -<p>The exaggerated scruples and the overwrought exaltation of -the child made her brave to answer him. She came up quite -close to him and looked at him with shining, steady eyes:</p> - -<p>'I am only now come home,' she said in a low voice. 'I -have done wrong; I have been out all day.'</p> - -<p>Jean Bérarde rose to his feet unsteadily, and towered above -her, a rude, savage, terrible figure; his breath, hot as the fumes -of burning spirit, scorched her cheek.</p> - -<p>'Out!' he echoed. 'Out!—without my leave? Out where?'</p> - -<p>She looked at him without flinching. Only she was very -pale.</p> - -<p>'They came and asked me—the ladies and gentlemen—and -I wished so much to go. I have never seen at all how those -people live, and when I got there the hours went on, and I -could not get back until he, Count Othmar, was kind enough -to bring me home in his own boat, and he rowed himself all the -way; and he said that it would not be right for me to hide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -such a thing from you, because, though I have done no harm, -yet I have disobeyed you——'</p> - -<p>She paused, having made her confession; she breathed very -quickly and faintly; her eyes looked up at him with an unspoken -prayer for pardon.</p> - -<p>In answer, he lifted his arm and struck her to the ground.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Othmar did not see his wife on the following day until the -one o'clock breakfast, and then saw her surrounded with her -friends.</p> - -<p>When everyone had gone to their rooms after midnight he -ventured to visit her in her own apartments. Her women were -there; she did not as usual dismiss them; she looked at him -with something of that expression which used to chill the soul -of Platon Napraxine.</p> - -<p>'My dear friend,' she said coldly as he greeted her, 'do not -speak to me again as you spoke yesterday evening. It is not -what I like.'</p> - -<p>'I regret it if I spoke improperly,' replied Othmar. 'I was -not conscious that I did. You had made a promise, and I reminded -you of it. I was not aware there was any grave offence -in that.'</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C'est le ton qui fait la musique.</i> Your tone was offensive. -You may remember that I do not care to be reminded of anything -when I forget it.'</p> - -<p>'There is nothing praiseworthy in your sentiment,' said her -husband unwisely; 'and it seemed to me that a promise made -to a poor child, who could not enforce its fulfilment——'</p> - -<p>She laughed unkindly.</p> - -<p>'You kept my promise for me. I believe you accompanied -her yourself. I dare say she preferred it. Really, my dear -Otho, what can this trivial matter concern either you or me? -The girl has gone back to her island. Let her stay there and -marry her cousin.'</p> - -<p>'I wish she may. But I doubt whether she will do so now.'</p> - -<p>'Because you sailed with her across the sea? It was very -wrong of you, though probably very natural, if you took the -occasion to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">conter fleurettes</i>!'</p> - -<p>'I do not care for those jests from you to me. It is what -you yourself have said to her which will have probably poisoned -her contentment for the rest of her days.'</p> - -<p>She yawned a little behind her hand and gave him a sign of -dismissal.</p> - -<p>'Pray let me hear no more about her,' she said coldly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -'And if you will forgive me for saying so—I am tired—good-night.'</p> - -<p>'Will you not send away your women?' said Othmar in a -low tone, with a flush of irritation on his face.</p> - -<p>'No, thanks—good-night.'</p> - -<p>He hesitated a moment, mastering a great anger which rose -up in him; then he touched her hand coldly with his lips and -left the room.</p> - -<p>'If she thinks she will be able to treat me as she did that -poor humble dead fool——' he thought with mortified impatience.</p> - -<p>With the waywardness of human nature he wished for that -mere human fondness which probably, he knew, had he had it, -would have soon tired and palled on him.</p> - -<p>As he went out from her presence now, he thought, he -knew not why, of the girl Damaris. What warmth on those -untouched lips! what deep wells of emotion in those darksome -eyes! what treasures of affection in that faithful and frank -heart! Poor little soul!—and the best he could wish her was -to live in dull content beside Gros Louis.</p> - -<p>Nadine heard the doors close one after another, as he left -her apartments, with a little smile about her mouth.</p> - -<p>'How easy it is to punish them,' she thought; 'and to think -there are women who do not know how!'</p> - -<p>The power of punishment was always sweet to her; it -seemed to her that when a woman had lost it she had lost everything -that made life worth living. She had not heard that he -had accompanied Damaris home himself because she had not -inquired about it, but she had guessed that he had done so. It -was a silly thing to have done, exaggerated, quixotic; but then -he had those <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coups de tête</i> at intervals; he had always had them -in great things and small; they made him poetic and picturesque, -but occasionally they made him absurd. He seemed to her to -have been absurd now; he could have sent the girl home with a -gardener or a servant, with anybody who could handle a boat, if -she must have gone home at all: she herself did not see the -necessity. But a vague irritation against Damaris came into -her as she sank to sleep between her sheets of lawn.</p> - -<p><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une sensitive, une entêtée!</i> If there were any two qualities -wearisome to others were they not those? No one was allowed -to be either nervous or headstrong in her world. When she -came in contact with either fault she was annoyed, as when gas -escaped or a horse was restive.</p> - -<p>'She has talent, and I would have aided her,' she thought, -'but since she is obstinate and thankless, let her marry Gros -Louis and have a dozen children and forget all about Esther -and Hermione. The world, on the whole, wants olives and -oranges more than actresses, good or bad. Myself, I never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -understand why one should wish to see a play represented at all -when one can read it; it argues great feebleness of imagination -to require optical and oral assistance.'</p> - -<p>The next day, however, when she saw Othmar she said to -him with her most gracious grace and that charm with which -she could invest her slightest word:</p> - -<p>'I think you were right, my friend, and I was wrong, about -that poor little girl on her island. I did not behave very well -to her. I sought her, and ought to have made her of more -account. Shall I go and see her again, or what shall I do to -make her amends?'</p> - -<p>Othmar kissed her hand.</p> - -<p>'That is like yourself! You are too great a lady to be cruel -to a little peasant. As for amends to her, I think the kindest -thing you can do now is to let her forget you, and, with you, -the ambitions which you suggested to her.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with penetration, amusement, and a -little scepticism.</p> - -<p>'She is very handsome; do you wish her to forget <em>you</em>?' -she said with a smile. 'I am sure you must have told her you -will go and see her again.'</p> - -<p>Othmar was annoyed to feel himself a little embarrassed.</p> - -<p>'I told her I would see her again some time, but I did not -say whether this year or next.'</p> - -<p>His wife laughed.</p> - -<p>'I was sure you did! Well, then, you can go and see her -at once, and take her some present from me.'</p> - -<p>'If you will allow me to say so, I think a present will only -painfully emphasise the difference of cast between you and her.'</p> - -<p>'You have <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">des aperçus très fins</i> sometimes! That is a very -delicate one, and perhaps correct, though a little pedantic. -Well, go and see her, and say anything in my name that you -think will smooth her ruffled feathers and restore her peace. I -think we should have another Desclée in her; but perhaps you -are right, that it will be better to let her marry her ship-builder. -Wait; you may take her this book from me. That cannot -offend her.'</p> - -<p>She took off her table a volume of the 'Légendes des Siècles,' -an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">édition de luxe</i>, illustrated by great artists, bound by Marius -Michel, illustrated by Hédouin, and published by Dentu, and -in the flyleaf of it she wrote, 'From Nadège Fedorevna Platoff, -Countess Othmar.' Then she gave it to her husband.</p> - -<p>'I am certainly not going there to-day, nor for many days,' -he said as he took it.</p> - -<p>She smiled as she glanced at him.</p> - -<p>'Are you sure you are not? Well, take it when you do go.'</p> - -<p>'I shall go, if at all, only as your ambassador.'</p> - -<p>'That is rather prudishly and puritanically put. Why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -should you not say honestly that the girl is very pretty, and -that you like to look at her! I assure you it will not distress -me.'</p> - -<p>'I could not hope that it would,' said Othmar rather bitterly, -as Paul of Lemberg entered the room.</p> - -<p>There were times when the serene indifference to his actions -which his wife displayed found him ungrateful; times when he -almost wished for the warmth of interest which the impatience -of jealousy would have shown. Jealousy is an odious thing, a -ridiculous, an intolerable, a foolish and fretful and fierce -passion, which is as wearing to the sufferer from it as to those -who create it; and yet, unless a woman be jealous of him, a -man is always angrily certain that she is indifferent to him. -Jealousy is a flattery and a homage to him, even whilst it is an -irritation and an annoyance: it assures him that he is loved -even whilst it wears and whittles his own love away. But -jealousy was a thing at once foolish and fond, humiliating and -humble, which was altogether impossible to the serenity and -the security of the proud self-appreciation in which his wife -passed her existence.</p> - -<p>In a week's time she had forgotten that she had ever seen -Damaris Bérarde; but in a year's time Othmar did not forget -that he had done so.</p> - -<p>A few days later Loris Loswa was ushered into their presence; -he had the sullen perturbed expression of a child -baulked in its wish, or deprived of some toy.</p> - -<p>'Loswa looks as if he had had an adventure,' she said as he -entered. 'He is one of the few people to whom these things -still happen.'</p> - -<p>'I have been both shot at and nearly drowned, Madame,' -replied Loswa. 'But that would not matter much if it were -not that I have had also the greatest of disappointments.'</p> - -<p>'Disappointment and assassination together are certainly too -much in the same day for one person. Tell me your story.'</p> - -<p>'I have been to Bonaventure,' said Loswa, and paused. -He looked distressed and annoyed, and had lost that airy nonchalance -and that provoking air of conscious seductiveness -which so greatly irritated his comrades of the ateliers who had -not his success either in art or in society.</p> - -<p>'To Bonaventure, of course,' said his hostess, as she glanced -at Othmar with a smile. 'Everyone is going to Bonaventure; -it will very soon see as many picnics as the Ile Ste. -Marguerite.'</p> - -<p>'Not if the tourists be received as I have been,' said Loswa, -in whose tone there was an irritated regret which was not hidden -by the lightness of his manner. 'Jean Bérarde is a madman. -I took a little sailing-boat from Villefranche this morning, and -bade them take me to the island. When we reached there, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -left the boatmen on the beach and climbed the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passerelle</i> as -usual, but I had not got halfway up the cliff before a bullet -whistled past me, and I was warned that if I stirred a step -farther I should be shot like a dog. I could not see who spoke, -but the voice came from above. I replied that I was Loris -Loswa, a painter from Paris, and that I merely wished to be -permitted to finish a sketch which I had taken there a few days -earlier. I presume that this was the worst thing that I could -have said, for I received a second bullet, which this time passed -through the crown of my hat. The person who fired was still -invisible amongst the olives above. At the same moment some -hands clutched my ankles so suddenly and forcibly that I lost -my footing and fell headlong down the ladder through the -brushwood to the beach. I was stunned for a few minutes, -and when I realised where I was, the man Raphael, mindful, I -suppose, of the napoleons he had had, begged my pardon for -having made me descend in such a summary mode, but said -that, had he not done so, Jean Bérarde would have killed me. -Raphael was in a great tremor himself, and urged me to go -away on the instant, adding that "le vieux," as he called him, -was resolute to shoot all trespassers without regard to rank or -right, and had put a notice up to that effect on the rocks. "But -it is against the law," I said to him. "Eh, monsieur!" said -Raphael; "he is the law to himself here, and he is mad, quite -mad—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un fou furieux</i>—since the little one came back from your -friends. He has sent her away, heaven only knows where, and -not a soul will be let to set foot on the island." "Sent her -away?" I cried to him. "But I have not finished her portrait." -The wretch did not care. "What does that matter?" he said. -"What matters is that the one bit of gaiety and goodness in -the place is gone. My children are crying for Damaris all the -day long." I used bad words about his children; what did -they matter to me? And I asked him how the old brute had -learned that his granddaughter had been out that night: had he -come home earlier than she? "Yes," said Raphael, "he did -come home an hour before her, but he need not ever have -known anything, for we would, all of us, have kept her little -secret; even old Catherine would never have told of her. But -Damaris was always headstrong, and in some things foolish, -poor child; and she would have it that it was cowardly and -wrong not to tell Bérarde herself; and so, do what we would, -she would go straight in and tell him; and he—he had not had -a good day's trade, and he had heard of a debtor who had -drowned himself, and left no goods worth a centime, and so he -was in the vilest of humours that evening; and when she -related to him what she had done, he up with his big elm staff -and struck her down, and my wife and I thought she was dead; -and old Catherine was cursing, and the children were screaming,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -and the dogs howling. Such a scene! such a scene! However, -she was not injured, and in the evening he took her away -by himself in the open boat, and what he did with her nobody -knows. He made Catherine pack all her clothes in a great -bundle, and so I do not think that he killed her. I suppose he -took her to the mainland, to some convent perhaps, though he -does not love them. I dare say he would have made away with -Catherine too, only he wants her to cook his dinner, and he -knows there is nobody else who can manage the bees." That -was all that I could make Raphael say; he was in a great state of -terror, and urged me to go away at once. He said the old man -might come down on to the beach for aught he knew. As -Damaris was gone, there was little to be gained by remaining, -so I left the island. In returning we encountered a white -squall; the boat capsized, we clung to her for half an hour, -when we were picked up by a yawl which was going to Villefranche. -That is all my story; I have been bruised and -soaked, but all that would not matter if I could only finish my -picture. But where is Damaris?'</p> - -<p>'It is really an adventure,' said Nadine, 'and you have -told it dramatically. As for your picture, you deserve not to -complete it, for you neglected her disgracefully when she was -here.'</p> - -<p>'I hope this old tyrant has not hurt her; but a ruffian who -fires at one from his olive-trees as if one were a fox or a -stoat——'</p> - -<p>'Of course he will not hurt her; he will either keep her in -a convent to punish her, or, as he does not love convents, marry -her at once to her boat-builder.'</p> - -<p>Othmar did not say anything; he had heard Loswa's narrative -with regret.</p> - -<p>'Poor, brave little soul!' he thought; 'and it was I who told -her that it was her duty not to conceal what she had done.'</p> - -<p>'A caprice may cost something sometimes you see, Madame,' -said Béthune with a smile to his hostess.</p> - -<p>'She may become a second Desclée yet,' said Nadine. 'Her -grandfather will not be wise if he drive her to desperation. I -am sorry he struck her: it was brutal.'</p> - -<p>'Perhaps we hurt her quite as much,' said Othmar, which -were the first words he had spoken on the subject.</p> - -<p>His wife smiled.</p> - -<p>'I know that is your <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">idée fixe</i>. I do not agree with you. If -she marry the shipwright she will now do it with her eyes open. -It is always well to know what one is about.'</p> - -<p>'You have made it impossible for her to marry the shipwright.'</p> - -<p>'I really do not see why. Perhaps you mean your compliments -or Paul's music.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Paul's music, and other things. You showed her the world -as Mephistopheles showed Faust youth in a mirror.'</p> - -<p>'Faust was, after all, Mephistopheles' debtor.'</p> - -<p>'About that there may be two opinions.'</p> - -<p>'After all, she would not have been punished if she had not -spoken.'</p> - -<p>'You must admire that at least. Courage is the only quality -which you respect.'</p> - -<p>'I admire it, but it was not wise.'</p> - -<p>'What heroic thing ever is?'</p> - -<p>He went away, leaving her presence with some irritation and -some discontent. He knew that he had only said what was best -for Damaris when he had counselled her to have no concealment -from her grandfather; but the idea of the child's having suffered -through his advice, the thought of her taken from her sunny -happy life amongst her orange-groves and honey-scented air, -and all the gay fresh freedom of her seas, into some strange and -unknown place—perhaps into some forced and joyless union—hurt -him with almost a personal pain.</p> - -<p>The wild rose had paid dearly for its one day in the -hothouse.</p> - -<p>'Why could not Nadège let her alone?' he thought angrily -as he looked across the shining sea to the gold of the far distance, -where westward the island which had sheltered the happy childhood -of Damaris lay unseen.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>A few days later they left the coast for Amyôt and Paris. -There was no record left of their visit to Bonaventure save the -rough sketch which Loris Loswa had made, and from which he -still meant some time, when he should have leisure, to create a -great picture. One day Othmar bought the sketch of him at -one of those exaggerated prices which Loswa could command for -any trifle which he had touched.</p> - -<p>When his wife saw it hanging in his room in Paris she -laughed.</p> - -<p>'You are determined,' she said, 'that I shall not forget my -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Desclée manquée</i>.'</p> - -<p>'I do not think you were kind to her,' said Othmar.</p> - -<p>'I did not intend to be unkind, certainly. She gave me an -impression of force, of talent, of a future: the sketch suggests -that. But no doubt she has married the shipwright by this -time. Little girls begin by dreaming of Réné and Némorin, -but they end in making the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pot au feu</i> for Jacques Bonhomme.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I do not think she will ever marry the boat-builder. I told -you that we made it impossible for her.'</p> - -<p>'I know you did; but then you have always <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">des billevesées -romanesques</i>. The steward at St. Pharamond could tell you what -has become of her.'</p> - -<p>'I have inquired. She has not returned to the island; her -grandfather never speaks of her, and no one knows anything at -all about her.'</p> - -<p>Nadine smiled.</p> - -<p>'Ah! you have inquired already? I thought she impressed -you very much.'</p> - -<p>'Not at all,' said Othmar irritably, as he glanced at the sketch -on which the sunshine was falling. 'But I was sorry that any -caprice of yours should have cost anyone so dear.'</p> - -<p>'Is that all? And you are sure she has not married her -cousin?'</p> - -<p>'They say not. He is still living at St. Tropez.'</p> - -<p>'Then she must be shut up in some convent.'</p> - -<p>'Or dead.'</p> - -<p>'Oh no, my dear, she had too much life in her to die. Besides, -her grandfather would have made her death known. I am -sure she will live and have a history, probably such a history as -Madame Tallien's or as Madame Favart's. She carries it in her -countenance.'</p> - -<p>'Five fathoms of blue water were perhaps the better fate,' -said Othmar.</p> - -<p>'You are very poetic,' said his wife with her unkindest -smile. 'I always thought you had a touch of genius yourself, -only it never took speech or shape. You are a Dante born -dumb.'</p> - -<p>'Then you should pity me indeed,' said Othmar, with -irritation.</p> - -<p>He kept the sketch hanging in the room which he most often -used at his house in Paris. It served to retain in his memory -that night upon the sea when he had seen the figure of Damaris -disappear in the moonlight, amidst the silver of the olive-trees, -while the fragrance of the orange-scented air and the breath of -the sweet-smelling narcissus were wafted to him from the island -pastures out over the starlit waters.</p> - -<p>'You will end in falling in love with that picture,' said his -wife to him with much amusement. He was angered at the -suggestion. His regret for Damaris was wholly impersonal.</p> - -<p>'We did her a cruel kindness,' he thought sometimes when -he glanced at it. 'Wherever she be, and whatever she live to -become, she will always carry a thorn in her heart, because she -will always have the sentiment that she might have been something -which she is not. It is the saddest idea that can pursue -anyone through life. Perhaps she will marry the boat-builder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -and have a dozen children, but that will not prevent her sometimes, -when she sees a fine sunset, or sits in the moonlight on -the shore waiting for the sloop to come in, from being haunted -by the thought that if things had gone otherwise she might have -been in the great world. And then, just for that passing -moment, while the ghost of that "might have been" is with -her, she will hate the man who comes home in the sloop, and -will not even care for the children who are shouting on the -beach.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>They were again at Amyôt in the golden August weather, when -no place pleased its mistress better than the cool and stately -palace set upon its shining waters and stone piles, with the deep -forests of France drawn in an impenetrable screen of verdure -around its majestic gardens. She had a constant succession of -guests, and a kaleidoscopic infinitude of pastimes. Great singers -came down and warbled by moonlight to replace the nightingales -grown mute; great actors came down also and played on the -stage which had been built and ornamented by Primaticcio; -every kind of ingenuity in novelty and diversion was exercised -for her by cunning intelligences and brilliant wits. The weeks -of Amyôt were likely to become as celebrated in social history -as the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grandes nuits de Sceaux</i>; everyone invited to them received -the highest brevet of fashion that the world could give. -Other people were immensely pleased and amused at Amyôt and -at her other houses: she alone was not. Her intelligence asked -too much; the whole world was dull and finite for her.</p> - -<p>She had known the greatest triumphs, the highest heights -of passion, the most voluptuous ecstasies, the most brilliant of -successes, and they had all seemed to her rather tame, quickly -exhausted. Faustina appeared to her as absurd, and commanded -her sympathies as little, as Penelope.</p> - -<p>Life's little round is all too short for satisfaction in it; it -is so soon over; it is so crowded and so transient; to have -children who may do less ill or do less well than we, to pursue -aims or ambitions which have no novelty in them and little -wisdom, to love, to cease to love; to dream and die; this is the -whole of it, and the sweetest of all things in it are its childhood -which is ignorant that it is happy, and its passion which -is no sooner made happy than it pales and falls.</p> - -<p>'If only life were like a play!' she thought. 'Any dramatist -knows that in his last act his movement must be accelerated, -and his incidents accumulated, till they culminate in a climax. -But in life, on the contrary, everything waxes slower and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -slower, everything grows duller and duller, incidents become -very scarce, and there is no <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dénouement</i> at all—unless we call -the priests with their holy oil, and the journey to the churchyard -behind the mourning-coaches, a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dénouement</i>. But it cannot -be called a climax: the going out of a spent lamp is not a -climax.'</p> - -<p>Her lamp was far from spent; and yet a sense of the dullness -of life, generally, often came to her. She had everything -she had ever wished for, and yet it left her with a vague sentiment -of dissatisfaction.</p> - -<p>'I wonder if he is really contented,' she thought sometimes -doubtfully of Othmar. It seemed to her quite impossible he -should be. Why should he be when she was not! And yet -there was no one she would have liked better or so well.</p> - -<p>The sameness of human nature irritated her. Surveying -history, it seemed to her that character, like events, must have -been much more varied in other times than hers; say in the -Fronde, in the Crusades, in the time of the Italian Republics, -even in the days of the Consulate, when all Europe was drunk -with war like wine.</p> - -<p>Nowadays people are always saying the same thing; entertainments -resemble each other like peas; wherever the world -gathers it takes its own monotony and tedium with it, and -repeats itself with the dull perseverance of a cuckoo-clock.</p> - -<p>She endeavoured to infuse some originality into her own -society and her own pleasures; but she did not consider that -she succeeded. People were too dull. Why was it? Nobody -was dull in Charles the Second's time, or in the days of Louis -Quinze, or of Henri Quatre. At Amyôt, if anywhere, she succeeded, -but, though her invitations to the house parties there -were passionately coveted, and everyone else was so exceedingly -delighted with them, the utmost she could ever say was that -she had not been too greatly bored. Modern existence was not -dramatic enough to please her.</p> - -<p>'And yet if it be ever dramatic you say it is melodramatic, -and ridicule it as <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vieux jeu</i>,' said Othmar to her once.</p> - -<p>'No doubt I do; one is not happily obliged to be consistent,' she -replied. 'We are too intellectual or too indifferent -nowadays to have a Guise slaughtered in our antechamber, or -an Orloff assassinated by our bedside, but the consequence is -that life is dull. It is a journey in a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">wagon lit</i>, one is half -asleep all the time; it has no longer the picturesque incidents -of a journey on horseback across moor and mountain, with the -chance of meeting Malatesta or the Balafré en route.'</p> - -<p>'Yet men have died for you!'</p> - -<p>'Oh, my dear! they never did it with any picturesqueness -at all! What picturesqueness can there be? A man falls in a -duel; he is put in a cab with a doctor! A man kills himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -with a revolver; there is again a doctor, and also, probably, a -policeman!'</p> - -<p>'Which does not prevent the emotions which lead to those -incidents from being as genuine as they used to be.'</p> - -<p>'I know that is your theory. It is not mine. The passions -are nowadays all crusted with conventionality, like life. Look -at ourselves, as I have said to you before.'</p> - -<p>'Well? What of ourselves?'</p> - -<p>'You and I think ourselves very original, but in reality we -are the servants of conventionality. I told you so last winter. -When we were free and had the world before us, we could -think of nothing more original than to marry each other like -Annette and Lubin, like John and Mary. We had no imagination. -We thought we should do all sorts of fine things, but -we have not done them. We have merely just dropped back -into the routine of the world like all other people.'</p> - -<p>'I do not see what else we could have done,' replied Othmar, -somewhat feebly as he was aware.</p> - -<p>'What a conventional reply!' she said impatiently. 'That -is just what I am saying. Neither of us had imagination, or -perhaps courage, enough to strike out any new path, though we -thought we were so much above other people. Both you and I -have enough of originality to be dissatisfied with the world as it -is, but we have not originality enough to create another one. -People who have the perception which belongs to the poetic -temperament, as you and I have, without its creative power, are -greatly to be pitied. Both you and I have something of poetry—something -of heroism—in us, but it never comes to anything. -We remain in the world, and conform to it.'</p> - -<p>'I would lead any life you suggested—out of the world if -you pleased.'</p> - -<p>'Ah, but I do not please,' she said, with a little sigh. 'That -is just the mischief. You remember when we went to your -Dalmatian castle the first year; the solitude was enchanting, -the loneliness of the sea and the shore was exquisite, the -mountains seemed drawn behind us like a curtain, shutting out -all noise and commonness and only enclosing our own dreams; -but after a little time you looked at me, I looked at you, and -we both tried to hide from each other that we yawned. One -morning when there was a rough wind on the sea and the first -snow on the hills, I said to you, "What if we go to Paris?" -and you were relieved beyond expression, only you would not -say so. Now, if we had been poets—really poets, you and I—we -should never have quitted Zama for Paris. We should have -let the whole world go.'</p> - -<p>Othmar did not well know what to reply, because he was -conscious of a certain truth in her words.</p> - -<p>'I am not a poet, you have often told me so,' he said with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -some bitterness. 'The atmosphere I was born in was too thick -and yellow with gold for the Parnassian bees to fly to my cradle. -The supreme privilege of the poet is an imperishable youth, and -I do not think that I was ever young; they did not let me -be so.'</p> - -<p>'You were so for a little while when you first loved me,' -she said with a smile; 'that is why I wonder we had not more -imagination at that time. Anybody could live the life we live -now. It shows what a stifling, cramping thing the world is; -we who used to meditate on every possible idealic and idyllic -kind of existence have found that there is nothing for us to -do but to open our houses, surround ourselves with a crowd, -spend quantities of money in all commonplace fashions, and -be hated by envy and envied by stupidity. Do you remember -our sunlit kingdom in Persia that we were to have gone -to together? Well, we are as far off it as though we were not -together.'</p> - -<p>'Do you mean then,' said Othmar impatiently, 'that you -think our life together a mistake?'</p> - -<p>'No, not quite that; because we are more intelligent than -most people, only we have been unable to rise above the commonplace; -unable to keep our iron at a white heat. Our -existence looks very brilliant, no doubt, to those outside it, but -in real truth there is a poverty of invention about it which -makes me feel ashamed of my own want of originality.'</p> - -<p>She laughed a little; her old laugh, which always chilled the -hearts of men.</p> - -<p>She had always foreseen the termination of their pilgrimage -of joy in that mortuary chapel of lifeless bones and motionless -dust to which the lovers' path through the roses and raptures -was so sure to lead. But he, man like, had been so certain that -the roses would never fade, that the raptures would never -diminish!</p> - -<p>Othmar was sensible that he had in some manner failed to -fulfil her expectations, and the sense of such a fact stings the -self-love of the least vain and least selfish of men. Her life -possessed all that any woman could in her uttermost exactness -require. All the perfect self-indulgence and continual pageantry -of life which an immense fortune can command were always -hers; her children by him were beautiful and of great promise, -physical and mental; her world still obeyed her slightest sign, -and her slightest whim was gratified; men still found the most -fatal sorcery in her careless glance, and society offered to her -all that it possessed. If this sense of disappointment, of disillusion, -of dissatisfaction were really with her, it could only be -so because he himself, as the companion of her life, failed to -realise what she had expected in him—was unhappy enough to -weary her, as all others before him had done.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> - -<p>A vainer man would have laid the blame on her, and have -arrived, through vanity, at the perception that it was her temperament -and not his character which was at fault. But all the -flattery which every rich and powerful man daily receives had -failed to make Othmar vain. His self-esteem was very modest -in its proportions, and he attributed the fact of his wife's apparent -indifference to him humbly enough to his own demerits.</p> - -<p>'I have not the talent of amusing her,' he thought. 'I -have been always too grave—have taken life too sadly to be the -companion of a woman of her wit. I have never done anything -of which she can be very proud with that sort of pride -which would be the sweetest flattery to her; the years slip -away with me and bring me no occasion, at least no capability, -of the kind of distinction which she would appreciate. I cannot -be a Skobeleff or a Gortschakoff; I cannot make that renown -which might arrest her fancy and please her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amour propre</i>; she -has loved me possibly as much as she can love, but as she finds -that I am made of the common clay of ordinary humanity, I -become not much more to her than all those dead men whom -she has tired of and forgotten.'</p> - -<p>But whilst his reason told him this, his heart yearned to -disbelieve it, and his pride refused a meek submission to it. -There was something in her fugitive, delicately disdainful, -capriciously insecure, which was certain to sustain the passion -of man, because it constantly stimulated it; her concessions -were made to his desires not her own; she never shared his -weakness even whilst she was indulgent to it.</p> - -<p>'I have absolutely never known yet whether you have ever -loved me!' he said to her once, and she replied, with her little -indulgent, mysterious smile:</p> - -<p>'How should you know what I do not know myself?'</p> - -<p>It was a part, and no small part, of the ascendency she had -over him; it stimulated his affections, because it perpetually -stinted them; it made satiety impossible with her.</p> - -<p>Yet all which excited his passions and secured the continuance -of her influence over him, left him more and more conscious -of a void at his heart which she would never fill, because -a nature cannot bestow more than it possesses. All the intellectual -charm she had for him had a certain coldness in it; her -incorrigible irony, her inveterate analysis, her natural attitude -of observation and of mockery before the foibles and follies -and affections of mankind, enchanting as they were, were without -warmth as they were without pity. It was the brilliant -play of electric light on polished steel. Sometimes, with the -wayward inconsistency of human wishes, he would have preferred -the glow from some simple fire of the hearth.</p> - -<p>There were times when the feeling which met his own left -his heart cold. He had never wholly ceased to feel that he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -always in a measure outside her life. He would have been -ashamed to confess to her many youthful weaknesses, many -romantic impulses which often moved him; there were many -lover-like follies which would have been natural and sweet to -him, which he had early learned to control and dismiss, unyielded -to because he was afraid of that slight ironical smile, -and that contemptuous little word with which she had the -power to arrest the quick tide of any impetuous emotion.</p> - -<p>The excesses of passion and the force of emotion always -seemed to her slightly absurd; she had yielded to both for his -sake more than she had ever thought to do; but her intelligence -always held reign over her with much greater dominance -than her feelings ever obtained. There were moments when -he felt as if he asked her for bread, and she gave him a stone; -a most polished stone of magical charm, of exquisite transparency, -of occult power, but still a stone, when he merely wished -for the plain sweet bread of simple sympathy.</p> - -<p>Once, in riding alone through the forests of Amyôt, his -horse put its foot in a rabbit's hole and threw him. He was -unhurt, and rose and remounted. But he thought as he rode -onward: 'If I had been disfigured, crippled, made an invalid -for life, how would she have regarded me?'</p> - -<p>With pity, no doubt, but probably with aversion; certainly -with indifference. She would have brought her exquisite grace, -her cool nonchalant smile, her delicate fragrant presence to his -bedside, and would have come there every day, no doubt, and -have been careful that he should want for nothing; but would -there have been the blinding tears of a passionate sorrow in her -eyes, would her cheek have grown hollow and her hair white -with long vigil, would her whole world have been found within -the four walls of his sick room?</p> - -<p>He thought not.</p> - -<p>He sighed as he rode through the green glades of the great -woods where she had held her Court of Love.</p> - -<p>Of love no one could speak with such science and surety as -she. She had known it in all its phases, studied it in all its -madness, accepted it in all its sacrifices; on no theme would her -silver speech be more eloquent; and love had been given to her -as the widest of all her kingdoms. But had she really known -it ever? Had not that which her own breast had harboured -always been the mere impulse of curiosity, the mere exercise of -power, the mere chillness of analysis such as that with which -the physiologist gazes on the bared nerves of the living organism? -After all, why had men cared so much for her? Only -because she had been as unmoved as the moon. Men are -children; they long for what they cannot clasp. He himself -had only loved her so long, despite the chilling and dulling -effect of marriage, because he had always felt that he possessed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -so little real hold upon her that any day she might take it into -her fancy to leave him, not out of unkindness but out of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i>.</p> - -<p>Sometimes he thought with a curious compassion of Napraxine. -He thought of him now, and for a moment his own -heart grew hard against her as he rode through the beautiful -summer world of his woods; hard as had grown the hearts of -men who, dying for her sake, had felt that they had given their -life for a smile, for a jest, for a chimera, for a caprice—given it -away unthanked.</p> - -<p>But then, when he entered his house again and saw her, he -forgave her and loved her; he cared more still for one touch of -her cool white hand, the favour of one careless smile cast to -him, than he cared for the whole world of women—women -who would willingly have seen him forget his allegiance to her, -and have consoled him for all her defects.</p> - -<p>'Otho is uxorious, like Belisarius, like Bismarck,' said -Friedrich Othmar, with an unpleasant smile. 'And alas! he -is neither a great soldier nor a great statesman, to make the -weakness respected either by the world or by his wife.'</p> - -<p>Othmar had overheard the speech, and it had made him -irritated, and afraid lest he ever looked absurd.</p> - -<p>'Yet,' he thought bitterly, 'if she were still the wife of -Napraxine, no one would ever see anything singular in any -weakness or madness that I might commit for her!'</p> - -<p>Between his uncle and himself few intimate words ever -passed. After the death of Yseulte a tacit understanding had -been come to between them that neither should ever name -those causes, whether great or small, which she had had for -pain and jealous sorrow in her brief life's space. It was a subject -on which they could never have touched without a breach -irrevocable and eternal in their friendship.</p> - -<p>Friedrich Othmar visited at their houses, caressed their -children, preserved all outward amity with both of them, and -devoted all the energies of his last years and of his immense -experience to the interests of the house which he had honoured, -served, and loved so long, but with neither his nephew nor his -nephew's wife did he ever pass the limits of a conventional and -courteous intercourse, which had neither affection in it nor any -exchange of confidence.</p> - -<p>Once or twice the worldly-wise and harsh old man did a -thing which a few years before, in anyone else, he would have -regarded as the most flimsy and foolish of sentimentalities. He -took the little Xenia with him into the gardens of St. Pharamond, -and made her gather with her own small hands a quantity -of violets; then he led her to the tomb of Yseulte, and bade -her lay them on it. She had been buried there, though a -sepulchre sculptured by Mercier had been raised to her memory -at Amyôt.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Why are you not her child?' he said to her. 'Why are you -not? She would have loved you better than your own mother -can.'</p> - -<p>The child scattered her violets, then came and leaned her -arms upon his knee and looked up at him with serious eyes.</p> - -<p>'You are crying!' she said, touching softly two great tears -which had fallen on his cheeks. Then she added gravely: 'I -thought you were too old!'</p> - -<p>'I too should have thought so,' said Friedrich Othmar -bitterly. 'It is a sign that my end is near.'</p> - -<p>And he envied those credulous, unintellectual, happy imbeciles -who could believe that that 'end' was only the opening -of the portals of a wider, fairer, greater life; he whose reason -told him that for his own strong keen brain and multiform -knowledge and accumulated wisdom and fierce love of life, as -for the youthful limbs and the fair soul and the pure body of -the dead girl there, that end was only the 'end' of all things: -cruel corruption, hideous putridity, blank nothingness, eternal -silence.</p> - -<p>'What is the use of it all? What is the use?' he said to -the startled child, as he took her hand and led her from the -tomb. What was the use of any life or any death? What had -been the use of Yseulte's?</p> - -<p>One day he found before her mausoleum at Amyôt the most -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaine</i> of women: Blanche Princesse de Laon, who, in her -childish days, had been Blanchette de Vannes.</p> - -<p>'You, too, remember her?' he said in surprise.</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon replied roughly:</p> - -<p>'I loved her;—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout le monde est bête une fois</i>!'</p> - -<p>She stood before the marble sepulchre where Mercier had -made the angels of Pity and of Youth weeping. She was not -twenty years of age, but she knew the world like her glove. -She was cruel, cold, avaricious, sensual, steeped in frivolity and -intrigue as in a bath of wine, but underneath all that there was -one little spot of memory, of regret, of tenderness in her -nature; as far as she had been capable of affection she had -loved Yseulte.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tiens!</i>' she said, as she stood beside the sepulchre. 'Do -you think it has succeeded—your nephew's last marriage?'</p> - -<p>'I believe so,' replied Friedrich Othmar with surprise. -'Yes, certainly, I should say so; they seem quite in accord; -he is devoted to her still.'</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tiens!</i>' she said again, and she struck the marble of the -tomb sharply with the long ivory stick of her sun umbrella. -'I watch them like a cat a mouse. I will be even with her still; -the first time there is a little crack in what you call their happiness, -I shall be there—and I will widen it. Have you seen the -drivers of Monte Carlo make an open wound in their horses'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -flank on purpose? Well, this is how they do it. A fly settles -and leaves a little piece of braised skin, the men rub that little -place with sand, it widens and widens, they rub in more sand, -the sun and the flies do the rest.'</p> - -<p>Then she struck her ivory stick once more on the marble -parapet of the great tomb.</p> - -<p>'She died for them! She was so foolish always. But there -was something great in it. We are not great like that. If he -only remembered, I would forgive him for her sake. But he -never remembers. He does not care. A dog might be buried -instead of her.'</p> - -<p>'You cannot be sure of that.'</p> - -<p>'Bah! I am perfectly sure. He has never even understood -that she did die for him. He thought it was an accident!'</p> - -<p>'Hush!' said Friedrich Othmar harshly, but with great -emotion. 'She wished that he should think it so; what right -have you or have I or has anyone in the wide world to betray -her last secret if we guess it? It has gone to the grave with -her, like her dead children.'</p> - -<p>'I betray it no more than you!' she replied with asperity. -'I have given no hint of it to any living soul; when Toinon -said it was a suicide I struck her, I made her hold her peace. -I was a child then, and all these years since I have never said a -word; but you, you know; you know as well as I.'</p> - -<p>'It was not a suicide, it was a heroism. If there were a -God, a great God, He would have honoured it.'</p> - -<p>'But there are only priests!' said Blanchette, with her -bitterest smile.</p> - -<p>They turned away together from the mausoleum, where the -marble figure of Yseulte seemed to lie in the peace of a dreamless -sleep beneath the shadowing wings of the two angels. -Gates of metal scroll-work let in the sunlight to this house of -death; there was no darkness in it, no terror, no melancholy; -white doves flew around its roof, and white roses blossomed at -its portals.</p> - -<p>'Madame la Princesse de Laon,' said Friedrich Othmar -gravely, as they passed across the turf, 'whenever the fly begins -that little wound in the skin that you talked of, forbear to -widen it for the sake of your cousin who sleeps there; do not -make her sacrifice wholly useless. What is done is done. We -cannot bring her back to life, and if we could she would not be -happy in it. There are souls too delicate and too spiritual for -earth. Hers was so.'</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon gave him no promise. She walked on over -the smooth sward through the labyrinths of blossom, and -crossed the gardens where her courtiers met her, with outcries -of welcome and of homage.</p> - -<p>She was at the supreme height of coquetry and triumph and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -fashion. She was not beautiful in feature, but she was dazzling -fair, had a marvellously perfect figure, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">une crânerie inouie</i>, and -the advantage and fascination conferred by an absolute indifference -to all laws, hesitations and principles. She was hard as -her own diamonds, plundered her lovers with a greed and ruthlessness -which rivalled any cocotte's, kept her splendid position -by sheer force of audacity as high above the world as though -she were the most pure of women, and before she had completed -her twenty-first year knew all that was to be known of -the refinements of vice, the exaggerations of self-indulgence, -and the eccentricities of unbridled levity. She had supreme -scorn for her sister Toinon, who had espoused the Duc de Yprès, -a hunting-noble of the Ardennes, and who spent most of her time -in the provinces chasing wolves, bears, and wild deer, and could -give the death-blow with her knife to an old tusked monarch of -the woods or a king-stag of eleven points, as surely as any huntsman -in French Flanders or the Luxembourg.</p> - -<p>The Princesse de Laon came as a guest to Amyôt with most -summers or autumns. She knew that her host disliked her, -and would willingly, had it been possible, never have seen her -face; she knew that his wife disliked her scarcely less, but that -knowledge increased her whim to be often at their houses, and -she never gave them any possible pretext to break with or to -slight her. Her name was included, as a matter of course, in -their first series of guests every season, and usually she was -accompanied by Laon himself; a man of small brains and -admirable manners, who adored her, and would no more have -dared resent the liberties she took with his honour than he -would have dared to enter her presence uninvited.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">J'ai étudié vos moyens de punir votre meute</i>,' she said once -to the châtelaine of Amyôt, with a malice equal to her own. -'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et je les ai imités; tant bien que mal!</i>'</p> - -<p>She was the only person in whom Nadine had ever found -her equal in high-bred insolence, in merciless raillery, in unsparing -allusions, couched in the subtilties of drawing-room -banter or of drawing-room compliment. Blanche de Laon was -the only one who could fence with those slender foils of her -own, which could strike so surely and wound so profoundly. -Blanche de Laon, outwardly her devoted admirer and friend, -was the sole living being who could irritate her, could annoy -her, and could make her feel that Time, to use the words of -Madame de Grignan, robbed her every day of something which -she would never recover and could ill afford to lose.</p> - -<p>Before this insolent youth of Blanchette she, who had been -Nadège Napraxine, felt almost old.</p> - -<p>She was not old; she was still at the height of her own -powers to charm. She proved it every day that she drove -through the streets, every night that she passed down a ball<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>-room. -Still Blanchette, twelve years younger than she, reigning -in her own world, repeating her own triumphs, awarding -the cotillion to her own lovers, made a certain sense of coming -age approach her. Age was not at her elbow yet, but she saw -his shadow in the doorway. She forgot that approaching -shadow at every other time, but Blanchette had the power to -point it out to her in a thousand ways imperceptible to all -spectators. Hundreds of other young beauties grew up and -entered her society, and met her daily and nightly, and she -never thought once about them, except when she wanted them -for a costume quadrille at her ball in Paris or tableaux vivants -at Amyôt. But Blanchette forced her to think of her; forced -her to see in her a rival, perhaps an equal, in those kingdoms -where she was wont to reign alone. Blanchette, when she let -her myosotis-coloured eyes gaze at her, said to her with cruel -pertinacity and candour:</p> - -<p>'You are a beautiful woman still, but you owe something to -art now; you will have to owe more and more every year; you -would not dare be seen at sunrise after the cotillion now; soon -you will dance the cotillions no longer, but your daughter will -dance them instead of you. How will you like it? You have -too much <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">esprit</i> to be Cleopatra. You will not give and take -love philtres at forty. You will have too much wit. But when -your empire passes you will be wretched.'</p> - -<p>All this the blue keen eyes of Blanche de Laon alone of all -women said to her, anticipating the years that were to come, -asking in irony—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">'How wilt thou bear from pity to implore</div> - <div class="verse">What once thy power from rapture could command?'</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This is the question which every woman has to ask herself -in the latter half of her life. A woman is like a carriage -horse; all her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beaux jours</i> are crowded into the first years of -her life; afterwards every year is a descent more or less rapid -or gradual; after being made into an idol, after living on velvet, -after knowing only the gilded oats and the rosewood stall and -the days of delight, she and the horse both drift to neglect, -and hunger, and rainy weather, and the dull plodding world -between the shafts. The horse comes to the cab and the -cart; the woman comes to middle age and old age; he is ungroomed, -she is unsought; he stands in the streets dumbly wondering -why his fate is so changed; she sits in the ball-room -chaperons' seat silently chafing against the lot which has become -hers.</p> - -<p>Men are so fortunate there. The very best of their life -often comes in its later years. If a man be a poet, a soldier, a -statesman, all the gilded laurels of fame are reserved for his -later years; honours crowd on him in his autumn as fast as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -the leaves can fall in the woods. Even as a lover it is often in -his later years that his greatest successes and his happiest -passions come to him. This is always what creates the immense -disparity between men and women. For men age may become -an apotheosis. For women it is only a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">débâcle</i>.</p> - -<p>This will always cause disparity and discord between them. -When love has said its last word to her, it is still weaving all -kinds of first chapters to new stories for him. Nobody can -help it. It is nature. The fault lies in the ordinances of -modern civilisation, which have made their laws without any -recognition of this fact, and indeed affects altogether to ignore -its existence.</p> - -<p>She said such things as these in jest very often; but beneath -the jest there was a sorrowful and impatient foreboding. The -days of darkness had not come to her, but they would certainly -come. Having been in her way omnipotent as any Cæsar, she -would see her laurels drop, her sceptre fall, her empire diminish. -A woman holds her power to charm as Balzac's hero held the -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">peau de chagrin</i>; little by little, at first imperceptibly, then -faster with each hour, it shrinks and shrinks until one day -there is nothing left—and life is over.</p> - -<p>Life is over: though the automatic joyless mechanism of -living may go on for half a century more.</p> - -<p>It is useless to say that the affections will compensate for -this decadence. They will do no such thing. As intelligence -is more and more highly cultured, and taste made more fastidious, -the power to console of the ties of family grows less and -less; the mind becomes too subtle, the sympathies become too -exacting and refined, to accept blindly such companionship or -compensation as these ties may afford.</p> - -<p>Every woman who has had the power to make herself beloved -has known a height of ecstasy beside which all the rest -of life must for ever look pale and dull. You say to a woman, -'When your lovers fall away from you, console yourself with -your children.' It is as though you said to her, 'As you can no -longer have the passion-music of the great orchestras, listen to -the little airs of the chamber harmonium.'</p> - -<p>While your lover loves you he is all yours; you are his sun -and moon, his dawn and darkness, his idol, his lawgiver, his -ecstasy—what can compensate to you for the loss of that power? -Whether time or marriage or other women kill that for you, -whenever it goes utterly, you are more beggared than any -queen driven from her kingdom naked in winter snows, like -Elizabeth of Hungary. And it always goes; always, always! -We reach the height, but we cannot stay at it. We live for a -few instants with the stars, then down we drop like stones.</p> - -<p>So she would think at times; and the presence of Blanche -de Laon had power to recall and emphasise such thoughts more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -irritatingly than had that of any other woman. In a thousand -hinted insolences, couched in bland phrase, Blanchette again -and again reminded her that '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le jour est aux jeunes</i>.'</p> - -<p>The day was indeed still her own, but twilight was near.</p> - -<p>It was the Princesse de Laon's fashion of vengeance—pending -any other.</p> - -<p>Blanchette had known very little emotion in her twenty -years of existence, hardly any pain except that of some ruffled -egotism or some denied caprice. She had been a woman of the -world to her finger tips, from the time of her infancy, when she -had been curled and frizzed and dressed in the latest mode to -show her small person in the children's balls at Deauville or at -Aix; but when she had heard of the death of her cousin, and -realised that she would never hear the voice of Yseulte again on -earth, she had known a grief more violent, a regret more sudden -and sincere, than her vain and self-absorbed little life could -have been supposed capable of in its inflated frivolity and -egotism. With her intuitive knowledge of human nature, she -had divined the true cause of that death, and into her small -cold soul there had entered two sentiments which were not of -self: the one an imperishable regret for her cousin, the other -an imperishable hatred of Nadine Napraxine.</p> - -<p>Others forgot: she did not.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Amyôt was to the great world of the hour what Compiègne -used to be to it in the finest days of the Second Empire. More -indeed, for whilst nearly all patrician France would never pass -an imperial threshold, there was no one of such eminence in -all the nobilities of Europe that he or she did not covet, and -feel flattered to obtain, their invitation to those summer and -autumnal festivities of the Château Othmar. But enraptured -as her guests all were, the châtelaine of Amyôt remained -moderately pleased by what pleased her guests so excessively, -and less and less pleased with every year.</p> - -<p>'After all, there is nothing really new in anything we do -here,' she said slightingly to Loris Loswa, who occupied there -a half-privileged and half-subordinate position as chief director -of the various entertainments; it was he who brought the greatest -actors on the stage, who initiated the greatest singers to direct -the concerts, who invented new figures for the cotillions, and -who organised the moonlight <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fêtes</i> in the gardens with the docility -of a courtier and the ready imagination of a clever artist -steeped to his fingers' ends in the traditions of the eighteenth -century.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Vereschaguin would certainly not be one half so useful in -the summer in a French château,' said Nadine, with her contemptuous -appreciation of his merits and accomplishments.</p> - -<p>'Take care that your poodle does not bite one day,' Othmar -answered. 'You hurt his vanity very often.'</p> - -<p>'He may bite me for aught I know,' she replied. 'But -be very sure he will never quarrel with Amyôt. He is very -prudent in his own self-interest.'</p> - -<p>'But no man likes to be merely used as you show that you -use him.'</p> - -<p>'I pay him. I have made him the fashion. I can unmake -him.'</p> - -<p>Othmar ventured to demur to that.</p> - -<p>'You can do a great deal in <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faisant la pluie et le beau temps</i>, -we all know; but surely the fashion which Loswa has attained -(for it is fashion and not fame) is, though a great deal of it may -be owing to full artificial support, yet real enough to stand -alone. For his own generation, at any rate.'</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho, nothing is ever easier than to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dénigrer</i>: -Pope has said it before us. It costs an immense quantity of -time and trouble to make a reputation, but to unmake it is as -easy as to unravel wool. A word will do. If I were to hint -that Loswa is a little loud in his colour, a little crude or <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">voulu</i> -in his treatment, everyone would begin to find his talent vulgar. -I shall not say it, because I shall not think it; he is an incomparable -artist in his own way; but he always knows that I can -say it, and that knowledge keeps him my slave.'</p> - -<p>Othmar was silent: he did not like Loswa, and was impatient -of his familiarity at Amyôt, a familiarity made more -offensive to him by its mixture with flattering docility. That -Loswa had a talent so masterly that it was nearly genius he -quite admitted, but the quality of the talent was artificial, and -seemed to him to represent the moral fibre of the artist's -character.</p> - -<p>'All Russians of a certain class are artificial,' said his wife -to him when he said this. 'We are all stove plants—children -of a forced culture and an unreal atmosphere. In our natural -instincts we are cruel, fierce, fickle, Slav <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">toto corde</i>. In our -social relations we are the most polished of all people. As -children we bite like little wolves; grown-up we know more -perfectly than anyone else how to caress our enemies. Loswa -is only like us all.'</p> - -<p>'The future of the world is with Russia?'</p> - -<p>'I think so. All the science of history makes one sure of -it: but at the present instant we are the oddest union of the -most absolute barbarism and the most polished civilisation that -the world holds. Society has nothing so perfectly cultured as -the Russian patrician; Europe has nothing so barbarously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -ignorant and besotted as the Russian peasant. "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les extrêmes -se touchent</i>" more startlingly in Russia than in any other -country, and out of those conflicting elements will come the -dominant race of the future, as you say.'</p> - -<p>Othmar looked at her, then said after a pause: 'I have -always wondered that you have not cared to become a great -political leader; all political questions interest you, and nothing -else does.'</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho, I should only be a conspirator if I did; you -would not wish that; it would upset the House of Othmar.'</p> - -<p>'I should like whatever pleased you,' he said, weakly perhaps -but sincerely.</p> - -<p>'Even your own ruin?' she asked, amused.</p> - -<p>'Even that, perhaps!' he answered—and thought: 'if it -served to draw us more closely together.'</p> - -<p>She guessed what remained unspoken.</p> - -<p>'I do not think ruin would have an agreeable effect on my -character,' she said, still with amusement at his romantic -fancies. 'I have never at all understood why it should develop -all one's virtues to have a bad cook, or why it should render -one angelic to be obliged to draw on one's stockings oneself, or -brush one's own hair before a cracked glass. I think it would -only make me exceedingly unpleasant to everybody, yourself -included.'</p> - -<p>'Marie Antoinette——'</p> - -<p>'Oh, poor Marie Antoinette! She adorns the moral of -every lesson of earthly vicissitudes! I think the very enormity -of her agony served as a stimulant. Besides, she knew she had -all posterity for an audience. In great crises it ought to be -easy to behave greatly. Antigone and Iphigenia are intelligible -to me.'</p> - -<p>'Because you have instincts which are great in you; -only——'</p> - -<p>'Only what? Do not pause. The one privilege of marriage -which is really valuable, is the permission to say disagreeable -things.'</p> - -<p>'It is a privilege of which the wise do not avail themselves. -I was only going to say that I think you would become heroic, -were you in heroic circumstances. But the world is always -with you and its influences are narcotic or alcoholic, heroic -never.'</p> - -<p>'I hope I should go to the scaffold decently, if you mean -that, were I sent there. That always seems to me a very easy -thing to do. But to be amiable or philosophic if one had no -waiting-woman, or no bath, or no change of clothes, seems to -me much more difficult.'</p> - -<p>'Yet, even then, if you were tried——'</p> - -<p>'Pray do not, in your anxiety to test my character, go and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -ruin my fortune! Poverty is tolerable in a novel; but in real -life it can only be sordid, tiresome, and vulgar.'</p> - -<p>'Not necessarily vulgar. I assure you if I could have -brought the House of Othmar down as Samson did the temple -of Dagon, without slaying the Philistines under it, as he did, I -should have done it many years ago. If poverty be vulgar, -what are riches? Intolerably vulgar in my estimation.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with a certain admiration crossed by a -certain disdain.</p> - -<p>'I always thought your contempt for wealth very picturesque,' -she replied, 'and it is, I know, quite sincere. At -the same time it is a quixotism, and gets you laughed at by -those who cannot possibly understand all the refinements of -your motives as I do; to Bleichroeder or Soubeyran you would -seem insane. And I do not think you do at all understand one -sign of your times; which is the immense preponderance given -by it to mere wealth. Every year adds to the power of the -financiers. Already it is they who, in reality, make peace or -war: ministers cannot move without them, and without them -armies starve. At present their dominion is greatly hidden, -and not understood by the people; but in a little while it is -they who will be the open dictators of the world. It will not -be precisely a millennium, but, were I you, I should see the -picturesque and the ambitious side of it.'</p> - -<p>'I can only see the absolute corruption and decadence which -will be inevitable.'</p> - -<p>'Because nature meant you to be a poet, writing sonnets to -a grasshopper like Meleager, or dying early in the arms of the -sea like Shelley; you have been always out of tune with your -own times. It is a kind of anæmia, for which there is no -cure.'</p> - -<p>'It is a malady you share——'</p> - -<p>'Oh no! We are as far asunder as <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jean-qui-rit</i> and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jean-qui-pleure</i>. -What amuses me as a comedy distresses you as a -tragedy: when I see a satire like Pope's you see a dirge like the -Daphnis. The two attitudes are as different as a horse chestnut -and a chestnut horse.'</p> - -<p>'At one time we were not so very inharmonious!' said -Othmar unwisely; since it is always unwise to recall a bond of -sympathy at any moment when that bond seems strained or -out-worn. It is natural to do so, but it is unwise.</p> - -<p>'When people are <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amourachés</i> they always imagine themselves -sympathetic to each other on every point,' she said with -cruel truth; then she paused a moment, and, smiling, added a -truth still more cruel.</p> - -<p>'I should always have sympathised with you, probably, if I -had not married you,' she repeated dreamily and amiably.</p> - -<p>'That I quite understand,' said Othmar, with bitterness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -'One can be a hero to one's wife as little as to one's valet. It -is not to be hoped for in either case.'</p> - -<p>'I know all about you,' she said with a sigh. 'That is so -very fatal! Perhaps if you would do something I do not know, -you would become interesting again.'</p> - -<p>'That is a suggestion which may have its perils.'</p> - -<p>'Peril?' she repeated. 'My dear Otho, there is much more -peril in the monotony of undisturbed relations. I often wonder -if you are really sincere when you profess such constant admiration -of me; myself, I admit I constantly think how unwise we -were not to remain delightful illusions to each other. It is -impossible to retain any illusions about a person you live with; -if you looked at Chimborazo every day it would seem small!'</p> - -<p>They were alone for a few rare moments in her own apartments -at Amyôt; it was but seldom now that he ever was indulged -with a conversation <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto quattr' occhi</i>. She held firmly -to her theory that too much intimacy is the grave of love, a -grave so deep that love has no resurrection.</p> - -<p>Those stupid women who allowed their lovers or their lords -to enter their apartments as easily as they could enter their -stables!—what could they expect? All the charm of admittance -there was gone.</p> - -<p>His face flushed deeply as he heard her now.</p> - -<p>'I wonder if you have any conception of what bitterly cruel -things you say?' he exclaimed. 'Or are the subjects of your -vivisection too infinitesimally small in your eyes for you to -remember their possible pain?'</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho! I do not think a truth should ever be -painful to any candid mind!' she replied, with a little merciless -laugh. 'If a man and woman, who know each other as well as -we do, cannot say the truth to one another, who is ever to make -any psychological studies at all?'</p> - -<p>'No one does that has any real feeling in him or in her,' -said Othmar impatiently. 'All those elaborate examinations -under the glass are cold as ice. They are very scientific, no -doubt, but there is not a heart throb in them.'</p> - -<p>'I think the greatest pleasure of strong emotion is the -analysis of it,' she replied with perfect truth. 'You are not -philosophic, you are poetic. So you do not understand what I -mean.'</p> - -<p>'You mean,' said Othmar angrily, 'that when Hero saw -Leander's dead body washed up to her arms from the waves, she -was amply compensated for his death by the advantage of -putting her own tears under the spectrum!'</p> - -<p>'That is an exaggerated illustration. But I admit that the -mental intricacies of every passion is what is alone interesting -in it to me.'</p> - -<p>'It is why you have never felt passion!'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Perhaps!'</p> - -<p>She smiled and stretched her arms indolently above her -head as she lay back amongst her cushions.</p> - -<p>'I have always perfectly understood,' she continued, 'that -unjustly abused lady of the legend who flung her glove into the -lions' den; she wanted emotions and she had the whole gamut -of them no doubt in those few moments—fear, hope, pride, -triumph, discomfiture; she must have known all that it is possible -to know of emotion in those three minutes.'</p> - -<p>'You have often thrown your glove.'</p> - -<p>'Do you mean that for a rebuke? Your tone is gloomy. -Yes, I have thrown it, but they have always brought it back -to me like lap-dogs. There is too much of the lap-dog in men.'</p> - -<p>'In me?' said Othmar with anger.</p> - -<p>'Yes, in you too. You would go for my glove still.'</p> - -<p>'Yes, I would, God help me.'</p> - -<p>She laughed. 'I am sure you would, at present. I suppose -the time will come when you will go for some other woman's. -It is in your nature to do that sort of thing.'</p> - -<p>Othmar was irritated and wounded: he was tired of this -eternal jesting. His fidelity to her was the most real and the -most sensitive thing in all his life, and yet he had the conviction -that in her heart she ridiculed him for it.</p> - -<p>'Still, I think you of all women would be most intolerant of -inconstancy,' he said, speaking almost unconsciously his own -thoughts aloud.</p> - -<p>'I hope I should forgive it with my reason, which would -understand and so excuse it, though my feminine weaknesses -might perhaps resent it; one never knows one's own foibles.'</p> - -<p>'It is only indifference which forgives inconstancy.'</p> - -<p>'Oh—h—h! I am not sure of that. There may be indulgence -without indifference.'</p> - -<p>'But not without contempt.'</p> - -<p>'I do not know that. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.</i> -I have so very slight an opinion of human nature that I do -not think I could ever be seriously angry with any of its -errors.'</p> - -<p>'Then that would be because none of them had power to -reach your heart. I do not believe you would care for anyone -sufficiently ever to be jealous of them.'</p> - -<p>She smiled and rose. 'My dear Otho, jealousy is a very -ugly, useless, and unwise passion. The world decided, as soon -as ever I was presented to it, that I had no such thing as a -heart. You have always persisted in supposing that I have, but -very likely the world is more right than you.'</p> - -<p>'May I not hope at least that I have a place in it?' murmured -Othmar, and he bent towards her with much of a lover's -ardour.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> - -<p>But she drew herself away with a touch of that dullness by -which she had used to freeze the blood in Napraxine's veins.</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho,' she said, with her unkind little smile, -'really that is a twice-told tale! Do you think after so many -years it is worth while to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chanter des madrigaux</i>? You know -I was at no time ever very fond of them. "Laurel is green for -a season, and love is sweet for a day!" Let us be friends, the -most charming friends in the world; that is far more agreeable.'</p> - -<p>Othmar rose from where he had been half kneeling at her -feet; his face was very flushed, and his eyes grew angry; he -was irritably sensible of having made himself absurd in her -eyes.</p> - -<p>'You will not awe <em>me</em> as you used to do that poor humble -dead fool,' he said bitterly. 'But if you be tired of me I will -summon my fortitude to bear dismissal as best I may.'</p> - -<p>'Oh!—tired—no!' she said, with a deprecating accent which -was marred on his ear by a certain latent thrill beneath it of -suppressed laughter. 'Only I think we have done with all that. -If Mary Stuart had married Chastelard, I am sure he would not -have gone on writing sonnets and songs; at least not writing -them to her. We have a quantity of all kinds of interests and -objects common to us. Let us be content with those. Believe -me, if you will leave off the madrigals it will be very much -better. You have been the most admirable lover in the world, -but as you cannot be a lover now, suppose you leave off the -language and—and—the nonsense? Regard me as your best -friend: I shall ever be that.'</p> - -<p>Othmar coloured with a confused mingling of emotions.</p> - -<p>'Friendship!' he echoed. 'I did not marry you to be -relegated to friendship!'</p> - -<p>'Then you were not clairvoyant,' she said, with her unkindest -laugh. 'There are only two results possible to any -marriage: they are friendship or separation, the door to the left -or the door to the right.'</p> - -<p>Then with her prettiest, chilliest laugh she left him, amused -by the vexation, offence, and embarrassment which his features -expressed.</p> - -<p>'"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il faut en finir avec les madrigaux</i>,"' she said, as she looked -at him over her shoulder and passed down the staircase.</p> - -<p>Othmar was deeply pained and hotly angered. He had at -all times, even in the earliest hours of their union, been conscious -that his caresses were rather permitted than enjoyed, his -tenderness was rather accepted indulgently than ardently returned. -There was a total absence of physical passion in her, -which had served to heighten his intellectual admiration of her, -if at times it had held his emotions in check, and made him feel -that his ardour was boyish, absurd, sensual, romantic. But he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -had never been prepared to accept the position into which -Napraxine had been driven by the indifference of her temperament. -He had never anticipated that the time might come -when he also might be allowed no more than a touch of her -cool white fingers, and a careless smile of morning greeting.</p> - -<p>Sooner an open quarrel than such mockery of friendship!—so -he thought.</p> - -<p>He remained where she had left him, sunk in meditation, -which retraced one by one the passages of his love for her. It -had been love so great, so entire, so intense, that it could never -change—unless she or her own will killed it. It had been one -of those mighty incantations of which no hand but the sorcerer's -own can ever lift off the spell.</p> - -<p>As her lover he had always imagined that she, marble to all -others, would be wax to him; he had always believed that he -would light the flame of fervour behind the alabaster-like ice of -her temperament. But he had learned his error. He had found -that possession is not necessarily empire. He had discovered -that he pleased her intelligence and her vanity rather than -awakened her senses or her emotions. She had made him -mortifyingly conscious that she found him of no higher stature -than other men, and had unsparingly reminded him that there -was no more fatal foe of love than familiarity.</p> - -<p>She had wounded him more than she had meant more than -once, and this time the wound penetrated both his pride and -his affections, and left with him an acrid sense of undeserved -humiliation.</p> - -<p>'No man can have been truer to her than I have been,' he -thought, with that pathetic wonder that fidelity does not -beget gratitude which is common to all lovers, be they man or -woman.</p> - -<p>Was it true that she would not care if his fancy wandered -elsewhere? Would she not feel any anger were he, like all his -friends, to spend his passions and his substance in the arms of -cocottes, and in providing the splendours of their palaces? -Would she indeed feel no pang if any other woman, whether -duchess or <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">drôlesse</i>, were to obtain empire over him?</p> - -<p>If not, then truly she had never loved him. He felt no -impulse to put her to the test: he only felt a weary and dreary -sense of loneliness, of discomfiture, of chagrin, of humiliation.</p> - -<p>He had always doubted whether she had ever realised the -depth and the extent of the passion he had spent on her. He -had always fancied that she classed it only with the hot desires -and romantic sentiments of men, of which she had seen so much; -there might be even many of those men who appeared to her to -have been truer lovers than he. He had married her: would -Helen have ever believed that Menelaus could love like Paris? -Surely not. There had been many men whose blood had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -spilled like water on the ground for her sake, or from her -caprice. It was inevitable that there should seem truer lovers -than he who dwelt under the same roof as herself, and led the -even tenour of his daily life beside her.</p> - -<p>She had been too early saturated and satiated with the -spectacle of strong and forbidden passions for the repetition of -a well-known and often-laughed-at love to have any power to -excite her interest in the tame sameness of a permitted and -undisturbed intimacy. He felt that she had spoken the entire -truth when she had said that she would have cared for him -much more had she never married him. She required endless -novelty, incessant renewal of excitation, continual stimulant to -her love of mystery, of peril, and of power. There was no food -for these in the calm certainty of possession which is the accompaniment -and enemy of all conjugal life, in the tranquil succession -of years which resembled one another monotonous as -peace.</p> - -<p>Perhaps she had loved him most of all on that day when she -had written to him that their paths in life must wend for ever -apart. It had been a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bon moment</i>, a moment of exaltation, -of intensity, of strong interest, stimulated by a sense of self-sacrifice; -a moment in which she had put him voluntarily away -from her; and, so doing, had seen him in a light which had -never before or after shone upon him in her eyes.</p> - -<p>The mockery of her slight laughter remained now in jarring -echo on his ears. What a fool he must seem to her! -What a poor, romantic, sensitive, unwise stringer of unwritten -madrigals!</p> - -<p>To endeavour to arouse her jealousy never passed across his -thoughts. It seemed to him that she must know so well that -she had taken his own heart out of his breast never to return it -to him. Othmar was not more chaste than other men of the -world; but his passion for Nadine Napraxine had been of such -length of endurance, of such intensity of feeling, had been so -environed with the ennobling solemnities of death, and had -been so fed on long denial and severance, that it always seemed -to him his very life itself. His temperament was too grave for -the light loves of the world, and his character too constant and -too sincere for those intrigues which form a mere pleasant pastime -without engaging either the affection or the memory. He -was like the Greek who hung his spear, his shield, his sandals, -and his flute before the shrine of Aphrodite's self; and could -worship no lesser divinities than she.</p> - -<p>He went out of the house and into the gardens of Amyôt, -where they were most shadowy and solitary. The late summer -roses were filling the air with their fragrance, and the stately -peacocks were drawing their trains of purple and gold over the -shaded grass. A flock of wild doves sailed overhead; near at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -hand a fountain sent its silvery column towering in the light, to -fall in clouds of spray into the marble basin, where laughing -loves rode their white dolphins through green fleets of water-lily -leaves. In the distance, beyond the clipped walls of bay, -his children with some dogs were playing on a lawn under one -of the terraces. Their laughter came faintly on the wind; he -could see their shining hair glisten in the sunshine. He did not -go to them.</p> - -<p>The kiss of a child could not soothe the irritated bitterness -which was at his heart, the wound which the hand he loved best -had given him.</p> - -<p>It was a warm golden day; the heat lay heavy on all the -country of the Orléannais; and the Loire water, low and still, -was broken by wide stretches of sandy soil where the river bed -was laid bare. He, with a vague depression for which he could -not have accounted, felt restless and disposed to solitude. With -that kind of impulse towards the relief of melancholy things -which that sort of motiveless sadness usually brings with it, he, -for the first time for years, turned his steps towards the chambers -once occupied by his first wife. Nothing had ever been -touched in them since the last day that she had been at Amyôt: -save to keep away the cobwebs and the dust, no servant ever -entered there; the doors were locked, and he himself kept the -master key.</p> - -<p>An instinct of remembrance, for which he could not have -accounted, moved him to enter there this hot and silent noon. -He trod the floors with a noiseless step, as men move in the -chamber where some dead thing lies, and with a noiseless hand -undid the fastenings of one of the great windows and let in the -light. All things were as they had been left that day when she -had last gone away from Amyôt to her death. The golden sunbeams -strayed in on to the white satin coverlet of the bed, the -ivory crucifix which hung above it, the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">prie-dieu</i> with the Book -of Hours open, the roses a mere brown heap of ugliness, withered -where she had set them in their bowl.</p> - -<p>He sat down in the midst of the lonely things and felt a -sense of regret, of remorse, of wistful compunction and self-reproach. -Ever and again at intervals such an emotion had -passed over him whenever he had thought of her, but never -sharply enough to cause him such pain as it caused him now, -remembering her youth plucked by death like a snowdrop in its -bud. The big dog which had belonged to her had entered unperceived -after him, and was looking upward in his face, as if -it likewise were moved by sudden and sorrowful remembrances.</p> - -<p>Poor child! so little missed, so utterly unmourned!</p> - -<p class="center"> -'Et rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses:<br /> -L'espace d'un matin.' -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> - -<p>Friedrich Othmar had had these two lines carved upon her -tomb; they told of all the brevity of her life, but not of all its -sadness. Had any living creature ever guessed all that?</p> - -<p>A chill passed over Othmar as the doubts came to him. Had -she suffered much more than he had ever thought? He had -been caught then on the strong cyclone of a great passion, and -been blinded by its rush and force.</p> - -<p>The silence of the large chamber seemed filled with one -long sigh.</p> - -<p>The dog looked at him always, as though saying: 'I have -not forgotten: once she lived; where is she now?'</p> - -<p>Ah, where!</p> - -<p>He rose oppressed by new and painful thoughts, and moved -from one object to another in the room, as though each of them -would tell him something he had yet to learn. He touched -with a reverent hand this thing and that which had belonged -to her, and which survived unharmed, unworn, and would so -last for centuries if his descendants spared them; frail toys and -trifles, yet dowered with a power of endurance denied to the -human life, which there had passed away like a cloud of the -morning.</p> - -<p>He took up her ivory tablets with the engagements of the -day still written in pencil on them; he touched her long thin -gloves, her tall tortoiseshell-tipped garden cane, her writing-case -with its monogram in silver. The things moved his heart -strongly for the first time in seven years: it had been no fault -of hers that she had been powerless to gain love from him.</p> - -<p>One by one he drew open the drawers of the buhl-table on -which these, her writing things, had all been left unmoved: in -one he saw a little book covered with vellum, and closed with a -silver pencil as a gate is closed with a staple. He hesitated a -moment; then he drew the pencil out and opened the book. -It was half filled with those poor timid little verses of which -Nadine Napraxine had once by a chance jest suggested the -existence, and for which the child had blushed as for a sin. -They were faint, blurred, often half effaced, purposelessly, as by -a shy uncertain hand afraid of its own creations, but some were -legible. He read them, and all the soul left in them spoke to -his.</p> - -<p>All the thoughts and fears and sorrows, all the longing and -the doubt and the hesitation which she had been too timid and -too proud to ever show in life, were spoken to him in those -tender and imperfect poems. They were simple as a daisy, -spontaneous as a wood-lark's song; they were ignorant of all -laws of science or rules of spondee and of dactyl; but, all halting -and shy though they were, they had all the truth of a human -heart in them. They were deep and wide enough to hold the -secret which she had shut in them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> - -<p>As he read them a mist came before his eyes, and a sigh -escaped him. He understood all that she had suffered here -beneath this roof where he had promised her a life of joy. He -saw all that she had hidden from him so carefully, through pride -and shyness and the cruel humiliation of a love which knew -itself powerless to awake response, of a soul which suffered in -its innocence all the tortures of the damned. He had lived -beside her seeing naught of that piteous conflict; parted from -her by the wall built up out of his own indifference and coldness.</p> - -<p>Had he even then been able to discern it, it would not have -touched him, because of all chill things on earth the dullest is -the heart of a man towards a love which he does not desire, -which he cannot return. But it reached and touched him now.</p> - -<p>The voice from the grave could not fret him as the voice of -the living might have done, had he heard it in that pitiful cry -of utter loneliness.</p> - -<p>Poor timid little verses like nestling birds shivering in the -chill winds and pallid sunshine of an unkind spring—across the -years they brought her heart to his.</p> - -<p>And though he had never loved her, yet in that moment of -remorse he would have given all that he possessed, all the lives -around him, and all the peace of his own soul, to be able, once -to call her back to earth, and once to say to her, 'Child, forgive -me.'</p> - -<p>But she was dead.</p> - -<p>He sat there long in solitude, the dog lying mute at his feet.</p> - -<p>He had read the broken, unfinished, humble little verses till -their words were in his ear and before his eyes, and in all the -sunbeams straying through the golden dust of the air around.</p> - -<p>When he rose he laid them gently back where they had been -left, with such a touch as a man gives to flowers which he lays -on the dead limbs of some dear lost creature. Then he closed -the window and went out of the chamber, the dog following -him, with slow unwilling footsteps.</p> - -<p>There went with him a remorse which would never leave -him. For the first time the sense had come upon him that her -death had been self-sought, in that sunset hour of the month -of hyacinths, when her body had dropped as a stone drops -down through the bird-haunted air.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>He felt an irresistible impulse to seek out the woman he loved, -to unburden his heart to her of this new thought which seemed -to him like a crime. He had left her in anger and mortification, -but it was to her that he turned instinctively under the pain of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -a discovery which had filled him with a sense of intolerable -remorse.</p> - -<p>Alas! they were not alone; the great house was full of -guests. With the slanting of the afternoon shadows across the -hoary face of the old sun-dial, on which were the monogram of -François de Valois and his sister, these indolent people had all -left their chambers and were now scattered in quest of diversion -all over the house, the gardens, or the woods, riding, driving, -making music, or making love, carrying on their banter, their -friendships, their rivalries, their intrigues. To see her as he -wished, alone, was impossible for many hours. After sunset -there was the long and ceremonious dinner; after dinner there -was the usual evening pastime, some chamber music by great -artists, some dancing for those who wished it, whist and baccarat -in the card-room, flirtation in the drawing-rooms, constant -demands, which he could not resist, made upon his own courtesy -and social powers.</p> - -<p>'What a stupid life!' he thought impatiently, being out of -tune with its lightness and gaiety. 'What a stupid bondage! -The vine-dressers sound asleep in their cave-cabins above the -Loire water are a thousand times wiser than we are!'</p> - -<p>He looked at his wife often. She had professed to think her -world tiresome and its monotony of pleasure tedious; she had -professed to find its conventional routine mere treadmill work -which no one had the courage to refuse to pursue, but which -every one of its toilers hated; and yet she never spent a day -otherwise than in this conventional world!—she never ceased -for an hour to surround herself with its artificialities and its -pageantries. If she had really wished to escape from it how -easy to have done so!—how easy to have chosen instead some -solitary and tranquil spot with him and with her children!</p> - -<p>But they were all as the very breath of her existence, this -air of the great world, this perpetual movement and excitation, -these elegant crowds, these honey-tongued courtiers, this Babel -of news, and novelties, and fashion, and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i>, and endless -effort to be amused! Were she alone with him at Amyôt, -would she not yawn with <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i> every hour of the twenty-four? -She had said that she would.</p> - -<p>He left the brilliant rooms as soon as his duties as a host -permitted him to escape, and wandered through the dusky aisles -and avenues of his gardens.</p> - -<p>The night was still and sultry; the sounds of music and the -reflection of the lights within came from the many open casements -of the great castle on to the terraces and lawns beneath. -There was no moon: the steep roof, the pointed towers, the -frowning keep of Amyôt stood up black and massive against -the starry sky. Restless, and tormented by his thoughts, its -master paced the dark grass alleys of its gardens; all the simple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -verses of the little manuscript poems seemed whispered from -their leaves and murmured by the fountains.</p> - -<p>'She loved me!' he thought again and again. And to that -warm and tender heart his own had been so cold!</p> - -<p>It had been no fault of his; no man can love because he -will; and still——</p> - -<p>He stayed out in the gardens until the lights had ceased to -shine in the great windows, and in the distant country lying -beyond the forest belt of Amyôt the call to vespers was ringing -through the darkling daybreak from village tower and spire, -waking the slumbering peasants to their toil amidst the vines -or on the river.</p> - -<p>Then he entered the house and went to his wife's apartments.</p> - -<p>When her woman asked if she would receive him she smiled -a little. He was like a repentant child, she thought, sorry that -he had been ill-treated and tired of pouting!</p> - -<p>'I am half asleep!' she said as he entered. 'Why do you -come and disturb me? Where have you been all the evening? -You look as if you had seen the ghosts of all the tellers of the -tales of the Heptameron!'</p> - -<p>She laughed a little as she spoke; she had put on a loose -gown of soft white tissues, her hair was unbound; her feet -were bare and slipped in Persian shoes sewn thick with pearls. -She was lying back amongst the pale rose-coloured cushions of -her couch in the hot night; her arms were uncovered to the -shoulders; the light was mellow and tempered; the window -stood open; a slight breeze stirred the air and the gauze -of her gown; her eyes surveyed him with a smile of languid -amusement.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pauvre enfant! a-t-il assez boudé!</i>' she thought with an -indulgent derision.</p> - -<p>Othmar, for the first time in his life, was insensible of the -seduction of her presence. She observed his preoccupation with -some offence. It was a slight to herself.</p> - -<p>'What is the matter?' she said impatiently. 'When I am -dying to be alone and asleep, do you come to tell me that the -Rothschilds will not join you in some loan, or that war is going -to begin before the financiers wish for it? Surely, your bad -news would have kept till to-morrow morning? <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Qu'avez-vous -donc?</i>'</p> - -<p>Othmar winced under the irritability and lightness of the -words.</p> - -<p>'Nadège,' he said very low, 'did ever you think that it was -possible that—that—she sought her own death?'</p> - -<p>His voice faltered, and had a sound of repressed tears in it.</p> - -<p>She looked at him in astonishment and silence. She did -not ask him whom he meant.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Sometimes,' she answered at length in a hushed voice, -with a certain sense of awe. 'Sometimes—yes—I have thought -so. Yes, since you ask me.'</p> - -<p>His head drooped upon his chest; he sighed heavily. She -looked at him with compassion and surprise.</p> - -<p>'Is it possible,' she thought, 'that he never had any suspicion -of it? Men are moles!'</p> - -<p>Aloud, she said gently:</p> - -<p>'What makes you think of it now? What can have -happened?'</p> - -<p>He did not reply for some moments. Then he answered -unsteadily:</p> - -<p>'I went into those locked rooms; there were some verses in -a drawer—some little poems. I do not know why; all at once -the impression came to me; I had never dreamed of it before.'</p> - -<p>'Men are always so blind!' she thought, as she replied -aloud:</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho, we cannot know; why let us imagine the -worst? It might very well be a mere accident. The woman -Nicolle has said how often she had warned her of the dangers -of that ruined roof. Do not take that burden of great useless -remorse upon your life. It will make you wretched.'</p> - -<p>'Not more wretched than she was. Not more than I -deserve. I was a brute to her.'</p> - -<p>'That is nonsense; you could not be brutal to anybody if -you tried. You were indifferent, but that was not your fault. -She did not know how to make you otherwise. There are -women who never know——'</p> - -<p>'But she deserved so happy a fate!'</p> - -<p>'Are there any happy fates? It is a mere expression. The -happy people are the conventional <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">terre à terre</i> unemotional -creatures who pass their lives between two bolsters, one Custom -and the other Prejudice. These two bolsters save them from -all shocks, and they slumber and grow fat. That poor child -might have been happiest in the cloisters, because she would -not have known all she missed. But in the world she would -certainly have been unhappy, whether with you or any other, -because she demanded impossibilities, and because she had no -knowledge of human nature.'</p> - -<p>Othmar did not hear what she said.</p> - -<p>'I shall always feel that I have been her murderer,' he said -in a hushed voice. Those poor little verses haunted him like -the memory of dead children long unmourned and suddenly -remembered.</p> - -<p>She looked at him with some impatience rising in her.</p> - -<p>'How like a man!' she thought. 'How exactly like a -man—to have killed a woman with his indifference and never -to have perceived that he killed her, and then suddenly, six or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -seven years afterwards, to become alive to it as a fact, and then -to suffer indescribable tortures! A woman would have known -at once, but probably would never have blamed herself for it. -We have so much more intuition and so much less conscience.'</p> - -<p>She was sorry for the pain she saw in him, but she was -impatient at once of his slowness of perception and of the -strength of his tardy emotions.</p> - -<p>'Will she be like Banquo's Ghost between us?' she thought, -with a vague jealousy of those memories suddenly arisen.</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho,' she said aloud, with a little disdain in her -sympathy, 'I understand all that you feel, because this cruel -fancy has presented itself quite suddenly to you. But I do not -think that you ought to dwell on it, since you can know nothing -for certain. You have been always too much in love with imaginary -sorrows; you have always been too apt to make for yourself -calamities which destiny was willing to spare you. Do not -make such a mistake now. Be man enough to face the truth -as it stands, which is, that had that poor child lived, she would -have grown more and more intolerable to you with every breath -she drew. Men enjoy sophisms, and they hate looking at their -own motives in all their nakedness. If she had lived you would -have made her utterly miserable, through no fault either of -yours or hers, but simply from the fault of marriage, which -yokes two uncongenial lives together, and refuses to release -them for mental and moral disparities which inflict a million -times more misery than do the mere gross offences for which -the law does grant release.'</p> - -<p>'I have no doubt you are quite right, but I cannot follow -your reasoning,' said Othmar with some bitterness. 'I can -only feel that I have slain a better life than my own.'</p> - -<p>'You were always so exaggerated in your expressions,' she -said with the tone which he himself had so seldom heard from -her. 'You have always, as I say, been like the German poets -of the last century, perpetually in love with sorrow; I suppose -because you can fashion her at your pleasure. Those to whom -she comes uninvited dislike the look of her, and would shut her -out if they could.'