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diff --git a/old/51980-8.txt b/old/51980-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fe8f57a..0000000 --- a/old/51980-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6894 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Royal End, by Henry Harland - -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: The Royal End - A Romance - -Author: Henry Harland - -Release Date: May 3, 2016 [EBook #51980] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROYAL END *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -THE ROYAL END - -A Romance - -By Henry Harland - -Author Of "The Cardinal's Snuff-Box"; "My Friend Prospero," Etc. - -London: Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row - -1909 - - - - - -&PART FIRST - - - - -THE ROYAL END - - -I - -|BALZATORE, by many coquetries, had long been trying to attract their -attention. At last he had succeeded. - -"You have an admirer," Ruth, with a gleam, remarked to her companion. -"Mercy, how he's ogling you." - -"Yes," answered Lucilla Dor, untroubled, in that contented, caressing -voice of hers, while, her elbow on the table, with the "languid grace," -about which Ruth chaffed her a good deal, she pensively nibbled a fig. -"The admiration is reciprocal. What a handsome fellow he is!" - -And her soft blue eyes smiled straight into Balzatore's eager brown -ones. - -Quivering with emotion, Balzatore sprang up, and in another second would -have bounded to her side. - -"Sit down, sir; where are you going?" sternly interposed Bertram. Placed -with his back towards the ladies, he was very likely unaware of their -existence. - -Balzatore sat down, but he gave his head a toss that clearly signified -his opinion of the restraint put upon him: senselessly conventional, -monstrously annoying. And he gave Lucilla Dor a look. Disappointment -spoke in it, homage, dogged--'tis a case for saying so--dogged tenacity -of purpose. "Never fear," it promised, "I'll find an opportunity yet." - -He found it, sure enough, some twenty minutes later. - - -II - -Ruth and Lucilla had been dining at the Lido, at the new hotel there, -I forget its name, the only decent hotel, in a sandy garden near the -Stabilimento. They had dined in the air, of course, on the terrace, -whence they could watch the sunset burn and die over Venice, and the -moon come up out of the Adriatic. Balzatore had been dining with Bertram -at a neighbouring table. - -But now, her eyes intently lifted, as in prayer, Lucilla began to adjust -her veil. - -"We can't stop here nibbling figs forever," she premised, with the -drawl, whimsically plaintive, that she is apt to assume in her regretful -moods. "I think it's time to return to our mosquitoes." - -So they paid their bill, and set off, through the warm night and the -moonlight and the silence, down the wide avenue of plane-trees that -leads from the sea to the lagoon. In the moonlight and the silence, they -were themselves silent at first, walking slowly, feeling the pleasant -solemnity of things. Then, all at once, Lucilla softly sighed. - -"Poor Byron," she said, as from the depths of a pious reverie. - -"Byron?" wondered Ruth, called perhaps from reveries of her own. "Why?" - -"He used to come here to ride," explained Lucilla, in a breaking voice. - -I'm afraid Ruth tittered. Afterwards they were silent again, the silence -of the night reasserting itself, and holding them like music, till, by -and by, their progress ended at the landing-stage where they had left -their gondola. - -"But what has become of the wretched thing?" asked Lucilla, looking -blankly this way and that. For the solitary gondola tied up there -wasn't theirs. She turned vaguely to the men in charge of it, meditating -enquiries: when one of them, with the intuition and the aplomb of his -race, took the words out of her mouth. - -"Pardon, Lordessa," he said, touching his hat. "If you are seeking the -boatmen who brought you here, they went back as soon as they had put you -ashore." - -Lucilla eyed him coldly, distrustfully. - -"Went back?" she doubted. "But I told them to wait." - -The man shrugged, a shrug of sympathy, of fatalism. "Ech!" he said. -"They could not have understood." - -Lucilla frowned, weighing credibilities; then her brow cleared, as in -sudden illumination. - -"But I did not pay them," she remembered, and cited the circumstance as -conclusive. - -The man, however, made light of it. "Ech!" he said, with genial -confidence. "They belong to your hotel. You will pay them to-morrow." - -"And, anyhow, my dear," suggested Ruth, intervening, "as they're nowhere -in mortal sight..." - -"Don't you see that this is a trick?" Lucilla stopped her, in a heated -whisper. "What you call collusion. They're lurking somewhere round a -corner, so that we shall have to engage these creatures, and be let in -for two fares." - -"Dear me," murmured Ruth, admiring. "Who would have thought them so -imaginative?" - -Lucilla sniffed. "Oh, they're Italians," she scornfully pointed out. -"Ah, well, the gods love a cheerful victim. You will do," she said to -the man. "Take us to the Britannia." And she motioned to Ruth to place -herself under the tent. - -But the man, touching his hat again, stood, very deferentially, with -bent back, so as to bar the way. - -"Pardon, Lordessa," he said, "so many excuses--we are private;" -while his glance, not devoid of vainglory, embracing himself and his -colleague, invited attention to the spruce nautical liveries they were -wearing, and to the silver badges on their arms. - -For a moment Lucilla Dor stared stonily at him. "Bother!" she -pronounced, with fervour, under her breath. Then her blue eyes gazed, -wide and wistful, at the moonlit waters, beyond which the lamps along -the Riva twinkled pallid derision. "How are we to get to Venice?" she -demanded helplessly of the universe. - -"We must go back for the night to the hotel here," said Ruth. - -"With no luggage? Two women alone? Never heard of such a thing," scoffed -Lu-cilla. - -"Well then," Ruth submitted, "I believe the lagoon is nowhere very deep. -We might try to ford it." - -"Oh, if you think it's a laughing matter!" Lucilla, with an ominous -lilt, threw out. - -Meanwhile the two gondoliers had been conferring together; they -conducted their conference with so much vehemence, one might have -fancied they were quarelling, but that was only the gondolier of it; and -now, he who had heretofore remained in the background, stepped forward, -and in a tone, all Italian, of respectfully benevolent protection, -addressed Lucilla. - -"Scusi, Madama, we will ask our Signore to let you come with us. There -is plenty of room. Only, we must wait till he arrives." - -"Ah," sighed she, with relief. But in a minute, "Who is your Signore?" -caution prompted her to ask. - -"He is a signorino," the man replied, and I'm sure he thought the reply -enlightening. "He is very good-natured. He will let you come." - -And it happened just at this point, while they stood there hesitating, -that Balzatore found his opportunity. - - -III - -One heard a tattoo of scampering paws, a sibilance of swift breathing; -and a cold wet nose, followed by a warm furry head, was thrust from -behind under Lucilla's hand. - -Startled, she gave an inevitable little feminine cry, and half turned -round--to recognise her late admirer. "Hello, old fellow--is this you?" -she greeted him, patting his shoulder, stroking his silky ears. "You -take one rather by surprise, you know. Yes, you are a very beautiful, -nice, friendly collie, all the same; and I never saw so handsome a coat, -or so splendid a tail, or such soulful poetic eyes. I am very glad to -renew your acquaintance." Balzatore waved his splendid tail as if it -were a banner; rubbed his jowl against Lucilla's knee; caracoled and -pranced before her, to display his graces; cocked his head, and blinked -with self-satisfaction; sat down on his haunches, and, tongue lolling -from his black muzzle, panted exultantly, "There! You see how cleverly I -have brought it off." - -"Ecco. That is our Signore's dog," announced the man who had promised -intercession. "He himself will not be far behind." - -At the word, appeared, approaching, the tall and slender figure of -Bertram, to whom, in a sudden contrapuntal outburst, both gondoliers -began to speak Venetian. They spoke rapidly, turbulently almost, with -many modulations, with lavish gestures, vividly, feelingly, each exposed -the ladies' case. - -Bertram, his grey eyes smiling (you know that rather deep-in, flickering -smile of goodwill of theirs), removed his panama hat and said, in -perfectly English English, with the accent of a man praying a particular -favour, "I beg you to let them take you to your hotel." - -The next instant, the gondoliers steadying their craft, Lucilla -murmuring what she could by way of thanks, he had helped them aboard, -and, after a quick order to the men, was bowing god-speed to them -from the landing-stage, while one hand, by the collar, held captive a -tugging, impetuous Balzatore. - -"But you?" exclaimed Lucilla, puzzled. "Do you not also go to Venice?" - -"Oh, they will come back for me," said Bertram, lightly. - -She gave a slight movement to her head, slight but decisive, a movement -that implied finality. - -"We can't think of such a thing," in the tone of an ultimatum she -declared. "It's extremely good of you to offer us a lift--but we simply -can't accept it if it means inconvenience to yourself." - -And Bertram, of course, at once ceded the point. - -Bowing again, "Thank you very much," he said. "I wasn't sure we -shouldn't be in your way." - -He took his seat, keeping Balzatore restive between his knees. - - -IV - -The gondoliers bent rhythmically to their oars, the gondola went -gently plump-plump, plash-plash, over the smooth water, stirring faint -intermittent breezes; far and wide the lagoon lay dim and blue in a -fume of moonlight, silent, secret, even somehow almost sinister in its -untranslatable suggestions; and before them rose the domes and palaces -of Venice, pale and luminous, with purple blacknesses of shadow, unreal, -mysterious, dream-compelling, as a city built of cloud. - -"Perilous seas in faery lands forlorn," Lucilla--need I mention?--quoted -to herself, and if she didn't quote it aloud, that, I suppose, was due -to the presence of Bertram. She and Ruth sat close together, with their -faces towards the prow, where, like a battle-axe clearing their way -of unseen foes, the ferro swayed and gleamed; he, sidewise, removed a -little to their left. And all three were mum as strangers in a railway -carriage. But, like strangers in a railway carriage, they were no doubt -more or less automatically, subconsciously, taking one another in, -observing, classifying. "I wonder whether he's really English," Lucilla -thought. He spoke and dressed like an Englishman, to be sure, yet so -many Italians nowadays do that; and, with a private gondola, he -presumably lived in Venice; and there was something--in the aquiline cut -of his features?--in his pointed beard?--that seemed foreign. "Anyhow, -he's a gentleman," she gratefully reflected; and thereat, her -imagination taking wing, "Suppose he had been an ogre or a bounder?--or -a flamboyant native lady-killer?--or a little fat oily _crafaud de -Juif?_ Besides, he has nice eyes." - -About the nationality of his guests, Bertram, of course, could entertain -no question, nor about their place in the world; in their frocks, their -hats, their poise of head, turn of hand, in the general unself-conscious -selfassurance of their bearing, they wore their social history for daws -to peck at; one's eye, as it rested on them, instinctively supplied a -background of Mayfair, with a perspective of country houses. A thing -that teased him, however, was an absurd sense that he had somewhere seen -Lucilla before, seen her, known her, though he perfectly knew he hadn't. -Her youthfully mature beauty, her bigness, plumpness, smoothness, her -blondeur; those deceptively child-like blue eyes of hers, with their -superficial effect of wondering innocence, and their interior sparkle of -observant, experienced humour, under those improbably dark and regular -brows--such delicate and equal crescents as to avow themselves the -creation of her pencil; the glossy abundance of her light-brown -hair; her full, soft, pleasure-loving mouth and chin, their affluent -good-nature tempered by the danger you divined of a caustic wit in the -upward perk of her rather short nose; the whole easygoing, indolent, -sensuous--sociable, comfortable, indulgent--watchful, critical, -ironic--aura of the woman: no, he told himself, she was not a person -he could ever have known and forgotten, she was too distinctly -differentiated an individual. Then how account for that teasing sense of -recognition? He couldn't account for it, and he couldn't shake it off. - -Of Ruth (egregious circumstance) he was aware at the time of noticing no -more than, vaguely, that the young girl under Lucilla's chaperonage was -pretty and pleasant-looking! - -All three sat as mum as strangers in a railway carriage, but I can't -think it was the mumness of embarrassment. I can hardly imagine a woman -less shy than Lucilla, a man less shy than Bertram; embarrassment is -an ill it were difficult to conceive befalling either of them. No, I -conjecture it was simply the mumness of people who, having said all that -was essential, were sufficiently unembarrassed not to feel that they -must, nevertheless, bother to say something more. And when, for example, -Bertram, having unwittingly relaxed his grip upon Balzatore's collar, -that irrepressible bundle of life escaped to Lucilla's side and -recommenced his blandishments, they spoke readily and easily enough. - -"You mustn't let him bore you," Bertram said, with a kind of tentative -concern. - -"On the contrary," said Lucilla, "he delights me. He's so friendly, and -so handsome." - -"He's not so handsome as he thinks he is," said Bertram. "He's the -vainest coxcomb of my acquaintance." - -"Oh, all dogs are vain," said Lucilla; "that is what establishes the -fellow-feeling between them and us." - -To such modicum of truth as this proposition may not have been without, -Bertram's quiet laugh seemed a tribute. - -"I thought he was a collie," Lucilla continued, in a key of doubt. "But -isn't he rather big for a collie? Is he an Italian breed?" - -"He's a most unlikely hybrid," Bertram answered. "He's half a collie, -and half a Siberian wolf-hound." - -"A wolf-hound?" cried Lucilla, a little alarmed perhaps at the way in -which she'd been making free with him; and she fell back, to put him at -arm's length. "Mercy, how savage that sounds!" - -"Yes," acknowledged Bertram; "but he's a living paradox. The wolf-hound -blood has turned to ethereal mildness in his veins. And he's a very -perfect coward. I've seen him run from a goose, and in the house my cat -holds him under a reign of terror." - -Lucilla's alarm was stilled. - -"Poor darling, did they abuse you? No, they shouldn't," she said, in a -voice of deep commiseration, pressing Balzatore's head to her breast. - -But the gondola, impelled by its two stalwart oarsmen, was making -excellent speed. They had passed the sombre mass of San Servolo, -the boscage, silver and sable in moonlight and shadow, of the Public -Gardens; and now, with San Giorgio looming at their left, were threading -an anchored fleet of steamers and fishing-smacks, towards the entrance -of the Grand Canal: whence, already, they could hear the squalid -caterwauling of those rival boatloads of beggars, who, on the vain -theory of their being musicians, are suffered nightly, before the -congeries of hotels, to render the hours hideous and hateful. - -And then, in no time, they had reached the water-steps of the Britannia, -and a gold-laced Swiss was aiding mesdames to alight. - -"Good night--and thank you so very much," said Lucilla. "We should have -had to camp at the Lido if you hadn't come to our rescue." - -"I am only too glad to have been of the slightest use," Bertram assured -her. - -"Good night," said Ruth with a little nod and smile--the first sign she -had made him, the first word she had spoken. - -He lifted his hat. Balzatore, fore paws on the seat, tail aloft, -head thrust forward, gave a yelp of reluctant valediction (or was it -indignant protest and recall?). The ladies vanished through the great -doorway; the incident was closed. - - -V - -The incident was closed;--and, in a way, for Bertram, as the event -proved, it had yet to begin. His unknown "guests of hazard" had -departed, disappeared; but they had left something behind them that was -as real as it was immaterial, a sense of fluttering garments, of faint -fleeting perfumes, of delicate and mystic femininity. The incident was -closed, and now, as the strong ashen sweeps bore him rapidly homewards -between the unseen palaces of the Grand Canal, it began to re-enact -itself; and a hundred details, a hundred graces, unheeded at the moment, -became vivid to him. Two women, standing in a rain of moonlight, by the -landing-stage at the Lido, brightly silhouetted against the dim lagoon; -the sudden tumultuous exordium of his men; his own five words with -Lucilla, and the high-bred musical English voice in which she had -answered him; then their presence, gracious and distinguished, there -beside him in the bend of the boat,--their cool, summery toilets, the -entire fineness and finish of their persons; and the wide, moonlit -water, and the play of the moonlight on the ripples born of their -progress, and the wide silence, punctured, as in a sort of melodious -pattern, by the recurrent dip and drip of the oars; it all came back, -but with an atmosphere, a fragrance, but with overtones of suggestion, -even of sentiment, that he had missed. It all came back, unfolding -itself as a continuous picture; and what therein, of all, came back with -the most insistent clearness was the appearance of the young girl who -had so mutely effaced herself in her companion's shadow, and whom, at -the time (egregious circumstance), he had just vaguely noticed as pretty -and pleasant-looking. This came back with insistent, with disturbing -clearness, a visible thing of light in his memory; and he saw, with a -kind of bewilderment at his former blindness, that her prettiness was -a prettiness full of distinctive character, and that if she was -"pleasant-looking" it was with a pleasantness as remote as possible from -insipid sweetness. Even in her figure, which was so far typical as to -be slender and girlish, he could perceive something that marked it as -singular, a latent elasticity of fibre, a hint, as it were, of high -energies quiescent; but when he considered her face, he surprised -himself by actually muttering aloud, "Upon my word, it's the oddest face -I think I have ever seen." Odd--and pretty? Yes, pretty, or more than -pretty, he was quite confident of that; yet pretty notwithstanding an -absolutely defiant irregularity of features. Or stay--irregularity? -No, unconventionality, rather: for the features in question were -so congruous and coherent with one another, so sequent in their -correlation, as to establish a regularity of their own. The discreet but -resolute salience of her jaw and chin, the assertive lines of her brow -and nose, the crisp chiselling of her lips, the size and shape of her -eyes, and over all the crinkling masses of her dark hair--unconventional -as you will, he said, not attributable to any ready-made category, -but everywhere expressing design, unity of design. "High energies -quiescent," he repeated. "You discern them in her face as in her figure; -a capacity for emotions and enthusiasms; a temperament that would feel -things with intensity. And yet," he reflected, perpending his image of -her with leisurely deliberation, "what in her face strikes one first, I -think, what's nearest to the surface, is a kind of sceptic humour,--as -if she took the world with a grain of salt, and were having a quiet -laugh at it in the back of her mind. And then her colouring," he again -surprised himself by muttering aloud. But when could he have observed -her colouring, he wondered, when, where? Not in the colour-obliterating -moonlight, of course. Where, then? Ah, suddenly he remembered. He saw -her standing under the electric lamps on the steps of the Britannia. -"Good night," she said, giving him a quick little nod, a brief little -smile. And he saw how red her mouth was, and how red her blood, beneath -the translucent whiteness of her skin, and how in the glow of her brown -eyes there shone a red undergleam, and how in her crinkling masses of -dark hair there were dark-red lights.... - -The incident was closed, in its substance, really, as matter-of-fact -a little incident as one could fancy; but the savour of it lingered, -persisted, kept recurring, and was sweet and poignant, like a savour of -romance. - -"I suppose I shall never see them again," was his unwilling but stoical -conclusion, as the gondola shot through the water-gate of Cà Bertradoni. -"I wonder who they are." - - -VI - -He saw them again, however, no later than the next afternoon, and -learned who they were. He was seated with dark, lantern-jawed, deepeyed, -tragical-looking Lewis Vincent, under the colonnade at the Florian, -when they passed, in the full blaze of the sun, down the middle of the -Piazza. - -"Hello," said Vincent, in the light and cheerful voice, that contrasted -so surprisingly with the dejected droop of his moustaches, "there goes -the richest spinster in England." He nodded towards their retreating -backs. - -"Oh?" said Bertram, raising interested eyebrows. - -"Yes--the thin girl in grey, with the white sunshade," Vincent -apprised him. "Been bestowing largesse on the pigeons, let us hope. -The Rubensy-looking woman with her is Lady Dor--a sister of Harry -Pontycroft's. I think you know Pontycroft, don't you?" - -Bertram showed animation. "I know him very well indeed--we've been -friends for years--I'm extremely fond of him. That's his sister? I've -never met his people. Dor, did you say her name was?" - -"Wife of Sir Frederick Dor, of Dortown, an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, -and a Unionist M.P.," answered Vincent, and it seemed uncanny in a way -to hear the muse of small-talk speaking from so tenebrous a mien. "The -thin girl is a Miss Ruth Adgate--American, I believe, but domiciled in -England. You must have seen her name in the newspapers--they've had a -lot about her, apropos of one thing or another; and the other day she -distinguished herself at the sale of the Rawleigh collection, by paying -three thousand pounds for one of the Karasai ivories--record price, I -fancy. She's said to have a bagatelle of something like fifty thousand a -year in her own right." - -"Really?" murmured Bertram. - -But he could account now for his puzzled feeling last night, that he had -seen Lucilla before. With obvious unlikenesses--for where she was plump -and smooth, pink and white, Harry Pontycroft was brown and lined and -bony--there still existed between her and her brother a resemblance so -intimate, so essential, that our friend could only marvel at his failure -to think of it at once. 'Twas a resemblance one couldn't easily have -localised, but it was intimate and essential and unmistakable. - -"So that is Ponty's sister. I see. I understand," he mused aloud. - -"Yes," said Lewis Vincent, stretching his long legs under the table, -while a soul in despair seemed to gaze from his haggard face. "She looks -like a fair, fat, feminine incarnation of Ponty himself, doesn't she? -Funny thing, family likeness; hard to tell what it resides in. Not -in the features, certainly; not in the flesh at all, I expect. In -the spirit--it's metaphysical. One might know Lady Dor anywhere for -Pontycroft's sister; yet externally she's as unlike him as a pat of -butter is unlike a walnut. But it's the spirit showing through, the -kindred spirit, the sister spirit? What? You don't think so?" - -"Oh, yes, I think you're quite right," answered Bertram, a trifle -perfunctorily perhaps. "By the by, I wish you'd introduce me to her." - -"Who? I?" exclaimed Vincent, sitting up and opening his deep eyes wide, -with a burlesque of astonishment that was plainly intended to convey -a sarcasm. "Bless your soul, _I_ don't know her. I know Pontycroft, of -course, as everybody does--or as everybody did, in the old days, before -he came into his kingdom. It isn't so easy to make his acquaintance -nowadays. But Lady Dor flies with the tippest of the toppest. And I, you -see--well, I'm merely a well-born English gentleman. I ain't a duke, I -ain't a Jew, and I ain't a millionaire cheesemonger." - -He leaned his brow on the tips of his long slender fingers and gloomed -blackly at the marble table-top. - -"I see," said Bertram with a not altogether happy chuckle. "You mean -that she's a snob." - -But Vincent put in a quick disclaimer. "Oh, no; oh dear, no. I don't -know that she's a snob--any more than every one is in England. I mean -that she happens to belong to the set that counts itself the smartest, -just as I happen not to. It's mostly a matter of accident, I imagine. -You fall where you fall. She isn't to blame for having fallen among the -rich and great; and she looks like a very decent sort. But I say, if you -really want to meet her, of course it would be the easiest thing in the -world--for _you_." - -"Oh? How?" asked Bertram. - -"Why," answered Vincent, with the inflection and the gesture of a -man expounding the self-evident, "drop her a line at her hotel,--no -difficulty in finding out where she's staying; at the Britannia, -probably. Tell her you're an old friend of her brother's, and propose to -call. I hope I don't need to say whether she'll jump at the chance when -she sees your name." - -Bertram laughed. - -"Yes," he said. "I don't think I should care to do that." - -"Hum," said Vincent. "Of course," he added after a minute, as a sort of -_envoi_ to his tale, "rumour has it that Pontycroft and the heiress are -by way of making a match. Well, why not? It would be inhuman to let her -pass out of the family. Heigh? and the girl is really very pretty. Yes, -I expect before a great while we'll read in the _Morning Post_ that a -marriage has been arranged." - -"Hum," said Bertram. - -And then the next afternoon he saw them still again, and learned -still more about them. Mrs. Wilberton, the brisk, well-dressed, -elderly-handsome, amiably-worldly wife of the Bishop of Lanchester, was -having tea with him on his balcony, when all at once she leaned forward, -waved her hand, and bestowed her most radiant smile, her most gracious -bow, upon the occupants of a passing gondola. Afterwards, turning -to Bertram, her finely-modelled, fresh-complexioned face, under its -pompadour of grey hair, charged with mystery and significance. "Do you -know those women?" she asked. - -Well, strictly speaking, he didn't know them; and his visitor's -countenance was a promise as well as a provocative to curiosity; so I -hope he was justified in answering, "Who are they?" - -The mystery and significance in Mrs. Wil-berton's face had deepened to -solemnity, to solemnity touched with severity. She sank back a little -in her red-and-white cane armchair and slowly, solemnly shook her head. -"Ah, it's a sad scandal," she said, making her voice low and impressive. - -But this was leagues removed from anything that Bertram had bargained -for. "A scandal?" he repeated, looking blank. - -Mrs. Wilberton fixed him with solemn eyes. - -"Have you ever heard," she asked, "of a man, one of our great -landowners, the head of one of our oldest families, a very rich man, a -man named Henry Pontycroft?" - -Bertram smiled, though there was anxiety in his smile, though there was -suspense. "I know Henry Pontycroft very well," he answered. - -"Do you?" said she. "Well, the elder of those two women was Henry -Pontycroft's sister, Lucilla Dor." - -Her voice died away and she gazed at her listener in silence, meaningly, -as if this announcement in itself contained material for pause and -rumination. - -But Bertram was anxious, was in suspense. "Yes?" he said, his eyes, -attentive and expectant, urging her to continue. - -"But it's the other," she presently did continue, "it's the young woman -with her. Of course one has read of such things in the papers--one knows -that they are done--but when they happen under one's own eyes, in one's -own set! And she a Pontycroft! The other, the young woman with Lucilla -Dor,--oh, it's quite too disgraceful." - -Again Mrs. Wilberton shook her head, this time with a kind of horrified -violence, causing the jet spray in her bonnet to dance and twinkle, and -again she sank back in her chair. - -Bertram sat forward on the edge of his, hands clasping its arms. "Yes? -Yes?" he prompted. - -"She's an American," said Mrs. Wilberton, speaking with an effect of -forced calm. "Her name is Ruth Adgate. She's an American of worse than -common extraction, but she's immensely rich. It's really difficult to -see in what she's better than an ordinary adventuress, but she has a -hundred thousand pounds a year. And she's bought the Pontycrofts--Henry -Pontycroft and his sister--she's bought them body and soul." - -Her voice indicated a full stop, and she allowed her face and attitude -to relax, as one whose painful message was delivered. - -But Bertram looked perplexed. An adventuress? Of worse than common -extraction? That fresh young girl, with her prettiness, her fineness? -His impulse was to cry out, "Allons donc!" And then--the Pontycrofts? -Frowning perplexity, he repeated his visitor's words: "Bought the -Pontycrofts? I don't think I understand." - -"Oh, it's a thing that's done," Mrs. Wilberton assured him, on a note -that was like a wail. "One knows that it is done. It's a part of the -degeneracy of our times. But the Ponty-crofts! One would have thought -_them_ above it. And the Adgate woman! One would have thought that even -people who are willing to sell themselves must draw the line somewhere. -But no. Money is omnipotent. So, for money, the Pontycrofts have taken -her to their bosoms; presented her; introduced her to every one; -and they'll end, of course, by capturing a title for her. Another -'international marriage.' Another instance of American gold buying the -due of well-born English girls over their heads." - -Bertram smiled,--partly, it may be, at the passion his guest showed, but -partly from relief. He had dreaded what was coming: what had come was -agreeably inconclusive and unconvincing. - -"I see," he said. "But surely this seems in the last degree improbable. -What makes you think it?" - -"Oh, it isn't that _I_ think it," Mrs. Wilberton cried, with a movement -that lifted the matter high above the plane of mere personal opinion; -"it's known,--it's known." - -But Bertram knitted his brows again. "How can such a thing be _known?_" -he objected. - -"At most, it can only be a suspicion or an inference. What makes you -suspect it? What do you infer it _from?_" - -"Why, from the patent facts," said Mrs. Wilberton, giving an upward -motion to her pretty little white-gloved hands. "They take her -everywhere. They've presented her. They've introduced her to the best -people. She's regularly _lancée_ in their set. I myself was loth, loth -to believe it. But the facts--they'll bear no other construction." - -Bertram smiled again. "Yes," he said. "But why should you suppose that -they do all this for money?" - -His question appeared to take the lady's breath away. She sat -up straight, lips parted, and gazed at him with something like -stupefaction. "For what other earthly reason should they do it?" she was -able, at last, in honest bewilderment, to gasp out. - -"One has heard of such a motive-power as love," Bertram, with deference, -submitted. "Why shouldn't they do it because they like the girl--because -she's their friend?" - -Mrs. Wilberton breathed freely, and in her turn smiled. "Ah, my dear -Prince," she said, with a touch of pity, "you don't know our English -world. People in the Pontycroft's position don't take up nameless young -Americans for love. Their lives are too full, too complicated. And it -means an immense amount of work, of bother--you can't get a new-comer -accepted without bestirring yourself, without watching, scheming, -soliciting, contriving. And what's your reward? Your friends find you a -nuisance, and no one thanks you. There's only one reward that can meet -the case--payment in pounds sterling from your client's purse." - -But Bertram's incredulity was great. "Harry Pontycroft is himself -rich," he said. - -"Yes," Mrs. Wilberton at once assented, "he's rich _now_. But he wasn't -always rich. There were those lean years when he was merely his cousin's -heir--and that's a whole chapter of the story. Besides, is his sister -rich? Is Freddie Dor rich?" - -"Ah, about that of course I know nothing," Bertram had with humility to -admit. - -"Freddie Dor is an Irish baronet, whose sole fortune consists of -an Irish bog. Then where does Lucilla Dor get her money? She -spends--there's no limit to the extravagance with which she spends, to -the luxury in which she lives. She has a great house in town, a great -house in the country--Lord Bylton's place, Knelworth Castle--she's taken -it on a lease. She has a villa near Florence. She entertains like a -duchess. She has a box at the opera. She has motor-cars and electric -broughams--you know what _they_ cost. And sables and diamonds, she has -as many as an Indian begum. Where does she get her money?" - -Mrs. Wilberton eyed him with a kind of triumphant fierceness. Bertram -had an uncomfortable laugh. - -"It's conceivable," he suggested, "that her husband's bog produces peat. -But I should imagine, in the absence of other evidence, that her brother -subsidises her." - -Mrs. Wilberton stared at him for a second doubtfully. "Of course you're -not serious," she said. "Brothers? Brothers don't do things on quite -such a lavish scale." - -"Oh, but Ponty's different," Bertram argued. "Ponty's eccentric. I could -imagine Ponty doing things on a scale all his own. Anyhow, I don't see -what there is to connect Lady Dor's affluence with Miss Adgate." - -"Ah," said Mrs. Wilberton, with an air of being about to clench the -matter, "the connection is unfortunately glaring. Lady Dor's affluence -dates precisely from the moment of Miss Adgate's entrance upon the -scene." And with an air of _having_ clenched the matter, she threw back -her head. - -Bertram bent his brow, as one in troubled thought. Then, presently, -reviewing his impressions, "I never saw a nicer-looking girl," he -said. "I never saw a face that expressed finer or higher qualities. She -doesn't look in the least like a girl with low ambitions,--like one -who would try to buy her way into society, or pay people to find her a -titled husband. And where, in all this, does Harry Pontycroft himself -come in? I think you said that she had bought them both, brother and -sister." - -"Ah," cried Mrs. Wilberton, triumphing again, "you touch the very point. -Harry Pontycroft was head over ears in debt to Miss Adgate's father." - -"Oh----?" said Bertram, his eyebrows going up. - -"It's wheels within wheels," said the lady. "Miss Adgate's father was a -mysterious American who, for reasons of his own, had left his country, -and never went back. He never went to his embassy, either: you can make -what you will of that. And even in Europe he had no settled abode; he -lived in hotels; he was always flitting--London,--Paris, Rome, Vienna. -And wherever he went, though he knew no one else, he knew troops of -young men--_young_ men, mark, and young men with expectations. He wasn't -received at his embassy; he wasn't received in a single decent house; -he was an utter outcast and pariah; but he always managed to surround -himself with troops of young men who had expectations. He was nothing -more or less, in short, than a money-lender. Yes, your 'nice-looking' -girl with the face full of high qualities, whom you think incapable of -low ambitions, is just the daughter of a common money-lender--nothing -better than that. And Henry Pontycroft was one of his victims. This, of -course, was while Pontycroft was poor--while his rich cousin was alive -and flourishing. And then, when the old usurer had him completely in -his toils, he proposed a compact. If Pontycroft would exert his social -influence on behalf of his daughter, and get her accepted in the right -circles, Adgate would forgive him his debt, and pay him handsomely into -the bargain. The next one knew, Miss Adgate was living with Lucilla Dor, -like a member of the family, and Lucilla was beginning to spend money. -Not long afterwards old Adgate died, and his daughter came into his -millions. And so the ball goes on. They haven't ensnared a Duke for her -yet, but that will only be a question of time." - -Mrs. Wilberton tilted her head a little to one side, and smiled at -poor Bertram with the smile, satisfied yet benevolent, of one who had -successfully brought off a promised feat--a smile of friendly challenge -to criticise or reply. - -But Bertram had his reply ready. - -"A compact," he said. "How can any human being have any knowledge -of such a compact, except the parties to it? Besides, _I_ know Harry -Pontycroft--I've known him for years, intimately. He would be utterly -incapable of such a thing. Sell his 'social influence' for money? Worse -still, sell his sister's? Old Adgate may have been a moneylender, and -Harry Pontycroft may have owed him money. But to get out of it by a -proceeding so ignoble as that--his character is the negation of the very -idea. And then, a titled husband! Surely, a girl of Miss Adgate's beauty -and wealth would need little assistance in finding one, if she really -cared about it. And anyhow, to act as her matrimonial agent--that again -is a thing of which Harry Ponty-croft would be incapable. But, for my -part, I can't believe that Miss Adgate has any such desire. She looks -to me like a young woman of mind and heart, with ideas and ideals, who -would either marry for love pure and simple, or not at all." - -His visitor's lips compressed themselves--but failed to hide her -amusement. "Oh, looks!" she said. "Ideas, ideals? What do we know of the -ideas and ideals of those queer people? Shylock's daughter. You may be -sure that whatever their ideals may be, they're very different from -any we're familiar with. A young woman who never had a _home_, whose -childhood was passed in _hotels_." Mrs. Wilber-ton shuddered. - -"Yes," agreed Bertram, "that's sad to think of. But Shylock's -daughter--even Shy-lock's daughter married for love." - -"If you come to that," Mrs. Wilberton answered him, "it's as easy to -love a peer as a peasant." - -"By the bye," questioned Bertram, thinking of Lewis Vincent, "if the -Pontycrofts are really as mercenary as all this would show them to be, -why doesn't Ponty marry her himself? He's not a peer, to be sure, but in -England the headships of some of your ancient untitled families almost -outrank peerages, do they not?" - -Mrs. Wilberton's face resumed its look of mystery. "Henry Pontycroft -would be only too glad to marry her--if he could," she said. "But -alack-a-day for him, he can't, and for the best of reasons. He is -already married." - -Bertram stared, frowning. - -"Pontycroft _married?