</p> - -<p>Othmar rose impatient and wounded.</p> - -<p>'I should have hoped you would have had more sympathy,' -he said as he left the room.</p> - -<p>She gave a little gesture of wrath as the door closed behind -him.</p> - -<p>'Do men ever know what they wish?' she said to herself. -'If he could bring that poor child to life again he would do it, -for the moment, and spend the remainder of his life in repenting -that he had ever done so. If the powers of men were equal -in force to the momentary flashes of their consciences, what -strange things the world would see!'</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> - -<p>She herself was conscious that she had answered him with -less feeling, with less sympathy than he might well have looked -for from her, but the momentary sense of offence with which -she had heard him speak had been too strong to allow her -gentler instincts to prevail with her. She was irritated, amazed, -profoundly offended, and amazed with such grand vanity of -amazement as Cleopatra might have felt had some memory of -poor pale Octavia risen up betwixt her lover and herself.</p> - -<p>He meanwhile went through the hushed dim corridors of -the house with a pang the more at his heart. He had spoken -in a moment of strong feeling, of freshly-awakened pain, and -the coldness with which his confidence had been received, left -its own frost upon his soul. He did not remember that which -every man finds; that no sorrow for one woman will ever -awaken sympathy in the breast of another. Shame, suffering, -wounds of the world's scorn or fortune's cruelties will make all -women compassionate and tender; but when a man sighs for a -woman lost, he will meet with no pity from those women whom -he loves. He did not think of that; he only felt a bruised and -baffled sense of utter loneliness; a momentary weakness like -that of a child who, being hurt, creeps up to arms it loves only -to be repulsed from them. That weary sense of hopelessness -which her lovers had so often felt before her came to him; such -hopelessness as may come over the soul of one who, standing -shipwrecked on some barren shore, is fronted by some steep, -straight, inaccessible wall of marble cliff, upon whose smooth -white breast there is no place for any aching foot to rest or any -hand to close: a white wall shining in the sun which sees men -drown and die.</p> - -<p>Some lines of Swinburne's earliest and greatest years came -back in vaguely remembered fragments to his mind.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"> -<hr class="tb" /> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Yea, though we sung as angels in her ear,</div> - <div class="verse indent16">She would not hear.</div> - <div class="verse">Let us rise up and part; she will not know,</div> - <div class="verse">Let us go seaward as the great winds go,</div> - <div class="verse">Full of blown sand and foam: what help is here?</div> - <div class="verse">There is no help, for all these things are so,</div> - <div class="verse">And all the world as bitter as a tear,</div> - <div class="verse">And how these things are, though I strove to show,</div> - <div class="verse indent16">She would not know.</div> - </div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">And though she saw all heaven in flower above,</div> - <div class="verse indent16">She would not love.</div> - </div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Let us give up, go down; she will not care,</div> - <div class="verse">Though all the stars made gold of all the air,</div> - <div class="verse">Though all these waves went over us and drove</div> - <div class="verse">Deep down the stifling lips and glowing hair,</div> - <div class="verse indent16">She would not care.</div> - <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Let us go home and hence; she will not weep,</div> - <div class="verse">We gave love many dreams and days to keep,</div> - </div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">All is reaped now, no grass is left to mow,</div> - <div class="verse">And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep,</div> - <div class="verse indent16">She would not weep.</div> - </div> -</div></div> - -<p>The verses came back to his memory as he went away from -her chamber to his lonely couch; and he found in them that -curious solace which poetry gives to pain when it echoes pain -closely; that consolation of sympathy, which makes of poets -the ministers and the angels of life. The dull, resigned abandonment -which was in these lines was in his own soul. It was -no more fierce grief or wild despair, or the delirious rebellion of -the lover against his mistress's indifference; it was the apathetic -acquiescence of a nature powerless to awake and sway another, -the weary and resigned acceptance of a thing unchangeable.</p> - -<p class="center"> -Nay, and though all men living had pity on me,<br /> -She would not see! -</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was a warm and beautiful night a year later, in full midsummer -in Paris.</p> - -<p>Othmar was alone there, being detained there by the illness -of his uncle, who had been stricken three weeks before with -hemiplegia, as he had sat at dinner in his own house in the Rue -du Traktir, and had ever since lain insensible and paralysed, in -a semblance of that death which in all its verity and tyranny of -annihilation might come to him at any hour.</p> - -<p>It was a dreary and melancholy waiting for an end which -was inevitable, which no science or effort could avert. He had -come out in the coolness of the night, glad, after the closeness -of a sick-room, of a little air, a little exercise. His wife was -making a series of visits at various great houses throughout the -north-east of Europe; the children were on the shores of the -Norman coast with their separate household; Paris was a desert, -though both men and women were found there who seized the -occasion to press on him their presence and their friendship with -that assiduity which the world always shows to its very rich -men. But he had felt no taste at such a moment for the society -of either, and had repulsed both with impatience and scant -courtesy.</p> - -<p>The world of pleasure never found Othmar pliant to it; he -disliked and despised it; he was intolerant alike of its frivolity -and of its coarseness; its enormous expenditure seemed to him -grotesquely disproportioned to its poor results in amusement; -and the mere jargon of its habitual speech was unpleasant to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -him. He was rarely seen at a club, never at a racecourse, and -the laughter of a supper-table left him unmoved to mirth, as -the limbs of a dancer left him untouched by admiration.</p> - -<p>Crossing the bridge of Solferino now, he paused to look at -the river in the moonlight. There was neither wind nor cloud, -and the sky was brilliant with stars; the Seine seemed a sheet -of silver. It was past midnight; the city on the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rive gauche</i> was -dusky and silent, the other city was studded with a million -points of artificial light; the ceaseless hum of movement had -not ceased there. The air was warm; the water looked cool -and full of repose; the rays of the full moon, which shone -down from the zenith, played in the ripples of it, and its mute -highway seemed for the moment a silver path into some magic -land.</p> - -<p>He leaned against the parapet, and looked down its westward -course: he knew every inch of its way; he knew all the quiet -poplar-shadowed hamlets, all the flowering-grass meadows, all -the sleepy quiet ancient little towns which were on either side -of the historic stream; he knew how the apple and the cherry -orchards sloped to the water, how the lilies and flags grew about -the washing-places and the landing-stairs, how the white-capped -children, knee-deep in cowslips, stood still to see the boats go -by, how the water flowed through the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">plaisant pays de France</i> -until it grew black and sullied in the smoke of Rouen, and -washed itself white again plunging joyously into the snow-flecked -sea by Honfleur.</p> - -<p>It was all hidden now, nothing of any of it seen except a -broad band of silver spreading away into the darkness; but the -eyes of his mind followed it and illumined its way, and in fancy -his nostrils smelt the fragrance of the sweet dew-wet fields, and -the breath of the sleeping cows, and the scent of the wild flowers -growing where Corneille and Flaubert had died. By day it was -but a busy water highway, crowded with sail and dulled with -steam, serving to bind city and seaport together; but by night -it was transfigured, and all the sighing sounds which came up -from it seemed only like the peaceful breathing of the slumbering -children in the many little wooded hamlets down its -shores.</p> - -<p>'And Flaubert lived above that water,' thought Othmar -dreamily, 'and from his great window saw through his green -poplar boughs on to it at sunrise and at sunset, and in the light -of the moon like this, and yet he could get nothing of its -serenity, and could hear none of its songs, but must vex his -soul over the sordid troubles of "Bouvard et Pécuchet." The -Seine ought to have been to him a Muse with hands full of -meadow-sweet and lips vocal with tender folk-songs. If he had -had more genius it would have been so. The village has its -Mme. Bovary, no doubt, under its low red roof covered up with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -apple-boughs; but the village has also its Dorothea—if one be -Goethe and not Flaubert.'</p> - -<p>The idle thoughts passed dreamily through his brain as he -leaned over the coping of the bridge. He had stood there so -long and so aimlessly that one of the street-guards came up to -him with suspicion, but recognising him, went onward, leaving -him undisturbed.</p> - -<p>'If I were that <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">archimillionnaire</i>,' thought the man, 'it -would be the inside of Bignon's that would have me at this -hour, and not the outside of a bridge.'</p> - -<p>That the man who can command all indulgence of the appetites -may not care to so indulge them, always seems to the man -who cannot command such indulgence the most inexplicable of -mysteries. The poor man drinks all day long when he has a -chance; he wonders why does the rich man only take a few -glasses of claret when he could be drunk the whole year if he -chose?</p> - -<p>Othmar, unwitting of the guard's commentary, continued to -gaze down the river, repeating in his thoughts the Greek of -Bion's sonnet to Hesperus. He was wishing vaguely that he -had had the gift of poetical expression; he knew that he thought -as poets think, but nature had denied him the power of giving -metrical utterance to them. He would sooner, he believed, on -such moonlit nights as these, have been able to express what he -felt, to portray what he fancied, than have had all the millions -which fate had allotted to him. Even a second-rate poet can -have such happiness in the fancies he plays with and the figures -in which he shapes them on the empty paper. Othmar, from -his earliest boyhood, had been haunted with all those imaginings -which make the heaven of those who can lose themselves in -them, and find complete clothing of eloquence for them. But -they remained mute within him; they were rather painful than -consoling to him; when he recalled passages of Shelley, of -Musset, of Heine, of Leopardi, it seemed to him that the tongue -in which they spoke was so familiar to him that it should have -been his own, and yet he had forgotten it or could not learn it, -in some way could never make it his.</p> - -<p>'You are a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">poète manqué</i>. What a misfortune!' his wife had -said to him very often with good-humoured derision. But he -himself knew that if he had had the poet's faculty of rhythmical -expression there would have been no force of circumstances -which could have killed it in him. Why he loved music with -so strong a passion was, that in it all he would fain have said -was said for him.</p> - -<p>'If I were going home now,' he thought, 'to some dark old -garret in some crowded <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cité des pauvres</i>, and yet could write a -ballad of the Seine on a summer night, so that all the world -should listen——'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> - -<p>It seemed to him that it would be infinitely more like happiness -than to lend to kings, and baffle ministers, and strengthen -cabinets, and give the sinews of war to nations, as he was able -to do in that great white pile over in the town on the right, -which was known to all Paris as the Maison d'Othmar. And -yet what beautiful poems the world already possessed, and how -seldom it cared to think of one of them!</p> - -<p>Some bright-eyed scholar, some dreaming maiden, some -sighing lover: was not this the sole public of the great singers, -whose songs, bound in pomp and pride, lay unopened on the -shelves of so many libraries?</p> - -<p>'And a second-rate singer,' thought Othmar. 'No, I would -never have been that. The world, as it is, is cursed and suffocated -with teeming mediocrity. If one cannot do greatly, let -one do nothing.'</p> - -<p>He turned with a sigh from the spectacle of the cloudless -shining skies and of the windless shining waters, and went on -his way over the bridge to return to his house in the Faubourg -St. Germain. The clocks of Paris were striking the half-hour -after twelve.</p> - -<p>As he took out his cigar-case and lighted a fusee, a woman, -held by the same guard who had lately passed him, was dragged -by. She was silent and white with terror, but as she went she -put out her hand to him in supplication. It seemed to him that -he heard some faint bewildered words of appeal too low to be -distinct. He threw his cigar aside, and followed and overtook -them in three steps.</p> - -<p>'What are you doing?' he asked the guardian of the -streets. 'What is she guilty of? Touch her more gently at the -least.'</p> - -<p>To a man of his habits and temperaments, roughness to any -woman seemed a horrible unmanliness and offence. At the -sound of his voice the face of the captive was turned to him -quickly, and the light of one of the bridge lamps fell full upon -it. Her lips parted to speak, but her breathing was fast and -oppressed, and her voice failed her. Yet he recognised her in -unspeakable amaze.</p> - -<p>'Damaris Bérarde!' he exclaimed involuntarily. 'Good -heavens! What has happened to you? My poor child——'</p> - -<p>'I do not know why the guard has taken me,' she said -feebly. She put her hand to her forehead and staggered a little, -as if from faintness.</p> - -<p>She did not understand why they had arrested her, and of -what she was suspected. It was the old story which meets all -hapless, lone young creatures who are in the streets after dark. -The man had thought that he did his duty; she belonged to a -sad sisterhood, and had no legal warrant, so he had believed. -To her the charge had been unintelligible; she had only known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -that they were taking her to the nearest commissary of police, -accused of some unknown crime.</p> - -<p>'Let her go at once,' said Othmar to the guard. 'I know -her: I will be responsible for her. Good God, do you not see -that she is ill?'</p> - -<p>'If Count Othmar know her——' said the man with a -dubious smile, unwillingly taking his hand from his victim. -Losing that support she wavered a moment like a young tree -that is cut to the root, and then fell in a heap upon the stones -of the bridge.</p> - -<p>'You have killed her!' said Othmar as he stooped to her. -'A country child in the brutality of Paris!'</p> - -<p>'She is not ill: she wants food; that is all,' replied the -police officer, assisting him with the respect which he felt for -his riches.</p> - -<p>'They always fall like stones in that way when they are -hungry,' he added. 'I am sorry, sir, but how was I to know? -She was a stranger, and she had no permit.'</p> - -<p>'Call a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiacre</i>,' said Othmar.</p> - -<p>Although past midnight, a little crowd had gathered, and -was fast assembling with that passion for novelty which is as -strong in Paris as it was in Alkibiades' Athens. Most of them -knew Othmar by sight.</p> - -<p>'To the hospital?' asked the driver of the cab which approached.</p> - -<p>'No, to my house,' answered Othmar, 'the Boulevard St. -Germain.'</p> - -<p>He lifted her in himself, threw his card to the guard, and -drove over the bridge with the girl's inanimate form beside -him.</p> - -<p>The crowd laughed a little, cut some coarse jokes, and dispersed. -It was a tame ending to its expectations. It would -have preferred an assassination, or at least a suicide. The -guard, sullen and aggrieved, carried Othmar's card and his own -deposition to the nearest commissary. He knew that he would -be censured, but whether for taking her up, or for letting her -go, he was not certain.</p> - -<p>Meantime, the vehicle rocked and jolted on over the asphalte -till it reached the patrician quarter. Damaris remained insensible, -but her heart beat, though slowly and faintly.</p> - -<p>He looked at her with curiosity and compassion. It was -certainly she; the granddaughter of Jean Bérarde, the betrothed -of Gros Louis; the same child that he himself had -taken over the moonlit sea to her fragrant island. White as -she was, and thin, and altered by evident suffering, she was still -too young to be much changed. Her features were the same, -though they were pallid and drawn, and in place of the brilliant -colours born from the sea winds and the southerly suns, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -had the dull pallor which comes from want of food and want of -air. Her clothes were the same dark serge that she had worn -at Bonaventure, but they were discoloured and ragged. Her -hair had lost its lustre, and was rough and tangled; her hands -were scarce more than bone; her bosom was scarce more than -skin; all the lovely rounded contours and curves of a rich and -well-nourished youth were gone. He saw that the guard had -been right: she had no doubt fainted from hunger.</p> - -<p>But how had she come adrift in Paris? she, the heiress of -Bonaventure, so safe and so sheltered under the orange-boughs -of her island?</p> - -<p>Had that single drop of the wine of 'the world' which his -wife had poured into her innocent breast been so developed in -remembrance and solitude that its consuming fever had left her -no peace until she had plunged into the furnace and sunk -beneath its flames? Heavens! how easy it was to influence to -evil, how hard to sway to any better thing!</p> - -<p>He looked at her with a compassion so tender and solemn that -it left no place in him for any other feeling. She had no sex -for him; she was only one of the world's innumerable victims, -swallowed up in the vast self-made shell which men call a city. -To him, always surrounded by every luxury and comfort, there -was something frightful in the thought that a young female -thing could actually want bread in the very heart of crowded -thoroughfares and human multitudes.</p> - -<p>'The very wolves are better than men and women,' he -thought. 'The wolves at least always suffer together, and make -their hunger a bond of closer union.'</p> - -<p>He did not touch her; he shrank as far away from her as -the space of the hired vehicle allowed him to do. It seemed to -him a sort of violation to gaze at her thus in her helplessness, -her poverty, her unconsciousness. She was as sacred to him as -though she had been dead.</p> - -<p>When the cab passed before the great gilded gates of his -own residence, and the night porter opened them with wonder, -Othmar descended, and paused, hesitating for a moment. He -was in doubt what it would be best for her that he should do. -Then he lifted her out of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiacre</i> himself, and crossed the -court, bearing her in his arms.</p> - -<p>'Send for a doctor and awake some of the women,' he said -to the concierge as he paused at the foot of the staircase.</p> - -<p>The lights were burning low. All such of the household as -remained in Paris were in bed or out; the only person up, beside -the porter, was his own body-servant, who, hearing his -master's step, came down the stairs to meet him. With a few -words of explanation to this man Othmar, assisted by him, -carried the girl into his own library, and laid her down on one -of the broad leather couches. Then he took some cognac from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -a liqueur-case which was in one of the cabinets, and forced a -few drops of it through her teeth.</p> - -<p>In a few minutes the head women of the house, hastily -roused, had hurried to his summons. He gave them a few -directions, and left her to their care.</p> - -<p>'When she is sensible, you will tell me,' he said to them, -and went into an inner room. He was still pursued by that -sense as of doing her some wrong, some dishonour, if he looked -long at her in her unconsciousness.</p> - -<p>The servants obeyed him without venturing on any question -or comment, even among themselves. They were accustomed -to strange things which their master did, and knew that human -misery was title enough to his pity. When the physician joined -them, he said at once what the guard of the streets had said: -she was senseless from want of food.</p> - -<p>'By my examination of her' he added to Othmar, 'I am -inclined to believe that no food has entered her body for -twenty-four hours or more.'</p> - -<p>'Good God! How hideous!' said Othmar.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him as if it were some crime of his own. -Not a crust of bread in all Paris to nourish this child? In -Paris, where epicures spent a thousand francs on a single dish -of Chinese soup, or Russian fish, or honey-fed Sicilian ortolans!</p> - -<p>The sharp contrast of wealth and of want jarred on him -with a dissonant harsh clangour. A child could die from want -of a mouthful of food in a city teeming with human life—and -Christianity had been the professed creed of Europe well-nigh -two thousand years!</p> - -<p>'It is hideous!' he repeated; while a profound emotion -consumed him and oppressed his utterance.</p> - -<p>The physician looked at him in surprise at his agitation.</p> - -<p>'You know her?' he asked.</p> - -<p>Othmar hesitated; then he told the little that he did know.</p> - -<p>'A year and a half ago,' he added, 'she was the boldest, -brightest, happiest of young girls; the only heiress of a rich -old man.'</p> - -<p>'Many things may happen in a year and a half,' said the -physician. 'Were I you, I would send her now to the Ladies -of Calvary; their refuge is open day and night to any such case -as hers.'</p> - -<p>'So is my house,' said Othmar coldly. Turn her out at -such an hour as this! He would not have turned out a dog -that had trusted and followed him.</p> - -<p>'He is always eccentric,' thought the man of medicine, -'and I dare say he goes for something in her misfortunes; he is -confused and agitated.'</p> - -<p>Aloud he said that he placed himself wholly at the disposition -of Count Othmar. There was no immediate danger for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -the young girl; she had recovered consciousness in a measure, -but she was dull and not clear of mind. He feared that, later -on, fever or lung disease might be developed. He spoke long -and learnedly with many scientific terms; his auditor heard him -impatiently.</p> - -<p>'Shall I see her?' he asked.</p> - -<p>The other answered that this could be as he pleased.</p> - -<p>Othmar hesitated a little while, then re-entered his library.</p> - -<p>The electric light which illumined it bathed in its effulgence -the poor dusky ill-clad form of Damaris, where it was stretched -on the couch almost under the great statue of Andromache, -sculptured by Mercier. Her clothes were rough, even ragged; -her feet were clad in coarsest stockings of hemp; her whole -figure was expressive of extreme poverty, that ugly and cruel -thing which would blanch the cheeks of Aphrodite or Helen; -and yet on her face, as the light fell on her where her head -rested on the purple leather of the cushions, there was a great -loveliness, though wan and dulled and fevered. The features -had a sculpture-like repose, and the tumbled hair, though -lustreless, was rich and of fine colour; her eyelids were closed; -her mouth was half open, as if with pain or thirst.</p> - -<p>Hung by a little piece of shabby ribbon from her throat he -saw a small gold object. He was touched to the heart when he -recognised in it the little maritime compass which he had -begged her to keep in memory of their moonlit sail together.</p> - -<p>She had nearly lost her life from hunger, yet she had not -sold this little jewel! Why? Because she had always regarded -it as his, or because the memory of that moonlit voyage in -the open boat was pleasant to her. A flush of feeling passed -over his face as he thought so; and remembered his wife. -What two romantic simpletons both he and this poor child -would seem to her, could she know the fidelity with which the -little gift had been kept, and the emotion with which he regarded -it!</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une sensitive</i>, indeed!' he thought with emotion, recalling -that epithet which his wife had contemptuously bestowed on -her. A soul how little fitted for the rude realities and cruel -egotisms of the world!</p> - -<p>As he drew near, her eyes slowly opened and looked at him -with a dreamy, heavy, half-conscious look.</p> - -<p>'Do you know me?' he said gently.</p> - -<p>She made a sign of assent.</p> - -<p>Othmar took one of her hands in his. A great emotion -stirred in him; he had always the vision of the child beside -whom he had sailed across the moonlit sea, with the sweet -fragrance of the orange-groves coming to them through the -shadows and the stillness of the night.</p> - -<p>'Lie still and rest, my dear,' he said to her. 'You are safe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -and I am your friend. Can you understand me? Good-night. -To-morrow we will talk together.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with comprehension and with gratitude; -two large tears gathered in her eyes and fell slowly down her -cheeks. She had no power to speak.</p> - -<p>When the morrow came she was lying insensible on a bed in -one of the largest chambers of the house, a room of which the -window's looked out upon the green sward and tall fountains -and stately trees of the gardens, and where scarcely any sound -from the streets around could penetrate. Exposure and hunger -had brought on pleurisy; Sisters of Charity had been sent for -to attend her, and all the resources of modern science were -called to her assistance. Had she been a young sovereign of a -great country she could not have been better ministered to or -more carefully assisted through the darkness and peril of -sickness.</p> - -<p>'Spare nothing,' said Othmar to his physicians, careless of -what evil construction might be placed upon his generosity.</p> - -<p>He was obeyed with that complete and eager obedience -which is one of the treasures rich men can command, and which -may somewhat atone to them for the subserviency and fulsomeness -of mankind.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Othmar went from her chamber to that of his uncle, lying -dumb, unconscious, almost inanimate in his little hotel in the -Rue de Traktir, all the innumerable wires which connected that -little house with the Bourses of many nations only serving now -to bear north, south, east, west, the words so momentous to the -ear of financial Europe:</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Baron Friedrich se meurt.</i>'</p> - -<p>Many there were who trembled at these few words; more -who rejoiced to know that the keen eyes were closed, the subtle -brain paralysed, the powerful mind swamped in a flood of darkness. -He had millions of enemies, thousands of sycophants, -few friends; crowds came about his door to know how near he -was to death, but it was of the share list and the money market -that they thought: how would his loss affect this scheme, those -actions, these banks, that syndicate?</p> - -<p>'Heaven and earth!' thought his nephew, 'all this excitement, -this outcry, this anxiety, and amongst it all not one single -honest thought of regret for the <em>man</em> who lies dying!'</p> - -<p>If in love we only give what we possess and can do no more, -so in life we receive that which we desire. Friedrich Othmar -had wished for success, for power, for the means to paralyse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -nations, inspire wars, control governments, purchase and influence -humanity. He had had his wish; but now that he lay -dying these thing left him poor.</p> - -<p>Men who had eaten his admirable dinners through a score of -seasons, said in their clubs: '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le vieux farceur! est-ce vrai qu'il -crève?</i>' and women who had fitted up their costly villas and -adorned their worthless persons at his cost hurried to his rooms -and took away these jewels, those enamels, that aquarelle, this -medallion, whatever they could lay their hands on, screaming -'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C'est à moi! c'est à moi! c'est à moi!</i>'</p> - -<p>Othmar when he had arrived there, on the first intelligence -of his uncle's attack of hemiplegia, had found the house already -sacked as though an invading army had passed through the -apartments; '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ces dames ont pincé par ci et par là</i>,' said the servants, -not confessing their own collusion, with apology. Hardly -anything of value that was portable had been left in it; they -had all robbed this poor, senseless, fallen monarch as they -would.</p> - -<p>Othmar was filled with an invincible melancholy as he stood -beside the bedside of this man, whose vast intellect had been -suddenly beaten down into nothingness as a bull is brained by -the slaughterer. There had been no great affection between -them; their views had been too opposed, their characters too -utterly different for sympathy, or even for much mutual comprehension, -but he had always done full justice to the unerring -intelligence, the stubborn courage, and the devoted loyalty to -the interests of his house, which were so conspicuous in Friedrich -Othmar, and he knew that his loss would leave a place in -his own life, public and private, which would never be filled up -again. No one not bound to him by ties of blood and of family -honour would ever care for his interests, work for his welfare, -guard his repute, and consolidate his fortunes as Friedrich -Othmar had done from the days of his boyhood. They had -often been sharply opposed in opinion and in action, and more -than once the elder man had learned that the younger man -deemed him well-nigh a knave, whilst the elder held the -younger in complete derision as a dreaming fool. But despite -all this there had been that bond between them of community of -interest and kinship of descent which no hireling service and -no friendship of aliens could ever replace.</p> - -<p>Othmar knew that, this man dead, he himself would stand -utterly alone in many ways and in many difficulties with which -no other would ever have power or title to advise or to assist -him. There were engagements, obligations, secret treaties, -and concealed alliances in his house of which he would bear -the burden alone, Friedrich Othmar being once gathered to his -fathers. And, selfishness apart, there was a keen pang to him -in the sight of his old friend lying prone like any fallen tree, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -the knowledge that the quick wit would never more play about -those silent lips, and the clear flame of reason and of scorn would -never more flash from those closed eyes.</p> - -<p>He was dying: soon he would be dead: and Friedrich -Othmar was one of those who make the dream of immortality -seem as grotesque as the child's hope to meet her doll in heaven. -Who could think of him without his slow, satiric smile, his fine -intricate speculations, his genius at whist, his perfect burgundies, -his firm white hand which, touching a button in the wall, could -speed an assent or a refusal which served to convulse Europe?</p> - -<p>'Immortal?—what <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i>!' he would have said, with his -most good-humoured contempt for the dull and grotesque shapes -in which human illusions, ideas, hopes, and creeds have so oddly -shaped themselves.</p> - -<p>'You will find everything in order,' he had said more than -once to Othmar. 'I shall die suddenly one day, in all probability. -I leave everything in perfect order every day. You -will only have to wind up the watch after I am gone. But will -you take the trouble to wind it?'</p> - -<p>That was his doubt, the doubt which had tormented him -in many an hour.</p> - -<p>Othmar now, leaving the warm golden light of the streets -and the summer air, sweet-scented even in Paris from passing -over the hay-fields and the flower gardens of the country round, -and the blossoms of the limes upon the boulevards, entered the -hushed, close, darkened room with a sense of coming loss and -of impending calamity. There was no sound but of the heavy, -laboured breathing of the dying man.</p> - -<p>'There is no change?' he asked of the attendants, but he -knew their answer beforehand; there could be no change but -one—the last.</p> - -<p>Life mechanical, painful, sustained and prolonged by artificial -means, was there still, but all else was over—over the -manifold combinations, the daring projects, the cool unerring -ambitions, the pitiless study and usage of men, the traffic in war -and want, the wisdom which knew when to stoop and when to -command, the skill which could gather and hold so safely all the -cross threads of a million intrigues, the intellect which found -its fullest pleasure in the problems of finance and the great -needs of nations. All these were over, and the quick, cautious, -wise and well-stored brain was shattered and ruined like a mere -piece of clock-work that a child stamps in pieces with an angry -foot.</p> - -<p>Of course he had long known that what had come now might -come any day; that at the age of his uncle the marvel was rather -his perfect health, his clear brain, his strong volition, than any -mortal stroke which might befall him.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was growing to a close; without, there were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -the sounds of traffic and of pleasure; through the closed venetian -blinds the air came into the room, which was hot, dark, -filled with the soporific odours of stimulants and medicines. -Great physicians waited by the death-bed, though they could do -nothing to avert the sure coming of death. Othmar sat there -and watched with them. Now and then someone spoke in a -whisper, that was all. The end was near at hand. The sun sank -and the evening came. There was always the same slow, stertorous -breathing so painful on the ear of the listener, so expressive -of effort and of suffering still existent in that inert unconscious -mass which lay motionless upon the bed.</p> - -<p>As the hours passed on, Othmar went downstairs and broke -a little bread, took a little wine, then returned to the chamber -of death and waited there. They told him that as the night -wore away the last struggle must come. Death loves the hour -before dawn.</p> - -<p>Many thoughts came to the watcher as he sat there; they -were melancholy and tired thoughts. Life seemed to him, as to -Heine, like a child lost in the dark. What was the use of all -the energy and effort, all the desire and regret, all the grief and -hope, all the knowledge and ambition? The issue of them all -at their best was a few years of success and of renown, then -a brain which refused to do its work any more, a body which was -but as the carcass of a slaughtered beast.</p> - -<p>The hours stole on, the strokes of the clocks echoed through -the silent house, the wheels of the passing carriages made low -and muffled sounds upon the tan laid down on the street beneath -in needless precaution for ears deaf for ever, for a brain -for ever numb and senseless. The evening became night and -night brightened towards morning; a little bird sang at the -closed shutter. Othmar rose and opened one of the windows -and looked out; it was daybreak. There was a soft mist over the -masses of verdure of the Bois, and in the sky a pale, dim light.</p> - -<p>'Shall I die like this?' he thought; 'and will my son sorrow -no more for me than I sorrow now?—who can tell?'</p> - -<p>He stood gazing out at the shadowy houses and the dim outlines -of the avenues. When he turned back from the window -he saw that the hand of the dying man feebly beckoned him. -In the supreme moment of severance from earth, the stunned -mind recovered one momentary gleam of consciousness, the mute -lips one momentary spasm of thickened, struggling speech; once -more and once more only the tongue obeyed the order of its -master—the brain.</p> - -<p>Friedrich Othmar looked at him with eyes that for an instant -saw.</p> - -<p>'Do not make that loan—do not make that loan,' he said -with his paralysed lips. 'Wait—wait; there will be war.'</p> - -<p>His master passion ruled him in his death.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then he made a movement of his right hand as though he -wrote his signature to some deed.</p> - -<p>'The house—the house—tell them the house will not——' -he muttered thickly, then a spasm choked his voice, the agony -began; in less than an hour he was dead.</p> - -<p>'God save me from such a death as this!' thought Othmar -as the full day broke. 'Rather let me die a beggar in the high -road, but with some love about me, some hope within my heart!'</p> - -<p>And the mouth of the dead man seemed to smile, as though -the dead brain knew his thoughts, as though the dead lips said -to him:</p> - -<p>'Oh, dreamer!—Oh, fool!'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The death of Friedrich Othmar brought increased occupation -and cares upon him, and the first few days after the obsequies -were too full for him to give more than a passing thought once -or twice in twenty-four hours to the sick girl lying under his -roof. He asked each day after her health, and they each day -answered him that the progress made in it was now all that could -be wished; youth and strength had reasserted their rights. He -was importuned by a thousand claimants on his uncle's properties, -fatigued by a thousand attempts at imposition and extortion; all -the wearisome details which harass the living and add a millionfold -to the horrors of every death, encompassed him all day long.</p> - -<p>All that the old man had possessed he had bequeathed unconditionally -to his nephew, and there were many companions of -his late pleasures who clamoured incessantly to his heir for recognition -of their unlawful demands. All these matters detained -him in Paris until midsummer had waned, and a weary sense of -irreparable loss and of harassed irritation was with him, through -all these long summer days, which found him for the first time -in his life in the stone walls of a city when fruits were ripe and -roses were blooming in shady, fragrant, country places.</p> - -<p>The whole temperament of Othmar was one to which business -was antagonistic and oppressive in the greatest degree; -nature had made him a student and a dreamer, and all the dull, -fretting cares which accompany the administration of all great -fortunes and houses of finance were to him the most irksome -and distasteful of all bondage. But they were fastened in their -golden fetters on his life as the burden of the ivory and silver -howdah lies heavy as lead upon the back of an elephant in a state -procession. And now there was no longer beside him the -astute wisdom, the ready invention, the untiring capacity of -Friedrich Othmar, to take off his shoulders this mass of affairs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -of projects, of public demands, of state necessities supplied or -denied, of all the throngs of supplicants, of sycophants, of -enemies or of allies, who day after day besieged the Maison -d'Othmar.</p> - -<p>In these hot summer days in Paris, in the empty chambers -of his uncle's house, all the old weariness and disgust at fate -came back upon him. He would willingly have cast aside all -the power which men envied him, to be free to spend his time -as he would, and shut the door of his room on these buyers and -sellers of gold, these traffickers in war and want, these speculators -in the folly or greed of mankind who call themselves the -princes of finance.</p> - -<p>'Les délicats ne sont pas vêtus pour le voyage de la vie; ils -n'ont pas la botte grossière qui résiste aux cailloux et ne craint -pas la fange.'</p> - -<p>Othmar was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">délicat</i>, and most of the ambitions and all the -prizes of life seemed to him supremely vulgar. It was a temperament -which shut him out from the sympathies of men -and made him appear eccentric, when he was only made of finer -and more sensitive moral and mental fibre than were those -around him.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the child he had rescued was passing through -the weary stages of pleuro-pneumonia, succoured by all that -science and care could do for her, and slowly recovered to find -herself with amaze lying on a soft bed, a canopy of pale-blue -silk above her, and around her white panelled walls painted -with groups of field-flowers, whilst from a wide bay window -there came, tempered by pale-blue blinds, the ardent sunbeams -and the hot air of July. It was only one of the many bed-chambers -of the Hôtel d'Othmar, but to her in her first -moments of convalescence, as the fragrance from the garden -below came through the room, and the distant music of some -passing regiment was wafted on the warm south wind, it seemed -a very part of paradise itself.</p> - -<p>She did not remember very much; her mind was hazy -and indolent through great weakness, but she remembered -that she had seen Othmar. She knew that he had said to -her, 'I am your friend.' Her attendants, the nuns, were -astonished and annoyed that she asked them no questions; -her taciturnity was irritating to their own loquacity and inquisitiveness. -But she was silent from neither shame nor obstinacy; -she was silent because she was utterly bewildered, and -shrank willingly into the shelter of this knowledge of her safety -under his roof, as a hunted hare shrinks under fern and bough. -She never saw him after that first night in his library; but she -heard his name often spoken, and she understood that every -good thing came to her from him.</p> - -<p>The fresh flowers in the china bowls, the books when she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -well enough to read, the volumes of drawings and engravings -which amused her feeble tired mind, the grapes, and the nectarines, -and the pines, piled in pyramids of beautiful colour on -their porcelain dishes—all these things came, no doubt, from -him; indeed, whenever she asked any questions, she was always -answered by his name.</p> - -<p>A great unconquerable lassitude and melancholy lay upon -her; yet, under it, she was soothed and lulled by the sense of -this invisible but absolute protection. It was as a shield -between her and the misery which she had undergone; it filled -her with a vague, grateful sense of safety and of sympathy. As -far as she could be sensible of much in the feebleness of illness, -she was dully conscious that Othmar had stood between her and -some crowning wretchedness, some unutterable horror.</p> - -<p>He never asked to see her.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him that to thrust himself upon her would be -brutally to recall and emphasise the fact of all she owed to -him: it would seem to cry out to her her own helplessness and -his services. Extreme and even exaggerated delicacy had -always marked the charities he had shown to those he befriended; -and in this instance it seemed to him that only -entire effacement of himself could make endurable to her her -sojourn under his roof. To reconcile her to it at all appeared -to him almost impossible. As far as he could learn she was -quite friendless and alone: what would he be able to do for her -in the present and in the future?</p> - -<p>He was more anxious than he knew to hear her story from -her own lips, but he would not have any request to her made -to receive him. A guest in his own house, above all when she -was poor and homeless, must send for him as a queen would -send before he could enter her chamber. It was one of those -exaggerations of delicate sentiment which had always made him -at once so absurd and so incomprehensible to Friedrich -Othmar, and to mankind in general. For the majority of the -world does not err on the side of delicacy, and is colour-blind -before the more subtle shades of feeling.</p> - -<p>During these later weeks, which were filled for him with -dull and distasteful cares, Damaris was recovering more fully -and more rapidly health and strength than she had done at first -in the atmosphere of luxury and service by which she was -surrounded; it was the first illness that she had ever known, -and she could not understand her own weakness, the languor -which lay so heavily on her, the sense of dreaming instead of -living which the lassitude and beatitude of convalescence -brought to her.</p> - -<p>She had grown; she had lost all the warm sea bloom upon -her face and arms; she was very thin, and her eyes looked too -large for her other features: but she was nearly well again,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -and only a little pain in her breathing, a sense of feebleness in -her limbs, remained from the dangerous malady which had -threatened to cut her life short in its earliest blossom. When -she could think coherently, and understand clearly, her shame -at the beggar's position to which she had sunk was shared and -outweighed by her passionate gratitude to her deliverer. The -figure of Othmar was always before her eyes, god-like, angel-like, -stooping to deliver her from the mire and horror of the -streets of Paris.</p> - -<p>'Could I see him?' she said at last to her attendants; the -question had been upon her lips many days, but she had not -had courage to put it into words. They promised her to tell -him that she wished it, and they did so.</p> - -<p>'I will see her, certainly, in the forenoon to-morrow,' said -Othmar, moved by the request to a sudden sense of the strangeness -and responsibility of his own position towards her. What -would Nadège see in it? Something supremely ridiculous, no -doubt. Something of the 'lac et nacelle' school worthy of the -romanticists of the year '30?</p> - -<p>As yet he had not even informed her of the bare fact that -this child of the island was in his house in Paris.</p> - -<p>He looked often at the portrait by Loswa of the child with -the red fishing-cap on her auburn curls, and he always heard the -mocking of his wife's voice saying with her careless amused -raillery: '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Si vous en devenez amoureux?</i>'</p> - -<p>And each time that he was about to tell her as he wrote to -her that the girl for whom she had predicted the destiny of -Aimée Desclée was lying mortally sick and apparently wholly -friendless beneath his roof, the recollection of that raillery made -him unwilling to provoke it anew. She might share his compassion -and appreciate his motives: it was possible that she might -do so if—<em>if!</em>——the narrative reached her in one of what she -called her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bons moments</i>. He knew that there were emotions -both of generosity and of pity in her nature, but he knew also -that they were fitful and uncertain in their action. He had -never known her stirred twice to interest in the same object; -her caprices were, as she had said, like a convolvulus flower, -and only blossomed for a day; when a thing or a person had -ceased to interest her, sooner could a mummy have been -awaked to consciousness under its swathings of linen than -her attention be recalled and attracted to it any more.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Quand l'amour est mort, il est bien mort</i>,' says a cruel -truism; and as it is with love so was it with her fancies and -enthusiasms. Once dead and forgotten there was no resurrection -for them.</p> - -<p>He knew that with her everything depended on her mood. -A great tragedy or a great heroism would seem to her admirable -or absurd, precisely according to the humour of the hour; a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -pathetic history or a terrible calamity would find her disposed -either to turn it into ridicule, or receive it with sympathy, -merely as her day had been agreeable or tiresome, as her companions -had interested or wearied her, as her toilette had pleased -or displeased her.</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho,' she had said once to him, when he had -ventured on some courteously-worded reproof of this extreme -uncertainty of her temperament, 'if I did not get a little variety -out of my own sensations, I should never find any at all anywhere. -I cannot be like the editor of a newspaper, who, whatever -may happen, always has his joy or his woe already in -stereotype and large capitals. If one gets up in the morning to -find a grey sky when one wants a blue one, to find a dull post-bag -instead of an amusing one, to be disappointed in the effect -of a costume, to be prevented from riding by getting a chill, -what can one care if all Europe were in flames? Whereas, if -everything is pleasant when one wakes, one remains quite -amiable enough all the morning to be sorry even for Gavroche -and Cossette in the street! Caprice? No, it is not precisely -caprice. It is rather something in one's temperament which -is acted on by one's surroundings, as the barometer is by the -weather. If I have ever done any very generous or great things, -as you are flattering enough to tell me that I have, it must have -been at some exceptional moment when Worth had especially -pleased me. All the finer inspirations of women come from -satisfaction with themselves or their gowns!'</p> - -<p>At the present moment she was carrying her graceful person -and her unchangeable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i> to the various great houses which -she deigned to honour; imperial hunting châlets, royal riverain -castles, noble summer palaces set on mountain side, in forest -shadows, or on broad historic streams. She did not deem it -necessary to go into retreat because her old enemy was dead. -She telegraphed her condolence to Othmar, and thought that -enough; she had some exquisite costumes made <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en demi-deuil</i>, -wore no jewels except pearls, and had no bouquets save white -ones. So much was concession enough to the usages of the -world at such moments; Friedrich Othmar himself would not -have expected more.</p> - -<p>Yet a vague regret, which was sincere, had touched her on -receiving the telegram which announced his death. She had -respected his intellect and his wit; she had even rather liked -him for his stubborn and uncompromising hatred of herself.</p> - -<p>When the world was so flat and so tame, and human nature -so monotonous, anyone with character enough to hate unchangeably -was to her interesting.</p> - -<p>And her own intelligence had enabled her to measure and -appreciate all the worth of his counsels and of his presence in -the Maison d'Othmar. She had an idea that her husband, now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -that he would be uncontrolled, would drive the chariot of his -fortunes in some such disastrous manner as Phaeton, only not -from Phaeton's ambition, but from contempt and discontent. -'Only there is the child, happily there is the child,' she thought; -a little fair-haired, happy boy then playing on the sands of the -northern seas, scarcely more than a baby; but, possibly, link -enough with the future of the world to make a sentimentalist -like his father refrain from ruining his heritage. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">A quelque -chose faiblesse est bonne</i>,' she reflected with a compassionate -smile.</p> - -<p>She was at that time at Tsarkoë Selo.</p> - -<p>She did not love the Imperial Court, nor did the Imperial -Court love her; but they made <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonne mine</i> to one another for -many potent reasons, and as matter of wise diplomacy on both -sides. She was a woman whom even sovereigns cared not to -offend, for her delicate and merciless raillery could pierce -through robes of ermine and cuirass of gold, whilst she could -sway her husband as she chose in any question of politics or -public life. On her side she, for the sake of Napraxine's sons, -desired always to retain her influence with and to remain a -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">persona grata</i> to the rulers of her country. She was not given -to moods of remorse or of penitence, but sometimes her conscience -smote her for her treatment throughout their life -together of Platon Napraxine, and as a kind of atonement to -him she studied the social advantages and future welfare of his -children with a care which was perhaps of more real use to them -than the effusions of maternal sentiment would ever have been. -She disliked their personal presence at all times, but she never -neglected their material interests.</p> - -<p>There was something also in Russia which pleased her temperament, -something which no other land could quite afford -her. The vassalage and submission of the people gave her a -sense of absolute dominion, more entire than any she could feel -elsewhere. The intense and sharp contrasts of life which were -there, the supreme culture beside the dense ignorance, the -hothouse beside the isba, the orchid beside the icicle, stimulated -her surfeited taste and moved her languid imagination. -Though belief was not her weakness usually, yet she believed -in the future of Russia. She would have liked to be herself -upon the throne of Catherine, and to stretch her sceptre till it -touched the Indian Ocean and the Yellow Sea.</p> - -<p>She did not offer to return to him when Othmar notified the -death of his uncle, and his own detention by various affairs in -Paris. She wrote to him to join her wherever she might be -whenever he should have leisure, and did not display any impatience -that this should be soon. She liked his companionship—when -he did not weary her by any 'madrigals,' or irritate -her by any sentimental enthusiasms with which she could feel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -no agreement. She was never disposed to wish him away when -he was beside her, or failed to admit that the resources of his -intellect, and the sympathetic quality of his character, made -him always agreeable. But as she had said to him, with her -usual candour, she knew all about him; his character was a -volume she had read through, he had ceased to possess that -charm of novelty which goes for so much in the power which -one life possesses to interest another; he would never again -make her pulse beat a throb the quicker, if indeed he had ever -done so. She bore his absence with an equanimity so philosophic -that to him it appeared indistinguishable from indifference.</p> - -<p>More than once when he was on the point of taking up his -pen and writing to her of the circumstances which had brought -her future Desclée beneath his roof, he was stopped by the -sheer nervous apprehension of ridicule which paralyses delicate -minds, and that sense that his communication would be -supremely uninteresting to her, which is sufficient to make a -proud and sensitive temperament refrain from any confidence. -She would inevitably laugh at him as a Bayard of the boulevards, -as a Sir Galahad of the asphalte, even if she took the -trouble to read the narrative to its end—which was most -doubtful. He decided to wait to tell it to her till he saw her: -till he found her some day in a gentle and sympathetic mood. -Besides, with whatever indifference and raillery she might view -it, his knowledge of women told him that, nevertheless, his -protection of Damaris Bérarde might not seem to her the mere -inevitable and innocent thing that it really was.</p> - -<p>At all times he wrote but rarely to her. He had too often -seen her throw aside hastily, or only half read, perhaps not -read at all, the letters of the cleverest and most preferred of -her friends, for him to believe that his own letters would be -likely to be rewarded with much closer attention. The delighted -welcome which a woman gives to the writing of one she -cares for, the eagerness and frequency with which it is studied -and searched for all its expressions of tenderness, and all its -more hidden meaning, was altogether impossible to the Lady of -Amyôt. Spoken love interested her so slightly that written -love could not possibly hope to charm her. People were tiresome -enough in speech; what could be expected of them when -they wrote? He would have read anything she might have -written with keenest interest, with warmest reception, but he -did not dare to suppose that she would have much patience if -he wearied her on paper. When they were apart, therefore, -they telegraphed often to one another, but they wrote to each -other seldom. Telegrams were to her agreeable, because they -were as little of an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i> as any communication can possibly -be.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> - -<p>In an early time Othmar, absent from her, had been given -to pour out his feelings in ardent expression, and even offer her -those delicate flowers of sentiment which always dwell shyly -hidden in every deep and affectionate temperament. But one -day she had written back to him a cruel little word. She had -said: 'You are Obermann and Amiel; do you really think life -is either long enough or interesting enough to be worth so very -much sentimental speculation?'</p> - -<p>It was only her irresistible and incurable poco-curantism -which dictated the lines, but they mortified and chilled him. -He dreaded, with something that was actually apprehension, -her ridicule or her irony. He knew well that to weary her was -to lose her favour. From that day he had never written to -her a syllable of the feelings and reflections of his inmost -thoughts.</p> - -<p>'She has never really loved me,' he had said to himself -bitterly, of the woman on whom he had spent the great passion -of his life.</p> - -<p>Therefore it became easy to him to say nothing of the presence -of Damaris in his house in Paris.</p> - -<p>'I shall tell her when I meet her, and she will not even listen -to it, most probably,' he said to himself. It would entirely -depend upon the mood in which he might find her, whether the -part which he had himself played would seem to her utterly -absurd or partly worthy of sympathy.</p> - -<p>'If only Melville were in Europe!' he thought very often. -But Melville was in China, using his persuasive eloquence and -Churchman's tact to obtain Celestial concessions and protection -to the Jesuit missions in the Flowery Land. Melville had -written to him: 'I walk amongst the ruined palaces and desolated -gardens which the Allies defiled in 1860, and endeavour to -believe that it is we who are the civilised and the Chinese who -are the barbaric people, but I fail. Shall we ever be apostles of -light whilst our coming is proclaimed with musketry, and our -path strewn before us with charred ruins? It was a strange -way of teaching enlightenment to destroy in a day treasures of -beauty and of art which all the world together could not reproduce -again.'</p> - -<p>Melville was taking his scholarly thought and his courtly -smile through the flowering ways and over the marble bridges -of the Summer Palace, believing, if he thought of her at all, -that the child he had baptized and taught was safe in her island -home amongst the flowering orange-trees, steering through the -blue water at her will, and going in peace and quietude to the -churches on the shore.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>In the morning he was detained by many matters of importance, -and it was towards evening when he at length found leisure to -visit his guest. He felt a certain hesitation and delicacy in -entering her presence. He was conscious that he had done so -much for her that, on her side, she could not meet him without -some embarrassment, some pain.</p> - -<p>He had seen her but twice; he was no more to her than a -name. Yet he had known her in her island life: he thought -that tie of memory would make him seem to her less of a stranger -than any of these white-coifed pious women who changed -places in vigil at her bedside. And a wonder which was warmer -and wider than mere curiosity made him anxious to learn how -she could have become alone and adrift in Paris, she whose life -had been so safe and so sweet and so simple in the midst of -the blue water and the flashing sunbeams, and free from spot or -stain as the white narcissus growing in the orchard grass, as the -white wings of the pigeons cleaving the azure air.</p> - -<p>When he entered her chamber she was lying on a couch beside -the open window; one of the Sisters was sitting near her -doing some needlework. She flushed over all her face as she -saw him, and she put out her hand timidly. Othmar bent over -it and touched it with his lips in silence. Emotion held them -both mute. The nun looked inquisitively at them.</p> - -<p>Damaris was still weak, and pale, and changed, but there -was the look of fast returning health about her. She was thin -still, but no longer emaciated; her lips had regained a little of -their damask-rose colour, her hair which had been cut short was -bright and shining; she wore a loose plain linen gown which -the women had made for her, and her arms were bare to the -elbow; the afternoon was close and sultry, and she seemed to -breathe with effort.</p> - -<p>'I am so glad to see you so nearly well, my dear, and my wife -will be no less glad to hear of your recovery,' said Othmar, as -he recovered his self-possession. It was a subterfuge, in a way -an untruth; but he used his wife's name almost involuntarily, -as the only possible way of reconciling this child to her presence -in his house.</p> - -<p>'You have been very good,' said Damaris simply. Her -words seemed poor and thankless, but she could think of no -better ones. She was still bewildered at her own position, and -wounded in her tenderest pride by the charity she had received. -She was not ungrateful, but now that she saw him face to face, -she would have given her soul that he had let her die on the -stones of Paris.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Where did you find me?' she added, 'I cannot remember—at -least not everything.'</p> - -<p>'You were taken unwell on the Solferino bridge,' said Othmar -evasively. 'Do not think about that. You are safe here, -and all my house is at your service; it is yours whilst you are -in it, as the Spaniards say.'</p> - -<p>He spoke a little hurriedly; he felt the embarrassment which -every generous nature feels before one whom it has benefited.</p> - -<p>The red blood came quickly and painfully over her face and -throat.</p> - -<p>'I do remember now,' she said. 'They were going to take -me to prison. Can they do that when one has done no harm?'</p> - -<p>'The guard thought you looked ill, and were too young to -be alone at night,' Othmar answered, evasively still. He wished -to learn something of her position, but he would not even hint -any question to her. She should say what she chose in her own -time and way.</p> - -<p>'I do not mind being alone,' she replied, with something of -the old pride and independence which Loswa had admired in -her. 'I was weak because I had not eaten.'</p> - -<p>She stopped abruptly, and grew scarlet.</p> - -<p>It seemed very shameful to her to have been without food. -She had always despised the poor crawling beggars whom she -had seen on the mainland, even whilst she had given them all -the loose coin in her pocket. 'Only the lazy and the idle ever -starve,' her grandfather had often said to her, in the hardness -of heart of a man full of energies and riches; and she had believed -him. And now she had starved, she herself, and it -seemed to her pitiful, miserable, hateful, a very brand for ever -of disgrace.</p> - -<p>'Do not think of it,' said Othmar kindly, as he took her hand -in his.</p> - -<p>'I shall think of it all my life!' she said bitterly, whilst the -intensity of the tone told him that it was no mere empty phrase. -She turned her face from him and looked steadfastly out into -the green spaces and pleasant shadows of the gardens below, -whilst her young features grew cold and stern, and full of repressed -pain. Then all at once her head drooped on her breast, -and she burst into a passion of tears.</p> - -<p>'Oh, why did you not let me die!' she cried in reproach to -him. 'Why did you not let me die when I was dying? I -should have known nothing now!'</p> - -<p>'That is thankless and sinful,' muttered the nun. 'Thankless -and sinful to heaven and to earth.'</p> - -<p>'Hush!' said Othmar to the Sister with a frown; he was -troubled and distressed by the child's passionate rebuke. He -hated at all times to see the sorrow of a woman, and he was too -ignorant of her circumstances to know how to console her. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -could not have told why, but a memory of Yseulte passed over -his mind; a memory which rarely ever rose at any time before -his thoughts. Nothing could be more unlike her than this sea-born, -impetuous, daring child; yet he remembered her as he -saw Damaris weep. How many tears had the dead girl wept -for him! how often had her young eyes looked wistful and -sorrowful out on these green gardens, on these towering trees, -on these distant and gilded domes of Paris!</p> - -<p>The nun cast angry glances at him, and began to tell her -beads.</p> - -<p>Othmar remained silent till the first force of grief had a little -spent itself. Then he said the first consoling words which -occurred to him, without remembering all to which they might -commit him in the future.</p> - -<p>'My dear child, do not talk of death. Death and youth are -horrible in the same phrase. Your life is scarcely begun, why -should you wish it away? If you have no other friends than -ourselves, do not deem yourself friendless. We will supply the -place of others to you. You will remember the interest which -my wife took in you at St. Pharamond. Believe me, it will be -only strengthened by any sorrow or misfortune you may have -had since we saw you then.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him, strongly grateful, yet hurt and ashamed.</p> - -<p>'It is charity,' she said, in a low tone. All the pride of her -indomitable childhood was in the word.</p> - -<p>'I do not like the expression,' he replied. 'You will pain -me if you use it. I should be a cur if I had not done the little -that I have done, for you would certainly,' he added more -gaily, 'have done as much for me if I had been wrecked off -Bonaventure.'</p> - -<p>She sighed wearily. No kindness of speech could reconcile -her to the burden of debt which she felt laid on her. She -knew she was all alone in the world and homeless, except so -far as this stranger's home was momentarily hers, and she -shrank with horror from the memory of all she must have -owed to him during these weeks of sickness and semi-consciousness.</p> - -<p>He saw the pain and humiliation there were in her, and -rose to leave her in peace.</p> - -<p>'I will return whenever you wish me, my dear,' he said, as -he laid his hand on hers. 'For the rest, look on my house as -yours.'</p> - -<p>She hesitated.</p> - -<p>'Wait,' she said faintly, 'I have so much I ought to tell -you.'</p> - -<p>'You can tell me in your own time. I shall not leave -Paris, at least only for a day or so at a time. My uncle died a -few weeks ago, and many affairs in consequence keep me here.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -Adieu, my dear: rest and recover. That is all you have to do -now.'</p> - -<p>'But I have no right to be in your house, and you know that -the lady despised me!' she murmured with a painful agitation, -which said, without more words, how cruel a dilemma it seemed -to her in which her weakness and her helplessness had placed -her.</p> - -<p>'You have every right,' said Othmar. 'And she would be -the first to say so. Do not hurt me by taking this kindly -chance which made us meet as a burden or an injury. I have -often thought of you since we parted that night upon your island -beach, and always with a deep regret that my wife had so fatally -influenced your life. Will you not believe how glad I am to -be able to do you any little service to help efface that wrong?'</p> - -<p>He kissed in grave farewell her wasted hand, once so plump -and brown with youth and health, and the bronze from the sun -and the sea, and now so pale and fleshless.</p> - -<p>She looked at him and stopped him with something of her -old pride and spirit in her face, as she said a little abruptly:</p> - -<p>'You remember you told me it would be mean not to tell -him where I had been that day?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, my poor child. I remember.'</p> - -<p>'I did tell him.'</p> - -<p>'That was very brave of you and very noble. I fear my -advice cost you dear.'</p> - -<p>A smile that was almost happy at his praise parted her lips -and showed her small white teeth.</p> - -<p>'You told me what was right,' she said. 'It would have -been cowardly to say nothing.'</p> - -<p>'It was very brave to say the truth. You shall tell me all -that happened from it on another day. I can never forgive myself -for all the misery which my wife's thoughtless invitation has -entailed on you. Let me do my best to atone for it.'</p> - -<p>Then he bowed low with unfeigned reverence, and left her. -What was so worthy of reverence as so much innocence, as so -much courage?</p> - -<p>She drew a long sigh, and her eyes closed. She was tired -with the exhausted sense of failing powers which the feebleness -of illness causes after every slight exertion. But his visit had -left on her a deep, sweet sense of serenity and safety.</p> - -<p>'How good and great he is!' she said dreamily to the nun, -as the door closed on him.</p> - -<p>The pious woman did not reply. Othmar was not her idea -of human excellence. He went to no church, and he supported -no religious institutions. Besides, as she thought to herself, -who could tell what motives he had in taking this handsome -child off the streets? It was not her business to speak; her -superiors had sent her there, and had said to her: 'Nurse the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -girl, and say nothing.' But the Sister had not gone on her -many errands of mercy for a score of years in all the quarters -of Paris, good and bad, rich and poor, without knowing the -meaning of human vices. She began to convey vague warnings, -and cite praiseworthy examples of temptation resisted and overcome -to her patient. Her voice went on and on unanswered, -like the flowing of a slothful brook, and when at last she looked -up from her embroidery, Damaris was asleep upon her couch, -the last red reflection from the sun, which had set beyond the -trees of the gardens, tinging her face with its warmth, and her -hair with its light. For the first time since she had been -brought there her expression, as she slept, was one of peace.</p> - -<p>But soon she woke again, startled and distressed. The -tears sprang to her eyes; she pressed her hands together in -passionate agitation.</p> - -<p>'I spoke so badly!' she said, in great contrition. 'I said -such poor weak words! He will never know all I feel. He -will only think me ungrateful!'</p> - -<p>'Tut, tut!' said the nun roughly. 'Take your gratitude -to God, not man!'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The following day he sent to ask if she would receive him -again; it seemed to him that not to do so would be to appear to -neglect her. He did not misconstrue her few embarrassed -words or deem her thankless; he had that intuition into the -minds of others which minds sensitive themselves possess; he -understood all the conflicting emotions which had agitated her, -all the vast weight of gratitude which held her dumb and made -her almost mute, almost awkward in his presence. He paid -her a brief visit four or five times in that week, then was absent -himself at Amyôt for a few days. On his return he saw her -again, and she seemed to have gained greatly in strength. She -could sit erect; her face had the hues of returned health, and -her eyes met his with the candour and brightness which were -natural to her regard. She was a child still, and she had so -much trust in him that it supplied to her the place of friends -and home.</p> - -<p>If the memory of the great lady who had tempted her and -ridiculed her, and who was his wife, had not been too constantly -before her, she would have been almost happy again. But for -her she had a sombre antagonism, a curious sentiment, half -defiance, half fear. Othmar never pressed her to tell him more -or sooner than she wished of all the circumstances which had -led to his discovery of her on the bridge; but one day when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -found her nearly well, standing by the open windows with the -breeze lifting the short thick waves of her hair, and her eyes -looking wistfully across the trees at the domes and roofs of -Paris, she turned and caught his hand in hers and laid her lips -on it.</p> - -<p>'What can I do? How can I thank you? A very dog -could do something to show you his gratitude, and I—I can do -nothing.'</p> - -<p>'You have rewarded me by getting well,' said Othmar -kindly and lightly, to avoid the expression of any stronger -emotions, 'and you can reward me more greatly if you will tell -me everything that has befallen you since I took you home -that night. Will you?'</p> - -<p>'It will not tire you?'</p> - -<p>'It will interest me greatly.'</p> - -<p>She sat down, the full afternoon sun falling on her face as -it was upraised to him, her hands locked in her lap, her face -pensive and grave with many memories.</p> - -<p>'When I told him the truth that night,' she began, 'he hurt -me a good deal, but more in my heart than in my body. I -suppose he did not believe that I had done nothing wrong; -anyhow, in going to your house I had disobeyed him. In the -morning he took me to the mainland and my clothes with me, -and without speaking ever a word, drove me in different -vehicles up, up, up into the interior where the hills were, and -placed me in a convent of Benedictine nuns up in the mountains -above Val de Nieve. There he left me without saying a word -to me, though I suppose he explained things to the Sisters. -Perhaps he told them I was wicked, for they were very harsh to -me, and their discipline was very severe. It was exceedingly -cold there after the island, which you know is so warm, and for -months there was snow all around, nothing but snow. I felt -like a chained dog, and I fretted and raged, and they punished -me. It was very miserable. Twice I tried to run away, but -they prevented me. Then the better weather came and the -very mountains grew green and bore flowers. This gave me a -kind of hopefulness, and there were a number of little children -in the convent, and I played with them and became less wretched, -and I learned many things, for the Sisters were instructed -women and taught well, and I had always been fond of books -and eager to read them. But how I longed for the sea, and to -feel a boat bound under me, and go as I chose it to go! You -see I had always been in the open air and on the open sea at my -fancy, and that is no doubt why I felt like a chained dog in -these stone chambers, with their iron bars and their windows so -high that one could only see a hand's-breadth of sky. Why do -people live so when there is the air and the earth and the -water? I was there half a year, or rather more. Then in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -month of October my grandfather came, just before the passes -in the mountains were closed with snow, and took me back to -Bonaventure.'</p> - -<p>Her eyes closed a moment as if to keep in unshed tears. -Then she resumed her story.</p> - -<p>'He never addressed me except just about things which he -could not help, and we crossed the sea and landed at the dear -island, and I thought the dogs would have gone mad with joy. -Catherine had died whilst I was at the convent, and he had -never allowed me to be told. That she should have died in my -absence was a great pain to me, because I had known her all my -life, and she had been often kind and good though her temper -was cross, above all on washing and baking days. But now she -was gone, poor soul! Everything else, however, was as I had -always known it, and I was so happy to be home I could have -kissed all the inanimate things! The goats knew me, too, and -one of the hens flew to my shoulder directly. My grandfather -let me do whatever I liked all that day, but he never spoke once -except to bid me eat and drink. When it was night and I was -about to go to bed, for I felt tired, he took me out under the -orange-trees; it was a fine night and the air very light and -clear, and there was a moon then coming up above the edge of -the sea. There he said to me that if I would marry my cousin -he would give me the whole island all for my own, and to my -cousin the brig and all the money that was saved, and he himself -would only keep a room or two and enough for his wants, -and my cousin was to take the name of Bérarde. I thanked -him, but I said I would not marry my cousin. I might have -done if your Lady had never come to me that day, perhaps; I -do not know. I said a score of times that I would not; each -time I was more resolved than before. Then my grandfather -grew like a madman and cursed me horribly, and told me that -I had no claim on him; that my father had never married my -mother, that the law would allot me nothing. I do not very -well understand how, but it seems that I had no legal right -there, and that all he had done for me he had done to please my -uncle Jules, the one who died of cholera, who had loved my -father and so loved me. Now, perhaps, as all my life had been -a burden to him and a debt, I ought to have obeyed him and -married Louis Roze. Do you think so?'</p> - -<p>'No,' said Othmar, with some vehemence. 'No; such a -marriage would have been a blasphemy!'</p> - -<p>'I did not stay to think, I did not want to think. I said -no—no—no—a thousand times no! And then I thought he -would have beaten me as he beat me the night you took me -home.'</p> - -<p>'Beat you? Good God!'</p> - -<p>'He had beaten me before when he was in drink, never at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -any other time. This night he had not drunk. He was quite -sober, but he became mad with rage; it was always so with him -at any opposition, and he had thought that I should be dull and -tame, having been so long in the convent. But I was not. I -told him that I would obey him and work for him as long as -he lived, because I owed him everything I had ever owned or -enjoyed; that I would be his servant, and till the ground, and -sail the boat, and fish in the sea, and cut wood, and do all that -Raphael did; but that I would never marry my cousin or anyone -else. Never—never. So I told him as we stood under -the moon together.'</p> - -<p>'But, before we saw you, you were willing to make this -marriage?'</p> - -<p>Damaris coloured more.</p> - -<p>'I had never thought about it before then. My grandfather -said it was to be. It was to me as when he said so many -thousand oranges were to be packed, or so many barrels of oil -sent to the mainland. I never thought about it. But after—after -I had seen your wife, and your house, and your friends, -then, I do not know why, but everything seemed different.'</p> - -<p>If his wife had not gone to the island in that hour of caprice, -this child would no doubt have accepted the fate prepared for -her, and passed her life as so many other women did, mated to -a boor but reconciled by habit to uncongenial companionship, -putting aside her dreams with the orange-flowers of her bridal -clothes, and learning to think only of the gold pieces in the -bank, the yield of the oil-presses, the price of fish and of fruit, -the growth of the children that with each year came to birth. -Would it not have been better? Common sense and vulgar -prudence would say yes, he knew, but in his inmost soul he -could not say it. Besides, revolt might have come, disgust, the -desire for wider worlds and higher thoughts and warmer -passions.</p> - -<p>With her luminous eyes and her poet's thoughts she would -have never been contented long with the narrow, coarse, dull -ways of such a life as would have been hers had she yielded.</p> - -<p>'Poor child!' thought Othmar, with a pang of almost personal -repentance.</p> - -<p>Nadège had done many things which were as so much mere -thistle-down on the wind in her own eyes, but which had sown -dragon's teeth in the paths of others. But it seemed to him -that she had never done a more unkind or a more wanton act -than when, on the spur of an idle moment's caprice, she had -tempted this innocent Alcina from her happy island of content.</p> - -<p>Damaris did not say so, but he himself had haunted her -dreams ever since that night's sail over the moonlit sea.</p> - -<p>This man, with his gentle courtesies, his low soft voice, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -tender care and compassion for her, his high romantic sense -of honour which had made him counsel her to tell the truth, -cost what it would, seemed to her a being of another world -than that to which her grandfather and her affianced lord -belonged.</p> - -<p>She had thought of little else but Othmar ever since he had -left her on that shore in the soft-tinted shadow, where the light -of daybreak crossed the last rays of the moon. It was not love -which she felt; he was too far away from her, too impersonal, -too great for her to think of him with any personal thoughts; -but it was an idealised admiration, a keenly grateful remembrance, -a vague, unconscious sympathy, which had filled her -mind with his image in the many lonely hours she had passed -since that night, and the remembrance of him had made her -shrink from the possible contact, from the mere thought of her -cousin, with a disgust and a revolt which had made her as unmoved -as the rocks of her island itself, before the rage of her -tyrant and the threats of his blind passion.</p> - -<p>A thousand times better death, she had said to herself—death -under the blue waters on the deep sea bottom of her native -gulf; death and peace and silence amongst the broad green -weed and the jewelled fishes and the white coral branches which -she had seen so often, fathoms down below her, as she had -leaned over the boat's side and gazed through the pellucid water -clear as a mirror to her eyes.</p> - -<p>Startled, she was recalled to the present by the voice of -Othmar, as he asked her to continue her narrative.</p> - -<p>'I thought I was on the island!' she said with a sigh.</p> - -<p>'Would you like to go back there?' he asked. A vague, -wild fancy came to him of buying back her lost paradise for her -at any cost. She hesitated.</p> - -<p>'It would not be the same,' she said at last. 'I should not -be the same, you know. But sometimes I want the sea so much! -I want the sight of it, the scent of it, the feel of the wind from -it blowing on my face! He was very cruel, but, I suppose, he -could not help it. He was disappointed in me, and that made -him very hard. When he found that he could not force me to -marry my cousin he became quite mad. He took me down to -the water, and put me in one of the small boats, and he told me -to go, just as I was, with nothing but the clothes I had on and -the gold cross Monsignor gave me at my first communion, which -I always wore at my throat, and a few trinkets which had belonged -to my mother. He ordered me to row away or he would -fire upon me.'</p> - -<p>'Good God, what a brute!' cried Othmar.</p> - -<p>'I am sure he did not intend to really hurt me,' she said -earnestly. 'I am sure he only meant to frighten me, and thought -I should go back to him and do what he wished me to do. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -never supposed, I dare say, that I should take him at his word -and go.'</p> - -<p>'Few of your age and sex would have had the courage to -do so.'</p> - -<p>A look of contempt passed over her face.</p> - -<p>'I would have given myself to the sharks sooner than return -and give in. One must be a very weak creature to be driven -like that.'</p> - -<p>'Why did you not come to us?'</p> - -<p>'I could not have done that.'</p> - -<p>'Why? We were absent, but if you had gone to the house -there and written to me—or to my wife.'</p> - -<p>'No. I could not have done that. When I was there I was -a burden to her. Besides, you had no right to do anything for -me. You were a stranger.'</p> - -<p>'I had the right I have now—that of a friend. You were -ill treated in my house, that I know, but it was no fault of -mine.'</p> - -<p>'It was no one's fault. Only my own, for being foolish -enough to go there. But let me tell you the rest as quickly as -I can, or you will be tired——'</p> - -<p>The colour rose over her face, and her voice grew lower, and -her words more rapid as she hastened on the course of her -narrative.</p> - -<p>'I knew he would do as he said, for he stood above with his -musket levelled downward at me. I took up the oars and I -rowed away from the island, steering with my foot. I felt -quite stunned; I did not think of resisting: when once he said -I was nothing to him, and ought not really to bear his name, I -did not feel as if I had any business there ever any more. Only -I could not understand it, because after all he said that I was -his son's child; and I have been all the days of my life on the -island, and I thought my heart would break. Well—I got into -the boat. It was quite light because the moon was now at the -full. The sea was still. I did not feel in any way afraid. Yet -I had never felt the sea so solitary as it seemed that night. Far -away there were the lights of steamers moving steadily. I could -smell the smell from the orange trees for a long, long while, and -the last sound I heard from home was the cry of Clovis. He -was howling because I was gone——'</p> - -<p>Tears choked her voice; but she only paused a moment.</p> - -<p>'Of course,' she continued, 'I had never been alone at sea -in the night time before. One feels so small, so weak, so very -lonely, all by oneself between the water and the sky. I was -afraid, but I was not frightened. Do you know what I mean? -I mean that I was not a coward, but I felt very near death. -The boat was so small, and the sea was so large. It had never -seemed so large to me before. Well, I could steer by this com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>pass -you gave me, which I had never let anyone see lest they -should take it; and the wind was southerly and drove me northward.</p> - -<p>'After many hours, and when my arms were very tired, and -the day was breaking, I came to the coast.</p> - -<p>'I landed at St. Jean; no one saw me land, and I avoided -the fisher-people whom I knew there, because I could not bear -to tell them how my grandfather had dealt with me. There -were a few of them on the beach, getting their cobles ready to -go out, but it was only dawn, and I did not let the few there -were astir see me. I left the boat tied to some piles and went -inland. I have never seen the sea since!——'</p> - -<p>There was a great regret and longing in her voice.</p> - -<p>'I did not like to stop anywhere on the coast, for there -were many people there who knew me; and I was sure they -would ask me so many questions. I drank some water at a -well; I was not hungry. I dare say you will wonder that -I did not feel afraid, but I did not. I went out of the town -on the northern road; I wished to get to Grasse and so to -Paris.</p> - -<p>'I had not gone very far before I met a Brigasque woman -mounted on a mule. I knew her as a friend of Catherine's. -She was well-to-do, and owned a flower-farm not far from St. -Dalmas de Tende; she grew common plants for the perfume -distillers of Grasse. She thought I had run away from the -island, and I let her think so; and as she hated my grandfather, -because he had outbidden her years before at the sale by auction -of some acres of land in the Roya valley, she offered me to go -home with her and work for her amongst the flowers. As I did -not know what to do or where to sleep I accepted her offer, and -she hired a mule for me at the next inn we came to, and so I -rode with her into the Brigasque country, which I did not know -at all, but which I found was very pretty and had more trees in -it than usual. I stayed with her all the winter, helping her in -what ways that I could.</p> - -<p>'I passed the winter there, for I knew I must not go to -Paris without some little money at least. One day in the new -year there came by a pedlar whom I knew; we had bought little -objects of him once or twice, when Catherine and I had been at -St. Jean at the same time as he. He recognised me at once and -roughly called me a fool, for he said that my grandfather had -died of apoplexy straining at the oil-press one day, in place of a -bullock which had dropped at the work. He called me a fool, -because he said if I had not run away I should have now inherited -the island and all he had, whereas it was now left unconditionally -to Louis Roze. I did not tell him that I had not run -away.'</p> - -<p>'In what little things,' thought Othmar as he listened, 'a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -high and generous nature shows itself, quite unwitting how it -innocently displays its own fine instincts!'</p> - -<p>'Did you not tell him of your wrongs then?' he asked -aloud.</p> - -<p>'Oh no: not when my grandfather was dead and could not -defend himself! To me it was the end of all hope. I had -hoped that one day I should go home. I had always thought -he would relent and seek me out; it made me miserable to think -that he should have said such cruel words to me for the last -words, and he had certainly been good to me, very good in his -way. He could not be very gentle, it was not in him; but he -had been generous to me, and sometimes kind and quite proud -of me too. I was very sorry, because when a person is dead, -you know, one only remembers what was good in them, and one -wants so much to say so many, many things to them; but now -I knew that this could never be, and I was very wretched. The -pedlar had said that everything was given to my cousin, but the -people I was with would not believe it. They got a letter -written to my cousin, and asked for my share (unknown to me; -I would not have let them do it had I known). Louis Roze -wrote back to them that I inherited nothing under the will, and -had no legal claim to insist on any division of the property; he -said he was about to marry a young woman of St. Tropez, and -he sent me a bank note for a thousand francs. I sealed it up -and sent it back to him. You know he knew that all the island -would have been mine. I care nothing for the money, but I -love the island; I love every stick and stone upon it, every shell -on its sand, every wave that breaks on its rocks!'</p> - -<p>'You shall have your island again, if money can buy it!' -thought Othmar, with one of those heedless impulses of generosity -which had more than once cost him dear.</p> - -<p>'I was so unhappy to think my grandfather was dead, and -dead with rage in his heart against me, that for weeks I could -do nothing,' she pursued, while the tears rolled off her lashes. -'But then I felt that there was no one on earth to do anything -for me if I did not do it for myself, and I worked hard to get -together money enough to take me to Paris, and keep me there -a little while. They all said that life there was very dear, and -money ran like water. You see I was always thinking of what -your Lady had said, about my having some talent in me. I -thought of it all day long as I worked in the rose-fields and -among the great thickets of jessamine. Your Lady had said -that I might be great some day, and it is always to Paris that -people go who wish to be great, at least all the books say so. -Watteau went, and Molière, and Rousseau, and Napoleon, and -ever so many others——'</p> - -<p>'Ah, poison of the world!' thought Othmar. 'What cruelty -we did! She would have stayed on her island and been the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -mother of little brown children, and known nothing of the -world but its fresh honest sea and its frank, bold winds! What -a pity! What a pity! The rattlesnake is kinder than such -dreams of fame!'</p> - -<p>He was sorry and troubled, and angered against his wife, -who had cast the stone of worldly desire into the limpid, calm -waters of this young child's thoughts.</p> - -<p>He was unspeakably saddened by the vision of her, coming -northward over the sandy roads of Provence, with so much hope -and fancy in her heart, only to drop sick with hunger upon the -stones of Paris—Paris, so fair a mistress to the rich, so hard a -stepmother to the poor. Gilbert, and Hégésippe Moreau, and -Meryon, and how many others, had traversed that path before -her, only to perish in the hospital or the garret, mad or famished, -clutching at the bough of laurel, obtaining only the hemlock of -death!</p> - -<p>'So I determined to leave St. Dalmas,' she continued, 'and -walk all the way to Grasse when the March weather came. On -the roads I assure you I did quite well. People were very kind -whilst I was in my own country, as it were. At the bastides -and the cottages they let me sleep well and gave me food, and -let me do work in return. I know how to do many things that -are of use on the farms, but of no use at all in Paris. So little by -little I did get to Grasse, and there one of the women who knew -my Brigasque friends gave me welcome, because some of them -had given me a letter to her asking her to be kind. But I shall -weary you; I will try to tell the rest shortly. I could have -stayed on at Grasse as long as I would, but I wanted to get to -Paris; above all, now that my grandfather was dead, there was -nothing to keep me in my own country; no one wanted me or -sought for me. They had paid me a little for what I did in the -Brigasque country, and I saved up all of it, and when I had -enough to pay for the railway to take me there (it is very dear -indeed), I bade them farewell and took the train to Paris. I -had never travelled by land before, only on the dear sea. It is -horrible to have all that fire in that great iron pot swinging one -to and fro, while it yells and bellows through the heat and the -air that is not like air at all but only so much smoke. How -Fénelon would have hated it; it would have seemed to him like -hell! Why do men travel in such a way when there are the -tree-shadowed roads and the rivers? I had taken my passage -(do they call it so?) straightway to Paris, and there were many -changes and many pauses and great confusion, and the noise and -the heat and the strangeness made me feel unwell. I had never -felt ill before, that I remember. It was a very great many hours, -even days I think, before we reached Paris; it was night, and it -was raining; nothing was at all like what I had pictured it. -There were crowds and crowds of people, but no one noticed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -me. I felt lonely, and I missed the sea and the sweet fresh -smell that is anywhere where the country is. Here the air felt -so thick and so greasy, and the rain had no pleasantness in it; it -was not clean and fragrant, as it is when it scours over the fields -or patters through the orange-leaves at home. As I came out of -the station a young man looked into my face and was insolent. -I struck him a blow on his cheek with all my might; I hurt -him; the people wanted to seize me, but I was quicker than -they, and I ran, and ran, and ran until I outstripped them, and -then I was in a narrow, dark street, and sat down on a doorstep -and wondered where I ought to go. I had only three gold -pieces with me in a belt round my waist, and I knew they would -not last long. I had spent almost as much as that for the train -and in food at the places the train waited at; the food was very -dear and very bad, even the bread.</p> - -<p>'Some women went by and spoke to me, but I did not like -their words, and I answered nothing, but got up and looked -about me for a place to sleep in. I was wet through, for it -rained a great deal. I saw a little place which seemed like a -restaurant, and I went in and asked if I could have a room -there. They gave me one, a very little one, and not clean, and I -went to bed without eating, being afraid to spend the little I had.</p> - -<p>'When I got up in the morning and went to pay for my -chamber and supper, I found that I had no money at all. My -belt was gone. I suppose I had been so sound asleep that I -never heard them come into my room and take it. I always -think it was the woman of the house who stole it, because I had -shown her the napoleons. She raved and abused me when I told -her my money had been stolen, and said her house had always -been honest. She denied that she had ever seen the belt, and -swore that I should pay for all I had or go to prison. I told her -that it was she was the thief, not I. I threw her my little gold -cross to pay her, and went out of her house into the streets. I -think she was a wicked woman.'</p> - -<p>'Wicked, indeed,' said Othmar, whilst he thought, 'it is -heaven's mercy that she did not do worse to you.'</p> - -<p>He, by whom all the hideous vice of the great city was known, -all its grasping greed, its hunger for gold, its remorseless seizure -of all ignorance, and innocence, and pleasant rural things, and -virgin beauty of the body and the mind, knew that by a miracle -scarce less than that which in legend bears the royal saint of -Alsace unharmed through the flames had this child escaped -pollution in the heart of Paris. Corruption had been all around -her, and the morass of iniquity upon every side; her own sex -were for ever on the watch for such as she, to sell their youth -into the slavery of the brothel, and she had known no more the -peril which she ran than the wild dove does when its flying -shadow passes over the trap hung below it in the oak-boughs.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I asked in a great many places for such work as I knew -how to do, but nobody wanted any of it done. There seemed -such numbers of people everywhere clutching at every little bit -of work. Many laughed at me: I saw my clothes were different -to what they wore in Paris, and my accent was different too to -theirs. But they were cruel to laugh. I went to the theatres -and tried to see the directors, but no one of them would even -see me. All these days I lived on the little money I had gained -by selling my great cloak: it was such warm weather I did not -want it. I had made acquaintance with a good woman who was -very poor herself, but she told me what to do and where to go, -and let me sleep in her one little attic; she had three children, -quite little ones, and she worked in a match factory. She lives -in a little passage up at Montmartre. Of course I had to make -her think I ate all I wanted out of doors or she would have -robbed herself for me, poor though she was. I had a friend in -her, but when I had been with her three weeks, there was a -noisy mob which assembled near, and screamed for bread, and -broke open the bakers' shops and stole the loaves. She was -coming home from the factory, and was arrested as one of the -rioters, though I am sure she had been merely passing down the -street, and the little children had no one but me for a little -while. I did what I could for them until their grandmother -came up from some village outside the barrier and took them -away, and I missed them very much.</p> - -<p>'I would rather not talk about the days that came after that -dreadful morning,' she pursued, the wavering colour fading -wholly from her face, for the recollection of them was unbearable -to her. 'It is only three months ago since I came to Paris, -but it seems as if it were years. I saw and heard things that I -could never tell anyone, they were so horrible. I sold all I -had of clothes, it was very little. I lived as I could, I was very -hungry all the time, but I did not mind that so much as I minded -the squalor, the noise, the crowds, the filthy smells, the horrible -language. I tried to get work, but I could not. I went to the -theatre doors, but the porters would not let me in. I did not -know what to do; even my linen was sold. I sold even my -shoes, and people give you so little when they know that you -want much. I could not get any work of any kind. I was of use -on my island, but not here; and the men jeered at me and were -rude—and—and—there is nothing more to tell that I know. I -could make no money at all, and so of late I could get no food, -and the night I fell down on the bridge I was faint and very -unhappy, for they had turned me out of the woman's room -because she did not come back, and I had no money to pay for -keeping it. But that is enough about me. I met you on the -bridge. You know the rest. I had not eaten anything all the -day, I suppose that was why I fainted. I never fainted in my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -life before. It is only three months since I left Grasse, but it -seems so many years—so many years! Is this the world indeed -that the Comtesse Othmar spoke of? Surely it cannot be—it is -cruel, it is hideous, it is hateful—if I could only see the sea or -the country once more! You have been very good to me. I -pray you to help me to gain my own living somehow, only not -in this city—pray not here! I am stifled in it. I want the air. -Pray help me!'</p> - -<p>Othmar was silent from emotion. It seemed unutterably -cruel to him that this child should have been led into such perils, -such pain, such want, by one careless word of his wife's, and he, -who all his life long had had about him everything that luxury -can invent and comfort demand shuddered at the thought of her -suffering and her exposure, as though he had seen his own little -daughter naked and shivering in the snows and the winds of a -winter's night.</p> - -<p>When he left her presence that day he could think of -nothing but her piteous story. The heroic courage of the -young girl, the noble qualities she had all unconsciously -revealed in the course of its narration, the utter friendlessness -of her position, and the fearless frankness of her confidence in -himself, all touched his heart closely. It seemed horrible to -him that any woman-child should suffer so much and be surrounded -with such cruel perils. Those days in Paris had done -the work of years upon this innocent creature, who had before -only known the freshness of sea and shore, the safety of a -sheltered youth, the dauntless gaiety of a buoyant and unchecked -spirit; but he saw that all through it, through all its -miseries and all its temptations, she had kept her soul unhurt. -He dared not ask her how she had done so, but he knew that -she had defended herself safely from all foul contact, and again -it seemed to him a miracle great as that which guides the -swallow over desert and ocean back to its last year's nest.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Othmar was naturally of a tender and even enthusiastic nature. -His sympathies were warm and spontaneous, his imagination -was strong and governed his reason very often. There was -much in the circumstances of this poor child which appealed -both to tenderness and imagination, and he was haunted by her -swift mellow voice, with its meridional intonations, her great -dark luminous eyes filling with sudden tears as she remembered -her island home.</p> - -<p>He felt that they owed her a debt. They had robbed her of -her birthright of simple joys and honest, obscure, healthful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -ways of life. They could never again make her what they had -found her. Who can put back the gathered rosebud on the -rose-bough?</p> - -<p>They had a right to give her what they could give in lieu of -all which she had lost, indirectly but indisputably, through -their means. His conscience, as well as his common sense, -told him that as his wife had been the chief offender against the -child's peace, so she had the first right to know the results of -her interference, and amend them. But he had the moral -timidity of proud, reticent, and sensitive natures: he dreaded -her irony and her indifference. He could not tell what she -would say or do; possibly in the end something which he would -approve; but he knew that first of all she would ridicule him: -with her lips certainly, very likely even in her thoughts. Even -when he had been her lover she had always laughed at him for -taking life so seriously, for being Ruy Blas and Rolla rather -than Sir Harry Wildair. And even if she were moved to any -kindness, how likely would her languid, haughty footsteps tread -hurtfully, without knowing or heeding it, on the storm-tossed -wild flower? She could be exquisitely kind, magnificently -generous; none more so: but was it not, alas! only while her -mood to be so lasted?</p> - -<p>'I will tell her—later,' he said, with that temporising before -difficulty which many a man, bold and even rash in his dealings -with his fellow-men, is apt to adopt when he deals with -women.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, something had to be done at once, he knew, to -reconcile Damaris to her dependence upon himself. He knew -she was of the temper which would break loose from the safest -shelter and rush to the direst danger if she deemed herself -humiliated by assistance. In all her grace of youth and helplessness -of circumstance, there was still something warm, strong, -untameable in her, which he felt as the hand which holds a -bird will feel its wings stir and tremble ready to fly. It would, -he knew, be hard to aid her. It would have to be done in her -own despite.</p> - -<p>A thought occurred to him; one of those spontaneous ideas -which come to us like very angels, and which, in after years, -seem rather born of hell than heaven. On it he spoke to her -the next day.</p> - -<p>'Tell me, my dear—your grandfather died after you had -left the island some months? Well, did you never hear any -details of his death or of his will? You know only what the -pedlar said?'</p> - -<p>'Only that.'</p> - -<p>'Then I think you should know more. He may have -repented him of his cruelty, or he may have made some sort of -bequest to you, even if the bulk of what he had has gone to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -your cousin. My people there could soon inquire. Will you -allow me to do that?'</p> - -<p>'If you wish. But I am certain he left me nothing—never -thought of me. You did not know him: once he had put any -person out of his heart, it was to him as if they never had lived -at all. He was very hard, and he never by any chance forgave. -Beside—he told me—I had no claim on him, was nothing to -him.'</p> - -<p>'Legally. But sixteen years of life spent beside him could -scarcely pass utterly out of his memory. If he had left you -anything, it is possible your cousin was not honest enough to -say so. I will inquire at any rate. It will be more satisfaction -to you to know more definite tidings than the hawker could -possibly give you.'</p> - -<p>'I am sure he left me nothing. But I should be glad to -hear of Raphael and the dogs.'</p> - -<p>'You shall hear. Raphael, I have no doubt, will be as -glad to hear of you. Meanwhile be sure that both my wife and -I should be unhappy if you fled away from our roof out into the -world again. The world is not a kind place or a safe place, my -dear, for those who are young and motherless.'</p> - -<p>'But I must do something,' she repeated feverishly. 'I -must do something. I cannot live on your charity. I would -die sooner!'</p> - -<p>'I tell you I do not like the word of "charity,"' said Othmar. -'When people have all a common misfortune, they have as it -were a common tie. We have all the misfortune, the supreme -misfortune, of human life.'</p> - -<p>Even absorbed as she was in her own great straits and needs, -Damaris was astonished at such words from one who, it seemed -to her, was at the very summit of all earthly happiness.</p> - -<p>'If he be not content, who can be?' she thought.</p> - -<p>'It is a tie,' continued he, unconscious of her surprise, -'which binds us all together. No one is so fortunate that he -may not live to want aid and pity. It is not so very many years -ago, as the lives of nations count, that here in Paris a king and -queen became so friendless that none dare say a kind adieu to -them as they went to their deaths upon the scaffold. Compared -to Marie Antoinette, how rich you are! You have youth, -talents, friends, and all your future.'</p> - -<p>'I have no friends,' said Damaris, with a gloomy rejection -of all solace.</p> - -<p>'You have one at least,' said Othmar. 'You are a little in -love with sorrow, my dear; all imaginative youth is so. When -we have really had its actuality with us for awhile, we get to -hate it bitterly, and do all we can to forget its presence.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with wonder.</p> - -<p>'Have you ever been unhappy?' she said incredulously;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -'with all these beautiful places? with that beautiful lady? with -all the world?'</p> - -<p>'One is never happy for more than a day,' said Othmar with -some impatience. 'One wants, one wishes, one desires, one -obtains, one regrets—there is the whole gamut of all human -notes. The scale no sooner ascends than it descends. There -is nothing happy except youth, which does not know that it is -so, and so goes through all the glories of its time ignorant, purblind, -longing to cease to be youth.'</p> - -<p>'I was quite happy on the island,' said Damaris wistfully.</p> - -<p>'Then you were wiser than I ever was,' said Othmar, as he -thought with a sort of remorse of how this innocent animal -happiness, born of the waves, and the winds, and the sun, and -the blossoms, and the radiant joy of mere living, had been destroyed -by one breath and glimpse of the world, as a flower -withers up in a flame, as a bird drops dead in carbonised air. -Had they only let her alone, she would have been happy still.</p> - -<p>'Yes,' Damaris sighed, and her eyes had a weary, troubled, -introspective look. They saw the blue sea washing the face of -the cliffs, the white dogs barking on the strip of yellow sand, -the steep path going up and up and up under the olive trees, -the old woman in her blue kirtle and a grey hood coming from -out the groves of orange and of lemon, a saucepan freshly -scoured or linen freshly washed in her horny hands—had all -those familiar pictures faded for ever from her sight?</p> - -<p>Béthune had said truly that to gather the rosebud is the act -of an instant, but what power in heaven or on earth shall put -the rosebud, once broken off, back again upon the mother -plant? If by any force of will or of wealth they were to buy -back her island again for her, it would never be possible to give -her back with the solid soil, and the old house-roof, and the -fruitful trees of it, the old, sweet, happy ignorance and peace -of her childhood there.</p> - -<p>'She is not here?' she asked suddenly, as she roused herself -from her dream of her old home.</p> - -<p>'My wife?' he asked in some surprise. 'No; she is in -Russia.'</p> - -<p>'She will despise me,' said Damaris, a dull red glow of shame -mounting over her forehead. 'Will you tell her that I was -found in the streets?'</p> - -<p>'Not if it pain you. But you mistake if you think——'</p> - -<p>'I should hate her to know it,' said the girl under her breath. -'I wanted to become something very great; something that she -would hear of and come to see; and then I should have said to -her: "Yes, it is I, madame, and you will not laugh at me any -more now."'</p> - -<p>'She never laughed at you. She admired you, and predicted -a great future for you,' said Othmar with a little embarrassment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -not knowing very well how to speak of one so near to him to this -child, whose memory was so tenacious alike of benefits and -affronts.</p> - -<p>'Is this house hers?' asked Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Surely, my dear: what is mine is hers.'</p> - -<p>Her face darkened.</p> - -<p>'I am well now,' she said abruptly. 'May I not go away? -I could get work, I think, in the gardens or on the river; there -would be things I could do. I learnt something, too, at the -convent in the mountains; not much, but something. Pray try -and get me work.'</p> - -<p>'Do not be in such haste,' said Othmar. 'It sounds like a -reproach to me. You are most fully welcome, my child. I shall -always feel that we can never atone to you for being the cause, -however unconsciously, of the breaking up of your happy life. -Wait, at least, until I have made some inquiries into your grandfather's -death and testament. It may very well be that your -cousin took the occasion of your absence to help himself to more -than was his due.'</p> - -<p>'I do not think so. Louis was an honest man.'</p> - -<p>'If he be honest, inquiry will not hurt him.'</p> - -<p>He had resolved to go himself upon an errand which he had -resolved not to entrust to any of his agents, trustworthy though -many of them were.</p> - -<p>In the warm August night he took the express train for the -south, and went across the country, golden with ripe corn and -green with vine-leaves, straightway to the sultry shores of the -south, deserted by their hosts of guests, and sweltering, baked -and white with dust, in the intense suns of the late summer -weather.</p> - -<p>He went first to the seaport of St. Tropez, and made -inquiries in its dockyard and shipyard as to Louis Roze. He -found that the man had really inherited the possessions of his -uncle Bérarde, had married a young woman of the town, and -was now living on the island of Bonaventure. So far the tale -told by the pedlar to Damaris had been true. An old man, an -owner of a coasting brig, who had done business with the Bérardes -all his life, told him also of the manner of Jean Bérarde's death, -and added, with regret, that the curmudgeon had left not a -penny to his granddaughter because she had refused to marry -her cousin; and added, further, that the poor child had gone no -one knew whither. It was a pity, the old man said regretfully, -for she had had a face and a voice that it did good to the souls -of men to see and to hear, and had been as active on the sea as -any curlew, and so handy with a boat, even in wild weather, -that it had been a pleasure to sail with her anywhere.</p> - -<p>Asked as to whether she had truly no legal claim upon her -grandsire, the old skipper affirmed that everybody had always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -known she was a bastard, except herself; but nobody had ever -supposed it would make any difference in her succession to -Bonaventure. Louis Roze had always known it, but had been -willing to marry her to prevent any division of the property. So -much he learned, sitting on the sea-wall of St. Tropez, and -letting the old master of the brig <cite>Paul Mousse</cite> ramble on at will -with the sunbaked land behind them, and before them a sea, -tame as a plain, and oil-like in the drowsy drought.</p> - -<p>He knew who Othmar was, as did most people on those -shores, and readily told him all he knew, though silently -wondering why he was asked these questions.</p> - -<p>Othmar slept that night at his own house, and on the -morrow, almost before the sun was up, took one of his own -sailing-boats, and, attended only by one man, crossed the well-nigh -motionless sea in the direction of Bonaventure. When the -isle rose in sight, lifting its green cone out of the waves in the -hot blue air, it was still early in the morning. As he went over -the smooth surface of the summer sea, skimmed by thousands -of gulls and fanned by languid fruit-scented breezes from the -land, his heart ached for the sea-born child shut away under the -zinc roofs and gilded vanes of Paris. Even if he could buy -back her island, who could make her quite what she had been? -He was angered against his wife, who, for sake of an absurd -caprice, which had had no more duration in it than the light of -a wax match, had brought about so sad an exile, so utter an -uprooting and alteration of a simple and a happy life.</p> - -<p>He, like many men of high position, deemed a lowly fate by -far the happiest; he would have agreed with Cowley and George -Herbert, and would have chidden Herrick for not being content -amidst his Devon moors and streams, his cherry trees and roses.</p> - -<p>Health, peace, and fresh air seemed to him three treasures -which were ill exchanged for the feverish struggle and the -artificial joys of life in the cities of the world.</p> - -<p>When they neared the island they saw no one. The boat -was easily run up on to the smooth strip of beach, and he -ascended the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">passerelle</i> and the steps cut in the rock, as Loris -Loswa had done before him once and Damaris a thousand -times.</p> - -<p>Things were all changed upon the little isle. Catherine, -dead, had left no successor so thrifty and sturdy as herself; the -man Raphael had gone with all his family to live at Vallauris; -Louis Roze and his wife had new faces, new ways, new things -about them. The dogs were chained up; the old coble was -newly painted; the little balcony had a dab of gilding, tricolour -paint, and some smoking chairs; the great white rose had been -cut down, the new owners had thought it harboured caterpillars -and slugs. Nature had made the place lovely, and even man, -the universal deformer and destroyer, could not make it wholly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -otherwise. But it had lost its look of freshness and luxuriance, -and all its deep charm of solitude; it was choked up with vulgar -furniture and gewgaws that the bride thought fine and rare. -Modern china stood upon the shelves, and in the old solid silver -pots artificial flowers were stuck. Some maidens, with many -colours in their gowns and great ear-rings in their ears, cackled -and giggled behind the orange trees. It had been an idyl of -George Sand's; it was now a rustic scene for an operetta of -Offenbach's.</p> - -<p>All that could not be vulgarised was the pure air, rich with -the odour of millions of orange-blossoms, and the serene far-stretching -sea, blue as the mouse-ear growing by a woodland -brook.</p> - -<p>Louis Roze in his shirt-sleeves, smoking beside the door, was -a big, burly, red-faced man, with ear-rings also in his ears, and -the broad roll of the southern accent in his thick voice; his -wife was a buxom, brown, stout, and vulgar woman of four- or -five-and-twenty. They did not know Othmar by sight, and he -did not make himself known to them. He gave them an order -for a boat in the name of one of his own yacht-builders; an -order large enough to open the heart of the boat-builder of St. -Tropez. Then by casual questions, and by letting the owner of -Bonaventure talk on and boast of his possessions, he learned -what he wanted to know: the facts of the elder Bérarde's death, -and of the amount which had been bequeathed to his nephew.</p> - -<p>'He left everything he had on earth to me; he knew in -whose hands it would prosper and increase,' said in conclusion -the big, oily-tongued, boastful Provençal.</p> - -<p>'Had he no other heirs at all?' asked Othmar, 'or was it -your uncle's very natural preference for yourself?'</p> - -<p>'None on earth,' said the man hastily, with a little added -red on his red cheeks, and a quick glance of his eye.</p> - -<p>'Who was the girl, then,' asked his guest, 'who used to live -with him, and go out in his brig?'</p> - -<p>'She was nothing at all to Bérarde,' said Louis Roze sullenly, -beginning to perceive that he had been interrogated with a -purpose.</p> - -<p>'A bastard!' he added. 'The law does not recognise -bastards.'</p> - -<p>'The law, like proverbs, is the distilled wisdom of mankind,' -said Othmar. 'Like proverbs also, it occasionally may -be caught tripping in its wisdom.'</p> - -<p>The man eyed him uneasily.</p> - -<p>'She was a bastard,' he said again. 'I did generously by -her, because after all blood is blood. I sent her a handsome -dowry; big enough to get her a good spouse amongst better -men than she had any right to look for:—'</p> - -<p>He felt angry and baffled, and would have been quarrelsome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -and have told his visitant to mind his own business, only that -he saw the unbidden guest was a gentleman, and the order for -the craft had made him patient and obsequious.</p> - -<p>Othmar looked at him with some disgust, changed his tone, -and addressed him with more severity.</p> - -<p>'M. Louis Roze, it is no concern of mine you will say, but -I am here to tell you one thing, and you must listen to me. -Legally, maybe, your cousin Damaris had no claim on this -estate, but you know that she was brought up from infancy as -her grandfather's heiress, that she was always encouraged to -believe the island would be her own, and that only because of -her refusal to marry you was she omitted from her grandfather's -will, to your benefit—perhaps from an old man's -perverse tyranny and rage, perhaps a little also from your -suggestion and your intrigues. Be that as it will, you are -morally bound, unless you are a cur indeed, to share your inheritance -with one who has every moral right, and right of -usage, to the whole of it. The dower you boast of having sent -was returned to you. Your cousin is poor, but not so poor as -to take as your alms what is her right. She is with those who -can protect her, and is out of the danger to which you allowed -her to drift without stretching out a hand to save her. If you -consent to divide in equity your inheritance with her, I will -tell you who I am, and give you all proofs and explanations -that you may reasonably require. If you refuse I shall bid you -good-morning, and rest content with the satisfaction, not a rare -one in this world, of having seen an unjust and dishonest man.'</p> - -<p>Louis Roze stared at him, perplexed by his tone, purple -with rage and astonishment, made a coward not by conscience -but by fear of losing a lucrative order, and so bewildered at the -sudden attack that, southerner though he was, he had no good -lie ready. All he felt for the moment sensible of was that not -a bronze bit of the money, not a rood of the soil, not a rotten -bough off one of the trees, should go away from himself to that -girl, who had so grossly outraged him in refusing his hand. -In a boorish, dumb-animal fashion he had been in love with -the handsome child, who had always laughed at him and -flouted him, and had never even let him kiss her cheeks in -cousinly manner. As she had made her bed so she might lie in -it. Not a sou should she get out of him, that he swore; the -will was a good will, attested and duly proved; no one could -gainsay it, and the young woman falsely called Bérarde was -without any possible claim whatever; there had been no legal -adoption of her. So he declared, with many an oath to keep -his courage up before this stranger, whose manner daunted him; -and his wife overhearing that it was a question of the inheritance -which was under discussion, thrust herself into the -balcony and vociferated with shrill iteration and the fury of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -woman menaced in her dearest possessions, that whilst she -lived not a centime should ever go away from her lawful lord.</p> - -<p>Othmar turned away before their clamour was half done.</p> - -<p>'That is enough,' he said to them, 'keep all you have and -may it prosper with you. Your cousin has no need of it, but I -thought it right to give you a chance to do your duty.'</p> - -<p>Louis Roze eyed him with perplexity, and grew silent.</p> - -<p>Othmar asked him nothing more and took his leave; the -bride and her sisters watching his departure through the intricacy -of the orange-boughs, giggling and criticising him in -audible phrase, their black eyes and their gold hair-pins flashing -in the sunshine amongst the glossy leaves.</p> - -<p>'That brute will do nothing for her,' he thought, as he -descended to his boat. 'And even if he were inclined ever to -do so, his wife would never let him follow his inclination. -There is nothing on earth so avaricious as peasants who have -grown rich.'</p> - -<p>He took his way back to the mainland, and left behind him -much uneasiness, wonder, and speculation amongst the inhabitants -of Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>The will was a good will, and his position was as sound as -sound law could make it, yet Louis Roze was not quiet in his -mind. He was not a bad man, though greedy, and he felt that -this stranger was right; that something of all he had gained by -this inheritance ought to go to the child who for so many years -had been allowed to look upon herself as the future owner of -Bonaventure. He was pursued by his recollections of her -leaping like a young kid up the rocks, steering through the sea -foam and the sunshine, gathering the oranges or the olives, -carrying the linen down to the beach to dry, running gaily with -the white dogs before her, swimming like a fish with her beautiful -arms flung out on the water, and her eyes smiling up at the -sky; <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la mouette</i> as the people had called her, because she was so -at home in the waves and the winds.</p> - -<p>Truly she ought to have had something; she was of the old -man's blood, whether or no the law recognised her or not; and -where was she and what would become of her? His thoughts -were painful and perplexed as he smoked his pipe under the -orange trees.</p> - -<p>But he was not ready to part with any portion of what had -been bequeathed to him. He was well off certainly, still no -one has ever enough; and his wife was with child, and might -in time give him a score of children. It was better to keep -what he had got, and, after all, Damaris had insulted him after -being affianced to him from the time she was twelve, and his -heart hardened utterly against her at that memory. If she had -not been an obstinate, insolent, wayward fool she would have -been here now, instead of the young woman from St. Tropez,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -who had a shrew's tongue, which Louis Roze heard oftener than -he cared to hear it.</p> - -<p>So he thrust the matter from his mind and counted the -oranges on the tree nearest him with complacent sense of -ownership. This stranger had said that Damaris was with -friends, let them look after her; his conscience was clear.</p> - -<p>When in the course of the day he learned from some deep-sea -fishers trawling near the island who his visitor had been—for -the fishermen had recognised Othmar as he had passed in -his boat—Louis Roze felt yet less sure that he had done wisely. -To have pleased such a rich man might have been worth more -than an acre of land, than a handful of gold. He hated aristocrats -with all the savage hatred of a socialist of the south, but -he respected rich men with all the admiring esteem which those -who love money feel for those who possess it in unusual abundance. -The good-will of this <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">archimillionnaire</i> might have been -more valuable to him than a little piece of the land, had he -offered it frankly as his cousin's share.</p> - -<p>When, in a week's time, some persons came to him to seek -to buy the island, he was certain that they came from his late -visitor, although they came only in the name and by the commission -of a well-known lawyer of Aix.</p> - -<p>He was himself dazzled by the great sums they were willing -to propose, was half-disposed to treat with them; but his bride -was shrewder, or thought herself so, than he.</p> - -<p>'Would you barter your coming child's property?' she -hissed in his ear. 'If rich men seek after the place, be sure it -is because it has some value we are not aware of; it has some -buried treasure that they know of, or some silver in the rocks, -or some other ore or another. If you sell it you will never -forgive yourself. Keep it, and send them about their business, -and begin to bore in the ground and see what you can find.'</p> - -<p>The suggestion heated the fancy and the cupidity of her -husband. Of course, he reflected, no one offered three or four -times the apparent value of a place unless they knew that it -would become worth what they were anxious to pay for it; and -he sternly refused to hearken to any terms of sale for the rock -of Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>'What is mine is mine, and all the kings of the earth cannot -buy it of me,' he said, with a petty mind's delight in power and -in the occasion of baffling and thwarting his superiors.</p> - -<p>'I believe he is in love with the girl,' he added to his wife, -'and wants to get the island for her. We might make a rare -bargain if it were so; but those men of Aix are too cautious to -let out who is behind them.'</p> - -<p>'Roze,' the wife said, 'you are a simpleton. There is no -love in the business. They know of some value in the island that -we do not; that is why they want to buy. Because you are for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -ever hankering yourself after that great-eyed, long-limbed child, -you think every other man is just a fool the same.'</p> - -<p>And Louis Roze, whose temper was cowed by the fiercer -sharper temper of his bride, gave in to her argument, and -remained so stubborn that the agents from Aix could come to -no terms with him.</p> - -<p>Inspired by the idea of buried treasures or possible ore in -the rocks, he began to neglect his own affairs at St. Tropez and -elsewhere, and dig and delve himself in the soil, and hack at -the stone face of the cliffs with a pickaxe. The chimera of a -fantastic hope entered into him and gave him no peace; he was -ready to ruin all the fair fruits of the surface, and all the artificial -soil brought there at such labour in the previous century, -for the sake of this imaginary wealth, hidden in the bowels of -the isle.</p> - -<p>Meantime the men of Aix informed Othmar that it was not -possible to induce the proprietor to part with Bonaventure, and -ventured to hint that the property was not worth one-half or -one-quarter of what he had been willing to spend on its -purchase.</p> - -<p>'That may be,' he said; 'but it is a caprice of mine. If -the island ever comes into the market, obtain it for me on any -terms. The owner may need money some day, or may change -his mind.'</p> - -<p>His experience of men was that they always sold things in -the long run, if they could do so with advantage, and that they -seldom remained in the same mind when it turned to their -profit to change it.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>When he returned from the south he paused at Amyôt before -going on to Paris. He wanted a day or two to reflect on the -future of Damaris before he saw her again. It was a problem -which did not very easily admit of solution, without oppressing -her with a sense of debt and servitude.</p> - -<p>The certainty that her cousin would do nothing to help her -brought home to himself the gravity of his position towards -her. He had taken her from the streets as a kind man will -take a stray dog; he had as much actual right to turn her out -to them again as the man would have to turn out the dog, but -his compassion and his chivalry forbade him to think of such -desertion of her. There was that in the loneliness of her -circumstances which touched all the warmest and most pitiful -fibres of his nature, whilst the fact that more or less directly -the caprice of his wife had been the beginning of all her mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>fortunes, -made him feel that he owed a duty and a debt to her -which could only be discharged by the most honest and sedulous -endeavour to do well by her and secure her future from shipwreck.</p> - -<p>But what was that future to be? To seek any counsel from -his wife seemed to him useless. He had seen her more than -once moved to strong interest and expectation by some nascent -talent which she had fostered and sheltered in the sunshine of -her favour, in the hothouse of her world; and he had also seen -her intolerant impatience and her profound oblivion when her -anticipations had been unrealised, and that which she had -honoured had proved incapable of rising to the heights of great -achievement. He knew the changes of her temperament too -well to be willing to subject to their fluctuations a proud and -sensitive child. Even if she deigned to notice her again, -Damaris could never be more to her than a mere plaything, and -she had a terrible habit of tiring of her toys in ten minutes. -She had had a fanciful idea that the girl had talents of a high -order, and he knew that if her fancy proved at fault she would -become intolerant of the person who had disappointed her -expectations. Mediocrity had always seemed to her the worst -of all offences. The flowers which might unclose at sunrise -might never reach, or never bear if they did reach, the glare of -noon. The world is pitiless, that he knew, and to its wedding -feast of fame many crowd, but few are chosen. And Nadège, -he knew too, would be as intolerant as the world if where she -had deigned to believe that genius existed, she should only find -a mere facile and fragile talent, without power to ascend where -she bade it soar, or force to justify her protection of it.</p> - -<p>He had not, either, forgotten her suggestion before Loswa's -sketch, that some day he would fall in love with the subject of -it. The jest had annoyed him and offended him.</p> - -<p>Some time, no doubt, she would know everything: circumstances -would bring it before her if the world and Damaris -ever became acquainted; and if not, if obscurity became the -child's lot, and failure the issue of her dreams, then it would be -better that Nadine, who had no pity for the one or sympathy -with the other, should hear nought of her. He did not care to -dwell himself on the possibilities of the future of one who seemed -to him so ill fitted for the prosaic brutalities of a struggle for -fame: he had temporised with her destiny, and vaguely trusted -to some sequence of fair chances to drift the barque of her life -into some safe haven. Of the pure and chivalrous tenderness -for her which he felt, he would have been ashamed to speak to -any living soul: for who would have believed him?</p> - -<p>'How difficult it is to do a little good!' he thought, as he -drove through the deep glades of his own woods, through the -cool, dewy, windless air of a summer evening towards the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -castle which had once known the Valois kings. 'Now, if I -wished to do the most brutal, selfish, hellish thing on earth, -how easy it would be! I should find the whole world conspiring -to help me, and should buy souls as easily as if they were -oysters!'</p> - -<p>Since his son had been born there, an affection for Amyôt -had come to him. It was his residence of preference; if it had -been possible he would have liked never to leave its vast woods, -its sunny shining courts, its majestic and historic solitudes. -The feeling that he was a new comer there had been soothed -away as years had passed; he had ceased to be haunted by the -memories of his fathers' evil deeds; he had begun to look forward -to a race springing from himself which should ennoble and -justify the riches of the Othmars. It had become to him less -an ill-acquired and eternal monument of his ancestors' iniquities -than the cherished birthplace of children who would transmit -to the far future his own conscience and his own honour. But -as he came to it now in its stillness and loneliness, the earlier -feeling stole back on him, as a bitter taste will survive and -return when a sweet one has passed away.</p> - -<p>It towered before him in the warm ethereal rose of the sunrise -on the morning of his arrival, one of the greatest of the -historical palaces of a chivalrous and immemorial land; and as -the first beams of the eastern sun caught the glittering vanes of -the towers, the gilded salamanders of the first Francis, he once -more recalled with sudden sharpness and disgust the memory -that the Othmars had entered these mighty stone portals only -through the usurer's right-of-way; had climbed these lofty -sculptured towers only by the money-lender's ladder of gold.</p> - -<p>The world of men had forgotten it, or, if they ever remembered -it, did so only with respect and envy as they always -jealously and admiringly chronicle what they call self-made -success. But to him it was humiliating and hateful. Sometimes -it seemed to him that, had he done what his conscience -and his manhood required, he would have refused utterly and -always to use this wealth of theirs in any luxury, would have -stripped it off him like a plague-stricken garment, he would have -gone to any personal toil, with hands empty but clean—dreams, -fanatical and foolish dreams, all men would have said, yet -dreams which, followed out, would have had in them a certain -nobility, a certain reality, a certain fulfilment of the ideals of -his youth.</p> - -<p>As he paced its terraces in the balmy stillness, the gardens -outstretched beneath him in all their beauty, which bloomed and -faded unseen by any eyes save those of the hirelings who tended -them, the remembrance of the dead girl who once had dwelt -there beside him in a summer such as this came back upon him -as it did often now since he had found and read those pathetic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -records of her short life. A repentant consciousness whispered -that to her those dreams would not have seemed absurd: with -her they would not have been impossible. Yseulte would have -obeyed him had he chosen to change Amyôt to a La Garaye.</p> - -<p>He would have seemed to her no more unwise or mad had -he stripped her of all wealth and luxury than Claude of La -Garaye seemed to the woman whose bones lie beside his beneath -the weeds and grasses of the graveyard of Taden. Had he said -but one word to her of such a dedication of their lives, all her -unworldly simplicity and courage, all her childlike optimism -and faith, all her heroism, fervour and superstition, would have -made her whole soul kindle at his invitation as spirit leaps to -flame at the first touch of fire. With her it would have been -possible; a life wholly unlike the life of the world, led in open -contradiction of all its opinions, demands and estimates; spent -in entire imaginative atonement for the greeds and the crimes -of dead men.</p> - -<p>'No, it would not have been possible,' he thought, as these -memories floated through his brain. 'No; for the life of La -Garaye two things are essential, Love and Faith. I had none -of the first for her; I have none of the second either for man -or God.'</p> - -<p>La Garaye was the outcome of blind unquestioning belief in -humanity and heaven, such belief as can only come over narrow -horizons and to uncultured minds. 'Have Augustine's faith,' -says a modern teacher to a faithless world. But the teacher forgets -that the world can no more return to its abandoned faiths -than a man can return to the toys and the joys of his infancy.</p> - -<p>There is a profound melancholy in the solitary musings of -every man or woman whose youth has harboured all the high -ideals of a lofty and pensive enthusiasm, and whose maturity is -held down by all the innumerable habits and demands, usages and -necessities of life in the great world. Society is imperious and -irresistible. Out of its beaten track none of its subjects can -wander far or long. Its atmosphere is pregnant at once with -sloth and excitement, and its bonds are liliputian but indestructible. -Society has neither imagination nor ideality, and when -either of these comes into it, it destroys it unmercifully. -There is a potent attraction in it even for those who believe -themselves the least susceptible of such seduction, and the network -of its usages and habits becomes a prison which even the -most unwilling captives learn to prefer to liberty.</p> - -<p>It might have been possible once, possible to have given -back all those ill-gotten millions to the hungry multitudes of -humanity; possible to have stripped himself of all pomp and -possession and been nothing on earth save such as his own brain -might have had power to make him. It might have been possible -once, but it was now and for ever impossible.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> - -<p>Such thoughts drifted through his mind as he paced the -beautiful rose-colonnades and magnolia-groves of these gardens -which had in them the sadness inseparable from all places -which have a history and have once been peopled by a historic -race.</p> - -<p>Neither power nor place had any fascination for him, and the -meannesses of mankind wearied him and left his heart barren. -When the world grudges the rich man his 'unearned increment,' -it forgets how much base coin it gives him in revenge for his -possessions; it is for ever seeking to cheat or, at best, to use -him; the parasite and the sycophant are always licking the dust -from his path, that, unseen, they may steal the gold from his -pocket; the meanest side of all humanity is exposed to him; -even friendship becomes scarcely distinguishable from flattery, -and the greed, the envy, and the low foibles of his fellows, -though the base toys with which the cynic plays, leave his soul -sick when it is not covered with the cynic's buckler.</p> - -<p>Othmar was no cynic, and his knowledge of his fellows had -saddened and oppressed him. This knowledge had not made -him serve them less faithfully, but it had taught him that all -such service was utterly vain, either to secure gratitude or to -ennoble society. The world rolls on, soaked in dulness, in -bestiality, in cruelty, in a hideous monotony of vulgar inventions -and crafty crimes and imbecile conventionalities; it has -America instead of Athens, a machine instead of an art, a -Krapotkine instead of a Socrates—and it prates of progress!</p> - -<p>Governed by money as men are, things were possible to -Othmar which would have been impossible, or most difficult at -least, to many. His position made a vast number and variety -of persons of all classes known to him; his large liberalities had -endeared him to many people of all kinds, who would have done -anything he desired in return for his benefits; he had always -dealt with his fellows with great kindliness and indulgence, but -with perspicuity and intelligence; he was well served by those -who laboured for him, and was seldom betrayed. Ingratitude -and treachery he met with sometimes, but less often than his -own slight estimate of human nature led him to expect, and -when he needed assistance or service he could always find on -the instant instruments adapted to his end. If he had had the -instincts of a bad nature he could have contributed endlessly to -the demoralisation of his fellow-men; with the temperament he -possessed he never asked any return for his benefits or expected -any thankfulness for them. Nevertheless the world was set -thick with his debtors, if he believed that he numbered few -friends, and whenever he wanted anything done it was as easy -for him to discover doers of it as it was for the Borgia to find -the hand that would fill the cup, the fingers that would use the -dagger.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> - -<p>One half-hour's thought, as he wandered through the lonely -gardens of his château, sufficed him to dispose of the problem -of Damaris's fate. She must be made to believe, he decided, -that her grandfather had left her enough to keep her from -want, and she must be placed somewhere in safety. As for her -genius, if genius she had, it would find its way to culture as -surely as a plant to the light. But meantime she must live: -and live without imagining that she lived on charity. The only -way to make it possible for her to do so would be to induce -her to think that she had not been wholly forgotten by Jean -Bérarde. So he reasoned, and acted on his conclusions without -weighing their possible consequences to himself or her.</p> - -<p>He was a man much more truthful than life in the world -makes men usually. A falsehood was contemptible and cowardly -in his sight. One of his most continual contentions with Friedrich -Othmar had always been his refusal to admit that lying -was needful in politics and finance; and in private life his wife -laughed at him frequently for his distaste to those mere social -untruths which have become the small change of society's currency. -He disliked all subterfuge, all sophism, all distortion of -fact, and even the harmless falsehood of compliment.</p> - -<p>But this single untruth to be told to Damaris seemed so necessary, -so harmless, that it carried with it no odour of dishonesty to -him. In no other way could she be kept from want and danger. -Without some such simple ruse she could never be saved from -herself, and from all that impetuosity and ignorance which -would destroy her as surely as a like enthusiasm destroyed the -virgin of Domrémy.</p> - -<p>Rich people, who have many connections and dependents, -can arrange circumstances to their liking in many small ways, -with a facility which is sometimes in pathetic contrast with -their powerlessness to command personal happiness and health, -human gratitude or human contentment. To Othmar it was -easy to arrange circumstances for those in whom he was interested, -though it was out of his power to make his own life -the thing he would have liked it to be. His wide command of -money, and his great knowledge of men and women, enabled -him sometimes to play the part of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">deus ex machinâ</i> successfully. -He tried to play it for Damaris: tried, with an honest -wish to serve her, and a boyish disregard of consequences, -which would have made his wife, had she known of them, call -him a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">berger de Florian</i> in pitiless ridicule.</p> - -<p>Amongst the many persons who owed him more than a -common debt, there was an old woman whose only remaining -grandson, a young student at the time, had been compromised -in the days of the Commune, and would have been numbered -amongst those who were to be shot without mercy, had not -Othmar, who was at Versailles at the time, interceded for and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -saved him, being touched by the youth's fine countenance and -his entreaty to be allowed to see his grandmother ere he died. -On inquiry and further knowledge of the lad he had been more -and more interested in him, perceiving that mistaken creeds -and distorted ideals had brought him amongst this sorry company -of pillagers and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pétroleuses</i>. He had influence enough -with M. Thiers to get a free pardon for the youth, on condition -of his leaving France at once. He sent him at his own -expense out of the country, gave him a clerkship in his house at -Vienna, and had the satisfaction of seeing him become in a -few years a peaceable and happy citizen, a diligent and devoted -servant.</p> - -<p>The old grandmother, by name Reine Chabot, owned and -farmed a few acres of good land near Les Hameaux, in the rich -vale of Chevreuse. To Othmar, who had saved her boy in body -and soul, she would have given body and soul herself. She -was a hale and strong woman, of simple habits and of noble -mind. She was a recluse, but not a morbid one, and her ways -and manner of life were similar to those which Damaris had -been used to on the island of Bonaventure. To her he resolved -to confide the girl's charge during her convalescence, or for so -long as she might need a home. He went himself down to the -farm, and, almost before he had spoken, his request was granted -and received as an honour.</p> - -<p>The dark, stern eyes of the aged woman were soft with -moisture as she joined her brown hands on his, and said with -fervour:</p> - -<p>'All that I have is yours to command. Did you not do for -me and mine that which was beyond all praise or price?'</p> - -<p>'I have found two people who accept my motives as honest -ones,' thought Othmar. 'I shall surely find no more. To expect -belief in any action that has no personal object at the bottom -of it is a folly that nobody but a boy should commit. The -child believes in me because she is at the age of faith and of -innocence; and the woman believes me because she adores me -and does not look any further; but nobody else will be so quick -in faith.'</p> - -<p>The farmhouse, called the Croix Blanche, was a stout -seventeenth-century building, which had escaped injury during -the great war by some miracle, and was as lonely in its situation -as though it had been five hundred instead of fifteen miles -from Paris. In such a retreat he thought this checked and -bruised sea-bird might find as safe a nest for a season of rest as -the lark found there in the long grass of its meadows. Rural -quietude, pure air, good care, and the balm which lies for -poetic temperaments in the mere sense that the country silences -are around them, would do all that was needed, he fancied, to -restore the natural buoyancy and strength of her constitution,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -and thither he directed the nuns to take her one afternoon when -the shadows grew long over the grass pastures and quiet woods -of that smiling and pastoral country which stretches around the -ruins of what was once Port-Royal des Champs.</p> - -<p>She was in that state of weakness blended with the delicious -sense of returning health which makes life seem like a dream, -and all its scenes pass like dream-pictures. She was filled with -a vague sense of perfect faith and peace, and all that he did for -her she accepted unquestioningly as undoubted good.</p> - -<p>When she saw the low grey-stone farmhouse covered with -its climbing roses, its wooden outhouses buried under elder and -poplar trees, its grass lands lying warm in the glow of the afternoon -sun, she stretched out her thin hands to it all as to a friend, -and tears of pleasure swam in her eyes.</p> - -<p>'It is the country,' she said under her breath with delight.</p> - -<p>All the sweet pungent smell of the turned earth where a -labourer dug in it, all the fresh glad scent of growing leaves -and ripening fruits and grasses browning in the sun, all the -familiar sounds, a watch-dog's bark, a blackbird's song, the hum -of bees in the rose bloom, the distant call of a corncrake in the -meadows—they were all dear and welcome like the voices of -friends long unheard. It was the country: all the strength and -the warmth and the force of her youth seemed to rush back -into her veins with the sight and the sounds of it.</p> - -<p>For the first time since she had left the island she laughed.</p> - -<p>'That is well,' thought the old woman, her hostess, regarding -her. 'Those who love the country have clean souls.'</p> - -<p>She had not asked or wished to ask any questions concerning -her guest.</p> - -<p>In her eyes Othmar could do no wrong, and to her gratitude -his will was law. But she had kept her own soul clean all her -days, dwelling here always in these same green peaceful places; -and as she looked on the face of Damaris she was glad, for she -saw there three things which are as beautiful as flowers—innocence, -and youth, and ignorance of all fear and guile.</p> - -<p>Damaris slept very soundly that night in a little white room -that smelt of lavender and pressed rose-leaves, and when she -awoke in the morning heard the pleasant sound of mowing -scythes, of rippling water, of a thrush's singing in a blossoming -elder bough; and all the young life in her seemed to arise and -grow anew, and become once more as glad to greet the sun as -any bird which wakes at dawn as the first white light gleams -through its house of leaves.</p> - -<p>Many quiet and almost happy summer days followed for her, -in which she recovered all her normal strength. The ways and -the work of the farm were familiar and welcome to her, and -she scarcely waited to be well before taking to herself a share -of its labours.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> - -<p>The widow Chabot asked her no questions, but she, having -no secrets, soon related the few incidents of her short existence, -and heard in return the narrative of Othmar's actions during -the Commune. Taciturn by temperament, and grave and reserved -by habit as the old woman was, she grew eloquent whenever -she spoke of the saviour of the last of her race, and -Damaris, when the day's work was done, and they sat together -in the rose-coloured porch while the spinning-wheels flew round, -never wearied of hearing that tale, and said in her own heart as -she listened, 'How good he is!—how good!'</p> - -<p>These summer weeks in Chevreuse were full of rest and -solace to her. It was but a pause, a halt before the heat and -stress of life, she knew; an '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">étape</i>' such as she had seen the -dust-covered conscripts on the march enjoy, resting by the -wayside under the trees, where some little water-spring bubbled -up amongst the cistus bushes and the euphorbia of a Riviera -road. But she was at peace in it, and, childlike, hardly thought -of the morrow.</p> - -<p>Sometimes she looked far away, when the sun rose, to the -east where Paris was, and wondered if ever there the world -would hear of her, know her, care for her. But it was all vague. -Her future was bathed in golden light, like the green landscape -when the sun came out from the mists of dawn; but it had no -distinctness to her, no definite shape or end. It was mere -radiant nebulæ, like the rosy and amber-tinted clouds which -the peasants looking eastward said was Paris, though no roof, -or dome, or spire was visible when the morning broke.</p> - -<p>Othmar came to see her rarely, and his visits were brief; -but as she had no vanity and had much gratitude, she was wholly -content with such slight remembrance. He sent her many books -and other things which amused her, and her mind was eager -for all kinds of knowledge. She had great natural intelligence -and quickness of perception, and she read the fine prose and the -stately alexandrines of the old French authors with avidity and -delight. Something of the intellectual life of Port Royal -seemed to her fancy still to linger in the air, and make classic -all the rustic paths of this quiet valley.</p> - -<p>When she walked over the daisied grass that grew about the -ruined dovecot, Pascal seemed to pace beside her, and as she -leaned over the little brook which finds its way amongst the -cresses and the mouse-ear, she fancied she saw the face of her -great master Racine reflected in its shallow waters.</p> - -<p>Her hostess, though a woman of no great culture, yet was -learned enough in the literature of earlier days, and in the associations -of her birthplace, to know every legend and name that -are attached to the stones and the meadows of Les Hameaux. -She was no uncongenial companion to an imaginative girl, for -though taciturn, she could have a certain rude eloquence when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -strongly moved, and to her reverent and unworldly mind 'les -Messieurs de Port-Royal' were ever present memories, both -saintly and heroic.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>He had apportioned the sum needed at a lower figure than his -own wishes would have dictated, that it might seem to her more -natural as the legacy of Jean Bérarde; it was enough to keep -her in such simple ways of life as she had been used to, no more. -He told her of it, as of a legacy, the first day that he saw her -at Les Hameaux: told it in few words, for all equivocation was -painful to him. She never for a moment doubted the truth of -the story, and he was touched to see that her first emotion was -not relief at the material safety insured to her, but joy that the -old man dying had forgiven her.</p> - -<p>'If I had only known,' she said through her tears, 'I would -have gone back to him! I would have gone back just to have -heard him say one kind word for the last!'</p> - -<p>The thought that her grandsire had pardoned and remembered -her was a philtre of health and strength to her. It -brought back all the warmth to her cheeks, all the depth of -colour to her eyes; she wept passionately, but from a sweet not -harsh sorrow, from gratitude to his memory, from thankfulness -that his last thought of her had been one of kindness.</p> - -<p>Othmar watched and heard her with an embarrassment which -she was too absorbed in her own emotions to notice.</p> - -<p>'All the money I shall give her would not suffice to buy one -of Nadine's rows of pearls,' he thought. 'Yet what rapture it -affords her! A lie! of course it is a lie; and all my Jesuit -tutors could never make me credit that a lie could be a good -thing, however good its motive. But this lie is innocent if ever -there were one innocent, and even if it were a crime the crime -would be worth the doing, to set this poor lost sea-bird safe from -storm upon a ledge of rock. She would be beaten to death by -the waves without some shelter.'</p> - -<p>Yet his conscience was not wholly easy as he responded to -her warm words of gratitude to himself for having discovered -this bequest for her, and answered her many questions as to the -island that she loved, the children of Raphael, the dogs, the -trees, the boat; all things on Bonaventure were living things to -her. However long her life might last, always the clearest and -the dearest of her memories would be those sunny childish years -in the little isle of fruit and flowers, where for sixteen years the -sun had shone and the sea wind blown on her, and the fish and -the birds and the beasts been her schoolfellows.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> - -<p>She had something of meridional heedlessness, and much of -meridional imagination, which made the fiction of her grandsire's -legacy more easily believed by her than it would have -been by more prosaic and cautious tempers. To her it seemed -so natural that he should have relented towards her and provided -for her. All her memories were of wants provided for by him; -he had been her providence, if a harsh one, for so long that it -seemed a natural part of his character and of her destiny that -he should continue to be her providence even in his grave.</p> - -<p>'If I could only be sure that he is happy in heaven,' she -said to Othmar, with a certain appeal and doubt in her accent. -Even to her, though she had respected him, it was difficult to -think of Jean Bérarde of Bonaventure in any celestial life. -'Do you not think,' she added wistfully, 'that God would -remember that he was a very good man in many ways, and -always honest and upright in all his dealings with rich and -poor? He loved money, but he was not mean—not to me, -never to me—and if <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">laborare est orare</i>, as the Sisters used to -say, surely he must be in peace?'</p> - -<p>Othmar heard the tormenting fear which was expressed in -her tone, and refrained from adding one grain of doubt to it.</p> - -<p>'Be sure he is at peace, my dear,' he answered; while he -thought, 'more peace than such a brute deserves—the peace of -utter extinction; the peace of dissolution and absorption into -the earth which holds him, into the grass which covers him; -peace which he shares with kings and poets and heroes!'</p> - -<p>'He believed nothing, you know,' said Damaris wistfully, -'nothing of any creed, I mean. But then, if he could not, was -it any more his fault than it is a deaf man's fault that he cannot -hear? I think not. Do you remember that poem of Victor -Hugo's? I forget its name, but the one in which a great wicked -king of the east, all black with crime, is saved from hell because -he has a moment of pity for a pig that is sick and tormented -with flies and lies helpless in the sun? The king drew the pig -aside out of the sun and drove the flies away. It is beautifully -told in the poem; I tell it ill. But what I mean is, that I -think if they are angered in heaven with my grandfather -because he led a hard, selfish, crooked, cramped life, they will -yet let him into paradise because he was so good to me.'</p> - -<p>Othmar assented, with a sense of infinite compassion for her. -All her dream was as baseless as the golden city which an evening -sun builds out of clouds for a moment in the western sky. -But he let it be. Life would soon enough wake her from such -dreams with the rough hand of a stepmother, who grudges -motherless children sleep.</p> - -<p>'Let us speak of present things,' he said, to distract her -thoughts. 'This is very little money, though you think so -much of it, which is left to stand between you and all kinds of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -want. Will you let me place it out for you where it will bring -you most? You may have heard, my dear, that I am one of -those hapless persons who are doomed by circumstance to have -much to do with gold. I hate it, but that is no matter. It is -my fate. Will you trust me to try and multiply your little -fortune? I will be very careful of it, but something more it -shall make for you in my hands than if it were lying in a kitchen -chimney or under an orchard wall, which you are too true to -your nation not to think the safest kind of investment. I may? -Then be it so. No, do not thank me, there is no need for that. -But you are very young and you are not very prudent, I should -say, and in these matters you will need advice. Remember -always to command mine.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with grateful but questioning eyes.</p> - -<p>'Why should you do so much for me?' she said with -wonder.</p> - -<p>'I do very little,' returned Othmar. 'And were it far more, -you have a direct claim on me—on us. If my wife had not -tempted you away that memorable day, you would have been -dwelling contented on your island still, and probably for ever.'</p> - -<p>'No: not there,' she said slowly, as if she reasoned with -herself. 'I do not think I should ever have stayed there very long. -I loved it, but I wanted something else. When I used to sit, as -so often I sat, all alone on the balcony that hangs over the sea, -when it was late at night, and everyone else was asleep, and the -nightingales were shouting in the orange-boughs underneath, I -used to think that some other world there must be where some -one cared for Ondine and Athalie, where some one had cried as -I cried for Triboulet and Hernani; where they did not all talk -all day long of the price of oil, and the cost of cargoes, and the -disease in the lemons, and the worm in the olive wood. I knew -that all these great and beautiful things could not have been -written unless men and women were, somewhere, great and -beautiful also; and very often—oh, often! long before your -Lady spoke to me—I had thought that whenever my grandfather -should die I would go and find that world for myself. -And now——'</p> - -<p>He waited some moments, but her sentence remained incomplete.</p> - -<p>'And now?' he repeated at last. 'Now do you think still -that there is such a world, or do you not see that no one does -care for Ondine or Athalie? that the price of oil and the worm -in the olive (or their equivalents) are the sole carking cares of -the great world, just as much as of your peasant-proprietors? -Did you not dream of Hernani, and did you not only meet the -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sergent de ville</i>?'</p> - -<p>'I met you!' she said gently, with a tinge of reproach in -her voice.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> - -<p>'My dear child!' said Othmar, touched and a little embarrassed. -'I am far from heroic. Ask the person who knows -me best, and she will tell you so. I only rake the world's gold -to and fro as if I were a croupier, and I assure you the olives -and the lemons are much worthier subjects of thought.'</p> - -<p>She made a little involuntary gesture of her hand, as if she -pushed away some unworthy suggestion which it was not needful -to refute in words. Her face had grown serious and resolute; -she had the look of a young Pallas Athene. Innumerable -thoughts were crowding on her which she could ill express.</p> - -<p>Ever since a possible fate had been suggested to her in which -fame might attend on her, ever since a vague immeasurable -ideal had been suggested to her in the music of Paul of Lemberg, -it had become impossible for her ever to remain content -with the homely aims and the prosaic thoughts of the people -amongst whom she had been born. Heredity and accident had -alike combined to divorce her from her natural fate. Of those -thus severed from their original source, thus rebellious against -their native air, two or three in a generation become great, -famous, victorious; the larger number fall back from the summits -which they aspire to reach, and fill the restless, dissatisfied, -tarnished ranks which are comprised in the all-expressive word -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassés</i>. But the word seemed unfitted to her; there were -that simplicity, that originality, that force in the child which -mark the higher natures of humanity, whether they be found in -peasants or in princes; there were in her also that natural high -breeding and absolute self-unconsciousness which render all -vulgarity and assumption impossible; those marks of race -which are wholly independent of all circumstance. Jeanne -d'Arc greeted her king as her brother, and Christine Nilsson -meets sovereigns as her sisters.</p> - -<p>He had seen this child also bear herself with inborn grace -and natural dignity in the first dazzling scene and unkind embarrassment -of circumstance which she had ever known. It -seemed to him that she would go thus through life.</p> - -<p>'I think I could <em>make</em> the world care,' she said, with a -curious mingling of dreaminess and decision, of ardour and of -doubt in her tone. 'Even your wife said I might do so—it is -something outside myself, beyond myself. I do not mean any -vanity or folly. It is something one <em>has</em>, as the nightingale has -its song, and the lemon flower its odour. If they would hear -me—as your Lady heard? How could I make them hear me?'</p> - -<p>Othmar was silent.</p> - -<p>Then he added almost cruelly, but cruelty seemed to him -kindness:</p> - -<p>'My wife forgot that she had heard you five minutes afterwards: -so perhaps would the world. And if so, what then?'</p> - -<p>'At least I should have tried.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p> - -<p>The divine obstinacy of genius spoke in the words. Better -failure and oblivion than oblivion without effort.</p> - -<p>'If only I could try?' she repeated with imploring prayer: -to her he seemed the master of the world, as utterly as Agrippa -or Augustus seemed so to the Roman girls who saw them pass -from palace to temple, 'I know it would be only interpretation; -but I feel their words say so much to me that I surely -could interpret them, aloud, so that I could move some to feel -them as I do.'</p> - -<p>He knew she meant the words of those poets which had -taken so strong and firm a hold upon her imagination, read as -she had read them in the glory of the southern light, between -the sea and sky.</p> - -<p>'Perhaps you could,' he answered reluctantly. 'But if -you did, what would be your fate? You would die like Aimée -Desclée. My wife likened you to her.'</p> - -<p>'Who was she?'</p> - -<p>He told her, with the pathetic force of a profound sympathy; -for poor Frou-frou had been well known to him in her -brief career, and all the feverish yearning, the tumult of unsatisfied -desires, the conflict of genius and malady in that tender -and hapless soul had been sacred to him. He passed in silence -over the passions of that life, but he dwelt long and earnestly -on its storm-tossed youth, and its premature and tragic close.</p> - -<p>Damaris listened; her whole countenance reflecting the -narrative she heard.</p> - -<p>'I think she was happy,' she said at length. 'You do not, -but I do. She broke her heart singing, like the nightingales in -the poem. I read once of a sword which wore out its scabbard. -Who would not sooner be that than the sword which rusts -unused?'</p> - -<p>Othmar did not reply. To him the life and the death of -Aimée Desclée were the saddest of his generation; but he could -not tell this child why he thought them so, and even if he could -have done it would have been of no avail. He knew that he -argued with that thing which no example appals, no warning -affects, no prescience intimidates; the thing at once so strong -and so feeble, at once blind as the bat and far-sighted as the -eagle—the instinct of genius.</p> - -<p>When he quitted her that day he left her with disquietude -and uncertainty. It seemed to him as if he held her fate, like a -bird, in his hand, and could either close the cage-door on it in -safety, or toss it upward free to roam through fields of air or to -sink under showers of stones as chance might choose.</p> - -<p>He believed that she did not deceive herself when she -thought that she could move others by the electric forces within -herself. He recognised a certain volition in her which resembled -that of genius. Her imagination, which could console<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -her for so much, her quick assimilation of high thoughts and -poetic fancies, her power of feeling impersonal interest, her -very ignorance of real life, and imprudence in its circumstances, -were all those of genius. Reared in prosaic habits, she had -forced her own way to a subjective and idealistic mental life, even -amidst the most opposing influences. She had heard the nightingale -in the orange-boughs, though all those around her had been -only busied counting the oranges to pack the crates. She had -watched the shoal of fishes spread its silver over the waves -beneath the moon, though all those around her at such a sight -had only thought of the deep sea seine, the casks for market, -and the curing brine. Surely this power of withdrawing from -all familiar association, and escaping from all compelling forces -of habit, could only exist where genius begat it?</p> - -<p>But then he knew that even with the wedding-garment of -genius on, yet to the wedding-feast of fame many are called -but few are chosen. And it might be only a breath, a flash, a -touch of inspiration, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un brin de génie</i>, as his wife had said, -enough to have impelled her to push open the doors of her -narrow destiny, and look thence with longing eyes, but not -enough to force her with untired feet and unconquerable -courage across that desert of effort which parts effort from -triumph, poetic faculty from mere dreamy indolence. He who -had always from his boyhood honoured and assisted talent, -wherever he had found it, with a patience and a liberality very -rare in this world, had suffered much disappointment from -many ordinary and pretentious lives which he had been led to -believe had had the hall-mark of intellectual superiority. He -had too often found what deemed itself genius was mere facility; -originality, mere eccentricity; ambition mere instinct of imitation; -the 'coal from the altar' only the momentary blaze of a -match. Many and many a time he might have said of the -immature Muses who sought him, in the words of Victor Hugo, -'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Que de jeunes filles j'ai vues mourir!</i>'</p> - -<p>Damaris Bérarde appeared to him, as to his wife, a beautiful -child with an uncommon nature, and with possibly uncommon -gifts; but between the mere promise of the dawn of youth and -the full heat of the meridian of genius what a difference there -was!</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>In lieu of driving homeward to Paris that day, he turned his -horses' heads in the direction of Asnières, where a once famous -artist, David Rosselin, lived.</p> - -<p>'I will ask Rosselin,' he thought. 'Rosselin can judge as -I have no power to do; and if he decide that she has genius she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -had better make a career so for herself. I have no business to -stand between her and any future she may be able to create.'</p> - -<p>He disliked the idea of his wife's careless predictions being -fulfilled. It seemed to him barbarous to let this white-souled -sea-bird soar to the electric-flame life in Paris, fancying its -light the sun. But who could tell?</p> - -<p>It was a doubt which troubled and oppressed him as he -drove back to Paris through the pastoral country, consecrated -by the memory of Port-Royal. He felt that he had no right -to make himself the arbiter of her destinies; he would be no -more to her in her future than the dead thinkers whose brains -had once been quick with philosophic and poetic creation -amidst these quiet green meadows.</p> - -<p>So he opened the little green trellis-work gate which was -set in the acacia hedge of the cottage at Asnières, and found -the once great impersonator of Alceste, of Tartuffe, of Sganarelle -sitting beside his beehives and behind his rose-beds, with -a white sun umbrella shading his comely and silvered head, and -in his hand a miniature Aldine Plautus. His old servant was -close by carefully dusting the cobwebs off the branches of an -espaliered nectarine.</p> - -<p>It was a small suburban villa which sheltered the last years -of the great actor; a square white house set in a garden, over -whose trim hedges of clipped acacia Rosselin could see the -groups of students and work-girls going down to the landing-stairs -of the Seine, and farther yet could see the grey-green -shine of the river itself with its pleasure craft going to and fro -in the midsummer sunshine.</p> - -<p>David Rosselin in his prime had made many millions of -francs, but they had gone as fast as they were gained, and in -his old age he was poor: he had only this little square white -box, so gay in summer with its roses and wistaria, and within -it some few remnants of those magnificent gifts which nations -and sovereigns and women and artists had all alike showered -upon him in those far-off years of his greatness; and some -souvenir from Othmar of an Aldine classic, or a volume bound -by Clovis, which had lain on his table some New Year morning.</p> - -<p>Othmar, who was quickly wearied by men in general, appreciated -the intelligence and the character of this true <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">philosophe -sans le savoir</i>, and would have made Rosselin free of all his -libraries and welcome at all his houses if the old man would -have left for them his white-walled and rose-covered cottage at -Asnières.</p> - -<p>'No one who is old,' said Rosselin, 'should ever go out, -though he may receive, because he knows that those whom he -receives care to see him, or they would not come to him; but -how can he be ever sure that those who invite him do not do so -out of charity, out of pity, out of complacency?'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> - -<p>And save those of the theatres, of the Conservatoire, and of -the public librairie, he crossed no threshold save his own.</p> - -<p>'If I had only been a grocer,' he used to say with his mellow -laugh, 'a good plump grocer, as my poor father wished, who -knows? I might have even been mayor of my native town by -this, and had a son a vice-préfet!'</p> - -<p>He was a man now nigh on eighty years, erect, vivacious, -combating age with all the eternal youthfulness of genius, -his black eyes had still a flash of those fires which had once -scorched up the souls of women, and his handsome mouth had -still the smile of fine irony which had adorned and accentuated -his Alceste and his Mascarille. He dwelt alone with a servant -nearly as old as himself; he had a great natural contempt for -all domestic ties.</p> - -<p>'Had I become a grocer I would have married,' he was wont -to say. 'If you are in trade, respectability is as necessary to -you as dishonesty; but to the artist the nightcap of marriage is -like the biretta which they draw over a man's head in Spain -before they garotte him. When once you put it on, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">adieu les -rêves!</i>'</p> - -<p>And in his celibate old age, if he had no longer dreams, he -had recollections and interests which kept him mentally young. -His Paris was his one mistress, of whom he never tired.</p> - -<p>He had left the stage five-and-twenty years and more, in -his own person, but he still took the keenest interest, possessed -the highest influence, in all higher dramatic art and life. The -silence of David Rosselin on a first night condemned a play as -an irrevocable failure, whilst his smile of approval was assurance -to an author that he had successfully <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">empoigné</i> his public. He -was the most accurate of judges, the most penetrating of critics; -he would occasionally make little epigrammatic speeches which -remained like little barbed steel darts, but he was indulgent to -youth and encouraging to modesty. When Rosselin said that a -pupil of the Conservatoire had a future, the future, when it -became the present, never belied his judgment. For the rest, -he was in a small way a bibliophile, delighted in rare copies -and delicate bindings, and was an unerring authority on all -centuries of costume and custom.</p> - -<p>'Incessantly acting all your life, when did you find all the -time to acquire so much knowledge?' Paul Jacob had said once -to him.</p> - -<p>David Rosselin had replied with his genial laugh:</p> - -<p>'Ah, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mon cher</i>, I have had all the time that I should have -spent in quarrelling with my wife if I had had one!'</p> - -<p>This love of books had been a bond of sympathy between -him and Othmar ever since one night in the green-room of the -Français, when they had spoken of fifteenth-century Virgils; -and to him the thoughts of Othmar had turned more than once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -since the problem of Damaris and her destiny had come before -him. There was no one in all Europe who could discern the -gold from the pinchbeck in human talent with such precision; -no one who could more unerringly discriminate between the -aspirations of genius and its capabilities, between the mere -audacities of youth and the staying powers of true strength.</p> - -<p>An absurd reluctance to speak of her, of which he was -ashamed, and for which he would have assigned no definite -reason even to himself, had made him indisposed to seek his -old friend on such a subject; but it seemed to him, now that -her soul was apparently set on the career which his wife's careless -praise had suggested to her, no other way of life was so -possible for her, or so likely to afford her interest, occupation -and independence.</p> - -<p>He had seen the life of the stage near enough to loathe it. -The woman whom he had adored with all a boy's belief and -passion, and who had been hired by his father's gold to do him -the cruel service of destroying all belief in him, had been an -actress, famous for the brief day of splendour which beauty -without genius can gain in the cities of the world. He hated -to imagine that the time might come when this child, full now -of ideals of heroisms, of innocence and of faithfulness, might -grow to be such a woman as Sara Vernon had been! Sara -Vernon, who had now turned saint and dwelt in the odour of -good works on her estates in Franche-Comté: the estates which -had been his father's purchase-money of her.</p> - -<p>But it seemed to him that he had no right to let his personal -prejudices, his personal sentiments or sentimentality, stand -between Damaris and any possibility of future independence, -of future happiness which might open out before her through -her natural gifts. He felt nothing for her except a great compassion -and a passionless admiration, and he had a sense of -indefinite self-blame and of infinite embarrassment for the -position towards her into which circumstances had drifted him. -It was not possible to retreat from it: he had become her -only friend, her sole support; but the sense that to the world, -and perhaps even to his wife, his too impulsive actions would -bear a very different aspect, haunted him with a feeling which -was foreboding rather than regret.</p> - -<p>'Ah! my friend!' said Rosselin in some surprise, as he -passed through the gate. 'Is it possible you are in Paris -while Sirius reigns over the asphalte? It is charming and -gracious of you to remember a decrepit old gardener. Come -and sit by me in the shade here, and Pierre shall bring you the -biggest of the nectarines. If Virgil could have tasted a nectarine! -There may be doubts about every other form of progress, -but there can be no manner of doubt that we have -improved fruits since the Georgics, and wines.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> - -<p>Othmar answered a little at random, and accepted the -nectarine. The quick regard of Rosselin read easily that there -was something in the air graver than their usual talk of rare -editions and coming book-sales which his visitor desired to say -to him, and with a sign dismissed the old servant to the strip -of kitchen garden on the other side of the house.</p> - -<p>Othmar made his narrative as brief, his own share in it as -small, and the facts as prosaic as he could; but he could not -divest them of a tinge of romance which he was ill-pleased to -discover to the shrewd comprehension of the great artist who -listened to him.</p> - -<p>'Do what I will, tell it all how I may,' he thought angrily, -'how ridiculous I shall look to him, playing knight-errant like -this!'</p> - -<p>And as he related the story of Damaris to Rosselin he -seemed in fancy to hear the voice of his wife behind him commenting -in her delicate suggestive tones on his own exaggerated -share in it. What she would say, and what the world would -say, seemed to him to be said for both in the momentary smile -which passed over Rosselin's face.</p> - -<p>'Of course he does not believe me,' he thought. 'Nobody -will ever believe me. They will always suppose that I have -base reasons which have never even approached me; they will -always accredit me with the coarsest of motives.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin, with his power of divining the thoughts of others, -guessed what was thus passing through his mind.</p> - -<p>'Yes, they will certainly never accredit you with a good -motive,' he said, answering the unspoken thoughts of his visitor. -'For that you must be prepared. But if you think that I shall -do so, you mistake. You are a man, my dear Count Othmar, -who is much more likely to be fascinated by a disinterested -action than by a vulgar amour. I understand you, but I warn -you that nobody else will.'</p> - -<p>'I suppose not,' said Othmar. 'That must be as it may. -How did you divine so well what I was thinking of?'</p> - -<p>'Divination of that kind is easy after experiences as long as -mine are,' answered Rosselin, gathering one of his carnations -and fastening it in his linen coat. 'If we do not acquire that -much from life we live to be old to little purpose. You have -done a generous thing, and probably the world will punish you -for it; it always does. The position your chivalry has led you -into is of course certain to be explained in one way, and one -only, by people in general. The world is not delicate, and it -never appreciates delicacy.'</p> - -<p>'Of that I am well aware,' returned Othmar. 'It is on -account of the coarseness of all hasty and ordinary judgments -that I wish to keep my own name and personality hidden as -much as possible in relation to this child. If her own talents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -could secure independence for her, it would be very much to be -desired that they should do so. Will you do me the favour to -judge of them?'</p> - -<p>Rosselin hesitated.</p> - -<p>'You can command me in all ways,' he added. 'But I -think it only fair to warn you that, even if she have very great -talent, as you seem to believe, neither technique nor culture -come by nature. Training, long, arduous, severe, and to the -young most odious, is the treadmill on which everyone must -work for years before being admitted into the kingdom of art. -Has she enough to live on during these years of probation?'</p> - -<p>'Yes,' answered Othmar; he did not feel called upon to -confess his device for supplying this necessity. 'All I would -ask of you is your judgment of her talents. Of course she is -only a child; she has seen and heard nothing; even the poorest -stage she has never seen. She has not had any of those indirect -lessons which the very poverty and misery of their surroundings -gave Rachel and Desclée. They were always in the road of -their art, even though they went to it through mire. She knows -nothing, absolutely nothing; I tell you she has not been even -inside the booth of strolling players at a fair. Yet she gave to -my wife and to me the impression of latent genius. Will you -see her and hear her, and then give me your opinion?'</p> - -<p>'I would do much more for you, my dear friend,' replied -Rosselin with a vague sense of reluctance. 'But I have seen so -many of these maidens who dream of the stage—little, quiet, -good girls, with mended stockings and holes in their umbrellas, -thronging to the Conservatoire to pipe out "O sire! je vais -mourir" or "Infame! croyez-vous," going away with their -mothers like chickens under the hen's wing when a big dog is -in the poultry-yard; falling in love with the student who gives -them the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">réplique</i>, keeping chocolate in their pockets to nibble -at like little mice between the scenes; little good girls, some -pretty, some ugly, some saucy, some shy, all of them as poor as -church rats, all of them with hair-pins tumbling out of their -braids—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">j'en ai vu tant!</i> And hardly a spark of genius amongst -them! When they have fine shoulders and big eyes, then their -career is certain—in a way; when they have no figure at all and -no complexion, then they go into the provinces and one hears -no more of them; or, perhaps, they leave their illusions altogether -at the Conservatoire, and take a place behind a counter. -It is the prudent ones who do that: "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">elles commencent où les -autres finissent</i>." Some clever woman has said so before me. -Is it not better to begin so? Why not get a little snug shop for -Mademoiselle Bérarde from the first?'</p> - -<p>Othmar moved impatiently.</p> - -<p>'And the two or three who are better than the rest,' he asked; -'those whose lips the bees of Hymettus have really kissed?'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> - -<p>'My dear friend, you know how it is with these also,' sighed -Rosselin: 'immense success, immense <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">insouciance</i>, immense -enjoyment for the first few years; lovers like the leaves on the -trees in midsummer; debts as numerous as the leaves; enormous -sums thrown away like waste paper; beauty, health, -power, all spent like a rouleau of gold in a fool's hand at Monte -Carlo; and then the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dégringolade</i>, the apathy of the public, the -indifference of the lovers, the persecution of the creditors whose -ardour grows as hotly as that of the others cools, the infinite -mortifications, humiliations, chagrins, disappointments; then -the death from anæmia or from consumption, or the still worse -end, which is a fifty-year-long obscurity: Sophie Arnould sweeping -out her garret with a two-sous broom! Ah bah! Marry -Mlle. Bérarde to one of your cashiers, and buy her a cottage at -Neuilly.'</p> - -<p>'Do you suppose Desclée or Rachel would have married a -clerk, and lived in a little house in the suburbs?' said Othmar -with some impatience.</p> - -<p>'Ah, who can say? Neither would have stayed with the -clerk certainly,' replied Rosselin, lifting up the drooped stalk of -one of his picotees and fastening it to its deserted stick. 'It is -all a matter of chance and circumstance. Temperament goes -for much, but accident counts for more, and opportunity for -most. You say yourself, for instance, that Mlle. Bérarde might -have lived and died on her island but for some careless words -of Madame Nadine and an invitation to St. Pharamond. While -we are young life is always inviting us somewhere, and we accept -the invitations, without thinking whether they will lead us to -Bicêtre or to a quiet cottage garden in our old age. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Allons -donc!</i> Let us do our best to secure the garden and the sunshine -for your little friend from the South. I need not assure you -that you shall have my perfect honesty of opinion and my absolute -discretion concerning her. Will you come into the house -a moment? I picked up yesterday, at a bookstall, a precious -little <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bouquin</i>; nothing less than a copy of the "Terentii -Comœdiæ" of 1552 by Roger Payne.'</p> - -<p>Othmar went in and admired the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bouquin</i>, and stayed a few -moments longer, while the evening grew duskier and the scent -of the carnations and stocks and great cabbage-roses came richer -and sweeter through the open windows into the small rooms, -clean and cosy, and raised from the commonplace by the rare -volumes which were gathered in them, and the fine pieces of -porcelain standing here and there on their wooden shelves.</p> - -<p>Then, promising to return on the morrow, he took his -leave. Rosselin walked beside him down the little path to the -gate. The sun had set and the skies were growing quite dark. -The ripple of the Seine water under the sculls of a passing boat -was audible in the stillness. From the distance there came the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -sounds of a violin, and some voices singing the postillions and -travellers' chorus from the 'Manon Lescaut' of Massenet.</p> - -<p>Rosselin, left alone, leaned over his wooden gate between his -acacia hedges, and listened to the voices dying away in the distance, -and looked through the soft dusk to where his Paris lay.</p> - -<p>'I wonder if he has told his wife?' he thought. 'If not—well, -if not, perhaps Madame may not care. She has never -cared, why should she care now?'</p> - -<p>The interrogation had been on his lips more than once whilst -Othmar had been with him, but his worldly wisdom had kept it -back unspoken.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Entre l'arbre et l'écorce ne mettez pas le doigt</i>,' was an -axiom of which he, so often the exponent of Sganarelle, knew -the profound truth.</p> - -<p>Aloud he added:</p> - -<p>'Of course I will see her, and with the greatest pleasure. -When and where?'</p> - -<p>'I will take you to-morrow. I shall remain in Paris two days.'</p> - -<p>'Then to-morrow I will await you. Do not think me a -cynical and indifferent old hermit. If I dread to see youth -throw itself into the river of fire which leads to fame, it is only -because I have seen so many burned up in its course. I always -advocate obscurity for women. Penelope is a much happier -woman than Circe, though the latter is a goddess and a sorceress. -Your protégée may become great only to die like Desclée, -like Rachel. You would do her a greater service if you -married her to one of your clerks, gave them a modest little -house in the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">banlieue</i>, and became sponsor to their first child. -Though I have been a graceless artist all my life, I confess I -hesitate at being the person to assist such a friendless creature -as you describe to enter on a dramatic career. I have seen so -many failures! By-the-bye, is she handsome?'</p> - -<p>'She has beauty,' said Othmar a little coldly, because the -question slightly confused and irritated him.</p> - -<p>'It was a needless interrogation,' said Rosselin to himself. -Even the chivalry of Othmar would have deemed it necessary -to do so much for a plain woman.</p> - -<p>When he went to Les Hameaux on the following day he saw -her, heard her, studied her, stayed some two hours near her, now -and then reciting to her himself, half a scene from 'Le Joueur,' -a single speech from the 'Misanthrope,' a few lines of Feuillet, -a few stanzas from the 'Odes et Ballades.'</p> - -<p>'Oh, who are you?' she asked in transport, the tears of -delight and admiration rising to her eyes.</p> - -<p>'My dear,' answered Rosselin with a smile, which for once -was sad, 'I am that most melancholy of all things—an artist -who was once great and now is old?'</p> - -<p>She took his hand with reverence and kissed it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Va!</i>' said the man whom the world had adored, with a -little laugh which had emotion it. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Va!</i> Life is always worth -living. The flowers always smell sweet and the sunshine is -always warm. And so you, too, would be an artist, would you? -Well, well! every spring there are young birds to fill the old -nests.'</p> - -<p>When he left her he was long silent. When he at last spoke, -he said briefly to Othmar: '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Elle a de l'avenir</i>.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The day after Othmar went alone to the green shadows of the -vale of Port-Royal. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when -he reached there: he saw Damaris before she saw him; all her -rural habits and associations had come to her in this leafy and -rustic place; she rose with the sun and went to bed with it; -she had recovered her colour and her strength; she assisted in -the out-of-door work and rejoiced in it. As he drew near he -saw her mowing a swath of the autumnal aftermath of the little -field, the two watch dogs of Bonaventure, which he had bought -and restored to her, lying near and watching her with loving -eyes. Her arms, vigorous as a youth's and white as a swan's -neck, were seen bare to the shoulder in the swaying sweep of -the scythe; her hair was bound closely round her head, and its -dark gold glistened in the sun. The veins in her throat stood -out in the effort of the movement; the linen of her bodice -heaved and fell. It was an attitude which Rude or Clésinger -would have given ten years of their lives to reproduce in marble; -it was the perfection of full and youthful female strength and -health, teeming with all the promise of a perfect organisation, -all the vitality which makes strong mothers of strong men.</p> - -<p>It was womanhood; not the womanhood of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaines</i>, -delicate and fragile as a hothouse flower, pale from late hours or -faintly tinted with the resources of art, serene and harmonious -in tone, in charm, in manner, the most perfect of all the products -of artificial culture; but womanhood as it was when the -earth was young, and when life was simple and straight as a rod -of hazel; womanhood buoyant, healthful, forceful, fearless; -with limbs uncramped by fashion and beauty ignorant of art, -living in the wind, in the water, in the grass, in the sun, like -the dappled cattle and the strong-winged bird.</p> - -<p>He watched her awhile, himself unseen. With what grace, -yet with what vigour, she moved the scythe, sweeping round -her in its wide semicircle, the long grass falling about her in -green billows, with trails of bindweed and tall red heads of -clover in it; beyond her, the blue sky and the pastoral horizon -of the vast wheat-fields of La Beauce.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> - -<p>What would the hot, close, fevered pressure of life in the -world give her that was half so good as that? How much better -to dwell so, between the green grass and the wide sky, than to -court the fickle homage and the fleeting loves of men! How -much better if all her years could pass so on the peaceful breast -of the kindly earth, living to lead her children out amongst the -swaths of hay and teach them to love the lark's song and the -face of the fields as she loved them! How much better to be -Baucis than Aspasia!</p> - -<p>Perhaps! but where was Philemon?</p> - -<p>As the thoughts drifted through his mind she paused to whet -her scythe, looked up, and saw him. With a smile that was as -glad as sunshine in May weather she came towards him, leaping -lightly over the hillocks of mown grass. She was happy to see -him there. She felt no embarrassment for her bare arms and -her kilted skirt; she had not been taught the immodesty of -prudes.</p> - -<p>'No, we will not go in the house,' he said to her when he -had greeted her. 'Let us stay in your sweet-smelling meadow. -Why are you mowing? Are there no mowers to do it?'</p> - -<p>'I like doing it,' she answered; 'and it spares Madame -Chabot the day's pay of a man. I can mow very well,' she -added, with that pride in her pastoral skill which she had been -imbued with on Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>She walked on by his side through the little narrow spaces -of mown ground which ran between the waves of the fallen -grasses. She had pulled down her sleeves and taken the pins -out of her skirt, and passed with her firm light tread and her -uncovered head over the rough soil, with the afternoon sun in -her eyes and on the rich tints of her face. It intensified the -radiance of her colouring, as it did that of the scarlet poppies -which were blowing here and there where the grass still stood -uncut.</p> - -<p>'What did he say of me?' she asked anxiously and wistfully, -as Othmar walked on in silence beside her.</p> - -<p>'He says you have not deceived yourself.'</p> - -<p>'Ah!'—she drew a deep breath of relief—'I pleased him, -then? And yet, when I heard him recite, it seemed to me that -I could do nothing more than stutter and gabble foolishly; his -voice was music——'</p> - -<p>'He has been a very great artist, and speech is to him as the -flute to the flute-player: an instrument with which he does what -he will. Yes, you pleased him, my dear. He thinks that you -have in you the soul of an artist, the future of one if you -choose.'</p> - -<p>'Ah!' she laughed aloud for sheer happiness and triumph, in -the joy and the pride of a child. It seemed to her the most -exquisite glad tidings, the most superb success.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> - -<p>'He will even help you; he will train you himself; and -whoever is trained by David Rosselin is in a certain sense secure -of the public ear,' said Othmar with a reluctance which he felt -was unjust to her, for if she possessed this power why should -she be denied the knowledge of it? 'But,' he added slowly, -'I must warn you that even he, great artist as he has been, -thinks as I think—that it is better to mow grass in the fresh air -than to seek the suffrage of crowds in the gaslight. He thinks -as I think, that, for a woman, the more secluded and sheltered -be the path of life the happier and the better is it for her. This -sounds very cold and cautious to you, no doubt; but it would -be what every man of the world would tell you, who was honest -with you, and had your welfare at heart.'</p> - -<p>Her face changed and clouded as she heard him.</p> - -<p>'Why?' she said abruptly.</p> - -<p>He was silent. It was impossible to tell this child, who was -as innocent as any one of the poppies blowing in the grass, all -the reasons which made the future she coveted look to him like -the open mouth of a furnace into which a white sea-bird was -flying in its ignorance.</p> - -<p>'Private life is the best life,' he said as she repeated, a little -imperiously, her 'why?' 'It is the calmest, the simplest, the -most screened from envy and hatred. I suppose tranquillity -does not seem to you the one inestimable blessing which it really -is. You are full of ardours and enthusiasms and longings, as -the vines are full of sap in the springtime. You want the wine -of life, because you do not know that the intoxication of it -is always coupled with nausea, and fever, and unspeakable disgust. -It is of no use saying this to you, because you are so -young; but it is true. If I could compel your future, I would -have it pass yonder, where, far away, we see that golden haze. -There are the great wheat-lands of La Beauce, and the thrift -and the peace and the abundance of a rich pastoral life. If you -spent your little fortune on a farm there, with your love of -country sights and sounds and ways, you would be happy; and -you could take your choice from the many gallant youths who -reap the harvests of those plains. You would be a rich demoiselle -in La Beauce, but in the world of art you may be poor, my -dear, for all your gifts from nature. We are poor, very poor, -forever, when once we have failed.'</p> - -<p>His own words sounded in his ears unkind, unsympathetic, -harsh, and almost coarse; but he spoke as, it seemed to him, -both experience and conscience made it duty to do. Damaris -looked down on the shorn grass at her feet, and he saw her face -and throat grow red.</p> - -<p>'If I had wished to marry I would have married my cousin,' -she said with a sound of anger and offence in her voice. 'Peasant -life is good, very good. Perhaps, if I had never seen any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>thing -different, it might have seemed always the best. But not -now—not now——'</p> - -<p>'But you do not know——.' He left his reply unfinished.</p> - -<p>Standing in the green warm meadow, with the light of afternoon -shed on it, and the golden haze of a late summer day on -its horizon, his thoughts were full of all the many things in life -of which she could imagine nothing. All the passions and -pleasures and disgusts, all the desires and satisfactions and -satieties, all the tumult and vanity and nausea and giddy haste -of life in the world—what could she tell of these? She would -be handsome and young and alone; what would that world not -teach her in a year, a month, an hour? Self-consciousness -first; then, with that knowledge, all else.