_" he doubted, his voice falling. "But since when? -It must be very recent--and it's astonishing I shouldn't have heard." - -"Oh no, anything but recent," Mrs. Wilber-ton returned, a kind of high -impersonal pathos in her tone; "and very few people know about it. But -it's perfectly true--I have it on the best authority. When he was -quite a young man, when he was still an undergraduate, he made a secret -marriage--with some low person--a barmaid or music-hall singer or -something. He hasn't lived with her for years--it seems she drank, -and was flagrantly immoral, and had, in short, all the vices of her -class--and most people have supposed him to be a bachelor. But there his -wife remains, you see, a hopeless impediment to his marrying the Adgate -millions." - -"This is astounding news to me," said Bertram, with the subdued manner -of one who couldn't deny that his adversary had scored. But then, -cheering up a little, "Why doesn't he poison her?" he asked. "Or, better -still, divorce her? In a country like England, where divorce is easy, -why doesn't he divorce her, and so be free to marry whom he will?" - -Mrs. Wilberton gave him a glance of wonder. - -"Oh, I thought you knew," she murmured. "The Pontycrofts are Roman -Catholics--one of the handful of families in England who have never -recanted their Popish errors. But I beg your pardon--you are a Roman -Catholic yourself? Of course. Well, surely, your Church doesn't permit -divorce." - -Bertram laughed, mirthlessly, grimly even. - -"Here is an odd confounding of scruples," he said. "A man is low enough -to take a girl's money for acting as her social tout, but too pious to -divorce a woman who must be the curse of his existence." - -"Oh," replied Mrs. Wilberton, not without a semblance of pride in the -circumstance, "our English Roman Catholics are very strict." - -"I noticed," said Bertram, playing with his watch-chain, "that you bowed -very pleasantly when they passed." - -Mrs. Wilberton raised her hands. "I'm not a prig," she earnestly -protested. "Don't think I'm a prig. This thing is known, but it's not -official. In England until a thing becomes official, until it gets into -the law-courts, we treat it, for all practical purposes, as if it didn't -exist. Of course, I bowed to them.... Lucilla Dor, besides being a -Pontycroft, is a leader in the most exclusive set; and Miss Adgate, -officially, is simply her friend and protégée. And it isn't as if they -were the only persons about whom ugly tales are told. If one began -cutting one's acquaintances on that score, I don't know where one could -stop." - -"Ugly tales," said Bertram, "yes. But this particular ugly tale--upon -my word I can't see a single reason why it should be believed. The only -scrap of evidence in support of it, as far as I can make out, is the -fact that Lady Dor has a motor-car and a few furs and diamonds. Well, -she has also a rich and generous brother. No: I will stake Miss Adgate's -face and Harry Pontycroft's honour against all the ugly tales that -Gath and Ashkelon between them can produce. I don't believe it, I don't -believe it, and I can only wonder that you do." - -Mrs. Wilberton was gathering herself together, evidently with a view to -departure. Now she rose, and held out her hand. - -"Well, Prince," she said, laughing, "I must congratulate you upon your -faith in human nature. In a man who has seen so much of the world, -such an absence of cynicism is beautiful. I feel quite as if I had -been playing the part of--what do you call him?--the Devil's Advocate. -But"--she nodded gravely, though perhaps there was a tinge of amusement -in her gravity--"in this case I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid that -your charity is mistaken." - - -VII - -When he came back from having conducted her to the waterside, he -was followed by Balzatore and Rampicante. Rampicante leaped upon his -shoulder, rubbed his bristly moustaches approvingly against his cheek, -curled his tail about his collar, and, sublimely indifferent to any -one's mood but his own, purred an egoist's satisfaction. Balzatore sat -down before him, resting his long pointed muzzle on his knee and looked -up into his face from alert, troubled, wistful eyes. "What is the -matter? What is it that's worrying you?" they asked. For Balzatore knew -that his master was not happy. - -No, his master was not happy. All round him were the light, the lucent -colour, the shimmering warmth of Venice in early autumn, woven together -in a transparent screen of beauty. The palaces opposite glowed pale -gold, pale rose, pale amethyst, in the sun; the water below was dull -blue-green and glassy, shot with changing reds and purples, like dark -mother-of-pearl; the sky above was like blue-royal velvet; and where -he sat, on his marble balcony, amid its ancient, time-worn carvings and -traceries, all was cool blue shadow. But I doubt if he saw any of these -things. What he saw was the face of Ruth Adgate, that odd, pretty, -witty, frank, clear face of hers, those clear frank eyes, with their -glint of red, their hint of inner laughter. He saw also the brown, -lined, bony, good-humoured, clever, wholesome face of Harry Pontycroft, -and the fair, soft, friendly face of Ponty's sister. The charge against -these people was very trifling, if you will: it implied no devastating -moral turpitude, but it was more ignominious than far graver charges -might have been: it implied such petty aims, such sordid doings. To buy -"social influence"--to sell services that should in their nature be the -spontaneous offerings of kindness,--frequently indeed as one had heard -of this branch of commerce, what, when it came to an actual transaction, -could be on the part of buyer and seller more contemptible? Bertram -vowed in his soul, "No, I don't believe it, I won't believe it." And -yet, for all his firm unfaith, he was not happy. A feeling of malaise, -of disgust, almost of physical nausea, possessed him. Oh, why was every -one so eager to rub the bloom from the peach? "The worst of it is that -Mrs. Wilberton is not a malicious woman," he said. "She's worldly, -frivolous, superficial, anything you like, but not malicious. If one -could only dispose of her as malicious, her words wouldn't stick." And -again, by and by, "After all, it's none of my business,--why should -I take it to heart?" But somehow he did take it to heart; so that, at -last, "Bah!" he cried, "I must go out and walk it off--I must get rid of -the nasty taste of it." - -He went out to walk it off, Balzatore scouting a zig-zag course before -him, down narrow alleys, over slender bridges. He went out to walk -it off, and he walked into the very arms of it. In the multitude of -wayfarers--beggars, hawkers, soldiers, priests, and citizens; English -tourists, their noses in Baedeker, Dalmatian sailors, piratical-looking, -swartskinned, wearing their crimson fezes at an angle that seemed a -menace; bare-legged boys, bare-headed girls (sometimes with hair of -the proper Venetian red); women in hats, and women in mantillas--in -the vociferous, many-hued multitude that thronged the Mer-ceria, he met -Stuart Seton. - -Do you know Stuart Seton? He is a small, softly-built, soft-featured, -pale, kittenish-looking man, with softly-curling hair and a soft little -moustache, with a soft voice and soft languorous manners. A woman's man, -you guess at your first glimpse of him, a women's pet; a man whom women -will fondle and coddle, and send on errands, and laugh at to his face, -and praise to other men; a man, for he has the unhallowed habit of using -scent, who actually seems to smell of boudoirs. Bertram did not like -him, and now, at their conjunction, stiffened instantly, from the fellow -mortal, into the great personage. - -"I was on my way to call on you," said Seton, softly, languidly. - -"I am unfortunate in not being at home," returned Bertram, erect, aloof. - -"I wanted to get you to give me an evening to dine," Seton explained. "I -am at the Britannia, and I have some friends there I'd like to present -to you." - -"Ah?" said Bertram, his head very much in the air. "Who are your -friends?" - -"Only two," said Seton. "One is Lady Dor, a charming woman, sister of -Harry Pontycroft, and the other is Pontycroft's Faithful John--a very -amusing gel named Adgate." - -Faithful John? The phrase was novel to Bertram, and struck him as -unpleasant. "Pontycroft's _what?_" he asked, rather brusquely. - -"Yes," drawled Seton, undisturbed. "It's quite the joke of the period, -in England. She is one of those preposterously rich Americans, you -know,--hundred and fifty thousand a year, and that sort of thing. Pooty -too, and clever, with a sense of humour. But she's gone and fallen -desperately in love with poor old Harry Pontycroft, and when he's -present, upon my word, she eyes him exactly as a hungry dog eyes a bone. -Which must make him feel a trifle queerish, seeing that he's twenty -years her senior, and by no means a beauty, and not at all in the -marrying line. If he were, you can trust the British mamma to have -snapped him up long before this. So she worships him from afar with a -hopeless, undying flame. Poor old Ponty! Most fellows, of course, would -think themselves in luck, but Ponty has all the tin he knows what to -do with, and a wife would suit his book about as well as a tame white -elephant. He is dog-in-the-manger in spite of himself. No others need -apply." - -Bertram passed his hands across his brow, asking the spirits of the air, -I daresay, where is truth? He passed his hand across his brow, while his -lips uttered a kind of guttural and enigmatic _Mumph._ - -"There was Newhampton, for instance," Seton complacently babbled on, -"the little Duke. Of course, with her supplies, she's had more or less -the whole unmarried peerage after her, to pick and choose from; but she -never turned a hair till Newhampton offered himself. Then she regularly -broke down, and blew the gaff. A Duke! Well, a Duke's a Duke, and human -nature couldn't stand it. She told him with tears in her eyes that he'd -given her the hardest day's work she'd ever had to do. For I'd marry -you like a shot, she said, only I'm unlucky enough to be in love with -another man. Pontycroft for a fiver, said Newhampton, who's not such a -fool as he looks. And, by Jove, if she didn't coolly up and tell him he -was right! But the fun of it is that meantime Ponty's sister comes in -for the reversion. If not the rose, she's near the rose, and she gets -the golden dew. A private portable millionaire, who loves you for your -brother and never shies at a bill, is a jolly convenient addition to a -Christian family." - -Bertram said nothing. He stood looking down the exiguous thoroughfare, -over the heads of the passers-by, a cloud of preoccupation on his -brow. Lewis Vincent, Mrs. Wilber-ton, and now this little cad of a -Seton--three witnesses. But where was truth? - -"Anyhow," the little cad, never scenting danger, in a minute went -blandly on, "I hope you'll give me an evening. Miss Adgate is sure to -amuse you, and Lady Dor is a person you really ought to know." - -"Thank you," said Bertram, deliberately weighting his rudeness with a -ceremonious bow, "I don't think I should care to make their acquaintance -under your auspices." - -And therewith he resumed his interrupted walk, leaving Seton, -open-mouthed, roundeyed, to the enjoyment of a fine view of his back. - -By and bye, having (to cool his anger) marched twice round the Piazza, -he entered San Marco, bidding Balzatore await his return outside. In the -sombre loveliness of one of the chapels a rosary was being said. Among -the score or so of women kneeling there, he saw, with a strange jump of -the heart, Ruth Adgate and Lady Dor. - -He turned hastily away, not to spy upon their devotions. But what he had -seen somehow restored the natural sweetness of things. And the vision of -a delicate head bowed in prayer accompanied him home. - - - - -&PART SECOND - - -I - -|PONTYCROFT was really, as men go, a tallish man,--above, at any rate, -what they call the medium height,--say five feet ten or eleven. But -seated, like a Turk or a tailor--as he was seated now on the lawn of -Villa Santa Cecilia, and as it was very much his ridiculous custom to -sit,--with his head sunk forward and his legs curled up beneath him, -making a mere torso of himself, he left you rather with an impression -of him as short. That same sunken head, by the by, was a somewhat -noticeable head; noticeably big; covered by a thick growth, -close-cropped, of fawn-coloured hair; broad, with heavy bumps over the -thick fawn-coloured eyebrows; the forehead traversed by many wrinkles, -vertical and horizontal, deep almost as if they had been scored with a -knife. It was a white forehead, but the face below, abruptly from the -hat-line, was as brown as sun and open air could burn it, red-brown and -lean, showing its sub-structure of bone: not by any means a -handsome face; nay, with its short nose, perilously near a snub, its -forward-thrust chin, deeply-cleft in the middle, its big mouth and the -short fawn-coloured moustache that bristled on the lip, decidedly a -plain face; yet decidedly too, somehow, a distinguished, very -decidedly a pleasing face--shrewd, humorous, friendly; capable, -trustworthy--lighted by grey eyes that seemed always to be smiling. - -They were certainly smiling at this moment, as he looked off towards -Florence, (where it lay under a thin drift of pearl-dust in the -sun-filled valley), and spoke in his smiling masculine voice. - -"Up at the villa--down in the city," he said. "I never _could_ -sympathise with that Italian person of quality. Surely, it's a thousand -times jollier to be up at the villa. Then one can look down upon the -city, and admire it as a feature of the landscape, and thank goodness -one isn't there." - -Ruth's eyes (with the red glint in them) laughed at him. She sat leaning -back on a rustic bench, a few yards away, under a mighty ilex. She -wore a frock of pale green muslin, and her garden-hat had fallen on the -ground beside her, so that what breeze there was could make free with -her hair. - -"You are not an Italian person of quality, you see," she said. "You -are a beef-eating Britisher, and retain a barbaric fondness for the -greenwood tree. You are like Peter Bell, who never felt the witchery -of the soft blue sky. You have never felt the witchery of brick and -mortar." - -Pontycroft, puffing his cigarette, regarded her through the smoke with a -feint of thoughtful curiosity. - -"The worst thing about the young people of your generation," he -remarked, assuming the tone of one criticising from an altitude, "is -that you have no conversation. Talk, among you, consists exclusively -of personalities--gossip or chaff. Now, I was on the point of drawing -a really rather neat little philosophical analogy; and you, instead -of playing flint to steel, instead of encouraging me with a show of -intelligent interest, check my inspiration with idle, personal chaff. -Still, hatless young girls in greenery-whitery frocks, if they have -plenty of reddish hair, add a very effective note to the foreground of a -garden; and I suppose one should be content with them as they are." - -Ruth ostentatiously "composed a face," bending her head at the angle of -intentness, lifting her eyebrows, making her eyes big and rapt. - -"There," she said, taking a deep breath, "I hope _that_ is a show -of intelligent interest. Let me hear your really rather neat little -philosophical analogy." - -"No," said Pontycroft, with a melancholy shake of the head, "that is -only a show of the irreverence of youth for age. What is the fun of -my being a hundred years your elder, if you are not to treat me with -proportionate respect? And as for my analogy (which, perhaps, on second -thoughts, is not so neat as I fancied), if I give it utterance, I shall -do so simply for the sake of clarifying it to myself. It has reference -to the everlasting problem of evil. Human life is like a city; and a -city seen from a distance"--he waved his cigarette towards Florence--"is -like human life taken as a whole. Taken piecemeal, bit by bit, as it -passes, life dismays us, and terribly tries our faith, by the Evil it -presents: the pain, disease, foul play, inequalities, injustices, what -you will: just as a city, when we are in its streets, revolts us with -its dirt, decay, squalor, stagnant air, noise, confusion, and its sordid -population. But just as the city seen from a distance, just as Florence -seen from here, loses all its piecemeal ugliness, and melts into a -beautiful and harmonious unity, so human life viewed as a whole.... -Well, you have my analogy--which, perhaps, after all, is really rather -banal. Ah me, I wish I could marry you off. Why do you so systematically -refuse all the brilliant offers that I so tirelessly contrive for you?" - -But Ruth seemed not to have heard his question, though he underlined it -by looking up at her with a frown of grave anxiety. - -"Unfortunately for us human beings," she said, "no one has yet invented -a process by which we can _live_ our life as a whole. It's all very well -to talk of viewing it, but we have to _live_ it; and we have to live it -piecemeal, bit by bit." - -"Well," demanded Pontycroft, cheerfully inconsequent, "what can we -ask better? Given health, wealth, and a little wisdom, it's extremely -pleasant to live our life piecemeal. It's extremely pleasant to take it -bit by bit, when the bits are sweet. And what, for instance, could be -a sweeter bit than this?" His lean brown hand described a comprehensive -circle. "A bright, crisp, cool, warm September morning; a big beautiful -garden, full of fragrant airs; Italian sunshine, and the shade of -ilexes; oleanders in blossom; cool turf to lie on, and a fountain -tinkling cool music near at hand; then, beyond there, certainly the -loveliest prospect in the world to feed our eyes--Val d'Arno, with -its olive-covered hills, its cypresses, its white-walled villas, and -Florence shining like a cut gem in the midst. Add good tobacco to smoke, -and a simple child in white-green muslin, with plenty of reddish hair, -to try one's analogies upon. What could man wish better? Why don't you -get married? Why do you so perversely reject all the eligible suitors -that I trot out for your inspection?" - -Ruth's eyes laughed at him again. It was a laugh of frank amusement, -but I think there was something dangerous in it too, a quick flash of -mockery, even of menace and defiance. - -"Among the train there is a swain I dearly lo' mysel'," she lightly -sang, her head thrown back. "But you've never trotted _him_ out. I don't -get married'--detestable expression--because the only man I've ever -seriously cared for has never asked me." She sighed--regretfully, -resignedly; and made him a comical little face. - -Pontycroft studied her for a moment. Then, "Ho!" he scoffed. "A good -job, too. I wasn't aware that you'd ever seriously cared for any one; -but if you have--believe me, he's the last man living you should think -of tying up with. The people we care for in our calf-period are always -the wrong people." - -Ruth raised her eyebrows. "Calf-period? How pretty--but how sadly -misapplied. I'm twenty-four years old. Besides, the person I care for is -the right person, the rightest of all right persons, absolutely the one -rightest person in the world." - -"Who is he?" Pontycroft asked carelessly, lighting a fresh cigarette. - -Still again Ruth's eyes laughed at him. "What's his name and where's his -hame I dinna care to tell," again she sang. - -"Pooh!" said Pontycroft, blowing the subject from him in a whiff of -smoke. "He's a baseless fabrication. He's a herring you've just invented -to draw across the trail of my inquiries. But even if he were authentic, -he wouldn't matter, since he's well-advised enough not to sue for your -hand. Have you ever heard of a man called Bertrando Bertrandoni?" - -"Bertrando Bertrandoni--Phoebus! what a name!" laughed Ruth. - -"Yes," assented Pontycroft, "it's a trifle cumbrous, also perhaps a -trifle flamboyant. So his English friends (he was educated in England, -and you'd never know he wasn't English) have docked it to simple -Bertram. Have you ever heard of him?" - -"I don't think so," said Ruth, shaking her head. - -"And yet he's a pretty well-known man," said Pontycroft. "He -writes--every now and then you'll see an article of his in one of the -reviews. He paints, too--you'll see his pictures at the Salon; and plays -the fiddle, and sings. A jack-of-many-trades, but, by exception, really -rather a dab at 'em all. A sportsman besides--goes in for yachtin', -huntin', fencin'. But over and above all that, a thorough good sort and -a most amusing companion--a fellow who can talk, a fellow who's curious -about things. Finally, a Serene and Semi-Royal Highness." - -"Oh?" questioned Ruth, wondering. - -"Ah," said Pontycroft, "you prick up your pretty ears. Yes, a Serene and -Semi-Royal Highness. Has it ever struck you how chuckle-headed--saving -their respect--our ancestors were? I suppose they drank the wrong sort -of tea. Anyhow, they were mistaken about nearly everything, and most of -their mistakes they elevated to the dignity of maxims. Now, for example, -they had a maxim about Silence being golden, and another about Curiosity -being a vice. It's pitiful to think of the enormous number of more -or less tedious anecdotes they laboriously imagined to illustrate and -enforce those two profound untruths. Silence golden? My dear, silence is -simply piggish. Your silent man is simply a monstrous Egotist, who, -in what should be the reciprocal game of conversation, takes without -giving--allows himself to be entertained, perhaps enriched, at his -interlocuter's expense, and is too soddenly self-complacent to feel -that he owes anything in return. Oh, I know, you'll plead shyness for -him--you'll tell me he doesn't speak because he's shy. In a certain -number of cases, I grant, that is the fact. But what then? Why, -shyness is Egotism multiplied by itself. Your shy person is a person -so sublimely (or infernally) conscious of his own existence and his own -importance, so penetrated by the conviction that he is the centre of -the Universe and that all eyes are fixed upon him, and therewith so -concerned about the effect he may produce, the figure he may cut, that -he dare not move lest he shouldn't produce an heroic effect or cut an -Olympian figure. And then, curiosity! A vice? Look here. You are born, -with eyes, ears, and a brain, into a world that God created. You -have eyes, ears, and a brain, and all round you is a world that God -created--and yet you are not curious about it. A world that God created, -and that man, your duplicate man, lives in; a world in which everything -counts, small things as well as big things--the farthest planet and the -trifling-est affair of your next-door neighbour, the course of Empire -and the price of figs. But no--God's world, man's life--they leave you -cold, they fail to interest you; you glance indifferently at them, they -hardly seem worth your serious attention, you shrug and turn away. -'Tis a world that God created, and you treat it as if it were a child's -mud-pie! Good heavens! And the worst of it is that the people who do -that are mightily proud of themselves in their smug fashion. Curiosity -is a vice and a weakness; they are above it. My sweet child, no single -good thing has ever happened to mankind, no single forward step has ever -been taken in what they call human progress, but it has been primarily -due to some one's 'curiosity.'" He brought the word out with a flourish, -making it big. Then he lay back, and puffed hard at his cigarette. - -"Go on," urged Ruth demurely. "Please don't stop. I like half-truths, -and as for quarter-truths, I perfectly adore them." - -"Bertram," said Pontycroft, "is a fellow who can talk, and a fellow -who's curious about things." - -"I see," said Ruth. "And yet," she reflected, as one trying to fit -together incompatible ideas, "I think you let fall something about his -being a Serene and Semi-Royal Highness." - -"My dear," Pontycroft instructed her, "there are intelligent -individuals in all walks of life. There are intelligent princes, -there are even intelligent scientific persons. The Bertrandoni are the -legitimate grand-dukes of Altronde, the old original dynasty. They -were 'hurled from the throne,' I don't know how many years ago, in a -revolution, and the actual reigning family, the Ceresini, have been in -possession ever since. But Bertram's father is the Pretender. He calls -himself the Duke of Oltramare, and lives in Paris--lives there, I grieve -to state, in the full Parisian sense--is a professed _viveur_. I met -him once, a handsome old boy, military-looking, red-faced, with a white -moustache and imperial, and a genially wicked eye. Anyhow, there's one -thing to his credit--he had Bertram educated at Harrow and Cambridge, -instead of at one of these soul-destroying Continental universities. -He and his Duchess never meet. She and Bertram are supposed to live in -Venice, at the palace of the family, Cà Bertrandoni, though as a matter -of fact you'll rarely find either of them at home. She spends most of -her time in Austria, where she was born--a Wohenhoffen, if you please; -there's no better blood. And Bertram is generally at the other end -of the earth--familiarizing himself with the domestic manners of the -Annamites, or the religious practices of the Patagonians. However, I -believe lately he's dropped that sort of thing--given up travelling and -settled down." - -"This is palpitatingly interesting," said Ruth. "Is it all apropos of -boots?" - -Pontycroft put on his hat, and stood up. - -"It's apropos," he answered, "of your immortal welfare. I had a note -from Bertram this morning to say he was in Florence, no farther away -than that. I'm going down now to call on him, and I'll probably bring -him back to luncheon. So tell Lucilla to have a plate laid for him. Also -put on your best bib and tucker, and try to behave as nicely as you can. -For if you should impress him favourably.... Ah me, I wish I could marry -you off." - -"Ah me, I wish you could--to the man I care for," responded Ruth, with -dreamy eyes, and wistfulness real or feigned. - - -II - -"But I have already met them, your sister and Miss Adgate," Bertram -announced, with an occult little laugh. Pontycroft looked his surprise. - -"Really? They've kept precious mum about it. When? Where?" - -"The other day at Venice," Bertram laughed. "I even had the honour of -escorting them to their hotel in my gondola." - -Pontycroft's face bespoke sudden enlightenment. - -"Oho!" he cried. "Then you're the mysterious stranger who came to their -rescue when they were benighted at the Lido. They've told me about that. -And oh, the quantities of brain-tissue they've expended wondering who -you were!" - -Bertram chuckled. - -"But how," asked Pontycroft, the wrinkles of his brow tied into puzzled -knots, "how did you know who _they_ were?" - -"I saw them the next day when I was at the Florian with Lewis Vincent, -and he told me," Bertram explained. - -Pontycroft laughed, deeply, silently. "Thank Providence I shall be -present at the scene that's coming. The man of the family brings a -friend home to luncheon, and lo, the ladies recognise in him their -gallant rescuer. It's amazing how Real Life rushes in where Fiction -fears to tread. That scene is one which has been banished from -literature these thirty years, which no playwright or novelist would -dare to touch; yet here is Real Life blithely serving it up to us as -if it were quite fresh. It's another instance--and every one has seen a -hundred--of Real Life sedulously apeing ill-constructed and unconvincing -melodrama." - -Bertram, leaning on the window-sill, and looking down at the yellow -flood of the Arno, again softly chuckled. - -"Yes," he said; "but in this case I'm afraid Real Life has received a -little adventitious encouragement." He turned back into the room, -the stiff hotel sitting-room, with its gilt-and-ebony furniture, its -maroon-and-orange hangings. "The truth is that I've come to Florence for -the especial purpose of seeing you--and of seeking this introduction." - -"Oh?" murmured Ponty, bowing. "So much the better, then," he approved. -"Though I beg to observe," he added, "that this doesn't elucidate the -darker mystery--how you knew that we were here." - -"Ah," laughed Bertram, "the unsleeping vigilance of the Press. Your -movements are watched and chronicled. There was a paragraph in the -_Anglo-Italian Times_. It fell under my eye the day before yesterday, -and--well, you see whether I have let the grass grow. My glimpse of the -ladies was extremely brief, but it was enough to make me very keen to -meet them again. After all, I have a kind of prescriptive right to -know Lady Dor--isn't she the sister of one of my oldest friends? Miss -Adgate," he spoke with respectful hesitancy, "I think I have heard, is -an American?" - -"Of sorts--yes," Ponty answered. "But without the feathers. Her father -was a New Englander, who came to Europe on the death of his wife, when -Ruth was three years old, and never went back. So she's entirely a -European product." - -His smiling eyes studied for a moment the flowers and clouds and cupids -painted in blue and pink upon the ceiling. Then his theme swept him on. - -"He was a very remarkable man, her father. I think he had the widest, -the most all-round culture of any man I've ever known; he was beyond -question the most brilliant talker. And he was wonderful to look at, -with a great old head and a splendid tangle of hair and beard. He was -a man who could have distinguished himself ten times over, if he would -only have _done_ things--written books, or what not. - -"But he positively didn't know what ambition meant; he hadn't a trace of -vanity, of the desire to shine, in his whole composition. Therefore he -did nothing--except absorb knowledge, and delight his friends with his -magnificent talk. He made me the executor of his will, and when he -died it turned out that he was vastly richer than any one had thought.. -Twenty odd years before, he had taken some wild land in Wyoming for a -bad debt, and meanwhile the city of Agamenon had been obliging enough -to spring up upon it. So, when Ruth attained her majority, I was able to -hand over to her a fortune of about thirty thousand a year." - -"Really?" said Bertram, and thought of Mrs. Wilberton. This rhymed -somewhat faultily with the story of a money-lender. Then, while -Pontycroft, his legs curled up, sat on the maroon-and-orange sofa, and -puffed his eternal cigarette, Bertram took a turn or two about the room. -He didn't want to ask questions; he didn't want to seem to pry. But he -did want to hear just as much about Ruth Adgate as Pontycroft might -be inclined to tell. He didn't want to ask questions, and yet, after a -minute, as Pontycroft simply smoked in silence, he ended by asking one. - -"I think Miss Adgate is of the Old Religion?" - -"Yes--her father was a convert, and a mighty fervent and eloquent one, -too," Ponty replied nowise loth to pursue the subject. "That was what -first brought us together. We were staying at the same inn in one of the -Protestant cantons of Switzerland, and on Sunday morning all three of us -tramped off nine miles to hear Mass, Ruth being then about ten. He was a -man who never went in for general society. He never went in for anything -usual or conventional. His life was extraordinarily detached. But he had -his own little group of friends, of old cronies and young disciples, -in pretty nearly every town of Europe, so that he never needed to be -lonely. And he had a brother, an elder brother, whom he was always going -out to America to see; General Adgate, United States Army, retired, -residing at Oldbridge, Connecticut. Every spring, every summer, every -autumn, old Tom Adgate made his plans to go and visit the General, and -then he put the visit off. I think he'd never really got over his grief -for the death of his wife, and that he dreaded returning to the places -that were associated with her." - -Bertram did not want to ask questions--yet now he asked another. - -"But Miss Adgate herself--has she never been to America?" - -"No, she won't go," Pontycroft said. "We've urged her, pressed her to -go, Lucilla and I--not to stop, of course--but to see the place, to -_faire acte de presence_. Lucilla has even offered to go with her. And -the General has written fifty times begging her to come and stay with -him at Oldbridge. She really ought to go. It's her native country, and -she ought to make its acquaintance. But she seems to have imbibed a -prejudice against it. She's been unfortunate in getting hold of some -rather terrible American newspapers, printed in all the colours of the -rainbow, in which the London correspondents made her and her affairs the -subject of their prose. And then she's read some American novels. I'm -bound to confess that I can understand her shrinking a bit, if American -society is anything like what American novelists depict. The people seem -entirely to lack manners,--and the novelists seem ingenuously oblivious -of the deficiency. They present the most unmitigated bounders, and -appear in all good faith to suppose they are presenting gentlemen and -ladies." - -"Yes," agreed Bertram, smiling, "one has noticed that." Then, -thoughtful-eyed, pacing the floor, the world-traveller spoke: "But -America is very big, and very heterogeneous in its elements, and the -novelists leave a good deal out. There's no such thing as American -society,--there are innumerable different societies, unassimilated, -unaffiliated, and one must pick and choose. Besides, Oldbridge--didn't -you say--is in New England? New England is an extraordinary little world -apart, as unlike the rest of the country as--as a rural dean is unlike -a howling dervish. The rest of the country is in the making, a confusion -of materials that don't match; New England is finished, completed; -and of a piece. Take Boston, for instance,--I really don't know a more -interesting town. It's pretty, it's even stately; it's full of colour -and character; it's full of expression,--it expresses its race and its -history. And as for society, Boston society is as thoroughbred as any -I have ever encountered--easy, hospitable, with standards, with -traditions, and at the same time with a faint breath of austerity, -a little remainder of Puritanism, that is altogether surprising and -amusing, and in its effect rather tonic. No, no, there's nothing to -shrink from in New England--unless, perhaps, its winter climate. It -can't be denied that they sometimes treat you to sixty degrees of -frost." - -Pontycroft blew a long stream of smoke, "I'll ask you to repeat that -sermon to Ruth herself." - -Bertram halted, guiltily hung his head. "I beg your pardon--my text ran -away with me. But why doesn't--if Miss Adgate won't go to America, why -doesn't America come to her? Why doesn't General Adgate come to Europe?" -Pontycroft's brows knotted themselves again. "Ah, why indeed?" he -echoed. "Hardly for want of being asked, at any rate. Ruth has asked -him, my sister has asked him, I have asked him. And it seems a smallish -enough thing to do. But in his way, I imagine he's as unlike other folk -as his brother was in his. He's a bachelor--wedded, apparently, to his -chimney-corner. There's no dislodging him--at least by the written word. -So Ruth, you see, is rather peculiarly alone in the world, as I'm afraid -she sometimes rather painfully feels. She has Lucilla and me, a kind of -honorary sister and brother, and in England she has her old governess, -Miss Nettleworth, a cousin of Charlie Nettleworth, who lives with her, -and might be regarded as a stipendiary aunt. And that's all, unless you -count heaps of acquaintances, and scores of wise youths who'd like to -marry her. But she appears to have devoted herself to spinsterhood. One -and all, she refuses 'em as fast as they come up. She's even refused -a duke, which is accounted, I suppose, the most heroic thing a girl in -England can do." - -"Oh----?" said Bertram, in a tone that by no means disguised his -eagerness to hear more. - -"Yes--Newhampton," said Ponty. "As he tells the story himself, there's -no reason why I shouldn't repeat it. His people--mother and sister--had -been at him for months to propose to her, and at last (they were staying -in the same country house) he took her for a walk in the shrubberies and -did his filial and fraternal duty. I'm not sure whether you know him? -The story isn't so funny unless you do. He's a tiny little chap, only -about six-and-twenty, beardless, rosy-gilled--looks for all the world -like a boy fresh from Eton. 