</p> - -<p>As, to her, having never known anything but the close limits -of peasant life, the world which she did not know assumed the -colours and the rejoicing of a vast borealis pageantry, so to him, -by whom the world was known like an oft-read Virgil, it seemed -that the safety, the quietude, the daily round of simple duties, -undisturbed by ambition within or by contention from without, -which the life of the peasant afforded, was a kind of happiness, -a positive security from which any safe within it were ill-advised -to wander.</p> - -<p>Of all wretched creatures the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i> seemed to him to be -the most wretched. He had reproached his wife with the effort -to make this child one of those pitiful anomalies, and he now -reproached himself with doing the same unkindness.</p> - -<p>Damaris was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>; she could never more return to the -order of life whence she had come. Ever since some indistinct -glory for herself had been suggested to her by the thoughtless -words of the great lady who had represented Fate to her, she -had been haunted by the desire for an existence wholly unlike -that to which she had been born and by which she had been surrounded. -It had been only a very few hours which she had -passed under the roof of St. Pharamond, but that short space -had been long enough to make her conceive a world wholly -inconceivable to her before, a world in which art and luxury -were things of daily habit, in which leisure and loveliness and -gaiety and ease were matters of course, like the coming and -going of time, in which personal graces and personal charm -were all cultured as the flowers were cultured under glass; in -which even for her there might become possible the fruition of -all manner of gorgeous indefinite visions, born out of the suggestions -of poets and the phantasmagoria of romantic books—a -world in which all she had humbly longed for, as she had listened -to the nightingales in the orange thickets, would become visible -to her and possessed.</p> - -<p>She was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>: not in the vulgar sense, but in the sadder -meaning of a young life uprooted from its natural soil and filled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -with desires, aspirations, dreams, which made all that was -actually within her grasp valueless to her. That one night, in -which she had seen around her the destinies which appeared to -her like a tale of fairy-land, had impressed her imagination with -indelible memories and her heart with ineffaceable wishes. He, -who only saw in the life of his own world tedium, inanity, -stupidity, extravagance, monotonous repetition, could not guess -what enchantment its externals had worn to her. He, who was -tired of the unvaried paths of that garden of pleasure whose -habitués only see that in it 'grove nods to grove, each alley has -its fellow,' could not divine what a paradise it had looked to this -young waif and stray, who had been only able to catch one -glimpse of its beauties through the golden bars of its shut gates. -To him her wish for the world appeared the most pathetic of -errors, the most pitiable of blunders, a very madness of unwise -choice. Had not the world been with him always, and what -had it given him? Possibly it had in reality given him much -more than he remembered: it had given him culture with all -its charms, and courtesy with all its graces; it had given him -the great powers which lie in wealth, and the great light which -shines from knowledge. But then he was so used to these he -counted them not, and the world only wore to him the aspect of -a monster devouring all leisure, all simplicity, all repose, driving -all mankind before it in a breathless chase of swiftly escaping -hours; and to her this monster would be ravenous as a wolf, -cruel as it could never be to any man! It would take everything -from her, and only give her in return worthless gifts of -ruinous passions, of consuming fevers, of poisoned fruits, of fierce -desires.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him as if he saw some young child coming gaily -through the grasses, clasping all unconscious to its breast a mass -of smoking dynamite, and deeming it a kindly playfellow.</p> - -<p>And it was impossible to warn her in words brutal enough -to scare her from her purpose. He could not say to her, 'Men -are beasts, and women are worse: there are hideous pleasures, -hateful appetites, cruel temptations, of which you know nothing, -but which will all crowd on your knowledge and grow to your -taste, once you are in the midst of them. The world will -embrace you, but as the bull embraced the Christian maiden -forced to appear as Pasiphaë in the circus of Nero. Be wise -while there is time. Stay in the clean, clear daylight of a -country life. Its paths are narrow and few, they only lead -from the hearth to the door, from the door to the brook or the -mill; but you may walk in them safe and content, and teach -your children to follow your steps. Peace of mind is the -sweetest thing upon earth; but it is like the wood-sorrel, it -only grows in shady, quiet, homely places. No one has it in -the world.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> - -<p>But he thought these thoughts, and did not say them. He -looked at her standing with dew-wet feet amongst the seeding -grasses, the warm fresh air about her, the blue sky above, and -he thought of her in the atmosphere of a supper-room in Paris, -with the smoke, and the perfumes, and the odours of the wines, -and beside her men with swimming lascivious eyes, and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">drôlesses</i> -with flushed faces and indecent gestures. He would not take -her there, but others would.</p> - -<p>She raised her head suddenly and looked at him.</p> - -<p>'What are you afraid of for me?' she said suddenly. 'There -is nothing to be afraid of. If I fail I fail; I have enough -always to live on, you say; and if I succeed——'</p> - -<p>'Failure will not hurt you,' he said coldly; 'success may.'</p> - -<p>'How can success hurt one unless one be very vain or very -weak? I do not think I am vain, and I know I am strong.'</p> - -<p>'My dear—you can go from the meadows to the world if -you will, but remember you cannot come back from the world -to the meadows.'</p> - -<p>'Why? Did not many come from the world to Port-Royal -when it stood yonder?'</p> - -<p>'Yes; they came with sick hearts, with defeated hopes, -with aching wounds, with disappointed passions; but they -never stood in the green pastures, in the morning of life, again.'</p> - -<p>There was a sigh in the words which brought them home to -her heart with a sudden sense of all their meaning.</p> - -<p>She was mute while the little crickets in the stalks of the -hay grass sung their last little song of one note, which would -soon end with the end of their tiny lives.</p> - -<p>'You are not happy yourself?' she said after awhile. -Astonishment and regret were in the question.</p> - -<p>Othmar hesitated. His sincerity combated the negative, -which a vague sense of loyalty to one absent made him desirous -to utter.</p> - -<p>'No one after a certain age is happy, my dear,' he answered -evasively. 'Illusions are happiness; and in the world which you -think must be a fairy tale, we lose them very quickly.'</p> - -<p>'I should have thought you were happy,' she said regretfully; -that splendid pageantry of life of which she had seen a -glimpse seemed to her magical, marvellous, inexhaustible.</p> - -<p>'I did not think <em>she</em> was,' she added, with that directness -and candour which made her great unlikeness to all of her sex -whom he had ever known.</p> - -<p>'Why?' he asked abruptly; the supposition annoyed him.</p> - -<p>'She looked tired, and as if she were looking for something -she did not find.'</p> - -<p>The accuracy and divination in the words surprised him. -How had this child, who had never before seen any woman of -the world, guessed so accurately the perpetual vague desire and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -as vague dissatisfaction which had always gone with the soul of -his wife as a shadow goes through brilliant light?</p> - -<p>All her life long Nadège had found the old saw true, familiarity -had bred contempt in her; custom had made wisdom seem -foolishness, wit seem prose, amusement become tedium, and -interest change to apathy. Intimate knowledge of anything, of -anyone, had always altered each for her, as the fairy gold -changed in mortal hands to withered leaves.</p> - -<p>It was no fault of hers; it was not even mere inconstancy of -temper; it was rather due to the infinitude of her inexhaustible -expectations and the microscopic penetration of her intelligence. -The world was small to her as to Alexander.</p> - -<p>He knew that neither to her nor to himself had their life -together been that poem, that passion, that harmony which they—or -he at least—had imagined that it would be. But was not -this due only to that doom of human nature which they shared -in common with all the rest of mankind? Was it not merely -the effect of that lassitude and vague disappointment which -must follow on the indulgence of every great passion, simply -because in its supreme hours it reaches heights of rapture at -which nothing human can remain?</p> - -<p>Yet, however his philosophy may explain it, to have any -other imagine that he does not render a woman who belongs to -him perfectly contented with him always irritates and offends -every man. It is a suspicion cast on his powers, his loyalty, -and his good sense: it indirectly accuses him of deficiency in -attraction or of feebleness of character. Othmar had but little -vanity; no more than human nature naturally possesses in its -unconscious forms of self-love; but the little he had was mortified -by this child's observation. She, ignorant of all the fine -intricacies of emotion which are the traits of such highly-cultured -and over-refined temperaments as were theirs, could only -say, in her simple and inadequate language, that they seemed -to her 'not happy.' It was not the phrase which expressed what -they lacked; it was too homely, too crude, too direct, to describe -the complicated world-weariness of which they both suffered the -penalties, the innumerable and conflicting sentiments and desires -which made of their lives a continual vague expectation -and as vague and continual a regret. But her young eyes, unused -as they were to read anything less clear than the open -language of sea and sky, and ignorant of the whole meaning of -psychological analysis, had yet been able to perceive the shadow -of this which she had had no power of understanding.</p> - -<p>He was surprised at her penetration, whilst he wondered -uneasily if the world in general, so much keener of sight and -more bitter of tongue than she, saw as much as she saw. The idea -that it might be so was unwelcome to him. The supposition -was horrible to him that the great passion of his life had gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -the way of most great passions which are exposed to that most -cruel of all slow destroyers—familiarity; familiarity which is as -the mildew to the wheat, as the sirdax to the fir-tree, as the -calandra to the sugar-cane. He loathed to realise the fact, or -think of it in any way; and when it was placed before him by -another's observation, he saw his own soul, as it were in a -mirror, and detested what he saw.</p> - -<p>He answered with some constraint: 'I have told you, my -dear, that happiness is the fruit of illusions; it cannot exist -without them any more than we could have that beautiful haze -yonder without water in the atmosphere. Besides, in the world, -people are only content so long as they are of completely frivolous -characters. My wife has cultivated her intelligence and -her wit too exquisitely to be capable of that sort of coarse and -common satisfaction with things as they are which is so easy to -mediocre minds.'</p> - -<p>'Yet you advise <em>me</em> to be content?'</p> - -<p>'My dear child, you are young, you are accustomed to an -out-of-door life, you have the felicity of belonging to country -things and country thoughts which give you a storehouse full of -sunny memories. My wife is a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaine</i> (if you have ever -heard that word) who is also a pessimist and a metaphysician. -Life presents many intricate problems to her mind which will, I -hope, never trouble your joyous acceptance of it as it is. Fénelon, -I assure you, was a happier man than Lamennais.'</p> - -<p>'Because he was a stupider one.'</p> - -<p>'Stupid? No, but simpler, cast in a different mould, naturally -inclined to faith, averse to speculation, taking things as -he found them without question. That is the cast of mind of -all men and women who are made to be happy.'</p> - -<p>She was silent; wishfully thinking of those immense fields of -knowledge shut out from her own eyes like the aerial spheres of -unseen suns and planets which the unassisted sight can never behold. -She felt childish, ignorant, made of dull and common clay.</p> - -<p>The bells of a little distant spire sounded for Vespers. The -sun was sinking beyond the edge of the wide green plain. A -deeper stillness was stealing over the meadow and the low -coppices which made its boundaries. Birds, looking grey in the -shadows, flew low, to and fro, restlessly, in that uncertain flight -with which, near nightfall, they always seek a resting-place for -the dark hours.</p> - -<p>Othmar looked at his watch. 'I must leave you or I shall -miss the train to Paris, and I go to-night to Russia.'</p> - -<p>She changed colour.</p> - -<p>'To Russia! That is very far away!'</p> - -<p>'It does not seem so in these days. One sleeps and wakes -and sleeps again, and one is there. If you want me in any -way, write to me at the Paris house and they will forward your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -letter. Rosselin will come to see you to-morrow. He will tell -you, as no one else can, all you will have to prepare for and -encounter if you choose the life of an artist. Do not decide -too hastily. There is no hurry. I like best to think of you in -these safe pastures.'</p> - -<p>'But the winter will come to them and—some time—to me?'</p> - -<p>'It is far enough off you, at least, to be forgotten. Well, -listen to Rosselin and be guided by your own impulses; they -are the only safe guides in such a choice as this. I dare say the -world will win you; the world always does. It is only in fable -that Herakles goes with Pallas. Adieu.'</p> - -<p>She grew very pale, and the light had gone out of her face -as it had now gone off the landscape.</p> - -<p>'You will come back soon?' she asked.</p> - -<p>Othmar resisted a wave of tenderness and pity which passed -over him.</p> - -<p>'Not very soon,' he answered. 'You know I have many -occupations, and the world I warn you against is always with -me, alas! I shall never be able to see you often, my dear, for—for—very -many reasons; but whenever you really need me, -write to me without hesitation, and always depend upon the -sincerity of my regard.'</p> - -<p>She did not reply. She stood motionless. With the coming -of the evening shadows there had came a great chillness, a sense -of loss upon her, as if she had been suddenly brought from the -warm green meadows of the vale of Chevreuse into the awful -silence and whiteness and frozen solitude of a winter's night in -Siberia.</p> - -<p>'Write to me,' said Othmar again. With a gentle movement -he stooped and kissed her on the soft thick waves of hair which -fell over her forehead.</p> - -<p>Then he left her.</p> - -<p>She remained standing in the same place and the same -attitude, her feet in the mown grass growing wet with dew, her -head bent like a statue of meditation. The caress had been -gentle, slight, passionless, like a kiss to a child; but her face -and bosom had grown hot with blushes which the evening shadows -veiled, and a strange vague joy and pain strove together in her.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was eight o'clock in the evening on the plains of Russia, and -warm with that Asiatic heat which comes with the reign of the dog-star -even to the provinces that lie between the Baltic waters and -the Ural snows. In the vast gardens and white wide courts of the -house at Zaraïla the evening was sultry, and Nadège, spending a -few dull days in her annual visit to her elder children and their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -estates, was lying half asleep upon a couch, listening to the -monotonous drip of the lion-fountain in the central court, and -thinking of nothing in especial. This visit had always represented -to her supreme and unmitigated tedium. It was a duty -to come there no doubt; her duties were docile courtiers as a -rule and seldom troubled her; but it was tiresome, infinitely -tiresome, it was so much time lost out of the sum of her life. -Why is duty never agreeable?</p> - -<p>The Napraxine children were in their own apartments; the -clear sunny evening, whose light would stretch almost to dawn, -illumined the gardens and terraces. She reclined motionless -upon her broad low couch, with a little cigarette between her -lips, now and then sending into the air around her delicate rings -of rose-scented smoke. The mother of Platon Napraxine, a -woman old and austere, with the terrible austerity of women -who have loved pleasure and passion, and only turned to devotion -when both have deserted them, sat near and watched her -with dark, brooding, sunken eyes, full of a hate which the -object of it was too indifferent and too careless to care for or to -measure.</p> - -<p>The Princess Lobow Gregorievna, born a Princess Miliutine, -was a woman who had been handsome, but had now lost nearly -all trace of past beauty. She was spare, colourless, and attenuated, -and her severe, straight profile, and her expression of -ascetic rigidity, gave her a curious likeness to those Byzantine -portraits of St. Anne and of St. Elizabeth which were surrounded -with jewels and relics on the altars of her private -chapel. Her piety in old age was as complete and absorbing as -her licentious amours had been in her earlier womanhood. -Superstition had taken the same empire over her in age which -her passions had possessed previously; and she was as extravagant -in her donations to church and convent as she had once -been to the impecunious officers of the guard and princely -gamblers, who had been in turn favoured with her fantastic -and short-lived preference. Her religious and most orthodox -fervour was neither a mask nor an hypocrisy. It was the most -genuine of all religions—that which is founded on personal fear. -But it intensified the hardness of her temper, and never whispered -to her that mercy might be holier than long prayers.</p> - -<p>In all Europe Othmar and his wife had no enemy colder, -harder, more implacable than this holy woman, whose name -meant Love, and whose good works were seen in endowed convents, -jewelled reliques, mighty treasures bestowed all over her -province, and ceremonials, fasts, and penances of the orthodox -most rigidly observed in her person. Nadège never tried to -conciliate or propitiate her grim foe; she was at once too careless -and too courageous. With her delicate and unsparing -raillery she had stung this enmity with many a barbed word,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -subtle and negligent and penetrating, accentuated with the cruel -sweet music of her laughter, until the hatred with which the -Princess Lobow hated her was deep as the Volga, though hidden -like the Volga's bottomless holes so long as Platon Napraxine -had lived. His death had given it justification, and intensified -it a thousandfold.</p> - -<p>'If she were a good woman she would be compelled to hate -me,' thought the object of her hate. 'And being what she is, -if she could poison me secretly she would do it, even in the -blessed bread itself.'</p> - -<p>When they had first met after her marriage with Othmar, -there had been said between them such words as are ineffaceable -on the memory like vitriol flung on the face.</p> - -<p>'For the first time in my life I have allowed myself to be -in a rage; <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">je me suis encanaillée!</i>' she had said to herself, -penitent not for the anger into which she had been driven, but -for the force with which she had uttered it, which was an offence -against her canons of good taste.</p> - -<p>The earlier years of the Princess Lobow had been dedicated -to all those refined ingenuities of depravity in which the nineteenth -century can rival the Rome of Vitellius and the Constantinople -of the Byzantine emperors. There were terrible -facts in her past, ready, like so many knives, to the use of her -opponent, allusions which could pierce like steel, and could scar -like flame. Nadège had spared none of them. With all the -pitiless disdain of a woman in whom the senses have but very -faint power, she had poured out her scorn on the other, whose -senses had been her tyrants until, virtuous perforce through the -chills of age, she had taken her worthless withered soul to God.</p> - -<p>Since that time the bitterest enmity had been open and -avowed between them. Concession to the world, and regard to -the dead man's memory, caused them to still keep up a show -and aspect of conventional politeness before others. But the -polished surface covered the most bitter feud. They were -studiously ceremonious and courteous one to the other; but -beneath the few phrases they exchanged, often trivial and apparently -amiable as these might be, there were a hint, a tone, a -meaning which told to each of the other's undying animosity. -To the younger woman it was a matter of pure indifference, of -careless amusement; her nature was too capricious and too disdainful -to cherish deep enmities; she despised rather than she -disliked; but to the elder this hatred she cherished was the last -flickering flame of the many hot passions which had governed -her in earlier years. For her only son she had had a concentrated -intensity of affection, into which all the ambition, -cupidity, and love of dominion in her character had been -united. His marriage had been hateful to her, and when -Nadine, in her sixteenth year, as fragile as an orchid and as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -impertinent as Cherubino, petulantly detesting the husband -they had given her, and in the bitterness of her disillusions at -war with all the world, was brought in the first months of her -marriage to the great house of Zaraïla, the Princess Lobow had -seen in her not only the despoiler of her own power, but the -ruin of her son.</p> - -<p>Many and violent had been the scenes between Platon -Napraxine and herself, of which his wife was the object and the -cause.</p> - -<p>'She is a crystal of ice, you say,' she told him a hundred -times. 'Well, she will so chill your heart one day that it will -be numb for ever. Remember that; I warn you.'</p> - -<p>He did remember when he went out to his death in the -dawn of the April morning at Versailles.</p> - -<p>Whilst he lived his mother's hatred for his wife was impotent -and perforce mute; but all the many slights, the constant -indifference, the frequent ridicule of which he was the object, -though unperceived or forgiven by him, were written on his -mother's memory indelibly as on tablets of stone. All the -coquetries and scandals which were associated with his wife's -name, all the tragedies for which the breath of her world made -her responsible, all the cruel words and strange caprices which -were attributed to her, were gathered up and treasured by the -Princess Lobow. Seldom leaving her solitudes in the provinces, -and seldom seen even in Petersburg, she yet was as accurately -informed of all the gossip of Europe concerning her daughter-in-law -as though she had lived perpetually beside her. None -of the minutiæ of the vaguest rumours about her escaped the -vigilance of her enemy. Saint though she was, she prayed -passionately that some imprudence greater than usual, some -coquetry which would pass beyond the patience of her husband -and her world, would deliver Nadège Federowna into her -hands, but she waited in vain. The indulgence of both the -world and the husband was inexhaustible for one to whom they -were both of the most absolute insignificance.</p> - -<p>Then one day, as falls a bolt from a clear sky, a single line -by the electric wires told her that her son was dead.</p> - -<p>In her eyes he was murdered by his wife, as surely as -though she had touched his lips with poison.</p> - -<p>Her grief and her rage were terrible: the more terrible -because the hatred which might have assuaged it had no outlet -in action, could scarce have any in speech.</p> - -<p>For Platon Napraxine had left his young sons wholly in -the hands of their mother, and she could take them whither -she would, and do with them whatever she chose; and the -elder woman, who had transferred to them all that jealous and -violent attachment which she had given their father, concealed -all she felt that she might retain them near her, whilst the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -secretiveness and ruses of the Slav temperament made it possible -for her to continue in apparent friendship before the world -with one whom she looked on as his destroyer.</p> - -<p>She sat now erect on an antique chair of gilded and -painted leather, and through her dropped eyelids watched the -indolent attitude, the profound idleness, the outstretched limbs, -like those of a reposing Diana, of the woman she loathed. In -all the attitude, from the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sans gêne</i> and complete ease of it to -the little rose-scented puffs of smoke which ever and again -came from her parted lips, there was that 'note of modernity' -which beyond all other things the Princess Lobow detested. -The women of her time had been as licentious as the great -Catharine herself, but they had been different to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cocodettes</i> -in manner, in mind, in opinion, in everything. They had been -like fierce Oriental empresses, often barbarous, uncleanly, gross, -but they had had a stateliness which all their excesses could -not impair. The modern woman of the world, with her careless -attitudes, her mockery of all ceremonial, her disrespect for -tradition and etiquette, her airy scepticism, and her vague dissatisfaction, -was, wherever she was met with, an enigma and an -affront to the elder woman, whose own life had been divided -between strong vices and strong faiths, and whose bigotry -and whose sensuality had been of equal force. They had -neither senses nor souls, these poor modern <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">anémiques</i>, thought -this woman of seventy years, who had been a Messalina and -who had become a St. Katherine.</p> - -<p>'Ah, you despise us, madame; how right you are!' -Nadège had said to her once. 'We never know what we wish, -and when we get what we ask for, we are as irritated as when -it is denied to us. It is the fault of all culture—it creates discontent -and fastidiousness as surely as civilisation brings all -kinds of new diseases. I only wish that we could be like our -granddames and godmothers, who had no earthly ideals beyond -a constant succession of big officers of cuirassiers, and no mental -doubt whatever as to the existence of a "bon Dieu." It must -have simplified life so much to have been able to balance the -little weakness for the succession of cuirassiers with such a -perfect confidence in Heaven!'</p> - -<p>At this moment in the summer evening at Zaraïla neither of -them were speaking. They had exchanged many cruel, courteous -innuendoes in the course of the day, but with the evening -there had come a tacit truce. The little boys were wholly -under the power of their mother as their guardian, and their -grandmother feared that if she were too much irritated she -might remove them from Zaraïla or request her to leave it. -Nadine, on her side, had thought, with a sense of compassion -and that disdainful but candid justice which was seldom -wanting in her: 'After all, as she loved that poor, big, clumsy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -fellow so well, and he was her only son—the only thing she -had—it is pardonable, it is natural, that she should hate me for -ever.'</p> - -<p>It grew late, but it was still light with the long and radiant -evening of the north in summer. She, in the drowsy heat of -the eventide, looked with still dreamy eyes out on to the sultry -gardens beneath, where golden evening light was poured on -endless aisles and fields of roses, and groves of feathery bananas -and plumed palms; the vegetation of the vales of Kashmere -made by art to blossom there for the brief season of a Russian -summer.</p> - -<p>'How very foolish women are to fear absence,' she thought. -'Absence is the only possible avenue which can lead us to find -the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fontaine de jouvence</i> of renewed interest. Familiarity is so -fatal—so fatal! Helen's self would be unable to hold her own -against it. Those silly women who let the man they love enter -their chamber as easily as he can go into his racing stables, set -a great grey ghost of indifference at the threshold. Most -women are afraid of not being near what they love. If they -only knew how distance helps them; how constant proximity -hurts them! If Love cannot keep a few surprises in his pocket, -he is as tiresome as a newspaper a week old.'</p> - -<p>She laughed a little, watching the leaves of a full-blown -rose fall under the touch of an alighting bird.</p> - -<p>'When it has once been full-blown,' she thought, 'any -touch—even a bird's, even a butterfly's—will serve to finish it -for ever.'</p> - -<p>Love was so like that great crimson rose, which a moment -before had been a cup of ruby-coloured fragrance, and now was -a mere litter of dropped leaves upon the grass. Love lives by -its emotions, its desires, its illusions: so long as these can be -excited and sustained it is Love; when they cannot be so, it is -as the Spanish poet said centuries ago, habit, friendship, what -you will, but not Love any more.</p> - -<p>She had studied the natures of men too profoundly not to -know this.</p> - -<p>There was the sound of wheels in the central court, and -various doors opened and shut in the apartments leading to the -grand salon where they were. Then the groom of the chambers, -in his black uniform, only relieved by his silver chain of -office and the key embroidered on his collar, preceded and -announced Othmar.</p> - -<p>Nadine half rose, leaning on one arm on the cushion.</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho, this is charming of you! I did not expect -you until to-morrow,' she said, with a smile of welcome, as she -put out her left hand to him. Othmar kissed her fingers with -warmth and deference, then saluted with ceremony the Princess -Lobow.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I came from Moscow more quickly than I could have hoped -to do,' he said, as he seated himself beside his wife. 'An -Imperial train was leaving for the north, and the Grand Duke -Alexis offered me a place in it. Are you well? It is three -months and more since we met.'</p> - -<p>'I am as well as it is ever permitted one to be in a century -in which the nerves play the most prominent rôle. And the -children?'</p> - -<p>'Perfectly well, and perfectly happy. They are not yet at -the age of nerves. But I have telegraphed all news to you; -there is nothing left to say, except that absence——'</p> - -<p>'Oh, do not make me compliments like a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">berger d'éventail</i>! -We will take all that for granted.'</p> - -<p>The reproof to him was the same sort of mockery with -which she had been always wont to repress the attempts at -tenderness of Napraxine; but his mother, listening, heard the -difference in the accent, and watching, saw the difference in -the smile with which they were spoken.</p> - -<p>'The wanton!' she thought bitterly; 'she expected him to-night, -though she said not till to-morrow. It was for him, that -attitude like a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Diane endormie</i>, that coquette's disarray, that -studied disorder of laces and gauzes, that little bouquet of heliotrope -fastened just above the left breast! Oh, the beast, the -beast! All that belonged to my son—every atom of it, from her -little ear to her slender foot, and should have been burnt with -him, like the Indian women, if I could have had my way—should -have been buried with him, like his stars and his crosses. Oh, -the beast, the beast! if I could only wring her neck!'</p> - -<p>Then she rose, and murmuring some words inaudible and -indifferent to her companions, she left the apartment. Othmar, -alone beside his wife in the aromatic warmth of the summer -evening, bent over her couch and kissed her little bouquet of -heliotrope.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Allons, berger!</i>' she cried, with a little resistance which was -not displeasure.</p> - -<p>It pleased her that she had the power to make her husband -her lover; that she could still see him moved to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">folies des -bergers</i>. It was a point of vanity with her, as well as an impulse -of the heart, to retain something of that empire over him which -had once been so absolute. When she should wholly cease to be -able to do so, it seemed to her that she would be grown old -indeed. She had never put more coquetry, more sorcery, more -art concealed by art into her efforts to blind and enslave her -lovers, than she had done that evening when she was awaiting -Othmar after three months' absence. It might not be the -highest form of love, but it was the ablest. It was of a piece -with that magic by which Cleopatra defied time, and changed -the ravages of habit into philtres of fresh charm.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Othmar did not tell her that night of Damaris.</p> - -<p>With daylight he remembered uneasily that it was a story -which should be told. A certain nervousness came over him -whenever he thought of her possible, her probable, laughter, -the incredulity as to his motives which she would be sure, out -of mirth, to affect if she were too unlike other women to in -seriousness entertain it. He recalled the tone with which she -had spoken of his escort of the girl to her island, and he shrank -from hearing the same tone again. He felt that, if heard, it -would anger him unreasonably, perhaps move him to the utterance -of that kind of words which are most fatal to friendship, -harmony, or love.</p> - -<p>The lovely <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Diane endormie</i>, who had received him with so -sweet a smile, could, when aroused, select and speed arrows -from her quiver which could pierce deep and rankle long.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him impossible to tell her that for weeks his -house had been the home of Damaris Bérarde without awaking -all those ironies and all that disdain which were always so very -near the surface in her nature that they were displayed upon -the slightest provocation. He would certainly seem to her to -have behaved with needless exaggeration, with uncalled-for -chivalry. Paris was wide enough to furnish other asylums than -his own house; his means were large enough and powerful -enough to have obtained friends for a desolate girl without becoming -her chief friend himself. Away from the pathos and -charm of Damaris's fate, of her perfect trust in himself, and of -her childish courage and candour of character, what he had -done seemed even to him, himself, unnecessarily personal in its -care of her. He did not regret it; he would not have done less -if he had had to do it again; yet he was conscious that to -induce his wife to see his actions in the light in which he -honestly saw them would be difficult, probably impossible.</p> - -<p>This day drifted by, and another, and another; and the -name of Damaris did not pass his lips.</p> - -<p>She had for him the sanctity of innocence, of youth, and of -supreme misfortune; he felt that he could not trust himself to -have her made the target for the silver arrows of his wife's wit. -True, there might be moments in which she would be so compassionate -and generous, that the calamities of the child whom -she had tempted from her safe solitudes would find in her a -frank and generous friend. But Othmar knew women too well -not to know that she would only have been so had he himself -had nothing to do with the fate of this waif and stray; if she, -and not himself, had found her adrift in the streets of Paris.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p> - -<p>'She would doubt my motives and ridicule my endeavours,' -he thought, and the fear of her slight, chill laughter was strong -upon him. He knew that she would be unsparing in her sarcasms -upon himself, even if she should chance to feel any -remnant of her momentary interest in the future Desclée of her -prophecies.</p> - -<p>He could not forget the coldness and scorn with which she -had treated his regret and remorse at Amyôt; he could not -forget the aching sense of loneliness and loss with which she had -allowed him to leave her presence on the night when he had -told her of the little verses which he had found in the closed -chambers of Yseulte. He almost resented with a sense of weakness -and unworthiness in himself, the empire which she possessed -over his senses, the self-oblivion into which she had the power -to draw him when she chose.</p> - -<p>He was sensible that he lost all dignity in her eyes, because -he was so willing to forgive, so easy to be recalled, so spaniel-like -in his too meek acceptance of her slights, and too eager -gratitude for her capricious tenderness.</p> - -<p>The first hours passed of that dominion which she could -always exercise over him at will, the sense of his own weakness -returned to him with humiliation. He was conscious that he -must appear unmanly and feeble to her, since he allowed her to -play with him thus at her whim and pleasure. At Amyôt she -had been unkind, disdainful, contemptuous; if he condoned her -cruelty, and accepted her commands, did he not seem to her no -higher than the Siberian greyhound which it was her fancy one -moment to adorn and caress, and which the next was abandoned -and forgotten?</p> - -<p>He knew that a lover may obey the varying shades of his -mistress's temper without unmanliness, but that in marriage -such humility and obedience on the man's side are fatal to his -peace and self-respect. If he had had the strength of character -from the first to resist her influence, and enforce his own, he -might have had empire over her; now he felt that he would -never gain it, that on her side alone was all that immense power -of command, and of superiority, which in human love always -remains with the one who loves least. He had too long allowed -her to treat him as she treated her hawk in the falconry-parties -at Amyôt, whistling the bird to her wrist and casting it off down -the wind with wanton unstable fancies, for him now to take that -place in her esteem, and that dignity in her sight, which he had -lost through his too fond and too submissive idolatry of her. -He had only of late grown conscious of this, and the sudden -perception of his own error was full of bitterness and useless -regret.</p> - -<p>'He resents the power I have over him,' she thought, 'and -he is thinking of something which he does not say.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> - -<p>She had never expected him to vary with her varying moods. -When she was cold, she had always seen him unhappy; when -she had chided his warmth, he had always remained her adorer. -That any shadow from her own indifference which had fallen -like night across the paths of others should ever touch herself, -seemed to her impossible, intolerable, almost grotesque; that -she could ever cease to be his sun and moon, his planet, and -his fixed star, seemed to her as improbable as that the earth -would cease to revolve.</p> - -<p>Her philosophic wit had indeed predicted the time when the -fate which overtakes all passion would overtake his, and end it, -but in her inmost soul that time had seemed to her remote as -death itself. From the time when his eyes had first met hers, -she had had complete and undisputed mastery over his life; she -had dominated his fancy, filled his imagination, ruled over his -destiny, and held empire over his senses. More than once she -had told herself, as she had told him, that in the common course -of human life and human nature this would change and cease -some day, but in her own heart she had never realised what her -lips had said.</p> - -<p>Men had seldom changed to her. They had met tragic ends -for her sake or through her name, or they had given up their -lives to celibate indifference to all other women, as Gui de -Béthune had done; but they had seldom or never, having once -loved her, loved others; seldom or never learned to meet her -tranquilly in the world as one who had become naught to them. -The philtre poured out by her cool white hand had been of that -rare flavour which makes all other beverages tasteless. Even -Platon Napraxine, although her husband, had yet retained for -her such utter devotion in his slow, rude, mute nature, that he -had hungered for a rose from her bosom the night before he had -gone out to be shot like a dog for her sake.</p> - -<p>Of the mortification of waning ardour, of the slow sad change -from fervour to apathy, of the great <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">débâcle</i> of all passion which -so many women watch with hopeless and sinking hearts, as poor -peasants of Alpine valleys watch the melting snow and stealing -floods sweep away their homesteads—of these she had known -nothing; known no more than the reigning and honoured -sovereign knows of exile and dethronement. Now she was -conscious of it, of the first slight imperceptible chillness of feeling, -even as she had been conscious of what no other eyes than -hers saw; the first faint change in her own beauty like the film -of breath on a mirror. It was very slight, rather negative than -positive, rather told by what was lacking than by what was -present; a shadow of fatigue, an absence of eagerness, a forced -attention, an accent of constraint, slender, vague, intangible -things all; yet apparent and eloquent to her quick intelligence, -to her supreme knowledge of human nature.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> - -<p>They affected her with a strange sense of offence, of astonishment, -of irritation. She had a sudden impression of loss, as of -one who, having carelessly swung in his hand, without remembering -it, a jewel of value, discovers with a shock of surprise that -his hand is empty, and his treasure dropped in some crowded -street, its fall unheard, its loss only told by its absence.</p> - -<p>Always, hitherto, after any separation he had returned to her -with the impassioned enthusiasm of a lover; the hours had been -long to him without her near presence, and all the warmth of -early passion had accompanied his return to or his welcome of -her. She had often chilled him, checked him, laughed at him, -left him vexed, dissatisfied, and chafing, but the ardour on his -side had never been less. Men had called him uxorious, and he -had been careless of their ridicule; he had only lived for her. -Now, for the first time, a chill had come, as sometimes in a -summer night, in those still grass plains of Russia, there would -steal through the hot, fragrant air a breath of ice-cold wind, -and then those skilled to read the forecast of the weather would -say to one another: 'Lo! the frost is near.'</p> - -<p>She was as skilled in the weather of the human heart as the -peasants were in that of the earth and skies; and she failed not -to read its presage aright. With all her arrogance she had -always had that kind of humility which comes from great intelligence -and self-comprehension; part of her contempt for her -many lovers had arisen from her candid estimate of herself, as -not worth so much covetousness, despair, and dispute. All the -flatteries she had been saturated with all her life had left her -brain cool, and had never warped her estimate of herself. She -would see coldness take the place of idolatry with the same -philosophic consciousness of its inevitability with which she -contemplated the certainty of age overtaking her upon the road -of life if she continued to live. Long before their approach she -had reasoned out the surety of the arrival of both, sure as the -surety of winter to the Russian plains. But still, nature shrinks -and withers before winter. Who can welcome it as they welcome -summer?</p> - -<p>With the inherent instinct of contradiction common to all -human nature she, who had nine times out of ten evaded his -caresses and repulsed his affections, was angered and felt -defrauded of her own because for once her power over him in -a measure failed in the exercise of its magnetism. To find -thoughts which occupied his mind to her exclusion was something -so strange, so new, that it disturbed all her philosophic -serenity, and with that quick divination of the motives of men -with which her experience and her penetration supplied her, -she wondered if it were in truth only the memory of that poor -dead woman which had changed his manner and chilled his -caresses, or if it were some fresh and living influence?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p> - -<p>A certain cold contempt succeeded her anger as this possibility -suggested itself.</p> - -<p>If he were like other men, after all? Well—why not? -Would she care greatly? She did not know. All she was -conscious of at the moment was that sense of astonishment, of -affront, of loss, with which a woman feels for the first time that -her power over any man has had its fullest sway, and has begun -to decline and waste.</p> - -<p>It was a sensation she had never experienced before, and it -displeased her that she should be capable of feeling it.</p> - -<p>'As if I were Jeannette and he were Jeanôt!' she thought -with disdain for so <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> an emotion.</p> - -<p>But it recalled to her sharply, painfully, what the world -never had recalled to her hitherto; that the time must come to -her, no less than to others, when her empire over all men would -cease, when its sceptre would pass to other hands. It is a -knowledge which hurts with the humiliation of dethronement -every woman who has ever reigned.</p> - -<p>There was nothing said by either which had the least actual -coldness or offence in it: yet the sense of offence and coldness -was between them, and many times he smarted under -some such touch of ridicule or of reproof from her as had used -to make Platon Napraxine stand like a chidden schoolboy before -her. He was neither so blunt of nerve nor so dull of comprehension -as Napraxine had been; and he had an impatient -revolt of compromised dignity when he became the target for -his wife's delicate and cruel ironies. True, he knew they were -a part of her temper; as natural to her as its talon to the -falcon, as its pungent odour to the calycanthus. He did not -attribute too serious a meaning to them, knowing that her lips -were often merciless when her heart was kind. Yet they irritated -and estranged him. No man likes to feel that his character -is lessened or his opinions regarded with indifference by the -woman before whom he most desires to stand in a fair if not an -heroic light.</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho,' she said a little irritably one day when he -had answered her with wandering attention, 'you are very -pensive and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">distrait</i> since you came to Russia. What have you -been doing in the solitudes of a Parisian summer? You look -as if you had been writing an epic and had failed in it.'</p> - -<p>'Death is never gay or agreeable,' said Othmar; 'and I -have been in its company.'</p> - -<p>'My dear, when death does not come until our friends are -over eighty, surely we can see his approach without surprise -or any very great regret. Besides, I never knew that Baron -Friederich was remarkably sympathetic to you. You used to -quarrel with him about most things. But you have such a -curious waywardness in always regretting, when they are dead,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -the absence of the very persons you most wished away from you -when they were living.'</p> - -<p>Othmar shrank a little from the words, as though they hurt -him physically. They were true enough to be painful.</p> - -<p>'Perhaps one knows their value too late,' he said, controlling -with effort a strong impatience of her want of sympathy -and her unkind and careless amusement at his expense.</p> - -<p>'Or perhaps we imagine a value in them they never possessed,' -she replied. 'That is far more probable. Distance -lends enchantment to the view of them—at least it does with -such temperaments as yours, which are always self-tormenting -and given to idealising both things and people. When the -persons are living, to ruffle and weary and contradict you, you -only think what bores they are; but when they are dead you -begin to idealise them, and sacrifice yourself to their manes in -all kinds of self-censure. It is a very morbid way of taking life. -I hope your son will not resemble you in that particular.'</p> - -<p>'It is to be hoped, for his comfort, that he will rather resemble -his mother in the art of immediate and complete oblivion -of both the dead and the living,' said Othmar, with an irritation -which was almost ill-temper, and a retort which passed the -limits of courtesy.</p> - -<p>He had never felt so strong an annoyance as he felt now at -her ironical and slighting treatment of his thoughts and feelings; -so great an impatience of that tranquil and contemptuous -method of regarding life which never varied in her, and which -would never vary, it seemed to him, even before his own dead -body. Before it he felt that fatigue which human eyes feel -when long in the radiance of electric light. He longed for -simple sympathy, simple consolation, simple affection, as the -tired eyes long for rest in cool shadows of dusky dewy eves in -summer woods, and he was ill at ease with himself for what he -concealed from her.</p> - -<p>Yet, he thought, of what use would it be to tell her of that -poor child at Les Hameaux? She would have no pity certainly, -probably no patience, with what would seem to her the most -absurdly romantic course of adventures. She would ridicule -him as she ridiculed him now—if she believed him; and very -likely she would not even do that.</p> - -<p>She looked at him under the languid lids of her dreamy -eyes: eyes so calm, so indifferent, so mysterious, so satirical in -their survey of him as of all mankind.</p> - -<p>'My dear friend,' she said, with a little contempt and a -little rebuke in her tone, 'it seems to me that we are very -nearly—quarrelling! Nothing is so vulgar as to quarrel. I -have never done it in my life. It is a great waste of time; and -nothing can be more <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i>. I have never understood why -people should quarrel; it is so very easy to walk away!'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p> - -<p>Therewith she rose and walked towards the open doors, with -that undulating movement of the hips and beautiful ease and -grace of step for which she was renowned through Europe; no -woman's walk was comparable to hers.</p> - -<p>Othmar remained standing where he was, and looked after -her with a sombre and regretful glance, in which some of the -old worship and passion lingered, united to a new-born anger -and offence. The mortification which lies for any man of intelligence -and feeling in the sense that he has never really touched -and held the soul of the woman of whose physical possession he -has been master, was upon him in a strong and cruel sense of -moral failure and of intellectual impotence. Was it his fault or -hers? Was it true, as he had said once to her, that you cannot -obtain more from any nature than it possesses, and that all the -forces of created life cannot draw fire from the smooth marble -or make the pale pearl blush like the opal? Was it that she -had it not in her to give any man more than that mingling of -momentary aphrodisiacal indulgence and of eternal immutable -derision; and that whilst her power to create a heaven of physical -passion was so great, her power of satisfying the exactions of -the heart and soul was slight?</p> - -<p>Or was it, as the self-depreciation of his temperament led -him to think, that he himself had not moral and mental force -or intellectual greatness strong enough to obtain empire over -her mind—a mind so cultured, so refined, so exacting, so satiated, -that hardly any human companionship could succeed in -awaking in it any lasting interest?</p> - -<p>He had humility enough to believe the last.</p> - -<p>The Princess Lobow Gregorievna, sitting mute and chill as -a statue of Nemesis, heard and watched, and in the depths of -her narrow darksome soul, filled with harsh creeds and as harsh -hatreds, said to herself that perchance, after all, her dead son -might yet be avenged by the mere results of time—that foe of -love, that friend of all disunion.</p> - -<p>Their marriage had been abhorrent to her. It had seemed to -her eyes like a blow on the cheek given to her son's corpse. -Any laugh or smile of either of them seemed an affront to him. -Every glance of sympathy exchanged between them seemed a -mockery of his death, suffered for their sakes. She who had -never doubted that Othmar had betrayed her son in his lifetime, -only cherished one hope in her chill breast—to see him -suffer the same fate. She had always felt that she would kiss -on both cheeks any lover of Nadine's who should make Othmar -feel the shame of a dishonoured name, the pangs of a betrayed -trust. But for that lover she had looked in vain. She had -always said to the hungry hate in her heart: 'Patience; time -will bring all things; and the serpent may cast its skin but -keeps its nature.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p> - -<p>But of late years she had feared that nothing would ever -divide them.</p> - -<p>Their lives seemed to her to pass on like a smooth full river, -without shoal or rapid, or any spate from storm. There was -many an hour when she lay stretched in semblance of devoutest -prayer before the holy eikon of the chamber altar, when all that -her soul uttered and her lips murmured were curses low and -long upon them both.</p> - -<p>Year after year went on and brought her no gratification of -her desires and her hate. All things went well with them. -They had health and pleasure; happiness too, so far as happiness -comes to mortals. Their offspring throve in loveliness and -grace, and the world honoured and caressed them both. Sometimes, -in the stern yet frantic hatred which she cherished, she -would pray that disease or pestilence might at least take the -woman's beauty from her; but her prayer passed ungranted. -Nadine had ever that serene immunity from all serious maladies -of the flesh which so often accompanies the fragile appearance -and sensitive nerves of women who, like her, declare themselves -made unwell by a discordant noise, an unpleasant odour, a -wearisome day, or any other trifle which displeases them. Even -the pains and perils of maternity her good fortune had made -unusually light to her, and except from that cause she had hardly -had a day's real suffering in her whole existence. To the sullen -eyes of Napraxine's mother she always seemed to bear a charmed -life.</p> - -<p>Therefore with fierce dumb joy Lobow Gregorievna, with -her vigilant ear and eye, saw the one little rift within the lute, -heard the one jarring chord on the music. It was so slight that -no anxiety less keen than her own would have detected it; but -it was there.</p> - -<p>He remained in Russia a fortnight, but during that time he -did not find any occasion which seemed to him propitious enough -for him to speak of Damaris, with any chance of obtaining sympathy -for her position or understanding of his own actions. -With that ignorance of what most concerns us, which is one of -the saddest things of life, he never dreamed that any change in -himself had made his wife as he found her to be, in one of her -most captious, most capricious, most unsympathetic moods. He -was not unused to these; he attributed them now to the weariness -she felt at existence in the plains of Ural and impatience at -the companionship of the Princess Napraxine which he knew -was at all times irksome to her. He was not aware that he was -himself more absent of mind, less tender in manner, less frankly -and fully confidential in speech; he was not aware that this one -thing untold, this one thought unrevealed, had caused an alteration -in him, slight and vague indeed, yet plainly perceptible to -her, skilled reader of manner and of mind as she was.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> - -<p>A delicate nature shrinks from the imputation of unworthy -motives, and a fastidious temper shrinks from any possibility of -ridicule; it was the dread of both which kept him silent as to -the friendship he had shown to the child from Bonaventure. -The apprehension of his wife's scepticism and ironies hung like -a grey mist over the generous impulses of his manhood, as in -his earliest youth the certainty of his father's brutal cynicism -had lain like a stone on the poetic aspirations of his boyhood.</p> - -<p>Even in those rare instants when she was moved to sympathy -with any unselfishness or any unworldliness, there was always in -her eyes some faint gleam of derision, there was always in her -voice some lingering accent of doubt and of raillery. She would -have been capable of many great things in great emergencies -herself, but she would have been wholly incapable of refraining -from making a jest of them afterwards. It is the temper of all -wit; it is the temper of much philosophy; but it is not the -temper which invites the confidence or soothes the doubts of -another.</p> - -<p>Confidence, like a swallow coming over seas in the storm and -sunshine of spring weather, will only nest where it is sure of a -safe shelter.</p> - -<p>The higher, better, subtler emotions of the human heart will -not venture to come forth into the wintry air of mockery or -scorn; they are shy blossoms which want the warm wind of a -sure sympathy to enable them to expand.</p> - -<p>'If I told her, she would only think me either an imbecile -or a libertine,' he thought, and the tale went untold.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Amyôt was still quite solitary when he returned from Russia. -The children were on the north coast by the sea; its châtelaine -was still taking her desired presence with rare condescension -and alternative moods of ennui and irony to those royal hunting -castles and imperial pleasure places she deigned to honour; the -wide avenues, the great terraces, the blossoming gardens, the -sunlit colonnades of the modern summer dining-hall were only -tenanted by the last lingering butterflies which skimmed the air -with white wings, blue wings, scarlet wings, and the balmy -aromatic scent of the millions of roses which seemed to wander -through the empty places like a visible presence.</p> - -<p>Usually whenever he came thither he was surrounded by that -society which was a necessity to his wife, even whilst it failed to -satisfy her, by that movement, gaiety, and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entrain</i>, which even -if they fail to amuse, yet can always in a manner distract thought -and fill up time. There seemed to him a strange silence, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -melancholy which was oppressive, in these stately places, usually -so full of colour and pleasure, now so quiet and so lonely, with -only some noiseless servant passing with swift step across its -floors or down its staircases.</p> - -<p>There was not even the song of a bird to break the stillness; -it was early in autumn, and their sweet throats were mute.</p> - -<p>He saw in remembrance the grace of his wife's movements -as she had passed down these great stairs, he saw the smile in -her eyes indulgent as to a child's weakness, ironical as of a man's -folly; he heard her voice saying, with that little sound in it of -some exquisite disdain falling from on high on mortal thoughts -as silvery fountain-water falls from marble heights on creeping -mosses:</p> - -<p>'It is scarcely worth while to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faire des madrigaux</i>.'</p> - -<p>Had that speaker ever loved him even for five minutes of her -life?</p> - -<p>Had she ever known what love was? He thought of the -Court of Love which she had held under those oak trees yonder, -above whose rounded masses a white moon now sailed. With -what ingenuity, what subtlety, what philosophy, what absolute -knowledge of all love's minutest weaknesses and utmost madness, -she had been able to discourse of it. But was it not such -knowledge as the physiologist's knowledge of pain in the creature -on which he experiments? Of knowledge there is abundance, -of the chill and analytical knowledge of science, of the name and -structure of every torn tissue, of every bleeding fibre, of every -tortured nerve; but knowledge such as is born of fellow feeling, -of sensitive sympathy, of comprehending pity, there is none. -Was it not so with her?</p> - -<p>Had not love been always to her as the living organisation -which he tortures is to the physiologist? Had she not, like him, -watched, studied, tabulated the agonies of the wretched creature -before her, whilst also, like him, she had never felt in her own -nerves one single thrill of pain?</p> - -<p>As her lover it had allured him with the intense attraction -of an impenetrable mystery, this attitude of her mind, this indifference, -both sensual and spiritual, before the demands of -love. But as the companion of her life it left him with a sense -of dissatisfaction, and of unsatisfied desire. For years it had -served to excite and to sustain his passion, but as time wore on -it almost communicated its coldness to himself; he began to -feel with a sense of terror, as before some disloyalty which he -could not escape, that the apathy, the fatigue, the absence of -emotion, which are the certain attendants on all satisfied -passion, were not far distant from himself.</p> - -<p>The very air of Amyôt seemed melancholy to him in these -late summer heats, without the usual gaiety and movement -which were there at most other seasons when he came to it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -Solitude had always, in his youth, been welcome to him, and had -fatigued him less than the routine of society; but solitude -requires the charm of accompanying dreams, it needs the visions -of youth, the vague but glorious hopes of opening life; and -Othmar had a vague sense that he would never dream any more, -that he grew old, that his fate was fixed, that never would any -very welcome or sweet response come to his wishes from the -voices of the future. He had had the poet's temperament without -the poet's power of expression; he could not take the poet's -consolation, 'Sing to the Muses, and let the world go by.' His -destiny imprisoned him, and there was little sympathy between -himself and it.</p> - -<p>As he walked in the moonlight, under the roofs of late roses -which shed their petals, white, crimson, and blush-coloured, on -him, dewy cool and sweet as the touch of his wife's cheek, a -servant brought him a pencilled note.</p> - -<p>It said briefly:</p> - -<p>'There has been an accident. We are not hurt, but the train -cannot take us on. Send your carriages for us. I saw in the -journals this morning that you were at Amyôt.'</p> - -<p>The paper had been sent from the town of Beaugency, whilst -it was signed 'Blanche de Laon:' the last person on earth whose -presence he would have wished for in his solitude. Irritating, -distasteful, and even painful to him as her society was, yet he -could do no less than attend to such a request. He must have -complied with it had it come from a stranger. He at once sent -his brake and two other carriages, with fast horses, to do her -bidding, and returned indoors to give such orders as were needful -for this unexpected invasion of an unknown number of -guests.</p> - -<p>It was late, and he himself had dined two hours before; but he -ordered a supper to be got ready for the new comers, who might -not have dined at Orleans. He concluded that she was passing -from Paris to one of her châteaux near Saumur, where in late -summer and early autumn she often assembled the very distinguished, -but somewhat noisy, society which regarded her as -its queen. His musings and his solitude had been roughly dispelled; -and, though both had been somewhat joyless, he regretted -them as an hour later he heard the roll of the returning wheels -and the stamping of impatient horses' hoofs in the great central -court of honour, and went perforce to meet and greet his uninvited -guests.</p> - -<p>The Princess Blanche, having herself driven the four horses -of the brake through the moonlit cross-roads which led from -Beaugency to Amyôt, was in the highest spirits as she descended -from the box seat, and gaily greeted him in her shrill, swift -voice and her fashionable <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">langue verte</i>. There had been a severe -accident; a goods train had been met by the express; the usual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -story, as she said contemptuously. The line was strewn with -wrecked waggons and overturned engines; there had been no -possibility of proceeding to Blois. Had there been people killed? -Oh, yes; she believed so. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On braillait là-bas, n'est-ce pas, -Gontran?</i>' she said indifferently to one of her companions, and -added, with fervour, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tiens! J'ai une faim de loup!</i>'</p> - -<p>'But you said that no one was hurt?' said Othmar, regretting -that he had not gone in person to the scene of trouble.</p> - -<p>'None of us were,' she replied. 'We were in the centre of -the train. We felt the shock; that was all. We were playing -the American "poker." The collision threw down the cards. I -should have come to Amyôt if you had not been here. No one -could pass the night at a country station. Besides, Amyôt is -always ready for a hundred people.'</p> - -<p>'Amyôt is always at the service of all my friends,' replied -Othmar with sincerity, but with a certain stiffness. He disliked -her familiarity with him at all times, and was conscious that, -despite it, she bore no good will to himself or to his wife.</p> - -<p>She wasted no more words on him, but led the way into the -house, scarcely deigning to present to him those of her companions -with whom he was not already acquainted. There was -some dozen of them, all, both men and women, notabilities of -that <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">haute gomme</i> which was the only world she recognised. -They had been travelling with her from Paris, being bidden for -a shooting party to her castle in Touraine.</p> - -<p>Othmar conducted her to the great hall; then he said to -her:</p> - -<p>'Everything is at your disposition, and all the household at -your command. You will excuse me if myself I leave you for -awhile to go and see if I can be of any use to those less happily -fated persons—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">qui braillaient là-bas</i>.'</p> - -<p>She laughed.</p> - -<p>'Ah! you were always a Don Quixote. Even Madame -Nadège has not cured you.'</p> - -<p>'Your servants may have been hurt, or worse still, your -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fourgons</i> damaged. I will bring you news of them,' said Othmar, -with an irony which affronted whilst it amused her.</p> - -<p>She went to her own apartments <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pour se débarbouiller</i>; and -a little later, surrounded by her fellow-travellers, sat down to -supper in the summer dining-hall, which shed its dazzling light -far out on to the dusky lawns and the pale aisle of the white -roses; there was a banquet fit for the gods, though prepared at -such short notice; the delicate wines circulated quickly; the -adventure was amusing; the whole thing unexpected. Blanche -de Laon and all her companions were in the highest spirits, in a -more vulgar world they might even have been thought a little -intoxicated; their laughter rang frequent and shrill and long -over the quiet gardens and the royal woods.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> - -<p>Meanwhile their host went to the scene of the late disaster, -and found a sight of frightful destruction and of many deaths, -while scores of poor horned cattle, mutilated and moaning, -lay in pitiful heaps of bruised and bleeding misery upon the -iron way.</p> - -<p>It was noon in the following day when he returned to -Amyôt, where all his unbidden guests were slumbering soundly -and late after their alarm and their fatigues.</p> - -<p>He, tired out himself, went to his own rooms and rested as -well as he could rest for the sights and sounds of suffering which -haunted him in his sleep. He had done what he could to alleviate -it; but that all seemed so little and so inefficacious. At -sunset he met all his undesired visitors at dinner.</p> - -<p>'Your wife is still in Russia?' asked Blanchette that -evening.</p> - -<p>Othmar assented.</p> - -<p>'Does it amuse her, Russia? If it did not, however, she -would not stay there.'</p> - -<p>'It is her country, and her court.'</p> - -<p>'Of course. But that would not make her stay there if she -were bored. Why did not you stay too?'</p> - -<p>'I had business in France; the death of my uncle has -doubled my obligations and occupations.'</p> - -<p>'And some of your business lies at Chevreuse?'</p> - -<p>'At Chevreuse?'</p> - -<p>He was astonished and was annoyed to feel himself also embarrassed. -The blue cold eyes of Blanche de Laon were looking -at him with their penetrating supercilious malice over the -feathers of her great fan.</p> - -<p>She smiled, amused and unmerciful.</p> - -<p>'Did Baron Fritz leave you that legacy at Chevreuse? It is -a very handsome one!'</p> - -<p>'I do not understand to what you allude,' said Othmar, with -coldness and irritation.</p> - -<p>She laughed; a little short incredulous laugh.</p> - -<p>'My cousin! If you do not want people to talk about it, -why do you stand in the middle of a hay-field with your uncle's -legacy?—if it be your uncle's.'</p> - -<p>Othmar was irritated and more embarrassed than he showed. -Blanchette was the last person on earth whom he would have -chosen to know anything of the more intimate details of his life. -He knew her unsparing tongue, the exaggerated colour she -could give to the slightest story, the smallest incident; the -malicious pleasure in mischief-making and in scandal which she -took at all times from mere natural malice and love of caustic -words. Whatever she saw, or knew, or guessed, she dressed up -in colours of her own invention, and made into comedies, to -divert herself and her world. Was it possible that she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -recognised Damaris? He thought not. Many months had gone -by since the evening at St. Pharamond, and it was scarcely -probable that so great a lady, with her multiform interests, -excitement, and intrigues, had ever remembered the peasant -girl of Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>He was silent because he was for the moment too amazed -to trust himself to speak, and Blanchette gazed at him over -her fan, with cruel satisfaction and entertainment at his visible -irritation.</p> - -<p>'The open air is always so dangerous,' she said, maliciously. -'Even if you be sure there is nobody near, how can you be sure -there is not a balloon somewhere above you? or a field-glass -half a mile off? I had a field-glass; I was driving from Versailles. -If the Baron left you many legacies like that one, -your affairs must be more agreeable than legal successions often -are.'</p> - -<p>Then she laughed again, and rose and took her elegant person, -her shrill, cruel, little laugh, her pale, keen, penetrating -eyes into an adjoining room, where she gathered her adorers -about her to play at <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chemin de fer</i>, and win or lose, in breathless -alternations, gold enough to dower fifty dowerless maidens, or -stock a score of farms, whilst without the still, cool, dewy night -lay soft as a blessing on the gardens and the woods and the great -distant river, with the shadowy vessels gliding to and fro, and -the little villages, dusky and noiseless, hidden away under the -vineyards and the pear trees.</p> - -<p>She cared in nothing what he did; he was profoundly indifferent -to her when she did not remember her dead cousin, and -then she hated him. She had not seen the features of his companion -in the fields of Les Hameaux, nor would she have -recognised them had she done so. The evening at St. Pharamond -was blotted and blurred into oblivion under the heaps of forgotten -things of a past year which could have no place in a mind -engrossed in its own vanities and excitations, and living wholly -in the present. But she had recognised Othmar himself as her -carriage had passed yards off, and she had put up her field-glass -at the towers of the château of Dampierre; and it had amused -her to find that he was just like other men, though he affected -such absurd, undivided devotion to one.</p> - -<p>No doubt it was only an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amourette</i>; but it pleased her to -have something with which she could tease him when she felt so -disposed; and it pleased her more strongly still to reflect that -his wife was losing her power over him, which she probably -was, she reasoned, if another woman were gaining any. Pure -malice was an integral part of her nature; to irritate, torment, -and dominate people through their various little secrets seemed -to her the best part of the comedy of life. She had nothing of -the supreme indolent disdain of the woman she hated, or of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -absolute indifference. She loved to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fourrer son nez</i> in all holes -and corners. Her theory was that all knowledge was useful, -especially when it was knowledge to your friends' detriment; -and a lively and insatiable curiosity was her strongest guarantee -against ennui.</p> - -<p>She thought complacently of the trouble she had cast into -his mind as she sat and played her game of hazard, the light -flashing on her rings and the gold she handled. No doubt the -thing was only an <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amour en village</i>, an absurdity, a caprice, some -rosy-limbed, coarsely-built nymph of La Beauce, who pleased -him for the hour because of her utter unlikeness to the great -ladies he lived amongst.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je les connais!</i>' thought Blanchette, with something of -Nadine's contempt for the sex. 'When they can drink out of a -hundred silver goblets they are always crazy for a brown cottage -pipkin. They are always like that.'</p> - -<p>She attached no importance to the discovery that he walked -not unaccompanied in the fields of the vale of Chevreuse; but -the knowledge that he did so had embarrassed him; that was -enough to make it delightful to her.</p> - -<p>It amused her to be at Amyôt when its mistress was absent. -'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nous sommes très bien installés</i>,' she said carelessly to Othmar, -not even going through the form of inquiring as to his wishes, -and she and her party stayed on for the rest of the week. He -was displeased, but he could not tell them to go. His wife -could do that sort of thing; he could not. It seemed to him -impossible to make even self-invited guests realise that they -were not welcome. Blanche de Laon thought his compliance -argued fear of her, and was more diverted than before.</p> - -<p>'Perhaps he is dying to get back to Chevreuse!' she thought -with much amusement. 'But he is too courteous to turn us -out; he belongs to the last century.'</p> - -<p>She was not grateful for his courtesy; she, rather, despised -him for it.</p> - -<p>One morning she took a fancy to wander over the house by -herself; it was an immense building, and to visit it thoroughly -would have taken more hours than she gave it minutes; but -even in her rapid and cursory fashion, she covered a good deal -of ground.</p> - -<p>'It is really a royal place,' she thought. 'We have nothing -like it. La Finance gets everything.'</p> - -<p>She disliked Othmar; he was everything that she detested -in man: he was reserved, punctilious, prejudiced; he had a -distant manner of cold courtesy, which was not at all of her own -generation; he was grave, often preoccupied, and always blind -to her own attractions: yet as she went over she wished that -she had married him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Quel diable de vie je lui aurais donné!</i>' she thought with -complacency, and how amusing it would have been!</p> - -<p>Bertrand de Laon was not rich; at least not rich enough for -the enormous expenditure at which they lived; and then he -was so stupid, so amiable, so devoted, that there was no kind of -pleasure in doing him every sort of wrong that a woman can do -a man! He never knew anything about it, or, if he did know, -never resented anything. She grew tired of kicking this poor -spaniel, who, beat him as she would, always came humbly and -caressingly to her feet.</p> - -<p>As she wandered about the house she came on the doors -which led to the apartments of Yseulte. They were locked. -She sent one of her companions to fetch the major-domo.</p> - -<p>'Open these doors,' she said imperiously to the official, who -timidly answered that he dared not; except by his master's -orders they could never be unlocked. 'I have his orders, open -them,' said Blanchette, with such authority in her tone that the -man never dreamed she was not speaking the truth; besides it -seemed to him to be natural enough; she had been, he knew, -the cousin german of the dead Countess Othmar. He fetched -the duplicate keys he possessed, and opened the doors: great -doors of cedar-wood like all those at Amyôt, with intricate locks -of old Florentine work of steel and silver. Then he went in -and opened also some of the shutters of the apartments, letting -in the warm summer light from without on some portions of the -rooms, whilst other parts of them were left in darkness.</p> - -<p>Blanchette shut out her companions with her usual unceremonious -manner.</p> - -<p>'It is not for you,' she said curtly, and banged the doors in -their faces with that insolence which was considered by others -as by herself <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">d'un chic suprême</i>.</p> - -<p>She had never been able to come there before, for she had -never before been at Amyôt in the absence of its mistress. She -was not sure why she came now; partly because she thought it -would annoy Othmar, partly from a movement of that remembered -affection for the companion of her childhood, which was -the only thing of any tenderness which had ever sprung up in -the breast of Blanchette: one tiny flower of sentiment blossoming -on a granite soil. The sentiment had been rooted in selfishness; -'she used to give me so many things!' she thought always, -whenever she remembered her.</p> - -<p>The little volume of manuscript poems was in its place; -Othmar had hesitated to remove it; everything was in the rooms -as when Yseulte had lived, and no eyes but his own had ever -beheld them. He had returned more than once to read again -those poor fragments, so simple in language, so immeasurable -in devotion: read them with a mist before his sight and the -sense of some base ingratitude in himself which had come to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -on his first discovery of them. He had always replaced them -with a lingering and reverent touch in the drawer, whence he -had first taken them, where they lay now with a crumpled glove, -two or three faded roses, and some notepaper with her initials -in silver on it. The restless penetrating agile glance and fingers -of Blanchette, touching, seeing, alighting on all things, and -skimming over each with the lightness of swallows, brought her -to that drawer amongst other places, and showed her the little -volume lying with the dead roses. She took it up, and turned -over the pages rapidly; looking on it here, there, everywhere; -scanning a hundred lines in the space of time that would have -served to others to see only half a score. The familiar handwriting, -the pathetic words, the mixture of ignorance and of -intensity, the force of strong emotions striving to express themselves -in an unwonted manner, and half observed, half revealed -by the unaccustomed livery of language, had a certain effect -upon her as she stood in the empty rooms before one of the -great casements, and turned over the leaves of the little book, -half contemptuous, half reverential.</p> - -<p>If she had read such lines in a printed volume, she would -have tossed it away with her most terrible sneer. '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pleurnicheuse!</i>' -she would have said, with a grin of her white small teeth; -but read in the handwriting of her dead cousin, they affected -her differently; they did not seem ridiculous; they brought -home to her the fact that this world, which was but a masked -ball, a mad <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fête</i>, a continual comedy to herself, might be to -others, who yet were not wholly fools, a place of martyrdom, -endured in silence. Her shrewd and quick intelligence supplying -the place of sympathy, could read between the lines; could -make her understand as Othmar had understood, all that was -unuttered, or only half uttered, in those halting, timid, tender, -wistful verses.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Dame! Comme c'est drôle!</i>' she murmured to herself: it -was droll that anyone with youth, with fortune, with beauty, -with all the pleasures, and pastime, and pomps of existence at -her call, should have wasted her time and her tears in useless -lament, because the heart of one man was cold to her. It was -droll; it was absurd; it was contemptible; and yet she closed -the little velvet book, and laid it down by the worn glove, -and the dead roses with a vague admiration, with a certain -respect.</p> - -<p>But her heart grew harder than before against the man who -had been thus loved, and had given no throb of love in answer.</p> - -<p>She remembered the words of Friederich Othmar at the -mausoleum in the grounds yonder: 'She would wish you to -spare him.' Yes, no doubt, poor, generous, heroic, saintly, -foolish soul!—if she could know, if she could speak, if she could -interpose, she would always come from her grave to save or to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -serve the husband who had never had one impulse of love for -her. But the dead know nothing; the dead never stir; '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">quand -on est mort c'est pour longtemps</i>,' thought Blanchette, with grim -realism, as she closed the drawer which held the little poem: -and meanwhile, if ever she herself had the chance, she would do -as she had said: she would rub the sand into the gall, she would -widen any wound that she saw.</p> - -<p>She thought to herself, 'If she had lived, perhaps——' perhaps -she would have kept alive some little green place in her -own soul; perhaps she would have kept her own steps aloof -from some vices which were not all sweetness; perhaps she -would have had something in her own life besides insolent -audacity, merciless intrigue, and insatiable curiosity of unattainable -excitations: it was a consciousness of her own loss, in the -loss of the one purer influence which her life had ever known, -which made the arid and frivolous nature of Blanche de Laon -cherish her hatred for those who seemed to her as the murderers -of Yseulte with a ferocity and tenacity of remembrance which -was the only impersonal emotion she had ever known.</p> - -<p>Avarice, expenditure, vanity, corruption, every ingenuity of -self-indulgence and of physical licence, filled up her own days, -and left no space for any memory which was not selfish, any -desire which was not base; she had copied and exaggerated the -egotism of Nadine Napraxine until it had become a monstrosity, -and she had replaced the physical indifference of her model by -appetites and curiosities which were both morbid and insatiable. -Yet her life at times failed to satisfy her, and at such time the -recollection of Yseulte came to her as a cool breeze will touch -the hot forehead of a drunkard. Things which had been odious -and ridiculous to her in all others, had looked worth something -when mirrored to her in the clear soul of her childhood's companion; -when Yseulte had passed out of her life she, little -greedy, callous cynic of a child though she had been, had vaguely -felt that something had gone away from her which would never -be replaced.</p> - -<p>'Poor little saint! Poor little fool!' she thought now, with -as near an approach to tenderness and reverence as her temperament -could approach, as she cast a lingering glance over the -lonely rooms, with the dead flowers in the vases, the dust of -years on the walls, the stray sunbeams slanting on to the empty -bed, the scent of late roses and autumn fruits coming in through -the dusky shadows and close odours within.</p> - -<p>'Poor little saint! Poor little fool!'</p> - -<p>As she stood thus, Othmar, passing through the gardens, saw -the windows open which were by his command always closed. -He was immediately beneath them, and he called aloud in tones -of exceeding anger: 'Who has ventured to enter there?'</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon heard, and her insolent, fair, small face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -looked out from one of the open places in the old painted casements, -guarded with their scrolls of iron.</p> - -<p>'It is I,' she said, with the usual impertinence of her accent -hushed into quietude, almost into sadness. Then she leaned -her elbows on the stonework of the sill, and put her face close -to his. He was almost on a level with her, for those rooms -were raised but a mètre or two from the ground.</p> - -<p>He grew pale with indignation.</p> - -<p>'Madame de Laon,' he said in a low tone, through which all -his anger thrilled, 'when I put all my house at your disposition -there were some things in it which I did not suppose it necessary -to enjoin you to respect.'</p> - -<p>'Pooh!' said Blanchette, resting her elbows on the stone -and her chin on her hands. 'I have more title in her rooms -than you; I have not forgotten her.'</p> - -<p>His face flushed; he hesitated a moment.</p> - -<p>'What means did you take to induce my servants to disobey -me?' he asked, avoiding her later words.</p> - -<p>'I told them I had your authority,' said Blanchette carelessly. -'What can it matter to you? <em>You</em> never come here. -You never go to her grave. Your uncle did. Even I do. But -you—never.'</p> - -<p>Othmar was silent. He hated this woman with her impudent -pale face, her high satirical tones, her overbearing effrontery, -and he hated to see her there in the rooms which had -been the bridal chambers of Yseulte in the one brief summer of -happiness which she had known.</p> - -<p>Blanchette looked down at him with hard cold eyes; she, -on her side, hated him no less at that moment. There was no -one within hearing; the western garden on which these rooms -looked was the loneliest though the loveliest place in Amyôt; -and since the death of Yseulte it had been so unfrequented, -that hares would come and nibble at the moss-roses under the -windows, and once a stag from the herds of red deer cast loose -in the park had dared to enter and drink his fill at the fountain.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tiens!</i>' said Blanchette, leaning from the window, her artificial -pale blonde beauty looking akin there. 'She broke her -heart for you: one laughs at those things in the world; they -are good for the "Traviata," not out of it; it was absurd—grotesquely -absurd; and yet in her one knows it was true. -When I was a child, and she married you, I wanted her to -think of the fine clothes, the fine jewels, the fine houses, all the -rest of it—all the things <em>we</em> give ourselves for—but she never -cared. She said once, "If he were a beggar I should be -happier, because then he would be sure that it is for himself -that I care." Oh yes, she would have gone barefoot in the dust -after you if you had held out your hand. And you—you did -not see it or know it, or thank her for it; all you cared for was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -Nadine Napraxine. It is always so. It is always the other—the -other that we cannot have. And now "the other" is your -wife; and so you go to the meadows in Chevreuse. How like a -man! And to think that such a woman as Yseulte should -have died for you! <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pouah!</i> If she had known you as I know -men she would not have wasted a hair of her head on you. -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pouah——!</i>'</p> - -<p>Then she banged the casement close, and left him standing -there. He might rage in his heart as he chose, what did she -care for his wrath or for his amours or for his whole existence? -What she had cared for was the dead girl who had died for him. -That she had insulted him in return for his hospitality and his -courtesy was delightful to her. In that moment she would -have liked to insult him before the whole world.</p> - -<p>Othmar paused a moment, looking blankly up at this window -of his own house thus shut in his face; then, with slow step, -and with his head down, he pursued his way through the -western garden. His guest had insulted him, but the worst -sting of the insult lay in its truth. It was true, most true; he -owned to himself that he had been wholly unworthy the sacrifice -of such a life as Yseulte's.</p> - -<p>Yet, he thought, in the words which had been quoted under -the oaks of Amyôt in the Court of Love, 'How is it under our -control to love or not to love?'</p> - -<p>Love is not to be commanded, and naught less than a great -and undivided love could ever have given happiness and faith -in itself to so delicate, to so sensitive, to so perfectly and -sincerely humble a nature as that of the dead girl whose bridal -hours had been passed in those closed chambers, around whose -casements the ivy climbed and the swallows nested undisturbed -as the seasons passed. The rough, sharp, upbraiding words of -Blanche de Laon smarted in his memory, as the cut of a knife -smarts in the flesh. They only repeated in coarse emphasis -what his own conscience had said to him ever since he had found -the little manuscript poems in the drawer with the faded roses. -Before then, with the blindness of a man whose whole soul is -centred on another passion than the one which claims his -sympathy, he had never once dreamed that the death of Yseulte -had been self sought.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Damaris, meanwhile, was altogether at ease as to her own circumstances. -No doubt ever entered her mind as to the legacy -bequeathed by her grandfather; it was more than enough for -all her wants, and she understood that she could live at Les -Hameaux easily, all her lifetime, if she chose. But without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -any apprehension for her future, she was not without that unrest -which is the inseparable companion of all ambition. The -remembrance of the wife of Othmar was like a thorn in her side: -she had an eager, passionate, thirsty desire to justify herself -in the sight of that great lady, to become something which could -not be derided or denied or set aside with contempt. The -memory of that day under the roof of St. Pharamond was continually -with her, in all its humiliation and its disappointment, -and its sharp cruel sense of being a barbarian amongst the -highest grace and culture that were possible to human life -and manners. It had been a glimpse into an unknown land -never to be forgotten; the gates to it had been shut in her face, -almost as soon as opened; but the dreams which had come to -her through them remained with her, and pursued her sleeping -and waking.</p> - -<p>She threw herself into the resources of study with a kind of -passion. In books, she thought, lay all the secrets of the spells -of power.</p> - -<p>When he had bidden her wed a farmer of La Beauce he had -wounded her in a way that she could not forget; not because -she despised that homelier life of the husbandman, but because -she thought that he deemed her incapable of the higher life of -the intellect or the soul. She had been violently uprooted from -all her childish associations, and severed from all the habits, -thoughts, and attachments which had been hers from birth. -The shock of that separation had intensified and deepened the -sensitive side of her nature, and subdued the sanguine <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">insouciance</i> -of it. She was not happy at Les Hameaux as she had been -happy on Bonaventure; but she was still companioned by many -dreams, and still full of high courage, though the dreams had -lost something of their splendid phantasy, and the courage had -lost something of its rash undoubting faith.</p> - -<p>At times she longed for her old playmate, the sea, with a -curious painful yearning—the yearning of the home-sickness -of the exile.</p> - -<p>'How well I can understand,' she said once to Rosselin, -'that Napoleon longed all his life for the smell of the earth of -Corsica. All my life I am sure I shall smell the smell of the -fresh sea water leaping up in the wind under the orange boughs -and the bay leaves; there is nothing like it here, though the -pastures smell sweet in the dew.'</p> - -<p>In a short time she had changed much. She had become -still taller, and the peachlike bloom of her face had paled. She -had the look in her eyes of one who studies assiduously the -great thoughts of great writers; she had a less childlike and -boylike beauty, and one more intellectual and spiritual. Months -count as years at her age, and the southern blood of the Bérardes -matured early.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> - -<p>Rosselin watched her growth with pride. Her softened -accent, her subdued gesture, her intelligent comprehension of -intellectual things, her simple but picturesque clothing, were all -due to his training or his suggestion. He had taken her to great -libraries, famous galleries, historic palaces, and had taught her -to understand the true and the false in art; he had taken her -to recitals of the Conservatoire, and even to rehearsals at the -great theatres, where, secured from observation, she could herself -observe, and realised, as she listened, all the many traits -and the many efforts which go together to make up admirable -dramatic representation. He never allowed anyone to speak to -her, scarcely to see her, but he gave her thus that training of -the eye and of the ear without which no great artist can be -created.</p> - -<p>'Nature does much,' he said to her. 'Yes. But art is a -different thing to nature. Art is three parts divine, but it is -one part human, and that human part requires the most unwearied -and elaborate training. The sculptor may bring a god -out of the clay in the fire and the fever of his inspiration, but -if he have not studied the laws of anatomy, the limbs of his -god will be out of proportion, and one leg will be shorter than -the other.'</p> - -<p>In the artistic circles there went a whisper about that Rosselin -had some paragon whom he was educating, and would produce -some day; but every one feared the sarcastic power of the -great artist's tongue too much to meddle, unasked, with his -concerns, and Damaris, under his guidance, passed unmolested, -almost unobserved, through the intricate mazes of that art-world, -which she touched without entering it.</p> - -<p>One day, when she had been taken to a recital at the Conservatoire, -he had left her alone for a few moments; the recital -was over, the pupils had left the stage; the professors were -conversing together; from the floor there rose a cloud of dust, -and from the hot, pent air a strong noisome odour. Her eyes -ached, her temples throbbed; she, whose whole life had been -passed in the fragrance of the open air, in the freshness of -buoyant sea winds, felt stifled, stunned, nauseated. Fame -itself seemed hateful, approached through this vitiated atmosphere. -To pass your years in boxes of brick and stone, in cages -of wood and iron, rather than in the glad freedom of glancing -waters and unchecked movement over golden sands and flowering -meadows, was it not madness indeed?</p> - -<p>She remembered the words of Othmar, bidding her live -the life that was led on the wide cornlands of La Beauce. All -that was strong in her, and born to freedom, and filled with the -love of the sea, and the joys of untrammelled movement through -sunlit air, and against fruit-scented breezes, rose in nausea and -revolt against the pent-up life of the artist in cities.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> - -<p>Where, oh where, was the open-air theatre of the Greeks, -with no dome but the blue sky, and the voices of the chorus -echoed by the sounds of the sea-waves breaking to surf upon -the marble stairs?</p> - -<p>'What are you thinking of? Your eyes look wild,' said -Rosselin, rejoining her.</p> - -<p>'I was thinking that I could never speak upon a covered -stage: the air would choke me!'</p> - -<p>Rosselin looked at her in silence. He himself was thinking -of Aimée Desclée, of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bohémienne</i> who had always -wanted the fresh air, the free sunlight, the unpaid laughter, the -unbought love.</p> - -<p>Aimée Desclée seemed to rise before him, and cry to him:</p> - -<p>'Why tempt another on my path?'</p> - -<p>He said to her solemnly and tenderly, while his voice -sounded very grave in the silence of the emptied theatre:</p> - -<p>'My dear, we cannot call back the Athens of Pindar for -you, nor yet give you the ideal world of your fancy. If you -want to be great in our world as it is, you must breathe its air, -which is dust and chokes sensitive lungs. When the air is gold -dust it is not much lighter to breathe, though people fancy it -light as the air of the planet Venus. If you decide that it will -be too weighty for yours, I do not say that you will not decide -wisely. Your friend Othmar has told you that obscurity and -liberty are the happier choice. He is a man who knows by -experience how painful a thraldom are eminence and wealth. -You yourself may attain eminence, and wealth too, possibly, -probably, but you cannot do so and remain free to be all day -long under the blue sky. You must dwell in the air that is -full of dust, and poisoned by being shared by a million mouths. -That air killed Aimée Desclée.'</p> - -<p>Damaris was silent.</p> - -<p>She went out beside him through the sordid ways and -shabby passages of this temple of the acolytes of fame, and -thence into the crowded streets, which were grey with a leaden-coloured -slow rain.</p> - -<p>Oh, how sweet the rain was in the country, scudding over -the green fields, brimming in the grass holes, hanging from the -orchard boughs, shining in the window lattices, lying in the -great dock leaves! How the snails came out in the glistening -roads, and the birds drank it from off the ground, and the -ducks went about in the little shallows it left, and how merry -and glad the whole land was!</p> - -<p>'You love the country,' said Rosselin, when they had -walked the length of some streets in silence. 'You love the -country, my dear. Stay in it; you have enough to live on; -let fame go by, unsought, unmourned.'</p> - -<p>Damaris sighed:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> - -<p>'But if I do not do something great she will always say that -I could not. She will always despise me.'</p> - -<p>'Who?'</p> - -<p>'His wife.'</p> - -<p>'Othmar's?'</p> - -<p>'Yes.'</p> - -<p>'Ah!' said Rosselin; he understood the motives which -moved her more completely than she understood them herself. -'Do not think of that capricious woman,' he said with irritation. -'Be sure that the day after she saw you she had forgotten -that you existed.'</p> - -<p>The colour rose to the face of Damaris.</p> - -<p>'I wish to make her remember,' she said under her breath.</p> - -<p>'Ah!' said Rosselin once more.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>One evening in October Rosselin walked beside his pupil -amongst the fields of Les Hameaux. She had had her lesson -in elocution in the afternoon; a lesson in which he was inexorably -hard to please, a very tyrant over all the minutiæ -of accent and of expression; and now in the walks at sunset -he had relaxed into all that benignity and bonhomie which were -most natural to him in the company of women and of children.</p> - -<p>'I am afraid I do not please you,' she had said with some -dejection.</p> - -<p>'If you did not, my dear, do you think I would come thrice -a week to Chevreuse to train you?' he answered. 'It is -because you have exceeding natural talent, because you have -uncommon gifts, a flexible and beautiful voice, quick perceptions, -and that intuitive comprehension which is the innermost -soul of art, that I deal with you harshly to compel you to -acquire all that artificial treatment of your own powers which -is absolutely indispensable to success. If I had not seen genius -in you it would not have been merely to please Othmar that I -would have told you to give yourself to art; I should have said -to you, on the contrary: "Go and marry a farmer of La -Beauce, spin and sew, and wear a silk gown on Sundays; have -any number of children; be an ordinary woman in a word."'</p> - -<p>'Marry a farmer of La Beauce!'</p> - -<p>She coloured with indignation. Was it not what Othmar -himself had said to her?</p> - -<p>'It is not a life to be despised,' continued Rosselin. 'They -live in corn as the crickets do. You, who are so fond of -country things, would be happy enough if—if—you had never -read Racine and Hugo, if you had not that fermentation of the -fancy in you which seethes and stirs and smokes until out of it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -comes the wine of genius. The swallows cannot stay in the -fields as the linnets do. There is something in them that -makes them go when the hour is come. They do not know -what it is; they obey an imperious instinct. They cannot stay -if they would. They go blindly, and very often they drop -down dead in mid-ocean, and never see the rose fields of -Persia or the magnolia woods of Hindostan, as they meant to -do; yet they go.'</p> - -<p>Unknown to herself, a strong impulse moved her to prove -to the wife of Othmar that the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">brin de génie</i> was hers; a true -bough of laurel, not a spurious weed. The indifference and the -oblivion of this, the first great lady she had ever seen, still -remained in her memory with the sting of an affront which -nothing could efface. The world was represented to her eyes -by that one delicate, smiling, negligent, cruel critic, whom she -passionately admired, whom she unconsciously challenged. The -child had no vanity, but she had great pride; the pride of the -aristocrat and the pride of the republican had been inherited -by her, each stubborn as the other. Her pride had been -wounded, and her ambition and her dreams excited. She -knew that she might drop, like the tired swallow that crosses -the sea, into the deep abyss of failure and oblivion; but, like -the swallow, the instinct which moved her was irresistible.</p> - -<p>Rosselin saw that it was so, and he was too utterly an artist -in every fibre of his being to be able to prevail on himself to -discourage her wholly. He believed that she would become the -glory of the French stage; that very union of the strength of -the peasant and the delicacy of the patrician, which was so -marked in her physically and mentally, seemed to him to possess -that rare originality which all those destined to be great -in any art are stamped with from their birth. He did not -admit to her how much he admired her, but when she recited -to him at one lesson those passages which had been set to her -at a previous one, he was secretly amazed at the justness of her -reading of them, the accuracy of her rendering, and he marvelled -where in her simple life, set between sea and sky as it -had been, she had reached such understanding of the greatest -utterances of great minds.</p> - -<p>'Yet what a fool I am to wonder,' he thought a moment -later. 'As if it were not always so with genius, or as if anything -less than that ever could be genius.'</p> - -<p>But he took care not to utter that word often to her. All -he ever granted to her was that she might arrive at something, -perhaps, if she studied hard; if she were resolute and yet -humble; if she accepted all his corrections and instructions, -and did her best to lose that southern accent which would -send all Paris into Homeric laughter if it were ever heard upon -any stage.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> - -<p>'It could only be permitted,' he added, 'if you were reciting -Mireille.'</p> - -<p>She did not know what he meant, but she listened to his -pure and exquisite pronunciation, and did her uttermost -docilely to acquire it, as to obey and execute all his teachings.</p> - -<p>Then, when their lesson was over, not seldom he would -unbend utterly, and strolling with her through the meadows, -or sitting beneath the trelliswork of the porch with the rose -leaves falling on his white hair, he would tell her the most -wonderful and enchanting of stories, merely drawing all of -them from the innumerable treasures of that wonder-horn, his -own manifold experiences. He said not a word that would -hurt her. All that would be learnt soon enough.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">J'en ai vu tant!</i>' he would think often as he left the Croix -Blanche in the warm evenings. He had seen the world devour -so many, like the dragons that were fed on white flesh. But -he fancied she would be one of those who bind the dragon, like -St. Marguerite, and make it follow them slavishly.</p> - -<p>She had strength in her, the strength of the old mountain -race of Bérarde. He knew nothing of those dead people who -had ruled land and sea in the dark ages, and perished finally -under the axe on the scaffold; but there were a vitality and a -force in her which seemed to him destined to conquer where -weaker natures gave way and failed.</p> - -<p>Provided only, he thought, provided only that she would -have as many passions as there were grains of sand on her own -sea-shores, but amongst them all no real love.</p> - -<p>Passion is the most useful of teachers to any artist; that he -knew; but love is the destruction of all art. Mademoiselle -Mars lived through a blaze of glory; Adrienne Lecouvreur died -in her youth. Rosselin did not trouble himself about conventional -morality. He took the world as he had found it. He -respected this child's supreme innocence, and would not have -sullied it by a breath; but, casting her horoscope, he would have -given her the heart of Rachel, not that of Desclée, if he had had -the power. It is better to be the tigress which preys than the -hind which bleeds.</p> - -<p>He was no cynic; he only knew the world well, and well -knew what the world makes of women.</p> - -<p><i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On est broyé, ou on broie les autres.</i> There is no middle path -for those who once have left the cool secluded ways of privacy -and joined the crowd which pushes at the brazen gates of fame.</p> - -<p>But still, to Rosselin, to have passed these gates seemed the -perfection of human triumph.</p> - -<p>'What all who are not artists underrate,' he said to Damaris, -as they passed beside the round tower of the dovecote, 'is the -artist's joy in the mere power of expression. It is a mistake to -suppose that it is the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ignis fatuus</i> of celebrity which allures the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -young poet, the young musician, the young painter; that is -very secondary with him. What overmasters him is the longing -for the opportunity of expression; the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">besoin de se faire sentir</i>, -which is as powerful and imperious as the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">besoin d'aimer</i>. I -first played in a barn to villagers; I had a grand part, Robert -Macaire; I was as perfectly happy as when I later on played at -the Français to emperors and their courtiers. It is the same -delight as the lark feels in singing, as the swan feels in swimming, -as the heron feels in slowly sailing through the air: the -ecstasy in the expansion of natural powers. But the majority -of men know nothing of that. The custom-house officer would -not believe that Berlioz was composing music as he sat on a -rock above the sea. They laughed in his face and said: "Where -is your piano?" This is as far as the world goes; it understands -the piano, but not the music which is mute in the soul.'</p> - -<p>He rested as he spoke on a stone of what had once been the -great 'abbey of the fields:' the fields were there unchanged, it -was only the great thinkers whose brains were dust.</p> - -<p>'I had no such romantic cradle as you possessed in your -island of orange groves,' he continued. 'I was born in a little -dusky, close, noisome shop in a back street of Vierzon, that -dreary town of our dreary district of the Sologne. My grandfather -had been born in that shop before me. Everything in it -was poverty-stricken, ugly, vulgar, sordid; and vulgarity is so -much worse than any ugliness, and sordid small aims and hopes -are so much worse than any poverty! Of course no one need -be ignoble in a shop, even in a shop where they sell tallow. I -suppose Garibaldi was not, but my people were. Well, in that -little stuffy plebeian den, only frequented by the lowest of the -ironworkers and the canal bargemen, beautiful fancies thronged -on me and noble visions haunted me, as they did you in your -sea-girt orange thickets, and I used to sit in my hideous attic -and recite verse to the one star which was all I could see -through a chink in the wall, as you did, you tell me, to the -whole of the southern skies glowing above your balcony. It -was not fame that I wanted; I never thought of it; I longed -to hear my own voice in the glory of the words; I longed to -leap up and shout to all the sleeping town; I longed to cry out -to the Immortals, wherever they were, "I have understood -you, I am not unworthy!" Ah, those beautiful impersonal -enthusiasms of youth! Fame! It is of nothing so narrow or -so selfish that we think!'</p> - -<p>The tears rose to his eyes: half a century and more had -rolled away from him; he was a boy again, dreaming his dreams -as he wandered over the sandy wastes of the Sologne.</p> - -<p>'Ah, my dear,' he said with a sigh, 'how miserable I -thought I was in that little ugly house, with the sluggish canal -water slipping past its walls, and the black-faced iron puddlers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> -quarrelling over my father's short weight! It stifled me; it -cramped me; it killed me! so I thought. But I got away from -it, nevertheless. Pegasus came for me in the shape of a towing-horse, -which carried me away to Issoudun first, and to a new -life afterwards. I had the seven lean years as a strolling -player; a jack at a pinch, a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jean-qui-rit</i> or a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jean-qui-pleure</i>, as -it was wanted; and then I had more than thrice over the seven -fat years, and all that men call success. I have had all the -best things that there are in life, and I do not think I should -have had as many of them if I had remained in the dingy little -shop all my days, as my father wished me to do. Poor old -father! he came to see me once in Paris—once, when I was -thirty years old, and in the height of my best triumphs; and -he was dazzled and dazed, and did not very well understand, -but he found out that my servants charged me four times too -much a pound for candles. "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Un grand homme toi!</i>" he said, -with a sneer at me, "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">et tu n' sais pas le prix d'une bougie!</i>" The -world admired me: he never did. I was always to him a fool -who burned wax instead of tallow. There is always something -to be said for the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> point of view; but it is narrow—narrow. -After all, the storms and sunshine on Parnassus are -better than the worry over a lost centime in the back parlour. -I have been a successful artist in my day, but I should have -been a very indifferent shopkeeper, because I never could bring -myself to care for that lost centime—though I have lost -many!'</p> - -<p>He rose with a laugh, remembering the grand <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gaspillage</i> of -his generous and careless manhood. It had not been wise, perhaps, -but it had been delightful; and, after all, he had as much -as he wanted now in his little river-side house, his good wall -fruits, and his first editions of Molière and of Marivaux. He -would not have been a whit happier had he been a millionaire.</p> - -<p>As the frank mellow sound of his laughter echoed on the -air, and the shadow of the doves' tower lengthened behind -them on the grass, the notes of a horn in the fanfare which -is called La Brisée, blew loud and full over the fields to their -ears.</p> - -<p>'What is that?' cried Damaris, startled at the sound which -she had never heard before.</p> - -<p>'I forgot; it is the first day for hunting,' said Rosselin, -listening. 'It is the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ouverture de la chasse</i>.'</p> - -<p>As he spoke some equestrians rode out from a thicket across -the field in which they were. They were members of the hunt -of Dampierre, clad in a picturesque costume and looking like a -picture of the time of Louis Quinze as the warm sunset light -fell across them. They rode on quickly towards the west -whence came the notes of the hunting fanfare.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> - -<p>They did not look towards herself or Rosselin; but a few -seconds later another huntsman, whose hunter was lame, came -by in their wake more slowly, leading his horse. He turned -his head, paused a moment or two, then rode straight towards -them.</p> - -<p>It was the Duc de Béthune. He doffed his tricornered -gold-laced hat and bade Rosselin, whom he knew well, good-evening; -then glanced at Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Mademoiselle Bérarde!' he said, hesitatingly. 'Surely I -do not mistake?'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with recognition.</p> - -<p>'You came to the island with her,' she said, rather to herself -than to him. The colour grew hot in her face; all the -unforgettable shame of that day was with her in bitter recollection.</p> - -<p>'I am honoured by so much remembrance, and grateful to -the hole in the turf which lamed my horse.'</p> - -<p>'That is language for the château of Dampierre,' said -Rosselin. 'M. le Duc has lost his way, I think?'</p> - -<p>'No; I know my road,' said Béthune, who understood the -old man's meaning. 'And I never speak any language, -Rosselin, but that which best conveys my real thoughts. You, -who are so perfect an artist in speech, must be aware that I am -a very clumsy one. Is there any smith here who could look to -my poor beast?'</p> - -<p>'You can put him up at the house where I live,' said -Damaris. 'It is a very little way off; we can show you.'</p> - -<p>'That will be sweetest charity,' said Béthune.</p> - -<p>Rosselin did not see his way to prevent what annoyed him. -The Duke, with the bridle over his arm, walked beside her over -the pasture; the notes of the Brisée had ceased; the hunt had -passed onward westward, where Dampierre was.</p> - -<p>Béthune spoke to her with deference and interest, but she -answered him briefly and absently. Rosselin kept up the conversation. -Suddenly she said in a low tone:</p> - -<p>'You have seen her—lately?'</p> - -<p>Béthune was surprised.</p> - -<p>'You mean the Countess Othmar, your hostess of St. -Pharamond? Yes; I saw her a week ago. We stayed together -at the same country house in Austria, and I shall soon see her -again at Amyôt. That is her castle, as I dare say you know, -on the Loire.'</p> - -<p>Damaris said nothing. She paced onward, a little in advance -of him and of Rosselin; her head was drooped, her face -was thoughtful.</p> - -<p>'She was not as kind to you in appearance that day as, I -assure you, that she was in feeling,' said Béthune, not knowing -well what to say. 'She is capricious and negligent, but she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> -has a mind that is very generous and true in its instincts, and -those instincts were all your friends and admirers.'</p> - -<p>Damaris remained silent.</p> - -<p>'The chief instinct of the lady you speak of is to provide -herself with amusement,' said Rosselin curtly. 'She usually -fails, because the world is so small.'</p> - -<p>'You are unjust to her,' said Béthune, her loyal servant -and courtier. 'I am sure that she felt the truest interest in -Mademoiselle Bérarde. We were all of us distressed when we -learned that that magic isle was tenantless.'</p> - -<p>'The new Virginie has left her isle,' said Rosselin, 'and I -am endeavouring that she shall not make shipwreck on these -stonily seas of art and life. My dear duke, great ladies like -your châtelaine of Amyôt let fall idle words, never thinking -what they may bring forth. It is so easy to destroy content -and to suggest ambition. But to efface a suggestion is very -hard when once it has taken root in a young mind.'</p> - -<p>Béthune guessed at his meaning. 'The world will be the -gainer,' he said, as they entered the courtyard of the Croix -Blanche.</p> - -<p>Damaris called a man to his horse, then, without even looking -at him, she crossed the court and went indoors, and he saw -her no more.</p> - -<p>'She is very much changed,' said Béthune in surprise as -he looked at the dusky archway of the door through whose -shadows she had passed from his sight. 'What is her story -since I saw her on that happy island; I shall never forget it; -its blue sea, its radiant air, its scent of orange-flowers, its handsome -child reciting to us from Esther—it was a poem. Are -you going to make a great artist of her? Tell me her story -since that day I saw her on her isle.'</p> - -<p>'I do not know it,' said Rosselin. 'All I have to do with is -the Muse in her. My dear Duke, I repeat, your gracious Lady -of Amyôt, for her own diversion, poured into a childish breast -a little drop of that divine curiosity which men call ambition: -it was only a drop but it burned its way into the soul, and will -eat up the life before it has done, I dare say. Madame Nadège -did not care what mischief she did: oh no: she only wanted to -while away an empty hour for herself.'</p> - -<p>Béthune reddened indignant for his absent sovereign.</p> - -<p>'As you are so great an artist yourself you should think that -she did well in waking any soul to art.'</p> - -<p>'No,' said Rosselin angrily. 'No one does well who meddles -with fate or displaces peaceful ignorance and honest content by -unrest and desire. This child was happy on her island. The -world may perchance make her famous some day, but happy it -will never make her again, for happiness is not amongst its -gifts!'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> - -<p>'That is quite true,' said Béthune with a sigh. He asked -many more questions, but obtained little information. He -waited in vain for Damaris to re-appear. The sun sank, the -shadows deepened into dusk over all the vale, the swallows -circled in their last flight round the high house roofs. With -reluctance he was forced to bid adieu to Rosselin and take his -way to the distant château of Dampierre, where he was a -guest.</p> - -<p>'Salute her for me,' he said at parting. 'Say that I shall -return to thank her to-morrow.'</p> - -<p>'If you wish to do her any service in return for the help to -your horse, do not speak of her at Dampierre or in Paris,' said -Rosselin.</p> - -<p>'I will not speak of her to anyone,' returned Béthune, -'unless it be to the Countess Othmar. But you will allow me -to return.'</p> - -<p>'I have no power to forbid you. Yet it is to her that perhaps -it would be desirable you should say nothing,' answered Rosselin -after a moment of hesitation. 'I merely mean that the Lady -of Amyôt did, I believe, prophesy a great career for my pupil, -and first of all suggest to her the possible possession of talents -the world might recognise. For that reason I think Damaris -Bérarde would prefer that she should hear nothing more of her, -unless some day the world itself may have justified her predictions.'</p> - -<p>'You think it probable, or you would not waste your hours -on her?'</p> - -<p>'I think she has infinite feeling and a poetic temperament. -Whether these are enough remains to be seen. There are so -many other qualities required, all those humbler qualities which -are the prose of genius, the plain bread of character.'</p> - -<p>'She has one requisite, beauty. She is exceedingly handsome. -What brought her here?'</p> - -<p>'I cannot say: I am only her teacher.'</p> - -<p>'And who is her lover?' mused Béthune, as he walked slowly -out of the grey courtyard in the gloaming. His suspicions drifted -to Loswa.</p> - -<p>Rosselin went within and mounted a low wooden staircase -which led to the door of Damaris's chamber.</p> - -<p>'Come out and bid me good-night, my dear. If I loiter I -shall lose the last train to Paris.'</p> - -<p>She obeyed him and came outside her door.</p> - -<p>'Why did you avoid Béthune?' he asked her. 'He is a -gentleman and a soldier; he is a man you may respect and who -will respect you; though he is a great noble he is an honest -fellow. He is one of the few lovers who have worshipped -Othmar's wife without losing dignity or honour.'</p> - -<p>Damaris did not answer. She could not well have defined -why she had come within doors. There was a certain pain to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -her in the presence of Béthune because he was associated with -that one day so big, for her, with fate.</p> - -<p>Rosselin looked at her as she stood in the twilight at the -head of the stairs. There was an open window behind her, a -hand's breadth of blue sky, a bough of pear heavy with fruit.</p> - -<p>'Why did you not mention Othmar to him?' he said abruptly; -'you mentioned her.'</p> - -<p>'I do not know.' said Damaris. She spoke the truth. -She did not know why she was always reluctant to speak of -him.</p> - -<p>'Good-night, my child,' said Rosselin, with a tenderness in -his voice that was new to her ear. He sighed as he too went on -his way through the dusky dewy fields, sweet with the breath -of browsing cattle and murmurous with the whispers of the -leaves.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>When Othmar returned to Paris he paid Rosselin a visit.</p> - -<p>'You have been to Chevreuse?' asked Rosselin. 'No?'</p> - -<p>'No,' said Othmar with sincerity and some annoyance, 'I am -still at Amyôt. I only come to Paris occasionally. Is she well? -Are you satisfied?'</p> - -<p>'She is quite well,' replied Rosselin. 'The answer to the -other question is less simple. I am satisfied with her talent, not -with her character.'</p> - -<p>'What do you mean?'</p> - -<p>'Oh, nothing that is her fault. I merely meant that she is, -as Madame la Comtesse once said, "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">une sensitive</i>." Such people -have no business in public careers. You do not make street-posts -out of the stems of a sensitive plant. The Latins gave the -statues that were destined to stand in thoroughfares brass discs -to protect them. If you have not the brass disc you must not -stand even in the peristyle of a theatre.'</p> - -<p>'I do not think she is weak. Had she been weak she would -not have left the island as she did.'</p> - -<p>'Who is talking of weakness?—I mean that she is not of -a temper for the coarse career of the stage, which is always -passed in the press and glare of a stormy crowd. She would -play Dona Sol divinely to an audience of poets on your terraces -at Amyôt under a midsummer moon. But it is unfortunately -not a question of playing it so, but on the stages of public -theatres, where very often the coarse applause of the friendly -ignorant is still more offensive than the envenomed vituperation -of the hostile critic. I dare say we can make her fit for this. We -can give her the brass disc, but it will spoil the fine white marble -when we fasten it to it. My dear Count Othmar, you know -what the life of a great actress in Paris is; you know what it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -will be for her. We need not spend words on details. Is it a -good action that we do when we encourage her to qualify herself -for it, or is it a bad one?'</p> - -<p>Othmar heard him with distress. He was always haunted -by the memory that his wife, by a few careless words, had -broken up for ever that simple, peaceful, healthful, flower-like -life which Damaris Bérarde had led in Bonaventure. The -power of all the kings of the earth could not have replaced her -in it.</p> - -<p>'It is her choice,' he said, after a silence of some moments.</p> - -<p>'Is fate ever wholly choice?' said Rosselin. 'And when -a child says he will be a soldier, what does he know of war, of -wounds, of the sickening stench of the rotting dead, of the -maladies which kill men in hundreds like murrained cattle? -Nothing: he thinks it all <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tambour et trompette</i> and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Væ Victis</i>! -Your friend at Chevreuse knows no more of what the life of -the theatre is than the child knows of war, and I for one have -not the courage to enlighten her. Have you? She dreams of -all kinds of glories; she does not see the rouge-pot, the white -powder, the claque, the press, the lovers, the diamonds, the -ugliness, the vulgarity, the money bags, the whole <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ronde du -diable</i>. She thinks she will be Dona Sol, be Esther, be Rosalind, -off the stage as well as on it. Who is to tell her the mistake -she makes?'</p> - -<p>'Surely you can, if anyone?'</p> - -<p>'No, I cannot. You cannot make a mind conceive a thing -wholly inconceivable to it. I can say a certain number of -words certainly to her; produce a certain effect; suggest some -images to her which will be painful and revolting. But when -I have done that I shall not have done much; I shall not have -produced any real impression on her, because the advice which -I mean will not in itself be intelligible to her. I may talk as I -will of war to the child; but I shall never be able to make him -see what I have seen in the days of the siege of Paris, which -sometimes still turns me sick when I awake at night and think -of it. Perhaps it is because I grow old, and, so, sentimental -that I am troubled with those scruples which I do not suppose -would have suggested themselves to me twenty, or even ten -years ago; but I certainly do feel that I have not done what -contents me in preparing Damaris Bérarde for the art of the -stage. She will be a great artist, I believe, but she will be a -miserable woman.'</p> - -<p>Othmar heard him with anxiety and pain. The vision of -her was always before him as he had left her in the red brown -grass with the evening skies behind her. Country peace, -woodland silences, fresh air of early autumn, simple pleasures of -youth—these would find no place in life into which she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -been led to enter. Some, losing them early, long for them all -their lives.</p> - -<p>'I suppose,' continued Rosselin, 'that the imagination in -me is dying out; as one grows old one drops illusions, as old -trees drop branch after branch on the ground, till there is -nothing left but the trunk, and perhaps a woodpecker in it, -perhaps nothing except dust. Certainly twenty years ago I -should have said, and should have thoroughly believed, that -art—any art—was worth any sacrifice. But now I do not -think so. One pays too heavily for any kind of fame. To be -famous at all is to have all the doors and windows of your house -standing wide open, and a mob, all eyes and ears, for ever staring -in and watching you as you eat, as you drink, as you sleep, -as you play, aye, even as you weep by your child's coffin or -draw the shroud over the breast of your dead mistress. Once -famous, you never can laugh or can cry in solitude ever again. -Either to throw laurel crowns at you or to pelt you with stones, -the mob is always pushing in over your threshold. When boys -and girls dream of fame they do not know what it is—the -eternal adieu to privacy, the eternal self-surrender to the crowd. -Alkibiades loved the crowd; there are many like him in all -centuries; but <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les sensitives</i> hate it, shrink from it, try to bar -it out with their bare arm, which gets broken in the struggle, -like the Scottish maiden's in history. The price paid is too -heavy. All the shade and the freshness and the quiet leafy -by-paths of life are denied us for ever. There is only the great -high-road, the crude hard light, the gaping multitude that stare -and grin till we give up the ghost! The price is too heavy. It -is the same curse as the curse which lies on kings, never to be -alone.'</p> - -<p>He sighed as he turned and walked up the little path of his -cottage garden. Looking back upon his life he seemed to have -thrown his years to the mob as offal is thrown to a pack of -hounds.</p> - -<p>It was only a mood, a passing mood, but there was a great -truth in it.</p> - -<p>'One needs not to be famous to suffer that curse,' said -Othmar. 'Whoever is in the world has it. Private life is a -thing of the past; we are all expected to dine and to sup, and -to spread our bridal-beds and our death-beds, in public, like the -monarchs of old. An age which has invented the electric light -has abolished solitude and respects no privacy; it will end in -forcing all <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">âmes d'élite</i> to find and form a new Thebaïd.'</p> - -<p>'If they can anywhere find a square mile without a tramway -and a telephone!' said Rosselin, tenderly touching a tea-rose -which blossomed in the cold wet weather against the low white -wall of his house.</p> - -<p>Then he said abruptly:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p> - -<p>'What does your wife say now of her second Desclée?'</p> - -<p>Othmar was angered to feel that the natural interrogation -embarrassed him.</p> - -<p>'My wife has forgotten both her prophecies and the subject -of them,' he said with a certain impatience and bitterness in -the accent with which the words were spoken.</p> - -<p>'And you have not refreshed her memory?'</p> - -<p>'I think it would be useless.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin was silent: he was not pleased. He angrily -thought of Béthune, and wondered if he would speak of his -encounter with Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Some one will tell her if you do not,' he said with some -significance. 'Pardon me if I say too much, but I dislike concealments; -they are usually unwise and seldom profitable. -Chevreuse is not a vale in Venus or Polaris, that we can be -sure no one will ever see your <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i>!'</p> - -<p>'Anyone may see her,' said Othmar, with annoyance and -hauteur. 'But to recall to my wife a subject she has forgotten -demands a courage of which I frankly confess myself not the -possessor.'</p> - -<p>'Humph!' said Rosselin with dubious accent: he was not -satisfied. It seemed to him that embarrassing complications -would of necessity grow up out of so much needless reticence. -Othmar, he thought, was most probably not aware himself of -all the various and confused motives which disposed him to -silence on the name of Damaris.</p> - -<p>'She is not of a facile character,' he thought, recalling all he -had ever heard of the caprices and cruelties of Nadine Napraxine -in her youth. 'But when there is a nettle in question it is -always best to grasp it boldly. Besides, if she be so indifferent -as they say, the whole thing would be of infinitesimal insignificance -to her, unless concealment were to lend it an importance -not its own, as some shadows can be thrown on a white wall so -as to make a beetle loom large as an ox.'</p> - -<p>'Chevreuse, moreover,' continued Othmar, 'is a place that -no one ever sees in winter. Unless it be in the few weeks -when Dampierre is occupied, not a soul of our world ever goes -there. If she mean or hope to become famous with the fame -you decry, she is best there in solitude; if, on the contrary, -she fail it will be still well that none should know her efforts -who would not pity them. My wife is like the Latins, she has -no altar to pity; she despises it. If the world ever applaud -Damaris Bérarde, then and then only shall I venture to recall -to her the prophecy she made at St. Pharamond.'</p> - -<p>'If with her nothing succeeds like success she only follows -the world,' said Rosselin. 'I thought she led it?'</p> - -<p>'She does lead it: but she has great contempt for those who -fail in it. When a lamb falls from fatigue on the Australian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -plains the shepherd walks on and leaves it to its fate. Those -who fail seem to my wife as the fallen lambs do to the shepherd: -that is all.'</p> - -<p>'Damaris Bérarde will not fail,' said Rosselin, with a sense -of anger and of triumph in her.</p> - -<p>'Aimée Desclée did not fail—but she died.'</p> - -<p>'Damaris will not die; she is too strong; but she may break -her heart over broken illusions, as a thorough-bred horse breaks -his over bad roads. Good God, what a beautiful world it would -be if it were like the world these youths and maidens see in -their dreams!'</p> - -<p>'She may break her heart over broken illusions.'</p> - -<p>The words haunted Othmar's memory as he left the cottage -at Asnières. Yes, that was often the death of the strongest, -death mental and moral if not death physical.</p> - -<p>What he had done for her had secured her future from want, -had given her a safe home for so long as she would be content -with it; but how much more was there for which no prescience -could provide, from which no friendship could secure her! -With her ardent temperament, her ignorance of life, her poetic -and unwise impulses, how much would her heart ask and her -imagination demand! She would not, could not, lead the passionless -life of passionless natures. Whom would she love? -Would love only be for her the Charon who took her through a -river of hell to the shores of death, as he had been to Aimée -Desclée?</p> - -<p>Or would she leave behind her all those beautiful faiths and -fancies, all those innocent ardours and tender thoughts, as the -year leaves behind it the blossoms of spring, the young green of -April: and would she become famous and flattered, leading the -world in a leash, and putting her foot on the necks of her -lovers?</p> - -<p>He liked one vision as little as the other.</p> - -<p>Either way the sea-bird of Bonaventure would be no more; -either way the child who had gone away from him in the moonlight -under the silver shadows of the olive-trees and of the -mists of dawn would be as dead as though she were in her grave. -Would the time ever come when she would say to him, 'Why -did you not let me die on the stones of Paris instead of keeping -life in me for this?' Or would time give her that brazen disk -of which Rosselin had spoken, and with it the heart of bronze -which all must have instead of a heart of flesh and blood if they -would go triumphant through the heat and pressure of the world? -Rosselin had said aright, that the disk of brass would spoil the -fair white statue, and the heart of bronze, the heart of the -mockers of men, the heart of Venus Lubetina, would it ever be -hers?</p> - -<p>He went home to his own house, where he was expecting his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -wife's return that evening. He went into his own rooms and -looked at the sketch made by Loris Loswa. The sight of it -troubled and disturbed him. He had a sense of wrong doing -upon him of which, when he searched his own conscience, he -could with honesty declare himself blameless. He had put her -as much out of his own hands as it had been possible to do, and -the simple <em>ruse</em> by which he had been able to provide for her -maintenance seemed as innocent as any pretence by which the -motherless lamb can be persuaded to eat or the unfledged bird -to let itself be befriended by gentle hands. Still it had been -a subterfuge; it had been an untruth; and he hated the merest -shadow of falsehood. His detestation of it had been the constant -subject of Friederich Othmar's ridicule and sarcasm, and -the elder man had in vain argued with him a thousand times, -to endeavour to prove to him that it is, in the hands of a skilled -casuist, at once the most forcible and the most delicate of -weapons. He had always refused to admit its virtues; it seemed -to him a craven and contemptible thing, however dressed up -with wit and wisdom.</p> - -<p>That Blanchette de Laon had seen him at Chevreuse had -kept him from returning thither, and it also made him feel the -absolute necessity of acquainting his wife with all he had done -for Damaris before Rumour, with her hundred tongues, and -women, with their devilish ingenuity in exaggeration and suggestion, -should have bruited the tale abroad in some guise wholly -unlike the truth of it. If he could by good fortune place the -story before her in such a light that it would move her finer and -more generous impulses, then all would be well. But this was -so doubtful; the quixotism of his own conduct would be the -first thing which would strike her, and she would probably be -unsparing in her ridicule of it. Besides, the reception of his -narrative would wholly depend on her mood, on the trifles of -the moment, on the facts of whether or no she were in a sympathetic -and kindly humour. Any trifle would do to determine -that: if the rooms were not heated enough, if the flowers in -them were not those she liked, if the costumes of the coming -season seemed ugly to her, or if she had caught a slight chill on -her journey—any one of these things, or anything similar to -them, would make any appeal to her generosity and sympathy -worse than useless.</p> - -<p>He had been so long accustomed to study the barometer of -her caprices that he dreaded its mutability. He knew that there -were in her instincts and elements of nobility, even of greatness, -which, could she have been cast on troublous times and dire -disasters, would have made her rise to sacrifice, even to heroism. -As it was, in her perpetual self-gratification, her unlimited -power of command, her bed of unruffled roses, and her atmosphere -of incessant adulation, all the capriciousness and egotism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -of her nature were encouraged and nursed to overweening -growth.</p> - -<p>In the depths of her nature were those finer qualities which -will always respond to the appeal of higher emotions in moments -of extremity or the hours of great calamity or of great peril. -She would have had the dignity of Marie Antoinette before the -Convention, the courage of Anne de Montfort before Philippe -de Valois, the strength of Maria Theresa before Europe. But -nothing less than the inspiration of such supreme hours of life -could have penetrated the indifference of her temperament, and -the trivialities and the frivolities of modern existence could -never do so for an instant.</p> - -<p>Had he sought her pardon for some great crime, sought her -fidelity through some great ruin, he might, he probably would -have aroused the latent forces and sympathies dormant in her -character; she would not have given him a stone when he -had asked for bread. But in the things of daily life he had -found her too often without mercy to have in her mercies much -trust.</p> - -<p>The conviction that she would never give him the comprehension -which he wished made him withhold all other utterances -of his deeper emotions and more tender thoughts. He had -gone to her in one supreme moment of pain, and he had received -a rebuff such as repels for long, if not for ever, a sensitive -nature.</p> - -<p>She did not realise that her infinite comprehension of the -moods and minds of others was marred to them by the chill -raillery which accompanied her acute perceptions. She did not -remember that though to herself the dilemmas and the weaknesses, -even the passions which she studied were objects of -amused ridicule, they were to those on whom she studied them -subjects of great moment, and often of as great suffering.</p> - -<p>Even the men who most blindly loved her were afraid to -confide in her, because of the inevitable irony with which their -confidence was certain to be met. Many a time Othmar himself -had longed to lean his head on her knees, and lay bare to her -all the contradictions, and longings, and regrets of his soul; -but he had never dared to do so, because he had always shrunk -from the certain mockery which would, he knew, point through -all her sympathy, if sympathy she would ever give. Her comprehension -of human nature made her in one sense the most -lenient of auditors; but in another sense she was the most unsparing: -she could pardon easily, but she could never promise -not to ridicule. That one fact held sensitive natures aloof from -her with all the force of a scourge.</p> - -<p>'She will deem me such a fool,' he thought often: and then -he kept silence.</p> - -<p>He went this evening down to the Gare du Nord to receive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -her, and almost before the train had paused he had entered the -saloon carriage in which she had travelled undisturbed since she -had left Berlin. There was always in him something of the -eagerness after absence of a lover; her mere presence always -exercised over him a magnetism and a charm.</p> - -<p>She raised herself on her elbow from the mass of sable furs -and of wadded satin on which she had been lying; she had been -rudely awakened by the cessation of the train's movement; the -blaze of a lamp was in her eyes; she was impatient, and she -yawned.</p> - -<p>'Otho! my dear Otho!' she said with petulance, 'why will -you always come to meet one at a railway station? Of all the -many absurd customs of our generation that is the most absurd. -Nobody's emotions are so poignant that they cannot wait till -one comes into the house. I was asleep. What a cold night! -Why cannot they devise something which would carry the train -straight to one's bedside? All their inventions are very clumsy -after all.'</p> - -<p>She was slowly raising herself from her heap of furs and -red satin; her eyes were languid with arrested sleep; her tone -was irritable and irritating: she scarcely seemed to perceive his -presence; the sweet delicate odour as of tea-roses with which all -her clothes were always impregnated came to him well known -as the accents of her voice. A curious passion of conflicting -feeling passed over him; he could have seized her in his arms -and cried aloud to her, 'I have given you all my life, do you -give me no more than this?' Yet he felt chilled, angered, -alienated, silenced for the moment; a feeling which was almost -dislike came over him; it seemed to him as if he had poured -out all the love of his life upon her and received in return a -mere handful of ice and snow. But the inexorable haste and -vulgar trivialities of modern exigencies left him no moment for -thought or for the expression of it. He could only offer her his -hand in silence to assist her to alight, and give her his arm and -lead her through the throngs of the Northern Terminus to her -own carriage.</p> - -<p>He drove with her through the streets to their own house -and escorted her to the apartments which were especially hers.</p> - -<p>'I dare not disturb you longer to-night,' he said with a certain -bitterness of tone which he could not control. 'The children -wished to remain up to welcome you, but I did not allow -them to do so; I know how you despise undisciplined feeling.'</p> - -<p>She laughed a little languidly, letting her women remove -her fur wrappings, whilst she stood in the delicious warmth and -light of the rooms where thousands of hothouse roses were -gathered together in welcome of her return, filling the hot air -with their fragrance.</p> - -<p>'Do you mean that for satire?' she said with a little yawn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -'Do not try to be sardonic, it does not suit you. The children -are certainly much better in bed. I will go and look at them -after I have had a bath. I am very tired. Goodnight.'</p> - -<p>She gave him a sleepy sign of dismissal, then chid her -women for being slow. Had they her pine-bath ready?—there -was no bath so good after fatigue and cold.</p> - -<p>He left her presence with pain and anger, despite the coldness -which came over him towards her: coldness born from her -own as the frosts of the earth come from the cold of the atmosphere. -His adoration of her had been too integral a part of his -life for her touch, her voice, her glance, not to have a certain -empire over him which no other woman would ever obtain.</p> - -<p>In the forenoon, quite late, he was again admitted to her -presence. She had recovered her fatigue, she was serene -and almost kind, but the children were there: they were not -alone five minutes. Later, she gave audience to all the great -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faiseurs</i>, whose intelligence had been busied inventing marvels -of costume for her for the winter season. Later yet, there came -some of her intimate friends and some of her most devoted -courtiers.</p> - -<p>It was raining heavily in the streets, but in her apartments -there were hothouse heat and hothouse fragrance, in the sultry -air and amidst the innumerable roses it was hard to believe that -it was the thirtieth of November. People came and went, -laughed and chattered; she wrote notes, sent messages, telegraphed -many contradictory orders to her tradespeople; the day -was crowded and entertaining; there was a certain stimulant, -even for her, in the sense that she was in Paris.</p> - -<p>Othmar did not see her again until they met at dinner. -Béthune dined there, and four or five other persons, who had -called and been invited that afternoon. The day was a type of -all other days of her life.</p> - -<p>Othmar thought with impatience and bitterness of the dreams -he had dreamed. She despised the world and ridiculed it; yet -who was more absorbed by it? Who was less able to live without -it? She always spoke with her lips of the fatigue of society, -but, as he thought angrily, she was not so weary that she was -ever willing to forsake it. All the year round it was about her. -Every season saw her where its fashion, its pastimes, its flatteries, -were most largely to be found. Without that atmosphere of -adulation, of luxury, and of excitement she would have been -lost. The world was a poor affair, no doubt, not anything like -what if might be were people more inventive and more courageous. -She had said so a hundred times; but still there was nothing -better than its movement. To read Plato all day under an oak-tree, -or to sit alone by a library fire with a volume of Sully -Prudhomme, would not be any improvement on it, though it -might be more philosophic.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p> - -<p>To his fancy, life together was poor and meaningless, unless -it implied mutual sympathy and communion of feeling. He was -a romanticist, as she had always told him. To his views it was -not in any way an ideal of either love or happiness to be for -ever surrounded by the fever of the great world, to be for ever -separated by its demands and its excitements, to meet only on -the common ground of mutual interests, to dwell under the -same roof with little more intimacy than two strangers met there -at a house-party. It appeared that this was what she now expected, -what she now preferred. His pride prevented him from -struggling against her decrees; but he felt, and loathed to feel, -that he was insensibly approaching a position towards her scarcely -higher than that which Napraxine had occupied. True, she -still had moments of exquisite charm, of irresistible sorcery, in -which she occasionally deigned to remember that he had been -the lover of her choice; and in these she bent his will and -turned his brain almost as much as in the earlier years of his -idolatry. But these moments were rare, and when they came -appealed to the senses in him, and not to the heart; they left -him unnerved, they did not satisfy his affections.</p> - -<p>The world had so many claims upon her: his were forgotten -or ignored. Where were the visions he had had of a life out of -the world, poetic, unworldly, tuned to another key than the -brazen clangour of society? They were gone for ever like last -year's roses.</p> - -<p>The so-called pleasures of life had never had attraction for -him; they were a mere routine; he was tired of crowds, of -flattery, of splendour, of movement; he was tired of the women -who tried to beguile, and the men who endeavoured to use, him; -the whole thing seemed to him witless, tedious, tame. She, who -had always declared that it was so, yet could find her diversion -in dazzling it and stimulating its envy; though most things -failed to please her, yet, like all women, her own power pleased -her always; but he had no such resource, for the power which -he had (that of wealth) he despised.</p> - -<p>A sense of failure came wearily upon him during this evening -which followed on her return. If this were all the issue of -great passion and great love, what use were either?</p> - -<p>The world was a pageant to her, and he might stand by and -see her pass in it. The <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i> did not please him. He fancied—no -doubt he told himself it was but fancy—that the world -ridiculed him in that subordinate place, that half-effaced position, -that too indulgent acceptance of her continual caprices, tyrannies, -and slights.</p> - -<p>He did not remember, did not know, that he himself in -Russia had seemed cold to her. He was only sensible of the -barrier which had grown up between them, of the indifference -with which his presence or his absence was regarded by her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -Gradually, as the fine mist of approaching rain steals over a -sunny country, dimming the colours and effacing the lines of it -little by little, until nothing is seen but the colourless blur of the -wide white rain itself, so the sensation of dissatisfaction, of disappointment, -of disunion had come over the tenor of their lives -together. The consciousness of it brought to him a profound -and passionate sense of irreparable loss. A word from her would -have dispelled it, an hour of full belief that she had ever -loved him as he had once loved her would have sufficed to sweep -it away; but the word was never spoken, the hour never came. -Time only strengthened his conviction that, were he dead before -her, she would not greatly care.</p> - -<p>The sense of the incompleteness of his own life came upon -him with a strong consciousness as he stood in his brilliant rooms -with the laughter of his wife and her guests borne to his ear, -and the sounds of some gay music coming to him from another -salon. He might have ten, twenty, thirty, forty years more of -this existence, and its years, its days, its hours would always be -precisely like this year, this day, this hour. The future seemed -to rise up like a phantom and say to him, 'The past gave you -the fulfilment of your greatest desire. I shall give you nothing -but the fruit of that fulfilment. If that fruit do not content you, -whose fault is that?'</p> - -<p>Men whose wishes are thwarted can throw the blame on fate -if their lives prove barren; but he had passionately wished for -one thing, and all the forces of life and of death had joined -together to give it him. He had no one to reproach, no unkind -destiny to upbraid, if the gift left his heart cold, his soul cheerless; -if he felt at times a mortal loneliness, and at times a -weariness of vague regret.</p> - -<p>The cruelty of all great passions is that, after their fruition, -there must come this inevitable regret. They are altogether -beyond the pale of daily life; they can never fraternise with the -demands of social existence. She had once said truly that death -is the kindest friend to love, because it saves it from being made -ridiculous by daily habit and worn away by daily friction.</p> - -<p>The world is wrong when it pities Romeo, when it weeps for -Stradella.</p> - -<p>The great love he had borne her had survived all those trials -of familiarity and of habit which are crueller enemies to love -than absence or than death. It had been the romantic passion -of Romeo united to that depth and unity of devotion which -Friederich Othmar had been wont slightingly to call the knight's -love for his lady. It had been so essentially interwoven with -his life that it had always seemed to him it could only go away -from him with life itself.</p> - -<p>The idea that a love so great should yet have the same fate -as have all the little passions of a frivolous hour was still in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>tolerable -to him. With him it had been of those passions which -ennoble and enlarge human nature, because, though interwoven -with the senses, they yet embrace the soul, and are drawn by -their very idolatry to that longing for immortality which is the -only possible approach to faith in it.</p> - -<p>But he knew that he had never moved her thus; he knew -that, if he had ever given utterance to all he felt, she would have -listened with a derisive compassion as to the exaggeration of a -mind distraught. The crystal clearness, the acute penetration, -the ingrained scepticism of her intellect made impossible to her -those illusions and those hopes which are so dear to minds more -imaginative than critical, to temperaments more impassioned -than logical, as was his.</p> - -<p>He had given his whole life away to her, and she did not -even care for the gift; scarcely deigned to accept it, except in -conventional shape. He was unreasonable, no doubt, as she -would have told him had he said so to her. He had asked of -life and passion what neither can give—immortality. All which -serve to console the great majority of mankind did not avail -to console him for that loss.</p> - -<p>Most men grow content with the crowd which is constantly -about them, with the host of petty interests which claim them, -with the repetition of pleasures and pursuits which is enforced -on them; their days are dull, but they are full; they are consumed -by monotony, but they are unconscious of its tedium, -because they have no imagination and often no passion.</p> - -<p>Othmar could not be thus reconciled to the disappointments -and the sameness of existence. He required life to be a poem, -and he was not consoled because it proved a mere diary.</p> - -<p>The new year brought him without break that increase of -occupation which makes it a season of such weariness to all who -are of any importance in the world, and have a crowd of supplicants -and petitioners always looking to them for support. Himself -he would have liked to pass the winter season at Amyôt, but -to her it was useless even to suggest it.</p> - -<p>'You cannot ask the world to bury itself in a frozen wood -by a river in flood,' she had said when once he had wished to -do so.</p> - -<p>'But is the world absolutely necessary?'</p> - -<p>'If it were not there what should we do? You would read -Plato perhaps for the thousandth time; I could not promise to -read Goethe for the hundredth. The country in winter is like -a man of eighty repeating a poem on spring.'</p> - -<p>'It is just possible that the man of eighty might feel the -meaning of the poem more thoroughly than the boy of eighteen.'</p> - -<p>'His feelings would not prevent him from looking absurd.'</p> - -<p>'I suppose, you at least would never pity him?'</p> - -<p>'Most surely not.'</p> - -<p>'What would you pity?' he said bitterly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p> - -<p>She smiled. 'I should not pity people who could shut -themselves up in damp forests on the Loire water in midwinter. -A Russian winter is quite a different thing; the air -is like champagne, the frost is like diamonds, the plains are -like marble; it is charming to have one's roses and palms in -a temperature of 30° Réaumur, and by merely going out of -doors plunge <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en pleine Sibérie</i>. That is why I am a very -patriotic Russian. I love the intensity of its contrasts.'</p> - -<p>'As Marie Stuart loved Chastelard and Bothwell!' said -Othmar with a certain significance.</p> - -<p>'Should you think she loved either of them? I should -doubt it. They loved her, and being stupid as men only are, -they compromised her.'</p> - -<p>'I dare say she thought of all men as you do!—as a little -higher than the horse, a little lower than the dog! No more!' -said Othmar with some impatience.</p> - -<p>She smiled: 'Perhaps! I am not sure that it is a bad -compliment. Where should we put you in the seat of creation—Mary -Stuart and I—who cannot adore you as Penelope and -Hermione can?'</p> - -<p>'I never hoped to be adored!' said Othmar with some -bitterness.</p> - -<p>'Oh, yes; you did, one day. All men hope for it, only -they do not get it,—except from Griseldis whom they beat, -and from Gretchen whom they forsake.'</p> - -<p>They were alone in their drawing-room in the vacant five -minutes before a great dinner party. He looked at her wistfully. -What woman was ever comparable to her, he thought; where -else were that exquisite grace, that entrancing languor, that -supreme distinction in every movement and in every attitude? -The very tones of her voice, sweet as the sound of any silver -bell, and cold as the breath of frost, had a charm in it that -no other's had. With a sudden impulse of reviving ardour he -stooped and pushed the loose glove from her arm, and kissed the -white soft skin beneath it. But she, remembering and resentful -of the weeks in Russia, drew it from his caress with her chilliest -rebuke:</p> - -<p>'My dear Otho! we are neither children nor lovers!'</p> - -<p>He was repulsed and silent.</p> - -<p>At that moment their groom of the chambers announced -that some of their coming guests, who were of imperial name -and place, were entering the gates.</p> - -<p>He and she together descended the grand staircase between -the lines of their servants in state liveries.</p> - -<p>'Together like this!' thought Othmar. 'Together in -these pageantries, these conventionalities, these mummeries; -but never in any other hours, in any other way!'</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The days slipped one after another away, and he had still said -nothing to her of Damaris. He seldom saw her alone; when -he did so, no opening had presented itself which seemed to him -propitious. The length of time which he had unwisely allowed -to elapse now created an additional difficulty. She might, if -he told her now, naturally ask why he had been silent so long. -He had made no intentional concealment; anyone of the household -knew that the girl had been there in the summer and -throughout her illness. But no one, not even her most confidential -attendants, would ever have ventured to tell their mistress -anything unasked. She held them at a distance, which -the boldest of them never dared to pass. The only servant she -had treated with more familiarity had been the little African -boy Mahmoud; and Mahmoud had died, in his fifteenth year, -from the cruel north winds of Northern Europe, babbling in his -delirium to the last, in Arabic, words of his lady and his love -for her, poor little tropical beast! killed as men kill the antelope -kid of the desert when they drag it from its groves of palm -and its warm golden sands, to shiver and perish behind the bars -of a cage in a northern menagerie.</p> - -<p>Not one of the household spoke, or would ever speak, of -anything which ever took place unknown to their mistress; but -they knew, doubtless—as servants in great cities know all the -affairs of their employers—that the young girl who had been ill -there, brought in from the streets in the bygone summer, was -dwelling at Les Hameaux, and was occasionally visited by their -master. Partly from their gossiping when outside his walls, and -partly from other causes, the name of Damaris Bérarde began -to be bruited about in Paris. A secret is very like a subtle -odour; it escapes by unseen crevices and passes to the outer air, -though every egress may be barred. A certain vague rumour -arose that not only had Rosselin discovered some new and great -talent which he was training for the public stage, but that with -this hidden life which was so carefully concealed the name of -Othmar was connected.</p> - -<p>Had Blanche de Laon been accused of first setting afloat that -breath of calumny, she would have declared, and truthfully, -'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Moi? Je n'ai jamais soufflé mot!</i>'</p> - -<p>Yet she had conveyed a hint into the air, and it was sufficient. -One thistle-seed is enough to choke a field with thistles.</p> - -<p>In vain do we think we walk in private paths unseen; some -eyes are forever there to peer through the thickest hedge; some -lips are forever ready to say what they do not know, and magnify<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -the harmless mouse-ear to a wonder-flower with a poisoned root. -Those of whom rumour thus discourses with bated breath and -comprehensive gesture are seldom or never aware that they are -the subject of such whispers; they are always the last to -imagine that their acts are put under the magnifying-lenses of -public speculation.</p> - -<p>Even Rosselin, with his intimate knowledge of the inquisitiveness -and the loquacity of human nature, did not dream that -the mere fact of his going twice or thrice a week to Les Hameaux -and taking a neophyte to the temples of his own art, to quiet -morning recitations, could be a fact of any import to the world -at large. He had had so many pupils, and he never remembered -that the world had had any concern with them unless -they had become ultimately great enough to challenge and compel -its languid attention; and even then its notice had been very -hard to obtain, Why should it break its rule of universal -apathy and indifference towards those who are obscure because -a young girl lived on a farm in the pastoral solitudes which had -once sheltered Racine?</p> - -<p>Both he and Othmar, in very different ways, had a reserve -and hauteur of manner which always kept at arm's length rash -intruders and trivial questioners. Therefore they were the last -persons on earth to hear anything of what rumour murmured of -either of them. Damaris, in her simple home under the ashes -and elms of the Croix Blanche, was not more isolated from the -gossip of the world than they both were by choice and temperament. -But the world gossiped not the less but the more for -the immunity which their ignorance permitted to it, and because -it knew little invented much.</p> - -<p>The world to whom Othmar's was so familiar and conspicuous -a name built for him a tall edifice of lies down in those innocent -pastures of Les Hameaux. But he was unconscious of that -house of fable in which they made him dwell. He believed -that his own abstention from any visits there made Damaris as -safe from notice as though she were still beneath the orange -leaves and olive shadows of her isle. If she wanted anything -or any counsel, Rosselin would tell him he felt sure. At times -the memory of her, as he had left her standing in the evening -dusk amongst the red-brown seeding grasses, made him desire -to see her with a wish he restrained. Sometimes the recollection -of her flushed, bowed face, as he had touched her forehead -with his lips, came over him with an emotion which -was too gentle for desire, too kind for passion; but he resisted -it.</p> - -<p>'To see me can do her no good' he said to himself; 'and -it may make others do her harm. If she be left alone she may -learn to live for art: it is a safe and kindly friend.'</p> - -<p>One day, when he was at work in his little <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cabinet du travail</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -his wife came to him there for a moment on her way to her -carriage. It was his favourite room; it opened on one side -into the library, on the other into the gardens; the peacocks -would walk in from without when the doors stood open, and -the green gloom of an avenue of coniferæ stretched away -immediately in front of its steps. It was here that the sketch -made by Loswa hung betwixt a woodland glade painted by -Corot, and a sloop becalmed in the Sound painted by Aivanoffsky.</p> - -<p>It was rarely that Nadine deigned to enter there; she paused -there now for a moment with an open note in her hand, which -she had received that instant from Prince Hohenlohe, requesting -her intercession with Othmar concerning some matter of -German interest which did not brook delay.</p> - -<p>It was soon disposed of. He wrote a line and gave it to -her to do as she pleased with it, and looked at her with wistfulness. -It was the first time he had seen her that day; it was -four o'clock, she was about to attend a musical gathering at the -Prince of Lemberg's hotel in the Boulevard Joséphine, convened -to hear the first execution by illustrious amateurs of a -pastoral cantata of his own composition on the theme of Ruth.</p> - -<p>'You are going to the Ruth?' asked Othmar.</p> - -<p>'Yes; I wonder you are not. Music used always to draw -you out of your hole like a lizard.'</p> - -<p>'I have a great deal to do,' he replied; 'and, besides, how -many times have you not enforced on me the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> absurdity -of accompanying you anywhere?'</p> - -<p>'You need not accompany me. You can come by yourself. -Certainly I think it does look absurd to see two people always -together like two dogs in a coupling-chain.'</p> - -<p>Othmar sighed a little impatiently.</p> - -<p>'Lemberg has chosen a very <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois</i> theme; surely very -archaic and ill adapted for his audience. The emotions of Ruth -will seem to your world something as ridiculous as a gown of -the time of Marie Amélie!'</p> - -<p>'They are only in a pastoral,' she said with a smile. 'They -are very well there. We are not required to share them. You -would share them, perhaps; nobody else would.'</p> - -<p>'You mean I should share those of Boaz!'</p> - -<p>'Boaz or any other <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vrai berger</i>. You should inhabit one of -the happy valleys of Florian and Mademoiselle Scudéry. There -is always something in your ideas which is quite of the last -century, and seems to suggest a flock of sheep with ribbons and -a crook, like those in the Saxes statuettes. If I were to die, -you would like to lie on a bank of violets and mourn me in -alexandrines.'</p> - -<p>He smiled, but the raillery was not welcome to him. It -seemed to him that, if she had any love for him, she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -never laugh at him, never see in him that weaker, absurder side, -which may be found in every human character if eyes without -sympathy look for it. And the imputation of sentimentality -irritated him as it irritates all those whose feelings are strong -and whose temperament is incapable of any affectation or of any -shallowness.</p> - -<p>Let a man have as little vanity as he may, yet in his secret -heart he likes the woman he loves to find him a little more than -man. He had been long conscious that he would for ever look -in vain for this kind of admiration from her. There was a -certain depreciation even in her indulgence; there was an -invariable criticism in her mental attitude, however favourable; -she could be no more deceived as to the weaknesses of character -than a great surgeon can be as to the weaknesses of body. True, -her wit and her intellect served to retain her power over him, -but then he was nervously sensible that these made him less -in her eyes than he would willingly have been. He was aware -that the very fineness of her penetration, the very brilliancy of -her mind, made her infinitely more hard to please for any length -of time than women of smaller brain and of less highly-trained -powers. To a woman of rare intellect and of critical wit it is -difficult for any man to remain long a hero.</p> - -<p>'Our minds are all finite, alas! and you want the infinite,' -he said once to her with some petulance, conscious that his own -mind did not content hers any more than any other man's.</p> - -<p>She assented.</p> - -<p>'I have no doubt it was always the same everywhere,' she -conceded. 'Probably Marcus Aurelius was very dull and fussy -if one knew the truth; and I dare say even Horace is livelier -on paper than he was in person!'</p> - -<p>As she spoke now, her eyes had wandered at the paintings -which were hung on the wall behind him. He saw that they -rested on Loswa's sketch. He took the occasion which seemed -to present itself.</p> - -<p>'Have you ever thought of her?' he asked, turning to look -himself at the portrait.</p> - -<p>'Thought of whom? I was thinking that Loswa has lost -something of his originality, of his singularity: what he has -produced this year is all <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">banal</i>.'</p> - -<p>'Or seems so. That is always the Nemesis which overtakes -a mere trick of manner; when once it ceases to startle it -becomes commonplace. That sketch is so admirable because it -is no trick: it was a genuine inspiration of the moment. Loswa -was never so natural before or since.'</p> - -<p>He spoke indifferently, but he was looking at her with concealed -anxiety. Perchance it was a propitious hour in which -to tell her of the fate of Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Do you ever think of that child?' he said abruptly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Of what child?' she asked.</p> - -<p>'Of the one for whom you predicted the future of Desclée?' -he answered with a movement of his hand towards the picture.</p> - -<p>She looked at the portrait with an effort at recollection. -She had really forgotten the whole matter; it had been such a -trivial incident to her, though so momentous to the other actor -in it. He saw that her forgetfulness was quite unfeigned. She -went up to the sketch and looked closely at it, drawing on one -of her long gloves as she did so.</p> - -<p>'Ah, yes; I remember now. A little fisher-girl who interested -you, and whom you took home one night over the sea -in a most romantic fashion. What of her? Has she married -her shipwright? Was it a shipwright? Do you want me to -give her some nuptial present, or a baptismal cup? All the -idyls end in one's having to buy something ugly at a silversmith's!'</p> - -<p>'I told you once before she did not marry the boat-builder—the -shipwright, as you call him. You made it impossible for -her to do so.'</p> - -<p>'I did?' she repeated with amusement. 'You mean Loswa -did; or you, perhaps——'</p> - -<p>He grew red with anger.</p> - -<p>'I do not like such jests.'</p> - -<p>'Oh, my dear, you like no jests! You are a knight of -doleful countenance and take everything <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">au pied de la lettre</i>. If -you had had a little amourette with a fisher-girl it would argue -bad taste perhaps, but it would not surprise me, except as a -fault in taste.'</p> - -<p>'Nor would it matter to you,' he said bitterly; 'you have -given me my liberty so very often that, with the usual obstinate -ingratitude of human nature, I could have wished you less kind—and -less indifferent.'</p> - -<p>'All the same, are you sure you have never taken advantage -of my kindness?' she said with amusement. 'If not, you must -be the ideal husband of that <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeois par excellence</i>, Dumas -fils. But it is a quarter-past four. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Au revoir.</i>'</p> - -<p>He opened the door for her in silence, and in silence escorted -her through the house to her carriage, and bowed low as it -rolled away.</p> - -<p>His heart was bitter against her. He had been at once -disappointed and relieved at the failure of his effort. Damaris -was not even a recollection to her; she had caused the uprooting -of the child's whole life, but she thought no more about it -than a person strolling through green fields thinks of some field -flower which he has plucked up, carried a moment in listless -fingers, then flung away. Her own life was humbly touched by -so many supplicants whom she passed, not seeing them, so -many whose eyes were fastened on her in envy and in wonder,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -that a poor little barbarian who had been under her roof one -brief evening could occupy no cell of her memory. If he told -her the whole story she would only laugh; call him probably -Scipio or Galahad. She would be sure to say something which -would wound him; she would be sure to receive his narrative -with a cruel smile of doubt if not of derision.</p> - -<p>'Time will tell her as much as she will ever care to know,' -he thought with the procrastination natural to a hesitating -temper. Time would tell her, if ever her forgotten Desclée -should become one of those on whom the fierce light of the -world's fame beat; whilst if the life of Damaris should pass -away in failure, in obscurity, in the paths of privacy, what -would it ever be to her? No more than the rain which fell, or -the dust which blew, in some dreary by-street which her own -graceful steps never approached. She had no pity for failure, -no sympathy with impotence; the unsuccessful were to her eyes -the born <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">crétins</i> of the world.</p> - -<p>He paused on the terrace of the house as her carriage rolled -on its noiseless tires through the courtyard and out of the great -gilded gates.</p> - -<p>His heart was heavy, and a personal offence was in him -against her as he remembered her words.</p> - -<p>What plainer hint could she have given him to pass his time -and take his caresses elsewhere?</p> - -<p>All alone though he was, his cheek grew red with anger and -mortification.</p> - -<p>'What does it matter to her what I do?' he thought bitterly, -with a sense of mortification. 'I must be the vainest fool if I -can flatter myself that, had I a hundred mistresses she would be -ever jealous of any one of them. Men are feeble creatures, and -coarse, and what they do matters nothing to her. So long as I -do not cross her threshold unbidden, or ruffle a rose-leaf beneath -her, what does she care what I do?'</p> - -<p>As she herself passed behind her black Ukraine horses -through the streets, a certain vague annoyance came over her, -remembering his manner and his words.</p> - -<p>He had never before been irritable as he was now. The -evenness of his temper had been perfect, and had allowed her -so great a latitude in the indulgence of her satire upon him, that -she had been led to think him weaker than he was. It was only -of late that he had answered her with a touch of bitterness, had -hinted his impatience of her criticisms, and had shown that -fatigue before their manner of life which he did not now affect -to conceal.</p> - -<p>'If we go on like this,' she thought, 'we shall become like -everybody else; we shall not subside into friendship, but only -into dissension, and the world will end in observing our dissensions, -which will annoy me, his whole temper is so utterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -unphilosophic. He cannot understand and accept the inevitable. -He would have liked me to go and live in the centre of Asia -Minor and adore him: I refused to do it when it would have -been interesting to do. Good heavens! Why should I do it -now, when I know every line of his face and every turn of his -character as one knows the very stones on a road one takes -daily?'</p> - -<p>She had been wearied by his romantic ideas and by his unpractical -aspirations, which suggested to her only more <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennui</i> -than the world, stupid as it was, afforded her already. Yet she -was irritated by her own latent consciousness that she should -not care to know that his dreams went elsewhere.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Comme cette fille lui trotte dans la tête!</i>' she said, half aloud, -with surprise and irritation. Her knowledge of men told her -that remembrance with them usually means attraction, that -irritation usually means some secret consciousness, some unspoken -interest.</p> - -<p>Languidly she recalled from the depths of her own memory -the trivial, long-forgotten incident of Damaris Bérarde, whose -features the sketch by Loswa had preserved from oblivion. She -remembered how absurdly chivalrous Othmar had been that -evening, how coldly and sharply he had rebuked herself for her -negligence towards the child.</p> - -<p>Pshaw! how like a man it would be, she thought; if he -had been attracted by a little peasant with brown hands and -bare feet!</p> - -<p>If, after all, he were just like other men, she thought; if he -had a villa on the Seine, a cottage at Meudon, where he passed -his time when he was supposed to be closeted with the Rothschild, -or gone to a conference with Bleichrœder? Would she -care much? She thought not. She would feel that half good-natured -disdain which a woman, passionless herself, always feels -for the riotous passions of men; but she did not think that it -would affect her peace of mind in any way.</p> - -<p>If it were a woman in her own world, yes; she would have -resented that. She would have felt it an offence and an -outrage. She would have disliked the comments of her own -world on it; she would have been impatient of the ridicule or -the compassion which it might have entailed on herself from -others; and she would have been angered at the possible -ascendency over his intellect, and the possession of his confidence, -which such a rival would perchance have acquired to -her own despite.</p> - -<p>But of what she would have called a mere vulgar <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">liaison</i> she -would have felt no jealousy, not even much surprise, for she -considered that men were slaves of their appetites, even when -they were masters of their intelligence.</p> - -<p>For the whole ways of life of a man she had that contempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -which a woman who reads their hearts and knows their follies -is apt lo entertain when to herself the senses say little, and -their gratification is indifferent. But if it were a question of -the possession of his mind and thoughts by a new passion, if -anyone had passed before her and taken that pre-eminence in -his imagination which she had held so long, she became -irritably conscious that this would be unwelcome to her. A -love which reigned over his fancy, occupied his memory in -absence, and had empire over his will, would be an assumption -of her own place, would be a seizure of all that more spiritual -and subtle dominion which had been peculiarly her own.</p> - -<p>She had had unbounded influence over him for ten years; -she had been so certain of her influence that she had been for -once absurdly credulous of its duration. Though she knew -that passions wane like moons, yet she had never doubted in -her soul (whatever scepticism her lips might have declared in -jest) that his for her would never become less. She had never -truly realised that the time would come when her surpassing -seductions might leave him cold as one who hears a twice-told -tale, when his immortal passion for her might lie dead like last -year's leaves.</p> - -<p>She had always piqued herself upon the wisdom with which -she had looked at all accidents and sentiments of life. She had -always believed that no weakness or instability of human nature -could ever take her by surprise. And yet to find that at last she -had lost her sorcery for his senses and her exclusive reign over -his thoughts astonished her with a shock of humiliated surprise.</p> - -<p>During the pause between the two parts into which 'Ruth' -was divided, the guests of the Prince of Lemberg left the music-room -and strayed at their will through the other apartments of -his beautiful little house, which was modestly called a pavilion, -and stood withdrawn behind gardens and high walls of clipped -evergreens. It was four o'clock in the winter's day, and the -whole of the rooms were lighted as at night; the hundred or so -of people who were there represented all that was greatest in -fashion, with a few of those who were greatest in art. Belonging, -as he deemed, to both categories, Loris Loswa was amongst -those present.</p> - -<p>'Bring me some tea,' she said to him when she had seated -herself in a little alcove filled with bananas and palms, whose -green branches drooped against a background of Florentine -tapestries, and threw up in high relief the dead gold and dusky -furs of her costume. When he brought it she signed to him to -seat himself on a stool at her feet. He obeyed, flattered and -charmed.</p> - -<p>'Loris,' she said in a low tone to him, 'what became of the -subject of that sketch you made two years ago on that island in -the seas beyond Monaco?'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> - -<p>Loswa reflected a moment, then he answered with perfect -candour:</p> - -<p>'I have never thought of her from that day to this. I meant -to have made a great picture from that little study, but I lost -sight of it; I sold it.'</p> - -<p>'You sold it to us: yes. It is there in Otho's room. I -have often wondered what became of the original. Do you -mean that you have never had the curiosity to inquire?'</p> - -<p>'I really never have. She was certainly a provincial beauty, -but they are not the beauties which dwell longest in my mind. -I intended to make something <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">très empoignant</i> of that sketch, -but I forgot it, once it was sold.'</p> - -<p>'How like a modern painter!' she said with amusement, -and changed the subject.</p> - -<p>Lemberg approached and Loswa rose.</p> - -<p>'What is your verdict on my work?' asked the composer of -'Ruth.' 'I am very nervous till you have spoken. When -they are all praising me and you are mute, I think of those lines -of Robert Browning's, which tell us how the musician heard all -the theatre applaud, but himself looked only to the place where -"Rossini sat silent in his stall."'</p> - -<p>'If I were silent in my stall,' she replied, 'it must have -been because silence seemed the fittest tribute to your exquisite -pastoral. One seemed to hear the corn bend, the wind sigh, -the poppies blow. For one half hour you made me in love with -the country! And then the farewell to Naomi——I only wish -that Gluck were alive to hear.'</p> - -<p>She passed on to a discriminating criticism of the musical -structure of the composition, with all that profound and scientific -knowledge of the tonic art which were united in her to the most -subtle appreciation of its phases. The 'Ruth' had charmed her -ear, and her mind could distinguish why it did so.</p> - -<p>Béthune, who was near, had heard the conversation, and -wondered if Loswa were speaking falsely. He thought not; he -felt an impulse to speak of what he had seen at Les Hameaux -on the day his horse was lamed, but he refrained. Rosselin had -invited his silence, and Rosselin was not a man of idle words, -nor likely to give a caution without some good motive.</p> - -<p>Yet he felt a sense of guilt and of complicity. He had gone -back twice or thrice out of a sense of courtesy, as well as of interest, -and he had learned easily, from the people of the hamlet, -how and through whom she had been brought thither. The -knowledge that it was Othmar who had placed her there had -struck him first with amazement, then with anger.</p> - -<p>He knew none of the circumstances which had brought -Damaris Bérarde to Paris. She preserved an obstinate silence -in regard to herself, and his good breeding would not allow him -to put direct questions to her which were evidently unwelcome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -ones. It was only in the village that he heard the name of -Othmar, and the chivalrous laws which governed his actions at -all times did not allow him to try and learn what was withheld -from him. The hostility to Othmar which had for so many -years been so powerful a factor in his life was the strongest of -all reasons with him to compel him to abstain from all investigation, -to avoid the least semblance of inquisitiveness as to his -conduct. But in the absence of knowledge he placed the natural -construction of a man of the world on the little he knew, and -the facts of her altered abode and manner of life, and he was -angered against the man who could, as he thought, change for -new amours the passion which he had given to his wife.</p> - -<p>Of the faults of that temperament which left Othmar's unsatisfied -and repelled, Béthune was too loyal a lover to see anything. -Her very defects had always seemed beauties in his -eyes. To desert such a woman as she was for even so lovely a -child as Damaris seemed to him intolerably unworthy; and the -secret conduct of such a connection seemed to him at once commonplace -and coarse. He had always done justice to the rarity -and delicacy of many qualities in his successful rival, and the -discovery of what he supposed to be a mere intrigue in his daily -life surprised and disgusted him. When he heard Nadège now -speak of Damaris Bérarde he felt indignantly grieved for her -deception, as men are always inclined to grieve for a woman -who interests them before an infidelity which is not their own.</p> - -<p>'Who would have believed that even she would fail to -secure constancy?' he thought as he watched the light play -upon the rings upon her hand as she gave back her cup to -Loswa.</p> - -<p>'You look interested in my inquiries,' said Nadine, observing -his countenance with amusement. 'Is it possible that <em>you</em> -followed up that idyl on an island of which I let you read the -first chapter?'</p> - -<p>'No, indeed,' said Béthune in haste, with a certain embarrassment -which did not escape her observation.</p> - -<p>'My dear friend, it would not be a crime if you did,' she -said with a smile. 'Considering how many men saw that handsome -child in my rooms, I know very little of human nature if -some one at least of them did not return to the isle to write an -epilogue to 'Esther.' Loris denies that he has done so. To be -sure, men always deny that sort of accusation. But for once -he looks innocent.'</p> - -<p>'You never heard anything of her?' asked Béthune, conscious -that he did not speak wholly at his ease.</p> - -<p>'What should one hear? I dare say she has shut up her -play-books and eaten her bridal bonbons by this. I remember -she was quite stupid when one saw her close; she kept blinking -in the light of my dancing-rooms like a little owl out at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -noonday. If she had had any real talent mere upholstery would -not have had any power to strike her dumb.'</p> - -<p>'Probably it was not the upholstery. You have struck -dumb greater persons than she.'</p> - -<p>'When I have desired to do so. But with her I do not -remember that I desired it. I desired only to be kind to her. -I have always wished to discover genius in some obscure -creature.'</p> - -<p>'They say Rosselin has discovered one,' said Paul of -Lemberg. 'Then you will say, it is his trade.'</p> - -<p>'Who is it?'</p> - -<p>'Ah, that I know not. Some woman or child who is to -revive all the last glories of the French stage. Some one kept -in perfect obscurity hitherto, as bird-trainers keep their piping -bullfinches in the dark all day long.'</p> - -<p>He spoke with no second thought, knowing nothing more -than that which he said. But Béthune, silently listening, felt -again an uneasy sense as of some guilty complicity in what he -withheld from the person whom it most nearly concerned.</p> - -<p>Yet it was not for him to give up to her what Othmar had -concealed from her. Unwillingly and perforce, his honour and -his delicacy made him the reluctant keeper of a secret which he -disapproved. 'I have always been his enemy, so I must be -now his friend,' he thought with that loyalty which was the -strength of his character, though a quality so little known to -his generation that it seemed to it to be a weakness.</p> - -<p>'Am I an imbecile,' she thought as she drove away from -the house, 'am I an imbecile, that this girl I had utterly forgotten -haunts me all day long like a phrase of the 'Ruth?' -Is it just because I looked at her picture? Or is it because that -song of Paul's, "O, reine des champs," made me remember her -as I saw her going through the hepaticas under the orange -leaves on her strange little island? All these men know something -of her, I think, and Otho perhaps knows most.'</p> - -<p>As she drove through the streets, lying almost at full length -in her carriage, wrapped in furs and with a great bouquet of -gardenia idly clasped in her hands, her eyes were closed, but -her thoughts were awake. A little contemptuous smile was on -her lips, but a great slowly-arousing and amazed suspicion was -in her heart.</p> - -<p>She had bidden him take his liberty, true. So great sovereigns -bid their courtiers take theirs; but evil betides the -courtier who is rash enough to construe the bidding literally.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>There lived in Paris an old man who had once been a freed -serf, and then a confidential private secretary of her father's. -He had received a pension from her family for his faithful and -intelligent services, and the devotion which he had given to her -father he had continued to give to her. He was a man of great -humility, though of great sagacity. He had the patience and -submissive temper of the Muscovite peasant joined to the -subtlety and the adroitness of the educated Slav. Whenever -she needed any errand executed in which prudence and ability -were needed, she always sent for this person, whom she had -known from infancy, and who loved and revered her with an -almost abject devotion. Rather than fail to execute the wishes -of Nadège Federowna, or fail to keep the secret of them when -fulfilled, he would have died a hundred times over with that -serenity under torture which the Russian of the Baltic shares -with the Asiatic of the Indus.</p> - -<p>Of the very existence of this man Othmar knew scarcely -anything. It had always seemed to her well to have some few -instruments of which the position and the species were known -only to herself. One is never sure of the future. It was her -manner of keeping '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">une poire pour la soif</i>,' after the wise injunction -of the provincial proverb.</p> - -<p>She had never hitherto used the services of Michel Obrenovitch -for any wrongful cause; but she knew that, to whatever -purpose she chose to dedicate him, to that purpose he would be -bound.</p> - -<p>When she rose in the following forenoon she sent for him, -and gave him the name of Damaris Bérarde and the name of -the island of Bonaventure.</p> - -<p>'Whatever there can be learnt of this person and this place -learn for me,' she said to him.</p> - -<p>He asked no more instructions. He kissed the hem of her -gown in sign of humblest loyalty and good faith, and withdrew.</p> - -<p>'He has the grip of a ferret,' she thought, 'and the heart of -a dog.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was now towards the close of carnival. Othmar's time, always -largely occupied, and doubly burdened since the death of his -uncle, left him but little leisure for the studies and the thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> -most natural to his mind. His temperament led him to the love -of leisure, of privacy, of meditation. To read Plato under an -oak-tree all day, as she suggested, however insufficient it might -have seemed to her, would have been to him the most congenial -of occupations. He would have chosen Vaucluse, like Petrarca, -could he have done so.</p> - -<p>Amidst all the variety of affairs which came before him he -was often tired with that fatigue of the mind which is more -painful than the fatigue of the body. Study, even over-study, -does not produce that fatigue; what produces it is the constant -pressure of uncongenial and constantly-recurrent demands upon -mental attention. Since the death of Friederich Othmar such -demands upon him had been multiplied a hundredfold; and -whilst all Paris looked on him as one of the most enviable of -its great personages, he himself would willingly have given all -his millions to be free to pass his years in the intellectual leisure -and repose which were to him the chief excellence of life.</p> - -<p>'He has remained Wilhelm Meister and Werter, though an -unkind fate has made him a rival of the Rothschilds,' his wife -had said once. And a student at heart he did remain, and a -dreamer also whenever the thunder of the brazen chariots of -the world around him left him any peaceful moment in which -to enjoy silence and remember the dreams of his youth.</p> - -<p>The moments grew rarer and wider apart every year. He -was like the king on Burne-Jones's wheel of fortune: he was -crowned, but bound on the wheel.</p> - -<p>Therefore, in the press of great interests and of public matters, -which despite himself absorbed so much of his thoughts -and of his time, the remembrance of Damaris was no dominant -thing, but a tender and fugitive memory which came to him -ever and again, as the song of a bird on a bough outside his -windows may bring the gentle thoughts of other days to the -hearer of it who sits shut up in a close room under a zinc roof -in a city. Whenever he remembered her it was with infinite -pity, with great anxiety, with little of those more selfish impulses -which tinge a man's thoughts of a woman, always with -an almost passionate desire to undo the wrong which had been -done her by his wife.</p> - -<p>'What can I do for her? Command me in all ways,' he had -said more than once to Rosselin, who had always answered: -'Perhaps the best thing you can do is to let her alone.'</p> - -<p>He had many thoughts of her which troubled him, and -vague projects which he was forced to abandon as impracticable. -He wished to give her back the island, set her there in simple -sovereignty over the orange trees and the sea-waves, restore to -her her beautiful free open-air existence amongst the sea-swallows -and the olive-haunting thrushes. He would have -striven to do it at all cost; but the isle was not to be bought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -The owner believed it to be a mountain of treasure, since it was -sought for, and would not part with it at any price. There was -no possibility for him to give her back her little realm, to make -her life anything he would have liked to make it. He could -only leave her alone, as Rosselin had bluntly told him to do; -and that cold kindness did not satisfy the generosity of his -temper, or seem suited to the softness and helplessness of her -years.</p> - -<p>This day when he had watched his wife's carriage roll -through the gates of the courtyard, his conscience smote him -especially for what seemed to him neglect and unkindness to -one who had no other friend than himself.</p> - -<p>On an impulse of compassion and repentance he went out of -the house and took the train which goes west on its way to the -sea-shores of Brétagne.</p> - -<p>'Poor child,' he thought. 'Fear of them makes me a -coward to her. She must have deemed me unkind and neglectful; -all these weeks and months I have never been near her. -Time goes so fast——'</p> - -<p>He alighted at the little station of Trappes, and took his -way on foot across the fields towards the Croix Blanche.</p> - -<p>The weather, though dull and grey, had been rainless as the -train passed through the market-gardens and shabby suburbs of -the north-west, but when he reached Magny the valley in its -silvery fog looked poetic, and wore a charm all its own after the -dreary bricks and mortar of the outer-boulevards. The leafless -woods wore lovely hues of bronze and ashen-grey; the bare -fields were of the red-brown of a stag's hind; far away the -plains of La Beauce were veiled in a mist which promised snow; -a man went by him carrying cut wood with the bowed back, the -bent head, the heavy step, the downcast face which Millet has -made immortal in art.</p> - -<p>'How have we managed to make a toil and a burden of that -outdoor life which was so blessed to the Greeks'?' he mused. -'We must have blundered horribly. Or is it the weather which -is more at fault than we? In the south, pastoral life is still -enjoyable and still graceful.'</p> - -<p>He spoke to the woodman and got only sullen monosyllables -in return. He gave him some money, and saw the slow dull -eye lit up with surprise and greed.</p> - -<p>'I should be as sullen and as covetous myself, I daresay,' he -thought, 'if I had to cut faggots for a living.'</p> - -<p>Then he went on over the fields along the cross-road which -led to the home of Damaris.</p> - -<p>He had not yet reached it, when he perceived her at a little -distance, walking quickly, with the white dogs running before -her. She had on a long dark cloak, and the hood of it, lined -with crimson, was drawn over her head; her head was a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -thrown backward; her eyes were looking upward at the steel-grey -sky, across whose sad-coloured vault a flock of the farm -pigeons flew. Her hands held an open book; her lips were -moving, but he was too far off from her to hear the sound of -her voice. Her feet came quickly over the brown bare pasture -so that she almost touched him ere she saw him. When she -did so she dropped the book; the colour in her face changed -instantly from white to red, from red to white. She gave an -inarticulate cry of pleasure and amaze.</p> - -<p>'You! you!—at last!' she said, holding out to him both -her hands, warm with the warmth of youth, though gloveless, -in the winter weather.</p> - -<p>Othmar took them in his own with a tender gesture and -touched them with his lips.</p> - -<p>He could not doubt the great joy which his presence brought -to her. Her eyes were shining through suddenly starting tears -of gladness; her mouth was tremulous with smiles; her cheeks -had flushed scarlet; her whole face and form were eloquent of -a happiness which needed no words for its expression.</p> - -<p>He thought of a languid, amused, disdainful voice which -had said to him awhile before, 'Surely anyone's emotions can -restrain themselves until one gets into the house!'</p> - -<p>The welcome of Damaris affected him profoundly, touched -him to a vivid gratitude. He was so used to the repression of -his warmer feelings, so accustomed to irony and languor, and -the ridicule of all ardour and enthusiasm, that this delight which -his presence caused was to him at once infinitely pathetic and -deliciously responsive. He was thankful to be paid in such -unwonted coin, and the beautiful sincerity of it was clear and -radiant as the sunrise of a summer morning.</p> - -<p>'I should have come before if I had known——,' he said, -and paused with a pang of conscience. Was it not a reason -rather to compel his absence?</p> - -<p>Damaris was not sensible of any double meaning in either -his words or his silence. She was abandoned to the pure and -frank rapture with which she saw the living man of whom the -memory abode with her sleeping and waking. There was so -much youth in her, and so perfect a candour, that no thought of -concealment entered her mind for an instant. He had been -everything to her; he had stood between her and sickness and -misery and death; he had made life bloom again for her when -it had seemed engulfed in the blackness of poverty and solitude. -To her he had been truly a ministering angel. She could have -wept and laughed for joy at the touch of his hand, at the sound -of his voice.</p> - -<p>Othmar was embarrassed: she was not. He was conscious -of the meaning of her happiness; she was not. He let go her -hands, and moved beside her under the leafless trees.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p> - -<p>'May we go into the house?' he asked. He remembered -Blanche de Laon.</p> - -<p>'Yes,' she answered; her voice was tremulous with emotion, -and had the thrill of an exquisite happiness in it.</p> - -<p>'You see, it is quite near,' she added. 'It is so long since -you came! Why have you been so long?'</p> - -<p>Othmar did not look at her as he replied:</p> - -<p>'My dear, I have so many occupations, so few moments that -I may call my own. And I had told you to write to me if you -needed me.'</p> - -<p>'I do not write very well,' she said, with a blush of shame -at the confession. 'And I thought you would come when you -wished.'</p> - -<p>'When I could, would be more nearly the truth. I am not -my own master in many ways.'</p> - -<p>'No?'</p> - -<p>To her it sounded very strange; to her he seemed the -master of the world.</p> - -<p>'No, indeed,' said Othmar bitterly.</p> - -<p>He walked silently beside her a few moments. His dejection -of tone, his weariness of manner communicated something of -their sadness to her, and threw their shade over the shadowless -and innocent joys of her soul. He roused himself with an -effort.</p> - -<p>'And you—I have heard of you often from Rosselin. Believe -me, I did not forget you, if I seemed neglectful. You love the -open air still, I see, though it is the chill grey air of the Seine-et-Oise -instead of your own warm winter sunshine. What were -you reading or reciting?—Dona Sol?'</p> - -<p>'Yes.'