'By Jove, I thought my hour had struck,' -says he. 'I'd no idea I should come out of it a free man. Well, it shows -that honesty _is_ the best policy, after all. I told her honestly that -my heart was a burnt-out volcano--that I hoped I should make a kind and -affectionate husband--but that I had had my _grande passion_, and could -never love again; if she chose to accept me on that understanding--well, -I was at her disposal. After which I stood and quaked, waiting for my -doom. But she--she simply laughed. And then she said I was the honestest -fellow she'd ever known, and had made the most original proposal she'd -ever listened to, which she wouldn't have missed for anything; and to -reward me for the pleasure I'd given her, she would let me off--decline -my offer with thanks. Yes, by Jove, she regularly rejected me--me, a -duke--with the result that we've been the best of friends ever since.' -And so indeed they have," concluded Ponty with a laugh. - -Bertram laughed too--and thought of Stuart Seton. - -"The Duchess-mother, though," Ponty went on, "was inconsolable--till -I was fortunate enough to console her. I discovered that she had an -immensely exaggerated notion of Ruth's wealth, and mentioned the right -figures. 'Dear me,' she cried, 'in that case Ferdie has had a lucky -escape. He surely shouldn't let himself go under double that.' But -now"--Ponty laughed again--"observe how invincible is truth. There are -plenty of people in England who'll tell you that they were actually -engaged, and that when it came to settlements, finding she wasn't so -rich as he'd supposed, Newhampton cried off." - -Bertram had resumed his walk about the room. Presently, "You know Stuart -Seton, of course?" he asked, coming to a standstill. - -"Of course," said Ponty. "Why?" - -"What do you think of him?" asked Bertram. - -"'A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume,'" Ponty laughed. "Oh, he's a -harmless enough little beast, but it's a pity he oils his hair." - -"Hum," said Bertram, with an air of profound thought. - -Ponty looked at his watch. - -"I say," he cried, starting up; "it's time we were off." - - -III - -There was, however, no such scene at Villa Santa Cecilia as the man of -the family (I'm afraid with some malicious glee) had anticipated. The -ladies indeed recognised in his friend their gallant rescuer, and no -doubt experienced the appropriate emotions, but they made no violent -demonstration of them. They laughed, and shook hands, and bade him -welcome; Bertram laughed a good deal, too--you know how easily he -laughs; and that was all. Then they went in to luncheon, during which -meal, while the ball of conversation flew hither, thither, he could -observe (and admire) Ruth Adgate to his heart's content: her slender -figure, her oddly pretty face, her crinkling dark hair with its -wine-coloured lights, her brown eyes with their red underglow, their -covert laughter. "High energies quiescent"--his own first phrase came -back to him. "There's something tense in her--there's a spring--there's -a tense chord. If it were touched--well, one feels how it could -vibrate." A man, in other words, felt that here was a woman with -womanhood in her. 'Tis a quality somewhat infrequently met with in women -nowadays, and, for men, it has a singular interest and attraction. - -Pontycroft, I am sorry to record it, behaved very badly at table. -He began by stealing Ruth's bread; then he played balancing -tricks--sufficiently ineffectual--with his knife and fork, announcing -himself as _élève de Cinquevalli_; then, changing his title to _élève -du regretté Sludge_, he produced a series of what he called -spirit-rappings, though they sounded rather like the rappings of -sole-leather against a chair-round; then he insisted on smoking -cigarettes between the courses--"after the high Spanish fashion," he -explained; and finally, assuming the wheedling tone of a spoiled child, -he pleaded to be allowed to have his fruit before the proper time. "I -want my fruit--mayn't I have my fruit? Ah, _please_ let me." - -"Patience, patience," said Lucilla, in her most soothing voice, with -her benignant smile. "Everything comes at last to him who knows how to -wait." - -"Everything comes at once to him who will not wait," Ponty brazenly -retorted, and leaning forward, helped himself from the crystal dish, -piled high with purple figs and scarlet africani. - -They returned to the garden for coffee, and afterwards Ponty engaged his -sister in a game of lawn-golf, leaving Ruth and Bertram to look on -from the terrace, where Ruth sat among bright-hued cushions in a wicker -chair, and Bertram (conscious of a pleasant agitation) leaned on the -lichen-stained marble balustrade. - -"Poor Lucilla," she said to him, the laughter in her eyes coming to the -surface, "she hates it, you know. But I suppose Harry honestly thinks it -amuses her, and she's too good-natured to undeceive him." - -"There are red notes in her very voice," said Bertram to himself. "Poor -lady," he said aloud. "'Tis her penalty for having an English brother. -A game of one sort or another is an Englishman's sole conception of -happiness. And that is the real explanation of Anglo-Saxon superiority. -Englishmen take the most serious businesses of life as games--war, -politics, commerce, literature, everything. It's that which keeps them -sane and makes them successful." - -Ruth looked doubtful. "Anglo-Saxon superiority?" she questioned. "Do you -believe in Anglo-Saxon superiority? To be sure, we're always thanking -Heaven that we're so much better than our neighbours; but apart from -fond delusions, _are_ we better?" - -"You're at any rate fresher and lighter-hearted," Bertram asseverated. -"Englishmen always remain boys. We poor Continentals, especially we poor -Latins, grow old and sad, or else sour, or else dry and hard. We take -life either as a grand melodrama, or as a monotonous piece of prose; and -it's all because we haven't your English way of taking it as a game--the -saving spirit of sport." - -Ruth laughed a little. "Yes, and a good many Englishwomen remain boys, -too," she added musingly. "How is that beautiful dog of yours?" she -asked. "Have you brought him with you to Florence?" - -"Balzatore? No, I left him in Venice. He's rather a stickler for his -creature-comforts, and the accommodations for dogs in Italian trains are -not such as he approves of." - -Ruth opened wide her eyes. "Can they be worse than the accommodations -for human beings?" she wondered. - -"All I can tell you," Bertram replied, "is that I once took Balzatore -with me to Padua, and he howled conscientiously the whole way. I have -never known a human being (barring babies) to do that. They shut him in -a kind of drawer, a kind of black hole, under the carriage." - -"Brutes," said Ruth, with a shudder. "Don't you rather admire our view?" -she asked, first glancing up at her companion, and then directing her -gaze down the valley. - -"There never _were_ such eyes," said Bertram to himself. "There never -_was_ such a view," he said to her. "With the sky and the clouds and the -sun--and the haze, like gold turned to vapour--and the purple domes and -pinnacles of Florence. How is it possible for a town to be at the same -time so lovely and so dull?" - -Ruth glanced up at him again. "Is Florence _dull?_" - -"Don't you think so?" he asked, smiling down. - -"I'm afraid I don't know it very well," she answered. "The Ponte Vecchio -seems fairly animated--and then there are always the Botticellis." - -"I dare say there are always the Botticellis," Bertram admitted, -laughing. "But the Ponte Vecchio doesn't count--the people there are all -Jews. I was thinking of the Florentines." - -"Ah, yes; I see," said Ruth. "They're chiefly retired Anglo-Indians, -aren't they?" - -"Well, isn't that," demanded Bertram, with livelier laughter, "an entire -concession of my point?" - -"What are you people so silent about?" asked Pontycroft, coming up with -Lucilla from the lawn. Lucilla sank with an ouf of thankfulness into one -of the cushioned chairs. Ponty seated himself on the balustrade, near -Bertram, and swung his legs. - -"Never play lawn-golf with Lucilla," he warned his listeners. "She -cheats like everything. She even poked a ball into a hole with her toe." - -"A very good way of making it go in," Lucilla answered. "Besides, if -I cheated, it was for two good purposes: first, to hurry up the game, -which would otherwise have lasted till I dropped; and then to show you -how much more inventive and resourceful women are than men." - -She fanned her soft face gently with her pocket-handkerchief. - -Ponty turned to Bertram. "Tell us the latest secret tidings from -Altronde. What are the prospects of the rightful party?" - -"Oh yes, do tell us of Altronde," said Lucilla, dropping her -handkerchief into her lap, and looking up with eagerness in her soft -eyes. "I've never met a Pretender before. Do tell us all about it." - -Bertram laughed. "Alas," he said, "there's nothing about it. There are -no tidings from Altronde, and the rightful party (if there is one) -has no prospects. And I am not a Pretender--I am merely the son of a -Pretender, and my father maintains his pretensions merely as a matter of -form--not to let them, in a legal sense, lapse. He is as well aware as -any one that there'll never be a restoration." - -"Oh?" said Lucilla, her eyes darkening with disappointment; then, hope -dying hard: "But one constantly sees paragraphs in the papers headed -'Unrest in Altronde,' and they seem to enjoy a change of ministry with -each new moon." - -"Yes," admitted Bertram, "there's plenty of unrest--the people being -exorbitant drinkers of coffee; and as every deputy aspires to be a -minister in turn, they change their ministry as often as they have -a leisure moment. 'Tis a state very much divided against itself. But -there's one thing they're in a vast majority agreed upon, and that is -that they don't want a return of the Bertrandoni." - -"Were you such dreadful tyrants?" questioned Ruth, artlessly serious. - -Pontycroft laughed aloud. - -"There spoke the free-born daughter of America," he cried. - -"I'm afraid we were, rather," Bertram seriously answered her. "If -History speaks the truth, I'm afraid we rather led the country a dance." - -"In that respect you couldn't have held a candle to your successors," -put in Ponty. - -"The Ceresini really are a handful. Let alone their extravagances, -and their squabbles with their wives--I've seen Massimiliano -staggering-drunk in the streets of his own capital. And then, if you -drag in History, History never does speak truth." - -"I marvel the people stand it," said Lucilla. - -"They won't stand it for ever," said Bertram. "Some day there'll be a -revolution." - -"Well----? But then----? Won't your party come in?" she asked. - -"Then," he predicted, "after perhaps a little interregnum, during which -they'll try a republic, Altronde will be noiselessly absorbed by the -Kingdom of Italy." - -"History never speaks truth, and prophets (with the best will in -the world) seldom do," said Ponty. "Believe as much or as little of -Bertram's vaticination as your fancy pleases. In a nation of hot-blooded -Southrons like the Altrondesi, anything is possible. For my part, I -shouldn't be surprised if their legitimate sovereign were recalled in -triumph to-morrow." - -"Perish the thought," cried Bertram, throwing up his hand, "unless -you can provide a substitute to fill what would then become my highly -uncomfortable situation." - -Ruth was looking curiously at Pontycroft. "What has History been doing," -she inquired, "to get into your bad graces?" - -Pontycroft turned towards her, and made a portentous face. - -"History," he informed her in his deepest voice, "is the medium in which -lies are preserved for posterity, just as flies are preserved in amber. -History consists of the opinions formed by fallible and often foolish -literary men from the testimony of fallible, contradictory, often -dishonest, and rarely dispassionate witnesses. The witnesses, either -with malice aforethought, or because their faculties are untrained, see -falsely, malobserve; then they make false, or at best, faulty records -of their malobservations. A century later comes your Historian; studies -these false, faulty, contradictory records; picks and chooses among 'em; -forms an opinion, the character of which will be entirely determined -by his own character--his temperament, prejudices, kind and degree of -intelligence, and so forth; and finally publishes his opinion under the -title of _The History of Ballywhack_. But the history, please to remark, -remains nothing more nor less than an exposition of the private views -of Mr. Jones. And please to remark further that no two histories of -Ballywhack will be in the least agreement--except upon unessentials. So -that if Mr. Jones's history is true, those of Messrs. Brown and Robinson -must necessarily be false. No, no, no; if you go to seek Truth in the -printed page, seek it in novels, seek it in poems, seek it in fairy -tales or fashion papers, but don't waste your time seeking it in -histories." - -While the others greeted his peroration with some laughter, Pontycroft -lighted a cigarette. - -"I'm sure I'd much rather seek it in fashion papers," drawled Lucilla. -"They're so much lighter and easier to hold than great heavy history -books, and besides they sometimes really give one ideas." - -"But don't, above all things," put in Ruth, "seek it in a small volume -which I am preparing for the press, and which is to be entitled, _The -Paradoxes of Pontycroft._" - - -IV - -As Bertram walked back to Florence, down the steep, cobble-paved lanes, -between the high villa walls, draped now with flowering cyclamen, while -glimpses of the lily-city came and went before him, something like a -phantom of Ruth Adgate floated by his side. Her voice was in his ears, -the scent of her garments was in his nostrils; he saw her face, her -eyes, her smiling red mouth, her fragile nervous body. "I have never met -a woman who--who moved me so--troubled me so," he said. "Is it possible -that I am in love with her? Already?" It seemed premature, it seemed -unlikely; yet why couldn't he get her from his mind? - -Be thou chaste as ice, pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. He -thought as he had thought again and again to-day, of Mrs. Wilberton. -"Just so certainly," he argued, "as a woman is alone in the world, -and young, and good-looking, just so certainly must slanderous -tongues select her for their victim. Add wealth,--which trebles her -conspicuousness,--which excites a thousand envies,--and--well, the Lord -help her and those who profess themselves her friends. That exquisite -young girl! Her fine old father was a moneylender, and she is paying the -Pontycrofts to push her in society. Likely stories: Yet how are you to -prevent people telling and believing them?" - -He raised his hands towards the blue empyrean, and let them fall heavily -back beside him, as one summoning angels and archangels to mark the -relentless logic of evil. And the nine peasants who just then rattled -past him in a cart drawn by a single donkey, rolled their eyes, and -muttered among themselves, "Another mad Inglese." - -"But oh, ye Powers," he groaned, groaned in the silence of his spirit, -while audibly he laughed with laughter that really was sardonic, -"if Ponty knew, if Ponty half suspected!" Pontycroft was a man with -magnificent capacities for anger. If Pontycroft should come to know, -as any day he might, as some day he almost inevitably must,--it was -not pleasant to picture the rage that would fill him. And would it -not extend, that rage of his, "to us, his friends," Bertram had to ask -himself, "for not having put him on his guard, for not having given him -a hint?" Alas, it almost certainly would. "What! You, my friends, -you heard the beastly things people were saying, and you never warned -me--you left me in fatuous ignorance of them!" Yes; bitter, scathing, -would be Pontycroft's reproaches; and yet, and yet--Imagining a little -the case of the man who should undertake to convey that warning, Bertram -was conscious of a painful inward chill. "It is not for me to do it--no, -I should simply never have the courage." The solution of the whole -difficulty, of course, would be her marriage. "She should marry someone -with a name and a position--a name and a position great enough in -themselves to stifle scandal. If she should marry----" Well, a Prince of -the house of Bertrandoni, for example.... But he did not get so far as -quite to say these words. At the mere dim adumbration of the idea, he -stopped short, stood still, and waited for his nerves to cease tingling, -his heart to pound less violently. - -"Is it conceivable that I am in love with a girl I've only seen twice in -my life? And what manner of likelihood is there that she would have me? -She refuses everyone, Ponty says; and that odious little Stuart Seton -says she is in love with Ponty himself. No, I don't suppose I have the -ghost of a chance. Still--still--she certainly didn't look or behave as -if she was in love with Ponty; and that odious little Seton is just an -odious little romancer; and as for her refusing everyone, _tant va la -cruche à l'eau_----! Anyhow, a man may try, a man may pay his court. And -if--But, good Heavens, I am forgetting my mother. What would my mother -say?" - -There were abundant reasons why the sudden recollection of his mother -should give him pause. His mother was by no means simply the Duchess of -Oltramare, the consort of the Pretender to a throne. She was something, -to her own way of measuring, much greater than this: she was an -Austrian and a Wohenhoffen. Mere Semi-Royal Bertran-doni, mere Dukes of -Oltramare, mere Pretenders to the throne of Altronde, might marry whom -they would; lineage, blood, quarterings, they might dispense with. But -to a Wohenhoffen, to a noble of the noblesse of Austria, lineage, blood, -quarterings were as essential as the breath of life. And Ruth Adgate was -an American. And--have Americans quarterings? A daughter-in-law without -them would, in all literalness, be less acceptable to his proud old -Austrian Wohenhoffen of a mother, than a daughter-in-law without her -five senses or without hands and feet; would be a thing, in fact, -unthinkable. For people without quarterings, to the mind of your -Austrian Wohenhoffens, constitute an entirely separate, not order, -not estate, an entirely separate Race, an alien species, no more to be -intermarried with than Esquimaux or Zulus. - -Yes, there were plenty of reasons why the recollection of his mother -should dash his soaring fancies. But fancies are stubborn things and by -and bye they began anew to stir their pinions. True, his mother was an -Austrian and a Wohenhoffen, yet at the same time she was the smiling -embodiment of good-humour and good-nature, and she was the most sociable -and the most susceptible soul alive,--she loved to be surrounded by -amusing people, she formed the strongest friendships and attachments. If -she were at Florence now, for example, and if the inhabitants of Villa -Santa Cecilia were presented to her, she would take each of them to her -heart. She would like Pontycroft, she would like Lucilla, above all she -would like Ruth; she would like her for her youth and freshness, for -her prettiness, for her gaiety, for everything. She would like her, -too, because she was a Catholic, the Duchess of Oltramare being an -exceedingly devout daughter of the Church. And it would never occur to -her to ask whether she had quarterings or not--it would never occur to -her that so nice a person could fail to have them. And then--and then, -when the question of quarterings _did_ arise--Well, even Austrians, even -Wohenhoffens, might perhaps gradually be brought to accustom themselves -to new ideas. And then--well, even to a Wohenhoffen, the fact that you -possess a handsome fortune will by no means lessen your attractiveness. - -"As I live," cried this designing son, "I'll write to my mother -to-night, and ask her to come to Florence." - - -V - -Of course, no sooner had Bertram left them, than Pontycroft turned to -the ladies, and said, "Well----?" - -"Well what?" teased Ruth, trying to look as if she didn't understand. - -"Boo," said Pontycroft, making a face at her. - -"He's delightful," said Lucilla; "so simple and unassuming, and -unspoiled. And so romantic--like one of Daudet's _rois en exil_. And he -has such nice eyes, and such a nice slim athletic figure. Do you think -it's true that his people have no hope of coming to the throne? I've -felt it in my bones that we should meet him again, ever since that night -at the Lido. I knew it was all an act of Destiny. How wonderfully he -speaks English--and thinks and feels it. He has quite the English point -of view--he can see a joke. Oh, I've entirely lost my heart, and if I -weren't restrained by a sense of my obligations as a married woman I -should make the most frantic love to him." - -Ruth lay back in her chair, and shook her head, and laughed. - -"Oh, your swans, your swans,''she murmured. - -"Dear Lady Disdain," said Ponty, regarding her with an eye that was -meant to wither, "it is better that a thousand geese should be mistaken -for swans, than that a single swan should be mistaken for a goose. Oh, -your geese, your geese!" - -"Dear Lord Sententious," riposted Ruth, "what is the good of making -any mistake at all? Why not take swans for swans, geese for geese, and -blameless little princelings for blameless little princelings? Yes, -your little princeling seemed altogether blameless, an exceedingly -well-meaning, well-mannered little princeling, but I saw no play of -Promethean fire about his head, and when he spoke it sounded as if any -normally intelligent young man was speaking." - -"Had you expected," Pontycroft with lofty sarcasm inquired, "that, like -the prince in _The Rose and Ring_, he would speak in verse?" - -But next morning, in the most unexpected manner, she totally changed her -note. Pontycroft found her seated in the sun on the lawn. It was a cool -morning, and the sun's warmth was pleasant. Here and there a dewdrop -still glistened, clinging to a spear of grass; and the air was still -sweet with the early breath of the earth. In her lap lay side by side -an open letter and an oleander-blossom. Her eyes, Pontycroft perceived, -were fixed upon the horizon, as those of one deep in a brown study. - -"You mustn't mind my interrupting," he said, as he came up. "It's really -in your own interest. It's bad for your little brain to let it think so -hard, and it will do you good to tell me what it was thinking so hard -about." - -Slowly, calmly, Ruth raised her eyes to his. "My little brain was -thinking about Prince Charming," she apprised him, in a voice that -sounded grave. - -Pontycroft's wrinkled brow contracted. - -"Prince Charming----?" - -"The young Astyanax, the hope of--Al-tronde," she explained. "Your -friend, Bert-rando Bertrandoni. I was meditating his manifold -perfections." - -Pontycroft shook his head. "I miss the point of your irony," he -remarked. - -"Irony?" protested she, with spirit. "When was I ever ironical? He's -perfectly delightful--so unassuming and unspoiled; and so romantic, -like a king in exile. And with such a nice thin figure, and such large -sagacious eyes. And he speaks such chaste and classic English, and is -so quick to take a joke. If I weren't restrained by a sense of what's -becoming to me as a single woman, I should make desperate love to him." - -Pontycroft shook his head again. "I still miss the point," he said. - -"I express myself blunderingly, I know," said Ruth. "You see, it's -somewhat embarrassing for a girl to have to avow such sentiments. But -really and truly and honestly, and all jesting apart, I think he's an -extremely nice young man, quite the nicest that I've met for a long, -long while." - -"You sang a different song yesterday," said Pontycroft, bewilderment and -suspicion mingled in his gaze. - -"_La nuit porte conseil_," Ruth reminded him. "I've had leisure in which -to revise my impressions. He's a fellow who can talk, a fellow who's -curious about things. I hope we shall see a great deal of him." -She lifted up her oleander, pressed it to her face, and took a deep -inhalation. "Bless its red fragrant heart," she said. - -"I never can tell when you are sincere," Ponty hopelessly complained. - -"I'm always sincere--but seldom serious," Ruth replied. "What's the good -of being serious? Isn't levity the soul of wit? Come, come! Life's grim -enough, in all conscience, without making it worse by being serious." - -"I give you up," said Ponty. "You're in one of your mystifying moods, -and your long-suffering friends must wait until it passes." Then nodding -towards the open letter in her lap, "Whom's your letter from?" he asked. - -"I don't know," said Ruth, smiling with what seemed to him artificial -brightness. - -"Don't know? Haven't you read it?" he demanded. - -"Oh yes, I've read it. But I don't know whom it's from, because it isn't -signed. It's what they call anonymous," Ruth suavely answered. "Now -isn't _that_ exciting?" - -"Anonymous?" cried Ponty, bristling up. - -"Who on earth can be writing anonymous letters to a child like you? -What's it about?" - -"By the oddest of coincidences," said Ruth, "it's about _you_." - -"About _me?_" Ponty faltered, a hundred new wrinkles adding themselves -to his astonished brow: "An anonymous letter--to _you_--about me?" - -"Yes," said Ruth pleasantly. "Would you care to read it?" She held it up -to him. He took it. - -Written in a weak and sprawling hand, clearly feminine, on common white -paper, it ran, transliterated into the conventional spelling of our day, -as follows:-- - -"Miss Ruth Adgate, Madam.--I thought you might like to know that your -friend, H. Pontycroft, Esq. who passes himself off for a bachelor is a -married man, eighteen years ago being married privately to a lady whose -father kept a public in Brighton of the name of Ethel Driver. The lady -lives at 18 Spring Villas Beckenham Road Highgate off a mean pittance -from her husband who is ashamed of her and long ago cast off. - -"Yours, a sincere well-wisher." - -Pontycroft's wrinkles, as he read, concentrated themselves into one -frown of anger, and the brown-red of his face darkened to something like -purple. At last he tore the letter lengthwise and crosswise into tiny -fragments, and thrust them into the side pocket of his coat. - -"Let me see the envelope," he said, reaching out his hand. But there was -nothing to be got from the envelope. It was postmarked Chelsea, and -had been addressed to Ruth's house in town, and thence forwarded by her -servants. - -"Who could have written it? And why? Why?" he puzzled aloud. - -"The writer thought I 'might like to know,'" said Ruth, quoting the text -from memory. "But, of course, it's none of my business--so I don't ask -whether it is true." - -"No, it's none of your business," Ponty agreed, smiling upon her -gravely, his anger no longer uppermost. "But I hope you won't quite -believe the part about the 'pittance.' My solicitors pay all her -legitimate expenses, and if I don't allow her any great amount of actual -money, that's because she has certain unfortunate habits which it's -better for her own sake that she shouldn't indulge too freely. Well, -well, you see how the sins of our youth pursue us. And now--shall we -speak of something else?" - -"Poor Harry," said Ruth, looking at him with eyes of tender pity. "Speak -of something else? Oh yes, by all means," she assented briskly. -"Let's return to Astyanax. When do you think he will pay his visit of -digestion?" - - - - -$&PART THIRD - - -I - -|HE paid his visit of digestion as soon as, with any sort of -countenance, he could--he paid it the next afternoon; and when he had -gone, Pontycroft accused Ruth of having "flirted outrageously" with him. - -Ruth, her head high, repudiated the charge with a great show of -resentment. "Flirted? I was civil to him because he is a friend of -yours. If you call that flirting, I shall know how to treat him the next -time we meet." - -"Brava!" applauded Ponty, gently clapping his hands. Then he knotted -their bony fingers round his knees, leaned back lazily, and surveyed her -with laughing eyes. "Beauty angered, Innocence righteously indignant! -You draw yourself up to the full height of your commanding figure in -quite the classic style; your glances flash like fierce Belinda's, when -she flew upon the Baron; and I never saw anything so haughty as the -elevated perk of your pretty little nosebud. But= - -````How say you? O my dove----= - -let us not come to blows about a word. I don't know what recondite -meanings you may attach to 'flirting'; but when a young woman hangs upon -a man's accents, as if his lips were bright Apollo's lute strung with -his hair, and responds with her own most animated conversation, and -makes her very handsomest eyes at him, and falls one by one into all her -most becoming poses, and appears rapt into oblivion of the presence of -other people--flirting is what ordinary dictionary-fed English folk call -it." - -And he gave his head a jerk of satisfaction, as one whose theorem was -driven home. - -Ruth tittered--a titter that was an admission of the impeachment. "Well? -What would you have?" she asked, with a play of the eyebrows. "I take it -for granted that you haven't produced this young man without a purpose, -and I have never known you to produce any young man for any purpose -except one. So the more briskly I lead him on, the sooner will he come -to--to what, if I am not mistaken"--she tilted her chin at an angle of -inquiry--"dictionary-fed English folk call the scratch." - -Pontycroft gave his head a shake of disapproval. "No, no; Bertram is too -good a chap to be trifled with," he seriously protested. "You shouldn't -lead him on at all, if you mean in the end, according to what seems your -incorrigible habit, to put him off." Ruth's eyebrows arched themselves -in an expression of simplicity surprised. - -"Why should you suppose that I mean anything of the sort?" - -Pontycroft studied her with a frown. "You unconscionable little pickle! -Do you mean that you would accept him?" - -"I don't know," she answered slowly, reflecting. "He's a very personable -person. And he's a prince--which, of course, rather dazzles my -democratic fancy. And I suppose he's well enough off not to be after -a poor girl merely for her money. And--well--on the whole--don't you -see?--well--perhaps a poor girl might go further and fare worse." - -She pointed her stammering conclusion by a drop of the eyelids and a -tiny wriggle of the shoulders. - -"In fact, when you said you would die a bachelor, you never thought you -would live to be married," Pontycroft commented, making a face, slightly -wry, the intention of which wasn't clear. He felt about his pockets for -his cigarette case, lighted a cigarette, and smoked half an inch of it -in silence. "At any rate," he went on, "here's news for your friends. -And what--by the by--what about deathless Aphrodite? 