</p> - -<p>She had ceased to look up at him with candid luminous eyes; -her face was downcast and her cheeks burned. A vague sense -stole on her of the utter difference between himself and her; of -the fact that, though he was all the earth held for her, she to -him could only be a mere passing thought, a mere occasional -interest, a mere waif to be pitied and aided and forgotten. His -life was so crowded, so absorbed, so full of the world's gifts and -the world's honours, she could expect nothing in it but here and -there an instant of remembrance. She led the way into the -dwelling-house in silence. The recollection of his wife had come -to her: of that great lady who had tempted her, ridiculed her, -forgotten her, and been her fate.</p> - -<p>Where was she?</p> - -<p>What did she know of herself?</p> - -<p>She did not ask him; her joyous face grew dark under the -shadow of the crimson hood drawn above her shining curls. If -the mother of Napraxine could have seen into her heart at that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -moment her aged lips would have given the kiss of peace to these -young ones for sake of the hatred her young soul felt.</p> - -<p>'They are all away at work,' she said aloud; 'will you come -into my room? I think the fire is not out.'</p> - -<p>'I do not care about the fire,' replied Othmar. 'I wish I -could bring you the sunshine of your own seas and shores—or -take you to them.'</p> - -<p>She did not answer; he asked again:</p> - -<p>'Why would you not write to me?'</p> - -<p>'I do not write very well, I told you,' she said, with the -colour still hot in her cheeks; 'and I have no right to trouble -you—in that way. It is cold here. Will you come to my -room?'</p> - -<p>She went up a few wooden stairs and opened the door of the -little chamber, of which she had made her study. It had an -open fireplace, and wood was burning on the hearth; its lattice -window showed the wintry landscape. It was simple, but -looked like the room of an artist: the books, the engravings, -the water-colour sketches, the little statuettes he had sent there -to make it habitable and picturesque, gave it that air of culture -without which a palace is no better than a barn; a copper bowl -was filled with ivy and bay and holly, there were some snowdrops -in a glass which stood before a small bronze he had sent -there, in the summer, of a Greek shepherd playing on a reed. -What there was of art and decoration there was of his providing; -but still a certain grace of arrangement and harmony of tones -were due to her and to the same instincts in her which had made -of her sea balcony on Bonaventure a little hermitage dedicated -to the few nightingales and the many sea-swallows, and, amidst -the sordid cares and the harsh accents which were around her, -had enabled her to hear the voice of Ruy Blas or of Fortunio, -as, hid in the orange-grove, she had read through drowsy noons -in</p> - -<p class="center">A dim house of happy leaves, with shadows populous.</p> - -<p>As he looked around this chamber with its union of elegance -and rusticity, there passed over his mind the consciousness of -how utterly his wife would mistake the motive which had -brought him there, the feeling which had prompted him to have -this child surrounded, as far as it was possible, with such simple -pleasures as art and nature can bestow on poetic temperaments. -The world was always with her; its influences had saturated -her mind and coloured her judgments too deeply for her ever -to judge otherwise than as the world would do. To her as to -the world, if ever either became aware of this home which he -had made for another woman under the ash-trees of Les -Hameaux, he could only seem the protector of Damaris in a -very different sense to that in which he actually was so. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -certainty of such inevitable judgment oppressed him, and -obscured to him the beauty of the girl's face, the lovely freshness -and fervour of her welcome.</p> - -<p>The one great love of his life had been so long his only preoccupation, -his only idolatry, that it hurt him with a sense of -loss and of insult to think that to others it would seem as -though he had been faithless to it. Even the sense which was -present to his own heart and mind, that such infidelity might -perchance become possible to him, humiliated him in his own -eyes and made him feel a weak, irresolute, mutable fool.</p> - -<p>'Perhaps she is right enough to disdain me!' he thought -with impatience of himself.</p> - -<p>His thoughts were far more with her than with Damaris; -and yet the poor child's welcome of him sunk into his heart -with a sense of warmth and of sympathy, to which he had long -been a stranger. Her very personal beauty, too, seemed to -retain in it the glow of her own suns, and to give to those who -looked on it a vivifying warmth and radiance. He felt as -though, in leaving the presence of his wife for hers, he had -come out of the cool pale luminance of moonlight, shining on -the classic limbs of a marble goddess, into a sunlit and fragrant -garden, with birds at play amongst wild boughs of roses.</p> - -<p>Absorbed in his own meditations, his words were dreamy -and spoken with effort, his abstraction affected the sensitive -nerves of his companion and cast a chill upon her buoyant and -ardent nature. She grew silent, and watched him with eyes -passionate with gratitude and dim with tears. She saw in him -the saviour of her life, the lord of all her thoughts, her only -friend; she longed to throw herself at his feet and strive to -tell him all she felt. But she could not, she dared not; there -was something in his voice, in his gaze, in the mere fact of his -presence, which daunted and held her dumb. In his absence -she had repeated to herself a thousand times the eloquent words -with which she would tell him all she felt; but now that he -was there before her, she was mute. The colour came and -went in her expressive face, the veins in her throat swelled -with emotion; she could find nothing to say which was worth -saying; when she spoke in the words of the poets she was -eloquent, but when she could only look in her own heart and -long to speak, how poor she seemed to herself, how dull and -dumb!</p> - -<p>The intensity of the happiness his presence brought with it, -in itself bewildered and alarmed her with a vague fear to which -she could have given no name had she tried. She had been -happy in her childhood upon Bonaventure, with the happiness -of youth and health and vigour; the happiness of the fawn in -the fernbrake, of the swallow on the wing; unconscious, delightful, -instinctive happiness in the mere sense of sentient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -life. But this happiness which she felt now was new to her, -and closely allied to pain, and nervous as its twin-sister, -sorrow; she was afraid of it and mute.</p> - -<p>At last she broke the silence timidly:</p> - -<p>'There was something I thought I would write to tell you -because he is one of your friends, but then I thought it did not -matter. It was only that M. de Béthune has been here twice or -three times.'</p> - -<p>'Béthune!' echoed Othmar with astonishment and some displeasure. -'How came he here?'</p> - -<p>She told him, and added 'He has come back on different -days. He brought me a jewel once; it was very handsome. It -was because I attended to his horse's sprain; I asked him to take -it back again and he did so. Since that he has brought me -flowers. Those flowers are some of his.'</p> - -<p>He looked where she looked and saw a group of hothouse -blossoms of value and rarity. He felt an annoyance which he -did not dissimulate. 'Do he and his flowers please you?' he -asked, not wisely as he knew.</p> - -<p>But the perfect candour of her eyes remained unclouded.</p> - -<p>'I do not think about him,' she replied in that tone which -was an echo of her free and fearless life upon the island. 'He -is kind, and M. Rosselin says he is good. He is a great friend -of hers, is he not?'</p> - -<p>'Of my wife's?' said Othmar, with irritation. 'Yes. She -likes him, he is often with her; he is one of those persons whom -great ladies care to chain to their thrones.'</p> - -<p>He had himself always had a vague jealousy of Gui de -Béthune; the intimacy which his wife allowed him, although -only, he knew, in accordance with the habits and usages of a -woman of the world, yet was always more intimate than he -cared to see. He knew the solidity and nobility of Béthune's -character and the hopeless devotion which had so long absorbed -his heart, but sometimes he thought that his wife might have -found better ways of rewarding the one and of curing the other -than the constant attendance on her which she permitted to a -man who had adored her before the death of Napraxine, and -had offered her his hand after it. He had said little against -it, because he had known how absurd and vulgar a passion -jealousy had always seemed in her sight, but there had never -been any cordiality of intercourse between himself and -Béthune, and it irritated him to hear that Béthune of all men -should, by an accident of sport, have found his way to Les -Hameaux.</p> - -<p>The idea had caused him uneasiness, and associated with the -remembrance of Blanche de Laon, made him conscious that the -secret of the vale of Chevreuse had been very rashly and -consciously kept by him from his wife. The Duc was a man of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -chivalrous honour and fastidious delicacy; he would in all -likelihood feel bound to respect a secret which he had accidentally -suppressed, but the influence of Nadège was unbounded -with him, and if by any chance through the malice of Blanchette, -or any other means, her suspicions should be in any way aroused, -she would turn the mind of Béthune inside out as easily as a -child can empty a bird's nest. He knew her great power over -men, and the tenacity with which she would at times follow out -an idea if it were one which appeared to elude her, or which -others sought to conceal from her.</p> - -<p>'Does he know your story?' he asked, with some embarrassment. -'Have you mentioned me to him?'</p> - -<p>'Oh no!'—the colour flushed into her face, there was indignation -in her denial. 'Do you think that I would talk of—of—of -that time and of you?'</p> - -<p>Her voice trembled a little over the last word; she added -after a moment,</p> - -<p>'He speaks of her sometimes—of you never.'</p> - -<p>'Ah!'</p> - -<p>Othmar understood the meaning of that, though his companion -did not.</p> - -<p>The admiration and loyalty with which her visitor had -spoken of a lady who was nothing to him, had seemed even to -her unworldly ignorance something which Othmar would not -like. She, who had only seen the homely lives of the toilers of -the sea and soil, with their primitive passions and their single-minded -ideas, did not dream of the easy relations and the elastic -opinions which exist in the great world, of the friendships which -have all the grace of love without its fatigue and its bondage, of -the influence which brilliant women can exercise over the minds -and lives of men, without giving in return one iota of their own -freedom or feeling one pulse of tenderness. All those intricate -motives, and half-dissolute, half-delicate, liberties which prevail -in society, were to her unknown, unimaginable. She could -understand that a woman or a man should die for love, or should -in an hour of hatred slay what they were jealous of, or what had -robbed them of their love. All the simple deep undivided -emotions of life were intelligible to her and aroused response in -her nature, but the refinements of caprice and of fancy, the -subtleties of cultured minds playing with passions which they -were too languid and too hypocritical to share, these were -altogether unintelligible to her.</p> - -<p>In her short life she had not lived with the rude labouring -folk who had been her sole companions, without knowing that -men could be faithless and women also. But in the only people -she had ever known, fidelity had had a rude and literal interpretation, -and infidelity had often been roughly chastised by a -blow of the knife, or the scourge of a rope's end. All the refined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -gradations of inconstancy in the great world were wholly unimaginable -by her.</p> - -<p>'You will have to live ten years more before you can play in -Sardou's pieces,' Rosselin had said one day to her; 'as yet you -must remain with the poets, with the eternal children, with the -eternal <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Naturkinder</i>.'</p> - -<p>'Perhaps,' Rosselin had added to himself, 'she will never be -able to play Dora, or Froufrou, only Adrienne Lecouvreur, or -Marie Stuart. She has a character cast on broad bold antique -lines; simple and profound feelings alone are natural to her. -The intricacies of complex emotion, and the contempt born of -analysis, are not intelligible to her. She would understand why -the Duchesse de Septmonts throws the cup down so violently in -"L'Etrangère," but she would not understand why Froufrou -vacillates so helplessly between her family and her lover.'</p> - -<p>She looked wistfully now at Othmar, afraid that she had -displeased him, yet urged on by the unconquerable attraction -which the character of his wife exercised over her:</p> - -<p>'Why has she so much power over people?' she asked in a -low voice.</p> - -<p>'My wife?' asked Othmar, who was absorbed in his own -thoughts. 'How can I tell you, my dear? Perhaps she has -it because she does not care about it; perhaps because all men -seem to her to be fools; perhaps because nature has made her -cleverer than we are: how can I tell you? There are persons -born into this world with a magnetic power over the minds of -others: she is one of them. You have seen it yourself; she -was an utter stranger to you, yet she said but two words to you, -and you followed her, and all your peaceful, and innocent, and -happy life went to pieces like a child's sand-city before the tide -of the sea. She can always do that. She has done it a million -times. She has done it with this man you speak of; she looked -at him once years and years ago, and he has never been free any -more. Other women hardly exist for him. He would prefer -to be wretched following her shadow, than to be happy where -she was not. There are others like him——'</p> - -<p>The face of Damaris grew troubled and embarrassed, there -was a sound of indignation in her voice as she said: 'But since -she is your wife?'</p> - -<p>Othmar laughed a little bitterly.</p> - -<p>'Ah, my dear child!—you belong to another world than -ours. You have seen amongst your fisher-folk and your fruit-sellers -a kind of union of labour, which is called marriage, and -which makes the woman toil all day for her children and her -house, and grow grey on one hearthstone, and live out her life -with the sun shining on one narrow field. You do not understand -that when a great lady does a man the honour to accept -his hand in marriage, she retains her own complete immunity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -from all obligations whatever; she only remains beside him on -the tacit condition that he shall submit to all her terms; she -makes his houses brilliant, she amuses herself, and he can do -the same if nature have not made him too dull; she has a -number of friendships and interests with which he has nothing -to do; and if his heart remain unsatisfied, that is nothing to her—he -can take it elsewhere.'</p> - -<p>There was the bitterness of personal feeling in the words -spoken, as if in impersonal generalisation. His hearer did not -penetrate all their meanings, but she felt the personal offence -and dissatisfaction which were in them, and they filled her with -a wistful and sympathetic sorrow. She did not understand. -How could people be so rich, so great, so beautiful, have so -much power in their hands, and so much love at their command, -and yet be for ever so restless, so weary, so dissatisfied? Her -heart hardened itself more utterly than ever against this woman -who had such empire, and used it with such cruelty; who was -so beloved, and so contemptuous of love; who bore his name, -dwelt in his houses, could see him when she would, and yet -seemed to give him no more rest or kindness than she gave a -stranger passing in the street. The reasons of it were all too -intricate and too subtle for her mind to be able to guess one -half of them. In her own simplicity of phrase she would have -said only that he was unhappy, which would not have covered -one half, or one tithe of the truth; but that scanty knowledge -was enough to make all her own intensity of gratitude and -devotion to him yearn with longing to console him, and sink -heartsick before its own impotency to do so.</p> - -<p>All through the months in which he had been absent, she -had thought of him with wistful memories, vague troubled -thoughts, of which he was the centre and ideal. The remembrance -of his light grave kiss upon her brow had thrilled through -her with a magical force, banishing childhood. All her warm -and passionate heart, rich as the fruits of her native land, was -given to him unasked, unconscious of all it gave. Never in any -hour of her empire over him had the woman to whom he had -given up all he possessed, his past, his present, and his future, -known one single pulse of such love for him as filled the whole -nerve and soul and nature of Damaris Bérarde.</p> - -<p>She would have gone blindfold wherever he had led. She -would have died happy if gathered one moment to his breast.</p> - -<p>But as yet she knew it not. As yet her own heart was a -sealed book to her. To him it was open; he could read on it -what he would; but he was unwilling to read.</p> - -<p>'Have we not done her harm enough,' he asked himself, -'that I should do her this last, this greatest? Shall I bind her -to me in her youth and her ignorance when I can but give her, -what?—an hour of my time, a fragment of my thoughts, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -cold hospitality of a heart which has been swept empty by -another woman?'</p> - -<p>He looked at her where she stood, with the grey light of the -pale day powerless to dull or take away the warmth and depth -of colour, the strength and grace of outline from the form and -face. The shining curls, the luminous eyes, the mouth like the -bud of the pomegranate, the warm soft cheeks with the bright -blood pulsing in them, they were just what they had been in -the sea-wind, and the sun of the south; the pallor and cold of -the north had had no dominion over them.</p> - -<p>She had the triple beauty of youth, of health, of genius. -There was the lavish glory of the springtime in her, as in the -April fields when nature flings down flowers at every step. She -should have been Heliodora to be crowned with white violets -and blue hyacinths by the singer of Gadara, and he—if he had -loved her, he might have opened his arms to her; but he looked -in his own soul and no love of any kind was there.</p> - -<p>Should he dare to offer her pale pity, mere tenderness, the -fatigue of passions tired and chilled by another? What more -unfair than for one weary and world-worn to lay his head upon -the warm white breast of youth when he no more could dream -there any of the dreams youth loves and love begets?</p> - -<p>Damaris was perplexed and pained because he stayed so brief -a time with her, for the low winter sun, already when he came -so near to its last hour above the grey and purple of the plains, -was still sinking red and dim in a western sky of smoke-like -vapour, when he rose to leave her and return to Paris. She -vaguely felt that there was some reserve between them, that -all he thought was not expressed, that all he desired was not -said.</p> - -<p>In her ignorance of the waywardness and contradictions of -the hearts of men, she could only think that he was angered -with her for her persistency in a career which he had told her -was not a happy or a wise one. To her it seemed that he had -every right over her life, since without him she must have -perished miserably amongst the unnoticed misery of the great -city in which he had found her.</p> - -<p>'You are not vexed that I was reciting the speeches of -Dona Sol?' she asked him timidly, trying to find out what he -wished.</p> - -<p>'Vexed? Surely not,' he answered her. 'I understand -that you still cling to this one thought, and since the ambition -of it is so strong in you, it is no doubt best that you should -give it an undivided devotion. We do nothing well that we do -half-heartedly.'</p> - -<p>'Does he tell you what he thinks of me?' she asked, still -timidly.</p> - -<p>'Rosselin?' said Othmar. 'Yes; he thinks greatly of your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -natural gifts; you content him, which is a rare thing, for he is -hard to please; he believes you may move that dull, stupid, -imitative mass which calls itself the world. I have never heard -him say otherwise or say less. But neither Rosselin or I are -gods, my child; we can push open the gates for you, but we -cannot control what you may find beyond the gates.'</p> - -<p>'You mean——?'</p> - -<p>'I mean that his experience and influence will enable you to -face the world with every advantage, will enable you to begin -where others only arrive after long years of toil and of probation: -but when he has done that he will have done all that he -can do. The rest will lie with all the blind forces which govern -human fates.'</p> - -<p>There was something in the words, gently as they were -spoken, which chilled her eager faiths and sanguine hopes, and -brought back to her that fear of the future, that dread of the -imprisonment of the art world, which had moved her after the -recital of the Conservatoire.</p> - -<p>'I begin to understand!' she said, with an impetuous sigh. -'It will be a slavery where I thought it a conquest. But—but—could -not I have <em>one</em> triumph and then come back to the -country and the quiet of it if I wished? Could I not make -Paris crown me once, even if I gave the crown back to them? -Why not?——'</p> - -<p>'Because, drinking once, every one drinks as long as a drop -is left of that <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amari aliquid</i> called Fame. If you once taste -triumph you will never return to obscurity. Did I not tell you -so in the summer? Besides, why should you wish to triumph -at all unless it be to give over your life to Art? I do not understand——'</p> - -<p>The face of Damaris grew red and overcast.</p> - -<p>'I want her to know that I need not be despised,' she said -in a very low voice, through which there ran the thrill of a deep -and sombre meaning. Othmar started and himself coloured at -the menace which there was in the sound of her voice.</p> - -<p>'You mean Nadège?' he said abruptly.</p> - -<p>Damaris gave a gesture of assent.</p> - -<p>She was ashamed of what she had said, but it had escaped -her almost involuntarily. He was silent. He was uncertain -what to say. There was a sense of reluctance in him to speak -at all of his wife to her. Commonplace words could have been -said in plenty; but these he did not choose to employ. He -understood that the whole strong and ardent soul of this child -was on her lips; it was not a time for trivial platitudes, for -empty phrases, which in moments of great emotions seem more -unkind than blows.</p> - -<p>'If I be your friend, my dear, you must not think of her as -your enemy,' he said at length. 'She admires genius—it is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -one thing which commands her respect: if you show her you -possess it she will be a better friend to you than I can ever be.'</p> - -<p>'I do not want her friendship.'</p> - -<p>Damaris had grown pale; she spoke with impetuous and -almost fierce meaning; the darker instincts which were in the -hot blood of the Bérardes were aroused; she did not pause to -consider her own words.</p> - -<p>It grew dark without: the sun had now sunk below the -horizon; the red light of the fire on the hearth reached her and -shone in her auburn curls, on her shining sombre eyes, on her -lips shut close with scorn. She looked at him from under her -level brows.</p> - -<p>'You care for her very much?' she said suddenly.</p> - -<p>Othmar was silent some moments. How much or how little -should he show of his real thoughts to this child, who loved him -and whom he could not love in any way as she deserved? He -thought she had merited candour at the least from him.</p> - -<p>'Yes, dear; I care for her very much, to use your words. -She has been all the world to me; in a sense she will be so -always. Every great passion has a certain immortal element in -it; at least I think so. She has been the one woman for whom -I would have sinned any sin, have done any folly, have given -up place and name, and honour, and all I had, if she had -wished. No one loves twice like that. Many never love so -once. I do not pretend that life with her has been all I hoped -for: those exquisite dreams are never realised; human nature -does not hold the possibility of their realisation. I disappoint -her perhaps as much as she chills me; it is inevitable, and is no -one's fault that I know of; the fault lies with human nature.'</p> - -<p>He paused. Damaris stood where she had been before, but -the light had died down from the wood-fire, and the shadows of -the twilight were upon her face. Her open-air, bird-like, -flower-like life upon the island had made all life seem very -simple to her, a thing regulated like the coming and going of -the boats between the shores, broad and plain as the smooth -sea sand of the mainland. All suddenly she saw that it was a -thing of intricate mysteries, of cruel perplexities, of fathomless -emotions, with whose disquietude and disillusion the learned -played as with knotted threads which it amused them to disentangle, -but before whose impenetrable secret the simple broke -their heart.</p> - -<p>Othmar continued with an effort, leaning against the side of -the shut casement grown dark with the descending gloom of -coming night.</p> - -<p>'I cannot make you comprehend, my dear, with how great -a passion I have loved her. You may have heard of one who -bore my name before her, one who died on your own shores. -She was lovely in body and soul, and had no fault that ever I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> -saw, and would have died for me—did die for me, perchance—and -to her I was without any love, always because my whole -soul was set upon another woman. And that other is now my -wife. And her, I tell you, I have loved in such wise that I -believe no other love worthy the name will ever arise in me -again. I do not say that it is impossible, for no man knows;—but -so I think. She has disdained the place she took, and has -left it empty, but no other can fill it after her. She has made -that impossible——'</p> - -<p>The tears rose to his eyes as he spoke. He could not think -of the woman he had worshipped, and whose heart he thought -had never had one pulse of actual love for him, without a pain -which overmastered him. He had never spoken of all he felt -for her to any living being throughout the years in which her -influence had reigned over his life.</p> - -<p>Damaris looked at him in the deepening shadows which hid -her own face. A passionate pain communicated itself to her as -she listened.</p> - -<p>'Is it she who does not care, then?' she asked. Her voice -was hurried and had a tremor in it.</p> - -<p>'God knows!' said Othmar. 'No; I think she does not.'</p> - -<p>He sighed wearily; his reserve once broken through, it was -a kind of solace to him to speak out aloud the disappointment -mute for so long, for so long unconfessed even to himself.</p> - -<p>'It is not her fault,' he continued; 'nature made her so. -We all seem to her weak and sensual fools. Her own mind is -so cultured and so hypercritical that men far greater than I am -would seem to her poor creatures. She needed a Cæsar to share -his empire with her, and she would have laughed even at him -because his laurels could not have covered his scanty locks! -She would have always seen his baldness, never his greatness. -She is made like that. She does not care; why should she? -We care for her. But that is no reason. Perhaps she would -regret it if the children she has had by me died, but if I died -to-morrow I doubt if the world would look dark to her. It -certainly would not look empty!'</p> - -<p>He spoke bitterly, with truth and irony so intermingled in -his unconsidered words, that it was far beyond the powers of -his inexperienced hearer to distinguish between them; all she -felt was that he was unhappy, yet that his soul was set irrevocably -upon this woman who had wedded him only to torment, to -elude, to disappoint, to humiliate him.</p> - -<p>She did not know enough of men and women and their -passions to understand all that he meant in all its fulness of -mortification, but she could understand that he suffered with a -kind of suffering for which it was impossible for anyone to -console him, and which severed him from herself by a vast and -cruel distance of which she became suddenly sensible as she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -never been before. His presence was sweet to her with a -sweetness which was akin to anguish; the sound of his voice -thrilled through all her being, the touch of his hand was a -magnetism over her, charming her to a sense of ecstasy in which -she lost all power of will: but she was powerless to banish for -an hour the remembrance of this other woman, she had no -sorcery which could undo and replace the magic of the past; -she did not think this or feel this because her thoughts and her -feelings were all confused and inarticulate, but it was so, and -an immense consciousness of loneliness and impotency weighed -like lead upon the warmth and the buoyancy of her soul.</p> - -<p>She was nothing to him.</p> - -<p>They were alike silent, standing in the dusky windows with -the cold dark country in its wintry silences stretched without.</p> - -<p>'It is best she should know!' he thought with a sense of -cruelty and ingratitude. It seemed to him terrible that she -should waste all the treasures of her lovely youth, of her fresh -emotions, of her original thoughts, of her awaking passions, -upon one who could not give her even one single heart's beat of -love in answer. He stooped and kissed her on her shining -curls.</p> - -<p>'Good-night, my child,' he said with pitying tenderness. -'Good-night. Think of me as your friend, always your friend, -and if you see me seldom believe that it is not due to want of -sympathy, but only because—because——'</p> - -<p>He paused, seeking for words which could render his meaning -clear to her without wounding her by too plain and blunt a -warning against her own heart.</p> - -<p>'Because I meet you too late to be able to care for you,' he -thought; 'because I have nothing to give you worth your -dreams and your youth; because I would give you more if I -could, but I cannot; because my heart is like a shut grave, it is -too full of its own dead to be able to let in the living!'</p> - -<p>But he could not say this, it would have been too harsh; so -he said nothing. He kissed her once more on her soft thick -hair gently and coldly, and left her, while the darkness of the -night gathered around her, and over the silent fields the last -snow of the winter began to fall, drifting noiselessly before a -northern wind.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>That night he received a letter from Melville, written in answer -to the one in which he had told him the story of Damaris. -Melville was far away in Asia at a Jesuit mission station in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> -snowy mountains, and his reply had taken many months to -cross the Chinese plains and seas.</p> - -<p>'What you tell me,' he wrote, 'of a child whom I knew so -happy on her little island has startled and does distress me -greatly. Was it any other than yourself who were her friend, -I should be not only distressed but very apprehensive. She is -of that ardent, impetuous, imaginative temperament which can -be led to any madness if misled by its dreams or by its affections. -I shall for ever blame myself that I did not see her before my -departure for Asia. But I left the South of France for Rome -very hurriedly, and thence came at once to these strange lands -to examine and report on the state of all the Catholic missions -of the far East to the Vatican. I had not a moment for any -personal memories or personal farewells.</p> - -<p>'I would that I were in Europe, but it will be impossible for -me to execute my errand under another year. You will do, I -know, all that is chivalrous and generous by her, but what I -fear is that thus doing it you will inevitably become the angel -and ideal of her poetic fancy. Let me urge on you to see her -yourself as little as is consistent with necessity and common -kindness, and to have her as much as possible occupied by intellectual -pursuits and interests. You will not be offended with -me that I say thus much. The vulgar successes of such easy -seduction will have no attraction for you, and I am sure that the -share which your wife originally had in thus bringing about her -misfortunes will make this child altogether sacred to you.</p> - -<p>'The dramatic art may be the only career, as you say, which -is open to her. I remember that she was for ever reading plays -and poems, and could recite her favourite passages with pathos -and with fire. It is not what one would choose for her, but if -she enter upon it, it may occupy her and save her from herself. -I have no churchman's prejudice against that or any art. My -time, when in Paris, has been largely spent amongst great -artists, and I have found in them many great qualities of the -mind and heart which might go far to balance before any judge -the freedom and the passions of their unconventional lives. I -believe the character of Damaris to be in every way that of an -artist. That resistance to all inherited destiny, and to all -habitual surroundings, always marks out the one who is born to -separate himself or herself from the common herd, and she had -this very strongly. Hardy, and loving all country things and -seafaring ways, as she did, there was yet always in her something -which was unlike her destiny, something restless, daring, -and dreamful, something which, wherever it is found, presages -woe or fame. She has at all times attracted me greatly, for -from her earliest years she has had that about her which suggests -the possession of genius, and there is in her that union of the -peasant and the patrician which has before now made the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> -original, and most psychologically interesting, characters on the -earth. Tell me more and at once of what you expect from her -future, if she be not, indeed, as yet too young for its horoscope -to be securely cast. I will write to her direct. Meantime receive -my thanks for all that you have already done to save this -poor sea-gull astray in a city, and believe in my respect and -esteem. Of course you have told Madame Nadège: what does -she say?'</p> - -<p>Othmar read the letter sitting in the solitude of his library -in the small hours of the waning night; and a pang, which was -almost that of conscience, smote him as he did thus read. He -had done nothing indeed to forfeit the esteem of the writer; -nothing which made him unworthy of the writer's confidence; -yet a vague sense that he had been unwise in all which he had -meant for kindness, and wrong in the reticence which had sprung -from his own selfish sensitiveness, oppressed him with a useless -self-reproach. How could he tell Melville that his wife knew -nothing of the presence of Damaris Bérarde at Chevreuse, -without appearing to him to have become that mere vulgar -seducer which Melville would have thought it the grossest of -insults to suppose him?</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XL.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The next day Othmar called upon Rosselin, and without preface -said to him abruptly:</p> - -<p>'You had better tell the Duc de Béthune all I have told you -about your pupil. I do not know whether he will believe it or -not, but it is wholly intolerable for us to allow him to suppose, -as he may suppose from appearances, that there are relations -between myself and her which have no existence in fact.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin listened and made no reply.</p> - -<p>Othmar continued with impatience.</p> - -<p>'I do not know what he thinks, but he probably thinks -something entirely and grossly unjust to her. He is a man of -honour: he will respect confidence if it be placed in him.'</p> - -<p>'Why not tell him yourself? He is, I believe, very intimate -in your houses.'</p> - -<p>'He is no especial friend of mine. He is often at my -house, it is true, but personally I have no intimacy with him -whatever.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin hesitated; then he summoned his courage and said -frankly:</p> - -<p>'Pardon me, but it is not the Duc de Béthune or any other -man who has any concern with the position which you have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> -created for yourself and for my pupil; the only person for whom -it can have any vital interest, or who can exercise any influence -over it, is the Countess Othmar, to whom you will not speak -of it.'</p> - -<p>Othmar coloured; he was greatly annoyed. He was conscious -also that Rosselin was right in what he said.</p> - -<p>'If my wife heard of her from others, I would tell her how -she came there,' he said, with some embarrassment. 'But I -can assure you that though M. de Béthune might believe in the -facts as you know them, she would not do so. She never believes -in any single motives. She would suppose that I tried to -gloss over with sentiment a mere vulgar amour.'</p> - -<p>'Men's natures,' he added, bitterly, 'are often as simple, and -straight, and frank as a dog's, because, like dogs, we are stupid -and trustful; but the mind of a woman of culture is far too -critical in its survey and too intricate in its own motives -ever to accredit us with the intellectual honesty we possess. It -is a quality so stupid that it seems to women as incredible as it is -uninteresting.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin grew in his turn impatient.</p> - -<p>'You, too, appear to me,' he said bluntly, 'to be too fond of -Pascal's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">esprit de finesse, jugement de sentiment</i>. Intellectual -analysis is very interesting no doubt, but I never knew it serve -in the least to solve the prosaic difficulties of active life. You -cannot govern circumstances with theories.'</p> - -<p>In himself he thought:</p> - -<p>'You create a position in the frankness of your generosity -which you perceive becomes equivocal in its aspect to others; -you earnestly desire to prevent its appearing so; yet you do not -take the one measure which would secure to it immunity from -suspicion.'</p> - -<p>'I have an idea,' he continued aloud, 'that the best way to -test her talents and prepare the world for the appreciation of -them, would be for her to recite at some great house, to be seen -and heard by some choice audience. Why not in yours? Why -not to your friends?'</p> - -<p>'In mine? To my acquaintances?'</p> - -<p>'Why not? It is, in my opinion, the easiest and most -propitious way in which a beginner can try her powers. It is -less alarming than a public stage, and the verdict given is more -discriminating, and of greater value afterwards. The majority -of neophytes have no such chance possible. They may go where -they can; begin in the provinces; take anything they can get. -But when it can be done, there is no question but that to make -an entry into the world in the best society is an immeasurable -benefit to any aspirant. It is to be famous at once if successful; -whilst, if unsuccessful, the failure is passed over as the caprice -of the host in whose house the neophyte is tried. As you are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> -disposed to do anything for her, it seems to me that it would -cost you little to ask Madame Nadège to permit the representation -of some <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">saynete</i>, or some short piece like the "Luthier de -Crémone," at one of her great winter entertainments. She -likes novelty; and I believe she often has dramatic representations -both in Paris and at Amyôt.'</p> - -<p>'She has them, certainly,' said Othmar with some constraint.</p> - -<p>Rosselin looked from under his eyelids at him.</p> - -<p>'Then what objection is there? You have said that Madame -your wife, first of all of us, saw something like genius in Damaris -Bérarde. She would not refuse to allow her prophecy to be -proved true under her own auspices.'</p> - -<p>'No; I do not suppose that she would refuse.'</p> - -<p>'If you would dislike that she should be asked, that is -another matter,' said Rosselin with some impatience, whilst to -himself he thought, 'You have made a secret of this thing, -and you find what a burdensome and stupid thing a secret is, -especially when it is one that circumstances are certain to take -out of our hands, whether we will or no.'</p> - -<p>'I have no dislike to your project,' replied Othmar with -hesitation; 'but,' he added more frankly, 'I must tell you that -my wife is not in the least likely to take interest twice in the -same person; and I must also tell you, as I did some months -ago, that she knows nothing of the present existence of your -pupil. If you like to tell her, do so; I give you free permission.'</p> - -<p>'I?' echoed Rosselin. 'My dear friend, if such a great -lady saw a superannuated old actor enter her presence she -would surely order her lackeys to turn him out unheard. I -never spoke to Madame Nadège in my life, though rumour has -made me feel well acquainted with her.'</p> - -<p>'She always treats genius with respect. It is, perhaps, the -only thing she does respect——'</p> - -<p>'Are you sure she does not think it escaped from Bicêtre? -Most <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grandes dames</i> do.'</p> - -<p>'No; she has too much intellect herself. She is a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grande -dame</i>, but she is much more besides. She admires talent -wherever she finds it; only she thinks that she finds very -little.'</p> - -<p>'There she is right enough; there is any quantity of mere -facility, of mere imitativeness, in our time, but there is very -little which deserves a higher name.'</p> - -<p>'And you believe that Damaris Bérarde has more than mere -talent?'</p> - -<p>'Yes, I believe it. I may be wrong, but I have never been -wrong in such judgments, though it seems pretentious to say so. -It is because I believe that she has this, that I am anxious for -the world to first hear of her in such a way that she may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> -spared the vulgar and tedious novitiate which is generally unavoidable -before a dramatic career; and also I should like to -command for her such an audience as may become a title of -honour to her, and a protection against false tongues. It is -inevitable that your name has been, or will be, associated with -hers. Modern life is one huge glass-house. If she be first seen -at your house, in your salons, calumny can scarcely attach to -your friendship for her. Pardon me if I speak with too intimate -a candour. If I said less, I should feel myself almost dragged -into the base collusion of a Sir Pandarus.'</p> - -<p>Othmar grew pale with anger; he was unaccustomed to -familiarity, and the words seemed to him wanting in delicacy -and in respect.</p> - -<p>'You are very hopeful!' he said bitterly, 'and wonderfully -trustful, my good friend, if you imagine that in the world we -live in she would be secured from slander by being seen in my -drawing-rooms. The only thing they would say, if they were -in the mood to say anything, would be that I deceived my wife -into facilitating my amours. Society is not so easily persuaded -of innocence as you appear to think, whilst it is thoroughly persuaded -of the Countess Othmar's indifference to myself!'</p> - -<p>In the impulse of his anger he said what he would not have -said in a cooler moment. He was greatly irritated at all which -was implied in Rosselin's latest words, and the allusion to -his wife's indifference to his actions escaped him almost involuntarily.</p> - -<p>'I regret if I offend you,' said Rosselin, whose keen eyes -read his feelings in his face. 'I say what it seems right to me -to say. I know the world has always <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mauvaise langue</i>, I know -it as well as you can do, but there are limits to its impudence. -I do not believe that the lowest knave of it all would ever dare -to say that you passed any insult on your wife. It has been too -well aware of your devotion to her. However, let us abandon -my idea. We can find some other way, perhaps; the preparation -I have given my pupil has been short, and perhaps immature. -She can wait awhile without injury. You have said, -I think, that she has means enough of her own to live on as she -lives now?'</p> - -<p>'She has means enough. Yes.'</p> - -<p>'Without wasting her little substance? I suppose her -grandfather did not leave her much?'</p> - -<p>'She has quite sufficient income for her wants; I believe -they are very simple.'</p> - -<p>He spoke impatiently and rose. Rosselin, whose tact was -always of the acutest kind, understood the hint and changed -the subject.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Left to himself, the anger of Othmar soon grew less, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -courtesy of his nature made him regret his impatience with a -man double his years and not his equal in station; one, moreover, -who had only spoken honestly thoughts which were -blameless.</p> - -<p>The suggestion had annoyed him both by what it asked, -which seemed to him difficult, and by what it implied, which -seemed to him offensive. And he repented of his manner of -receiving it, and of wounding a person who had warmly -answered to his own appeal, and had aided him in regard to -Damaris with a sympathy the more noteworthy because it had -at first been reluctantly given. Before night he wrote a brief -note to Rosselin:</p> - -<p>'I regret my impatience, and apologise for it. No doubt -you are right in your views. If I can see my way to comply -with them I will do so. Meanwhile, believe in my friendship -and my high esteem.'</p> - -<p>He signed the few lines, and sent them by a messenger to -Asnières.</p> - -<p>When Rosselin received them he was sitting by his solitary -lamp examining the condition of a much injured copy on vellum -of 'The Birds,' which he had picked up at a bookstall on one of -the quays the day before. He put the manuscript down, and -read the note with its clear signature of Othmar at the end.</p> - -<p>'A graceful <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">amende</i>,' he thought. 'He has a heart of gold, -but his judgment is not so much to be trusted as his feelings -are. He spoke of his wife's indifference. What could he expect? -You cannot get out of a nature what it has not got in it. -For five-and-twenty years she had lived for herself: did he -suppose that all in a moment she would forget herself and live -for him? I daresay he did. He was ready to live for her. -That sort of mistake is so often made; and it is always the -highest nature which makes it.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin lost interest in his Aristophanes for that night. He -had a foreboding of some evil. Imaginative minds are like the -birds: they know when storms approach.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>A week or two later he saw Othmar again enter his little parlour. -Othmar made ministers wait on him, and would keep -princes in his ante-chamber with an indifference which gained -him the repute of arrogance; but he waited himself on Rosselin, -a man old, poor, and solitary. These were his eccentricities, -which the world hated as it would never have hated any vices -in which he might have chosen to indulge.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I have come to speak to you of your wishes, which I perhaps -dismissed too hastily,' he said, as he seated himself. 'You -really believe that to be first seen and heard, as you proposed, -would benefit your pupil?'</p> - -<p>'I do not doubt it,' replied Rosselin, 'for the reasons I -named to you, and also because to succeed before a choice and -cultured audience is the greatest of stimulants, the most certain -of practical tests. I do not think that a long novitiate would -suit Damaris Bérarde. She is of the south; her beauty is -nearly at its height now; she is fully matured in every way; -she is of an impetuous and sensitive temperament; she is not -easily governed; she would never brook the tedium and slavery -of the theatres of the provinces; she must take the world by -storm, mount its throne at a bound, or not at all. She would -easily be irrevocably disgusted and eternally lost to art.'</p> - -<p>'Would that be so much a matter for regret!'</p> - -<p>'What fate can she have otherwise? You cannot make her -a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">duchesse</i>, she would not consent to become a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeoise</i>. She -is a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassé</i>: you have said it yourself. There are two asylums -possible for a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassé</i>: they are Pleasure and Art. I prefer the -latter.'</p> - -<p>'Art is quite cruel enough. She will never be able to go -back into privacy. What a loss!—what an irreparable loss! -And you speak of it as a gain!'</p> - -<p>'I speak as I spoke long ago, when first you named her to -me. The publicity you lament is the price which is paid for -fame. Some do not think the price too high, some do. It is -you yourself who wished me to prepare her for an artist's -career. She cannot become a great artist if she remain in -obscurity.'</p> - -<p>'Of course not. But it is horrible. Publicity is a kind of -violation——'</p> - -<p>'Recompensed like Danaë's!'</p> - -<p>Othmar was silent. He was conscious that a strong personal -dislike to her leaving the safe shadow of private life moved him -to an exaggerated objection to her being seen and known by -others. When once the world had beheld her, she would -belong to the world. It might make her triumphant or it -might make her wretched, but she would belong to it evermore.</p> - -<p>Rosselin guessed what he was feeling, and answered his unspoken -thoughts.</p> - -<p>'Yes; she will never go back either to Les Hameaux or to -Bonaventure. That is certain. She will belong to all men, in -a sense, when once she has sought their suffrages. But what -else can be done with her? What else? You would not hear -of a conventional marriage for her and a house in the suburbs, -and I suppose she would not hear of it either. She is half a -poet, half a thing of the open air like a doe or a swallow. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -cannot send her back whence she came. If you could do it in -fact, you could not do it in spirit. The soul would never be -the same—poor white seabird of a soul, which comes across the -flames of ambition and burns in them! You might set her -body down under her orange-boughs, under her blue sky, but -you could not give her the heart of her childhood. You are a -god in your way; the only god the nineteenth century knows—a -rich man—but to do that is beyond your power.'</p> - -<p>'If I had that power I should be a god indeed!' said Othmar -bitterly, 'and the whole sick world would come to me to be -cured.'</p> - -<p>He needed not the words of Rosselin to remind him that -never would he be able to undo the work his wife had done in -one idle moment of imperious caprice.</p> - -<p>Though the words were harsh and, in a great measure, unjust -to him, he did not resent them; he poignantly regretted the -fate brought on Damaris, and when he saw her he felt a reproach -greater than any which others could address to him. The breaking -up of the happy simplicity of her life had always seemed to -him as wanton an act as to shoot a seabird which falls in the -sea.</p> - -<p>Had he said so to his wife she would have laughed, and have -denied all responsibility. She would have declared that fate, in -some guise or another, always finds out female children with -handsome faces; that Strephon always comes to them, or Faust. -But he would not look at it thus. To him it always seemed the -cruellest unkindness needlessly to have brought Damaris Bérarde -and the world together.</p> - -<p>'Why does he dislike a public career for her so much?' -thought Rosselin. 'I do not think that he cares for her, except -in kindness. I do not think he would give her any part of his -own life. Passion has died in him, died under the coldness of -his wife's nature, as flowers die in frost. This child would give -him, I daresay, all the richness and all the heat of her own heart, -but he would only give her in return <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les cendres tièdes d'un feu -éteint</i>, and, as he is a man more generous and more sensitive -than most, he would never forgive himself for having sacrificed -her to himself. Better for her all the dangers of life in the -world than the consuming love for one who would never love -her as she loved. Had I been the confessor of Louise de la -Vallière, I should have said to her, "Remain in the crowds of -Versailles if you wish to forget: do not go into solitude." No -woman forgets who has no one to teach her forgetfulness. Solitude -is the nurse of all great passions, because in solitude there -is no standard of comparison!'</p> - -<p>Othmar, unaware of his companion's reflections, was lost in -thought himself. He felt that he had resigned the direction of -her life into Rosselin's hands, and had no right to dispute with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -her guide the course which he deemed most desirable for her. -He had sought the counsels and the assistance of a man of -genius in a moment of extremity, and he felt that he had no -title to dissent from whatever the vast experience of such a man -might consider wisest on her behalf. He knew that she could -not continue to dwell at Les Hameaux, unseen save by the dogs -and the birds and the mild eyes of the cattle, if ever those -desires for art and for fame which tormented her were ever to -have any fruition. If he had had the power to close the gates -of solitude on her he would not have used it; he would have felt -that he had no right so to use it.</p> - -<p>He was conscious that he had no title to stand between her -and any career which might become possible for her. Since his -last visit to her he had felt that he himself occupied too large a -place in her life; that his memory coloured all her thoughts too -deeply and too warmly; that her whole existence might be his -utterly in any way he chose if he would take that gift as easily as -a man may gather a half-open rose in the freshness of morning.</p> - -<p>He had no vanity of any sort. The many women who had -offered themselves to him in his life for sake of the riches which -were behind him had taught him humility rather than vanity, -for they had been so plainly idolatrous, not of him but of his -possessions. He had always doubted his power to make himself -beloved for himself alone, and he would willingly have put it to -the proof, like the Lord of Burleigh, had it been possible. But -even he, little self-appreciation as he had, yet could not doubt -that with the life of this child whom he had saved from the -streets he could do whatsoever he chose. Every expression of -her ingenuous nature, every glance of her innocent eyes, every -impulse of her ardent and untrained nature, told him that he -could, with the first moment he chose, render himself wholly -master of her whole existence. He was the god of her dreams -and the providence of her waking thoughts. Had he had less -charm for women than he possessed, he would still scarcely have -failed to become, through circumstance, the one person dominant -over all her mind and senses. Without any self-deception, -he could not but be aware that he could become her lover when -he chose. Gratitude, imagination, all the fervour of waking -passions stirring in a southern nature as the juices of the vine -stir in its tender flowerets; all the favour of opportunity and of -circumstance, which idealised her relations with him; and all -the impressionability of the first years of a youth early matured -under the heat of Mediterranean suns; all these were combined -together to make of him the adoration and the arbiter of her -life. And he—what had he to give in return for all that glory -of the daybreak of the soul? Not even, as Rosselin had thought, -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les cendres tièdes d'un feu éteint</i>.</p> - -<p>He had wider thought and bolder judgment than the timid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> -and narrow laws which a vast majority of mediocrities had been -able to impose on a sheepish world. Could he have rendered -her such feeling as she was ready to give to him, could he have -given her the warmth of a genuine passion, the sincerity and -the undivided force of a great emotion, he would not have considered -that he sacrificed her to himself if he had kept her in -eternal isolation.</p> - -<p>Great natures and great affections do not need the companionship -or the suffrages of the world. Its narrow and hollow -laws mean nothing to them, and its opinions mean as little. -Love is not love if it have any remembrance of either.</p> - -<p>But he could not give her this, or anything like this. The -great devotion of his life for the woman who had become his -wife had left his heart empty, yet shut to any other visitant. -That immeasurable and intense passion had been to him so -supreme in its dominance, so voluptuous in its ecstasies, that all -other love after it seemed pale as dead flowers beside living -ones.</p> - -<p>Men sometimes say to women that they have never loved -but once, and those women if they know what men's lives are -laugh, as well they may. Yet the meaning of the words is true -enough, and not a mere form of phrase.</p> - -<p>In the life of every man of higher soul than the vast majority -there is some one passion which stands out unrivalled in his -memory amidst a host of fleeting fancies, hot desires, dull -affections, passing pastimes, which also have in their time been -called love by him wrongly. In that one great passion he has -attained, enjoyed, realised what he can never reach again; what -no woman who lives will ever be able to make him feel again; -and in this sense he is not untruthful when he says that he has -only loved but once.</p> - -<p>Such a love Othmar had known for the one woman who, -despite the enemy Time, and the decaying worm of custom, had -still, through her very mutability, cruelty, and negligence, -retained a power to wound him and a power to delight him -which no living creature could ever rival with him. Even when -the chill of her own indifference now spread itself to his own -emotions, and he felt life, as it were, grow cold and wintry -around him, memory was there to tell him of the sorceries of -the past, and even love was still there, which watched her wistfully, -and would still have obeyed her sign had she made one.</p> - -<p>What then had he to give Damaris?</p> - -<p>Nothing which was worthy her.</p> - -<p>Such baser ardours as a creature who is young and beautiful -can always awaken in the breast of any man, and a pitying and -gentle tenderness which would be, offered to love, the cruellest -of tortures.</p> - -<p>And then she owed everything on earth to him: she was his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> -debtor for the very bread she ate. That one fact seemed to him -to stand between her and himself like a white wall made of -ivory by hands divine. That she herself did not know the -extent of her debt to him made it the more sacred to him.</p> - -<p>Circumstance being then as it was between them, and powerless -as he was to feel for her anything more than the tenderness -and the pity which she had from the first aroused in him, what -title had he to stand between her and any possible triumphs -and consolations which the world might offer to her? None, -he thought. None that any generosity could allow him to -claim.</p> - -<p>He said aloud to Rosselin:</p> - -<p>'Whatever you think best to do for her, do. Her career -will be your creation. If she ever attains greatness she will -owe it to you. I do not think that I have any right to interfere -either one way or the other. To interest my wife in what -she has forgotten is impossible. You might as well try to -gather last year's raindrops. But it is possible that she might -be pleased if her predictions were proved to her to have been -accurate. Contrive for her to see your pupil before she hears -of her. She may perhaps recognise her with interest. I dare -not say that she will. But you can make the experiment.'</p> - -<p>'It will be difficult,' said Rosselin.</p> - -<p>'Not very. You have before now done me the honour to -arrange dramatic representations at my house. Whenever the -Countess Othmar next wishes for entertainment of that kind, -which she is sure to do before long, I will place the arrangements -for it in your hands. You can then bring forward -Damaris Bérarde in any piece you choose. What you wish will -so be done. She will be seen and heard under my roof; and, -if successful, she may—possibly—reconquer a place in my wife's -memory. If she fail she will certainly never do so.'</p> - -<p>'She will not fail,' said Rosselin; whilst he thought to himself, -'She will not fail, because she will have the stimulant of -your wife's presence and the memory of your wife's disdain. -She will not fail if I have left in me any of the magnetism -which I used to be able to communicate to others.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin was a man of warm feelings and keen sympathies, -but the artist in him dominated the friend. He was so saturated -with the love of art that, as he had surrendered all his -own existence to its claims, so he unhesitatingly surrendered -that of others. The kindest of natures wherever there was no -question of art, he almost became cruel where the interests of -art were involved. To Othmar, the life of a girl seemed too -tender and poetic a thing to be given over to the imperious -exactions of any art; but to Rosselin, though he had at first -been unwilling to draw her into its sphere, he became, the -moment that he believed he saw genius in her, willing even to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -hurt her, if by such a hurt such genius could be stung or scourged -into any ampler evidence of its own powers. He thought little -of what she might or might not suffer if he brought her into the -presence of the women who represented destiny to her. All he -considered was, that no other spectator would be so likely to -move her, to goad her into the fullest revelations of the resources -of her talent. With the future consequences of such a -meeting he had nothing to do, all he thought of was its influence -on his pupil. He knew that the wife of Othmar had a fascination -for her as strong as hatred, and irresistible as magnetism. -It was an electric force which he could not afford to allow to lie -latent in the desire he felt, a desire which had grown stronger -on him with every week that he had paid his visits to Les -Hameaux, to compel Damaris into the seizure of that fame -which had at first seemed to him a burden too great, a passion -too fierce, for this young daughter of the sun and of the sea.</p> - -<p>'She will ultimately be the mistress of Othmar, or of the -world,' he thought. 'I prefer the world. I will do what I can -that she shall give herself to it instead of to him. To throwaway -genius on one human life is to take a planet out of the -skies and bury it like a diamond between two human breasts.'</p> - -<p>It was in pursuance of the same belief in what was best for -her which had made him wish her the heart of Rachel, not the -heart of Desclée. Rosselin had surveyed human nature in all -its aspects, and his survey of it had convinced him of one fact, -that all the higher and more delicate qualities of the soul are -but so much penalty-weight to carry in the race of life. The -weight is of gold without alloy; but, nevertheless, whoso carries -it loses the race.</p> - -<p>He with his fine penetration perceived that in her was that -greater nature which will lose itself in a great love, and throw -away all ambition and all possessions, as though they were but -a dead leaf or a broken crust. In a little while such a love, -now strong in her, but scarcely conscious of itself, would -become wholly conscious, and would take its empire over her -whole existence. He wished to oppose to it the only rival with -any chance of success—the world.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>A few days later Rosselin, going to Les Hameaux for his usual -recitation with her, found Damaris feverish, restless and -despondent. She had lost, for the time at least, that buoyancy -and enthusiasm which were the most prominent qualities of her -nature; she seemed to him listless and taciturn, her eyes had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> -brooding pain in them, and she took little interest in the studies -of the day.</p> - -<p>Rosselin heard from the woman of the house that Othmar -had been there that week.</p> - -<p>'It will end as such things always end,' he thought impatiently. -'All the fine sentiments on his side will not enable him -to cast nature out of him; and to her, of course, he must seem -an angel from another world. He has stood between her and -all the misery of life. A dog which he had saved in such a way -would adore him. He is a man, too, made to charm a poetic -nature, because there is so much of the poet in him, and a -melancholy which is in pathetic contrast with his wealth and -power. One can always understand that women love Othmar; -what one cannot understand is that his wife cares for him so -little. And yet, why should I say so? All the world over one -sees familiarity bring indifference, security create neglect.'</p> - -<p>Aloud he said, with anger to her:</p> - -<p>'What has come to you? If you do not mean to become an -artist, and a great artist, adieu! My hours are not likely to be -so many on earth that I can afford to waste them. What ails -you? Your voice is dull; your face is no mirror for your words. -You are not listening. If you have tame moments like this, do -not dream of ever moving the world. It is a block of stone; -you cannot stir it without putting out all your strength. And -even then it will roll back and roll on to you if you relax your -efforts. If you give yourself to art you may be great in it, I -think; but if you love anything—any person—better than art, -do not touch it. Go, and be an ordinary woman like the rest.'</p> - -<p>The words were harsh. The tears started to her eyes as she -heard them, and a hot colour rose over her face and throat. She -was silent.</p> - -<p>'She never speaks of him. How fine that is!' thought -Rosselin. 'Most female creatures at her years babble of what -fills their thoughts, as birds chatter of the spring in April.'</p> - -<p>Aloud he said:</p> - -<p>'You will not do any good to-day. You look ill, and you are -restless. Come with me to Paris; I will show you something -which will interest you—and the weather is fine though cold. -Let us walk to Magny.'</p> - -<p>She went with him in silence.</p> - -<p>The day was drawing to a close as the train sped through the -dark fields of winter and entered Paris. A city was always -terrible and hateful to her. She loved air and light and the -solitude of sea and land. Crowds hurt her, and the labyrinth -of streets had never ceased to oppress and to bewilder her. She -felt amidst the walls and roofs as a young eagle feels barred up -in a cage. He talked to her of many things with that picturesque -detail with which his great knowledge of the city and of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> -world filled his conversation. He endeavoured to interest and -distract her; he strove to amuse and arouse her. But he felt -that he succeeded but indifferently. Her thoughts were not -with him; she was silent and she was nervous.</p> - -<p>When night fell he took her with him to the Théâtre -Français; not for the first time. It was the night of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">première</i> -of a great dramatist. The house was filled with the choicest -critics of Paris; the most famous actors occupied the classic -stage. Behind the grating of the hidden box to which he led -her she could see without being seen. Before this she had been -only taken to rehearsals in the daytime; she had never seen a -great theatre in the full blaze of one of its gala nights. It -blinded and oppressed her. She longed for the coolness, for the -shadows, for the dewy stillness of the country. The pungent -scents, the blazing lights, the multitude of faces, the hum of -voices, made her afraid; afraid as she had not been all alone in -the hours of night adrift in her boat on the sea.</p> - -<p>'Watch and listen and learn,' said Rosselin. 'You may be -on this stage one day, or on none.'</p> - -<p>She did not reply: the new play had begun; the most -famous players in Paris acted with that exquisite grace and ease -which characterise them; the play was witty and brilliant; -each scene had its separate success, each phrase its separate -charm. Rosselin himself, vividly interested and keenly critical, -gave all his attention to the stage, and for the time forgot his -companion. When the curtain fell upon the first act he turned -to speak to her; he was startled to see that her face was pale as -death, and her eyes, wide open and fascinated, were fastened on -the opposite side of the house. He looked where she was looking, -and saw a great lady with a bouquet of orchids lying on the -cushion before her, and several gentlemen in her box behind her.</p> - -<p>'Ah, Madame Nadine!' murmured Rosselin. 'She does not -often deign to honour a first night, even when it is Sardou's. -She is going to some great ball afterwards, I suppose, for look -at her diamonds, and she has her Russian orders on. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voilà -une véritable grande dame!</i>'</p> - -<p>Damaris gazed at her without a word; her eyes were strained, -her very lips were pale, she breathed quickly and painfully, the -theatre seemed to circle round and round her, and across its intense -light of all the many faces there she saw but this one. -When the second act began she had no ears for it and no consciousness -of what was said or done in it. She never once -looked at the stage. Her eyes remained rivetted on the wife of -Othmar; the voices of the actors were a mere dull babble to -her: when the audience laughed she knew not why they laughed, -when they applauded, she had no knowledge why they did so; -all she saw was that delicate colourless beauty on the other side -of the house with the great jewels shining on it like stars.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p> - -<p>She looked, and looked, and looked till her eyes swam and -her heart grew sick.</p> - -<p>This was the woman whom he loved, this great lady leaning -there with that look of utter indifference on her face, with that -slight smile as this man or the other entered her box, with the -diamonds shining in the whiteness of her breast, with her uncovered -shoulders gleaming white as snow; a hothouse flower in -all the rarity, the languor, the perfection, which the hothouse -gives. The same sense which had come to her in the drawing-rooms -of St. Pharamond came again to the child; a sense of -rudeness, of rusticity, of inferiority, of coarseness in herself as -contrasted with that patrician elegance, that pale and languid -loveliness, that marvellous charm of the world and of its highest -form of culture.</p> - -<p>'What can I look like to him!' she thought with humiliation. -'Beside her I must seem to him like some rude -peasant——'</p> - -<p>All that she had felt vaguely before the mirrors of St. -Pharamond came back upon her embittered, intensified, made -conscious. She realised the immense distance that there was -between her and Othmar as she saw his wife. She realised the -grace and splendour of this life in the world which they led. -She realised the passion which she had given to her. -She realised that she herself could only stand outside his life, -like a beggar outside his gates.</p> - -<p>When the curtain fell again, Rosselin looked at her with -impatience.</p> - -<p>'You looked at that woman always, never at the stage,' he -said angrily. 'She is a great lady; leagues above you, leagues -beyond you; you have nothing in common with her. But one -day you may force her to hear you in this very house if you -choose. Will you choose?'</p> - -<p>'She will not care,' said Damaris.</p> - -<p>Tears were standing in her eyes; the sense of an infinite -loneliness, and of a great inferiority, were on her. What would -it matter if she ever became famous yonder on those classic -boards? That great lady would come and see her for an hour—smile -or censure—then forget. The dreams which she had -nurtured of compelling the admiration of the world, seemed to -dissolve like a mirage before the mere presence of Othmar's -wife. 'She would not care,' she said wearily.</p> - -<p>To this patrician she would always be a half-barbarian and -uncultured creature. The heart of the child asked with longing -to go back to her old life in the sunny air by the blue -water, with the homely people, with the simple wants, with -the sound of the birds in the leaves, and the feel of the wind -on the sea. But she knew that never could she go back so any -more.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p> - -<p>If her feet were to travel thither, her soul would not go.</p> - -<p>The passion of the world, the aims of ambition, the heartsickness -of jealousy and desire were all in her; where they have -passed the soul is for ever a stranger to peace, even as where -fire has burnt the soil of a green field, grass will grow no more.</p> - -<p>'Why did she not let me alone?' she thought.</p> - -<p>Between the second and the third acts, Rosselin left her to go -to the foyer, where he had been for so many years so conspicuous -a figure, and so dreaded a critic.</p> - -<p>'Fasten the door after me, and if a thousand people should -knock, let no one in until you hear my voice,' he said to her, -drawing the door behind him.</p> - -<p>Left to herself she drew back into the deepest shadow of the -little den she occupied, and gazed as she would at the woman -who had been destiny to her. She saw numerous gentlemen -come and go in her box, make their reverence to her, linger if -they were permitted, or withdraw and give place to others. -Nadine had changed her position so that her profile only was now -turned towards the house. She leaned her elbow on the cushion, -and her cheek on her hand, a butterfly of emeralds sparkled -under her shoulder; sometimes her face was hidden by the fan -of white ostrich feathers, sometimes she furled the fan and let it -lie unused beside the orchids.</p> - -<p>Damaris watched her with the strange fascination of fear and -of wonder, of hatred and admiration, which had moved her -in the salons of St. Pharamond. All the words which Othmar -had spoken a few days before, were sounding in her ears. Her -simple and candid thoughts were beginning to gain something -of the complexity, of the weariness, of the pain of his. She -understood why he had loved this woman so much that, empty -though his heart might be, it would remain untenanted. Innocent -as Mignon, she yet watched her rival with something of the -passion of Adrienne Lecouvreur.</p> - -<p>'She is his, he is hers—and she does not care!' thought the -child, in whom the ignorance of childhood still lingered, blent -with the awakening strength and heat of a tropical nature.</p> - -<p>As the curtain rose for the third act, Othmar himself entered -his wife's box. Damaris shrank farther and farther back against -the wall, though she knew well that the keenest eyes could not -find her out in her obscurity. Her breath came hard and fast -like a panting hare's; the great tears rose to her eyes; she -suddenly realised what this world was which held him so closely. -She saw his wife give him the same slight smile that she gave to -others: no more. She saw him bend before her with the same -low bow the others gave; she saw him converse with the gentlemen -near him; from time to time he glanced round the house. -Once or twice his wife turned her head and spoke to him as she -spoke to the others. To this child who had the heart of Juliet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> -the soul of Heloise, the conventionalities of the world seemed -like the frost of death.</p> - -<p>'She is his; he is hers: and she does not care!'</p> - -<p>That was all she could think of as she watched them across -that sea of light. The wit of the play amused him, and Othmar -looked less weary and more animated than usual. To her he -appeared happy.</p> - -<p>Rosselin called thrice to her through the door before she -heard him and let him enter.</p> - -<p>'You should not dream like that when you are at the -Français. You should study. What more admirable lessons -can you have?' he said angrily. 'Poets may dream if they like. -They speak best in their trances. Those who would only -interpret them must never dare to do so. Have I not told you -so a score of times? There is nothing poetic about the stage; -it is all hard, prosaic, literal. If you will dream go and bury -yourself under green leaves, under yellow corn; do not come to -the theatres of the world.'</p> - -<p>Damaris for once did not even hear him. He looked across -the house and saw Othmar.</p> - -<p>'Come,' he said to her, 'you will miss the last train that -pauses at Trappes if you do not come away now. Never will -they forgive me for leaving before the close! But that will not -matter much. They know I am old; they can think I am ill. -Come, or you will be too late.'</p> - -<p>'Wait a little,' said Damaris, in a shamed, hushed voice; her -face grew red as she spoke.</p> - -<p>Rosselin glanced impatiently at the box on the other side of the -house. He said nothing; he waited, artist as he was in all the fibres -of his nature; his eyes and his ears and his art were all with Got, -with the Coquelins, with the moving and speaking persons of the -stage: yet a little corner of his heart ached still for the child.</p> - -<p>'What wretchedness she prepares for herself!' he thought -with pity and sorrow combined. 'She will never be a great -artist, because with her feeling will always take the mastery. -You are only a great artist if when you suffer, though you suffer -horribly, you can study what you feel, you can make your own -heart strings into a lyre. If you cannot do that, you are only a -creature that loves another. Ah, my dear! No one ever conquered -the world so!'</p> - -<p>He let her alone until the piece was over; the box of the -Countess Othmar had been vacated some moments before the -termination of the last act. He did not speak to her whilst he -hurried her through private passages and into the frosty air of -the streets.</p> - -<p>'Cover yourself well, it is cold,' was all he said as he took -her with gentle steps over the pavement which his feet had -trodden so many thousands of times, in the hurry of youth, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> -the ecstasy of triumph, in all the alternations of a manhood -tossed up and down upon the stormy seas of public favour and -of public caprice. All that network of streets about the Français -was as dear to him as the banks of Doon to Burns, as the green -wood and ways of Milly to Lamartine, as the sweet meads and -streams of Penshurst to Philip Sydney.</p> - -<p>Damaris walked on beside him, her head bent, her face -covered. The tears were rolling slowly down her cheeks.</p> - -<p>'Let me do what I would,' she thought, 'she would not care.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin took her home to his own little house that night, for -it was too late to return to Les Hameaux. He made her seat -herself by his fire; he dried the damp of the night on her hair -and her clothes; he would have made her eat of his preserved -nectarines and drink of his choice wines which were sent by his -friends. But she would not touch anything. She sat lost in -thought.</p> - -<p>All she saw was that beautiful woman; all she heard was -the voice of Othmar saying, 'I have so loved her that I shall -never love any other woman ever again.'</p> - -<p>No doubt it was so: she could understand. Only he seemed -to go away from her, herself, utterly and for ever; to glide out -of her life as the ships she had used to watch from her balcony, -as the nightingales sang under the moon, used to pass away -further and further, till the great distance and the shadows of -night swallowed them up and they were no more seen, and all -the wide sea was empty.</p> - -<p>Rosselin watched her sadly.</p> - -<p>'Poor Mignon,' he thought. 'Who shall transform her to a -Mademoiselle Mars? How does the gymnast teach his child to -stand and catch the metal ball, to tread and hold the rope in -air. He works and kneads the tender flesh till it grows hard, -he strains the soft limbs till they become like steel, he bends -and twists and forces, and forges the immature sinews and -tendons till they are like cords to resist, and in every separate -muscle there almost seems a separate brain. When their nature -has been driven out and the body has become an iron machine -the teacher has succeeded. Who shall do for her mind and her -heart what the gymnast does to his son's limbs and spine? And -will ever anybody do it? Will she ever be Mars—be Rachel? -Will she ever fling her soul away and keep only her body and her -brain? And if she do not do that what success will she ever have?'</p> - -<p>In that kind of cruelty with which the true artist would -always emulate any living thing to art, he almost wished that -Othmar were a man with less honour and less compassion, more -license and more selfishness.</p> - -<p>'If he would break her heart and rouse her hatred how much -art would gain,' he thought. 'She would pass through the fire -like Goethe's dancing girl, and come out of it immortal.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></p> - -<p>He knew the weakness of love, and he knew the strength of -genius.</p> - -<p>'Listen to me,' he said, as the wood-fire gleamed and murmured. -'You dream too much of Othmar. I understand he -was your saviour; he is your hero, your saint, your god: all -that is inevitable; and he is a man whom women will always -love, because he has a great grace and gentleness about him, -and his discontent and sadness are in picturesque contrast with -his magnificent and enviable fortunes. But he will never love -you, my child: just because he has so loved that woman, that -his heart has grown cloyed, yet cold; great passions always -leave that kind of satiety behind them. And then the world -holds him, a hundred thousand invisible threads bind him; if -he had the heart left for it, which he has not, he would not -have the time to turn back; his life is fixed, such as it is, and -he and the world are wedded together, though it may not be -the spouse he would have chosen. Do not either live for him -or die for him. What will she say if you do either? That you -are a love-sick fool. I do not talk to you as moralists would -talk, because I do not believe in conventional morality; it is an -absurdity, like all conventional things. No doubt your old -friend Melville would speak much better than I do, but I speak -honestly, and according to my lights. You have wished, and -the wish has seemed to me natural, to compel recognition of -your own powers from the person who first caused you to leave -the happy obscurity of your life. You have said that you -wish her to see you can have a greatness she has not. It is a -personal motive, and art is best served by impersonal motives. -Still it seems to me natural. I can understand it. But to do -this you must be strong, you must be bold, you must be true to -yourself. You must not be overcome because you see her -looking like the great lady she is. There is only one thing -which the wife of Othmar respects, it is genius; she respects -that because her intellect appreciates, and her gold cannot buy, -it. Prove to her that it is in you, and she will respect you. If -you died for her lord to-morrow, she would only say that you -had forgotten you were not upon the stage. I seem to speak -harshly and roughly. Ah, my dear, my heart is neither; but -I wish to save you from your own heart if I can. You are all -alone, and you are scarcely more than a child, and the world, -the world, is a beast.'</p> - -<p>She did not answer; her head was bent down on her arms, -and her face was hidden; all he could see was the hot flush on -the ivory of her throat, and the curling hair which was made -golden by the ruddy light from the leaping flames.</p> - -<p>All her dreams and aspirations and ambitions seemed all -huddled together, bruised and colourless, like a heap of child's -toys broken and faded.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p> - -<p>'She would not care!' that was all she thought. If the -world were to give her fame, what would the best that she -could ever reach seem to the unreachable disdain of that other -woman? No more than the gleam of a glow-worm may seem to -the planet on high.</p> - -<p>A rude sun-browned wench of the sea and the land, good to -row through blue water, and mow down green billows of grass: -that was all she would ever seem to Othmar's wife.</p> - -<p>'Tell me what you wish,' she said in a low tone. 'If I can -I will do it.'</p> - -<p>The voice of Rosselin shook a little as he answered, 'My -child I want you to do what she cannot. These people have -all things; they have ease and mirth, and soft beds, and minds -without care, and great riches, and great palaces, and great -powers, but there are two things which often escape them, and -ofttimes the poor have the one and now and then they are born -to the other. I mean that great consoler of the humble, content, -and that great redresser of injustice, genius. You have -the latter. In your sea-gull's nest the Muses found you. Oh, -child, be grateful! You are richer than the kings who ruled -here in Paris—if only you knew your riches!'</p> - -<p>She looked up at him suddenly, pushing her troubled curls -out of her eyes.</p> - -<p>'If I spoke before her my throat would dry up—my voice -would be strangled in it. If I were to do well, she would never -care. If I were to fail, she would smile. I should see her -smile in my grave. He loves her you know, he loves her so -much, but she has made his heart numb in him with her indifference -and her scorn.'</p> - -<p>He was awed and amazed at such intensity of dread in a -nature which had always seemed to him bold as the winds, and -resolute and headstrong.</p> - -<p>'Yes,' he said, almost brutally. 'If you fail she will smile, -she will laugh; she knows nothing of failure. But you will not -fail. Only the weak fail. You are strong. You will not let -that woman think that you threw away your genius for love -of her lord!'</p> - -<p>They were words which were hard and rough and brutal; -but they seemed to him the wisest words that he could speak. -She was a child with a passionate heart half broken; unless -that heart were torn out and trodden under her foot, he -thought that she would never walk straight to where the laurels, -the bitter laurels, grew.</p> - -<p>He meant to do well; he spoke according to his light; but -he was only a man and childless, and forgot a little what easily -bruised things the hearts of some women are when they are very -young, and have hot blood in their veins, and are all alone in a -world which feels to them as the stony road of the moorland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> -feels to the shot doe when there is many a long mile to be -covered between her and the herd.</p> - -<p>She turned her head from him quickly, and he saw the dark -red flush which stained her throat.</p> - -<p>She did not answer. The words brought no solace to her. -Her heart was empty. He saw the great tears roll slowly down -her cheeks. He realised that the hilt of this two-edged sword -which he held out to her was too cold a pillow for so young a -breast.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The weeks passed on, and Othmar returned no more to the -fields of Chevreuse. The great interests and the vast operations -of his house occupied his time, and the days of this man -whom Nature had created a dreamer and a student, went away -in the consideration of financial enterprises, in the audience of -innumerable supplicants, in the emission of national loans, and -in the study of political situations. He thought oftentimes of -her, but he went to her no more. To let her alone he knew -was, as Rosselin said, all that he could do for her.</p> - -<p>His wife he scarcely saw at this season.</p> - -<p>Now and then when it was unavoidable he went with her to -some great dinner or reception; oftener they received at home -themselves, and on such evenings he saw her in all the grace -and elegance which the highest culture and the utmost fashion -can lend to a woman already patrician in every fibre of her -being. Sometimes she addressed a few words to him concerning -the children, or the horses, or some matter of mutual -interest; and he saw her carriage passing in and out, her friends -and acquaintances coming and going on the stairs, her attendants -carrying her chocolate, or her bouquets, or the offerings made -her by her courtiers: that was all. In no year had she been -more absorbingly <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mondaine</i>; in no year had she been so conspicuous -as the greatest lady in Paris; in no year had her balls, -her fêtes, her banquets, her concerts, been more wonderful in -their novelty and more exclusive in their invitations.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Dame! elle a un chic incroyable!</i>' thought Blanchette, -angrily, watching her and conscious that her day was not done -as she had hoped.</p> - -<p>Meantime, in the brilliant movement of which his house was -the centre, Othmar felt that he was becoming rapidly a mere -cypher amidst it all, as Platon Napraxine had been, and he -perceived no way by which he could recover his influence -without her ridicule and the world's comment. That had come -to him which he had said should never come: he was nothing -in her life, not so much as one of her mere acquaintances.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p> - -<p>Such a position had always seemed to him the deepest -humiliation that any man could accept; he had always thought -that any man might save his dignity if he could not secure his -own happiness; but now, he saw how easy it is to theorise, how -difficult it is to resist the slow insidious influence of circumstances. -We drift into positions which we hate without being -conscious of our descent, and the effect of others upon our -nature and our actions is as subtle and as unperceived as those -of climate or of time.</p> - -<p>He could not have said when the first coldness had come -between himself and her, when the first irritation had crept -into their intercourse, when the first frost of indifference had -passed from her manner over the warmth of his own emotions. -It had been unperceived, uncounted, but its results had grown -and strengthened, until now they were like ten thousand other -men and women in the world, living under the same roof, but -wholly strangers to each other, only united by one slender -thread, their mutual interests. It was a position which wounded -him, humiliated him, oppressed him with a constant sense of -weakness and of failure: he had not the slightest power over -her, though she retained much over him; strong men, he -thought, either left their wives or forced them to keep their -marriage vows; and he did neither.</p> - -<p>Of late she had become almost insolent in her tone to him; -she seemed to take pleasure in passing the most marked slights -upon him; she purposely withheld from him the slightest -acquaintance with her movements or intentions, and at times -her eyes looked at him with a cynical disdain.</p> - -<p>It was absurd, he felt, and exaggerated, and probably wholly -ungrounded in every way, but there were moments when he -imagined that she wished to remind him of his social inferiority -to herself, moments when the recollection of the origin of the -Othmar fortunes spoilt for a passing hour her pleasure in the -existence of her children. Though he did not harbour the suspicion, -but threw it away from him as unworthy of both himself -and her, it yet existed and made him over-sensitive to any -slight upon her part, quick to perceive the faintest tinge of contempt -in her tone to him. He knew that she could count her -great ancestries far beyond the dim days of Rurick; whilst -there were courts of Europe where feudal etiquette still prevailed -strongly enough to make his presence in their throne-rooms -impossible. These were mere nominal differences, no -doubt, and he might perchance have saved from bankruptcy the -very state in which he would have been forbidden to pass the -palace gates if he had sought to accompany her through them; -but still there were moments when the voice and the glance of -his wife recalled these conventional things to him out of the -limbo of absolute nullity in which, but for those, he let them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> -lie. Never by any spoken word or hint had she ever reminded -him of them, yet now and then in her colder moments he -thought: 'Perhaps she remembers that two hundred years ago -if her forefathers rode over the plains of Croatia they could -ride down mine before them, and drive them with their whips -like so many acorn-eating swine!'</p> - -<p>He began to believe that she was in truth as cruel as the -world had always called her; and a feeling which was almost -hatred at times awoke in him and blent with the suffering she -caused him.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him that no man on earth ever gave a woman -such passion and such worship as he had given her; these might -at least, he thought, have secured respect from her, even if they -had failed to hold her sympathy.</p> - -<p>He said nothing to her. Remonstrance would have been -useless, supplication unmanly. He let time drift them where it -would: and in the ever-exercising burden of his pain Damaris -became almost forgotten.</p> - -<p>Some weeks after the performance of Lemberg's cantata, -Blanche de Laon, calling on the woman whom she hated on her -'jour,' came late, stayed until the rooms were nearly emptied -of their crowd, and then sank down beside her hostess on a low -couch in a corner palm-shadowed, where banks of lilies of the -valley gave out their fragrance under rose-shaded lamps, and -great Japanese vases were filled with the rosy flowers of the -gesneria and the philesia. She always paid great outward -deference to Nadège, was coaxing and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">câline</i>, and for her alone -subdued the rudeness and the shrillness of her voice and manner. -She leaned now beside her on the broad low seat of the cushioned -corner, whilst the few people who remained in the rooms conversed -in little groups, and the flowers, the porcelains, the -stuffs, the pictures, the embroidered satins of the walls, the -long vista of salons opening one out of another, made up one of -those pictures of harmonised colour and of artistically arranged -luxuries of which the modern world is so full. Blanchette had -all manner of confidential things to disclose, secrets of this -toilette and that, of this scandal and the other, of the true -reason of a dear friend's sudden indisposition, and the actual -cause of a coming duel; all these <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">secrets de Polichinelle</i>, which -society loves to carry about and distribute, things which are -mysteries of life and death yet whispered at every '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petit quart -d'heure</i>' in every house known to fashion.</p> - -<p>Nadine listened, leaning back amongst her cushions indifferent, -scarcely affecting attention, thinking of her own costume at -a coming ball she was about to give, in which the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">règne animal</i> -of Cuvier was to furnish the dresses. She had chosen a panther. -All the yellow and black would make her delicate colourless -skin look so well, and she would wear all her diamonds, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> -——. She was aroused from her meditation by the question -which Blanche de Laon put suddenly to her.</p> - -<p>'Do tell me,' she said, leaning down amongst her cushions: -'You know I like to be the first to hear things—when will the -new genius make her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">début</i> with you?'</p> - -<p>'What do you mean?'</p> - -<p>'Oh, you know what I mean; this young artist whom -Rosselin is training, in whom your husband is interested, and -who is to make her first appearance here? Who is she? Do -tell me about her. I should like to have her appear at my -house if you have no proprietary rights to her exclusive production.'</p> - -<p>'I have no idea of what person you speak of; I am not fond -of untried artists,' she answered, with perfect indifference, but -Blanchette saw a shade of surprise and a coldness of displeasure -on her face.</p> - -<p>'Oh, surely you like a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">débutante</i>?' she said carelessly. 'It -always amuses people so much, something quite new, and I -believe this girl is beautiful; does not Othmar say so?'</p> - -<p>But by this time her hostess was on her guard, and her -expression wholly under control.</p> - -<p>'I think I know whom you mean now,' she replied indifferently. -'But as to a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">début</i> here—that is quite in the future. -I am not fond of untried artists as I say: one does not take out -unbroken horses to drive in a crowd. Genius is admirable, but -I think like wine it wants time and a seal set upon it before one -offers it at one's table.'</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon was perplexed.</p> - -<p>'Does she know all about her, or nothing about her?' she -wondered. 'I want to know more myself before I go on -with it.'</p> - -<p>Some other people approached them at that moment; the -conversation turned on the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">règne animal</i> ball; Blanchette, disappointed, -rose and went and drank <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">deux doigts de liqueur</i>, and -ate a caviare biscuit, in another room, where Loris Loswa was -drawing some caricatures of mutual acquaintances, as the beasts -of Cuvier, on his visiting cards, and distributing them amongst -some ladies of fashion.</p> - -<p>'Meet me on Saturday at eleven at the Rond point,' she -murmured to him as she took from him a sketch of her brother-in-law -the Duc d'Yprès as a wild boar in top boots, over which -she condescended to shriek her shrillest laughter and approval.</p> - -<p>When her rooms were all quite emptied, and she was left -alone in them, Nadine remained leaning back amongst the -cushions motionless and with a cold contemptuous anger on -her face.</p> - -<p>'To think that I should accept such a part as that!' she -thought. 'He must be mad and the whole world with him!'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p> - -<p>Weak women, indulgent women, women who were afraid -and wanted pardon for their own secrets, these women did these -things, aided their husbands' amours, received their husbands' -favourites, helped their husbands to conventional disguises of -equivocal situations, but that <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i>, was not hers.</p> - -<p>'And he came from this girl to me in Russia;' she thought -with that physical disgust which is so strong in some women, and -which men never understand.</p> - -<p>One forenoon on entering his study, Othmar missed from the -wall the sketch made by Loswa. There was only a blank space -between the places of the Corot and the Aivanoffsky. He rang -for the major-domo.</p> - -<p>'Who has taken the portrait from that place?' he asked; he -feared the entrance of some thief from the gardens.</p> - -<p>The major-domo, astonished and alarmed, replied that he -had taken it down that morning by command of his mistress, -and had sent it whither she had directed him to do; to a certain -gallery recently built on the Trocadéro.</p> - -<p>'You were quite right to do so if Madame desired you,' -said Othmar; and dismissed the official without more comment.</p> - -<p>As soon as he could be admitted to his wife's presence, he -went to her and opened the subject with scanty preface.</p> - -<p>'Philippe says that you ordered him to send the sketch by -Loswa out of my study to the new gallery on the Trocadéro,' -he said, when he had made her his usual greeting. 'Is that -true?'</p> - -<p>'Very true. One would think I had ordered him to blow up -the Louvre or the Luxembourg!'</p> - -<p>'May I venture to inquire your reasons?'</p> - -<p>'Certainly. There is an exhibition of Loswa's works about -to be opened there. You are aware that these exhibitions of a -single master are very popular now. That head is one of the -best things he has done. It will come back to you in three -months. Cannot you live without it till then?'</p> - -<p>Othmar felt that he coloured like a boy.</p> - -<p>'I would, of course, have lent it,' he said with a little hesitation.</p> - -<p>'I have sent all his portraits of myself and of the children,' -she said with a cold glance at him. 'You do not appear to have -missed those.'</p> - -<p>'I have probably not entered the rooms in which they hung. -If you will pardon my saying so, I do not care to know less of -what you wish to do than my servants know—and to know it -first through them.'</p> - -<p>'If I had told you, you would have objected. When I know -that people will object, I never ask them what they wish.'</p> - -<p>'The method has the merit of simplicity.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></p> - -<p>He felt exceedingly angered; in the first place he did not -care to have the portrait seen by all Paris at a moment when the -original was living so near Paris with no friend but himself, and -in the second place he indignantly resented being treated like a -cypher in his own houses; he never permitted himself to intrude -on her personal arrangements—could she not respect his?</p> - -<p>Now and then, and above all of late, there had been something -high-handed and even insolent in her occasional treatment -of things which concerned him, and on which she did not consult -him; something which made him fancy that in the deepest -depth of the thoughts and feelings there was occasionally the -remembrance that the great race of princes from whom she -herself descended would have deemed her alliance with one of -the princes of finance a gross mésalliance.</p> - -<p>This was a trifle, no doubt, and he was not a man who ever -disputed small matters. But the tone with which she had -spoken had given it something of personal offence, and he could -not shake from him the impression that she had purposely sent -away the portrait. The exhibition was about to take place, no -doubt, at the new gallery on the Trocadéro; Loswa having -quarrelled violently with the committee of the Salon, had -chosen to prove that the collection of his works would be more -attractive to the public than anything which the Salon could -offer without his assistance; but the manner in which this -sketch had been removed from his study, conveyed to Othmar -the impression of some personal motive, some personal meaning -in the act.</p> - -<p>Capricious as his wife always was, she yet was usually courteous. -This insolence of the removal of his picture was unlike -her.</p> - -<p>She always held the very true creed that mutual politeness -is the first of obligations to render the intimacy of daily life -endurable.</p> - -<p>He left her presence quickly, afraid of what his anger might -bring him into saying. He had never as yet wholly lost his -temper with her, though there were times when it was sorely -tried.</p> - -<p>Her cold, nonchalant, slighting tone was that which always -tried it the most. Of all things which he most hated it was to -be spoken to as Platon Napraxine had been; like the last of her -lacqueys! as he thought bitterly now. She looked after him -with some scorn.</p> - -<p>'Is he gone to the Trocadéro to seize back his lost treasure?'</p> - -<p>She had sent the sketch thither on purpose to see what he -would do or say.</p> - -<p>With an impulse which was as swift as thought itself and -which he did not pause to consider, he turned back as he reached -the threshold of her boudoir, and stood before her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Nadège,' he began with an impetuosity which yet had a -certain timidity in it. 'There is something which I wished to -tell you the other day. There is a reason which makes me especially -regret that you should have sent that portrait for exhibition -without referring the matter to me. Are you inclined to -be patient enough to hear a little tale which might interest you -perhaps if it were a sketch by Ludovic Halévy, but I fear will -not do so told in my poor words?'</p> - -<p>He did not observe the expression of her eyes, which surveyed -him with a cynical coldness, as she asked:</p> - -<p>'Do you mean that you have written a romance?—or played -one?'</p> - -<p>There was the mockery in the words which he had dreaded -so much that he had put off this moment day after day, week -after week, month after month.</p> - -<p>'Neither,' he answered, curtly. 'I have not talent for the -one, nor time and inclination for the other. You may believe -me,' he added a little bitterly, 'if I had been foolish enough to -tempt fate with either, your indulgence is the last mercy for -which I should hope.'</p> - -<p>Her eyes still looked at him coldly, steadfastly; with no -revelation in her gaze of whether she were surprised, interested, -indifferent, or already wearied.</p> - -<p>She was leaning back in her long low chair; there was a -great deal of lace ruffled at her bosom and on her arms; she -wore a long loose satin gown of palest <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rose effeuillée</i> of which the -lights and shadows were very beautiful: her hands were tightly -clasped upon her lap; her great pearls gleamed behind the lace; -she looked like a woman of the time of the Stuarts or of the -Valois. At her elbow stood an immense bowl of Louise de -Savoy roses; as she looked at him she drew out one and put it -in her bosom. She did not speak or attempt to aid him in any -way to continue the conversation which he had begun. She -only waited, and as he saw her in that impassible attitude, his -task grew harder to him; that sudden sense of her cruelty, of -her want of sympathy, of her immovable indifference, which -had come to him so sharply on the night of her return from -Russia, struck him once more and hardened in him almost to -dislike.</p> - -<p>Why should he tell her anything? She cared nothing for -what he did or what he felt. She dwelt in that serene rarefied -atmosphere of her own in which no passions or pains of his could -disturb her. If she had once seemed to him to lean from it for -a little while to share his emotions, that time was passed, long -passed, never to return again.</p> - -<p>She was silent many minutes, but she asked no question, -threw out no conjecture, did not even by a glance assist him to -begin his offered narrative. If she would only have said some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>thing—anything—it -would have broken the ice at least. But -the marble bust of herself which stood near her, carved by Hildebrand, -was not more mute than she; and she was quite -motionless, her hands clasped on another rose with which she -toyed.</p> - -<p>He was angered with himself to feel that his cheeks grew -warm, and that his voice was nervous as he said at last:</p> - -<p>'I regret that the portrait is gone to the Trocadéro, because -the original of it is living near Paris, and it may lead to comment -and conjecture which may be injurious to her; she is -scarcely more than a child, and she will be an artist; she is -better without the attention of the public until she challenges it -directly.'</p> - -<p>He did not notice a gleam like that of such which flashed -over him one instant from the unrevealing eyes of his wife; the -next moment the eyes of the bust were not colder and more -impenetrable than hers.</p> - -<p>'I have long meant to tell you,' he continued with rapidity, -his words now coming with eagerness and eloquence from his -lips. 'But I have been afraid of your ridicule. Long ago, in -the midsummer of last year, I found the child of Bonaventure -dying in the streets. It was at the time my uncle was on his -death-bed. I did all I could for her, of course. She was long -ill; when she recovered I placed her in the country with good -simple people whom I knew. She is there now. Rosselin, the -great actor whose name you will remember, though his career -was over before your time or mine, has trained her these many -months past; he believes she has great talents; that she has a -future; that when you predicted the career of Desclée for her -you showed your usual insight. She has had little but sorrow -since that day you tempted her from her island; it has always -seemed to me that we owed her a great debt, that we had done -her a great brutality; but for us her life would have gone on in -peace and prosperity, she would never have left her little kingdom; -if you realised what you did that day you would regret -your caprice. There are many more details I could tell you if -you cared to hear them, but I know your intolerance of any -demand upon your patience.'</p> - -<p>She smiled slightly; the smile was very chill; it checked the -expansion and the confidence of his words.</p> - -<p>'You are pleased to ridicule my knight-errantry, no doubt,' -he said, with heightened colour in his face. 'But no man living -would have done less than I did, I think, being conscious as I -was that the invitation which you gave her without thought was -the origin of all her unmerited misfortune. I believe you were -right that she has genius or something very nearly approaching -genius, in her; and it may be that the world will in time compensate -to her for all she has lost. But meantime——'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span></p> - -<p>'You do so!'</p> - -<p>The words were very calm and cold, but they struck Othmar -like the cut of a whip. They cast on his words the dishonour -of disbelief.</p> - -<p>He strove to command his temper as he replied: 'I do not; -no one can; she lost what no one ever can give back to her, -when you showed her what the world was like, and taught her -discontent. But for you, and that one evening in your house, -she would have lived, and married, and spent all the even -tenour of her days in her native air, on her native soil, as -ignorant of ambition as any of the sea-birds on her coast.'</p> - -<p>She looked at him with an expression of fatigue, and of -exhausted patience; he saw that she was perfectly incredulous, -that his words might as well have remained unspoken for any -impression of their truthfulness which they conveyed to her.</p> - -<p>'Is this all your story?' she asked.</p> - -<p>'It is the outline of it all,' he answered. 'If you care to -know more of the causes which drove her from her home——'</p> - -<p>'They do not interest me in the least.'</p> - -<p>Her voice was as chill as frost.</p> - -<p>'Then allow me to apologise for having intruded even so -much as this on your attention.'</p> - -<p>He bowed before her, and was about to leave the room; but -she, without rising a hair's breadth from the languid attitude in -which she reclined, said, 'Wait.'</p> - -<p>He waited, in sanguine expectation of an impulse of sympathy -in which those more generous instincts, those kinder -emotions which sometimes swayed her, would be aroused on -behalf of a life she had thoughtlessly injured.</p> - -<p>Still without rising she stretched out her arm, and took up -a blotting-book from her writing-cabinet, which stood near. -In the blotting-case was a tiny note-book of ivory and silver; -she opened it, and read from it in a serene voice certain dates.</p> - -<p>'Before you give your idyl to Halévy—or to the journalists -in general—let me renew your memory with these memoranda,' -she said in the same soft cold voice. 'Your narrative, as you -tell it, is bald and wanting, as you admit, in detail. I will -supply some of those details. On June 10 you brought Damaris -Bérarde to this house, where she remained ill for many days, -even weeks. On July 20 you went yourself to visit her cousin, -the present proprietor of the island of Bonaventure, and endeavoured -to negotiate through bankers of Aix the purchase of -the island, which, however, the owner refused to sell. On -August 2 you had her taken, accompanied by her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gardes-malades</i>, -to the farm of the Croix Blanche, which lies between -the villages of Les Hameaux and Magny. On August 15 you -visited Les Hameaux. In the last week of July, many objects -of artistic interest and value had been already sent by you to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> -the farmhouse. In the same week, rentes to the amount of a -hundred thousand francs, were purchased on the Bourse in the -name of Damaris Bérarde. There are many more dates than -these in my note-book, but those are enough to supply the -lacunæ in your story. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On peut broder dessus</i> without any great -imagination. A knowledge of human nature will suffice. You -will do me the favour never to re-open the subject; and as a -matter of good taste, to endeavour that your idyl shall not be -too largely talked about for the amusement of the world in -general.'</p> - -<p>Then she slid the little note-book within the leaves of -blotting-paper, and fastened the rose in the lace at her breast.</p> - -<p>It was impossible for him to misunderstand her meaning.</p> - -<p>A violent anger eclipsed for the moment all sense of -astonishment at her knowledge, or of wonder as to how she had -acquired it. All he was conscious of was the indignity, the -insult, put upon him by her utter disbelief.</p> - -<p>He felt it a task almost beyond his strength to forbear from -some such words as men must never say to women, and in the -bewilderment of his emotions he was silent.</p> - -<p>'You have engaged an actor, once great, to give her lessons -in elocution,' she continued, in the same unmoved harmonious -tones. 'It is the fashion of the day to have a mistress on the -stage. I suppose I cannot blame you for that. As it was I -who first suggested the future possibility of a dramatic success -for your <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i>, it is, perhaps, natural that you should have -remembered my suggestions, when you sought the cover of some -artistic career for her. Someone has told me that you reserve -for me the part of Mæcena to her Roscia (can one feminise the -names?), that you intend to have her talents first essayed and -pronounced on under my roof; that the world is to be invited -to smile at my credulity, or at my good nature, with whichever -it may most prefer to accredit me. Women often do such -things as this, I know, because they are weak, or because they -need indulgence in return. But it is not a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i> which will suit -either my temper or my taste. I see the convenience to yourself -of your project, but you must pardon me if I do not accept -the part you would assign me in it. The world and Mlle. -Bérarde will have opportunities for mutual acquaintance and -admiration without their first meeting each other in my drawing-rooms. -I should not have mentioned the matter unless you -had done so first, but I should have prevented the execution of -your and of M. Rosselin's intentions!'</p> - -<p>She looked at him from under her drooped eyelids, with -that critical observation which never deserted her in the most -trying hour, or before the deepest emotion. She did not hurry -him or dismiss him, only he knew by the look upon her face, -that the discussion was, in her view of it, closed irrevocably.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> -But for the sake of the other who was involved in her judgment, -he put aside his pride, his offence, and his dignity, and -stooped to an appeal.</p> - -<p>'I do not know,' he said, and he was sensible that his voice -vibrated with fury, as well as with emotion, 'I do not know -what steps you may have taken to enable you to tabulate my -actions so exactly. I keep no diary, but I have no doubt your -facts are correct. But as you put the data which have been -given you by some creature you have stooped to employ, they -would certainly seem to point to some selfish intrigue on my -part, some vulgar use for my own ends of this young girl's -illness and misfortunes. It may be even quite natural that -you should take such a view of it as this, though it shows that -you do not, after all, much understand my character. But I -will admit that your suspicions may seem to you just. I will -admit that my own reticence has been blameable and unwise, -and I do not suppose you will believe how much your own habit -of ridicule, of irony, and of cruel scorn, has made me shrink -from provoking your malicious comments by any confidences -which would seem to you sentimental and melodramatic.'</p> - -<p>He paused, hoping for some word from her. But she spoke -none. She continued to listen and to wait, in unbroken silence -and serenity, her fingers touching the rose at her breast. A -momentary sense of rage passed quivering over him. He -understood how men may in some moments kill the woman -they have loved best.</p> - -<p>He restrained his passion with great effort, and tried to -keep his words within the compass of ordinary courtesy.</p> - -<p>'You do not know, and if you knew you would not care for -it, how many a time this story, like many another thought and -memory of mine, has been upon my lips, and speech has been -stopped in me, merely because I was conscious you would laugh. -I am a fool in your eyes, worthy to die with Rolla, to fall with -Desgrieux, or any other absurd sentimentalist. I dare say you -will even despise me the more if you be compelled to believe -that, though I might be the lover of Damaris Bérarde, I am not -so, whatever your spies may have told you.'</p> - -<p>Her face flushed haughtily.</p> - -<p>'Spies! I set no watcher on your actions until you deceived -me. When I know that I am deceived I have no mercy. Those -who deceive me are outside my pale. I hunt them down. -Foolish women can bear to be blinded. I am not foolish, and -I do not consent to be so.'</p> - -<p>'I have never deceived you.'</p> - -<p>She gave a gesture of deprecation, slight but full of unuttered -disdain.</p> - -<p>'Long ago I told you that if you had strength enough in -you to tell me when you were weak, I should not be like other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> -women; I should understand: to understand is always to forgive; -a greater woman than I am has said it. If you had come -to me frankly, with no subterfuge, no pretext, no empty phrases -of untrue sentiments, but had said honestly that you were no -better than other men, I should have told you that follies of -that sort need never disturb our friendship nor our confidence, -but——'</p> - -<p>'But, my God, what had I to confess?' cried Othmar, with -that passionate protest of the tortured man who calls in vain -that he is innocent.</p> - -<p>Infinite contempt swept over her face. What a fool he -seemed to her! What a poor, weak coward and fool!</p> - -<p>'If there were any lover whom I loved, how I should hurl -the truth of it in his face!' she thought. 'Men are such -cowards—so half-hearted and so tame, and never hardly even -knowing what they do love! If he would only be truthful even -now, what should I care!—a wretched child off the streets, a -creature who owes her very bread to him—what rival could she -be to me!'</p> - -<p>She felt for him all the superb disdain that Cleopatra might -have felt had she known that Anthony toyed with a slave from -the market-place, and dared not plead guilty to his paltry sin.</p> - -<p>He heard her with indignant and bewildered amaze. There -is a great simplicity in every honest man, and he, despite his -knowledge of the world, was single-minded as a boy. That she -should refuse to believe him when he told the truth seemed to -him incredible.</p> - -<p>'Can you insinuate that I would speak such a lie—<em>I</em>?' he -cried to her in violent emotion.</p> - -<p>She answered coldly:</p> - -<p>'Oh, yes: those untruths are always counted as men's -honour.'</p> - -<p>'They are not mine; nor my dishonour either. I never -willingly spoke an untruth yet to man or woman. If this child -were my mistress I would tell you so. You may remember that -many a time you have bade me take my liberty. You would -care nothing if I did so. Why should I have concealed what -you would not have done me the honour to resent?'</p> - -<p>He paused, expecting her to say some word of assent or -dissent, but she remained silent.</p> - -<p>'Certainly,' he said, bitterly, 'had I considered myself free -in all ways I should have been justified in doing so. Few men -of your world see less of you than I. Your very lacqueys know -more of your engagements and your intentions than I do. You -lend great brilliancy to my name, you give great distinction -to my houses, you allow my children to sit by you in your -carriage, and you permit me to receive kings for you in your -antechambers. But more than that you deny me. If I sought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> -elsewhere the tenderness I seek in vain from you, could you -complain of my infidelity?'</p> - -<p>'I do not complain of the infidelity; it is immaterial; I -complain of the long series of elaborate deceptions with which -you have endeavoured, with which you still endeavour, to -surround it.'</p> - -<p>'I repeat, there has been no deception.'</p> - -<p>She laughed, laughed slightly that cruel laugh of a woman, -which can tell a man with impunity what a man could never -dare to tell him—that he has lied.</p> - -<p>'You dare to doubt me still!' he exclaimed, with that -blindness and good faith with which a man, candid and honest -himself, expects credence from others; he had never in his -heart really doubted that when he should tell the truth to her -she would believe it.</p> - -<p>Conscious rectitude has a curious pathetic ignorance of its -own impotence to move others; it imagines that it has but to -speak and mountains will fall before it.</p> - -<p>Because this thing was clear as daylight to his own knowledge, -to his own conscience, he stupidly thought that it must -stand out plain as the noonday to her likewise. Those who -tell the truth always fancy that the truth must be like those -trumpets before which the walls of Jericho fell.</p> - -<p>'You dare to doubt my word!' he cried again passionately; -she looked him full in the face coldly and calmly.</p> - -<p>'Told earlier,' she said in her serenest voice, 'your comedy -might have deceived even me. Told now, I do not think it -would deceive the most credulous woman living—and I am not -credulous. I am like Montaigne; I do not accept miracles out -of church.'</p> - -<p>His face grew white and grey with wounded pride and -breathless passion as he heard her. The same sense of hopelessness -which had come over so many of her lovers when driven -to appeal to a mercy which had no existence in her, came over -him now. He felt that one might throw one's self for ever -against the smooth white marble of her soul, and never gain -from it either pity or belief.</p> - -<p>His patience was at an end, and his bitter sense of wrong, -done to himself and to one absent, broke down all his self-control.</p> - -<p>'But as God lives you shall believe!' he cried to her. 'You -shall believe it for her sake, not for mine nor yours. You can -cover the whole world with the fine scorn of your scepticism if -you will, but you shall believe this. I may have done unwisely -what I have done for her. I may have acted with that mule-like -stupidity which you consider the characteristic of men. I -may even, God forgive me, have not done what was best for the -child herself; but in all that I have done, I have been honest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> -in it, and not a mere lecherous egotist. You have never deigned -to try and measure the feeling with which I have regarded you, -but you ought, I think, to understand enough of the common -honour which I share with all men who are not scoundrels, to -believe in my word when I give it you. The woman with whom -she lives at Les Hameaux is of good repute and blameless conduct. -Rosselin, who has become her teacher, is a man too -upright to accord his assistance in any common intrigue. The -money I placed to her credit she imagines to be a legacy of her -grandfather, whose heiress she would have been if you in a -moment of unaccountable and unconsidered caprice had not -tempted her to incur the old man's anger. All these things are -capable of the simplest explanations. Still, I will concede that, -without explanation, they may have appeared singular and suspicious -to you. But, however much they may do so, I expect -from you that acceptance of my bare word, that belief in my -common honour, which the merest stranger to me on earth would -not dare to refuse.'</p> - -<p>She preserved her perfect composure, the rose in her breast -was not ruffled by one uneven breath; she looked at him with -cold, calm, unkind eyes, which never wavered in their rejection -of him.</p> - -<p>'You are melodramatic,' she said, with her serene contempt. -'Perhaps <em>you</em> will appear on the stage, too! I shall be glad if -you will spare me more words on such a subject. I shall not -resent it publicly. All I request of you is to avoid publicity in -it as far as possible. That is a mere matter of good taste.'</p> - -<p>'Good God!' he cried, beside himself. 'Do you credit that -I should stand here and lie to you? Do you believe that I -should stoop so low?—do you think that I come here like a -comedian to repeat a monologue of my own invention? You -may think what else of me that you will, but this you shall not -think. I am not the lover of Damaris Bérarde; I have never -been so—I shall never be so.'</p> - -<p>'If you swore it on the lives of your own children, I would -not believe you?'</p> - -<p>Some reflex and heat of the flame of his rage caught her -soul also for one sudden instant, and drew it out for that one -instant from its serenity and reticence.</p> - -<p>There was the vibration of intensest passion in her voice; -she half rose from her seat; her bosom heaved; the rose fell in -a shower of leaves to the floor; for the moment he thought that -she would strike him.</p> - -<p>'You shall believe me,' he said in answer, 'or I will not -live under the same roof with you!'</p> - -<p>Then he looked at her with one last look, and left her -presence.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Othmar went into his great library, and shut the door upon -himself. For more than an hour he paced to and fro the length -of the room, overcome with an agitation which he could not -master. He had a sense that his life was over. He felt as -though his very heart-strings had snapped and parted for ever. -A great love cannot perish without some such throb as a strong -animal life suffers when it is forcibly torn asunder. A kind of -horror seized him at the idea of the years which were to come; -the long, long years through which he would dwell in apparent -amity beside her in the sight of the world.</p> - -<p>His first impulse was to go out of the house, out of the city, -out of the world, to leave her everything he possessed, but -never to see her face again.</p> - -<p>But a brief reflection made him feel how impossible such a -course as that would be to him. Obscure people can do these -things, they are happy; they are not set in the fierce light of -publicity and society, and no one heeds it if they creep away to -lay their aching heads under some lowly roof in solitude. But -to a man well known and conspicuous in the life of the world, -any such retreat into obscurity is impossible. He is bound hand -and foot by a million threads, each strong as cables to hold him -to his place. He cannot forsake his place without forsaking a -mass of interests confided to his honour. Solitude is for ever -forbidden to him, and liberty he can never more recover. Life -never gives two opposite sets of gifts to the same recipient; it -never bestows both the king's dominion and the peasant's peace. -The sigh of Henry IV. upon his sleepless couch is the sigh of -all eminence whatever be its throne.</p> - -<p>Othmar's momentary longing to go far away from everything -and everyone he had ever known, and never again behold the -woman whom he had adored, and who had insulted him as -though she had struck him with a knout, was the natural thirst -for loneliness of all wounded creatures. But he knew that this -desire, like so many others, was hopeless; he could never leave -her or the world he lived in; there were his children, who must -not be sacrificed, and the fortunes of others which must not be -imperilled. He knew that he could no more undo the bands -fastened—many by his own hand—around him, than he could -sweep ten years off the sum of his past life. Such as his existence -was now, so he had to continue it.</p> - -<p>He walked to and fro the vast length of the chamber in the -quiet of the noonday. He felt as if her hand had struck him.</p> - -<p>It had not been even an insult of unpremeditated passion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> -of hot anger, of inconsiderate haste—as such as he might have -pardoned it—but, serene and deliberate and measured, spoken -in cold blood, and matured on long consideration, it had been -such an outrage as severs the closest ties, and destroys the most -profound affections, cuts at the deepest roots of self-respect, and -burns up all delicate fibres of sympathy. He would much -sooner have forgiven a dagger's thrust.</p> - -<p>He had been insulted by the one person for whom he had -given up all his life, all his loyalty, all his devotion, all his -faith, and all his years to come. The outrage of her insolence, -of her disbelief, burned in his heart as the shame of a blow -burns on a brave man's forehead. Never could he make her -believe, though he were to swear the truth to her as he lay -dying!</p> - -<p>That perfect silence with which she had listened and led him -on to speak, that perfect consciousness of all his actions which -had existed beneath her apparent ignorance, that feline attitude -of cold expectation and of watchful, motionless observation -with which she had waited for the telling of a tale of which she -already knew every smallest detail: all these seemed to him -horrible, hateful, unnatural in a woman so near to him, so dear -to him, to whom he had given up his life, and whom he had -never wronged, or slighted, or betrayed. And then the espionage!—all -his soul revolted at it.</p> - -<p>'One might have known that the weapon of a Russian -woman is always a spy!' he thought, with passionate indignation -at what seemed to him this last and lowest of affronts.</p> - -<p>If he had found in her any of the warm and fond, though -unwise, angers of that jealousy which loves whilst it hates, he -would have forgiven and comprehended it. But he could not -hope that there was any single pulse of it in her breast. She -had viewed and measured his actions with the accuracy and -coldness of a judge of court overwhelming any prisoner with his -logic, and had treated his own asseverations with utter and contemptuous -disbelief, not deigning even to weigh as remotely -possible the chance that he might tell the truth. He himself -would have taken her word against that of the whole world, -against all evidence of his own senses, all adverse witness of -circumstance.</p> - -<p>'I was mad to suppose she ever cared for me,' he thought -bitterly, whilst the tears rose hotly in his eyes. 'For my -children she cares, perhaps, but for me nothing: I have never -been wise enough, great enough, strong enough to compel even -her respect. She looks on me as a mere dreamer, a mere fool. -All she is anxious for now is that the world may not have a -story to laugh at, because it would lessen her dignity and offend -her pride!'</p> - -<p>And yet he loved her still as he remembered her there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> -sitting so still, so fair, with the cold challenge in her eyes, and -the pale roses at her breast; and she was all his, and yet as far -off him as though she were queen in another world beyond the -sun; and he loved her still, and was filled with guilty shame at -his own weakness, as men are when they still adore the women -who have defiled their name.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>For the first time in her whole existence his wife had known -the mastery of a strong and uncontrollable impulse of emotion; -for the first time since her dreamy eyes had smiled at the pains -and follies of men a wave of fierce and simple passion had passed -through her as the seismic wave moves the still earth.</p> - -<p>She was touched with the common infirmity of common lives.</p> - -<p>The women in her laundry rooms, the groom's wife who -lived above her horses' stables, might feel as she felt now. -Jealousy! It could not be jealousy. Would Cleopatra have -been jealous of that slave from the market-place, that Nubian -seller of green figs, or Persian dancing girl?</p> - -<p>For jealousy it seemed to her there must first of all, be -equality. No—no: she was not jealous; she was only angered, -bitterly angered, because he had stooped to subterfuge and to -untruth: earths in which the fox of cowardice always hides. It -was all ignoble, mean, unworthy, there was no manliness in it -and no honesty. Any common knave could have woven such a -net of falsehood and stupidity as this.</p> - -<p>He had thought to deceive her! She could almost have -laughed aloud at the idea!—was there any brain subtle enough, -clear enough, wise enough in all Europe to invent a lie which -would have power to blind her? Surely not; and he knew it; -and yet he had thought such vulgar ordinary devices as have -served in half the vaudevilles of half the theatres of France -would serve to hoodwink and to satisfy her!</p> - -<p>There was a vulgarity in such miserable intrigue, which -offended her taste whilst it outraged her dignity. In all the -innumerable women of their own world could he not have found -some rival in some measure her equal?</p> - -<p>It might have hurt her more, but at least it would have -insulted her less.</p> - -<p>She remained alone and motionless, except for such feverish -mechanical action as that with which her right hand plucked the -roses from the bowl one by one and tore their hearts asunder.</p> - -<p>She did not know she did it. She shed the sweet, faint-smelling -petals on the floor, and her fingers had the movement -of a great nervousness as they played with the loosened leaves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> -No one came there to disturb her; no one would dare to do so -until she rang; the slow morning hours crept on, the very footfall -of time was muffled, and did not dare obtrude in these still -fragrant chambers where the air was heavy with hothouse heat, -and was sweet with a somnolent lily-like odour.</p> - -<p>She took the little written sheets from between the blotting-paper -and read what was written on them again. There was -more than she had read aloud to him. All the details of his -intercourse with Damaris Bérarde were described there with -searching minuteness. She studied them again and again. -Their bare records were full of suggestion to her; they seemed -to tell so much which was not said in words, to be pregnant -with meaning and with cynical emphasis.</p> - -<p>She sat still as any statue of a queen dethroned; the pale -rose folds of the satin flowing about her feet, the ruin of pale -rose leaves on the floor before her.</p> - -<p>All her life she had laughed at the love of men and derided -it, and starved it on graceful philosophies and ethereal conceits, -and dismissed it with airy banter and disbelieved its truest -words and its hardest pains: and now a love which she had -lost escaped her, and she found no comfort either in her wit or -in her scorn.</p> - -<p>Certain of the words which he had said to her remained in -persistent echo on her ear. Some sense that she had been cold -to him and too capricious, and too negligent of what he felt, -came to her. It might even be that he had sought the warmth -of other affections because she had left his heart empty herself. -He had always been a sentimentalist! Had she not called him -Werther, Obermann, René, Rolla? He had wanted the impossible, -the immutable, the eternal.</p> - -<p>He had asked of love and of life what neither can give.</p> - -<p>He had expected a moment of divinest rapture to be prolonged -through a lifetime.</p> - -<p>He had expected the song of the nightingale to thrill through -the year. Senseless dreams and hopeless!—but had she been -too cruel to them?</p> - -<p>For a moment her conscience spoke, and her heart relented -towards him. She remembered the many times when she had -treated the warmth of his passion as an absurd delirium or an -exaggerated sentiment, when she had again and again and -again bidden him take his erratic rhapsodies elsewhere than to -her.</p> - -<p>If he had done so, was he so much to blame?</p> - -<p>Almost she could have pardoned him. If only he had not -lied to her she would have pardoned him.</p> - -<p>'Good God, why could he not be honest?' she thought, with -indignant scorn. 'Why could he not kneel at her feet, and lay -his head upon her knee and own his folly? Men were weak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> -always, and so easily misled whenever their senses ruled them, -and such mere animals after all, even those in whom the mind -was strongest!'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>'Send the children to me,' she said when at last she rang for -her women, and the children came. They had come in from -their morning's ride on their small ponies in the Bois. They -were very pretty in their velvet riding dresses, with their golden -hair flowing over their shoulders; they were very gentle and -had admirable manners; the little boy with his cap in his hand -kissed his mother's fingers with an old-world grace. She drew -them both towards her.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mes mignons</i>,' she said, looking alternately at each of them, -'I want you to tell me something quite honestly; are you afraid -of me, either of you?'</p> - -<p>The young Otho, a very sensitive and chivalrous child, -coloured to his hair and was silent; his sister Xenia, less timid -and more communicative, answered for him and for herself: -'We are both of us—a little.'</p> - -<p>The brows of Nadine contracted with a sudden sense of -pain.</p> - -<p>'Why?' she said imperiously.</p> - -<p>The children did not reply; their small faces grew serious; -they were not prepared to analyse what they felt.</p> - -<p>'Do you mean,' she continued, 'that if you wished for anything -you would sooner ask your father for it than you would -ask me?'</p> - -<p>The children nodded their heads silently. They had lost -their colour. She saw that the interrogation alarmed them.</p> - -<p>'Why?' she repeated, in a softer tone.</p> - -<p>They were still silent; they could not really tell; they only -knew that a certain sense of timidity and awe was always upon -them in their mother's presence, that they never dared to laugh -too loudly or ask a question twice before her. They loved her, -and had the passionate admiration of childhood for that which -is above it and incomprehensible to it, and she seemed to them -more wonderful and beautiful than any other living creature, -but there was a tinge of fear in their sense of her presence.</p> - -<p>She read their unformed confused thoughts, and she felt a -sharp reproach in their tacit confession.</p> - -<p>Had she been so engrossed in the ice of her egotism, that -she had never taken the trouble even to stoop and draw to her -these young hesitating half-opened souls?</p> - -<p>Had she been cold and careless even to them?</p> - -<p> -Enfants d'amour, nés d'une étreinte!<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span></p> - -<p>she murmured as she kissed them with lips which trembled; had -she been so little kind to them that even they feared her?</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Maman était prête à pleurer</i>,' murmured Xenia to her -brother in amazed awe, as with their arms wound about each -other they passed down the corridor to their own apartments.</p> - -<p>Otho drew a long breath.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Elle nous a embrassés, vois-tu</i>,' he murmured, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">comme on -embrasse les petits pauvres</i>!'</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les petits pauvres</i>,' whom he had seen in the Tuileries or -the Luxembourg gardens, kissed by their ragged mothers with -eager tenderness on cold winter mornings, when perhaps the -mothers had no food to give them except such fond caresses. -Watching those happy hungry children, he had said more -than once to his sister enviously, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Si maman nous embrassait -comme ça!</i>'</p> - -<p>And then they had always kissed each other to make up for -the caresses which they did not obtain.</p> - -<p>And now she too had kissed them '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">comme ça</i>!' They were -not sure whether they had done something very wrong or -something very good to move her so; one or the other they -were sure it must have been.</p> - -<p>As the children went from her presence a note was brought -her which briefly announced that the Princess Lobow Gregorievna -had arrived in Paris from Russia to consult some famous -physician.</p> - -<p>'As the vulture comes when there is death in the air,' she -murmured with passion, as she tore the note in two. Must this -mummied saint even change all the habits of her life and quit -her country to be present here, when for the first time a rupture -open and irrevocable had come between herself and Othmar, -when in a few days' time, if it were not doing so already, all -Paris would be speaking of the cause of their disunion!</p> - -<p>All the vague dormant superstition which slumbered beneath -her sceptical intelligence, made her see a fatal omen in this -unlooked-for arrival of her bitterest enemy. More than once -she had said in her heart, 'If ever I have misfortune, Lobow -Gregorievna will be there to triumph in it.' And now she was -there, within a few streets, residing in a religious house of -Muscovite nuns, a dark still austere spectre, which seemed to -her like the carrion bird which waits for those who die.</p> - -<p>'Do I grow nervous and hysterical?' she asked herself in -scorn.</p> - -<p>She who had meted out destiny to so many, who had thought -that it was only the timid and foolish who let life go ill with -them, who had regarded the sorrows of sentiment and emotion -with an indulgent contempt, felt with anger against herself that -such a trivial thing as the advent of a woman who hated her -could affect her nerves and appear to her a presage of ill. With<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> -her delicate scorn and her consummate indifference she had -turned aside all the efforts of others to move her or influence -her; she had never known either apprehension or regret; it -had always seemed to her that life was a comedy to be played ill -or well according as you were wise or stupid. Suddenly, for the -first time, emotions which were beyond her own control affected -her, and a sense that circumstance escaped her guidance filled -her with the sharp pain of irritated impotence.</p> - -<p>She knew the world too well not to know that all the women -who had vainly envied her, and many of the men who had vainly -wooed her, would take pleasure and find solace in every whisper -which should tell them of the offence to her pride; and she knew -the world too well not to know also that there is no such thing -as privacy in it, that all which she had learned through Michel -Obrenowitch society would find out and gossip exaggerate; and -that the whole of the society throughout Europe which she had -dominated and influenced and been feared by for so long, would -know that she—she—Nadège Feodorowna—was deserted for a -peasant girl taken from the streets.</p> - -<p>All the imperious blood which was in her changed to fire as -she thought of the certain comments of the courts and drawing-rooms -in which she had been so long so arrogant a leader, so -dreaded a wit; she knew that eagerly as hounds at the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">curée</i> -would all her flatterers, friends, and lovers join her foes in -exultantly rejoicing over her insulted dignity.</p> - -<p>How many and many a time she had heard society laugh -over just such a story as this! How well she knew all the cruel -derision, all the gay contempt, all the equivocal jests, all the -affected pity! How well she knew that precisely in measure to -the homage which they yield us is the pleasure of others in -our pain!</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Blanche de Laon that morning rode her English horse slowly -down one of the unfrequented roads in the Bois de Boulogne, -and beside her paced the handsome Tunisian mare of Loris -Loswa. They were good friends, although, or rather because, -they went for their loves and their vices elsewhere than to each -other. He was conscious of the use it was to him to be caressed -and favoured by this pre-eminent leader of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la jeunesse crâne</i>; -and she found in him a suppleness, a malice, and an ingenuity, -in tormenting and in defaming, which made him an ever amusing -and an often useful companion to a lady who had no better sport -than the harassing of her friends and acquaintances.</p> - -<p>Loswa was acutely sensible of the necessity which exists for -any artist who would continue famous and fashionable to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> -his court to the new sovereigns of the great world, as turn by -turn they succeed to their leadership. The obligations of old -loyalties and the memories of old favours did not weigh a feather -with his wise and self-loving nature; a woman's influence was -the measure of her beauty in his eyes, and had Helen's self been -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sur le retour</i> she would have commanded no smile from him. -He saw in the Princesse de Laon an influence which would grow -with every fear for the next decade, so entirely were her qualities -those which her generation most admires and fears. Therefore -to no one was he in semblance more devoted, and no one had he -flattered more ingeniously, and immortalised more frequently -with all the most delicate homage of his art, though in his secret -thoughts he denounced as detestable the irregular colourless -impertinent features of her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">minois chiffonné</i>, and her myosotis-coloured -insolent eyes which stared so arrogantly and so inquisitively -on all living things.</p> - -<p>'It is a vile type,' said Loswa in his own mind. 'It is a vile -type, all this <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeunesse du monde</i>. It is without grace and without -seduction; it is insolent and noisy; it is over-dressed and over-drawn; -it screams and it gambles; it wears the gowns of -Goldoni's Venice with the head-dresses of the Directoire; it -empties the bazaars of Japan into its salons of Louis Quinze; a -vile type, with nothing in it of the great lady, and nothing of -the honest woman, only a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diable d'entrain</i> which carries it away -as a broomstick carries a witch!'</p> - -<p>But, all the same, he was not willing to be left behind in the -excursions of the broomstick, and was very conscious that -unless <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cette jeunesse</i> made him one of them, he would cease to -be the painter whom fashion loved. It is so easy to become -old-fashioned! so easy to become one of that joyless and disregarded -band—'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les vieux</i>!'</p> - -<p>Therefore to all the young beauties, even if he owned them -hideous, he was careful to pay devoted court, and to none more, -since none were so powerful as she, than to Blanchette de Laon. -His last portrait of her was then upon his easel half finished; a -study of pale tints, with her pale face seen above a necklace of -opals, with a great mass of lemon-coloured chrysanthemum -around and below, one of those dexterous and daring violations -of conventional art of which he possessed the secret; and in it -he had flattered her so delicately, yet so immoderately, that her -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">museau de chatte</i> had become actually beautiful in his treatment -of it.</p> - -<p>'That is what one wants when one goes to be painted,' she -had said herself with cynical honesty.</p> - -<p>She and he, good friends always and better friends still of -late, rode now side by side through the solitude of a rarely-used -alley of the Bois, and spoke in confidential tones together, as -her perfect figure in its dark cloth habit seemed one with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> -perfect English hunter which she rode. She was not fond of -any country sports, but she rode admirably, and knew that -riding displayed all the graces of her form.</p> - -<p>'You are sure it is the girl of the island?' she asked.</p> - -<p>'Quite sure,' answered Loswa. 'Madame Nadège asked me -some questions, you gave me a hint, Lemberg spoke of some new -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégée</i> of Rosselin's. I inquired about the theatres, at the -Conservatoire; I imagined this hidden miracle was the future -Desclée of Bonaventure. I found out that she lived near Magny, -and was visited by Othmar; Magny is not the North Pole that -they should deem it unvisitable; I went there unseen myself, -and a farm labourer pointed out to me "<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la demoiselle</i>:" she -was at a distance from me, walking by the river, but I recognised -her at a glance. One might have guessed it before. When she -disappeared from the island it was Othmar who knew where she -went.'</p> - -<p>'It is very droll!' said Blanchette, showing her white small -teeth in a grin of genuine appreciation. 'And do you suppose -his wife knows?'</p> - -<p>'Béthune knows, by his look the other day, and he will tell her: -he will be only too glad <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de lui donner une dent</i> against Othmar.'</p> - -<p>'I have told her something,' said Blanche de Laon; 'though -I did not know who it was I knew that there was an interest at -Chevreuse; I saw him walking in the fields there: but is the -girl truly a genius?'</p> - -<p>Loswa smiled.</p> - -<p>'Who shall say? But the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chère amie</i> of a rich millionaire -will always find a public to swear that she is so. They already -speak amongst artists of her coming <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">début</i>, and it is easy to see -the value which is attached to the millions behind her. There -is very little known about her, but that fact is known of Othmar's -interest in her, and no doubt it will make it easy for her to -appear on some great theatre.'</p> - -<p>'They say she is first to appear at Othmar's own house.'</p> - -<p>'That will be very clever, but very dangerous. Madame -Nadège is not a person with whom <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">on peut plaisanter</i>. I should -doubt her condescending to condonation of that kind.'</p> - -<p>Blanchette laughed.</p> - -<p>'He is very indulgent to her about Béthune. He may -surely expect the usual equivalent in return.'</p> - -<p>Loswa was irritated.</p> - -<p>'He knows well enough that Béthune is nothing to her; -Béthune has worshipped her for fifteen years. I admit that; -but he has had his pains for his payment; she lets him follow -her about, but it is only <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pour rire</i>.'</p> - -<p>Blanchette laughed and flicked her horse's throat with her -little white switch.</p> - -<p>'You speak as if you were jealous! You always admired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> -that cold woman. To return to the coming Desclée. Paris -already talks of her, you say?'</p> - -<p>'It is not my fault if it do not,' she thought.</p> - -<p>'Vaguely, yes,' answered Loswa. 'It has an expectation of -some new talent which has what all talent in our generation -requires: a prop of gold behind it.'</p> - -<p>'Have you discreetly whispered that it is one with the -original of a sketch of a fishing girl?'</p> - -<p>Loswa smiled.</p> - -<p>'I have caused it to be whispered, of course; we never say -those things ourselves.'</p> - -<p>'Where does Othmar hide her at present, do you say?'</p> - -<p>'At a farmhouse at Les Hameaux. He is not magnificent in -his maintenance of her; it is a very simple place, and she lives -very simply there.'</p> - -<p>'That is just like a very rich man. Besides, Othmar always -has a taste for black bread and bare boards. You know at one -time he actually dreamed of breaking up the whole network of -the Othmar power, and stripping himself of everything, and -living like St. Vincent de Paul. That was before those children -were born; their mother would certainly never take the vow of -poverty! Well, shall you and I ride down to Magny some -morning and see this prodigy of genius and simplicity? You -can recall yourself to her, and you can present me. We will -represent ourselves as inspired by what we have heard from -Rosselin.'</p> - -<p>Loswa hesitated. Othmar was not a man whom he cared to -cross. Yet he had a desire to see again the face which he had -sketched on Bonaventure, and he had a vague idea that by going -thither he might in some way learn something which would enable -him to pay off that old score which had so long cherished against -Othmar's wife. He had had a restless and hopeless passion for -her years before; he had served and flattered her docilely because -he held at its just value the great power of her social -influence; he had been of use to her in a thousand ways at her -château parties and in her Paris entertainments; he had always -been docile and devoted, and ingenious to please, and -submissive under offence, but all the same, at the bottom of his -heart there was a bitter rancour against her for her blindness to -his charms; for her criticism of his talents; for her constant -careless treatment of him as a mere <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">décor de fête</i>, as a mere -amateur; and if he could see her pride hurt or her indifference -penetrated, he felt that he would be happier and better satisfied. -A thousand slighting words which she had spoken out of caprice, -and forgotten as soon as they were uttered, had remained -written on his memory and unforgiven. He would not have -quarrelled with her openly for his life; he was too sensible of -the pleasure of her acquaintance, the charm of her presence, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> -value of her goodwill; but if he could have helped unseen to put -any thorns under the rose leaves of her couch, he would have -done so willingly; he would have even chosen thorns which -were poisoned.</p> - -<p>'Yes, we will go and see her,' said Blanchette, as their -horses paced under the boughs. 'It is always amusing to be -the first to inspect a person the world is going to be asked to -admire. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On peut la dénigrer si bien!</i>'</p> - -<p>'But,' suggested Loswa, with hesitation, 'if we <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dénigrer</i> here, -we shall please Madame Nadège. Is that what you wish to do? -I think if we go at all we must, on the contrary, go to befriend, -to admire, to assist the new talent.'</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon gave him a little approving caress with -her whip.</p> - -<p>'You are a clever man, Loris,' she said with appreciation. -'We will go to-morrow—no, the day after to-morrow,' she -added. 'I will meet you at St. Cyr; the horses shall be sent -there by train; I often send mine by train to places where I -wish to ride; send yours also. We will go early because it is a -long way. The day after to-morrow I know that Othmar will -be at Ferrières; there is a great breakfast; he cannot escape -from it; there will be no fear of meeting him in Chevreuse.'</p> - -<p>'But are you sure what we shall accomplish when we reach -there?'</p> - -<p>'You will finish the sketch begun on the island, and I shall -forestall the dramatic criticism of Francisque Sarcey.'</p> - -<p>'Othmar will not like it.'</p> - -<p>'Othmar need not know it. My dear Loris, do you suppose -that by feeding her on buttermilk, and hiding her under a -thatched roof, he secures the primitive virtues in his idealised -peasant? You may be sure she already tells him nothing that -she does not choose to tell. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On n'est pas femme pour rien!</i>'</p> - -<p>Loswa rode on in silence awhile, then he said with a smile:</p> - -<p>'I have an idea, which, if we could realise it, might possibly -prove amusing. You will recollect that there are to be dramatic -representations at Amyôt next week when the Princes are -there?'</p> - -<p>Blanchette nodded assent.</p> - -<p>'And Madame Nadège,' continued Loswa, 'is always very -solicitous for the success of her theatre; she spares nothing at -any time on that kind of entertainment; and the representations -of next week are to be really royal; all the greatest artists are -engaged for them. I have always a good deal to do with -arranging these things for Amyôt; and I know that it is most -likely that the Reichenberg, who is to play there, will not have -recovered the chill which she caught yesterday at La Marche. -If she should not, shall we substitute Damaris Bérarde? I need -not appear in the matter; I can send the director of Amyôt to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> -Rosselin, and in any way we should have an entertaining scene -not included in the programme. If the new wonder succeed, -the Lady of Amyôt will not be pleased, and will undoubtedly -quarrel with her husband; if, on the contrary, the girl should -turn nervous, or hysterical, or passionate, and forget her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i>, -it will be diverting enough, and in any case will embarrass -Othmar himself. I think in either event we should have a droll -ten minutes.'</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon showed her white teeth in an approving -smile.</p> - -<p>'You are always ingenious,' she said. 'But if Othmar be -already desirous of making the girl appear under his wife's -patronage, perhaps your scheme would only gratify him? What -then?'</p> - -<p>'He is only desirous of that because he thinks that his wife -does not know of Les Hameaux; but we will take care that she -does know; and I think she may be trusted to resent it. She -does not care a straw for him, but she cares immeasurably for -her own dignity, her own influence, her own empire.'</p> - -<p>Blanchette nodded again.</p> - -<p>'We will see what the new star is like, first,' she answered. -'It is not a mere handsome nobody with a turn for the stage -who will excite her jealousy: she is too proud to be easily -jealous.'</p> - -<p>'The girl is magnificent,' said Loswa, as he thought. -'Jealousy is always alive, even if love has been dead a century.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The day after the morrow they kept their word to each other. -She descended at the little station of St. Cyr, and found her -horse and groom and those of Loswa waiting for her. Loswa -and she bade their men stay at the station there, and rode themselves -through the country ways which lie between St. Cyr and -Les Hameaux. That if anyone chanced to see them their meeting -would look like an assignation, did not trouble the thoughts -of the Princesse de Laon for an instant; there were far too -many much more weighty imputations which she incurred daily -to allow so trivial a possible charge as this would be to have any -terrors for her. She delighted in the creation of scandal, in the -risks of equivocal positions; and challenged both the admiration -of her husband and the long-suffering of her world with the most -daring and shameless of provocations. She knew that to those -who dare much, much is forgiven; she knew that the world -would never quarrel with her. It feared her tongue too greatly.</p> - -<p>It was scarcely noonday when they reached the quiet fields<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> -which stretched around the Croix Blanche. There were the -greenness and freshness of very earliest spring in all the land; -little birds were flying and twittering, with thoughts of coming -nests, to be hidden away under orchard blossoms, and the sheep -were cheerfully cropping the short grass which covered the ruins -of Port Royal. All these things and the memories which went -with them said nothing to Blanchette; all she knew of spring -was the dates of the various races, and all she knew of history -was that it gave you travesties for costume balls.</p> - -<p>They left their horses in charge of a labouring servant, who -was sitting resting under one of the ash trees to eat his noonday -bread, and then, crossing the courtyard, pushed their way -without ceremony past the dairy-wench who tried to stop them -and learn their errand, and so, without either announcement or -apology, opened the door at the head of the wooden stair and -found themselves in the chamber of Damaris.</p> - -<p>She was sitting reading at a table, the white dogs lay at her -feet; a great volume was open on the table before her, her head -leaned on her hand, which was hidden in the masses of her close-curling -hair. As she started at the unclosing of the door and rose -to her feet, and restrained the dogs with a gesture, the intruders -upon her privacy were both astonished to see the development -which her beauty had taken since the night two years before -when she had stood, bewildered and astray, like a young night-hawk -brought into a lighted house from the shadows of night, -in the drawing-rooms of St. Pharamond. She did not speak; -she remained motionless, her hand on the head of the male dog; -she recognised Loswa instantly, with a sense of pain and of -regret that he had found her there; his companion she was not -conscious of ever having seen before.</p> - -<p>'Here is Loris Loswa, whom you will remember, and I am -Madame de Laon,' said Blanchette, advancing towards her, -with her abrupt familiarity, her eyes roving all over the place -and coming back to fasten themselves with envy on the beautiful -lines of the girl's throat and bosom.</p> - -<p>'We are come to see you,' she continued, 'because you will -be a celebrity very soon; Rosselin is going to bring you out at -the Français or the Odéon; you will have no trouble; everything -is arranged; Othmar's name is enough, and your story -will please Paris when it is in a romantic mood. It is romantic -sometimes, despite the naturalists. You are very handsome, -my dear, very; you have an antique type, and what blood and -what health there are in you!—enough to make a million of our -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">anémiques</i>! Why do you go on living in this hole among -pigeons and dogs? I should have thought he would have given -you an hotel in the Avenue Joséphine or the Boulevard Hausmann -before now!'</p> - -<p>Damaris looked at her from under bent brows; she did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> -understand, but she had a sense of offence in the way she was -addressed; this great lady seemed to her rudely familiar, -brusquely intimate; she did not like her tone, her face, her -manner; and the use of Othmar's name bewildered her. She -was silent because she had no idea at all what she should reply.</p> - -<p>Loswa tried to propitiate her.</p> - -<p>'I have not forgotten my day on the island,' he said to her, -'nor all your goodness to me. Is it true that you are going to -dazzle all Paris in "Dona Sol" as you charmed us on that island -with "Esther"? Why does Rosselin delay to give the world -so much pleasure, and why does he keep you so hidden?'</p> - -<p>Damaris heard with impatience and anger.</p> - -<p>'I do not suppose I shall ever play Dona Sol,' she said -abruptly; 'and if I did, most likely Paris would laugh, and you -first of all.'</p> - -<p>'Paris does not laugh at handsome people,' said Blanche de -Laon, cutting short the flattering protestations of Loswa. 'Not, -at least, till it gets tired of their good looks. But it is quite -true, is it not, that you are being taught by Rosselin to rival -Bernhardt?'</p> - -<p>'I do not know as to rivalry,' said Damaris, with constraint -and displeasure. 'If I ever follow art I shall endeavour to be -as true to it and as far from imitation of others as I can. M. -Rosselin is very kind and patient with me.'</p> - -<p>Blanchette smiled.</p> - -<p>'You are very grateful. Be sure he finds as much interest -in training you as you can find in being trained! I should think -you might dispense with study—with such a face as yours, and -such a friend as Otho Othmar!'</p> - -<p>Damaris coloured angrily.</p> - -<p>She resented the intrusion of this stranger, whose impertinent -and familiar manners offended her, and seemed to her a -personal insolence. At Loswa she did not look. His presence -was unwelcome to her, and brought back the memories of Bonaventure -so strongly that it was with difficulty that she kept the -tears from rising to her eyes. How far away it seemed, that -sunny noonday, when she had made him welcome to her little -balcony amongst the orange boughs and the lemon leaves! And -then how basely he had repaid her and betrayed her, and -brought his friends to laugh at her, as he had brought this -woman of fashion now!</p> - -<p>Blanchette continued to gaze at her with unsparing examination, -and Loswa continued to make to her those pretty speeches -of graceful compliment of which he was a finished master. She -grew angered and stubborn under the eye of the one and deaf -and contemptuous to the flatteries of the other. Why had they -come? When would they depart? These were the only two -questions in her thoughts.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was troubled, too, by the abrupt mention of Othmar, -and uncertain what she ought to say, how she should reply. If -only Rosselin had been there! He would have known how -to meet these insolent gay people, who stared at her as though -she were some curious strange beast; he would have stood -between her and their persistent inquisitive examination. But -the visit of Rosselin had been paid on the previous day, and he -would not return until the morrow. The woman of the house -was at the market of Versailles; she was wholly alone; and -she had lost the dauntless, careless courage with which she had -treated Loswa on the island, the courage born of childish ignorance -and of childish audacity. Life seemed now very difficult -and intricate to her, and her steps in it were shy and unsure.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>'If I ever do go before the world I shall probably fail,' she -said wearily, in answer to their continued allusions to her -coming career.</p> - -<p>'Fail!' echoed Blanche de Laon, breaking in roughly on -the graceful protestations of Loswa. 'You will not fail, you -shall not fail; it would please her too much. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Dame</i>! how -unlike you are to us! You look as if you were made of some -other stuff than we are made of; you look as if you had come -fresh out of the sea like the Greek goddess that is in the Salon -every year. Has she seen you again? You ought to let her -see you now.'</p> - -<p>'Who?' said Damaris.</p> - -<p>'Who?' said Blanchette, and muttered in her small white -teeth '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ah! ça fait l'innocente, ça se pose!</i>——'</p> - -<p>Aloud she said to her companion, 'My dear Loswa, go and -sketch the nymphs of the farm; there are always nymphs on -a farm, are there not? I want to be alone a moment with -Mademoiselle Bérarde. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Allez-vous-en!</i>'</p> - -<p>As he obeyed her unwillingly and with a look of eloquent -regret, Blanchette scanned with all the penetration of her pale -keen eyes the poetic and classic face of Damaris; she was a -skilled appraiser of female beauty, and there were a force, a -colour, an ideality here which she had never seen before, which -were as unlike the beauties of the women of her own world, -washed with <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">lait d'Iris</i> and shadowed with kolh, as a warm -morning on southern fields, where the sun shines on wine-hued -wind flowers, is unlike a waxlit evening in a conservatory.</p> - -<p>'Paris has had nothing like her for ages,' she thought. -'But she is stupid; she does not know her own power; she -lives on at a farm; if she waits for Othmar's leave she will never -be seen by the world; she does not understand; perhaps she -mixes sentiment up with it; she has the head of a Sappho; -that type is always romantic.'</p> - -<p>'Now he is gone,' she said aloud. 'Do not be afraid and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> -do not <em>pose</em>. Tell me truly, has Othmar's wife seen you since -you left your island?'</p> - -<p>'No.' Damaris coloured at the name.</p> - -<p>'No? What a pity! Look you, my dear,' she continued, -as she leaned familiarly towards her and poured the sharp pale -rays of her penetrating eyes into the face of Damaris. 'I will -befriend you because you hate her. She had power once, but -now I have more than she had. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le jour est aux jeunes.</i> I will -use my power for you. You shall become great if my world -can make you so, because she will suffer in seeing it. You -must be great, I tell you; it is all very well to <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">filer le parfait -amour</i> with him under these trees if you like it—I wonder you -like it, it is such waste of time, and you should have had your -hotel and your major-domo, and your blood-horses by now, -and men never think much of a woman for whom they do little; -it is the woman they are ruined by whom they esteem;—but -you must be great, you must shine, you must set all Paris talking -or you will not hurt her in the least. I do not think she -cares what affairs he may have, all that is beneath her; she will -only care if you can oppose her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de puissance à puissance</i>, if the -world admires you, adores you, and flatters him and insults her -every time that it praises you. Do you understand? I do not -think you understand. Are you stupid or do you only pose? -Do not feign with me. Why should you feign with me? All -that serves nothing. You only hurt yourself and lose influence -if you let him think you are content to be shut up like this, -adoring his image. You are one of the sentimentalists I see; -you must change all that. It is not of our time, it is not in our -manners; it is silly and provincial, and you may be sure does -you no good with him. Let Rosselin bring you out on any -theatre he can, any is better than none; but with Othmar -behind him he will be able to buy all the theatres in Paris. -You are magnificent to look at; they say you have talent, and -you have a lover who is a Crœsus; it will be your own fault if -you are not the admiration of all Europe at a bound. Then she -will hate you, and she will be wounded to the soul, and she will -realise that her day is done; <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le jour est aux jeunes</i>. And then -I will kiss you on both cheeks before all Paris if you like. -Yes—I, even I—Blanche de Vannes, Princesse de Laon!——'</p> - -<p>Her voice had risen into a swift enthusiasm, a faint flush had -come on her pale features, she smiled with pleasure at the -vision her words conjured up; her cold narrow world-encrusted -soul expanded with the sweetness of a satisfied hatred and the -honesty of a genuine sentiment. Love she could not, but she -could hate, and in all the cruelty and the wickedness of her -there was thus much of candour and of feeling; she was true to -the childish affections and the promised revenge of a day long -gone by. Even as she spoke she was thinking of the poor little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> -verses hidden with the dead roses in the drawer at Amyôt; -even as she spoke she was saying in her heart, 'My pure angel, -I do not forget; better people than I forget, but I do not. -She shall suffer what you suffered; she shall lose what you lost; -she shall feel that she is the laugh of the world; she shall know -that she is as powerless to hold the heart of her husband as -you were, and she shall see him chained in public to the -triumphal car of this child. And I shall be by the child's -ear, and I shall tell her all the secrets of power and all the vices -that make men like sheep to be driven, and I shall make her -dupe him and deceive him, and keep other lovers on his gold, -and ruin him body and soul; and no one will know I am there -behind her but myself. I shall know, and what a jest it will be!'</p> - -<p>All these thoughts floated before her while her hands clasped -the ivory handled white whip and her eyes flashed their pale -fires over the face of Damaris.</p> - -<p>To tempt, to corrupt, to revenge: they are a triad sweeter -to those who love them than are ever all the Graces and -Persuasion, or Charity and her gentle sisters.</p> - -<p>Damaris still did not speak. The colour was hot in her face -and her eyebrows were drawn together; a look of intense -suffering had replaced the momentary stupor of bewilderment -and surprise; she breathed loudly and slowly with effort; the -blue veins of her throat were swollen. Little by little she had -gathered up the sense of all which had been said to her, and -ravelled it out bit by bit, and comprehended it.</p> - -<p>The swift shrill voice of her temptress still went on in her -ear.</p> - -<p>'Perhaps you wonder what business it is of mine, why I -mix myself up in it, why I care what your lover does. Well, I -care nothing at all for him; he may have a harem as large as -Versailles for aught I care, but I hate her; I have always hated -her. She is insolent, she is arrogant, she has that power over -men still which it irritates one to see, and she killed my cousin. -You may have heard of Othmar's first wife and of her death. I -was fond of my cousin; she was of a type so rare—so rare!—one -that one never sees now; she was only a child, and she took -her own life because Othmar loved this woman who is his wife -now; she thought she would make him happy in that way—poor -little sweet generous fool! So she died by the sea there, in that -country of yours. I was sorry then; I am angry still; I have -always said that I would live to see this other woman humiliated -and abandoned as she was humiliated and abandoned. And -that is why I will be your friend; openly, freely, I cannot be so, -but I will do all I can in my world to make you great, and I can -do a great deal, because great you must be. She will not care -if he only make love to you <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la derobée</i> under these ash trees. -You are nothing now; you are only a little peasant whom it has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> -pleased him to set in a dovecot—it does not matter to her even -if she knows of it. But, if you triumph in the sight of all Paris, -then it will wound her. If you be a second Desclée as she -prophesied for you, so Loris says, then it will make her bitterly -mortified if she sees herself deserted for you.'</p> - -<p>She paused to take breath after the rapid, voluble, unstudied -sentences which had followed each other so fast and in so impressive -a whisper off her lips.</p> - -<p>Damaris made no word in reply. She listened as though -she were made of wood or stone; her full curved lips were -pressed close together, her eyes were sombre and had a dusky -ominous gleam in them, the only expression on her face was -that of a vague, half-stupid bewilderment which left her companion -in the same doubt as before, as to whether she were -stupid or feigning.</p> - -<p>'If she have no more intelligence than this,' Blanche de -Laon thought, impatiently, 'how can they think to make her -famous for all her beauty? To be sure, great artists are sometimes -great imbeciles.'</p> - -<p>She leaned still nearer till her eyes seemed to plunge themselves -into those of Damaris; she had drawn off her gloves, -and her thin small hands with their glittering rings were clasped -on her riding whip where it lay on the table in front of her; her -voice rose swifter and shriller as she resumed her argument.</p> - -<p>'You do not understand your own forces,' she said, with the -impatience of a keen intelligence baffled by a slow one. 'You -do not see that now—now—now is the moment for you to do -everything you choose, to get everything you wish; if you let -time go by, Othmar will refuse you a piece of pinchbeck where -now he would give you a river of diamonds. If you waste your -best years living in obscurity to please him, he will recompense -you by leaving you to obscurity all the rest of your days. Men -never appreciate sacrifice. If he cannot do better for you than -a room or two in a farmhouse, what use is it to you that he is -worth millions of millions as he is? You are only a handsome -child, only a handsome peasant; but if you come into the world -you will be a beautiful woman. You will lead men any way -you like, and he will love you all the more because he will be -afraid of his rivals.'</p> - -<p>Suddenly she rose and stood erect.</p> - -<p>'I know what you mean,' she answered, with the vibration -of a great passion in her voice 'At first I did not know. I -think you cannot understand. He saved me from the streets, -as a man may a dog. He has been as an angel to me. He does -not care for me except in pity. He loves her. I would give -my body and my soul to him if he wished for them. But he -does not. He is not mine in any way, nor will he ever be. -You do not understand. If I could make him happy for one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> -hour I would burn in hell for all eternity with joy. But I have -not the power. I am nothing to him, nothing; no more than -the world is to me. You do not understand—go, go.'</p> - -<p>Her voice lost its intensity of expression, and sank exhausted -at the close; the colour faded from her face; she leaned against -the wall with a sense of sudden weakness on her.</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon stared on her with hard unsympathetic -sceptical eyes; she laughed a little, coarsely, rudely.</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Dame</i>! You have a mind to show me you can act! If -you were on the boards now you would bring down the house. -You are no simpleton I see. No doubt you know the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i> -which pays you best. I spoke to you in sincerity, and you -answer me with a tissue of untruths. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C'est bien du midi ça!</i>'</p> - -<p>Damaris looked at her wearily: the pain in her was too great -for anger to have any place in it.</p> - -<p>'You can believe what you like,' she said with effort. -'Go!'</p> - -<p>Blanche de Laon, who had never in her life known any impulse -of submission or any sense of fear, was vaguely awed and -touched into involuntary acquiescence. Her swift, ready, insolent, -and cruel tongue was silent.</p> - -<p>She was baffled and angered. She had spoken so frankly -and so cynically, because she had been certain that her words -would fall on a willing ear, and be received by a mind open and -ready for them. The possibility that Damaris might refuse to -hearken to them had never presented itself to her. She had -made the usual mistake of an ignoble mind. The possibility of -a mind being noble had never suggested itself to her.</p> - -<p>She was sure that Othmar was the lover of this child, and -that the girl denied it to save him from all comment of the -world, and all jealousy of his wife.</p> - -<p>Such a denial was stupid and exaggerated, and unwise, -because the force of all women lies in their power to make -themselves feared, and in their unblushing employment and -proclamation of their triumphs: still it was fine, even Blanche -de Laon felt that. She did not for a moment believe the answer -given her, and she was bitterly incensed at the rejection of all -her overtures and the failure of all her counsels; but she was -moved despite herself to a certain unwilling admiration of so -much courage and of so much loyalty. It was a lie she felt -sure; but there were a grandeur and utter oblivion of self -in such a lie which impressed her by their utter unlikeness to -herself.</p> - -<p>She looked at the averted face of Damaris; then gathered -up her gloves and whip, and without any other words went from -the chamber.</p> - -<p>'May I not go back to make my adieux?' asked Loswa, who -waited for her in the courtyard of the house.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p> - -<p>'No,' she said sharply. 'What should you do there? You -are no student of the antique. That child is a daughter of the -gods—a sister of Phædra and of Medea—no contemporary of -yours or mine. Let her alone. She will not suit your canvas.'</p> - -<p>'Will she play at Amyôt?'</p> - -<p>'I do not think so.'</p> - -<p>She mounted her horse and rode in silence through the fields -and lanes. Her tireless incessant voice for once was mute, and -her face was troubled and surprised. All the malice and the -vileness which had been in her thoughts, her hopes, her suggestions, -had been scared and confounded by the sense of a great -unintelligible passion, the nobility of which was incomprehensible -to her, yet affected her with a dim sense of its strength -and its strangeness.</p> - -<p>Once she laughed aloud and turned to Loswa.</p> - -<p>'Desclée! Desclée never equalled Damaris Bérarde. What -an incomparable actress the future will enjoy whether we get -her to Amyôt or not!'</p> - -<p>'You mean——' asked Loswa perplexed.</p> - -<p>'My dear Loris! Almost she persuaded me that she loves -Otho Othmar for himself and not for his millions! Almost she -persuaded me too that he is not as yet her lover, though he -may be when he will! You will grant that she surpasses -Desclée.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>When the echo of their horses' feet had ceased from the stones -of the courtyard, and the quiet air had no sound in it except the -twitter of the sparrows pecking among the food of the poultry in -the yard below, Damaris remained motionless, leaning against -the wall of the chamber. One by one all the words which had -been spoken to her returned on her memory, bringing with -them a clearer meaning, a fuller comprehension, a deeper -disgust.</p> - -<p>Little by little she understood all which Blanche de Laon -had meant, all which she had promised, all which she had -supposed.</p> - -<p>'They think that I live on his money, and that all I care for -is that,' she muttered with the sick sense of a loathsome imputation -stealing all the strength out of her nerves, and all the -peace out of her life.</p> - -<p>Othmar to her was as a deity. But the very exaltation and -intensity and ideality of the passion which moved her for him, -rendered all the coarse suggestions and conclusions of this woman -of fashion most intolerable to her, most cruel, and most degrad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>ing. -Because she would have followed him to any fate with joy -and with devotion, therefore was she most tortured, most outraged, -by the supposition that she could regard him as the -means to riches and to fame. Nothing on earth suffers so intensely -as a loyal and lofty passion, which sees itself classed with -venal and avaricious lusts.</p> - -<p>Perhaps even he himself might suspect her of some such vile -hopes as these!</p> - -<p>She leaned against the wall, sick at heart in her utter solitude, -her lips white, her brow red with dusky colour, her -breathing slow and loud, her limbs cold. The white dogs -watched her with wistful eyes as they had once watched her -little boat go away over the moonlit sea. The morning crept -onward, the pale sunbeams strayed across the floor, amorous -pigeons cooed in their little homes under the eaves, distant -voices of labourers, calling one to another, came through the -stillness; there was the sound of the strokes of an axe in the -copse.</p> - -<p>She was conscious of nothing.</p> - -<p>An hour and more passed uncounted by her, when the step -of Rosselin, still so firm and so light, mounted rapidly the -wooden stairs and his voice called gaily to her before he had -reached the door of her chamber.</p> - -<p>'My child, where are you? I have great news for you. You -had no expectation of a visit from me to-day. I have great -news for you, my dear; it would not brook delays; the Fates -have sent us the very chance we wanted, there is always a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">dea -Fortuna</i> for genius, the very stars fight in their courses for -it——'</p> - -<p>His gay and excited voice dropped suddenly, for his eyes -caught sight of her leaning against the wall of the room, where -she had stood during the last words spoken by Blanche de Laon. -She turned her head and looked at him, but without much recognition -in the look, her face was suffused with dark colour, -she had an expression in her eyes, stunned, disgusted, bewildered, -and yet one of intense anger.</p> - -<p>'Who has been with you?' said Rosselin, abruptly. 'What -have they done to you?'</p> - -<p>She did not reply.</p> - -<p>Rosselin repeated his question impatiently.</p> - -<p>'Have you not trust enough in me to speak? You look as -if you had seen ghosts. Good God! what has happened to you? -Child, cannot you answer me?'</p> - -<p>'There is nothing to say,' she replied slowly. Not for the -universe could she have repeated what she had heard.</p> - -<p>'Nothing to say! and you have lost faith in me in a night! -I left you as usual yesterday. You have been graver, shyer, -stiller of late it is true, but you have never been like this. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> -came to tell you of a great chance. There may be no more gods -for the vulgar, for aught I know, but there is a divine providence -still for genius! Mdlle. Reichenberg is ill from cold; she was -to play in the great theatricals at Amyôt. Louis Loswa, who -directs them as he always does, has just sent to me to suggest -that you should take her place in two scenes from the "Misanthrope." -He says that Othmar suggested it; that he wishes -his wife to see you there. You are letter perfect, I say, in the -part of Célimène, you have recited it so many times with me. -True you have never played on any stage, but I am not afraid -of you if you will be courageous, if you will speak as you speak -when we are alone. Child, you have genius. What is the use -of having it if you are dumb as the stocks and stones? Why do -you look so? What has happened to you since I left you?'</p> - -<p>Damaris stared at him with dilated eyes.</p> - -<p>'Amyôt!' she repeated.</p> - -<p>'Yes, Amyôt,' said Rosselin angrily. 'The great country -house of Othmar. It is what I always most desired. It will be -the finest <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">début</i> you can have, and will, perhaps, stay evil -tongues. You have said that you would be dumb if you stood -before her, but that pusillanimity is wholly unworthy of you. -What is she to you! A woman who once predicted fame for -you. Show her that she predicted aright. You can succeed if -you choose. Succeed then, to do honour to me and justice to -yourself——'</p> - -<p>She did not reply.</p> - -<p>'Cannot you trust me to know what is best for you?' said -Rosselin, still with anger and upbraiding. 'I have arranged -everything. You will go down to Beaugency to-night with me; -rest one day, rehearse twice or thrice there, and on the next -play the part at Amyôt. It will be perfectly easy. You are -neither weak nor nervous, though you are impressionable and -take strange loves and hatreds. All is arranged; I have your -costumes ordered; the people who will act with you are all my -friends, and will aid you in every way. God in heaven! What -can you hesitate for? What can you want? At your age had -I had such an opportunity to take my place at a bound on -the highest steps of French art I should have gone mad with -joy!'</p> - -<p>Damaris was silent. Her face was in shadow and he could -not see its expression.</p> - -<p>'Does he wish it, you say?' she asked in a low voice.</p> - -<p>'Othmar? Yes, I believe so. He gave his permission for -such a presentation of you to his wife months ago; he will be -present, and he will certainly be glad to see your triumph. He -knows well that there is no other life possible for you. You -cannot go back to the life you left; you will not be content -with the paths of obscurity; you have touched the enchanted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> -cup and you must go on to drink of it, whether you will or no. -There are a score of reasons, which it is not necessary to detail, -why it is much to be desired that you should be seen first at -Amyôt, beyond all other places. I think you should trust me. -I am not likely to mislead you after having passed so many -months in striving to develop the talents Nature has given you. -Your natural gifts are great; if you do not throw them away in -a passion of mistaken feelings or of childish despair you may -live to reign in France as a woman of genius can reign in no -other country in the world. You make me angry to see you -so—Othmar's wife! What is Othmar's wife to you that you -should fret your soul for her? What matter to you, child, are -your own gifts, your own future, your own victory? Love Art -and follow it. It will be more faithful to you than any lover -that lives!'</p> - -<p>She still did not reply.</p> - -<p>He grew impatient and indignant with her. He had the -conviction which is so sincere in a great artist, that all passions, -affections, joys, woes and desires, loves and hatreds, were of no -weight whatever put in the scale with Art and with renown. -He had given up his whole existence to Art, and now that he -was old his devotion to it had remained in him whilst he had -forgotten the force and the despair of the affections and of the -passions when they govern the early years of life.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him intolerable, incredible, that the mere -weight and sway of Othmar's memory should stand for a moment -in the same scale with her as her destiny in the world, her -place in fame. As a youth he himself had swept away all the -flowers of feeling whenever they had threatened to choke the -growing laurel of his genius: why could she not do the same? -Was it because she was weak with the weakness of women?</p> - -<p>After love there is nothing so cruel as the tyrannies of art, -and Rosselin was art incarnated. Moreover he believed in the -magnetism and vivifying force of unexpected events and of -sudden emotions. They were a portion of those drastic and -searching medicines with which he thought an imperfectly developed -genius needs treatment. Once he had wished and -wished sincerely that Damaris Bérarde should remain in the -cool and shady paths of private life; but he had long ceased to -wish it; he was impatient for the world to crown the novitiate -on which he had bestowed so much care and labour.</p> - -<p>The thought of the fêtes at Amyôt captivated and stimulated -his own imagination. They seemed to him the occasion she -most needed; a very frame of Renaissance carvings, in which -the portrait of Célimène as portrayed by Damaris would show -in its finest colours and its finest lines. He dreaded for her the -coarse and ugly trivialities of a theatre with its throng of actors, -its imperious direction, its hired applause, its niggard criticisms;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> -he feared that she would feel in it like a hind caught in the -toils, would rebel against it all and flee. But at Amyôt it would -be pure art which would claim her, refined praise which would -salute her, an atmosphere of delicacy, of culture, of magnificence -which would be about her. If such a scene and such a stimulant -would not arouse all the soul slumbering in her, then he thought -that he would be ready to confess: 'I mistake; she has no -genius; let her go and till the earth and reap its fruits; of the -fruits of art she shall have none.'</p> - -<p>If she failed in such an air with such an opportunity, he -thought that he could be as cruel to her as Garcia was to Malibran -when her Desdemona was too timid and too tame.</p> - -<p>'I want you to be seen at Amyôt,' he said once more, with -irritation at being forced to explain. 'Othmar's friendship for -you is only an injury unless you have his wife's countenance too. -You can feel for her what aversion you will, but you must be -seen by the world in her presence: then she can do you no -harm. You are too ignorant and too young to see the perils in -your path, but I see them. I will save you from them if you -will be guided by me. If you are afraid to act, if you are unwilling -to be with the others, they must find some other substitute -for Reichenberg; there are many eager enough to replace -her; and you yourself shall only say some legend in verse, -some monologue, some simple poem, the "Révolte des Fleurs" -or the "Vase et l'Oiseau;" anything will do; you will be -heard, you will be seen, you will be known to have recited on -the stage at Amyôt; it will suffice.'</p> - -<p>He did not add that he expected so much from the charm of -her voice and from the beauty of her face that the slightest -cause which should afford a reason for her being seen by the -great world would, in his anticipations, suffice to give her a -place in its admiration, and rank in its realms of Art.</p> - -<p>'Come,' he said imperiously, 'there is little time to lose. -We must reach Beaugency to-morrow in the forenoon. All the -rest are already there. You must rehearse with them thrice at -the least, for you have none of the habits of the stage, though I -think they will come to you easily; I have taught you all there -really is to know. Come: why do you stand like that? Have you -been moon-struck or sun-struck since I saw you the day before -yesterday? You have an opportunity given you for which you -should go on your knees with thanksgiving, and you look as -though you were doomed to your death! Oh, child, what did -I tell you the other day? If the hate of this woman be in your -soul, let it spur you on to great efforts, let it move you to high -endeavours, let it force her to own that you are dowered by -nature with what she has not. Hate is an ignoble thing, and I -do not think it the parent of noble actions, but if you cannot -cast it out of your breast, compel it to inspire you nobly. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> -have wished for the world's applause, for the solace of art, for -the joys of moving the minds of multitudes: all these may -become yours, if you choose. But not if you consume your soul -in vain passions.'</p> - -<p>The face of Damaris grew duskily red. She knew his -meaning.</p> - -<p>'I cannot play at Amyôt,' she said slowly. 'Do not ask me, -I cannot. I should disgrace you. My tongue would cleave to -my mouth. You would curse me.'</p> - -<p>'Great God!' cried Rosselin, furious and amazed. 'Because -that one woman has such terror for you?'</p> - -<p>'Not that,' said Damaris.</p> - -<p>She was mute some moments, the blue veins swelled in her -throat, a mist of tears gathered hastily in her eyes.</p> - -<p>'I was starving and he fed me, I was friendless and he befriended -me. He shall not think that I look on his kindness as -a mere stairway to climb by to fame and the ways of the world. -His wife and his friends shall not say that I am made by his -gold and sustained by his influence; a mere thing of selfish, -covetous, ambitious, mercenary greed—like so many, many -women—so they say. I did not understand; now I have -thought—and I do understand. You are angry and I must -seem thankless. But I will never go upon the stage—never—never—never—because -his wife and his world, and perhaps his -own thoughts, would always tell him that all I cared for was the -help he could give me, the reflection his wealth could cast on -me. I never saw it like that before, but now that I have seen -it so, once, I cannot go back into blindness.'</p> - -<p>The tears rolled slowly from her eyes down the burning -crimson of her cheeks; her voice was lost in one great sob. -Rosselin seized her arm with a violent gesture.</p> - -<p>'Who has been with you?' he said, fiercely. 'Who has -dared to spit on you the venom of the world's lying mouth?'</p> - -<p>'I have thought it out all myself. Before I did not know,' -she answered briefly, and more than that he could not force -from her.</p> - -<p>She could not have told him the temptations and the suggestions -made by Blanche de Laon to save her life. All their -shamefulness had burnt into her very soul, as vitriol burns the -flesh.</p> - -<p>He stayed with her till night had fallen, and urged, implored, -commanded, persuaded, entreated her, with all the might of -that golden speech of which he was master. But it was all in -vain. The rocks of her own island were not more deeply rooted -in their deep-sea bed, than was her immovable purpose—never -to try and force her way into the world's publicity.</p> - -<p>'Do you mean to say,' he asked, with incredulity and despair, -'that you give up all idea of a dramatic career?'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span></p> - -<p>She made a sign of assent.</p> - -<p>'You cannot know what you do,' he cried in amazement and -indignation. 'You have gifts which are not given to many. -Do you mean to say that you will let all these lie and rust -because of some sentimental fancy which has rooted itself -against all reason in your mind? Your objections are absurd. -They are the morbid, exaggerated feelings of a child who has -lived too much alone, and knows nothing of the world except -what books can tell. What has Othmar to do with it either -way? If it be a sacrifice made for him he will not care for it. -He has been kind to you; he is kind to half a million people; -but your future is nothing to him, except as he wishes you well, -assuredly he wishes you well, and the more success and happiness -you gain the less remorse will he feel that he and his broke -up your life in the south. Oh, my child, my dear, be wise -while it is time. The world is all before you, do not take -a false step on its very threshold. The gods are seldom benevolent; -if we refuse the good that they would do us, they leave -us alone ever afterwards. They will never return to ingrates.'</p> - -<p>She was silent; but by the look upon her face he saw that -he had not altered her resolve.</p> - -<p>'I seem to speak harshly no doubt,' he pursued, 'for you -cannot see in my heart, and for the first time since I have known -you, you refuse to believe in my judgment. I tell you that -your idea is absurd, that Othmar will never attribute to you -the motives you fancy; he is too wise and too generous, and no -one could look at you, child, and think of you an ignoble thing. -You may be a great artist if you choose. If you are not that, -you will be of all creatures the most wretched, for you will live -against all the instincts of your nature, against all the bend of -your mind. What made you, when you read your poets on -your island, dream of a life wholly unknown to you, if not the -forces of genius which made you dissatisfied where you were, -and cried to you "Go." Fate has been kind to you: it has set -open the door; it has left you free. If you are thankless and -refuse what it offers, you will deserve to perish in misery.'</p> - -<p>She was still quite silent.</p> - -<p>'But what will become of you?' he cried in his amazement -and his grief. 'Child, you are so young, you cannot pass all -your life living down all the vital powers that are in you. -Genius struggles like a child in the womb to force its way out -to light. You cannot go against your nature. What will you -do? What will you do? We have made you for ever unfit for -the existence to which you were born. If you do not go and -sit where Fame beckons you now, you will stay out in the cold, -friendless and homeless for life. Have I not told you so -before? There is nothing on earth so wretched as the genius<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> -which is born to speak, yet fettered by circumstance, stands -dumb.'</p> - -<p>She heard, but she remained unmoved. She was but a -child, and she had a great hopeless passion shut in her heart, -and the vileness of the world had touched her like the saliva of -an unclean beast, and what could the fame which such a world -could give seem ever worth to her? All the youth and the -warmth, and the awaking senses and the wasted tenderness in -her all yearned for gentler, simpler, tenderer things, than the -glittering corselet of fame and the noisy applause of a crowd. -Rosselin was so used to being all alone himself so many a year, -that he could not measure the loneliness of a girl who has no -mother to weep with her, no sister to laugh with her, no lover -to kiss the dewy roses of her lips. He forgot that when he -spoke to her of fame and of art, all her young life called out in -her, 'Ah—where is love?'