'The only man you -ever really cared for'--what becomes of that poor devil?" - -A light kindled in Ruth's eyes; not an entirely friendly light; a light -that seemed to threaten. But all she said was, "How do you know that -that poor devil isn't Bertram Bertrandoni himself?" - -The gesture with which Pontycroft flicked the ash from his cigarette -proclaimed him a bird not to be caught with chaff. - -"Gammon," he said. "You'd never seen him." - -"Never seen him?" retorted Ruth, her face astonished and reproachful. -"You are forgetting Venice. Why shouldn't I have lost my young -affections to him that night at Venice? You haven't a notion how -romantic it all was, with the moonlight and everything, and Lucilla -quoting Byron, and then Astyanax, in a panama hat, dashing to our -assistance like a knight out of a legend. Isn't it almost a matter of -obligation for distressed females to fall in love with the knights who -dash to their assistance." - -"Hruff," growled Pontycroft, smoking, "why do you waste these pearls of -sophistry on me?" - -Ruth laughed. - -"All right," she unblushingly owned up. "The only man I've ever -seriously cared for isn't Bertrando Bertrandoni. But what then? Let us -look at it as men of the world. What has that poor devil got to do with -the question of my marriage? You yourself told me that he was the last -man alive I should think of leading to the altar. You said the persons -we care for in our calf-period are always the wrong persons. And what -some people say carries double weight, because"--that not entirely -friendly light flickered again in her eyes for a second--"because they -teach by example as well as precept." - -And of course the words weren't out of her mouth before she regretted -them. - -Pontycroft said nothing, made no sign. It may be that his sun-burned -skin flushed a little, that the lines of his forehead wavered. He -sat with his homely face turned towards Florence, and appeared to be -considering the effect of his cigarette-smoke on the view. - -Ruth waited, and the interval seemed long. She looked guilty, she looked -frightened, her eyes downcast, her lips parted, a conscious culprit, -bowing her head to receive the blow she had provoked. But no blow fell. -She waited as long as flesh and blood could stand the suspense. At last -she sprang up. - -"Oh," she cried wildly, "why don't you crush me? Why don't you tell -me I'm a beast? Why don't you tell me you despise me--loathe me--for -being--for being such a cad? Oh, Harry, I am so sorry." - -She stood before him with tight-clasped hands, her whole form rigid in -an anguish of contrition. To have taunted him with a thing for which she -should have greatly pitied him, a secret she had no right even to know, -a grief, a shame, to which in decency she should never remotely have -alluded--oh, it was worse than brutal, it was cattish, treacherous, it -was base. - -But he smiled up at her from calm eyes. - -"What's the row?" he asked. "What are you sorry about? You very neatly -scored a point, that's all. Besides, on the subject in question, a -fellow in the course of years will have said so many stinging things -to himself as to have rendered him reasonably tough. And now then"--he -gaily shifted his key--"since Bertram isn't the favoured swain, let us -hope he soon will be. It's every bit as easy to fall in love with -one man as with another, and often a good deal easier. Come--sit -down--concentrate your mind upon Bertram's advantages--and remember that -words break no bones." - -Ruth's attitude had relaxed, her face had changed, contrition fading -into what looked like disappointment, disillusion, and then like a kind -of passive bitterness. Pontycroft waved his hand towards her chair. -Automatically, absently, she obeyed him, and sat down. - -"I must beg pardon," she said, with rather a bitter little smile, "for -my exhibition of emotion. I had forgotten how Englishmen hate such -exhibitions. It is vulgar enough to _feel_ strong emotions--a sort of -thing that should be left to foreigners and the lower classes; but to -_show_ them is to take an out-and-out liberty with the person we show -them to, the worst possible bad form. Well, well! Words breaks no bones; -'hearts, though, sometimes,' the poet added: but there again, poets are -vulgar-minded, human creatures, born as a general rule at Camberwell, -and what can they know of the serene invulnerability of heart that -is the test of real good-breeding? Anyhow"--her face changed again, -lighting up--"what you say about its being often a good deal easier to -fall in love with one man than with another is lamentably true--that's -why we don't invariably love with reason. Your thought has elsewhere -found expression in song--how does it go?" Her eyes by this time were -shining with quite their wonted mirthful fires, yet deep down in them -I think one might still have discerned a shadow of despite, as she -sang:--= - -```Rien n'y fait, menace ou prière; - -````L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait; - -```Et c'est l'autre que je préfère,-- - -````Il n'a rien dit, mais il me plaît.= - -"Thank goodness," cried the cheerful voice of Lucilla. "Thank goodness -for a snatch of song." Plump and soft, her brown hair slightly loosened, -her fair skin flushed a little by the warmth of the afternoon, she came, -with that "languid grace" which has been noted, up the terrace steps, -her arms full of fresh-cut roses, so that she moved in the centre of a -nebula of perfume. "Only I wish no it had been a blackbird or a thrush. -I've spent half an hour wandering in the garden, and not a bird sang -once. The silence was quite dispiriting. A garden without birds is a -more ridiculous failure than a garden without flowers. I think I shall -give this villa up." She shed her roses into a chair, and let herself, -languidly, gracefully, sink into another. - -"Birds never do sing in the autumn--do they?" questioned Ruth. - -"That's no excuse," complained Lucilla. "Why don't they? Isn't it what -they're made for?" - -"Robins do," said Ponty, "they're singing their blessed little hearts -out at this very moment." - -"Where?" demanded Lucilla eagerly, starting up. "I'll go and hear them." - -"In England," answered her brother; "from every bush and hedgerow." - -"G-r-r-r-h!" Lucilla ejaculated, deep in her throat, turning upon him -a face that was meant to convey at once a sense of outrage and a thirst -for vengeance, and showing her pretty teeth. "Humbug is such a cheap -substitute for wit. Why don't other birds sing? Why don't blackbirds, -thrushes?" - -"Because," Pontycroft obligingly explained, "birds are chock-full of -feminine human nature. They're the artists of the air, and--you know the -proverb--every artist is at heart a woman. June when they woo, December -when they wed, they sing--just as women undulate their hair--to beguile -the fancy of the male upon whom they have designs. But once he's safely -married and made sure of, the feminine spirit of economy asserts itself, -and they sing no longer. _A quoi bon?_ They save their breath to cool -their pottage." - -"What perfect nonsense," said Lucilla, curling a scornful lip. "It's a -well-known fact that only the male birds sing." - -"Apropos of male and female," Ponty asked, "has it never occurred to you -that some one ought to invent a third sex?" - -"A third?" expostulated Ruth, wide-eyed. "Good heavens! Aren't there -already two too many?" - -"One is too many, if you like," Ponty distinguished, uncoiling his legs -and getting upon his feet, "but two are not enough. There should be a -third, for men to choose their sisters from. You women have always -been too good for us, and nowadays, with your higher education, you're -becoming far too clever. See how Lucilla caught me out on a point in -natural history." - -With which he retreated into the house. - - -II - -But a week or so later, Bertram having found an almost daily occasion -for coming to Villa Santa Cecilia, "It really does begin to look," Ponty -said, in a tone that sounded tentatively exultant, "as if at last we -were more or less by way of getting her off our hands. _Unberufen_," he -made haste to add, zealously tapping the arm of his wicker chair. - -"Oh----?" Lucilla doubted, her eyebrows going up. Then, on reflection, -"It certainly looks," she admitted, "as if Prince Bertrandoni were very -much taken with her. But so many men have been that, poor dears," she -remembered, sighing, "and you know with what fortune." - -"Ah, but in this case I'm thinking of _her_," Ponty eagerly -discriminated. "It's she who seems taken with Prince Bertrandoni. I half -believe she's actually in love with him--and, anyhow, I wouldn't mind -betting she'd accept him. _Unberufen_." - -Lucilla's soft face wondered. "In love with him?" she repeated. "Why -should you think that?" - -"Oh, reasons as plentiful as blackberries," Ponty answered. "The way in -which she brightens up at his arrival, absorbs herself in him while -he's here, wilts at his departure, and then, during his absence, mopes, -pines, muses, falls pensive at all sorts of inappropriate moments, as -one whose heart is hugging something secret and bitter-sweet. Of course, -I'm only a man, and inexperienced, but I should call these the symptoms -of a maid in love--and evidences that she loves her love with a B. -However, in love or not, it's plain she likes him immensely, and I'll -bet a sovereign she's made up her mind to marry him if he asks her." - -"Oh, he'll ask her fast enough," Lucilla with confidence predicted. -"It's only a question of her giving him a chance." - -Ponty shook his wrinkled brow. "I wish I were cocksure of that," he -said. "You see, after all, he's not as other men. On one side he's a -semi-royalty, and there are dynastic considerations; on t'other side -he's a Wohenhoffen, and, with every respect for the house of Adgate, -I'm doubting whether the Wohenhoffens would quite regard them as even -birthish. Of course, she has money, and money might go a long way -towards rose-colouring their visions. Still, their vision is a thing he'd -have to reckon with. No--I'm afraid he may continue to philander, and -let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' unless she gives him a good -deal more than a mere chance--unless she gives him positive -encouragement--unless, in fine, by showing the condition of her own -heart she sweeps the poor fellow off his feet. You question whether -she's in love with him. Dear child, why shouldn't she be? 'Tis Italy, -'tis springtime, and whither should a young girl's fancy turn? Besides, -she has red hair." - -"Springtime?" protested Lucilla. "I thought it was September." - -"So it is," agreed her brother, flourishing his cigarette. "But -September in Italy is proud-pied April under a pseudonym. The April -winds are passional for bachelors and dames. Besides, she has red hair." - -"Red hair?" protested Lucilla. "Her hair is brown." - -"So it is," agreed her brother, with a second flourish. "But the -larger includes the less. I did not say she was a red-haired woman. A -red-haired woman is red, a black-haired woman is black, and there's an -end on't; expect no mystery, no semi-tones, no ambiguities. I said she -had red hair, and so she has, since her hair is brown. A brown-haired -woman is everything, is infinite variety, is as elusively multi-coloured -as a dying dolphin. A brown-haired woman's hair is red, black, blue, -green, purple, amber, with their thousand intermediates, according -to mood and tense. Oh, give me a brown-haired woman, and surprises, -improbabilities, perplexities, will never be to seek. A brown-haired -woman has red hair, and red hair means a temperament and a temper. No, -I honestly think our little brown-haired friend, in just so far as her -hair is red, is feeling foolish about Bertram, and I look hopefully -forward (_unberufen_) to the day when her temper or her temperament -will get the better of her discretion, and let him see what's what. Then -(_unberufen_) his native chivalry will compel him to offer her his hand. -Thank goodness she has money." - -"It's very handsome of you," said Ruth, for the first time coming into -the conversation, though she had been present from its inception, "it's -very handsome indeed of you to take so much interest in my affairs--and -to discuss them so frankly before my face." - -"It _is_ handsome of us," agreed Pontycroft, chucking his cigarette -away, "and I am glad you appreciate it. For we might be discussing the -weather, a vastly more remunerative theme. Has it ever struck you -how inept the duffers are who taboo the weather as a subject of -conversation? There's nothing else in the physical universe so directly -vital to man's welfare as the weather, nothing on which his comfort so -immediately depends, and nothing (to take a higher ground) that speaks -such an eloquent and varied language to his sense of beauty. The music -of the wind, the colours of the sky, the palaces and pictures in the -clouds! Yet duffers taboo it as a subject of conversation. The weather -is the physiognomy of Heaven towards us, its smile or frown. What else -should we discuss? Hello, here he comes." - -Bertram came up the garden path and mounted the terrace. - -"My mother," he announced, "is arriving this evening from Vienna. I -was wondering whether you would lunch with us to-morrow, to make her -acquaintance." - -"Oho," whispered Ponty in Ruth's ear, "this really does look like -business. Madame Mère is coming to look you over." - - -III - -I don't know how it is that certain people, without doing or saying -anything that can be taken hold of, yet manage to convey to us a very -definite and constant sense that they think themselves our betters. Oh, -of course, there are people who ostentatiously carry their heads in the -air, who openly swagger, patronise, condescend, but those are not the -people I mean. I mean the people who are outwardly all pleasantness and -respectful courtesy, and inwardly very likely all goodwill, and yet--and -yet--we are somehow never allowed for an instant to forget that never -do they for an instant become unconscious of their divinely appointed -superiority. - -"La Duchesse d'Oltramare, née Comtesse de Wohenhofïen," to copy the -legend from her visiting-card, was rather a fat, distinctly an amiable -woman of fifty-something, very smartly turned out in the matter of -costume by those who are surely the cleverest milliners and dressmakers -in the world, the Viennese. She had a milk-white skin, with a little -pink in the scarcely wrinkled cheeks, and plump, smooth, milk-white -hands, with polished, rosy nails. For the rest, her smiling mouth, the -gleam of her grey eyes, and something crisp in the quality of her voice, -seemed to connote wit and a sense of humour. Her son had described -her to himself as the best-natured and the most sociable being alive; -certainly on the morrow, at luncheon, she was all pleasantness, all -cordiality even, to her son's guests; yet never, for an instant, could -one of them forget that she was perpetually conscious of herself as a -great personage, and of them as relatively very small folk indeed. I -wish I could tell, I wish I could understand, how the thing was done. -Of patronage or condescension--of the sort, at any rate, that could be -formulated and resented--there wasn't any trace either in her talk or -in her manner; nor of stiffness, pomposity, selfimportance. All -pleasantness, all cordiality, she seemed to take them at once into -her friendship, almost into her affection--she seemed to conceive (as -Bertram had promised himself she would) a particular liking for each -of them. And her talk was easy, merry, vivacious, intimate. -Yet--yet--yet---- - -"I'd give a thousand pounds," said Ponty-croft, as they drove home, -"for that woman's secret. She knows how to appear the joiliest old soul -unhung--and to make other people feel like her fiddlers three." - -"She's insufferable," said Lucilla irritably. "I should think a -Pontycroft and the wife of an English baronet is as good as six foreign -duchesses. I should like to put her in her place." - -"A Pontycroft, as much as you will," concurred her brother suavely, "but -you're only the wife of an Irish baronet, dear girl. No, it's something -subtle, unseizable. Every word, look, gesture, hailed you as her friend -and equal, and all of them together delicately kept you reminded that -she was deigning hugely to honour a nobody. It's sheer odylic force." - -"She ate like five," Lucilla went spitefully on. "She was helped twice -to everything. And she emptied at least a whole bottle of wine." - -"Ah, well, as for that," Ponty said, "a healthy appetite is a sign that -its owner is human at the red-ripe of the heart. You didn't, by the by, -do so badly yourself." - -"And she consumed her food with an _air_," Lucilla persisted, "with a -kind of devotional absorption, as if feeding herself was a religious -sacrifice." - -"And I suppose you noticed also that she called Ruth 'my dear'?" Ponty -asked. - -"Yes, as if she was a dairymaid," sniffed Lucilla. "I wonder you didn't -turn and rend her." - -"Oh, I liked her," Ruth replied. "You see, we mere Americans are so -inured to being treated with affability and put at our ease by our -English cousins that we scarcely notice such things in foreigners." - -"Well, it's lucky you like her," said Ponty, wagging his head, "for -you're in a fair way to see a good bit of her, if events move as they're -moving. The crucial question, of course, is whether _she_ liked _you_. -If she did, I should call the deal as good as done." - -The "deal" seemed, at any rate, to advance a measurable step when, -on the following afternoon, the Duchess called at the villa, for the -purpose, as Pontycroft afterwards put it to Ruth, of "taking up your -character." - -"Dearest Lady Dor," she said, beaming upon every one, and I wish I could -render the almost cooing loving-kindness of her intonation, "you will -forgive me if I come like this _à l'improviste?_ Yes? I was so anxious -to see you again, and when people are mutually sympathetic, it is a pity -to let time or etiquette delay the progress of their friendship, don't -you think? Oh, kind Mr. Pontycroft," she purred, as Ponty handed her -a cup of tea. "Dear little Miss Adgate," as Ruth passed the bread and -butter. - -They drank their tea in the great hall, and afterwards, linking her -arm familiarly in Lucilla's, "Dearest Lady Dor," she pronounced, in -the accents of one pleading for a grace, "I am so anxious to see your -beautiful garden! You will show it to me? Yes? My son has told me so -much about it." - -And when she and Lucilla, under their sunshades, were alone in the -garden-paths, "The outlook is magnificent," she vowed, with enthusiasm. -"You have Florence at your feet. Superb. Oh, the lovely roses! I might -pick one--a little one? Yes? Ah, so kind. I wanted to ask about your -charming little friend, that nice Miss Adgate." - -"Oh?" said Lucilla, in a tone of some remoteness. - -But the Duchess did not appear to notice it. "Yes," she blithely -pursued. "You don't mind? My son has told me so much about her. She is -an American, I think?" - -"Yes," said Lucilla. - -The Duchess's eyes glowed with admiration. - -"Your ilex trees are wonderful--I have never seen grander ones. I am -really envious. She has nice manners, and is distinguished-looking as -well as pretty. I believe she is also--how do you say in English--_très -bien dotée?_" - -"She has about thirty thousand a year, I believe," said Lucilla. - -The Duchess stood still and all but gasped. "Thirty thousand pounds? -Pounds sterling?" Then she resumed her walk. "But that is princely. That -is nearly a million francs." - -"It is a decent income," Lucilla admitted. - -"And she is also, of course, what you call--well born?" the Duchess -threw out, as if the question were superfluous and its answer foregone. - -"She is what we call a gentlewoman," answered Lucilla. - -"To be sure--of course," said the Duchess, "but--but without a title?" - -"In England titles are not necessary to gentility--as I believe they are -in Austria," Lucilla mentioned. - -"To be sure--of course," said the Duchess. "Her parents, I think, are -not living?" - -"No--they are dead," Lucilla redundantly responded. - -"Ah, so sad," murmured the Duchess, with a sympathetic movement of her -bonnet. "But then she is quite absolute mistress of her fortune? What a -responsibility for one so young. And to crown all, she is a good pious -Catholic?" - -"She is a Catholic," said Lucilla. - -"The house, from here, is really imposing--really _signorile_," the -Duchess declared, considering it through her silver-framed double -eyeglass. "There are no houses like these old Florentine villas. Ah, -they were a lovely race. You see, my son is very much interested in her. -I have never known him to show so much interest in a girl before. It is -natural I should wish to inform myself, is it not? If you will allow me, -dear Lady Dor, to make you a confidence, I should be so glad to see him -married." - -"Yes," said Lucilla. "I suppose," she hesitated, "I suppose it is quite -possible for him, in spite of his belonging to a reigning house, to -marry a commoner?" - -The Duchess looked vague. "A reigning house?" she repeated, politely -uncomprehending. - -"The Bertrandoni-Altronde," Lucilla disjointedly explained. - -"Oh," said the Duchess, with a little toss of the head. "The Bertrandoni -do not count. They have not reigned for three generations, and they will -never reign again. They have no more chance of reigning than they -have of growing wings. The Altrondesi would not have them if they came -bringing paradise in their hands. My husband's pretensions are absurd, -puerile. He keeps them up merely that he may a little flatter himself -that he is not too flagrantly the inferior of his wife. No, the -Bertrandoni do not count. It is the Wohenhoffens who count. The -Wohenhoffens were great lords and feudal chiefs in Styria centuries -before the first Bertrandoni won his coat of arms. It was already a vast -waiving of rank, it was just not a mésalliance, when a Wohenhoffen gave -his daughter to a Bertran-doni in marriage. If my son were a Wohenhoffen -in the male line, then indeed he could not possibly marry a commoner. -But he is, after all, only a Bertrandoni. Even so, he could not marry -a commoner of any of the Continental states--he could not marry outside -the Almanach de Gotha. But in England, as you say, it is different. -There all are commoners except the House of Peers, and a title is -not necessary to good _noblesse_. In any case, it would be for the -Wohenhoffens, not for the Bertrandoni, to raise objections." - -"I see," said Lucilla. - -The Duchess, by a gesture, proposed a return to the house. - -"Thank you so much," she said, "for receiving me so kindly, and for -answering all my tiresome questions. You have set my mind quite at ease. -Your garden is perfect--even more beautiful than my son had led me to -expect. And the view of Florence! You have children of your own? Ah, -daughters. No, boys? Ah, but you are young. The proper thing for him to -do, of course, as she is without parents, would be to address himself to -your good brother?" - -"As it is not my brother whom he wishes to marry," said Lucilla, "I -should think the proper thing might be for him to address the young lady -herself." - -The Duchess laughed. "Ah, you English are so unconventional," she said. - -But after the Duchess had left them, and Lucilla had reported her -cross-examination, "You see," said Ponty, with an odd effect of -discontent in the circumstance, "it is as I told you--the deal is -practically done. Now that mamma has taken up your character, and -found it satisfactory, it only remains for--for Mr. Speaker to put the -question. Well," his voice sounded curiously joyless, "I wish you joy." - -"Thank you," said Ruth, who did not look especially joyful. - -There was a silence for a few minutes; then Ponty got up and strolled -off into the garden; whither, in a few minutes more, Lucilla followed -him. - -"What's the matter, Harry?" she asked. "You seem a bit hipped." - -He gave her a rather forced smile. "I feel silly and grown old," he -said. "Suppose it's all a ghastly mistake?" - -"A mistake----?" Lucilla faltered. - -"Oh," he broke out, with a kind of gloomy petulance, "it was all very -well so long as it hung fire. One joked about it, chaffed her about it. -Deep down in one's inside one didn't believe it would ever really come -to anything. But now? Marriage, you see, when you examine the bare -bones of it, is a damnably serious business. After all, it involves -sanctities. Suppose she doesn't care for him?" - -Lucilla looked bewildered. "Dear me," she said. "The other day you -assured me that she did." - -"Perhaps she does--but suppose she doesn't? I was talking in the air. -Down deep one didn't believe. But this official visit from Mamma! We're -suddenly at grip with an actuality. If she doesn't care for him--by -Jove," he nodded portentously, "you and I will have something to answer -for. It's a threadbare observation, but all at once it glitters with -pristine truth, that a woman who marries a man without loving him sells -her soul to the devil." - -"If she doesn't love him, she won't accept him. Why should she?" said -Lucilla. - -"And the worst of selling your soul to the devil," Pontycroft went -morosely on, "is that the sly old beggar gives you nothing for it. -Legends like Faust, where he gives beauty, youth, wealth, unlimited -command of the pleasures of the world and the flesh, are based upon -entire misinformation as to his real way of doing business. Look here; -the devil has been acquiring souls continuously for the past five -thousand years. Practice has made him a perfect dab at the process--and -he was born a perfect Jew. You may be sure he doesn't go about paying -the first price asked--not he. He bides his time. He waits till he -catches you in a scrape, or desperately hard up, or drunk, or out of -your proper cool wits with anger, pride, lust, whichever of the seven -deadly impulses you will, and then he grinds you like a money-lender, or -chouses you like a sharper at a fair. Silver or gold gives he none, -at most a handful of gilded farthings. And I know one man to whom he -gave--well, guess. Nothing better than a headache the next morning. Oh, -trust the devil. He knows his trade." - -"Goodness gracious!" said Lucilla, and eyed her brother with perplexity. -The wrinkles of his brow were black and deep. "You are in a state of -mind. What has happened to you? Don't be a bird of evil omen. There's -no question here of souls or devils--it's just a question of a very -suitable match between young people who are fond of each other. Come! -Don't be a croaker. I never knew you to croak like this before." - -"Hang it all," answered Ponty, "I never had occasion. She's refused -every one. Why does she suddenly make up her mind to accept this one? -Well, I only hope it isn't because she thinks at last she has got her -money's worth of titular dignity. Her Serene Highness the Princess!" - -"Goodness gracious!" said Lucilla. "I don't understand you. Would you -wish her to go on refusing people until she died an old maid?" - -"I'll tell you one thing, anyhow--but under the rose," said Ponty. - -"Yes?" said Lucilla, with curiosity. - -"I'll bet you nine and elevenpence three-farthings that I can beat you -at a game of tennis." - -"Oh," said Lucilla, dashed. But after a moment, cheerfully, "Done," she -assented. "I don't want to win your money--but anything to restore you -to your normal self." They set off for the tennis court. - - -IV - -And then, all at once, out of the blue came that revolution which, for -nine days more or less, made obscure little Altronde the centre of the -world's attention. - -It happened, as will be remembered, when the Grand Duke was at luncheon, -entertaining the officers of his guard; and it must have been a highly -amusing scene. Towards the end of the refection, Colonel Benedetti, -contrary to all usage and etiquette, rose and said, "Gentlemen, I give -you the Grand Duke." Whereupon twenty gallant uniforms sprang to their -feet crying, "The Grand Duke! the Grand Duke!" with hands extended -towards that monarch. Only each hand held, instead of a charged bumper -of champagne, a charged revolver. - -Massimiliano, according to his genial daily custom, was already -comfortably intoxicated, but at this he fell abruptly sober. White, with -chattering teeth, "What do you mean? What do you want?" he asked. - -Colonel Benedetti succinctly explained, while the twenty revolvers -continued to cover his listener. "Speaking for the army and people of -Altronde, I beg to inform Your Highness that we are tired of you--tired -of your rule and tired of your extravagant and disgusting habits. I hold -in my hand an Act of Abdication, which Your Highness will be good enough -to sign." He thrust an elaborately engrossed parchment under the Duke's -nose, and offered him a fountain pen. - -"This is treason," said Massimiliano. "It is also," was his happy -anti-climax, "a gross abuse of hospitality." - -"Sign--sign!" sang one-and-twenty martial voices. - -"But I should read the document first. Do I abdicate in favour of my -son?" - -"Your Highness has no legitimate son," Benedetti politely reminded him, -"and Altronde has no throne for a bastard. You abdicate in favour of -Civillo Bertrandoni, Duke of Oltramare, already our sovereign in the -rightful line." - -Massimiliano plucked up a little spirit. "Bertrandoni--the hereditary -enemy of my house? That I will never do. You may shoot me if you will." - -"It is not so much a question of shooting," said the urbane Colonel. -"We cover Your Highness with our firearms merely to ensure his august -attention. It is a question of perpetual imprisonment in a fortress--and -deprivation of alcoholic stimulants." Massimiliano's jaw dropped. - -"Whereas," the Colonel added, "in the event of peaceful abdication, -Your Highness receives a pension of one hundred thousand francs, and can -reside anywhere he likes outside the Italian peninsula--in Paris, for -example, where alcohol in many agreeable forms is plentiful and cheap." - -"Sign--sign!" sang twenty voices, with a lilt of gathering impatience. - -Of course poor Massimiliano signed, Civillo forthwith was proclaimed -from the palace steps, and at five o'clock that afternoon, amid -much popular rejoicing, he entered his capital. He had happened, -providentially, to be sojourning incognito in the nearest frontier town. - - -V - -When next morning the news reached Villa Santa Cecilia, by the medium of -a dispatch in the _Fieramosca_, we may believe it caused excitement. - -"But it can't be true," said Lucilla. "Only two days ago the Duchess -assured me--in all good faith, I'm certain--that her husband had no more -chance of regaining his throne than he had of growing wings, and Bertram -himself has always scoffed at the idea." - -"Yes," said Ponty. "But perhaps Bertram and his mother were not entirely -in the Pretender's confidence. This story, for a fake, is surprisingly -apropos of nothing, and surprisingly circumstantial. No, I'm afraid it's -true." - -He reread the dispatch, frowning, seeking discrepancies. - -"Oh, it's manifestly true," was his conclusion. "I suppose I ought to -go down to the Lung 'Arno, and offer Bertram our congratulations. And -as for you"--he bowed to Ruth,--"pray accept the expression of our -respectful homage. Here, instead of an empty title, is the reversion of -a real grand-ducal crown. And you a mere little American! What trifling -results from mighty causes flow. A People rise in Revolution--that -a mere little American girl may adorn her brown-red hair with a -grand-ducal crown." - -"The People don't appear to have had any voice in the matter," said -Lucilla, poring over the paper. "It was just a handful of officers. It -was what they call a Palace Revolution." - -"It was what the judicious call a Comic Opera Revolution," said Ponty. -"It was a Palace version of Box and Cox." - -He went down to the Lung 'Arno, and found Bertram, pale, agitated, in -the midst of packing. - -"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't talk of congratulations," the troubled -young man cried, walking up and down the floor, and all but wringing -his hands, while his servant went methodically on folding trousers and -waistcoats. "This may be altogether the worst thing that could possibly -have happened, so far as I'm concerned." - -"I see you're packing," Pontycroft remarked. - -"Yes--we've had a telegram from my father ordering us to join him at -once. We leave at twelve o'clock by a special train. My dear chap, I'm -sick. I'm in a cold perspiration. Feel my hands." His hands were indeed -cold and wet. He pressed one of them to his side. "And there's something -here that weighs like a ton of ice. I can hardly breathe." - -"The remedy indicated," said Ponty, "is a brandy-and-soda." - -Bertram's gesture pushed the remedy from him. - -"A single spoonful would make me drunk," he said. "I'm as nearly as -possible off my head already. I feel as if I were going out to be -hanged. If it weren't for my mother--some one's got to go with her--upon -my word, I'd funk it, and take the consequences." - -"_Allons donc_," Ponty remonstrated. "A certain emotion is what you must -expect--it's part of the game. But think of your luck. Think of your -grandeurs. Think of the experience, the adventure, that's before you. To -be a real, actual, practising Royalty, a Royal Heir Apparent. Think of -the new angle of view from which you'll be able to look at life." - -"Luck? Don't speak of it," Bertram groaned. "If I had known, if I had -dreamed. But we were kept in the dark absolutely. Oh, it was outrageous -of the old man. We had a right at least to be warned, hadn't we? Since -it involves our entire destinies? Since every one of our hopes, plans, -intentions, great or small, is affected by it? We had a right to be -warned, if not to be consulted. But never a word--until this -morning--first the newspaper--and then his wire. Think of my mother -being left to learn the thing from a newspaper. And then his wire: 'Come -at once to Altronde.' I feel like a conscript. I feel like a man -suddenly summoned from freedom to slavery." - -"You'll find your chains bearable--you'll find them interesting," -Ponty said. "You leave at noon by a special train. Is there any way, -meanwhile, in which I can be useful to you?" - -"Yes--no--no. Unless you can devise some way to get me out of the mess. -The special train is for my mother. In her own fashion she's as much -upset as I am. She could not travel _coram publico_, poor lady." - -"No, of course not. I hope you will make her my compliments," said -Ponty, rising. - -"Thank you. And you will say good-bye to Lady Dor for us and--and to -Miss Adgate," Bertram responded. But there was a catch in his voice, and -he grew perceptibly paler. "I--I," he stumbled, hesitated, "I will write -to you as soon as I know where I am." - -Ponty went home thoughtful; thoughtful, but conscious of an elusive -inward satisfaction. This rather puzzled him. "It's the sort of thing -one feels when one has succeeded in evading an unpleasant duty--a -sentiment of snugness, safety, safety and relief. But what unpleasant -duty have I succeeded in evading?" he asked himself. Yet there it -was--the comfortable sense of a duty shirked. - -"I'm in doubt whether to hail you as the Queen Elect of Yvetot, or to -offer you my condolences upon the queering of your pitch," he said to -Ruth. "He loved and rode away. He certainly loved, and he's as certainly -riding away--at twelve o'clock to-day, by a special train. I supposed -he would charge me with a message for you--but no--none except a -commonplace good-bye. No promise, nothing compromising, nothing that -could be used as evidence against him. However, he said he'd write--as -soon as he knew whether he was standing on his head or on his heels. -One thing, though, you might do--there's still time. You might go to the -railway station and cover his flight with mute reproaches. Perhaps the -sight of your distraught young face would touch his conscience. You -might get the necessary word from him before the train started." - -"Be quiet, Harry," said Lucilla. "You shan't chaff her any longer. -Prince Bertrandoni is a man of honour--and he's as good as pledged to -her already. This is a merely momentary interruption. As soon as he's -adjusted his affairs to the new conditions, he'll come back." - -"Ay, we know these comings back," answered Ponty, ominously. "But a wise -fisherman lands his fish while it's on the hook, and doesn't give it -a chance of swimming away and coming back. I see a pale face at the -window, watching, waiting; and I hear a sad voice murmuring, 'He cometh -not.'" - -"You're intolerable," Lucilla cried out, with an impatient gesture. -"Ruth, don't pay him the least attention." - -"Oh, don't mind me," said Ruth. "I'm vastly amused. Faithful are the -wounds of a friend." - -"There's just one element of hope," Ponty ended, "and that is that -even to demi-semi Royalty a matter of thirty thousand a year must be a -consideration." - -A column from Altronde in the _Fieramosca_ of the morrow gave a glowing -description of Bertram's and his mother's arrival, which Pontycroft -translated at the breakfast table: how the Grand Duke, in the uniform -of a general, met and tenderly embraced them as they stepped from -the train, and drove with them in a "lando di gala" through streets -brilliant with flags and thronged by cheering subjects, to the Palace, -escorted by the selfsame regiment of guards whose officers the other day -had so summarily cooked the goose of Massimiliano. "That is pretty and -touching," was Ponty's comment, "but listen to this--this is rich. The -Grand Duke introduced them to his people, in a proclamation, as 'my most -dear and ever dutiful son, and my beloved consort, the companion and -consoler of my long exile!' What so false as truth is? Well, there's -nothing either true or false but thinking makes it so. And the mayor and -corporation, in a loyal address, welcomed Bertram as the 'heir to the -virtues as well as to the throne of his august progenitor.' His august -progenitor's virtues were jewels which, during his career in Paris, at -any rate, he modestly concealed. However! Oh, but here--here's something -that really _is_ interesting. 'The festivities of the evening were -terminated by a banquet, at which the Grand Duke graciously made a -speech.' Listen to one of the things he said: 'It has been represented -to me as the earnest aspiration of my people that my solemn coronation -should be celebrated at the earliest possible date. But unhappily, the -crown of my fathers has been sullied by contact with the brows of a -usurping dynasty. That crown I will never wear. A new, a virgin crown -must be placed upon the head of your restored legitimate sovereign. And -I herewith commission my dear son, whom Heaven has endowed, among many -noble gifts, with the eye and the hand of an artist, to design a crown -which shall be worthy of his sire, himself, and his posterity.' Well, -that will keep Bertram out of mischief. I see him from here--see -and hear him--bending over his drawing-board, with busy pencil, and -whistling 'The girl I left behind me.'" - -And then a servant entered bearing a telegram. - -"What will you give me," Ponty asked, when he had opened and glanced at -it, "if I'll read this out?" - -"Whom's it from?" asked Lucilla. - -"The last person on earth that you'd expect," he answered. "Come, what -will you give?" - -"I believe it's from Prince Bertrandoni himself," cried Lucilla, agog. -"If it is, we'll give you fits if you _don't_ read it out--and at once." -She showed him her clenched fist. - -"Very good. Under that threat, I'll read it," remarked Ponty, and he -read: "Arrived safely, but homesick for dear Villa Santa Cecilia. My -mother joins her thanks to mine for your constant kindness. Will write -as soon as an hour of tranquillity permits. Please give my affectionate -greetings to Lady Dor and Miss Adgate, and beg them not to forget their -and your devoted Bertram." - -"There!" crowed Lucilla. "What did I tell you?" - -Ponty looked up blankly. "What did you tell me?" - -"That he would come back--that this was only a momentary interruption." - -"Does he say anything about coming back?" Ponty asked, scrutinizing the -straw-coloured paper. "That must have missed my eye." - -"Boo," said Lucilla. "What does he mean by the hope of an early -reunion?" - -"A slip of the pen for blessed resurrection, I expect," said Ponty. - -"Boo," said Lucilla. "It's the message of a man obviously, desperately, -in love--yearning to communicate with his loved one--but to save -appearances, or from lover-like timidity perhaps, addressing his -communication to a third person. That telegram is meant exclusively -for Ruth, and _you're_ merely used as a gooseberry. Oh, Ruth, I _do_ -congratulate you." Ruth vaguely laughed. - - - - -&PART FOURTH - - -I - -|FOR quite a week--wasn't it?--obscure little Altronde held the centre -of the stage. The newspapers of France and England, as well as those of -Italy, had daily paragraphs. Belated details, coming in like stragglers -after a battle, gave vividness to the story. Massimiliano, at Paris, -plaintively indignant, overflowed in interviews. In interviews also, in -speeches, in proclamations, Civillo adumbrated, magniloquently, vaguely, -his future policy. There were "Character Sketches," reminiscent, -anecdotal, of Civillo, "By a lifelong Friend," of Massimiliano, "By a -Former Member of his Household," etc. etc. There were even character -sketches of poor Bertram, "By an Old Harrovian," "By One who knew him at -Cambridge," which I hope he enjoyed reading. In the illustrated papers, -of course, there were portraits. And in some of the weightier -periodicals the past history of Altronde was recalled, a bleak, -monotonous history, little more than a catalogue of murders.... - -With dagger thrusts and cups of poison, for something like three long -sad hundred years, the rival houses of Bertrandoni and Ceresini had -played the game of give and take. Finally, there were leading articles -condemning the revolution as an act of brigandage, hailing it as a -forward step towards liberty and light. And then, at the week's end, the -theme was dropped. - -We may believe that the newspapers were read with interest at Villa -Santa Cecilia, and that to the mistress of that household, on the -subject of Altronde, they never seemed to contain enough. - -"It's almost as if we'd had a hand in the affair," she reflected; "but -these scrappy newspaper accounts leave us with no more knowledge than as -if we were complete outsiders. Why don't they give more particulars? Why -aren't they more _intime?_" - -"I'll tell you what," said Ponty, "let's go there. It's only half a -day's journey. There we can study the question on the spot." - -"Yes, and look as if we were running after him. No, thank you," sniffed -Lucilla. - -"I dare say we should look a little like accusing spirits, if he saw -us," Ponty admitted. - -"But let's go in disguise. We can shave our heads, stain our skins, -wear elastic-sided boots and pass ourselves off as an Albanian currant -merchant and his family travelling to improve our minds in foreign -politics." - -"I see Ruth and myself," Lucilla yawned, "swathed in embroideries and -wearing elasticsided boots, and presently we should be arrested as -spies, and when our innocent curiosity had been well aired by the press, -we should look to Bertram Bertrandoni more like accusing spirits than -ever." - -"You women," growled Pontycroft, extracting a cigarette from his -cigarette case, "are so relentlessly cautious! You have no faith in the -unexpected! That's why you'll never know the supreme content of throwing -your bonnets over the mills, regardless of consequences." - -"The Consequences!" Lucilla retorted, "they're too obvious. We should be -left bareheaded, _et voilà tout!_" - -"Ah, well--there you are," replied Ponty, and touched a match to his -cigarette. - -Yes, we may believe that the newspapers were read with interest at the -Villa Santa Cecilia and that they gave the man there occasion for what -his sister called "a prodigious deal of jawing." - -"Well, my poor Ariadne," he commiserated, "ginger is still hot in the -mouth, and Naxos is still a comfortable place of sojourn. Our star has -been snatched from us and borne aloft to its high orbit in the heavens; -we from our lowly coigne of earth can watch and unselfishly rejoice at -its high destiny. Of course, the one thing to regret is that you didn't -nail him when you had him. Nail the wild star to its track in the half -climbed Zodiac," he advised, sententious. - -And in spirit ripe for mischief, Ponty bethought him of a long-forgotten -poem, and he went all the way down to Vieusseux to procure a volume of -the works of Wordsworth. Henceforth, dreamily, from time to time, he -would fall to repeating favourite lines. For nearly a day Ruth bore, -with equanimity tempered by repartee, a volley of verse:= - -```"He was a lovely youth, I guess"= - -said Ponty,= - -```"The panther in the wilderness - -```Was not so fair as he."= - -"I cannot dispute it. He was good-looking," Ruth suavely returned. - -"But,"--this he let fall from the terrace an hour later, to Ruth engaged -below in snipping dead leaves from Lucilla's clambering rose bushes,--= - -```"But, when his father called, the youth - -```Deserted his poor bride, and Ruth - -```Could never find him more."= - -"Fathers make, like mothers, I imagine, a poor substitute for brides," -said Ruth. She glanced at him with amusement. "Never, my nurse used to -tell me, is a good while. Did that foolish youth find his bride?" she -added, absorbed apparently in her occupation, "when he came back to -claim her? As he did at last, you may rest assured." - -Pontycroft made no reply to this question, but he placed his book on the -table and prepared to descend the steps:= - -```"God help thee, Ruth,"= - -he exclaimed.= - -```"Such pains she had - -```That she in half a year went mad."= - -"I'm sure she would have gone mad in twenty-four hours if you had been -by to persecute the poor thing," answered Ruth. She beat a hasty retreat -towards the Pergola, whither, she knew, Ponty's laziness would check -pursuit of her. - -"When Ruth was left half desolate," Ponty, casually, after luncheon, -observed--= - -```"Her lover took another state. - -```And Ruth not thirty years old."= - -"Ruth, it seems to me, was old enough to have known better," retorted -his victim with asperity. "You haven't scanned that last line properly -either. 'And Ruth not thirty years old' gives the correct lilt." Ruth -sat down to write her letters. She turned her back with deliberation -upon her tormentor, who answered: "Oh, yes, thanks," and went off -murmuring and tattooing on his fingers,--= - -```"And Ruth not thirty years old...."= - - -II - -Towards five o'clock of that day, Lucilla and Ruth, spurred and -booted--hatted and gloved from their afternoon's drive, appeared for tea -upon the terrace. Ponty without loss of time opened fire:= - -```"A slighted child, at her own will, - -```Went wandering over dale and hill - -```In thoughtless freedom bold."= - -"Only that I can't wander, in thoughtless freedom bold, over dale and -hill in this fair false land of Italy," cried Ruth, exasperated, "I -should start at once for a fortnight's walking tour. I feel an excessive -desire to remove myself from a deluge of poetic allusions which -threatens to get on my nerves. Moreover," she added severely, "I quite -fail to see their application." - -She sat down, drew her gloves off with a little militant air, and -prepared to pour the tea which the servant had placed upon a table -at her elbow. In the fine October weather the terrace, provided with -abundance of tables, chairs and rugs, made, with its superb view over -Florence, the pleasantest of _al fresco_ extensions to the drawing-room. - -"There, there, there, Ruthie!" soothed Pontycroft, "don't resent a -little natural avuncular chaff. _I must play the fool or play the -devil_. You wouldn't wish to suppress my devouring curiosity, would you? -Here's a situation brimful of captivating possibilities. You wouldn't -have me sit in unremunerative silence, in sterile torpor before this -case of a little American girl, who, on any day of the week, may be -called to assume the exalted rôle of Crown Princess of Altronde?" - -"Yes," frowned Ruth, "I should very much like to suppress your -devouring curiosity; I should like extremely to reduce you to a state -of unremunerative silence, torpor, on that verily sterile topic. And, -moreover, so far as I can see, the Royal Incident may now be billeted -closed, for weal or for woe." - -"One can never be quite sure about these Royal Incidents," her tormentor -persisted, "that's the lark about 'em--they're never closed. For sheer -pig-headed obstinacy give me a Crown Prince. Our friend Bertram is -capable of letting his Queen Mamma in for a deal of trouble in view of -present circumstances, if she should, as she's likely to do--want now to -marry him off to some Semi-Royalty or German Grand Duchess or another." - -"_Si puo_," riposted Ruth with hauteur, "I withdraw myself in advance -from the competition. And I should like, please, to be spared any more -allusions to the subject." - -But here Lucilla, who had been sipping her tea and worshipping the view, -interrupted them: - -"Do _please_ cease from wrangling," she implored. "Hold your breaths -both of you--and behold!" - -A haze all golden,--an impalpable dust of gold,--filled the entire -watch-tower of the Heavens. Florence, twice glorified, lay bathed in -yellow light that filtered benignantly upon roofs and gardens, played, -glanced, upon Duomo, Campanile, and Baptistry. The Arno had become a way -of gold. Webs of yellow gauze, spun across the streets and reflected by -a thousand windows, made, among the many gardens, a burnished background -for the twigs and branches of dark aspiring cypresses, glossy leaved -ilexes. - -Ruth and Pontycroft held their breaths, and, for a moment, there was a -silence. - -"I wonder," Lucilla said at length,--she gave a little soft sigh -of satisfaction,--"I wonder what Prince Bertrandoni has done with -Balzatore.... Taken him, do you suppose, to reign over the dogs of -Altronde? I miss that dog sadly." - -"Balzatore?--Oh," said Ponty, "Balzatore is throning it at the Palazzo -Reale.... He has a special attendant who waits on him, sees to his -bodily comforts; prepares his food, takes him for his walks,--for of -course Bertram is far too involved in Court functions, too tied by -etiquette and the fear of Anarchists to go for long solitary rambles; -and Balzatore bullies the servants, one and all, you may be sure. Dogs, -even the best of 'em, are shocking snobs. In a measure Balzatore is -enjoying himself. It hardly requires a pen'orth of imagination to be -positive of it. And," Pontycroft continued, "I hear that the Palazzo -Bertrandoni has been leased for a number of years to an American -painter. By the way, it seems that Bertram's bookcases, which, -saving your presences, I grieve to state, were filled with very light -literature--the writings of decadent poets, people who begin with a -cynicism"--Pontycroft paused, hesitated for the just word. - -"A cynicism with which nobody ends!" Ruth interjected. - -"Invaluable young thing! Thanks awfully. Who begin, as you say, with a -cynicism with which nobody ends, as you quite aptly infer. Filled, too, -I regret to state, with rare editions, a trifle, well--perhaps a bit -eighteenth century--and with yellow paper-covered French novels. These -bookcases are expiating a life of frivolity within the four walls of -a Convent. They were offered by Bertram's mother to some Sisters of -Charity whose temporal welfare she looks after. The good nuns were glad -to have the shelves for their poor schools and have packed them with -edifying books.... So it happens that to-day they ornament both sides -of the Convent-Parloir, and thus it is that Bertram's bookshelves are -atoning for the gay, wild, extravagant, old days within convent walls." - -Lucilla tittered. "Shall our end be as exemplary?" Ruth asked, pensive, -"or will it fade away into chill and nothingness--like the glory of -this," she smiled at Pontycroft, "April afternoon? B-r-r-r-----" She -gave a little shiver. - -Pontycroft pulled himself to his feet. - -"Tut, tut!" said he. He proffered two white garments which lay over the -back of a chair to Ruth and to his sister. "What are these melancholy -sentiments? Aren't you contented? Aren't you satisfied, aren't you -pleased here?" he asked, and he eyed Ruth inquisitorially. - -"Oh yes,--oh yes, I am," Ruth quickly assured him. "But I do get, now -and then, tiresome conscientious scruples. In these halcyon hours I -wonder if it isn't my duty to go and have a look at my dear old uncle, -all alone there, in America." - -"Ruth--my dear Ruth!" cried Lucilla. - -"Why doesn't your 'dear old uncle' come and have a look at you? I think -it's _his_ duty to do so; I've thought so for many a day." - -"Oh, he's bound to his fireside, I suppose," Ruth answered, a touch of -melancholy in her voice. "He's wedded to his chimney corner, his books. -At seventy-two it's a bore, perhaps, to go wandering into foreign -parts." - -"Foreign parts!" Lucilla cried with some scorn. "Are we Ogres? -Barbarians? Do we live in the Wilds of America?" - -"My dear infant, beware," cautioned Ponty-. croft, "beware of the -rudiments in your nature of that terrible New England instrument of -torture, the Nonconformist Conscience. Despite your Catholic upbringing -it will, if you indulge it, I fear, lead you to your ruin. The -Nonconformist conscience, I beg you to believe, makes cowards of us all. -Now I should suggest a much better plan, and one I have always approved -of. Let's _pack up our duds_, as the saying goes, in your country; let's -return to sane and merry England; let us for the future and since the -pinch of Winter is at our heels, Summer in the South and Winter in the -North." - -"England?" gasped Lucilla and Ruth in one breath. - -"Why not?" enquired the man of the family. "You are, after all, never so -comfortable anywhere, in Winter, as in an English Country House. Roaring -fires, invisible hot-water pipes; cozy dark days, libraries full of -books, Mudie by post two hours away. Wassailing and Christmas waits; -holly and mistletoe, hey for an English winter, sing I! Plum pudding, -mince pies, tenants to tip, neighbours, hospitalities." - -"Ugh," Lucilla wailed, "Perish the awful thought! Neighbours 'calling in -sensible, slightly muddy boots' (as your favourite author too truthfully -has it), in tweeds and short skirts;--and for conversation--Heaven -defend us! The turnip crops, the Pytchley, penny readings, and the -latest gossip anent a next-door neighbour. Night all the day--night -again at night--and whisky-and-soda at eleven, day or night,--eternally -variegated by that boring, semper-eternal Bridge. You'll have to go -without me," declared Lucilla flatly. - -"Have you generally Wintered in the North, Summered in the South?" Ruth -queried with a gleam. - -"No--No,--" replied Pontycroft reflectively, "no,--but if one hasn't -really tried it since one's callow days the idea does speak to one. It -isn't all beautiful prattle," he assured her, "but the idea does appeal -to one. As one grows old one prefers to be comfortable. A pabulum of -beauty is all very well for young things like yourself here and Lucilla -who still hug the precious foolish delusion that Beauty is Truth, Truth -Beauty." - -Pontycroft's indolent glance encompassed Florence,--that fair spectacle -she presents, in the aura of twilight,--the exquisite hour, _l'heure -exquise_. Her amphitheatre of hills,--her white villas, even now charged -with rose by the evening glow,--aglow her churches, her gardens -and black cypresses. "Yet this is all too like," he commented, "the -enchanter's dream,--at a puff!... No! Fact, Fact, solid Fact is the -desideratum! Fact's your miracle in a nutshell. What you and Lucilla -call Truth alters with every fresh discovery of man, his climate, -education, point of view. Man carries your Beauty in his eye, ears, -senses. But Fact, humanly speaking, Fact doesn't give you the least -trouble. There it is. Did it never occur to you how splendidly reposeful -a fact it is that a turnip field's a turnip field, until you sow beans -to rejuvenate it? And here's another, equally comforting: The spider -spins its web from its own vitals. Ah, Facts spare one such a deal of -thinking, such a lot of enthusiasm!... In your country, my dear young -thing," Pontycroft turned to Ruth, "in your strange, weird, singular, -incomprehensible country they sow buckwheat cakes when the turf on the -lawn's been killed by frosts; and when the buckwheat cakes have grown, -and blossomed--they plough them back into the earth, and sow their -grass--and in a month you have your velvet robe again. In similar manner -the fact that a cozy English Winter's a cozy English Winter is one -agreeably worthy your attention." - -"This flummery of rose bushes," went on Pontycroft, while his arm -described a semicircle,--"this romance of nodding trees laden with -oranges ornamental to the landscape; this volubility of heliotrope, -mimosa, violets in January, all, all--in a conspiracy to lure one to sit -out o' doors and catch an internal, infernal chill," he sneezed; "all -this taken together is not worth that one fine solid indisputable -British Fact, a comfortable English Winter! Uncompromising cold without, -cheer within." - -"But it's not Winter yet," Lucilla argued plaintively, "it's only -October. Hadn't you better apply the fact of an overcoat to what you've -been telling us? You've plunged _me_ into anything but a state of cheer -with your sophistries--this absurd juggling with the doleful joys of an -English Winter!" - -"_Apropos_ of the joys of an English Winter, I wonder whether the post -has come?" said Ruth, jumping up. "Pietro's delicacy about disturbing -us at tea Lucilla won't call mere laziness. I'll send him for your -overcoat," she added, with a laughing nod, and vanished through the -French windows. - - -III - -"Ah,--you see!" - -Pontycroft after Ruth's departure ponderated thus on the tone of -significance, to his sister. "Ah, ha! You see.... She's eager for news. -She's expecting something.... She's on the watch for every post." - -"You're quite off the scent, Harry," returned his sister languidly. -Lucilla, it was plain, was still disturbed by her brother's chaff. - -"It's her uncle's semi-annual missive she's so eagerly on the lookout -for. The child nourishes a perfect hero-worship for the old man; she -writes to him six times to his one. His letters come with military -precision, once in a six month. They're invariably brief, and they -invariably wind up with this hospitable apophthegm, 'Remember the -string's on the latchet of the door whenever you choose to pull it. -Whenever you care to look upon your home in Oldbridge you will find a -hearty welcome from your affectionate uncle,' then a sabre thrust, his -name,--presumably." - -Lucilla rose, with that languid grace she was so famous for. She went -to the edge of the terrace and leaned upon the balustrade, where she -remained, silently taking in her fill of the peaceful landscape. - - -IV - -Ten minutes elapsed. - -Pontycroft, in silence, smoked and wafted the rings of his cigarette -towards Florence. And then Ruth reappeared. - -She looked pale in the dusk, agitated. In her hands were a couple of -letters, she held out one to Lucilla. - -"Read it,"--her voice trembled,--"Tell me what I have done to be -so insulted," she commanded; and then she turned away her face, and -suddenly she began to weep. Pontycroft watched her in consternation. He -had never, in all the years he had known her, he had never seen Ruth in -tears. - -Lucilla took the letter, blazoned with a gold crown. She read down the -page, she turned over to the next, she read on to the end. - -"May I see it?--May I see it, Ruth?" Pontycroft asked gently. - -Ruth bowed her head. As Pontycroft read she looked at him, her hands -lying idly in her lap; and she saw his face cloud as he read. But he, -having finished the communication, fell silent for a moment. - -"Poor Bertram!" he let fall at last, dropping the letter upon the table. - -"_Poor_ Bertram!" cried Ruth. She dabbed her eyes, she made an immense, -unsuccessful effort to control herself, quell the ire in her heart. - -"Poor Bertram!" she broke forth scornfully. "What have I done, _what can -I have done_, to be subjected to such an indignity? Did I lead him on? -If I had encouraged him! Lucilla, speak, speak the truth. You both know -I did nothing of the sort!" And Ruth stamped her foot. "Has the Heir -Apparent to that obscure little Principality called Altronde had any -encouragement from me of any kind?... Notwithstanding his visits here, -notwithstanding the amusement you've had at my expense!" Ruth looked -wrathfully at Pontycroft. "And this, this deliberate, this detestable, -this cold-blooded proposition. And you can say '_Poor_ Bertram'!" But -then she fell to sobbing violently. - -Lucilla flew to her, folded protecting arms about her. - -"Ruth, dear, don't feel so.... Darling! I don't wonder, I do not -wonder!... But after all, for him, it is an impossible predicament. He -is to be pitied. You can do nothing better than to feel sorry for him. -He's madly in love with you,--that's too evident. Presently you'll be -able to laugh at it,--at him." - -"_Laugh_ at it?" Ruth cried. "Ah, how lightly it hits you! Laugh at -it?... I shall never laugh at it, I shall never laugh at it. I can -shudder and wonder at the monstrous pride it reveals, the arrogance of a -little Princeling called to reign over his obscure little Principality." -She drew herself up. - -"Here is that dear old uncle of mine," said she, tightening her clasp -upon the letter she still held in her hand,--"My uncle, who writes to me -for the ninetieth time: 'The string is on the latchet of the door, why -not come and pay a visit to your old home, have a look at your ancestral -acres'?" - -"Oh," exclaimed Ruth rather hysterically, "I _will_ go and have a look -at my ancestral acres! And these Wohenhoffens, these Bertrandoni, -who are they to fancy themselves privileged to offer me a morganatic -marriage with their son? But I execrate them! I execrate everything they -represent! I, Ruth Adgate, to have been exposed to it!" And now, again, -she began to sob. - -Pontycroft looked exceedingly distressed. - -"Child, child," he said, "you may believe that Lucilla and I never -remotely dreamed of this dénouement. I'm not in the least surprised at -your indignation,--your horror,--but I am not in the least surprised, -either, that poor Bertram, in the tangle of his environment, with his -tradition, and impelled by a hopeless passion (oh, my prophetic eye), -did what he could, has written offering you the only honourable thing he -could offer you, a morganatic marriage. Absurd, outrageous though this -sounds to you, it is a legal marriage, and remember that the poor chap's -in a hole, a dreadful box. Shed rather a pitying tear upon his blighted -young affections.... He can't hope to have you, knew probably how you'd -take his offer, but he gritted his teeth and made it like the wholly -decent chap he is. - -"And I would even wax pathetic," continued Pontycroft, "when I think of -him. Could any fate be more depressing than his? _You'll_ never speak to -him again! While he, poor fellow, is doomed to marry some sallow -Grand Duchess for the sake of the Dynasty. Farewell love, farewell -comradry, farewell all the nice, easy-going businesses of life. Buck up -and be a Crown Prince! Become a puppet, a puppet on exhibition to -your subjects. Whatever you like to do that's gay, that's human, -debonair,--you'll have to do it on the sly as though it were a sin, -or overcome mountains of public censure. In fact, whether you please -yourself or whether you don't--the majority will always find fault with -you. Poor Bertram, I say, poor old Bertram.... His proud Wohenhoffen -of a mother is the only member of that Royal trio, I fancy, who is -thoroughly pleased with the new order of affairs, for Civillo will soon -be making matters hot for himself if he doesn't turn over a new leaf." - - -V - -Ruth dried her eyes. - -"You were quite right when you talked of wintering in the North, Harry," -she said at length, still somewhat tremulous. "It doesn't seem as though -in the North this could possibly have happened. I think you know," she -took Lucilla's hand, "I think I shall try wintering in the North--I'll -accept my uncle's invitation; I'll pull the string on the latchet, I'll -go and have a look at the old man and at my bleak New England acres. -After all," added Ruth, with rather a wan smile, "I suppose it's -something to have acres, though one has never realised the fact or -thought of it before. I haven't an idea what mine are like, but it will -be good to walk on them, to feel I've got them. Here I'm always made to -feel such a plebeian.--Yes, I'm _made_ to feel such a plebeian. Oh no, -not by you," Ruth clasped Lucilla's hand and looked affectionately, a -trifle, too, defiantly towards Pontycroft, "but they all seem to think, -even the rather ordinary ones, like Mrs. Wilberton and Stuart Seton, an -American exists to be patronised. No pedigree. An American! Well, who -knows, perhaps I have a pedigree. I'll go at least where I can't be -patronised, where they know about me." - -Pontycroft gave a laugh, which rang not altogether gaily. - -"In other words, Miss Adgate must have her experience," he said. - -"Miss Adgate's had all she wants of the old world.--She must be on with -the new. Besides, her pride's been wounded.... A prince has offered her -matrimony, morganatic but honourable marriage. That won't do for her. -She's wounded in her feelings, outraged by the suggestion, and she -includes the whole of Europe in her resentment. _Oh, my dear young -lady_" said Pontycroft after another moment's silence, "don't talk to -me of pride! You Americans are the devil for pride. Ruth, you've been -toadied to and you fancy you've been patronised.... Well, well, have -your experience. What great results from little causes flow! Prove to us -that you're not only as good but a great deal better than any of us. -We poor humble folk, we'll submit to anything, if when you've had your -experience and are satisfied, you'll come back to us. But you don't mean -it, you don't mean it! Or, if you go you'll return, you'll not forsake -your adopted country, your father's friends, your's." - -Ruth's eyes darkened. - -"Haven't you always, both of you, been too good to me?" she cried, -reproachfully. "Ever since I was a little child, you and Lucilla, you -know that you two have been, ever shall be, in my heart of hearts. But -I must get away from all this; I must do something!... I must find -myself!" she cried. "Say what you will, think what you like, this -proposition is too loathsome. It has opened my eyes to so many things I -had only felt, before! It may be all a question of wounded pride, as -you say, but I know it's the proper sort of pride. I've seen it now, the -whole, whole, unfriendly situation, in a flash. Lucilla," she pleaded, -"you'll sympathise with me; you won't condemn me if I go, you'll never -think I love you an ounce the less?" - -Lucilla stroked Ruth's hand. - -"My dear," said she, "the thing's a sheer incredible bolt out of the -blue, incredible! I believe," she said, rounding upon her brother, "I -believe it's the outcome of Pontycroft's foolish talk,--the result of -his passion for being paradoxical or perish. Here we were--having -our teas quite innocently in the garden, like the dear nice people we -are,--perfectly happy, absolutely content,--as why shouldn't we be in -this paradise?" Lucilla opened her blue eyes wide upon the landscape -and glanced accusingly at Pontycroft. "But you've precipitated us into -a mess," she said to him, "with your ribald talk about wintering in our -water-soaked British Islands. Then comes this ridiculous letter,--and, -of course, Ruth can't sit still under it. Yes, it is perhaps after all, -a wholesome notion of yours, Ruth, a visit to your own country. It's -the best bath you can take to wash out the taste left by Bertram's -well-meant but preposterous letter. Besides," she laughed, "you'll come -back to us! America can't gobble you up for ever. But what shall we do -without you!