</p> - -<p>He stayed until late in the evening, bringing to bear on her -all the arguments and all the persuasions of which his fertile -memory and eloquent tongue could arm him; but he failed to -pierce the secret of the change in her, and he abandoned in -despair the effort to form her steps to Amyôt. He left her in -anger and in reproach in the soft vapours of a sweet night of -early spring, fragrant with the scent of opening fruit blossoms -and of violets growing under the low dark clouds of rain. He -was alarmed, afraid, and full of impotent anger and of unsatisfied -wonder.</p> - -<p>'Who has been with her? What has she heard?' he asked -himself in vain, as he walked through the cold shadowy sweet-scented -fields. His own heart was heavy with anxiety and disappointment. -She was the last ambition of his life. For her -his own youth, his own genius had seemed to live afresh, and -ally themselves with the awaking forces of a coming time.</p> - -<p>What some men feel in their children's promise he felt in -hers.</p> - -<p>He recognised in her the existence of great gifts, of uncommon -powers, which would move the minds and the hearts of -nations. That such things should be wrecked because the mere -common useless sorrow of a human love held her soul captive -and made her mouth dumb, seemed to the great artist the -cruellest irony of fate, the crowning anomaly of all gods' -grim jests.</p> - -<p>Was Love ever, he thought bitterly, any better thing than -the satire of success, the curse of genius, the ruin of imagination -and of art?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER L.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Damaris remained unmoved by the departure of her old friend—almost -unconscious of it. His words had drifted by her ear, -bringing little meaning, and no conviction. He spoke as an -artist, as a man, as experience and the world suggested to him; -but his arguments could avail nothing against the instincts of -her own heart and the horror which the charges and the offer -of Blanche de Laon had left upon the ignorance and innocence -of her mind. What would have been as nothing to one who -had dwelt in the world, to which evil is familiar and disgrace -immaterial if of profit, was of an overwhelming disgust and -terror to a child whose brain was nurtured on the high unworldly -chivalries of the great poets, and who had dwelt in a -solitude of imaginative meditation amongst the solitudes of -nature, amongst the simple and noble lessons of 'the world as -it is God's.'</p> - -<p>She passed the whole day in a kind of trance. She ate -nothing; she drank water thirstily. She scarcely replied to the -questions of the woman of the house. The night went by, -bringing her no sleep, no dreams; she was in that kind of agony -which nothing except youth, in all its exaggeration, its magnificent -follies, and its pathetic ignorance, can suffer. At daybreak -she went out with her companions, the dogs, and roamed half -unconsciously and quite aimlessly over the pastures which in the -days of Port Royal had been trodden by so many restless feet, -along the margin of the little stream which had heard the sigh -of so many a world-wearied heart.</p> - -<p>The morning was clear and cold and very still. Far away -where Paris lay there was a dusky, heavy cloud. By noon her -mind was made up.</p> - -<p>A great and heroic impulse came upon her, born out of the -innocence of her soul and the infinitude of her gratitude.</p> - -<p>With its instinct of self-negation and noble efforts moving -impetuously in her as the warm sap moves in the young vines, -she took no time to reflect, sought no word of counsel. She -covered herself in her great red-lined cloak, and took her well-known -way once more across the pastures, bidding the woman of -the house keep the dogs within.</p> - -<p>The movement of walking, the coolness of the wind, the -scent of air full of all the promise of the spring, renewed the -health and youth in her, gave her courage and exaltation and -force. Her dual nature, with its homely rustic strength and its -patrician pride, its peasant's stubbornness and its poet's illusions, -moved her by dual motives, dual instincts, on the path<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> -she took. To do something for him, however slight, to try and -move for him that only soul which had the power to please his -own, to prove that she was not vile or mean or basely counting -on personal gains or personal glories—this seemed the only thing -that life had left her to do.</p> - -<p>All her innocent ambitions were dead; the career of which -she had dreamed with delight now seemed to her only loathsome. -Rosselin had said aright: she was half a child and half -a poet, and with the rude primitive faiths of a peasant she had -the unworldly and unreal imaginations of a student of imaginative -things. All the stubbornness and the simplicity of rustic -life, and all the idealisation and unwisdom of a romantic mind -were blended in her; and to both of these the accusations and -the invitations of Blanche de Laon seemed as hideous as crime. -The world could hold no laurels and no treasures she would ever -care for now. Were she to reach fame what would the world -think? Only that, as that woman had said, she had loved him -and had used him to make of him a ladder of gold to a throne of -power.</p> - -<p>He himself, even, would think so.</p> - -<p>He himself might come one day to believe her sorrows and -her hunger, her sickness and her loneliness, all parts of some -mere drama studied and played to touch his pity and to win his -aid.</p> - -<p>The thought was sickening to her: sooner than let such suspicion -lie on her, she felt that she would seek death as Yseulte -de Valogne had sought it. They would believe then, she -thought.</p> - -<p>She walked on over the fields, past the grazing sheep, and -along the stream where Pascal had mused and Racine dreamed; -and with the rapid resolute movements of a mind strung up to -some great action and committed to some course accepted past -recall, she reached the station of Trappes and took her way to -Paris.</p> - -<p>She had gone on that road so many a time with Rosselin -that it seemed to her she could have gone blindfolded along it.</p> - -<p>She sat motionless and unconscious of anything around her -as the train went on to Paris; her clothes were dark, her face -was covered. She reached the Boulevard Montparnasse and -mingled unnoticed with the crowd, though twice or thrice men -looked after her, attracted by the supple elastic freedom of her -walk, which had in it all the ease and vigour of movement which -had come to her in those happy days of childhood when she had -raced over the sands with the goats, and leaped from rock to -rock, and sprung into the waves with headlong joyous greeting -of the sea as her best comrade.</p> - -<p>She remained an open-air creature, a daughter of the winds -and the waters, of the sun and the dew; and all the exigencies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> -of life in the streets and the constraint of movement in a city -could not take from her that liberty of movement, as of the -circling sea-gull, as of the cloud-born swallow.</p> - -<p>She took her way straight to the house of Othmar, to the -house which had sheltered her in her sickness and need. Many -times as she had been in Paris she had never seen its portals -since she had been carried through them to go to Les Hameaux. -It stood before her now in the sunshine; the vast pile behind its -gates and rails of gilded bronze, which Stefan Othmar had -purchased in the days of Louis Philippe from a great noble, -compromised and exiled for the Duchesse de Berri. The Suisse -in his gorgeous uniform was standing in the grand entrance; -liveried servants were going to and fro, through the archways of -the courtyard there was a glimpse of the green gardens and the -shining fountains. The sight of it all gave her a strange sense of -her own utter distance from him.</p> - -<p>She remembered how she had said to him, 'Is this house -hers?' and how he had answered, 'Surely, my dear, what is -mine is hers,' and of how then she had longed to rise and go out, -homeless and friendless as she was, and die in the streets rather -than stay under that roof. Standing there now, a lonely, dusty, -obscure figure before that lordly palace, she suddenly realised -how utterly apart she was from him, how eternally she would be -nothing in his life. She had been sheltered there for a few -weeks in charity, that was all. He was the whole world to her, -but she was no more than a passing compassion to him. All the -pomp and pageantry and power of his material existence oppressed -her, symbolised as it was in this great palace, with its -hurrying servants, its liveried guards, its waiting equipages, its -stately gardens: whilst the knowledge she had of the thwarted -affections, and emptiness of heart, and vain desires, which -haunted him, master of so much though he was, filled her with -an agony of longing to be able to give him that simple herb of -sweet content which will so rarely blossom in the gardens of the -great, in the orchid houses of the rich man.</p> - -<p>She stood in the sunlight which shone and glittered on the -gilded gates, a dark and lonely figure so motionless and still -that the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">concierge</i> spoke to her roughly, bidding her not stand -so near. At that moment through the gateways there came the -Russian equipage of the mistress of the house; the three black -horses were rearing and plunging, their silver chains glistening, -their bells chiming; amongst the cushions of the carriage -Nadine reclined. Her face was very pale, her expression very -cold; she was about to pay her ceremonious visit of welcome to -the Princess Lobow Gregorievna.</p> - -<p>Full of the purpose which had driven her thither, and not -wholly conscious of what she did, Damaris stretched her hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> -out and caught at the sable skins of the carriage rug as the -wheels passed her.</p> - -<p>'Wait—wait!' she cried stupidly. The horses dashed onward. -Nadine threw her a silver piece, seeing only a supplicant figure -between her and the light.</p> - -<p>One of the men in the gateways picked up the coin and -tendered it to her. She repulsed it with a gesture.</p> - -<p>'When can one see her?' she asked in a low tone.</p> - -<p>The servant stared. 'See her? Why never, unless you know -her and she sends for you;' then, being good-natured, he -added, 'what is it for?—all petitions go to the secretaries.'</p> - -<p>'I want nothing of her,' said Damaris. 'I want to speak to -her.'</p> - -<p>'Then you will wait for a century,' said the young man, and -looking at her he thought, 'I think it is the girl who was here -last summer. I heard that they had made an actress of her, and -that Othmar kept her somewhere out Versailles way. What can -she be doing on the streets?'</p> - -<p>Then, being of a mischievous humour, and deeming that it -would be good sport to bring about any scene which would be -disagreeable or embarrassing to the master whose bread he ate -and whose livery he wore, the fellow added, as if in simple good -nature, 'you could get speech with either of them more readily -at Amyôt: they go down there in a day or two for Easter; -they have some royal people.'</p> - -<p>Damaris did not answer him; she turned away with one long -look at the house which had sheltered her in her homelessness -and misery. Was the master of it there, she wondered? She -did not ask. She did not dare. After what Blanche de Laon -had said to her, she shrank from the thought of meeting his -eyes.</p> - -<p>She went wearily from the gates as she had come to them; -her purpose was baffled, but not beaten. The vague impulse -which had taken her there, had been only strengthened by -momentary defeat; the momentary vision of his wife's face had -made her the more passionately long to clear herself from disgrace -in those cold eyes. She remembered a garden-door in the -garden wall opening out into a bye-street: when she had been -carried out under the trees in her convalescence, she had seen -gardeners go to and fro through it, and dogs run in and out -when it stood ajar; she turned away into the quietude of this -little side street, and walked beneath the garden wall until she -came to the little entrance which had been a postern-gate in -older Paris days. It was standing open as she had so often -seen it, the gay branches of budding lilac and laburnum showing -through it. She passed in unseen, and waited under the shadow -of the boughs.</p> - -<p>The gardens were as still as though they were the gardens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> -of Amyôt; the peacocks swept with stately measured tread -across the lawns, the fountains were rising and falling under -the deep green shade of groves of yew and alleys of cedar. It -was three in the afternoon, the shadows were long, the silence -was complete. She sat down on a rustic bench, and waited; -for what she scarcely knew. But the purpose in her was too -deeply rooted in her heart to let her go thence with its errand -undone.</p> - -<p>She could see the marble terrace, and the rose-coloured -awnings of the western front of the great hotel, she could see -the banks of flowers which glowed against its steps, the white -statues which rose out of the evergreen foliage around them; -the massive pile of the building itself was, from the garden-side, -almost hidden in trees.</p> - -<p>She saw two young children come out gaily, and laughing, -their shining hair floating behind them in the light, they -mounted two small ponies and rode away with their attendants -beside them, out of the great garden gates. She watched them -with a strange suffering at her heart.</p> - -<p>They were the children of the woman whom he had loved -so much.</p> - -<p>She remained hidden in the little ivy-grown hut, watching -the house. No one came near her; only some birds flew near -and pecked at the ivy-berries. When several hours had gone -by, she heard the carriage roll into the courtyard; she imagined -that the mistress of the house had returned. Long suspense, -long fasting, for she had taken scarcely any food since very -early in the previous day, the exaltation of a purpose romantic -to folly, but unselfish to sublimity, all these had made her -nerves strung to high tension, her mind little capable of separating -the wise from the unwise, the possible from the impossible, -in the strange act which she meditated.</p> - -<p>But oftentimes, in moments of irresponsible excitement, the -will can accomplish what in calm moments of reflection would -seem utterly beyond its powers.</p> - -<p>She waited yet awhile longer, till the gardens grew dark, -then without hesitation she crossed the lawn, and ascended the -terrace steps. To the servants waiting there she said simply:</p> - -<p>'I come to see the Countess Othmar. Say that I am here—Damaris -Bérarde.'</p> - -<p>The men hesitated; but some amongst them recognised her, -and were moved by the instinct to do mischief with impunity, -which is so characteristic of their class.</p> - -<p>'It is the girl from Chevreuse, the girl who was here last -summer,' said one idle lounger to another, then they laughed -a little together in low tones; and she heard one say, 'It is a -pity Othmar is still at Ferrières!'</p> - -<p>Then one of them indolently showed her a staircase.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p> - -<p>'Go up there,' he said to her. 'My lady's apartments are -to the right. You will find her women.'</p> - -<p>The man added in a whisper to one of his fellows: 'She -came in through the gardens, we can swear that we never saw -her enter if any mischief come of it;' and they watched her -with languid curiosity as her dark figure passed up the lighted -staircase, with its blue velvet carpets, its bronze caryatides, its -great Japanese vases filled with azaleas, its arched recesses filled -with palms and statues.</p> - -<p>Presently she came to a wide landing place, where corridors -branched off from side to side; it was lighted also, and here -also its masses of blossom, its green fronds of ferns and palms -were beautiful against the white marble and the blue hangings -of the walls.</p> - -<p>A servant was walking up and down awaiting orders. To -him she said the same words: 'I come to see the Countess -Othmar. Tell her I am here. I am Damaris Bérarde.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER LI.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>She whom she sought was alone in her apartments within.</p> - -<p>She was resting, after her drive, in her bed-chamber, which -was lighted by silver lamps, and of which the furniture was all -of ivory and silver, with hangings of white plush embroidered -with spring flowers in silks of their natural colours. The bed -in its alcove was watched over by the angel of sleep; a statue -in silver, modelled by modern artists from a design of Canova's. -White lilac and white jessamine filled large silver bowls of -Indian artificers' work. The portrait of her children in the -rose gardens of Amyôt, painted by Caband, stood on an easel -draped with some cloth of silver of the fifteenth century. The -floor was covered with white bearskins. It was a temple dedicated -to rest and dreams; but it had given her neither of late. -She was restless, disquieted, ill at ease, and dissatisfied with -herself.</p> - -<p>She had the same pale rose satin gown on her; in another -hour she would dress again for a dinner at the Duchesse -d'Uzès'; her hair was a little loosened, her face was weary, she -had a knot of hothouse roses at her bosom; her women were -asking instructions as to what jewels she would wear. Her old -sense of the dulness of life was strong upon her; was it worth -while to go on with it, all these days so alike, all these dressings -and undressings, all these amusements which so seldom -were amusements—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tant de frais pour si peu de chose</i>?</p> - -<p>In ten years'—twelve years'—time she would bring out her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> -daughter and marry her, probably to some prince or another—and -afterwards?—well, afterwards it would be the same thing, -always the same thing; what else could it be? She would not -be able, like Lubow Gregorievna, to solace herself for lost loves -with church images.</p> - -<p>She was tired, the day had dragged, she had been unable -to put off from her the sense of loss and of bitterness which had -come to her for the first time in all her life. She had not seen -her husband since the hour, three days before, when he had -left her, insulted beyond words, outraged, and stung to the -quick by the dishonour of her contemptuous disbelief.</p> - -<p>In a day or two more there would be the fêtes for Easter at -Amyôt; royal guests were bidden to them; he would of necessity -appear and play his part in his own house; he and she -would meet with the world around them. Was not this the -supreme use of the world?—to cover discord, to compel dissimulation, -to efface the traces of feud, to bring in its train -those obligations of surface-courtesies and outward amities -which restrain all violent expression of emotion?</p> - -<p>One of her women with hesitation approached her, and with -apology ventured to say that some one was waiting who entreated -to see her; a young girl, Damaris Bérarde. Was she -to be permitted to come in? or should she be dismissed?</p> - -<p>'Damaris Bérarde!' she repeated with amazement.</p> - -<p>The women were astonished to see that this plebeian name, -unknown to them, had an effect on their mistress for which they -were wholly unprepared.</p> - -<p>'To see me!' she echoed, 'to see <em>me</em>!'</p> - -<p>She half rose from her reclining attitude, and a look of extreme -surprise was on her face, which so seldom showed any -strong expression of any kind.</p> - -<p>'To see me!' she echoed aloud.</p> - -<p>So might Cleopatra have said the words if the Nubian slave -from the market-place had approached the purple of her bed and -Anthony's.</p> - -<p>Her first impulse was to give the instant refusal for which -her women looked; but her next was to wait, to hesitate: perhaps -to consent; the strangeness of such a visit outweighed with -her its insolence and intrusion. She disliked all things which were -sensational, emotional, romantic, ridiculous; and yet the more -uncommon circumstances, the more singular situations of life, -had always an attraction for her. Curiosity to penetrate the -motive of it, and to see with her own eyes this creature whom -she despised, was stronger with her than her haughty amaze at -such a request, whilst the morbid love of analysis and of penetrating -to the depths of all emotions, and of playing on them, -which is common to the century, and in her reached its extreme -indulgence and development, impelled her to allow the entrance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> -of Damaris into her presence, that she might see the issue of a -situation of which the peculiarity allured her.</p> - -<p>'If she come to assassinate me, it will at least be a new -sensation,' she thought, with her habitual irony.</p> - -<p>The women felt afraid: they never dared to name any -visitants to her whom they had not previously been directed to -receive; they awaited her commands in apprehension.</p> - -<p>'Can he have sent her?' she wondered; then she rejected -the supposition. He was too well-bred for that. What, then, -could bring this girl to her?</p> - -<p>Her first impulse was to have her thrust out shamefully by -her household, the next was that intellectual inquisitiveness -which was the strongest characteristic of her mind. Despised, -contemned, abhorred as this girl was by her, she yet felt a -strange desire to see and to examine what she believed possessed -the power to reign, if only for a passing season, over the thoughts -and the feelings of Othmar. She herself had no more doubt -that Damaris was her husband's mistress than she had that the -roses she wore in her breast were her own. But the disgust, -the offence, the aversion which she felt, in common with all -other women, before such a rivalry were overborne in her by -the psychological interest of the moment which it offered.</p> - -<p>Always mindful to preserve her dignity before her inferiors, -she said to her chief woman-in-waiting:</p> - -<p>'It is a young girl whom I knew at St. Pharamond; yes, say -that she may come to me for ten minutes.'</p> - -<p>The woman obeyed, and in a moment more Damaris stood -between the satin curtains of the doorway: a dark, tall, slender -figure, with the light shining on the dusky gold of her hair, the -changing painful colour of her cheeks.</p> - -<p>The women, at a sign from their mistress, withdrew and closed -the door behind her. Othmar's wife made no gesture, said no -syllable which could help her. She remained seated afar off, -the intense light of the room reflected from the many mirrors in -their silver frames showing her delicate cold features, the pale -rose satin of her sweeping gown, her reclining attitude, languid, -haughty, motionless.</p> - -<p>The girl trembled from head to foot.</p> - -<p>But she advanced.</p> - -<p>'It is I, Damaris Bérarde,' she said, in a low voice.</p> - -<p>She paused in the centre of the room, bewildered by the -beauty of decoration which was around her, the intensity of -light, the hot-house-like warmth and fragrance, the merciless -gaze of the great lady who gazed at her from a distance unmoved -and chill as death. The heart of the child beat thickly with -terror and emotion:</p> - -<p>'Madame—Madame,' she stammered.</p> - -<p>In her ignorance she had fancied that because she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> -received she would be welcomed, that because those doors had -unclosed to admit her, that behind them she might hope to find -a friend.</p> - -<p>This silence, this coldness, this unspoken but all-eloquent -disdain made her feel herself the intruder and alien which she -was, there in the house of Othmar, in the presence of his wife. -Her very soul sank within her.</p> - -<p>The cold contemptuous eyes of the woman whom she -dreaded swept over her with withering scorn.</p> - -<p>'You have mistaken the apartments,' said Nadège, with her -cruellest intonation. 'Those of Count Othmar are on the other -side of the house.'</p> - -<p>The intensity of emotion which possessed Damaris, the intensity -of resolve which was in her, the high-strung and overwrought -feeling which had nerved her to her present act made -her deaf and callous to all that was implied in the words and to -the look with which her great rival repulsed her. She crossed -the room, and caught the shining satin folds of the gown in her -hands and hung on them.</p> - -<p>'Let me speak to you once, only this once,' she cried. 'I -only came to Paris for that——'</p> - -<p>'What can you seek from me? Surely my husband gives -you all you want!'</p> - -<p>All the icy disdain, the cruel irony, the scorn of her as of a -creature beneath contempt, passed over Damaris almost unfelt. -She had the intense self-absorption which a strong purpose and -a passionate generosity inspire.</p> - -<p>'I came to Paris to see you,' she said boldly. 'I tried to -stop your carriage; you thought I was a beggar, you threw me -a coin; I have come here because I hoped that I might speak -to you. Listen to me once, this once; then I will go away for ever.'</p> - -<p>Her hearer looked at her with less bitterness of scorn, with -a slowly awakening wonder. What was strange, unusual, -startling, had always a fascination for her; a position which -was intricate and unintelligible, a character which was mysterious -and for the hour unfathomable, always possessed for her an -attraction which nothing else could have. Had an assassin been -at her throat she would have stayed his hand only to ask his -motives. The supreme interest of the enigma of human life -with her surpassed all other more personal considerations. -Psychological analysis far outweighed with her all personal -emotions. What the young mistress of her husband could seek -her for, or want of her, seemed to her so odd that for the -moment the strangeness of the supplication outweighed her -pitiless scorn of the suppliant.</p> - -<p>Her dignity would never have allowed her to cross the width -of a street to see this girl who had caused such division between -herself and Othmar; but the wish to see her had been strong in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> -her for some time. Her philosophic inquisitiveness before all -mysteries of human character, and her artistic appreciation of -all human beauty combined to make Damaris interesting to her -as a study, though hateful as a living creature.</p> - -<p>'I will hear you,' she said, and drew her skirts from the -touch of Damaris, and seated herself with the coldness of a -sovereign who listens but does not forgive, of a judge who -examines but does not pardon.</p> - -<p>'Great heaven, how handsome she is!' she thought with -involuntary admiration; and beneath her haughty calm and -scorn there burned the fires of a jealousy which scorned itself. -Was this the child whom she had brought over the sea? The -peasant in blue serge and leather shoes whom she had seen -hidden from others in her drawing-rooms like a startled stray -sheep under a hedge?</p> - -<p>Damaris stood before her pale, infinitely troubled, passionately -pained, but so nerved with the force of her purpose that -she had lost all sense of fear and of hesitation. Her voice came -from her lips quick and low, and her hands were clasped together -in earnestness as she spoke at length to this woman who -had been the terror of her dreams so long.</p> - -<p>'I do not know what they have told you of me,' she said, -'but I am come here to tell you the truth. I think there are -those who believe that I am coarse, and selfish, and base, that -there are those who believe that he who saved me out of the -streets, and from death, only seems to me the mere means to -an end, and that end my own renown, my own riches, my own -gain. But that is not true. So little is it true that now that I -know they say it, the world shall never see me whilst I live. -You know, it was you yourself who first told me that I could -make the world care for me. You put that thought in my head -and my heart, and it worked and worked there, and left me no -peace. He tried to dissuade me, because he said that an obscure -life was best, but I would not believe. I wished to be great, I -wished to come before you some day, and to make you say, -"After all she has done well; after all she has genius——"'</p> - -<p>She paused, overcome by the rush of her own memories, by -the flood of thoughts she was longing to utter.</p> - -<p>Nadège looked at her with her cruellest irony.</p> - -<p>'Why do you come to tell me this? Be great if you like—if -you can! You say quite truly: my husband can easily build -you a golden bridge to the temple of fame. But you can -scarcely expect me, I think, to come and crown you upon it!'</p> - -<p>The chill, sarcastic scorn cut the soul of Damaris to the quick.</p> - -<p>'Oh, my God, can you believe it too!' she cried, in an -agony of despair. 'Only because he took me in when I was -half-dead with hunger, as he would have taken home a starved -dog! He has been good to me with the goodness of angels.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> -There is a tale of a beggar whom a king befriended, and the -beggar cut the gold fringe from the king's robes in return; do -you think me as vile as that beggar? I know that my debt is -great to him, so great that I cannot pay it with my life; but if -you can believe that I dream of taking of his gold—that I would -use him, or rob him, or ask his help for my own ambition——'</p> - -<p>Nadège looked at her with cold, impenetrable, unmerciful -eyes of unrelenting contempt and pitiless examination.</p> - -<p>'I am still at a loss to know why you come to me. I am -not interested in the terms that you may have made with him. -Whether he give you a cottage at Chevreuse or an hotel in the -Champs Elysées, what does it matter to me? Do you wish for -my advice upon the architecture of either?'</p> - -<p>She spoke with her usual languor and irony unaltered, she -sat erect with the roses at her breast, and the pale rose of the -satin gown flowing to her feet: her eyes were cold and hard as -jewels, the only trace of any anger, or of any feeling repressed -was in her lips, from which all colour had gone.</p> - -<p>Why did she let an interview so hateful be prolonged? -Why did she not summon her people, and have this stranger -thrust in ignominy from her chamber? Why did she not send -for her husband and confront him with the truth he had -denied? She did not know why she did none of these things, -unless it were that all exposure and publicity were hateful to -her, and also because the psychological interest of the instant -was strong enough to hold in suspense both her offended dignity -and her aroused passions. What brought this girl to her? -Until she knew that, she would not send her from her presence.</p> - -<p>The simplicity and strength of the nature of Damaris, in -which single motives and undivided instincts reigned, meanwhile -made the complexity and the variety of sentiments in this -cultured and satirical intelligence wholly incomprehensible to -her. That any woman could see matter for jest, for derision, -for amusement, in passions which bitterly offended and mortally -alienated her, was a contradiction which was utterly beyond her -comprehension. That the wife of Othmar, believing what she -evidently believed, might have struck her some mortal blow, or -bidden her servants scourge her from the house, she could have -understood; but this complex mind, which could play with its -own pain, and dally with its own injuries, she could not follow. -She only felt that such a mind scorned her herself as something -too low to be believed, too poor to be quarrelled with, too far -beneath contempt to be even accepted as a foe.</p> - -<p>'You think—you think—I do not know what it is you -think,' she said in a voice broken by great emotion. 'I have -done whatever he told me, he has told me nothing but good; -he does not care for me—in—in in that way which you believe. -I am nothing to him. He loves you——'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p> - -<p>'I thank you for your assurance of it!'</p> - -<p>The poor child in her ignorance had spoken the very words -which could most fatally offend and arouse the dignity and the -passion of her hearer. To be assured of her husband's love by -the subject of her husband's illicit amours! Even the ironical -patience and the contemptuous tolerance of her habitual temper -could not remain in silence under such an outrage to her position -and her dignity as this.</p> - -<p>With a gesture as though sweeping away some unclean -things, she motioned Damaris away.</p> - -<p>'Leave my presence; leave my house,' she said with an intense -rage, only controlled by pride still greater than itself. -'How dare you come where I and my children dwell? Go—go -at once, or I will disgrace you before my people.'</p> - -<p>But Damaris, whose dread of her had been so great, did not -shrink or quail before her.</p> - -<p>'You cannot disgrace me for I have done no wrong,' she -said in desperation. 'I am nothing to him—nothing, nothing, -except a thing he pities. Why should you think that I am? -Are not you far above me? have not men loved you always and -died for you? do not you know that he himself is sick of heart -because you care so little? You will not believe. Oh, God, -what shall I say to you! Madame, it is for this only that I -came. I wanted to tell you that my heart will break if, -through me, any pain comes to him; you think things which -are not true, and which would offend him bitterly if he knew -them; and he has spoken to me of you as the only woman -whom he could ever care for. Why are you angered that I say -so? He thinks that you do not care, he thinks that you are -weary of him, he thinks that he has no power to please you any -more. And I said to myself that perhaps you did not know -this, that perhaps you would care if you did know, that perhaps -you would put some warmth in his heart, give him some kinder -words. I say it ill, but this is what I want to say. He thinks -you do not care.'</p> - -<p>Her hearer listened with the scornful rage of her soul held -in check for an instant by her own knowledge of the likeness in -the words thus spoken to the reproach, which Othmar himself -had cast against her. In her innermost soul she acknowledged, -that if Othmar loved this creature, he was not the mere sensualist -she had thought; she recognised the spirituality and the -nobility in the beauty and the youth of her disdained visitant; -she acknowledged that a man might well lose his wisdom and -break his faith for such a face as this; and would have for his -madness some excuse of higher kind than would lie in the mere -temptation of the senses. The highest quality in her own -temperament had always been her candour in her acceptance of -truths which were unwelcome to her. This truth was loathsome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> -to her; but it was a truth, and she confessed it as such to her -own mind. Yet, even whilst she did so, it pierced the very -centre of her soul, and filled her with a new and intolerable pain.</p> - -<p>Her insight into the minds of others also told her that this -child's mind was honest, innocent, and candid, and though she -would not believe what her own penetration said, she could not -wholly resist its influence, she could not wholly continue to -doubt the good faith of the speaker, even whilst her anger remained -unabated at the daring and familiarity of such a scene -as this.</p> - -<p>Damaris took the brief instant of silence for consent, and -sustained and nerved by the pure unselfishness of her romantic -purpose, she persevered in her supplication.</p> - -<p>'Listen to me for one moment more. You are an aristocrat -and I am nothing; I had only some little talent and that is dead -in me; you will live beside him all the days of your life, and I -shall never, perhaps, see his face again. Believe what I say as -though I were dying. You are all that he thinks of on earth, -and he is tired, and chilled, and empty of heart because you -have never cared for him as he cared. I shall go where I shall -never trouble you, and if ever he think of me it will be only -with pity just for one passing moment. Will you remember -only this, that I have come to beg of you to make him happier, -to make his dreams true—it is only you who can do it. You -have his heart in your hands; do not throw it against a stone -wall, cold and hard, as they throw a bird to kill it. You are a -great lady, and the world is with you, and you have many -lovers and courtiers, they say, but what will it profit you, all of -it, if one day he looks at you and you know that he thinks of -you no more because you, yourself, have killed his soul in him?'</p> - -<p>'I am flattered that Count Othmar has made me the subject -of his discourse with you!'</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Damaris perceived the fault she had committed, the offence -she had excited. Resolute to follow out the purpose which had -brought her there, she drained the cup of bitterness which she -had voluntarily taken up to the last drop.</p> - -<p>'He hardly ever spoke of you,' she said. 'But I think he -wished me to know that all his thoughts and memories were -yours, so that I should not ever—ever—be misled to dream -that they were mine. I have seen him seldom; very seldom; -only once this year; but that once he did speak of you, and I -knew that all his life was in your hands, and that he thinks you -do not care——'</p> - -<p>The words were simple, and not wisely chosen, and spoken -out of the fulness of her heart, but they carried a sense of their -sincerity to the sceptical ear of their auditor. Almost for the -moment she believed that they were truth. A sense of compassion -touched her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span></p> - -<p>This girl, so young, so ignorant, so hopelessly devoted to a -man who could be nothing to her, seemed to her childish, melodramatic, -plebeian, absurd; and yet had a certain nobility and -force, and pathos, and mystery in her which stirred to pity this -heart which had never known pity. She had been only a -peasant, born and reared amongst the rude toilers of the sea and -of the soil; what fault was it of hers if she had given away her -life to the first man who had been kind to her, and in whom she -saw the charm of gentleness, the grace of culture? The infinite -comprehension which she herself possessed of all the frailties -and all the errors of human nature, almost supplied in her the -place of sympathy. She did not pity because she disdained so -much; but she understood, and that power of understanding -made her in a manner indulgent, though indulgent with contempt.</p> - -<p>But the memory of things which seemed to her damning -witnesses of fact rose to her thoughts, and checked as it arose -the softer and more intelligent impulse which for awhile had -held her passive.</p> - -<p>She repulsed Damaris coldly, drawing once more her skirts -from her touch.</p> - -<p>'You are a good actress. Do not neglect your calling. Rise -and go. You have been too long maintained by Count Othmar -to be able to play the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i> of disinterested innocence with any -chance of duping me. Why you come to me I cannot tell. -Perhaps he sent you, teaching you your part.'</p> - -<p>Damaris rose to her feet, and her face grew scarlet with -honest shame and with indignant wonder.</p> - -<p>'I have never had anything of his except his kindness,' she -said passionately. 'I have never taken a coin from him any -more than I took yours in the street to-day. What he did for -me in my illness I know was charity—a debt I could never pay—I -said so. But what I have lived on has been my own, -always my own, what my grandfather left to me when he died.'</p> - -<p>For the moment even her listener believed her; her candid -luminous eyes flashing fire through their tears, her flushed indignant -face, her truthful voice, all bore their witness to her -innocence and ignorance, all told even the prejudice and arrogance -of her judge, that whatever the facts might be she herself -believed the truth to be that which she said.</p> - -<p>Mercy and generosity for a moment held the lips of Nadine -silent; she was a child, she was a peasant, if she were the dupe -of her lover, was hers the fault? But that jealous scorn which -has no pity and no justice in it, swept over her soul afresh, and -extinguished in her all the finer charities and nobler comprehension -of her mind.</p> - -<p>'It is useless to tell me this,' she said with cold contempt. -'Whether you know it or not, your grandfather left you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> -nothing; you are living, and you have lived, only on what my -husband has given you. Leave me, and try my patience no -more. Count Othmar's amours are nothing to me, but I do not -care to have a comedy made out of them to be played for some -unknown purpose on my credulity.'</p> - -<p>Then she rang for her women.</p> - -<p>Damaris said no other word, all the light and warmth had -gone out of her face, there had come on it a pallid horror of incredulous -and stupefied doubt.</p> - -<p>Silently and quite feebly, as if all strength were gone out -from her, she passed across the chamber, and felt her way -through the curtains of the door. On the entrance she turned -her head and looked back: her great eyes had the look in them -of a forest doe's when it is wounded unto death. She looked -back once, then went.</p> - -<p>Nadine smiled bitterly.</p> - -<p>'When she found that I knew all, she could say nothing!' -she thought. 'She will be an acquisition to the French stage. -Her melodrama was so well acted that almost it deceived me. -Why was it played?'</p> - -<p>She could not see the motive. For the first time in her -life the reasons for the actions which she watched escaped her.</p> - -<p>And think as she would that the scene had been a melodrama, -an invention, yet there were certain tones, certain -words in it which haunted her with a persistent sense of their -truth.</p> - -<p>These had not been common entreaties, common reproaches, -which Damaris had addressed to her; there had been an impersonal -generosity, a noble simplicity, in them which lifted -them out of the charge of sensational and dramatic affectation. -There was an enigma in them which she could not solve. They -were unselfish and founded on accurate knowledge; they were -out of keeping in the mouth of a paid companion of a man's -passing amourettes. It seemed wholly impossible to her that -they could have been spoken truthfully, and yet if they were -not true there was no sense in them.</p> - -<p>Some pang of self-consciousness moved her own heart as she -pondered on these passionate supplications to her to make the -life which was spent beside hers happier—'happier!'—that one -simple word which was so ill-fitted to the complex feelings, the -capricious demands, and the hypercritical exigencies of such -characters as theirs.</p> - -<p>She had no doubt that her husband was the lover of this -girl; the denial of the one had moved her no more than the -denial of the other; all her knowledge of human nature told -her that it must be so; but as she sat in solitude a certain -remorse came to her, a certain sense that from her own unassailable -height and dignity and rank she had stooped to strike a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> -creature not only unworthy of her wrath, but unprotected by -youth, by ignorance, and by the quixotic temerity which had -made her thus bold.</p> - -<p>She honoured courage. She could not refuse her respect to -the courage of this child.</p> - -<p>She could not class her with the common souls of earth.</p> - -<p>'Why did I not let her alone at the first? She was so content -and so safe on her island,' she thought, with that pang of -conscience which others had tried in vain to arouse in her.</p> - -<p>It had been a caprice light as the freak which makes a -butterfly pause on one flower instead of another. But the fruits -of it were bitter to her.</p> - -<p>When her women came she began her toilette for the dinner -at the Duchesse d'Uzès'. It was long, and nothing contented her.</p> - -<p>From that dinner she went to various other houses; she -returned to her own house late; she heard that Othmar had -come back from Ferrières and gone to his own apartments. The -following day they would be obliged to go to Amyôt. The great -party there could by no possibility be postponed; royal people -were bidden to it. If such a gathering were broken up at the -last moment, for any less cause than death or illness, the whole -world would know that there was subject for separation and -dissension between her husband and herself. She would have -given ten years of her life to prevent the world ever knowing -that.</p> - -<p>For the first time in her life, as her woman unrobed her and -took off her jewels, she was conscious that she had been unwise -in the management of fate. She had been desirous that the -world should see that her influence could even withstand and -outlast all those adversaries of time and custom and disillusion -which saw stealthily at the roots of every human happiness and -sympathy; yet she had been so careless and so indifferent, that -she had allowed the very changes which she wished the world -never to see, to creep in upon her unawares.</p> - -<p>It had never occurred to her that she had been as inconsistent -as one who wishing to preserve untouched a fragile vase of -crystal, should set it and leave it in a crowded street for anyone -to use or break who chose. She had not cared to keep her -crystal vase herself, and yet she was enraged that it was -broken.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER LII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Damaris went out blindly, down the staircase and across the -vestibule and halls into the open air.</p> - -<p>She had no knowledge of what she did; the serving-men -looked at her and then at each other, and laughed, and whispered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> -some coarse things, but no one attempted to arrest her steps; -on the contrary, they put her right when she mistook her way -in the corridor, and almost shoved her into the street, where the -light of day was fading.</p> - -<p>She was strongly made in body and in mind, and in all the -tumult of her thoughts, the sickness of her shame, she did not -grow faint, or forget her road, or fall upon the stones, over which -her feet were dragged so wearily.</p> - -<p>She found the streets which led to the station of the West, -and sat down in the waiting-chamber, and heard the roar of -Paris go on round her like the roaring of wild beasts calling for -food: that those beasts had not devoured her was due to him; -she did not reproach him or forget her debt to him, only she -wished that he had let her die that night upon the bridge.</p> - -<p>The doors flew open, the bells rang, the crowds hastened; -without any conscious action on her part she was pushed with -the others to the wicket, paid the coins they asked her for, and -found her way to a seat in the crowded waggons.</p> - -<p>The train moved. Soon the cold country air of evening -blowing through an open window revived her, and brought her -a clearer sense of where she was, of what had happened. She -saw always that cold, still, regal figure looking down on her with -such ineffable disdain; she heard always that chill, languid, -contemptuous voice, sweet as music, cruel as the knife which -severs the cord of life.</p> - -<p>'She does not believe,' she muttered again and again. 'She -will never believe.'</p> - -<p>Those who were in the carriage with her heard the broken -stupid words said over and over again, while her great eyes -looked out, wide opened and startled, into the shadows of the -descending night.</p> - -<p>One or two of them spoke roughly to her, being afraid of -her; then she was silent, vaguely understanding that they -thought her strange and odd.</p> - -<p>She leaned in a corner and shrank from their comments and -their gaze.</p> - -<p>It was now quite dark; the flickering lamplight seemed to -wane and oscillate before her eyes; she had not touched food or -water for many hours; her throat was dry, her hands were hot, -her head felt light; she had done all she could and had failed. -The only thing she had gained was a knowledge which seemed -to eat her very soul away with its shame and misery.</p> - -<p>She was so young that she did not know that if she had -patience to live through this agony it would cease in time, and -grow less terrible to her with every year which should pass over -her head. She did not know the solace that comes with the -mere passage of the seasons; to her the shame, the torture she -endured were eternal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p> - -<p>She had taken his money innocently, ignorantly indeed, -honestly believing it to be her own; but she understood now -why to his wife she seemed only a wretched paid creature of -hazard; she understood now why the Princess de Laon had -spoken to her as to one of whose avarice and whose vileness -there was no doubt.</p> - -<p>To the haughty, frank innocent soul of the child it was such -unspeakable degradation that it seemed to stop the very pulses -of life in her.</p> - -<p>She could have torn the clothes off her body because they -had been bought with this money she had ignorantly accepted -as her own.</p> - -<p>Not for one moment did she do him the wrong that his wife -had done him; she never doubted his motives, or thought that -any intention save that of the kindest and most chivalrous -compassion had been at the root of his generosity to her. Her -mind was too intrinsically noble, her instincts were too pure -and untainted by suspicion, for any baser supposition to attach -itself to him in her thoughts, even in the moment of her greatest -suffering.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Only she wished—ah, God! how she wished—that he had -left her to die on the bridge in that summer night.</p> - -<p>Intense pride had always been existent beneath her ardent -and careless temperament; the stubborn self-will of the peasant -united to the finer, more impersonal, pride derived from a great -race. She had been always taught to suffice for herself, to repel -assistance as indignity, to hold herself the equal of all living -creatures; and now what was she?—only what Jean Bérarde, -had he been living, would have driven out of his presence as a -beggar, only what all the labourers in the fields of the vale of -Chevreuse would have the right to hoot after as she passed -them. Her imagination distorted and her sensitiveness exaggerated -all the debt she owed to Othmar; to herself she seemed -nothing better than any one of those wretched paupers who -stretched their hands out to him as he passed. The shame of -it made all the devotion she bore to him seem a horror, a -disgrace, a thing cankered and corrupt, which he must despise -utterly if he knew aught of it. And what should he know? -What should he care? What could she be in his sight except a -friendless, lonely thing, whom he had saved from want, as he -might save any ragged, homeless, child who asked for a sou -from him in the streets.</p> - -<p>She loved him with the passion of Juliet, of Francesca, of -Mignon, and she found herself so disgraced in her own sight -that nothing she could ever do, it seemed to her, would make -any utterance from her, even of gratitude, worth the breath -spent in speaking it. To him and to his wife she would be for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> -ever, all their lives long, only a peasant who had not had -strength or courage to earn her own daily bread.</p> - -<p>The cold scorn which had gazed at her from the eyes of his -wife seemed to pierce through and through the very core and -centre of her life. She had dreamed of being great in this -woman's sight, of compelling her admiration, her applause, even -her envy!—and all the while she had been nothing more than -any dog which lived on the food thrown from their table.</p> - -<p>The train went on through the descending darkness of the -night, and the scent of the wind blowing over grass-lands and -wheat-fields came to her in her trance, and filled her with a -strange dumb longing to be put away for ever in silence under -the cool and kindly earth, the budding leaves, the sprouting -corn. The aged hate the thought of death, and fear and shun -it; but for the young it has no terrors, and in their pain it -always beckons, with a smile, to them to rest in the arms of the -great Madre Natura. Death seemed to her the only stream -which could wash her soul white again from the indignity it -had, all unconsciously, accepted. A passion which was hopeless -and cruel, and ashamed of its own force, burned up her young -heart like fire. Dead, only, it seemed to him that she might -keep some place in his compassion and his remembrance without -indignity.</p> - -<p>She descended at the familiar road-side of Trappes, and -passed through the wicket, and took her way through the -country paths she knew so well. It was not yet a year since -they had first brought her there, and she had laughed with joy -to see the country sights and hear the country sounds once -more. Now they only hurt her with an intolerable pain.</p> - -<p>The night was dark, and a fine slight rain was falling, but -she was not conscious of it. She found her way by instinct, as -a blind dog finds his; it was long, and went over fields and -pastures, but she kept straight on unerringly, going home, why -she knew not, for she felt that she would never dwell there -another day: now that she knew.</p> - -<p>Now that she knew, she could not have touched a coin of -that silver and gold which lay in her drawer in her room at Les -Hameaux; she would not have eaten a crust of the bread which -had been purchased with it. She had no idea what she would -do; she was alone once more, as utterly alone as she had been -when her solitary boat had been launched on the world of -waters, to reach a haven or to founder as it might. Her only -instinct was to go anywhere on the earth, or under the earth, -where the eyes of Othmar's wife could never find her in their -merciless scorn.</p> - -<p>Everything had gone from her, all her dreams of a future, -all her love for art and for the poets, all her bright and buoyant -courage, all her innocent and idealised ambitions: they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> -all gone for evermore; she was alone without that companionship -of a fearless hope which had sustained her strength upon -the lonely seas, and in the hell of Paris. She had no hope now -of any kind; and youth can no more live without it, than -flowers can live without the air of heaven. She was weakened -from fasting, and her brain was giddy; as she walked on over -the rough ground through the chill rain, she thought she -was on the island; she thought her grandfather was calling -to her not to loiter, she thought dead Catherine was stretching -out her arms to her, and crying, 'Hasten! hasten!' She -smelt the odour of the orange flowers, she heard the sound -of the sea washing up amongst the pebbles and the sand—'if I -could only die there, if I could only die there,' she thought dully, -as she stumbled through the wet grass and the fields of colza.</p> - -<p>Death would be so easy and so sweet, amongst the blue bright -rolling water, in the scented southerly air, under the broad -white moon of her own skies.</p> - -<p>She came with a shock to a knowledge that she was entering -the village of Les Hameaux as a peasant driving furiously -shrieked to her to move out of his road, and in the cabins around -the lights twinkled as the people of the house sat at their suppers -of soup and bread. Burning tears rushed to her eyes and fell -down her cheeks. She knew that she would never see the -shores of Bonaventure again in life.</p> - -<p>She went through the village with weary steps, she was very -tired, her wet clothes clung to her, her face was white and -drawn, her hands and her throat were hot. Some people leaning -against the doorposts of their houses looked at her, and -wondered to see her out so late, so wet, so jaded, and all alone. -She went through the hamlet without pausing and without -hearing any of the words called out to her.</p> - -<p>Outside the village and on the road to the farm of the Croix -Blanche, there stood a lonely cottage, half hidden in elder trees -and built two centuries before with the stones and rubble of the -ruins of Port Royal. A woman whom she knew dwelt there -with four young children: a widow, very poor, making what -living she could from poultry and from fruit; a laborious, -patient, honest, and good soul, always at work in all weathers, -and happy because the four fair-haired laughing children -tumbled after her in the grass or in the dust.</p> - -<p>As she passed down the road in the grey film of rain, this -woman ran out of the house to her, weeping piteously, and -catching at her clothes to make her stop.</p> - -<p>'My Pierrot is dying!' she cried to her. 'He has the ball -in his throat—he will be dead by dawn—for the love of God -send some one to me. I am all alone.'</p> - -<p>Damaris pausing, looked at her stupidly. Indistinctly -roused from her own stupor, she was unconscious for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> -moment where she was or who spoke to her. The light through -the open doorway streamed out into the road; she saw the wild -eyes, the tearful cheeks, the dishevelled hair of the wretched -mother; she understood by instinct what woe had come upon -the house. Pierrot was the youngest and the prettiest of the -four little children who lived huddled together, and happy under -these elder trees like small unfledged birds in a nest.</p> - -<p>'Do not come in, do not come near him,' cried the woman, -'oh, my dear, it would be death; but send some one who is -old and will not mind; the old never take this sickness—and -I have been all alone till I am mad. My pretty baby—the -prettiest, the youngest!'</p> - -<p>Damaris looked at her with dull, blind eyes. A strange -sense of fatality came on her; here was death—not death in the -clear blue water which would never more smite her limbs with -its joyous blows, and rock her in the cradle of its waves; but -death which would end all things, which would put her away to -rest under the green earth, which would purify her from greed -and from baseness in his sight. She turned and entered through -the doorway of the house.</p> - -<p>'I am not afraid,' she said to the woman. 'I will stay with -Pierrot.'</p> - -<p>The woman strove to draw her back, but she would not be -dissuaded from her choice.</p> - -<p>'If God will it, I shall die,' she thought; 'and if I die, then -perhaps she will believe, and he remember me.'</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER LIII.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The great Easter fêtes at Amyôt were successful with all that -brilliancy of decoration and novelty of wit for which their -mistress was famous to all Europe. The weather was mild, the -guests were harmonious, the princes and their consorts were -well amused; nothing more agreeable or more original had -been known in the entertainments of the time; and the choicest -and rarest forms of art were brought there to lend the dignity -of scholarship to the graces and frivolities of pleasure.</p> - -<p>No one noticed that the host and hostess of Amyôt never -once spoke a word to each other throughout this week of ceremony -and festivity, except such phrases as their reception of -and courtesy to others compelled them to exchange. No one -observed or suspected the bitter estrangement between them, -so well did each play their parts in this pageantry and comedy -of society. No one except Blanche de Laon, who thought with -contentment: '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ça marche</i>!'</p> - -<p>Othmar had not seen his wife for one moment alone since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> -the day when he had left her with the bitterness of her incredulity -and her insult like ashes in his soul.</p> - -<p>The world with its demands, its subjugations, and its perpetual -audience, was always there.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Que de fois fermente et gronde,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Sous un air de froid nonchaloir,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Un souriant désespoir</div> - <div class="verse">Sous la mascarade du monde!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>He knew not whether he most loathed, or was most grateful -to, this constant crowd and pressure of society which spared -him thought, postponed decision, gave him no leisure to look -into his own soul, and sent him to his joyless couch more tired -out with the fatigue of so-called pleasure than the labourer in -the vineyards or the forests by his day of toil.</p> - -<p>The six days passed without any cloud upon their splendour -or their gaiety, so far as the three hundred guests gathered -there could see, or even dreamed. The sunshine of the early -spring was poured on the glittering roofs, the stately terraces, -the towers and fanes, the gardens and the waters, of this -gracious place where the old French life of other days seemed -to revive with all its wit, its elegance, and its good manners, -as they had been before the shadow of the guillotine fell over a -darkened land. With the eighth day the royal guests and most -of the others took their leave. Some score of friends more -intimate alone remained there.</p> - -<p>A certain dread came upon him of the first hour on which -he should find himself alone before his wife. He felt that it -was the supreme crisis of his life with her; the frail cup of -existence in which their happiness, such as it was, was placed, -was set in the furnace of doubt to be graven and proved, or to -be wrecked and burst into a thousand pieces.</p> - -<p>'If only she would say to me that she believed me,' he -thought, 'I would, I think, forgive the rest.'</p> - -<p>But this she never said.</p> - -<p>Man-like, the very indignity he had suffered, the very sense -he had of her cruelty, her insolence, her injustice, seemed only -to re-awaken in him that passion for her which had so deeply -coloured and absorbed his nature. The very knowledge that -legally and in name he was her master, her possessor, whilst in -fact he could not touch a hair of her head or move a chord of -her heart, sufficed to re-arouse in him all those desires which -die of facility and familiarity, and acquire the strength of giants -on denial.</p> - -<p>He had almost forgotten Damaris. The gentle and compassionate -tenderness he felt for her could have no place beside -the bitter-sweet passion which filled his memory and his soul -for his wife.</p> - -<p>In these days, when he was constantly in her presence, con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>stantly -within the sound of her voice, and compelled by the -conventionalities of society to address conventional phrases to -her, whilst yet severed by the world from her as much as if a -river of fire were between them, something of that delirious -love which he had felt for her in the lifetime of Napraxine returned -to him, united to a passion of regret and a poignancy of -wrath which was almost hatred. He was her husband—her -lord by all the fictions of men's laws—and he would not be permitted -to touch one of the pearls about her throat or obtain five -minutes' audience of her! She was the mother of his children, -and yet she was as far aloof from him as though she were some -Phidian statue with jewelled eyes and breasts of ivory!</p> - -<p>Whilst he went amongst his guests outwardly calm and -coldly courteous, fulfilling all the duties of a host, his heart -was in a tumult of indignation and despair. The failure of his -whole life was before him. Without her the whole of the -world was valueless to him.</p> - -<p>Yet of one thing he was resolved. He would not live under -the same roof with a woman who believed him guilty of a lie to -her, who insulted him as he would not have insulted the commonest -of his servants. He would sever his existence from -hers, let it cost him what it would. The cost would be great: -to bring the world as a witness of their disunion; to admit to -society that his marriage had been a failure, like so many -others; to let his children, as they grew older, know that their -parents were strangers and enemies: all this would be more -bitter than death itself to him. All the reserve and the delicacy -of his temper made the idea of the world's comments on his -quarrel with his wife intolerable to him, and the rupture of his -ties to her unendurably painful in its inevitable publicity. He -was lover enough still to shrink from the thought of any future -in which he would cease to hear her voice, to see her face. -True, of late their union had been but nominal. She had passed -her life in separate interests and separate pleasures. She had -allowed him to see no more of her than her merest acquaintances -saw, and to meet her only in the crowds of that great world -which separates what it unites. Yet absolute severance from her—such -severance as would be inevitable if once their existences -were led apart—was a thing without hope, would make him -more powerless to touch her hand, to approach her presence, -than any stranger who had access to her house. Once separated, -her pride and his would keep them asunder till the grave. He -knew that, and all the remembered passion which had been at -once the strongest and the weakest thing in him shrank from -the vision of his lonely future.</p> - -<p>Yet all the manhood in him told him that to continue to live -under the same roof with a woman whose every word was insult -to him, would degrade him utterly and for ever in his eyes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> -in her own. And he had loved her too passionately for it to be -possible for him to continue to dwell in that passive enmity, -that alienation covered with ostensible cordiality and external -courtesy, with which so many men and women deceive society -to the end of their lives, and sustain a hollow truce, of which -the hatefulness and the untruth are only visible to themselves -and to their children. Such insincerity, such hypocrisy, as this, -were to him altogether impossible. Sooner than lead such a life, -he felt that he would end his days with his own hand, and leave -mankind to blame him as they would: they would not blame her.</p> - -<p>On her part, unknown to him, she watched him with a new -interest, bitter, painful, and more absorbing than any which -had ever had power upon her; a feeling of disdain, of scorn, of -impatience, of regret, of forgiveness, of tenderness, all inextricably -mingled in an emotion stronger than any she had known. -When she thought of him as in any way with however much -indifference as the lover of Damaris, she was conscious of an -intense disgust, of a wondering scorn, which were not wise or -cold, or temperate with the judicial severity of her usual judgments, -but were merely and strongly human, and born of -human emotions. They humiliated her with the consciousness -of their own humanity, and the uncontrollable bitterness of the -sentiments which they aroused in her. Jealousy it could have -scarce been called. For jealousy implies a recognition of -equality, a fear of usurpation, and these to her haughty soul -were impossible in face of a peasant girl, a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déclassée</i>, a waif and -stray, with no place in the world save such as Othmar might -choose to give her. Jealousy in this sense, jealousy intellectual -and moral it was not; but jealousy physical it was. She thought -and hated to think of the personal beauty of Damaris; she thought -and hated to think of all those summer hours in her own house -in which that beauty had been helpless and dependent before -him. Like all women who know much of the natures of men, -she knew that the senses were often beyond control, when the -heart in no way went with them. She had always thought that -it would never matter to her whither such undisciplined vagaries -might lead him. She had always felt with the disdain of a -nature over which physical desires have little power, that -wherever his caprice took him there he might go for aught -that she would say to restrain him.</p> - -<p>She was startled to find that it did pain her, that it did revolt -her, to believe that this disloyalty had been done her, that this -child had had from him even the slightest, most soulless kind of -love.</p> - -<p>Her world had never seen her more full of wit, and grace, and -brilliancy, than in those days when in her inmost soul she -suffered more mental pain and doubt than she had ever known. -Life had become touched with humiliation, indignation, emotion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> -of a complex kind, contemptuous anger, and a vague remorse; -but it had thereby become to her once more a thing of interest -and of vitality, her languor had been startled, her self-love -shocked, her whole nature stirred. She gave no sign of it that -any one, either foe or friend, could read, but she was conscious -that these emotions which she had ridiculed in others could -become the dominant forces and tyrannical preoccupation even -of her own thoughts and life.</p> - -<p>A sensation of failure, of loss, of humiliation, was always -with her; not so much for this fact of what she believed to be -his infidelity, as for her own consciousness that she herself had -been untrue to all the theories and philosophies of her existence, -that she had failed to guide their lives into that calm haven of -friendship and mutual comprehension which had always seemed -to her the only possibly decent grave for a dead passion; and -had failed also in this crisis of their fates to preserve that -wisdom, patience, and composure, which can alone lend dignity -to the woman who sees her power passed away.</p> - -<p>All her life long she had woven the most ingenious and -elaborate theories as to the failure of men and women to secure -fidelity and peace; she had reasoned with perfect philosophy on -the causes of that failure, and turned to ridicule that childish -passion and that fretful inaptitude with which the great majority -meet those inevitable changes of the affections and the character -which time brings to all. But now, she herself, having been -met with such changes, had done no better, and been no wiser -than they all. She had suffered like them, she had made -reproaches like them, she had allowed indignation and offence to -hasten her into anger which could only gratify her enemies -and all the gaping world.</p> - -<p>'Any fool could have done what I have done!' she thought, -with bitter impatience against herself: any fool could have -reproached him, and denounced him, and placed him in such a -position that out of sheer manliness he had no choice left but to -reiterate the untruth once told, and go on in the path once taken.</p> - -<p>Yet she knew that were it to be done again, again she would -do the same. When she thought of him as the lover of this -child, she was only conscious of the mere foolish, irrational, -personal, bitterness of emotion which any other feebler woman -would have felt.</p> - -<p>Had she not said under the oaktrees yonder in her Court of -Love, that inconstancy, being only involuntary, should be -blamed by none: had she not again and again said and thought -that what a woman or a lover cannot keep, they well deserve to -lose: had she not quoted from the poets and the philosophers of -a thousand years, to prove by a thousand lines of wisdom that -it is 'not under our control to love or not to love:' and was -this not most supreme truth?</p> - -<p>Why then in face of the first faithlessness which she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> -ever known, had she had no better or wiser impulse in her than -that of anger?—such stupid, witless, unwise anger, as Jeanne in -the kitchens would feel against Jeannot in the stables. What -use were the most subtle intellect, the most delicate and penetrating -perception, the most intimate and accurate knowledge of -human nature, if all these only resulted in producing, under -trial, such primitive instincts, and such simple emotions, as -would exist in the untutored brain and the rude breast of any -peasant woman passing under the trees of the park yonder with -her herd of milch cows, or her flock of sheep? If the higher -intelligence could not reach a nirvaña of perfect tolerance, of -perfect comprehension, of perfect indifference, of what avail -were its culture and its pride?</p> - -<p>All men were inconstant; she knew that. It was not their -fault; they were made so. She believed that, had he told her -frankly of his frailties, she would have been perfectly indifferent -and indulgent to them. It was the long deception and concealment -which had seemed to her so contemptible. 'Such a coward—such -a coward!' she thought bitterly. Cowardice was to her -the one unpardonable sin.</p> - -<p>As she and Béthune walked on the seventh evening before -dinner through the outer gardens, where these joined the woods, -they chanced to see in the distance the same Lubin and Lisette, -whom they had seen as lovers two years before, and who had -been wedded with many gifts and much gaiety in the August -weather a week or two after the sitting of the Court of Love. -The man was walking far ahead this time; the woman lagged -behind; the cows were the same happy creatures, serene and -mild, going through the sun and shadow, pausing to crop a -mouthful of sweet grass between the beechen banks; but the -lovers were only now a lout who whistled and smoked, a scold -who fumed and wept.</p> - -<p>'Let us ask how the idyl ends,' said the Lady of Amyôt. 'It -is easy to see that it is ended.'</p> - -<p>'Ah, Madame,' said the woman being interrogated, '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">voilà -qu'il regarde déjà la petite Flore</i>!'</p> - -<p>Her châtelaine laughed with a certain bitter tone in her -laughter.</p> - -<p>'"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voilà qu'il regarde déjà la petite Flore</i>,"' she repeated; -'and she is so stupid that she knows no better than to be angry!'</p> - -<p>Béthune glanced at her wistfully. After a moment's silence -he said in a low tone:</p> - -<p>'There are those who never look—elsewhere.'</p> - -<p>She smiled, knowing his meaning, and touched by the -remembrance of his long constancy.</p> - -<p>'Ah, my dear friend,' she said, with some pang of conscience, -'I have had too much affection given me in my life, and perhaps -I have given too little.'</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span></p> - -<p>As she walked back through the gardens, under the long -arcades covered with tea roses and the banksian creepers, she -thought with that ridicule of herself, as of others, which was -always sure to succeed any emotion:</p> - -<p>'<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nous voilà en plein mélodrame!</i>—the contrast of the husband's -infidelity makes the lover's fidelity touch the hard heart -of the deserted wife! We are all grouped ready for the stage of -the Gymnase!'</p> - -<p>She seemed absurd to herself in her anger and her humiliation. -She had always been so contemptuous of life when it grew melodramatic, -although so impatient of it while it remained dull.</p> - -<p>Othmar watched her cross the gardens from where he stood -in one of the windows of his library. Under the excuse of many -letters to dictate to his secretaries, he had escaped for awhile -from his guests.</p> - -<p>It was near sunset, the light so clear and cool of earliest -spring was shining on the terraces and rose walks, and clipped -bay hedges of the garden to the south which had been left unaltered -from the Valois time. The peacocks were moving up -and down on the grass, the first swallows were wheeling above -the glowing colour of the azalea thickets, a light breeze was -blowing the spray of the fountains this way and that; he -watched her as she came through the dewy green foliage and -under the white and yellow tea roses; she wore a gown of white -velvet, she had a high ivory handled cane, there was a white greyhound -before her, and the graceful figure of Béthune at her side. -He saw her gather one of the Maréchal Niel roses above her -head, and fasten it in the bosom of her dress; Béthune said -something to her; she gathered another and let him take it.</p> - -<p>Othmar watched them with a pang.</p> - -<p>'If I died to-morrow I suppose she would give him her hand -as she gives him that rose!' he thought, and the thought was -intolerable to him. 'She thinks me faithless to her, and she -does not care; she was angered for an instant; only that; then -her days pass on the same; she has all her courtiers and friends -about her; she does not need me, or miss me amongst them.'</p> - -<p>And he watched her with eyes which studied her incomparable -grace, her divine languor, her indolent movements, as -though he saw them then for the first time; so great a quickener -of sleeping love is the sting of a jealous fear.</p> - -<p>But his heart was very weary. She had wounded, insulted, -injured him, well nigh beyond forgiveness; she had dishonoured -him with the secret observation of his actions and the open -accusation of his falsehood. She had had him followed and -tracked like a criminal, and had refused to believe his word, -which all Europe honoured as the surety of unimpeached truth.</p> - -<p>Greater insult surely no woman could do to any man.</p> - -<p>And yet, if she would only say one word, he felt that he was -ready to forget that she had done so; he was ashamed of his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> -weakness, but he knew that he would forgive everything:—and -he reminded himself of his own offences to her without extenuation, -willing to find in blame of himself excuse for herself.</p> - -<p>He watched her now as she came slowly and smiling under -the trellis of the roses: to look at her it seemed that she had -no care, no regret, no desire.</p> - -<p>'And if I went out and shot myself to-night,' he thought, as -he watched the two figures pass on under the trellised roses, 'she -would have called Béthune to console her before the year was out?'</p> - -<p>He believed it; but, man-like, the belief only gave her a -stronger dominion over him.</p> - -<p>He thought of some verses which he had read not long -before, written by that poet who, more perfectly than any other, -mirrors the dissatisfaction, the wistfulness, the intricate emotions, -the unsatisfied passions of our time.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Que n'ai-je à te soumettre, ou bien à t'obéir?</div> - <div class="verse">Je te vouerais ma force ou te la ferais craindre:</div> - <div class="verse">Esclave ou maître, au moins je te pourrais contraindre</div> - <div class="verse">A me sentir ta chose, ou bien à me haïr.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">J'aurais un jour connu l'insolite plaisir,</div> - <div class="verse">D'allumer dans ton cœur des soifs ou d'en éteindre,</div> - <div class="verse">De t'être nécessaire ou terrible, et d'atteindre,</div> - <div class="verse">Bon gré, mal gré, le cœur jusque là sans désir.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Esclave ou maître, au moins j'entrerais dans ta vie,</div> - <div class="verse">Par mes soins captivée, à mon joug réservée,</div> - <div class="verse">Tu ne pourrais me fuir, ni me laisser partir.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Mais je meurs sous tes yeux, loin de ton être intime,</div> - <div class="verse">Sans même oser crier, car ce droit, du martyr,</div> - <div class="verse">Ta douceur impeccable en frustre ta victime.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>For seven years he had been always the nominal, sometimes -the actual, possessor of her life, and yet he had never once -known whether this woman whom he had possessed had ever -had one moment of what could be called love for him! Many -women had loved him for whom he had felt nothing; but by one -of those strange and melancholy ironies of which life is so full -the only women he had loved—the courtezan who had ruined -his boyhood, and his wife who had ruined his manhood—had -given themselves to him, without love.</p> - -<p>He shut the window at which he stood, and turned away -with a bitter sigh:—without her life would be for ever valueless -to him.</p> - -<p>Nadège and her servitor, unconscious of his observation of -them, entered the house; it was the moment when people -gathered in the conservatories for tea; the most pleasant hour -of the twenty-four was spent thus amongst the flowers; often -there was music in the music-room adjoining; the children -usually came there with their pretty grace and gaiety, their long -loose hair, their bright costumes, looking like larger butterflies -under the fronds of the palms.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span></p> - -<p>As she went towards her own apartments to rest there a little -while before joining her guests and friends in the orchid-houses, -one of her confidential servants brought her a note which -had been sent by hand from Beaugency, and was marked urgent. -She was about to send it unopened to her secretary, for letters -wearied her and she seldom read them herself unless their superscription -told her that they were of some especial interest, when -she saw written in the corner of the envelope the name of -Rosselin. She knew that it was the name of the great artist who -had been the teacher of Damaris Bérarde.</p> - -<p>She took the packet with her to her own rooms and once -alone there opened it. There were two letters inside it. One -was written in a feeble unformed hand, the words were ill-shaped, -and the lines were uneven. The fingers which had -traced them had never been very skilful in the management of -the pen, being more used to guide the tiller ropes of a boat, or -the handle of a scythe.</p> - -<p>The characters were ill-writ and very pale, but she could -read them; she knew even without reading them, that they came -from Damaris; they were brief:</p> - -<p>'When you get this, Madame, I shall not be living. Then I -think you will not be angered any more, and you will believe. -Do not let him know, because it would pain him. I mean, do -not let him learn that I sought this death myself. Perhaps it -was wrong, but I saw no other way; I could not live any longer -on his charity now that I know. Before, I did not know. I -could not bear to live either without seeing him sometimes, and -I should never see him. Nothing wants me except the dogs, -and they will be happy on the farm here. My master would -only be disappointed in me if I lived. The world would not care -for me. I should not have any strength in me to make it care. -I used to think that I had genius, but it is all dead in me, quite -dead now;—perhaps it was only imagination, and the wish to be -something I was not, and the mere love I had of the poets. -Forgive me that I write to you; I want to beg you to believe. -I would have given my life for him, but he never thought of me -in that way. I pray you to make him happier. I wish I could -have seen him once——.'</p> - -<p>The ill-written words ended abruptly, as though the pen -which had written them had suddenly fallen from a hand too -weak to hold it any more.</p> - -<p>On an outside sheet was written in the fine clear writing of -Rosselin:</p> - -<p>'She died last night as the moon rose. I write to you, -Madame, instead of to your husband by her desire. You will -tell him as much or as little as you choose. I had not seen her -for four days. God pardon me for it! I shall never pardon -myself. I had left her in anger because I could not persuade her -to play before you at Amyôt, and in anger I had stayed away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> -from her. When they sent for me I found her already dying. -The woman of the house told me that she had been one day -alone to Paris, and what had been done to her there this woman -did not know, but on her return she was quite silent, and very -feverish and strange. She wandered about the village and the -fields, and would scarcely come into the house to bed. At one -of the cottages a young child she had often played with was -lying ill with diphtheria. Damaris remained day and night -with him, and when he was dying kissed him on the mouth: -she never confessed it to me, but I believe that she sought -death that way, for I think life for some reason or other which -I know not had become wholly intolerable to her. She suffered -very much. I brought her all the aid that science could give -her, but it was of no avail. She had no wish to live, I think. -She talked often of her island, and of the sea, and of the boats. -Latterly she could not speak at all, then she wrote to you. It is a -hideous death: heaven spare you and yours the like. You feel -no sorrow for anything they say, but I think you would have -been sorry for her. Perhaps it is best so. The world would -have broken her heart; it has no place in it for such dreams as -hers were. To the last she bade me never to let your husband -know. Her last thought was of him. He was very good to her, -but a worse man would perhaps have injured her genius less. I -know not what passed between her and you. I only know that -she had seen you. Whether you said anything which made her -despair of living I cannot tell; all she said when she became -delirious, which she did become towards the end, was only this -always: "She will believe now, she will believe now." So I -suppose you doubted her. I send you the few lines which she -wrote three hours before she died when she could scarcely see. -I have not read them myself. I think she would not wish me -to do so. I am over eighty years old; it is hard to live so long -only to see the last thing that one loves perish miserably. But -she had genius, and the world hates it, so perhaps after all it is -best as it is.'</p> - -<p>She put the letters down, one on another, and her face had -a great blankness of horror on it. Like Yseulte, this child had -died for him, through her.</p> - -<p>She shuddered as with cold in the warm fragrant air of her -room, and large tears sprang into her eyes.</p> - -<p>She could not doubt now.</p> - -<p>She locked her doors, and no one entered there for an -hour.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER LIV.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>When that time had passed she descended the grand staircase -and joined her friends in the conservatories; the tea roses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> -renewed in the white velvet of her corsage, the great pearls -lying on her white soft breast. No one was aware of anything -changed in her manner or aspect. Twice or thrice she looked -nervously at the doors; that was all; she was afraid of seeing -her husband enter.</p> - -<p>When he came she looked away from him, and Blanche de -Laon, who was near her, saw a certain tremor on her lips, and -thought with victorious pleasure, though uncertain of the cause: -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ça vous blesse, hein? Ça vous blesse?</i></p> - -<p>At the long dinner she was somewhat silent and absorbed, -but her world was used to her caprices, and knew that she was -seldom pleased long. Men endeavoured all the more to amuse -her. They thought that they succeeded. They did not know -that instead of the brilliant room, the faces of her friends, the -flowers and fruits of the table, and the frescoes of the walls, she -only saw a little low dark chamber with a girl dying miserably -in it, like a strangled dog, as the moon rose.</p> - -<p>She had never believed in sacrifice or in remorse, or if -forced to believe in them she had said with disdain, 'What -melodrama!' But she believed now.</p> - -<p>Shame and remorse approached the delicate hauteur of her -life and touched it for the first time. What she had thought so -low had humbled her.</p> - -<p>The dinner seemed very long to her, the evening slow to -pass; the burden of the world can be at times as heavy as the -travail of the poor; there were the usual pastimes, and wit, -and gaiety; Paul of Lemberg was there, and the ineffable -sweetness of his music thrilled through the flower-scented air; -people laughed low, and played high, and made love in shadowy -corners; it was all pretty, and graceful, and amusing. But -she, amidst it all, only heard a voice which cried to her:</p> - -<p>'Why will you not believe?'</p> - -<p>She only saw a grave made in dark wet earth, and a girl's -body thrust into it in cruel haste, and sods thrown in one on another -on the lifeless limbs, the dull hair, the disfigured throat; -it was horrible—horrible! Why had she not left her alone in -the gay sunshine, under the orange trees, by the blue water?</p> - -<p>With all the pressure and the distraction of society upon her -she was endlessly pursued by the self-accusation which had been -brought to her by those simple lines traced by a dying child.</p> - -<p>A consciousness of the supreme good fortune with which -fate had always lightened her own life, came to her, for the -first time, with a sense of unworthiness and ingratitude in herself. -A consciousness of the greatness of the gifts she had -received, and of the little she had given in return, smote her -heart with a vague repentance and a vague fear. What had -she done with all those lives which had been put into her hands, -with all the loyalty and the devotion which had been spent on -her oftentimes, without receiving from her even a passing pity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> -in recognition of it? Would not life tire one day of blessing -her, when she gave no benediction in return?</p> - -<p>She had always cared so little, she had been always so indifferent -and so dissatisfied. Would fate not strike her with a -rough, wild justice, if it took from her her children, her husband, -her intellect, her fortune, her beauty? Would not -destiny be only fair and honest if it forced her on her knees -beside some death-bed of some creature well-beloved, and said -to her:—</p> - -<p>'You have never been content in happiness; henceforward -you shall dwell with sorrow.'</p> - -<p>Fear touched her for the sole time in her victorious and -indifferent life; she was afraid lest one day she should stand -alone with only the graves of what had been once dear to her -as her companions and her friends: one day when youth and -power and beauty and wit would all be gone from her:——like -the great sovereigns of the world, she shuddered to remember -that she was mortal.</p> - -<p>With all her philosophy and epigram, she had discoursed -full many a time of the only cruel certainty life holds: the certainty -that <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe</i>. She had played -with the dread problems which Time, the merciless master of -the highest, sets before all his scholars with no solution to them -possible to the clearest brains. And whilst she had toyed with -their subtleties, this child had had the courage to cut the knot -and pass away for ever to the eternal night of nothingness!</p> - -<p>Some perception of the utter selfishness of her whole existence -smote her as she sat alone in the stillness of the after-midnight -hours.</p> - -<p>These children dwarfed her in her own sight. They had -been mere children, both of them, foolish, romantic, unwise, -exaggerated: but they had been in a way sublime. And he -had loved neither of them. He had only loved her who had -left his heart empty, his affections cold, his life dissatisfied and -solitary.</p> - -<p>For the first time since she had thought at all, a passionate -repentance and regret came on her; a sense of her own cruelty -weighed heavily upon her. Why had she not been more -tolerant, more merciful, more willing to acknowledge that innocence -and generosity of which she had been so unwillingly conscious -all the while that Damaris Bérarde had stood before her? -Why had she not been guided by that serenity and tolerance of -judgment on which she had so long prided herself; why had -she crushed to the earth with the weight of her scorn, and her -rank, and her place as his wife, this lonely creature who had -loved him so humbly, so silently, so perfectly?</p> - -<p>There was a greatness in her own nature, obscured as it -was by the languors of self-love and the vanities of the world, -which forced her to recognise the greatness of the simple words<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> -sent to her. She herself, in her anger, in her incredulity, in -her cruelty, seemed to her own eyes very poor beside them. -She had judged as the common herd always judged: coarsely, -superficially, brutally. No better.</p> - -<p>She was humbled in her own eyes. The sentimentalists -had conquered throughout, they had been greater than she!</p> - -<p>Poor Mignon, with her heart breaking in a love which she -dared not avow, which no one wanted!</p> - -<p>A few kind words might have saved her; might have healed -the bruised child's heart and made it strong for the burden of -life; and she had not spoken those words.</p> - -<p>If she had read this story in a book of poems, if she had -seen it unfolded on the scene of a pastoral as of an opera, it would -have touched her; but as it had been in real life she had not -cared; because the living, throbbing, aching nerves had been -alive before her she had not cared; she had turned away, and -had left them to bleed to death as they would—as they might.</p> - -<p>A sense of guilt was upon her. She felt as though she had -killed some humble, wounded animal which had crept to her -feet for safety. She had always declared that genius was sacred -to her; and now she had dealt with it as a mere common -noxious thing, and driven it away from her to perish.</p> - -<p>'And we are such wretched shallow egotists,' she thought. -'I grieve for her now, and I know that she has been greater -than I shall ever be, and I know that we have killed her—he -and I and the world which had no place for her; and yet how -often shall I remember her, how often shall I be gentler to -others for her sake?—once or twice, whilst the memory of her -is warm perhaps—no more; one has no time.'</p> - -<p>Rosselin would remember every hour of all such few days -as might remain to him on earth; but no one else.</p> - -<p>'Oh, foolish child,' she thought, 'to die for that! Why not -have lived, and reigned over the souls of men, and put a curb -on the slavering mouth of the fawning world! It is never -worth an hour of sacrifice.'</p> - -<p>Yet all overwrought, unwise, useless, as such sacrifice was, -it had a nobility in it which awed her, and a generosity which -made her own egotism seem poor and pale beside it.</p> - -<p>'Make him happier.'</p> - -<p>The unselfish prayer of the dead girl touched her conscience -and her heart as no rebuke would ever have done. She had -the power to do so still; that she did not doubt. He was hers -in every way if she chose to stretch her hand out to him.</p> - -<p>A sense of the infinite patience, and fidelity, and devotion -of the great love which he had always borne her from the first -hour his eyes had met hers came to her with the force of a -reproach from the grave itself. His submission to her caprices, -his constancy under her neglect, his instant response to the -faintest kindness from her, his unchangeable tenderness which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> -outlived the many mortal wounds she dealt to it; all these came -to her memory with a sense of her own debt to them, of their -own sweetness and patience, and long suffering. In him she -could if she chose find a friend, whom no fault of hers would -alienate, and no passing of time make weary. She had had -too much love given to her in her life; she saw that she had -been too careless of this, the greatest gift life holds: and death -had come too often where she passed.</p> - -<p>The chill of its ghastly presence seemed with her as she -moved through the silent house in the still small hours. This -child had had force in her youth to seek death, but she feared -it: she who had feared nothing on earth or in heaven.</p> - -<p>When all the guests were gone to their chambers, and the -great house was still, she did what she had never once done in -the years of their marriage: she went to seek Othmar instead -of sending her women to summon him. She had on her pale -rose satin chamber-gown, and even in that moment, with an -impulse of care for her person and its charms, a coquetry which -would never cease in her whilst she had breath, she paused a -moment before one of the mirrors, and glanced lingeringly at -her own reflection, and put some fresh roses in her bosom. -Had she been on her way to the scaffold she would have done -the same: had the same remembrance of her own power to -charm.</p> - -<p>As she passed one of the great windows of the hall, she -looked at the night without. The moon, which rose late, -being on its decline, poured its whole light over the gardens and -the forests beyond. A white owl flew through the clear air; the -shadow of the great palace fell black over the silvered grass, -distant bells for daybreak prayer were ringing very far away -over the hushed country.</p> - -<p>And the night before, 'as the moon rose,' Damaris Bérarde -had died in her narrow chamber, in all her beauty and strength, -in all the height of her dreams and hopes, in all the vigorous -promise of life which had been as full and as fair in her as was -now the promise of spring in the woods: and these were all -gone for ever and for ever, the body laid in the earth to perish, -and the tender and valiant soul passed away like a dew that -dries up before the heats of the noonday.</p> - -<p>'Heaven spare such death to you and yours!'</p> - -<p>She remembered the words with the first sense of terror her -nature had ever known. They seemed less like a prayer for -good than like a menace of evil. She thought of the fair lives -of her children: not fairer than had been this other young life -which she had first seen under the starry orange flowers above -the edge of the sea.</p> - -<p>Why could she not have left her alone?</p> - -<p>She passed through the length of the quiet building to her -husband's rooms. He was writing at a writing-table with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> -back turned to her, and did not raise his head at the sound of -the unclosing door.</p> - -<p>But as the sweet rose-scent came towards him on the air, a -consciousness of her presence came with it: he started violently -and rose to his feet. He was very pale as he bowed low before -her, then stood waiting for her to speak. She was silent some -moments.</p> - -<p>To her temper so imperious, so arrogant, so indifferent, to -praise or blame, it was not without great effort that she could -say what she had come to say.</p> - -<p>A strong emotion moved her. She had never believed it -possible for her conscience to pain her, for her heart to ache -with self-reproach, as they did now.</p> - -<p>'Make him happier.'</p> - -<p>The childish words haunted her. After all, what had she -ever given him in return for the supreme devotion of his life? -A few hours of physical ecstasy; and years of indifference, -mockery, and neglect.</p> - -<p>'Make him happier.'</p> - -<p>To her critical intelligence and satiated mind, happiness in -such simple reading of the word could not exist; it needed faith, it -needed ignorance, it needed youth; it is never possible to those -whose passions demand what nothing mortal can satisfy. Yet -some reparation she knew she might still give to him; some -gentleness, some sympathy, some response. These children -who had loved him so well should not have died wholly in -vain.</p> - -<p>She leaned towards him, and the fragrance of the roses in -her breast swept with dreamy sweetness over him.</p> - -<p>'I came to ask your pardon,' she said in a low voice. 'I -wronged you, I insulted you——'</p> - -<p>He bowed low, and his lips, as they touched her hand, were -very cold.</p> - -<p>'Pardon is no word between you and me,' he said wearily. -'How could you doubt me? Had I ever lied to you, or to -anyone?'</p> - -<p>'No: I was wrong.'</p> - -<p>Her proud mouth trembled.</p> - -<p>'How much or how little shall I tell him?' she thought; -'men are such children!'</p> - -<p>He looked at her with hesitation; and a great and sudden -joy touched his life.</p> - -<p>'Do you love me at all, then?' he said with wonder and -with doubt.</p> - -<p>She smiled a little: her old slight mysterious smile!</p> - -<p>'I suppose so—since I doubted you. Love is always blind!'</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="center"><em>Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London.</em></p> - - -<div class='transnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> - - <p>Cover image was created by the transcriber and placed into the public domain.</p> - - <p>Table of Contents created by the transcriber and placed into the public domain.</p> - - <p>Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.</p> - - <p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as - possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other - inconsistencies.</p> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Othmar, by Ouida - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OTHMAR *** - -***** This file should be named 51487-h.htm or 51487-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/4/8/51487/ - -Produced by MWS, Christopher Wright and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. 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: 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. - - - -</pre> - - </body> -</html> |