--And as for Harry, I feel sorry for him. He'll find no one -to give him the change when he's in the mood for teasing, no one to keep -him in his proper place. He'll become unbearable." - -"Oh," fleered Pontycroft, "if Ruth forsakes us I will go back to _my_ -native land! I'll go where I can toast my shins before my fireside and -experience the solid comforts of a British Winter.... I'll go home to -my duties, go where I can worry my tenants, read Mudie the livelong day; -feel that I, too, am somebody!" - -Ruth smiled, rather forlornly. - -"I want you to observe," Pontycroft with mock contrition enlarged, "how -one evil deed begets a quantity of others--a congeries of miseries out -of which, at last, good springeth like the flowering beanstalk. In idle -hour (mark the magic potency of words), I speak of wintering in the -North. Now as you've been told more than once,--idleness is the parent -of wickedness. Lucilla assures me that in my paradoxical idleness I am -a parent to a quite unexpected degree. Now observe,--the offer of a -morganatic marriage follows speedily on the heels of my sin, the sin of -an idle paradox. Then Ruth becomes guilty of the sin of anger--tossing -her pretty head and stamping her pretty foot, she declares she won't -play in our yard any longer. She stamps her pretty foot and announces -she's going back to her own New England apple orchard. The rudiments -of her Nonconformist, New England conscience, thoroughly roused,--her -thoughts fly towards home and her aged uncle. In my remorse, I, in -virtue not to be outdone, decide to go back to my duties. Lucilla, -conventionalised British matron that _au fond_ she is, spite of her -protests, already, because she must, assembles to her soul her list of -social obligations at Dublin, the frocks to plan, and the dinner parties -to give prior to the coming out and Presentation at Court of her eldest -child. Home, home, home," murmured Pontycroft, "sweet home is the tune -we'll all be whistling within a month. Lucilla will carol it from her -bog because it isn't considered polite to whistle in Ireland; but -I, from my Saxon heath and Ruth from God's country will imitate the -blackbirds. Could any tune be more acceptable to the Nonconformist -conscience? Ruth, you perceive, already begins to dominate! Columbia, -Ruler of the sea and wave--see how she sends us about our neglected -and obvious affairs. High-ho for Winter in the North," said Ponty. "But -meantime I'm going to array myself for dinner and here comes Pietro." - -"Thank Heaven for the trivialities of life," Lucilla put in with -fervour. "Ruth, shall we don our best gowns in honour of the unexpected? -Harry may dub this the call to duty; I know it's never anything so dull. -I know that the spirit of adventure he's hailed has seized upon both of -you, is lifting us all, will-he nill-he, out of our beautiful _dolce -far niente_ into something restless, violent, and tiresome. As for -me--there's nothing, naught left for me, poor me! to do but to follow -your lead." - -"Yes, by all means," Ruth lightly acquiesced. - -"We'll put our best frocks on; and let us hope the call to duty decked -in purple and fine linen, masquerading as the spirit of adventure, may -lead us up to consummations...." She broke off. "Devoutly to be wished -for," she whispered to herself under her breath. - - -VI - -"If I'm to be made the arbiter of other destinies when my own are -more than I can manage" (they were dallying over figs and apricots at -breakfast)--"pray, you two good people tell me, kindly, when shall we -begin to throw our bonnets over the mill? In other words, on what day -and in what month do we start in search of Winter in the North?" Ruth -enquired, to a feint of cheerfulness and little dreaming. - -"Oh, to-morrow--To-morrow, if you like," jerked Pontycroft. "Wait not -upon the order of your going, but start at once." - -"Start to-morrow!" Lucilla cried, "start to-morrow? Impossible." - -"Why impossible? Nothing is impossible. Ruth wants to go. She said -so last night, she more than hints it, to-day. What woman wants, God -wants." Oblivious to the truth that a woman, his sister, panted to -remain, Pontycroft glanced at the newspaper at his elbow. "A steamer -sails from Genoa tomorrow afternoon, the _Princess Irene_. I'll go down -to Humbert's this moment as ever is," he added, "and have them wire for -a deck cabin." - -"No, no," protested Lucilla. "Why leave all this loveliness at once? -Impossible! Besides, we have people coming to dinner tomorrow," she -remembered hopefully. "Thursday. The Newburys and young Worthington. We -can't put them off." - -"We can, and we shall," asseverated Ponty. "There's nothing so dreadful, -Lucilla, as these long superfluous drawn-out farewells, these impending -good-byes. Send Pietro, if you like, to say we've all responded to a -call of duty. Tell your friends in all charity, that when duty calls the -wise youth replies: 'I _won't_ Why?... Because he knows that nine times -out of ten duty is only what somebody else thinks he ought to be doing. -But tell them duty's only skin deep, by way of advice. Tell them one's -response to duty is generally the mere weak living up to somebody else's -good opinion of one. Say to them: 'Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.' But -say that in this case it's otherwise--we're not wise, and we've -answered with one accord: '_I will_.' Say to them that therein lies our -folly.--We're exceedingly sorry--sorry, but we must be off. It shall be -a seven days' wonder, Florence shall have something to talk about. She -needs brisking up. Ruth, I'm off to engage your passage. The sooner -you go, the sooner you'll come back to tell us all about it,--tell us -whether the play was worth the candle." - -Ponty rang for his stick and his hat, lighted the inevitable cigarette. - -"Paolina will pack you up, Ruth, if she has to keep busy until -midnight," he directed, between two puffs. "Lucilla, Pietro can help -Maria with your paraphernalia; when I'm back here with our tickets he'll -be half through the packing. Lazy duffer though he be, once he begins, -he's rapid as radium." Ponty was gone before either Lucilla or Ruth -could protest. - -They looked at one another.... What ludicrous extravagance of sudden -breaking up! This high-handed method of bringing matters summarily to a -climax struck them both. Lucilla and Ruth broke into peals of laughter. - -The irresponsible sun glared--into their eyes--played, flamboyant among -the glass and silverware of the breakfast table; it winked in prismatic -rays from crystal angles of honey pots and threw its splashes of -blinding light over the damask table cloth, borrowing rosy tints from a -mass of pink geranium in a bowl of Nagasaki ware. It glanced at all -the polished surfaces of the old carved oak furniture; the room was -one flagrant and joyous outburst of morning sunlight, the garden an -invitation to come out, come out and play, and enjoy life from its -inception! Elusive, dewy, odorous lovelinesses rested upon it, mounted -from it, entreated you to step under the trees, wander among growing -tender things, bathed all in a dew and glister. And called to you to -come and loiter,--and mark the passage of Aurora and her maidens, hours -ago. - -"It's just a trifle odd to be swept off one's feet in this -whoop-and-begone-with-you manner," Ruth, with half a laugh, half a sob, -commented. "Maugre the thing's to be sooner rather than later, Lucilla, -I can't see though why _my_ going should mean yours, too!" - -"Dear infant," Lucilla answered, tenderly, "don't worry.... Whatever -should Ponty and myself do here alone? We'd get on one another's nerves -in a week and part in a temper. Since things have happened as they -have, things are better as they are; leave them to hammer out their own -salvation. Things, _I_ find, are very like the little sheep in Mother -Goose. You let them alone and they come home, wagging their tails behind -them.... But oh, oh, oh," sighed Lucilla, "how I adore this! How I would -stay here forever! It is a blow," her voice was vibrant of regret.... -"But, of course, Harry's right, he's always right. Shall we obey -orders?" - -"Y--es," said Ruth. She felt a tightening at her heart, a sudden lump -in her throat. The glory of the October morning had all at once -departed.... A decided glamour enveloped the project of a visit to her -uncle. Moreover, her heart drew her to him. The fine sense of an -affront she must fly from had, too, gathered strength in the night; the -indignity put upon her by Bertram's letter she must resent. Her pride -protested fiercely, she must retaliate even though Ponty should express -to Bertram her thanks with refusal of the honour conferred upon her. -But now these emotions were quelled by an unspeakable depression, a -loneliness, a sense of isolation, of dread, a dread of the Unknown.... -The dread swept her off her feet. Dread of something more, too.... How -was she,--how was she, Ruth Adgate,--to live away from these two people? -To-morrow would mark the beginning of an ocean rolled up between her -old life and the new one she would be journeying towards. To-morrow! -to-morrow! To-morrow would see the end, for how many, many dreary -months, of this beauty laden, gracious existence; the camaraderie of -these two people whom she had reason to love best in the world, at -whose side she had grown up,--Lucilla and Henry Pontycroft, whom she -understood, who understood her! Instinctively, she felt she was electing -for herself a grimmer fate, a sterner life and land, than any she had -known, could dimly divine.... - -Yes, the glory of the April morning had departed into chill and -nothingness. It might have already been December though it was only -October, and Pontycroft had gone to buy her ticket. The first, the -irremediable step was taken. She must put the best face she could upon -this adventure of her choice. - -Lucilla, to whom Ruth and her thoughts were transparent as flies in -amber, put her arms about her neck. - -"Ruth," she whispered, "it's because he can't bear the parting, the -thought of it. It's going to be a horrible break for him. What we'll -either of us do when you're no longer within reach, when you are no -longer part of our daily life, I can't imagine. I can't imagine any of -it without you, and neither of us will want this, without you." - -Ruth's eyes glowed. Bending forward she kissed Lucilla, and they marched -away, arm-inarm, to do their packing. - - -VII - -"Parting is such sweet sorrow," sighed Juliet. - -But the girl of fourteen saw in the act an excuse for endless -impassioned kisses. The world-worn poet Haraucourt better understood the -disastrous effect of saying good-bye. - -"_Partir_" he cries, "_c'est mourir un feu!_" - -"To leave, to part, is to die a little." Unless, indeed, death be a more -desirable state than life,--as who in this world can possibly affirm, -or deny,--except our Holy Mother Church?--It were safer then, never to -leave, never to part. This is perhaps the true course of wisdom, to live -in the same spot, content with the same people. They, after all, are -sure to be exceedingly like the people one will find elsewhere; and, ten -to one, prove to be verily rather nicer, as experience is apt to show. -Yet Juliet and Haraucourt are agreed upon one point; parting, whether to -the accompaniment of kisses or of death, a little,--parting is a sorrow. - -The parting of their ways, to the three occupants of Villa Santa -Cecilia, was poignant. To each, after his kind the next twenty-four -hours were inexpressibly distressing. Ponty got through them -stoically and worked off some of his feelings in an unconscionable and -conscienceless number of cigarettes. Lucilla wept and prayed. Ruth said -very little and directed her packing in a suffocation of heartache. - -As the train passed out from the station at Florence, bearing her with -Pontycroft towards Genoa, Ruth's tears gushed like fountains of water. -Nor did she in the least try to conceal her distress from Ponty who sat -quietly regarding the landscape from the other side of the compartment. -It had been arranged that he should return for Lucilla, thus giving to -that lady a welcome day's grace, when Ruth had been safely handed over -to the Bolingbrokes, friends of Lucilla, a young Secretary from the -British Embassy in Rome and his bride, on their way out, to Washington. -Their names Ponty had, with relief, discovered among the list, at -Humbert's of the ship's passengers. - -The varied, finished, complex Tuscan landscape passed all leisurely -before their eyes; the olive groves, the orange-pink willows; the white -streams romping under grey arches; the villages, the mediaeval cytties, -scattered by the way, the rose-coloured or white monasteries and villas -on the sun-decked hillsides. From the little old churches and campaniles -of the plain, from the convents perched far above them, innumerable -silvery peals of chimes came floating, in tune, out of tune, it mattered -not. As a matter of fact, they were shockingly out of tune; the quality -of the Tuscan air is, however, so extraordinary an embellisher of sound -as well as of scene, that all sounds become harmonious, even as every -scene arranges itself into a primitive picture, thanks to this most -beautifying of mediums. - -"How can I leave it, how _can_ I leave it?" Ruth was saying to herself. - -"You know, I think I'm a goose," she let fall at last, smiling at -Pontycroft through her tears. - -"My sweet child," said Pontycroft, "we must aye live and learn! And -you're so young that living and learning may still be supposed to hold -elements of interest. There's a lot ahead of you that's new and strange, -so dry your pretty eyes, and _Sursum Corda_." - -"My soul misgives me that the new and strange will contain nothing -approaching to this," Ruth said, nodding her head towards the -window. "And I don't think I shall like doing without it," she added -plaintively. - -"God's country," said Pontycroft, "won't look like this, to be sure, nor -give you a single blessed one of these fine emotions, these raptures. -But after all, it's the first wrench that costs, says the prophet, and -since we're not here entirely, he assures us, to amuse ourselves, a -visit to God's country may prove a salutary if bitter pill to a young -lady surfeited with the sweets of Europe." - -"Dio mio," Ruth cried, "since when has Pontycroft turned moralist?" - -"From the hour he was made to realise the fatal effects of reckless -paradox," Ponty answered, with mock solemnity. - -They fell to chaffing one another as naturally as possible and the time -flew. - -"_Genoa la Suferba, Genoa la Suferba!_ How perfectly, how radiantly the -word describes her fits her," murmured Ruth when, after a succession of -tunnels, in the early afternoon, the sumptuous town burst upon them. -The dazzling town, her flashing panoply of palaces, villas, gardens, -churches, mounting up, and up--her hill, leaning firmly against the -background of blue skies, blue as the Virgin Mary's robe. - -"The imagination, the purpose, in those lines of architecture, those -formal gardens!" cried Ruth. "How daring, uncompromising, beauty is in -this land of Italy. And see, the Mediterranean, all sparkle and laughter -there at her feet!" She leaned forward; then fell back against the -cushions, savouring with heart as well as eyes the brilliant vision. - -The train hammered heavily into the station. - -"Ge--no--a! Ge--no--a!" The nasal cry reverberated through the -glass-covered dome. There was noisy confusion of opening carriage doors, -of passengers descending, calling, embracing, greeting; of porters -running hither and yon; of trucks of luggage blocking the way amid a -commotion of officialdom. - -Ruth stood quietly in the uproar, and gazed upon it, and at Ponty's lank -figure, while he dealt with the business of the occasion. Her heart was -beating tumultuously. She felt a violent impulse to run away and hide -herself. - -"The beginning of the end," she cried. "It is the beginning of the end. -Why have I done this?" - -A moment later she had shaken hands with the Bolingbrokes; she was -saying good-bye to Pontycroft from the window of the carriage which was -to take her, with her new acquaintances, to the ship. - -Ruth's sympathetic Italian maid, waiting and watching in the background, -in a hack laden with luggage, murmured to herself: "_Pover -a, Poverella!_" - - -VIII - -Ruth, in a misery of wild light-headedness, responded as well as she -could to the civilities of her two travelling companions, while they -drove through narrow, animated streets. They reached the docks. There -lay the massive ship, its relentless black hulk resting abroadside, in -ominous expectation of some mysterious coming change. Ruth walked up -the white gangway. The turmoil, the excited crowd, the stolid -stewards,--lolling,--indifferent yet curious sentinels,--the ragged -throng of emigrants passing endlessly into the forecastle, the noise -of clanking wains and girders hoisting trunks and freight into mid air, -all, gave to her a sense of doom, of the finality of things in chaos.... -Half an hour passed before she was able to go to her room. Telegrams -were handed to her, even flowers, fruit; thus rapidly does news spread; -she had to talk with friends of the Bolingbrokes come to bid them -God-speed, to look pleasant and pleased as everybody else did. - -But when at last Ruth closed the door of her cabin behind her, she -took a little step forward and with a cry threw herself upon the couch. -Regardless of Paolina, who was already opening bags and unfolding -dresses, she permitted herself the luxury of a passionate outburst of -grief. A tornado of pent misery racked her; she pressed her face into -the linen pillow to deaden the sound of her sobbing, her hands against -her breast. - -"Signorina, Signorina, do not feel so badly," cried the good Italian -maid, dropping Ruth's lace and beribboned morning gown and running -towards her. "Oh, do not weep. It is very sad to have to leave our -lovely Italian land, so beautiful, so _carina_. But do not weep so! What -will the Signora Dor say if I allow you to make yourself ill? Think! -It is I who should be weeping. It is I who am leaving all behind me, -my country, my sister, my mother, and yet I do not weep." But the tears -belied her words and welled from her eyes. - -Ruth clasped the girl's hand affectionately. She felt grateful for the -warm Italian heart. Paolina at least was there, to keep her recollected -in the exquisite life she was forsaking. Why she was forsaking it, now -seemed to her an absolutely incomprehensible riddle. For the nonce she -could remember not one of her substantial reasons for doing so. - -Paolina withdrew the pins from Ruth's hat, removed it from her hair and -put it away. - -"You have crushed your pretty hat, Sig-norina," she said, reproachfully. -Then, very much in the tone a mother would use to distract a child: - -"You did not see how pale the Signor Pontycroft looked when he said -good-bye," she added, "and Maria told me the Signora had not slept the -whole night, but kept going constantly to your door and listening to -know whether you were asleep. They love you very much. It must be good -to be loved so much," the girl continued wistfully. "That must comfort -you. And you will soon come back to them, to Italy, when you have seen -your Signor uncle and your American home--for I am very sure they cannot -live without you." - -"Oh, Paolina, I am so unhappy," Ruth said, simply. "But leave me," -she smiled to the girl through her tears, "I will call you when I feel -better." - -Paolina turned to go, then came back, lifted Ruth's hand, kissed it. "I -hope you will pardon me, Signorina," she added shyly, "_Scusi_, if I -say, we must always smile, it pleases God better." - -And Paolina left the room. - -For a long while, Ruth, quite still, battled with her feelings. A fresh -passion of grief overtook her.... When at last it had spent itself, she -drew her Rosary, which she carried in the gold bag in her hand, from -its sheath. Slowly, the sweetness of the five decades passed into her -spirit, she felt comforted. Peace filled her heart. There was only, now -and then, the ache, where before there had been uncontrollable despair. -She stood up, bathed her face, rang for Paolina, and began removing the -tortoise-shell pins from her hair. - -"Paolina," she cried, as the maid entered the room. "Paolina," she -twisted her hair again into its thick coil, "we are going to enjoy -ourselves now! No more tears, no more regrets. You are quite right. We -must smile to the good God if we wish Him to smile on us! Make haste and -give me a short skirt and a warm coat, and my cap and veil. I long to -get out and breathe the air and fill my eyes with a sight of the shores -of Italy." - -At dinner and during the rest of the evening, as they steamed down the -coast towards Naples, Ruth was an irresistible _precis_ of smiles and -vivacity. The Bolingbrokes were captivated. - -"Richard," the young Mrs. Bolingbroke told her lord when they were -alone together, "that Miss Adgate is a most charmin' girl. What was -that nonsense Mrs. Wilberton retailed about her runnin' away from Henry -Pontycroft whom she's hopelessly in love with? She is in love with no -man! You can't deceive me!" Mrs. Bolingbroke cried gaily. "It's easy -to see from the fun she's positively bubblin' over with that her heart -isn't weighted by any hopeless passion. She's never been in America -before she says, and it's the great adventure of her life.... She's -goin' to visit an old uncle, whom she's never seen but adores. Her -childlike enjoyment of doin' it quite alone (she has her maid with her) -and her eagerness about it, is quite fascinatin'. Although she is -so rich, she's evidently seen very little of the world," said Mrs. -Bolingbroke, who happened to be a year Ruth's junior, but had the -feeling of knowing the world thoroughly from within and from without. - -"Yes," her husband answered guardedly; he remembered that a First -Secretary must show diplomatic reticence in his judgments, even to his -wife. "Yes, Miss Adgate does seem rather a decent sort. I dare say the -story is all a fabrication. She does seem a nice sort of unsophisticated -young creature and I dare say the story's all a fabrication. Just the -pretty charitable way people have of talking. I can see no objection to -your enjoying as much of her society as you like, Isabel." - -Thus it happened that safe in her husband's blessing upon the -friendship, Mrs. Bolingbroke, all unsuspected by Ruth, became her -champion. - - - - -&PART FIFTH - - -I - -|AN Indian summer day, idle and tender, lay over hills and woods, -meadows, river. The quaint little Old Town of Oldbridge, set among apple -orchards and gardens and avenues of elms, received this last Benediction -of Nature with an agreeable _ouf!_ of respite from imminent grim winter -approaches. - -It is difficult to account, by any utilitarian motive on the part of our -"brown and green old Mother Earth," for her November caprice of a New -England Indian summer, though I make no doubt the scientists will have -some prosaic reason to give which we are asked to take upon faith. But -since fruit, in New England, is garnered in September, and the toughest -plants are burned to a crimson glory by October frosts, no ripened fruit -or renewal of leaves defend the vagary. And so--will-he nill-he, we -praise Heaven which made our "bounteous mother" feminine forsooth; we -gratefully credit the enchanted fortnight to her bountiful illogical -womanhood. - -The Old Town of Oldbridge, then, basking under the Indian summer's -morning blandishment while it sipped its mocha and partook of -grape-fruit towards eight of the clock, pushed an agreeable -_ouf!_--awake to agreeable titillations of excitement. General Adgate's -niece, lovely and rich, admirable combination--Miss Adgate (Ruth Adgate, -they already called her, didn't she belong to them?) had arrived. The -event, discreetly mentioned in the Oldbridge _Morning Herald_, stared -them in the face. Some boasted a glimpse of her, the day before, seated -in the brougham beside her uncle; a pretty girl with reddish brown hair. -Others had seen of her nothing but her outward manifestations on the -luggage cart--two big brass-bound cork trunks, a cabin trunk, precisely -similar, a square hat-box, a dressing case and a dark-eyed Italian maid. - -The man of all work, Jo, brought this luggage into the house, with -the gardener's assistance, and up to Ruth's rooms. Now he wiped the -perspiration from his face. Arms akimbo, brows warped in puzzled frown, -he glared at the encumbrances. - -"Well, I be durned!" he burst forth. "Glad I ain't got any of them -things to carry round when I go a travelling. One carpet bag's big -enough for me, when I visit my folks, to Falls Junction." - -"Lucky you're glad," Martha, the efficient, the tart, the very tart -housemaiden snapped, and put him instantly in his place. "Not likely -soon, we'll catch you towering it with a valet and trunks." - - -II - -As to the unconscious subject of comment and curiosity, Miss Ruth -Adgate,--Miss Adgate was ecstatic. Her heart in its rapture wanted to, -did, engulf the house, and the land and the hill, and the inmates of -the Old Adgate place, and the entire town of Oldbridge. Something new, -something strange had indeed happened for her joy had begun to bubble -and ferment from the moment her foot passed the threshold of the house. -No--from the hour the train, on its sideline to Oldbridge, had begun to -move beside the river, bearing her for thirty minutes from one little -way-station to another. - -The sentiment of an autumnal New England landscape spread beneath clean -thoughtless blue skies,--vistas of grey rocks and sedges by the river at -the one hand,--where the dark green savins, reminding her of cypresses -in Italy, sprang through the grey clefts;--and across the river, hills, -low, wooded, interspersed with green and brown and orange -pastures, through which cropped the same venerable grey New England -rock,--harmonious and austere,--this perspective, enchanting in its -tonic beauty, was grievously, alas! debased and disfigured. - -Ignoble little wooden packing cases liberally dotted by the way screamed -with the crudest colours, 'the crudest rainbow scale disgorges on the -palate.' Gigantic hoardings, flaunting ridiculous local remedies and -foods for every prevalent disease or dyspeptic stomach insolently -stared at one;--the very backs and sides of barns and packing cases were -decorated with their insignia! - -"They need a Thames Conservancy, a County Council, something," Ruth -protested to her outraged sense of beauty, "to save this splendid river, -control such unpuritanical abandonments to colour and commerce." - -Miss Adgate, you perceive, was naïvely confident--oh, serene British -confidence! that taste governs the world, that the world rays and rules -so soon as the world discovers it is acting in bad taste. - -But these blemishes were, after all, insignificant affairs--details -incidental to an untutored modern public. What Miss Adgate's inward -vision vividly perceived through the windows of the shabby long car with -its soiled velvet cushions, and air of unworldliness,--which pleased -her,--its smell of stale apples and anthracite coal smoke which didn't -please her,--was the _land_. The land without a flaw of commerce! Hidden -lives that took her blood back three hundred years, led her imagination. - -Undeniably, the effect of this country was not one of abundance.... -It was not varied and enhanced by a thousand fair human touches; -the neglected land was uncouthly rough.... Nor was it in the least -suggestive of the poetry, art, emotion,--the loves, the hates--of -nineteen hundred vanished sumptuous years. (One might have likened it -rather to the starved and simple beggar-maid waiting for the King.) -But it was hers, it was _hers!_... She was _of it!_... Miss Adgate was -deliciously cognisant that this fact filled her heart to overflowing -with sweet content. - -"This land saw my forbears!... This land for three hundred years gave -them all they asked of life.... It opened its heart to them, therefore -I love it, therefore I love it!" she repeated softly to herself. "And if -this elation is patriotism--the mere patriotism dubbed Reflex Egotism by -the cynics,--well--poor dears! What dear poor dears the cynics be!" - -Miss Ruth Adgate gave a pleased sigh and turned her eyes again upon the -view. They fell upon a bit of grey rock, a group of savins and scarlet -barberry bushes loitering beside a piece of water... a composition Diaz -would have thankfully imprinted, for reproduction, on his retina. The -little pool, from brink to brink, coyly reflected these and the clear -blue sky, and in the foreground twenty feet of hoarding bore the legend: -"Try Grandpa Luther's Syrup of Winter-green for your Baby's Tantrums." - -Ruth fell back with rather a rueful laugh. - - -III - -"Next station?--O--Oldbridge," sang out the cherubic faced conductor and -Ruth's heart began to palpitate. - -"I _will_ smile," she said, "I won't be absurd." And she fixed her gaze -resolutely on the landscape, arrested, at once, by some subtle change in -it. - -Perceptibly, the meadows displayed a softer, more velvety grass; the -trees grew, more finely luxuriant, the cliffs rose boldly. A hint of -human intention, the touch of elegance, a something thoroughbred, spoke -aloud.... The few last miles through which Miss Adgate jolted gave -symptoms of civilisation. - -"O--O--Idbridge!" - -The guard intoned it nasally, with complete resignation,--a twenty -years' fatiguing habit; and an intimation too, in his voice, that the -goal of human travel had been reached. The train slackened.... One saw, -spanning the river, a black bridge latticing the green and the blue; -one caught glimpses of a town, white houses scattered up the slopes of -wooded hills. - -Several trim white yachts rested on the water; small sailboats glided, -hither and yon, and little skiffs and slim rowboats floated by to -a leisurely motion, manned by a single young oarsman, a girl seated -hatless, in the bow. The gay scene under the yellow sunlight, the -rippling, the smiling river, the warm waning afternoon--alive, -sparkling, seemed an invitation to her full of promise. - -"Come, Paolina," said Ruth, with inward trepidation. "Come, Paolina." - -Miss Adgate summoned her courage as the train stopped with a jerk. - -She passed--heroic effort--through the car to the platform, while -Paolina took the dressing-case and followed, moved like her mistress and -as tremulous. - -Ruth scanned the faces in the friendly brick station. The white head, -the features, familiar from photograph presentment, were--not there! -But a hand, extended at the last step to help her descend, caused her -to turn. Her arms in an instant had flung themselves impulsively about a -figure which stood at her side. - -"Uncle!" cried Ruth. Her heart ceased to pound, her nervousness gave way -to an immense inward satisfaction. Tears sprang to her eyes--but, -what did it matter? My heroine would be less charming were she less -impressionable and one does not gather upon every bush, an uncle _in -loco parentis_. - -"Well, well, my dear!--we've got you here at last, Ruth," said the tall, -thin, old man. He looked down at her fondly, a good face full of kindly -scrutiny. - -"You've brought belongings of sorts?" General Adgate enquired as he -conducted Ruth towards the carriage whilst the young girl felt half a -dozen pairs of curious eyes fixed upon her. - -"If that's your maid tell her there's a seat for her in the luggage -cart near Jobias," said General Adgate. He handed his niece into the -brougham, Paolina received her instructions, they drove off. - - -IV - -And for a moment they sped in silence, up a side street, into an open -square of shops and brick buildings, for all the world like the High -Street of any English Provincial town. - -"But how English it looks!" Ruth exclaimed. - -"Does it? Why not?" said General Adgate. "However," he added, "we pride -ourselves, further on, that we're distinctively American." - -The brick buildings surely enough dissolved into avenues set with superb -elms. Big comfortable houses encircled by verandas,--many adorned -with those fluted Corinthian columns, mark in Oldbridge of the early -nineteenth century,--all snugly set back among flower gardens and lawns, -emanated peace, prosperity, good will. - -"This place must be Arcady in summer.... How charming it is," Ruth -cried, delighted. "These gardens in flower, these trees in leaf----" - -"It's not so bad," said General Adgate, dryly. "Longfellow christened it -the Rose of New England." - -"But------," he added, "we call this the City of Oldbridge, a modern -matter. You, Ruth, belong to the Court End of the town--you are of what -we call the Old Town." - -Vastly amused at the distinction, a Yankee Faubourg Saint Germain, -Ruth plied him with questions. In five minutes the agreeable news that -she,--the last of the house of Adgate in America, Ruth Adgate verily -the salt of the earth, tracing a clean English ancestry back to the -crusades, to mistier periods beyond, here held her Yankee acres in grant -first from an English Sovereign, and, without a drop of blood-shed from -Indian Sachems,--gave to her humourous sense of proportion somewhat to -smile over. - -On they went,--under endless prospects of arching elm trees, whose -branches threw oblique attenuated shadows among the rays of the -descending sun. A few soft clouds at the horizon were tinted rosy -and red. Then the very blue, blue sky, suffused with violet and rose, -suddenly flared. Far and wide, from earth to zenith, far and wide the -sky burst into a glorious scarlet conflagration. - -The city lay behind, meadows stretched broadly at either side, and -to the right a pretty line of hill and wood etched itself against the -blushing clouds. - -"The beginning of your acres, my dear," said the old man, bowing his -head. "There they lie, untouched, just as James the First ceded them -to your forefathers, just as the Indian Sachems of the Mohegan Tribe -confirming the gift, withdrew from 'em. The bit of wood there is known -to this day as the Wigwam and the last Indian hut in this State -disappeared when it was destroyed by fire a hundred years ago." - -They had passed a road that wandered into the woodland, they were -rolling smartly by stone walls that shut in a goodly reach of close-cut -lawn all seamed and scarred by grey jutments of rock, which rising, -mounting, reached a hill through terraced gardens trimly laid and -skirting the summit. The carriage took a sharp sweep upward into a -gravelled drive, rolled on a few paces, stopped abruptly before a brown, -rambling house,--Miss Adgate had reached the end of her journey. - -"Welcome home," said General Adgate, as he helped Ruth to alight. He -bent down, kissed her, and led her up the steps into the house. - - -V - -It was morning. It was nine of the clock. Miss Adgate walked, alone, -through a path that penetrated to the Wigwam. Almost hidden by a thicket -of sweet fern, juniper, barberry and briar which grew at either side, -which clung too affectionately to her skirts and from which she had -difficulty in disengaging herself, the path, she thought, might have led -her to the Palace of The Sleeping Beauty. - -It was morning, as I have said, and it was the morning of her first -day, and early abroad, Miss Adgate strolled in a pleasant sort of -reverie,--thinking of nothing, perhaps, or thinking of a number of -things. The Indian summer sunshine filtered upon her through half-bare -branches not quite denuded of their yellow and purple and scarlet -leafage; and every now and then a leaf came fluttering down in the light -breeze. A squirrel, now and then, darted out along a branch, paused--and -like an Italian lizard, all a-gleam and a-whisk, gleamed, whisked, and -disappeared. But Ruth knew two little black beadlike eyes still watched -her, as she went, from behind the lattice-screen of twigs. - -Every now and then she passed a formidable, a monumental boulder; -moss-grown; covered with grey lichen; dropped there by some glacier, -æons since, unless Heaven, it occurred to her, had placed it where it -stood, and why not? for picturesque intent?... Every now and then a -tardy bluejay flitted by, lighted upon a branch and sent forth his -imperious _cha, cha, cha!_... Or a woodpecker, in the distance, made -his tapping noise as he sounded the trees for his meal. A dry twig -would break, suddenly,--come tumbling head foremost down, down through a -rustle of leaves, and all these sounds struck upon Miss Adgate's ears -in her reverie, gave her exquisite pleasure. She enjoyed the romance and -the solitude of this wild wood; she delighted in the knowledge that -she was walking safely through her own preserves; and _treve de -compliments_, her uncle had left her upon a brief good-bye after -an early breakfast. Ruth burned to discover alone, he knew, her -domain--General Adgate had divined it without a hint. - -"You'll want to take a walk this morning through your woods, Ruth," -said he. "Cross the hill,--you'll find a road to the right leading by -a brook,--follow the road,--it takes you over the brook by a bridge and -soon becomes a path. No one will molest you, it's yours." - -"What, the brook as well?" queried she, feeling, somehow, like a very -little girl in his presence. - -"Yes, and the brook as well. You can't get away from your -preserves,--they stretch on for miles." - -So it was that Miss Adgate, abroad at nine o'clock, happened to be off -for a matutinal stroll through paths wet and dewy, glad of her freedom, -glad to be alone in a new world, surrender herself to the romance of a -new train of thought. - -She came, presently, to a clearing in the wood. The path ended, -abruptly, at a flat bed of rock which descended for some hundred feet to -another opening in the wood. There were bayberry and barberry and fern -along the way, slashed scarlet by the frosts; there were fifty plants -she promised to herself to learn the names of, which gave forth strong, -sweet scents in the hot sun. Ruth sat down. A swish, through the dry -leaves, a stir of the brown grass, told of the frightened escape of some -little living thing, and set her heart to palpitating unaccountably with -love for it. - -Her mood had become a trifle exalted, her perceptions quickened by -her promenade. Each insect, bird, bush she came upon began to assume a -personality; claimed the privilege to live upon her land. She was the -suzerain of their little lives; she could have held a court of justice; -she could have dispensed favours, played their games, ruled them, thrown -herself into their griefs and joys, with heart and soul. Seated here, in -the warm sun, on the warm stone checked with patches of green and brown -club-moss, she inhaled the crisp fragrance of the bushes under the sun's -kisses; she looked afar, on to the trees below and over their heads at -the vivid sky, and upon faraway violet hills, and upon green and orange, -brown and guileless meadows. The world seemed good and wonderful, and -she felt exceedingly content. - -"The Ruth Adgate who spent twenty years of her life in Europe is no -more," she thought, lightly. "The young person who has tasted most of -the sweets of European civilisation, walked in marble halls, refused a -Duke, run away from the outrage offered her dignity by the offer of a -morganatic marriage with a Crown Prince,--the lovesick girl who wandered -through the moonlight at the Lido, floated upon the silent lagoons of -Venice, discoursed with wits in lovely gardens in Florence, and herself -the cause of wit in others, hung upon their discourse--that was quite -another person! That was but an early incarnation, never the real Miss -Adgate. _This_ is the real Miss Adgate! In spite of every influence to -the contrary,--the product of her native land." - -Lucilla, Pontycroft--Pontycroft, Lucilla! How far away they seemed.... -Their names stirred her heart as she pronounced them. But even so--was -not this best? The present Miss Adgate in a short skirt, a blue, soft -felt hat, tip-tilted over her eyes, a stick in her hand, her thoughts -for all society; Miss Adgate with this hardy New England nature for -background,--Ruth Adgate taking a solitary walk upon her own land, with -the feeling that good will and satisfaction smiled at her because of -her presence there, was not this the Real person who had found her true -niche in the world? - -"How singular," she reflected. "The transformation has taken place -overnight. It is almost as though I had been here forever! And to-day -I feel as though I had a destiny--as though Fate had something up her -sleeve here for me. I've begun like one of Henry Harland's heroines and -I'm convinced that whatever the Powers are preparing for me--I shall -accept it here,--just as I accept all this--gratefully, gaily, without -demur." - -Ruth glanced at the violet hills and the guileless meadows and a thrill -passed through her. She jumped up, a white hand held to shade her face. - -"_Basta!_ I've rested long enough, the sun here is too hot," said Miss -Adgate. "I think I'll discover what lies beyond, in the heart of that -wood there," and off she started, blushing at her emotion. - -A company of crows in a distant field caw-cawed, querulously, at her. -Their raucous voices fitted the rough woodland, the vigorous autumn -smells, the haze of the mellow golden morning. She came again to the -little brown brook gurgling quietly over its bed of brown stones and -leaves and the fancy took her to follow its course. Wet feet were of no -consequence, determined to see all of her possessions Ruth skirted its -purling side and discovered presently that here the brook, lifted from -the earth by hand of artifice, was confined to a long, shallow, wooden -aqueduct, an aqueduct open to the air and to the tracery of boughs -above and to blue skies reflected in the water. Through this conduit -the little brook bubbled and bounded, clear as crystal; icy cold to the -touch as she dipped her hand in and let the water run along her wrist. - -"Ah," thought the young lady, "this must be our famous spring!--I've -reached the headquarters of the Nile or I'm very near them." And through -the trees in truth, she perceived, further on, a rough hut, built to -protect the stream's source from inroads of man and beasts. - -She sat herself on a fallen tree trunk, leaned back and gazed with -half-closed eyelids into the network of branches--oaks, larches, birch, -hazel, maple,--nearly bare of foliage. Here again, the ground, checkered -with green moss-patches was interspersed with little plants, "which must -be all a-flower in the spring," thought Ruth and she vowed that when -spring came she would return to pluck them. - -Then--presto!... Without a note of warning--the agreeable independence -of her mood vanished. Lucilla, Pontycroft!... Her mind, her heart, her -very soul yearned for them. And a homesick longing for the finished, for -the humanly beautiful, the artistically beautiful,--an intense craving -and desire for a familiar European face--smote her. - -"But,-----" she puzzled, "would they, those I want most to see, _could -they endure this wilderness?_ No--not Lucilla! Not Lucilla with her love -of luxury and her disdain of short skirts." She laughed. "Pontycroft? -Perhaps," her heart fluttered. She knew he doted upon old, formal -gardens, well-clipped lawns; had delight in the glorious army of -letters and of art,--that he found in the society too, of princes, -entertainment. Still, it might be possible.... He would, at all events, -have some whimsical thing to say about it all. She began to fancy that -she heard his voice. - -"If he were here," Ruth told herself, "I should ask him to interpret -the horrid vision I had last night." Ruth shivered as she recalled it; -rapidly she began an imaginary conversation. - -"I was lying in the big, carved, four-post family bedstead in my -bedroom," Ruth informed him. "I was half asleep and half awake and I saw -myself coming up the steps into the house just as I did when I arrived. -As I came, the house door opened, quickly, from within, and four people -rushed towards me, with open arms. One was my father.--He clasped me -tenderly and said: 'Welcome, welcome home!'... Behind him, a tall, -large, old man clasped me in his arms and he cried: 'Welcome, welcome -home!' Then came another and with the same words bade me welcome; I felt -very happy, and so glad that I had come! But running down the stairs of -the house arrived a tiny, meagre, old lady, whose corkscrew curls bobbed -at either side her face. She cried: 'Welcome, welcome!' in a shrill, -high voice, seizing me in her embrace. 'Welcome!' she cried again, 'but -_look out!--We can bite!_' And as she said it her two sharp white teeth -went through my lips till I screamed with pain and started up--all -a-tremble--and then I fell back onto the bed and shook for an hour." - -"My sweet child!" the sane amused voice of Pontycroft made reply. -"These old four-post family bedsteads are dangerous affairs to sleep in. -_Quant-à-moi_, I've always avoided 'em.... I'll have nothing whatever -to do with them. If my great-aunt, from whom I inherited Pontycroft, had -not been of my way o' thinking I should have sold those at Pontycroft to -the old furniture dealer in the village. Fortunately, that fearless lady -lifted the obloquy of the act from my shoulders by disposing of them -herself. One day, while my uncle, her husband, scoured the high seas -under Nelson, she got rid of all the old family four-posters. When he -returned from the war and asked what had become of 'em she acknowledged -she'd discovered a preference for bronze beds and had sent to France for -a dozen. But he was far too thankful to be at home again. 'Peace now, -at any price,' said he. And he never mentioned four-posters to his -lady-wife again, but slept and snored contentedly, for forty odd years, -in a red-gold, steel enamelled affair, free of family traditions. You'd -better follow my aunt's example, Ruth. Send to Boston for a nice new -white enamelled bedstead with a nice new wire mattress and let no more -family ghosts worry your ingenuous small head." - -"But, what did it mean? After all, it happened, or I'm mad," Ruth -laughing, heard herself insist. - -"Oh," said Pontycroft,--he gave her one of his droll glances--"if you -want your midnight vision interpreted you must ask some older sage, -even, than I, to do it. I should say, were it not too obvious to be -true, that apple pie with an under crust...." - -"Nonsense," interrupted Ruth. - -"The sort invented by your French ancestress, Priscilla Mulline -Alden (I've heard she was a rare _cordon bleu_)" went on Pontycroft, -unperturbed, "together with New England brown bread--but--that's all too -obvious to be true... what are you laughing at?" he queried, artlessly. - -"I'm laughing at the Brown Bread," retorted Ruth, and she laughed aloud, -"there wasn't any." - -"There should have been," said Ponty, with a deprecating lift of the -eyebrows. "It's _de rigueur_ with baked beans." - -"But your little story," he continued, lighting his cigarette, "belongs -probably to those mysterious reflex actions of ancestry acting on a -sensitive nervous organisation. You can't expect me to explain them. -See, though, that you do look out. Don't, manifestly, offend your -ancestors and they won't offend you, and there's my interpretation." - -Again Ruth laughed aloud, gleefully, at the tones of Ponty's voice and -again a little thrill of pain and hope pierced her breast. She looked -at her watch. It was almost noon and she turned towards home through the -glade, by the path along the brook. - - -VI - -But the adventure of her walk had not come to an end yet. - -The path widened into a grass-grown road. The day was so hot she -regretted she hadn't brought her sunshade, but she walked with light -buoyant steps, unreflecting,--amused by the antics of two blue, belated -butterflies who, not perished with the summer, convinced it had come -back a little, danced ahead of her chasing the shadows; they fluttered -to the right and to the left, and came at last to rest upon a withered -mullen stalk a few yards in advance of her. Ruth watched them while they -sought greedily, making a rapid tour of the dried stem, for some lone -flower upon which to replenish their hungry attenuated little stomachs. -She almost held her breath, as she paused to watch the quest and she -wished she might, by a wave of her stick, restore fresh succulence to -the weeds, when-- - -"Halt, stop!" cried a voice. - -Instinctively, Ruth shrank back. - -"There's a snake ahead of you--there--just across the path. Don't move!" -cried the voice. - -Miss Adgate stood perfectly still. She saw a man run by her; she heard -the sharp report of a gun. The smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils -and the terror of the sudden cry made her feel sick. - -"There he is!" cried the owner of the voice. - -An excited young man presented upon the muzzle of his gun a viscous two -feet of snake, an object that limply resembled the straight, flat limb -of a tree. "A copperhead. 'Tis the only deadly dangerous beast in these -harmless woods. As I'm alive, if you had put your foot on him you would, -indeed, have found him deadly." - -He extended the flabby thing for Ruth's inspection, but the young lady -looked away--her arm instinctively went out to clutch at something. - -"No cause for fright, Miss Adgate," said the young chap. He proffered a -hand to steady her. "I'm afraid I gave you a terrible scare," he added, -apologetic, and he looked at her with concern, "but that was better -than the bite. You're quite white; sit down a moment. You'll soon feel -better." - -Ruth covered her face with her hands. - -"Thank God!" she said, with an involuntary shudder, but she did not sit -down. - -"Are there many of those creatures in the woods?" she asked, but she -felt ashamed of her weakness. - -"No, especially not at this time of year. The warm sun brought this -one out. You should never walk about here in low shoes, though, Miss -Adgate." - -"You know my name," Ruth said, surprised. - -"I take it for granted you're General Adgate's niece, having a walk -through your woods. The whole town knows you arrived last night," -answered the young man, with a bow, smiling at her. - -His smile was pleasant, he looked at her with friendly interest. -In shabby tweeds and a pair of leggings, a game-bag slung over his -shoulder, he was evidently out for a day's shooting. - -"Don't think I'm a trespasser, though I can't show you my permit. But -your uncle and I are old friends," he vouchsafed. "I'm privileged, I -must tell you, to shoot here when I like. In fact, I rather fancy -the quail you sat down to at supper last night was the product of my -game-bag." - -It occurred to Ruth that this remark came somehow with bad taste--the -speaker's eyes shone, however, with so kindly a light she hadn't the -heart to resent it. - -"You are a marvellous shot," was all she said. - -"I served under your uncle in the Cuban War," the young man told her. -"We had sharp fighting then, Miss Adgate. But we're well drilled, here -in Oldbridge--not a man jack of us but can pick an ace on a playing -card at fifty paces. That's all due to your uncle who supervises the -rifle-practice at the Armoury, to say nothing of coaching us in military -tactics, which he's past master in." - -"Ah!" said Ruth, interested. "I supposed he was the most peaceable of -retired military men." - -"Peaceable and retired if you like. But in times of peace, prepare for -war.... The way we are made to answer up to call on drill nights would -cause your blood to freeze, Miss Adgate." - -"_Ma ché!_ I thought I'd come to a quiet, sleepy New England town where -all was love and peace! The day after I arrive I learn I am in a hotbed -of militarism," laughed Ruth. - -"You're right," the young man replied seriously, striding beside her. -"General Adgate, you see, has been through two wars. He received -his brevet of General in the war between the North and the South. He -realises the importance of preparing for emergencies, now that we've -taken our place among the nations. He's a splendid chap. Not one of us -but would walk or fight our way to death for him.... And it's always -been so. Why, they tell this story when he was just a Captain, in -the War of Secession. The enemy was pouring bomb and shell into his -entrenchments. He ordered his soldiers on their bellies, and in the -midst of the cannonading up he got, stood,--coolly lighting a cigarette: -'Now, my men,' said he, 'rush for them!' The men rose in a body, leapt -the entrenchments, fell upon the enemy. Of course the enemy was routed! -we captured and brought back guns and ammunition with cheers to camp. -Then it was, I believe, he was breveted General Adgate." - -Ruth had a shiver of pride as she listened. "But now," continued her -informant, "worse luck, in these cowardly moneyed times, there's no -fun to be got out of war! You stand up, of course, to be slaughtered -wholesale. Now--the best shot has little hope of bringing down his -man--there's nothing to practise on but quail and partridge in the old -General's woods." - -"And snakes," put in Ruth, laughing. - -"Snakes," repeated the young fellow, with a merry laugh. "Thrice blessed -copperheads!" went his mental reservation,--so quickly is youth inflamed -in America. "But a bounty's on every one of these wretches, Miss -Adgate," he said aloud (and Ruth, fortunately, perhaps, was not a mind -reader.) "They've almost disappeared. Truth is, like the rest of us, -this one came out to welcome you, poor devil, and he's met with a sad -end! Since the new law a snake may not look at a lady." - -They had reached, as they strolled, the foot of the Adgate hill. As they -neared the gate the young man paused. - -"I must bid you good-bye," said he, lifting his hat, "it's long past -noon,--almost your luncheon hour." - -"Oh," Ruth suggested, "since you and my uncle are friends won't you come -in to us for lunch? You shall go back to your shooting, your rescuing of -damsels, when we've refreshed you. I dare say there's some of that quail -left," she added, with an occult smile. - -"Miss Adgate,"--the young man visibly struggled with temptation.... -"Miss Adgate," he looked into the pretty flushed face and he felt -himself smitten to the heart's core. "That's very good of you; I'm -afraid, though, you don't know our New England customs. You've a -hospitable, beautiful English habit, but you've not been here long -enough to know that we don't ask folk unexpected-like to lunch; not -unless they're blood relatives or bosom friends. Tradition, ceremony, -convention forbid it and a gorgon more awful still. Her name -is--Maria-Jane!" - -"Oh!..." Ruth laughed. "But she's paid for that! It is part of her -duty...." - -"Ah, _dear_ Miss Adgate, you won't find it easy. Love won't buy them, -money won't purchase them, though I dare say,--you'll have a way with -you will make them see black white. But if you risk asking me, I won't, -and for your sake--accept--though I'm horribly tempted to. Besides, -think of it, tradition, ceremony, convention." - -Ruth felt herself getting angry. Here was a youth she didn't care -twopence for, who had done her more than a civility, but who presumed to -instruct her in a provincial code of manners. She would show him she was -mistress of her household--then be done with him. - -"What ceremony, what convention?" she demanded coldly. - -"Oh," the young man replied undaunted, "no one wants his neighbour to -know he sits down to a joint, a couple of vegetables and apple pie for -his midday meal. We make such a lot of fuss here when we ask people to -eat with us." - -"But that's precisely the staple of every one's luncheon in England, -from Commoner to Lord," cried Ruth. "No one makes a secret of it--it's -called the children's dinner. Whatever frills may be added, there or -here, the joint, the vegetables and the pudding, which amounts to the -pie, are invariably present and the most patronised. I assure you it's -the luncheon every one ought to eat. And now," she commanded, "open -the gate and shut it behind you, and be satisfied to partake of our -vegetables, our joint and our pudding without further ado." - -"I accept," said the delighted young fellow. "But if General Adgate -turns me out-o'-doors, I shall bend to the New England custom I was -brought up in and not hold you responsible for my discomfiture." - -They ascended the hill, over the softest, greenest turf; they went under -the apple trees despoiled of apples,--passed through the rustic gate, -and entered the garden. To the youth, the garden was all fragrant of -blossoms which must have burst into flower over night. Such delusive -things have a trick of happening, in New England, to an old garden, to -welcome the desired person, and Ruth, though she didn't suspect it, had -already become the desired person in the eyes of her victim. The syringa -tree under which they went spread for them a miraculous white canopy; -the white pinks threw forth aromatic scents which penetrated by the door -into the house as Ruth brought her companion to General Adgate, seated -before a rousing wood fire reading his newspapers in the drawing-room. - - -VII - -Miss Adgate preceded her companion. - -"Uncle," she boldly proclaimed, "I've brought a friend of yours to -luncheon." General Adgate looked up from his book. "Why--Rutherford! -glad to see you," he said, shaking hands none too cordially. "So," he -smiled as he pushed a chair forward for Ruth, "my niece waylaid you, did -she?" - -"No," Ruth told him. "I was waylaid by a serpent in our woods. Mr. -Rutherford happened by at the right moment to rescue me." Then Ruth went -to the ancient gilt mirror above the fireplace and withdrew the pins -from her hat and rang for Paolina. - -"So you saved the lady's life," General Adgate chuckled. "Well done, -Rutherford, my son--a plausible opening to the story to -please the matter-of-fact public. As though the public were -matter-of-fact!--Nothing is really improbable enough for the public, -provided life's in the telling. We're ready to swallow the most -unconscionable lies! But though you've lost no time in making the -opening ordinary, Rutherford, we shall see what may be done to reward -you." - -"Oh," objected Rutherford, with happy laughter,--"you of all men should -know it--the service of Beauty brings its own reward to those lucky -enough to serve it?" - -"Lunch is served, Miss," announced Martha patly, putting her head in at -the door. - -"Oh, a plate, please, Martha, for this gentleman," said Ruth. - -A shade (was it a look of displeasure?) crept into Martha's face; the -reply came meekly. "Yes, Miss," she answered--and disappeared. - -Miss Adgate threw a gay glance at Rutherford, he returned it with one he -meant to make eloquent of his admiration. But Ruth was saying, in that -ravishing voice of hers: "Shall we go in?" She swept by him into the -low-ceilinged, white-panelled dining-room with an air of dignity in her -slim, young figure which Rutherford thought suited it to perfection. - - -VIII - -Poor old Rutherford is fond of recalling that memorable luncheon to -this day. Ruth's joyous soul frothed into fun which sounded at times so -exactly like Pontycroft that he seemed to be at her elbow. For a reason -not hard to seek, to sophisticated minds, General Adgate, too, seemed -in high spirits. Rutherford--well--we know what infatuated young men -are--excellent company because they laugh at a word, could applaud the -dullest saw. Neither Ruth nor General Adgate spoke in saws; by a saw -we mean the easy pert phrase, _la phrase toute faite_ which passes -so readily for wit in any land. General Adgate was an accomplished -raconteur. He could tell a story with an economy of language, a grace -worthy the subtlest story-writers; the point, unexpected when it came, -brought the house down. Ruth listened--astonished, and led him on. -Rutherford's haww-hawws, more appreciative than musical, provided the -essential base to the trio. - -When lunch was over Ruth ordered coffee to be served in the -drawing-room. "You're a daring creature! I've never had the courage to -ask Martha to do that," objected General Adgate. - -"But don't you always have coffee after luncheon?" she asked. - -"Yes, but I must e'en drink it where it's brought to me, at table." - -"Poor dear! You see the advantage of having a woman by who fears -nothing." - -"I see the advantage of having a fair niece to minister to my poor human -wants," gallantly responded the General. "And to make life extremely -worth while, hey Rutherford?" - -"Miss Adgate is an adorable hostess. If I don't envy you as her uncle, -General, it is because I find her perfect as Lady of Barracks Hill," -said Rutherford. He said it with a flush and with the fear upon him that -he had said too much. - -But Martha just then had entered bearing the coffee; Ruth, indicating -the Japanese tea-table, took no notice of his speech. The table, the -shining silver Georgian service on its silver tray were placed before -her. - -"Where did you get this old service, Uncle?" Ruth asked as she lifted the -elongated, graceful coffee-pot by its ebony handle and began to pour the -coffee. - -"Martha must have unearthed that from the cupboard upstairs," answered -her uncle. "The salver has been put away for years. It belonged to your -great-grandmother. But how did they manage to give it such a polish?" - -"Miss Adgate's maid helped me, sir," Martha vouchsafed in her primmest -voice. "We tried that new powder. It took no time at all." - -She left the room with her chin up as who should say: "We know the -proper thing to do, when there's someone at hand who knows we ought to -know it." - -"Well!" exclaimed Rutherford, confounded. - -"Ruth's a mistress as gives satisfaction," General Adgate laughed -softly while Martha's footsteps receded towards the kitchen. "I believe, -Rutherford, we'll be having our afternoon tea here yet, in the British -fashion." - -"_Ma, da vero! come si fa?_" cried Ruth, lapsing into Italian in her -surprise, "don't you _always_ have afternoon tea?" - -"We have _tea_, Miss Adgate," Rutherford answered merrily, "tea with -cold meat, stewed fruit and cake at six o'clock. Not a minute later, -mind you. Martha and Bridget have something better to do than to be -serving even you all day. By seven of the clock one is off with one's -young man or running over to mother's.... You need not inquire at what -hour we get back, we have the latch-key, and your breakfast's generally -served on time." Ruth cast a wild look at General Adgate. - -He bowed his diminished head: "I'm afraid it's true," he murmured. - -"Is it--a--universal habit,--in Oldbridge?" asked Ruth, her eyes -dancing. - -"It has to be the universal habit," answered Rutherford. "We simply -can't help ourselves. We could get no one at all to wait upon us if we -didn't conform to it. The--the--and the--are the only people in town -who are known to have late dinners and that's because, hopelessly -Europeanised, they don't care what they pay their girls, and keep a -butler. Even they are obliged to dine at seven;--besides," laughed -Rutherford, "late dinners _ain't 'ealthy!_" - -"After all," said Ruth, thoughtfully, "the custom is primitive, not to -say Puritan; I think it suits Oldbridge. Our forefathers had to do with -less service I suppose. And as you say, late dinners _ain't' ealthy_. -But Paolina shall give us our afternoon tea, at four, Uncle. It will -make her feel at home to serve it to us. But aren't you famished for -some music? I want to try the Steinway. This morning when I came down I -raised the lid and saw the name." - -She rose from her corner of the sofa and seated herself at the piano. -_Oft have I travelled in those Realms of Gold_... Presently she had -started her two companions, travelling, journeying _in those Realms of -Gold_ which Chopin opens to the least of musicians. Chopin's austerity -of perfect beauty wrought in a sad sincerity,--entered the New England -drawing-room. To General Adgate's ears the music seemed to lend voice -at last,--give expression, at last,--to holy, self-repressed, patient -lives,--lives of the dead and the gone--particles of whose spirit still -clung, perhaps, to the panelled walls, pervaded, perhaps, the air of the -old room. To Ruth, this incomplete New England world, which something -more than herself and less than herself was, for the nonce, infatuated -with, possessed by,--which yet, to certain of her perceptions,--revealed -itself as a milieu approaching to semi-barbarism, Oldbridge, melted -away. At her own magic touch, Italian landscapes, rich in dreams, -rich in love, abundant; decked forth in fair realities, intellectual -joys,--complete and vibrant of absolute beauty, harmonious, -suggestive,--rose, took shape before her. - -"_I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls_, among pink fragrant oleanders," she -repeated, smiling to her thoughts as she played and forgot the present. - -Rutherford, Rutherford,--oh,--of course--Rutherford found in those -heavenly chords and melodies what every lover finds in Chopin. - -Ruth turned around upon her piano stool. - -"Have you had enough?" she asked, smiling. - -"Enough?" exclaimed the lovesick youth. "I, for one could never have -enough." - -"_Toujours perdrix!_" said Ruth and lifted up a warning finger. - -"Play us something else, child," said her uncle in a matter-of-fact tone -intended to disperse sentimentality. "Let us hear your Russians and a -little Schubert." - -And so Ruth played the Valse Lente from the Fifth Tschaikowsky Symphony -and the famous Rachmaninoff which, I believe, everybody plays, and -finished at last with the Fourth Fugue of the immortal Bach. - -"There!" she exclaimed, "I'm tired." - -"And so am I," said the transcriber, laying down the pen. - -IX - -Young Rutherford bounded from his chair. The tall clock in the hall, as -though loth to mark the passage of Time,--Time,--who had been its friend -for something more than a hundred and fifty years,--the steadfast old -clock began to mark three very slow, slow notes. - -"Miss Adgate, forgive me! I suppose I ought to go, you should be left to -rest!" he held out his hand. "I've never known any pleasure comparable -to this afternoon's. May I come again? The whole of Oldbridge shall envy -me to-day,--I'm too vain not to tell them where I've lunched. Good-bye, -goodbye," he repeated. He gave Ruth a furtive glance and flushed, very -red. - -"Good-bye, Rutherford," said General Adgate. He smiled indulgence to the -young man who still malingered. "We'll see you to-night," he reassured -him, with a nod. "Ruth, you're to make yourself splendid tonight. I'm -to take you to dine at the Wetherbys. They are giving a dinner party -in your honour, for knowing you were not ridden yet with engagements -I accepted for you. There will be some sort of a reception -afterwards--you'd call it _At Home_ wouldn't you? Everyone's coming. -Everybody wants to meet Miss Adgate." He laughed, as though well -pleased. - -"I believe he's proud of me," thought Miss Adgate, gratefully. - -The door at last closed on Rutherford. Niece and uncle stood together -in the hall, where the voice of the family time-piece, its brass -face marking the phases of the sun and moon, underlined the pervading -stillness of the house with an austere, admonitative, solemn -"tick-tack!" - -"Ruth," said her uncle abruptly, "why did you come to America?" - -"Why?--To see you, of course," Ruth said, her tone one of innocent -surprise, but she felt a little guilty catch at her heart. - -"Oh,--me!" her uncle said. "You young witch, you never crossed the seas -to look at an old man. It was as much my business to cross them to look -after you. Come," said he, with a look of raillery, "there was some -precipitating cause. You came in a hurry. Something happened--for you -might have put your journey off for another year. Something occurred, to -induce you--to come--in a hurry." - -Ruth hesitated. She gave a light laugh--then she looked away. "Shall I -really tell you?" she asked. - -"The sooner you tell me," said the old General, "the better,--for then -we'll understand one another." - -"I left Europe,"--Ruth said, embarrassed, "because--because--I wanted -to see--my uncle--and have a look at my ancestral acres!" she still -prevaricated, yet dimpling with amusement. - -"Your ancestral acres!"--repeated her uncle, sceptically. "Well?" he -encouraged. - -"Oh--well--because,--if you must have another reason still, -well--because--well--I felt sore." - -"Why?" said General Adgate. - -"Why?" said Ruth with a persistent and feminine reluctance to reveal -her real self, speak her true reasons: "Uncle,--I wish--you wouldn't ask -me!" - -"Out with it," said her uncle. - -"Bertram, Crown Prince of Altronde, wanted me to marry him -morganatically. I felt outraged, though they told me it would be a legal -marriage. Harry Pontycroft and Lucilla sympathised with my disgust and -packed me off. And--that is why." - -The old man looked grave. "Damned European whelps," he muttered. "No -wonder your Puritan ancestors shook that dust from their souls. You did -well," he said, patting Ruth on the back. - - -X - -Ruth went upstairs without another word. The upper hall was lined with -bookshelves reaching to the ceiling. "I must add a library to this -dear place," she said to herself while she sought for a book. She was -tired,--she wanted to lie down, she wanted to wash from her mind the -impressions of the day; she felt completely fagged. - -General Adgate came upstairs behind her while she was peering along -the shelves of calf-bound books. The shelves seemed to hold only a -monotonous row on row of histories and works of philosophy. - -"Take this," he said as he passed her, and, pausing, he removed a book -from an upper shelf and handed it to her. - -This was a volume of Governor Bradford's History of New England. - -"But," Ruth weakly objected, "I wanted a novel!" - -"You'll find that more interesting than any novel," General Adgate threw -over his shoulder as he proceeded on to his own apartments. - -O Reflex Egotism! Ruth found the book more interesting than any novel. - - - - -&PART SIXTH - - -I - -|THE Old Town of Oldbridge is rich of one pleasant winding highway along -whose route are scattered its prettiest demesnes. Time was, once, when -this sun-spattered, tree-bordered thoroughfare enjoyed its dream of -peace in drowsy quietude, under spreading lindens and over-arching elms. -To-day, however, it stirs in its dream. - -Yet its ancient houses stand placidly enough. Comfortable and serene -among park-like meadows, life in them goes on with a simple dignity and -ease; and if they are the sometime innocent cause of the sin of pride to -the families who inherit them, they are sources of arcadian joys to the -stranger within their gates. For they are all spotless and restful--and -fragrant of the breaths of several hundred years of new-mown hay, -rose-arbours, and aromatic pinks, blown through the windows. These old -Colonial homes speak eloquently of good life past, of still better life -present--to come. - -The trolley-track and the pretty road keep company a bit, together; they -both turn to the left and passing in all say twenty houses, reach the -Common and the Post Office, where a dozen or so more hipped roofs, -set among quiet flower gardens and apple orchards lend tradition and a -quaint distinction to the really lovely old Green. - -The boys of Oldbridge have pre-empted this Green, the most popular of -Sports Clubs, and here, after school, as their forbears did, as their -fathers and grandfathers did, here they play and tumble and wrestle and -fight. From here they cross the road to enter the Public School House, a -red brick building which, thirty years ago, supplanted the Dames School, -and which balances the old brick Meeting House at the further end. - -The haunt, trysting-place, council chamber--where every mischievous -plot is hatched, such is the Common. Whence the eternal Boy, lured by -near-flowing waters of the Mantic joins his pals upstream for a swim, -plays uproarious pranks there, ties a chap's clothes into a hard knot -on the bank and when he comes dripping out in search of them chants, in -raucous chorus: "_Chaw raw beef--the beef is tough!_" - -In Winter, the frozen River Mantic makes an unrivalled skating ground; -and the Old-bridge Boy still builds his ice-fortress on the Common, -stocks it (ammunition of snow-balls)--and leads his regiment to victory. -Here he coasts or hitches his sledge to a huge one fleetly passing, gets -a glorious ride--comes home, nose and fingers frost-bitten, exceeding -argumentative; talking in loud imperious voice; in truth a very dog of -wintry joys. - -Too often, after supper, the Boy of Old-bridge takes delectable but -stolen interest in the conversation of the village Post Master and his -cronies. By the door in Summer--round the stove in Winter, he and -they discuss the politics of the hour to many hoary anecdotes between. -Pastime sternly prohibited by parents requiring infinite discretion! -Thus one steals with muffled tread down by back stairs, one issues forth -by back windows, one whistles to one's _fides achates_--and off. - -Miss Adgate, who to her regret had never been a small boy, never would -be, was none the less of opinion that boys are the most amusing imps and -she soon exercised her opportunity for making the acquaintance of a New -England lad, Master Jack Enderfield, the twelve-year-old son of Mrs. -Enderfield, who lived in the Enderfield House on the Common. Mr. -Enderfield, after preaching to his world for fifteen years, had left it, -with, he feared on his death-bed, little advantage to its soul. He had -gone leaving a library full of theological tracts and treatises, of -philosophic books and pamphlets, a comfortable fortune inherited from -collateral great-aunts,--and a son, Jack. Jack was blond, blue-eyed, -curly haired, of an enquiring expansive nature towards those in whom he -felt confidence, and a diverting person. Having met Miss Adgate at -his mother's, when she returned the lady's call he considered himself -entitled to drop in when he liked at Barracks Hill. - -"She's got such stunning hair, mother, and such white hands.... And when -she talks it makes a fellow feel good. She uses such pretty words and -her voice is low and round. And she listens to a man and draws him out." - -"But, my dear, it may not be convenient for Miss Adgate to receive you -so often," said Mrs. Enderfield. "Miss Adgate has other people to see, -other things to do." - -"Oh, she has always time to see me," replied Jack, with a wave of -the hand. "She told Martha to say she was out the other day when the -Wetherbys called. She took me up to her sitting room and showed me a lot -of jolly European things and gave me this paper knife." Jack drew from -an inside pocket, offering it for inspection, a Venetian filagree paper -knife wrapped in soiled and crumpled tissue paper. - -The maternal heart could not withstand such obvious proof of favouritism -towards her idol. Though warned not to wear his welcome out, Jackie -descended frequently upon Barracks Hill, but this, though it concerns, -runs ahead, of the story. - - -II - -Miss Adgate received calls for a month; paid them--was dined--was -less wined than vastly cocktailed,--in simple or elaborate New England -fashion. She returned these hospitalities and she discovered that -Oldbridge New and Oldbridge Old held agreeable people. If they treated -her a little as an Egeria she accepted the rôle without fuss and gave to -modesty its due. - -Some of these new acquaintances, of a pretty taste in letters, on far -more than nodding terms with art, had, after years spent abroad--fallen -like herself alack, upon a day! Alack the day on which we come to the -disputably sage conclusion that East,--West.... We know, we learn--too -late, sometimes alas, the fatal rest! And they had cast behind them the -dust of the East, and they had turned Westward with a very lively -sense of the superior enchantments of Europe. But once at home a -devout appreciation of the sweet repose ('tis the just phrase), an -imperceptible abandonment to that soothing peace which hovers insidious -over a New England homestead, ah, ye rewards of Virtue! these had -quietly engulfed in sodden well-being, the finer European impressions. - -Miss Adgate a little later, perceived that these wise people--settled -ere long unblushingly to New Englandism, never again intended to budge. -They had accepted, deliberately, the prose of life. And Miss Adgate, -enamoured of New England, still kept her head enough to wonder, with -some dismay, whether she, too, if she stayed here, she, too, would -end by looking upon Oldbridge New and Oldbridge Old as the be-all and -end-all of existence! So many things spoke here to her heart. Her tender -spirit basked here, all day, in good will. But wasn't Oldbridge just a -trifle lacking in effervescence? And yes--didn't Oldbridge take itself -a bit solemnly? Ah, yes! And--yes--it had a distressing tendency to be -very serious about everything. To none of these states of mind had Ruth -been initiated, and every good Catholic knows that mirth is from God, -dullness from the Devil. - -Miss Adgate, who had hitherto lived on the plane of an impersonal, if -somewhat facetious consideration of public matters,--of wit, persiflage; -Miss Adgate found when it came to small gossip that she was an irritated -listener. Carping criticism made her yawn, she became dumb, had -nothing to say. It is indeed a stupid trade! Moreover her soul had ever -disported in innocent folly, in gaiety and witty conversation. She soon -attracted those who cared for the same light stuff and Barracks -Hill became, ere long, the centre of a coterie of frolic, music, and -laughter, where personalities except in the ways of honest chaff were -tabooed--and no one's affairs, wonder of wonders! were commented upon -behind his back. - - -III - -But, after all, Barracks Hill it was, "poetic, historic Barracks Hill," -which spoke to her fancy,--held her heart! - -This house and the hill of this house were suggestive; packed full of -romance. Ruth, whose temper was a charming compound of mirth love -and poesy,--Ruth who had the soul of a poet in the body of a fair -woman,--Ruth now fell deep in love with reverie.--She spent long days -in a singular sort of trance. Lingering in a room she pondered its -messages--wandering upon the hill, she dreamed and mused. The room -mysteriously unburdened itself of long pent emotions,--joys and woes; -the hill unfolded its soul, opened wide its heart to her; and lonely -desolate ghosts--the ghosts of monotonous, innocent, happy, sorry lives -confided in her--told her their tales of pain; disclosed to her their -rapture of hope, their mysteries of birth and love and aspiration--their -tragedy of denial--and of death. - -Ruth hearkened to invisible messengers. As she came and went in the -still house, they floated towards her light as down,--intangible, so -perceptible,--in the quiet house, and through the corridors. But -Love's very breath greeted her on the hill.... Love met her there, -with exuberance by day; Love wept there, in her heart--bitter tears--by -night. Yes, a secret sadness brooded at the core of those ghostly souls. -But a musical refrain, a simple entreaty seemed ever in the air and -its contrapuntal burden: "_Love, love and laughter! Give us love and -laughter!_" they implored--conquered her heart. - -"They hope in me!" Ruth thought, wondering and wide-eyed.... "They have -confidence in me! The old place believes in me; it trusts me, it knows -that I love it; it knows I reverence _them_.... It knows, _they_ know, -how my spirit would wish to cull those unfulfilled desires, every one -they long to lighten themselves of, and bring each one to its fruition -if I can. Yes, each of you dear ghosts, you who have been lonely so long -and friendless--you know I'll execute your bidding if I can." - -And, every day, at the little Catholic Parish Church, Ruth said a Rosary -for the house and for the souls that had passed through it. And she -visited the house, from attic to cellar. She was convinced that on one -occasion she saw a veritable ghost who, smiling at her, passed across -the attic. She discovered there, at all events, some fine old pieces -of furniture, white with dust; and she caused these to be cleansed and -polished and placed in the rooms. - - -IV - -One fine December morning Ruth walked with Miranda on the hill. She was -beginning to have projects. - -"Miranda!" said she,--"Heaven knows where you picked the name up," mused -Ruth. "Dear kitten, I believe I'll invite my European friends here! The -fashion is in Europe to come and have a look at America. I'll keep open -house, and you and I and General Adgate shall receive the most famous -people in Europe at Barracks Hill. And we'll show them what they ought -to be curious about, what they've seen only in books,--we'll show them a -beautiful old New England town enriched from all sources yet keeping its -distinct New England flavour. And I'll give to Oldbridge the enlivening -experience," she said with a gleam, "of hob-bing and of nobbing with -every light-minded modern who doesn't take life's trivialities solemnly; -with every human of talent who cultivates the sweet tonic spirit of -levity." - -Miranda listened, his chrysoprase eyes widened--contracted--blazed with -intelligent sympathy. - -"I'm with you, if it's anything that has to do with fun," he loudly -purred. - -Miranda was not a kitten--Miranda was a sleek, a superb tortoise-shell -cat. A cat of the masculine persuasion who could have counted six -or seven summers if a day. General Adgate had, in "a tonic spirit of -levity," christened him at his birth Miranda--it may be because the -Master of Barracks Hill had likened himself that day to Prospero. -Be this as may be, Miranda had kept his youth; his idea of beer and -skittles was still to play at any game he could find a playmate for; he, -at least, was all for sociability. - -And it was his friendly habit to follow Ruth, running along the wall of -the terrace at her left as she paced the hill. Now, when she addressed -him, he drew himself lazily, along the warm stones, stretched himself -infinitely, clawed the rough stones deluged in December sunshine, and -assuming an irresistible attitude as she spoke, pricked his ears. Then, -with a bound made across the turf to an apple-tree, mad for a frolic. He -ran up its grey side, lichen-covered, paused, looked down, and jeered at -her over his shoulder. - -"Why don't you follow me?" he taunted. Took, the next moment, his leap -over her head, landed at her feet, was scuttling deliriously through -wheel ruts, grass-grown, passage of last year's cartwheels. Burrowing -under accumulations of brown crackling leaves, flattening himself -lengthwise, poking out a pink nose at her, he showed a pair of -questioning, mischievous eyes. - -"Send out your invitations," counselled he, "but first, catch me!" - -Ruth plunged to a great rustle of dry leaves, and light and -irresponsible as they Miranda darted to a sheltering juniper. Ruth tried -to seize him--useless vanity, for he was quicksilver. Up another tree -ere she could lay hands on him, he, perhaps not disdainful of a little -petting, and at all events Bon Prince, finally relented; he allowed her -at last to have her way, come close and take him in her arms. - -"You're a duck," said Ruth, laughing, scratching his ears, laying her -cheek against his fur all glossy and fragrant of wood odours. "Such a -mercurial duck! You make me feel thrice welcome here. I believe you are -the spirit of the place. Yes--the little friendly spirit of the house -who attracts and keeps those who love it for its good--who uses every -wile, too, and coquetry to do so." - -Miranda at her words slipped struggling through Ruth's arms to earth, -arched his back, rubbed himself against her skirts, purred loud and -long--circling round her, tail in air and as who should say: "Yes, yes, -no doubt. But let us waste no time in sentiment," and away he bounded to -a remoter corner of the hill. - -"Of course! he's showing me the place," she cried. In genuine enjoyment -of the sport she ran, eyes brimming with laughter, after the clever -fellow as he trotted on; he beguiled her here and he beguiled her there; -he discovered nooks to her full of interest and variety. And as she -abandoned herself to the game, played and romped with him, it occurred -to her once again that this, all this--was not all this verily part of a -sort of terrestrial Paradise? - -Here,--the chimneys of the house just visible below, here, aloof in a -beautiful world,--she stood on the brow of her hill among gnarled fine -old apple trees. She went up to one, she laid her cheek against it. - -"Yes, I can understand what a sight you were in the Garden of Eden," she -whispered. "In Spring, when your rosy blossoms are out,--in Autumn -when you are hung with ripe red and golden fruit! And, yes--Henry -Pontycroft's prophecy is fulfilled.... Here is Eve, sulking in her -native apple orchard!"= - -````"Derrièr' chez mon père, - -````Vole, vole mon cour, vole-- - -````Derrièr' chez mon père - -````Y a un pommier doux-- - -````Tout doux et you!"= - -"If Adam, or if Pontycroft were here..." she sighed, "I should be vastly -tempted---tout doux et you-,--to tempt either of them. Oh, see how the -rosy horizon is caught in its net woven of grey leafless branches! -The sky is a sumptuous Prussian blue and how it fades at the zenith to -palest azure! All the Royal colour is broken up by bold white clouds, -and--this--ah, this is far too fair a sight for one pair of eyes to -revel in alone. This cries, aloud, for Adam!" - -Ruth looked about her. At her feet, oddly enough, curiously enough, a -red firm apple, forgotten there,--untouched by frosts,--at her feet lay -a fine red pippin. She picked it up, she smiled, she wondered.... - -"But--but--there's only you--old Puss! Here, catch it," she cried to -Miranda, who came running towards her, scenting the game he loved. With -a gentle toss Ruth threw the apple along the turf and left Miranda to -the ecstatic enjoyment of patting it, pushing it and rolling over it for -quite eleven minutes. - - -V - -Miss Adgate had Miranda's approbation for inoculating Oldbridge with -levity. She consulted General Adgate: - -"Anything you like, Ruth. Anything you like to keep you here contented." -And he was not in the least fired by her schemes and had nothing further -to say. But Miss Adgate sat down at this and scribbled fifty notes, -selecting her first guests from all the worlds held in the one London -World--the men, the women she liked, whose work she liked; the people -who could be irrelevant at a pinch, amused, amusing. She invited them -to visit her at Barracks Hill during the coming Summer, and in time she -received effusive acceptances to her invitations. - - -VI - -"The Oldbridge Industrial Exhibits opens to-morrow night," General -Adgate, tentatively, said one day. "Do you care to go? You'll find -all your friends. The Light Infantry Band will play to us. It's rather -jolly." - -If New England days in old New England houses are fruitful (to young -women of "high faculties quiescent"), if they are fecund in long, poetic -dreams,--if life in Oldbridge does offer limitless advantage for the -building of castles in the air--none can deny that it has, too, its own -artless way of playing up to the leading lady. - -"I wouldn't be left out for all the planets," protested Ruth. "I'm -curious to know what the Oldbridge Industries are." - -"In that case----" answered her uncle. - -He went off smiling, she could not conceive why. - -"Miss Adgate was a sight for the gods," vowed Rutherford. "Brown velvet, -sables, to suit her brown hair with a red glint in it, and eyes!" - -Miss Adgate doubtless was a sight for the gods, when (conducted by -her uncle) she went the following evening to the Oldbridge Industrial -Exhibits. As she was led first by young Rutherford, then by young -Milman, then by young Massington, then by young Leffingwell, and then by -young Wetherby--through a crowd of friends, to every stall and counter -of the big illuminated hall,--as each of these young men explained, -volubly, minutely, each exhibit--little was left, we may believe, of -Oldbridge Industry which Ruth had not at the end fathomed, become well -acquainted with. Pausing at one stall and at another, she ordered with -reckless discrimination, rugs, lawnmowers, carpenter's tools, muslins, -silks, furniture; and a surfeit of glass blown by a little glass-blower -who had quite a local reputation for his designs; linens, too, and rugs -of delicate colour dyed and woven in the neighbourhood upon a hand-loom -a hundred years of age. The tools might do for Jobias. He had confided -to Paolina that his stock was getting rusty; the mowers, asked the -piratical salesman, are not lawnmowers forever getting out of order? - -These, Ruth's purchases, she destined for the new wing. She was -furnishing the old Morris House, too. The Morris House General Ad-gate -had, to her joy, just presented her with. This had been the home of a -maternal greatgrandmother. From its portals, that lady with the patient -eyes (whose portrait, painted by one Jarvis, hung in the drawing-room) -having taken Admiral Richard Adgate for better or for worse under the -Puritan marriage service read by Parson Ebenezer Alls-worthy,--that lady -had tripped across the hill to come and reign at Barracks Hill. - -The Morris House! Miss Adgate destined it for her Summer overflow of -guests. It is is a quaint and picturesque spot, all nooks and cupboards, -within; of panelled walls and broad brick fireplaces. As its gardens -overlook the purling brook and the Wigwam, it was, thought she, well -suited to the purpose she intended--and it is in fact deserving of far -more attention that this passing word can say for it. - - -VII - -On New Year's Day, Miss Adgate woke to a blizzard. - -The New Year in Oldbridge is feasted in that old-time pleasant fashion -which has long ago _passê de mode_ in New York, which is regarded -with disfavour at Boston and in other New England towns. But Oldbridge -perseveres in welcoming the New Year, for this smacks of ancientry, and, -in sooth, the custom is a genial one. 'Tis well known that in Paris, -every hostess, mistress of a salon, is deluged with cards and flowers -and bonbons from Boissier on the New Year. At Rome, too, on the New -Year, and in Vienna and Berlin, is it not considered courteous for a -young man, not alone to leave his card, but to call wherever he has -received a welcome? The servants of the houses he frequents, a hint to -the wise, never allow him to forget his obligations; they pass at his -lodgings betimes on the New Year and receive for their _Buon' Anno_ a -substantial Buono Mano. Oldbridge is, therefore, wholly in touch with -the most modern capitals when it hospitably celebrates the New Year. - -As Ruth, accompanied by Paolina, passed, by meadows all sparkling and -white with hoar-frost, from the New Year's Midnight Mass at the -Parish Church, the stars in a clear sky scintillated with suspicious -brilliancy. The usual eager nipping air of a New England Autumn had -until then condensed into just an occasional flurry of snow--or it had -subdued its edge; the days were often warm enough to sit beside open -windows. The American Winter had not begun to show its te'eth. But from -her bed to-day Ruth saw the flakes descend--small, dry,--to the rumour -of low complaints, murmurs in the chimney. The flakes had a stealthy, a -persistent look. Ruth, though, was very, sure the storm would prove the -hitherto pretty diversion of a whitened landscape and trees, of a rapid -thaw under warm sun, and Miss Adgate adored these snow falls! She had -never, she thought, seen anything comparable to the white still beauty -of the country and the wood, the gentian blueness of the sky when the -snow had ceased, the clouds had emptied sack and the sun burst forth. -When this happened she would put on a pair of high rubber boots, take a -stick and start for a walk. And when, in her walk, she came across the -marks of little feet along the snow,--squirrel tracks, mole tracks, the -tracks of birds, quail, the larger ones of woodchucks, of foxes,--little -existences living to themselves--which she could never know, -never fathom--her mind would travel off into endless reveries and -speculations. - -But her rôle to-day was that of hostess and there would be no going out -to-day after the snowfall. Miss Adgate shortly after breakfast sauntered -into the kitchen to see how matters there were progressing. - -Before her, on the kitchen table, an array of angel cake, nut cake, -pound cake, orange cake, maple-sugar cake lacked the supreme touch, and -waited to be frosted. Spread upon a crackled Coalport dish a quantity -of thin, brown, crisp, sugar wafers invited appetite. These wafers were -from a recipe handed down in the Adgate family. Ruth-knew the original, -had seen it in Priscilla Mulline Alden's neat cramped little Huguenot -handwriting; it was carefully preserved among the most curious of the -Adgate relics. - -Martha, Ellen,--busy preparing endless edible New England subtleties in -the buttery,--Margaret stirring an icing for the cake, General Adgate -expected,--he had promised to come in an hour to brew his famous -punch, the ingredients for which were mellowing and combining in the -dining-room. Everything was, then, well under way, each aide-de-camp was -at his post; the commander-in-chief felt she might safely mount to her -dressing-room to let Paolina put on the robes of state. - -Now it must be known that Paolina had taken to her new life with -unexpected cheerfulness; and the reason was shortly to be disclosed. - -"Signorina," Paolina began timidly, while she dressed her mistress's -hair in a high French twist, placed a bow of pale blue ribbon fetchingly -to the left of the coil, poised it there like a butterfly with wings -outspread,--"Signorma--would--you be very angry if I confided to you, -something?" - -"It depends upon what the something is, Paolina," said Ruth absently, -giving her attention to the becoming effect of the bow. - -"Oh, Signorina!" sighed Paolina. Suddenly she clasped her hands; she -held them out before her, dropped to her knees. "Oh! Signorina! Jobias -has asked me to marry him!" - -"Jobias--has--asked you--to--marry him?" repeated Ruth in astonishment. -Then she began to laugh--laughed in merry peals of musical laughter, her -head thrown back, her face a ripple of mirth. - -But Paolina was quite offended. - -"Signorina," she said, and she rose with dignity, "why should it make -you laugh to learn that Tobias has asked me to marry him?" - -"Forgive me, Paolina," Ruth said; "it is not that Jobias has asked you -to marry him that makes me laugh--it is the tone in which you break the -news to me." Then, gravely: "And what did you say to him, Paolina, when -he asked you to marry him?" - -"Signorina, I said I would have to ask you. I said that you were a -mother to me, and that I would have to get your consent." - -"So,--" said Ruth, "you really think of accepting him?" - -"I esteem him," said Paolina, "I think he is a good man. He has saved up -two thousand dollars. He has a nice house across the river which he -lets out, and of which he reserves for himself one room. I think my own -mother would be pleased with the match, if you approve, Signorina." - -"But do you realise," said Ruth, "that if you marry Jobias you cannot -see your mother again? It costs a deal of money to cross the ocean. -Jobias could not take you--he would have his work to do." - -"Oh, Signorina, but _you_ would take us! I would not leave you, Jobias -said I need not. But when you marry (Jobias says you will surely marry, -before long)"--Paolina nodded her head several times sagaciously--"then -your husband will want a valet, and Jobias says he will be glad to put -himself at your excellencies' services. And then, you will go abroad -for the wedding tour, and you will want to take us. I can then go to my -mother and receive her blessing." - -Ruth caught her breath. "Thus are our lives arranged for us," she -thought, smiling, "and by whom?" For half an instant she was silent. -Somewhere, among the recesses of memory, Ruth tried to recall such a -conversation. She remembered--she had read it,--why,--it was in one of -Corvo's witty tales.... So does history repeat itself. What the romancer -invents women and men enact. - -But just then, crisis of Paolina's life, the knocker at the front door -went rat-tat. - -"Good gracious, and I'm not dressed yet. Put my dress on quickly, -Paolina,--we'll finish our talk at some other time," Ruth exclaimed. - -Paolina ran to the bed, lifted the pale blue chiffon gown inlaid with -yellow lace--passed it dexterously, delicately, over Ruth's head, and -began with her adroit, rapid fingers to lace the bodice. Martha knocked -at the door: "Master Jack Enderfield is in the drawing-room, Miss," she -said in her precise voice. Ruth glanced at the clock--the hands pointed -to ten. - -"Tell Master Jack Enderfield I'll be down directly," she said. Ruth, -standing before the cheval glass, gave a light pat here to her gown, a -touch there to her coiffure--Martha lingered a minute to take the vision -in. - -"Yes, Miss," she said, closed the door, and was gone. - -Then Ruth descended the stairs in a froufrou of skirts, wafting an odour -of violets as she went along; and she greeted Master Jack Enderfield at -the drawing-room door with that radiant grace the young man seemed so -well able to appreciate. - - -VIII - -"I thought I'd come early," Jack explained, as he stood before the -wood-fire in a man-of-the-world attitude: "I knew that when the crowd -began there'd be no chance for me." - -"I'm delighted you came early," said Ruth. "Won't you sit down?" - -Jack sat down. He plunged at once into the subject which was on his -mind. - -"It's all nonsense, this talk about a Republic," he began. "We'd have -been much better off if we'd stuck to England. Oh, we mightn't have been -so rich," he made a large gesture, "but we'd have been nicer." - -"Jack, these sentiments on the New Year for a child of Liberty, a son of -the Revolution!" Ruth reproved. - -"It's not my fault, Miss Adgate, if I'm a son of the Revolution, and I -don't believe in Liberty. I wish my double great-grandfather hadn't come -over here and married my double great-grandmother." Master Jack stuck -his hands doggedly in his pockets and glowered at the fire. - -"Oh, cheer up," laughed his young hostess. "Accept the inevitable, Jack, -make the best of it! But what can have happened to-day to make you think -ill of Liberty and the Revolution?" - -"It's very well for you to sit there, Miss Adgate, sit and poke fun at -me in your soft voice and your beautiful gown," Jack said, flushing. -"But you know as I do, that this--this country--is rotten--it's going to -the dogs, nothing'll save it!" - -"My dear Jack," accused Ruth, "you've been reading the newspapers!" -Miss Adgate never would, for her part, so much as look at an American -newspaper; she got all her news by way of England, in the _Morning -Post_. - -"The demoralisation's in the air, Miss Adgate, the newspapers only tell -what's happening. But our nation has the impertinence to go on, like -a rooster on a wall, flapping its wings in the world's face and -screeching, 'Admire me! Don't I behave pretty?' No," continued Jack -impressively, with a look of uncanny wisdom in his blue eyes, "No--I'm -going to skip this country as soon as I can get out of it. Here in quiet -old Oldbridge, we're not so bad, though we do like to play a game among -ourselves; proud of being old and aristocratic and so forth, and we -expect if we're good we'll get to Heaven; some of us, though, don't -remember Charity's the only way to get to Heaven! But the whole -country's talking Choctaw,--with a hare lip--and only a few of us, like -your uncle and old Mrs. Leffingwell and Mr. Massington, know what a good -Anglo-Saxon Ancestry implies. The rest of us cackle like the aforesaid -barnyard fowl. - -"Miss Adgate," went on Jack, briskly, "no wonder! See how we mix affably -with the riff-raff who haven't a language. People who are told by the -blooming Constitution of this land that they're as good as you and me -and make uncouth noises according. This I'm-as-good-as-you idea is all -rot. They're not as good as you and they're not as good as me. I am -better than the Butcher's boy, who hasn't brains enough to know his own -foolish business and forgets to bring my meat. I am better than Ezekiel, -who won't black my boots. Damn him," said the boy wildly, "why shouldn't -he black my boots? Let him do his honest work, like a man; become a -useful member of society if he wants to get to be my equal! Not spend -his days shirking and complaining through his nose." - -"Dear, _dear_ Jackie!--Have a glass of lemonade, have a cake! America's -not so bad if you can rise above it.. soothed Miss Adgate with, perhaps, -a grain of malice. She rang for refreshments. - -"She's the sweetest, prettiest, dearest thing in Oldbridge," the boy -thought as he followed Ruth's movements with adoring eyes. - -"Miss Adgate, am I accountable for what my double great-grandfather -did?" Jack asked suddenly. "I think he played me a low trick. He was -one of these Cavalier people who stuck to Charles the Second. The King, -after he'd come to the throne, offered him the Chancellorship of the -Duchy of Lancaster. But the idiot refused it! He'd tasted blood, he -said. He knew Court life, found it dull!--He wanted one of adventure, -something like the dance he'd been leading with Charles. 'Give me -land, Sire, in Virginia,' he said. 'I'll go out there and extend your -Majesty's importance.' - -"Miss Adgate, _he should have stuck to Merry England_. And pray, what -did his great-grandson do? Married a Northerner, became wife-ridden, -dropped his title, sold his lands, went to New England, settled right -here in Old-bridge, his wife's town; and equipped a regiment and fought. -I'm glad to say he got killed, at Lexington. But not without leaving -posterity, of which you see before you the last indignant remnant." - -"And you, you find you're reverted to the state of mind of the Cavalier -before he forsook England," Ruth said thoughtfully. "Jack, you've a -homesick hankering to go back there?" - -"Yes, Miss Adgate," cried the boy. "And, I'll tell you a still greater -secret----" - -Jack paused. - -"_C'est une journée de confidences_," thought Ruth, "well?" she -encouraged. - -"Miss Adgate, we're not aristocratic," Jack declared in a low voice. -"We've just become low-down Provincials. But when I'm a man I -mean to go and claim our lands and titles and our position in Devon. I'm -the rightful heir! My father kept the Enderfield Tree in an old desk -in the drawing-room. It's there, at this moment, in a tin tube, on -parchment. I've often brought it out when my mother's at church and had -a good look at it." - -"Try a chocolate," interposed Ruth soothingly; but the image of the -Enderfield tree in a tube made her laugh as she offered the lacquered -box, inlaid with mother of pearl, which she kept filled for these -occasions. - -"You're a Catholic, Miss Adgate," presently observed the youthful -aristocrat when he had permitted Ruth's sweets to be thrust upon him. - -"Yes," said Ruth urbanely. And--"I wonder whether Jack is preparing to -rend the Faith," she thought. - -"Well," Jack announced with deliberation, - -"I mean to be a Catholic when I'm done with all this." He swept the -present away with his hand. - -"Ah?" said Ruth, surprised. "Why?" - -"Oh, it's the only Faith for a Gentleman," the boy answered. "For a -gentleman and a scholar," he emendated. "You see we're all compounded -too much of human nature and we're all too much given to thinking. Yet -our thinking leads nowhere,--in the end the flesh and the devil do what -they like with us. We may sit with our heads between our hands, we may -try to reconcile our human nature with idealism until we're ready for -the madhouse, and we'll get to the madhouse, but we won't have solved -the problem. Now a man wants to be decent, and the Catholic Faith (I -got Mary to tell me a lot about it, and I've read about it in some of my -father's books), while it makes allowances for human nature and treats -it in the most sympathetic way, does know how to keep it within bounds. -Why, it's a regular school of Saints! And it honestly recognises that -we're mortal; inheritors of original sin as the spark flies upward. Yet -if we go and confess our sins and try to feel sorry for 'em, we receive -the grace of the Sacrament of Penance and Absolution,--and we can then -receive the Blessed Sacrament. And when we receive the Blessed Sacrament -our souls are developed and fed from God Himself and enabled to dominate -our bodies." - -"I see you've been well instructed," said Ruth, astonished at this boy's -clear exposition. - -"I got Mary to tell me a lot about the Catholic Faith, and I've read -Bellarmine and Saint Augustine and a lot of my father's books," repeated -the boy, a little wearily. "But what I like best," he said brightening -again, "is that the Church is down on divorce." - -"What hasn't this singular boy reflected upon," thought Ruth. - -"In a few years I'm going to take the money my father left me, marry, -and go abroad and be a writer, Miss Adgate," declared Jack. - -"Ah,--that might not be a bad idea. Have you selected the young lady?" -Ruth enquired. - -"I've been looking about, among the girls here," Jack answered, "but I -don't find any I can fall in love with," he added plaintively. "They're -all rather silly and superficial. I should like to find someone like -you," he declared with abrupt enthusiasm. "Someone who's pretty, someone -who's a soft sweet voice, thinks about things,--likes to read, that sort -of thing. Yes," he said, gazing at her, "if you were younger or I older, -I should like you to marry me, I should ask you to marry me." - -"But no divorce," Ruth threatened merrily. - -"No divorce? No--of course not!" said Jack in sober disgust. "When once -we're married it's for better for worse. I shall say that from the -first. Don't we always have to live with people we quarrel with at -first? Look at my mother and Mary. She was for flouncing that girl from -the house the first week, and Mary gave notice, day after she got in. -Then they shook down and my mother thinks Mary's a treasure and Mary'd -cut her hand off for my mother. She would for me, told me so. Gives me -all the cream and pie I want, never tells when I come in late from the -Post Office. No, the sooner you find out you're tied to the person you -love by a hard knot for life,--the sooner you realise that marriage is a -Sacrament, the sooner--if you've got an ounce of sense and the Catholic -Faith to help you--you learn to shake down and be happy. Besides, my -wife shall be in love with me and she'll do exactly as I like," declared -Master Jack Enderfield. - - -IX - -A gay jingle-jangle, the concord of sleigh-bells, the muffled piaffering -of horses' hoofs and the door-knocker went again rat-tat.... Voices -sounded in the hall, Rutherford and Robert Leffingwell entered the room, -Jack's tête-à-tête was interrupted. - -"Good-bye, Miss Adgate," said Jack, abruptly. He cast a scowl of dislike -at the jovial face of Rutherford. Before Ruth could make reply Jack was -out the front door, and his friend had a glimpse of a pair of boyish -legs leaping the offset. - -"Splendid way of getting rid of obstacles," Rutherford said as he -followed Miss Adgate's eyes, "but what an odd boy it is! We're in for -a blizzard, Miss Adgate," added he, and he approached the fire and -cheerfully rubbed his hands. - -"A Blizzard!" cried Ruth. She ran to the window, followed by her two -guests. - -For a moment Ruth and the two young men watched the flakes descend.... -They seemed to fall, fall, from limitless Niagaras of snow, from regions -without the world, whose fountain-heads, beyond the skies, might be -situate in those wastes of storm and cloud, where a Teutonic Mythology -places its gods. The trees swayed gently, but even as Ruth watched them -they had begun to bend in torture under a furious gale. Clouds of snow -rose and fell like the billows of the sea.... - -The temperature capriciously dropped to far below zero. Had not Jobias -been prepared for this by previous knowledge, the house might have -become uninhabitable. But Jobias knew his business and stood by the -furnace. All that day and evening he watched it, fed it;--and left his -post from time to time only to replenish with fresh baskets of logs the -voracious fireplaces in the drawing-rooms, casting above the baskets of -wood a paternal smile, an indulgent glance upon those idle ones gathered -round the flames. - -Sledges, meantime, drove up. Guests departed, guests arrived, unruffled -by stress of weather. All, rather, were most obviously exhilarated by -it. Ruth's friends were in the maddest spirits. Punch flowed, quips, -cranks, peals of laughter made the house resound. The Blizzard -adding, at it always does, a fresh elixir, more oxygen to the already -supercharged New England atmosphere, Ruth, too, felt unaccountably -elated. Her eyes sparkled while the winds howled and hooted, and bullied -and tore; the unassuaged tempers of five thousand demons seemed about to -take their fill of hate upon an innocent, well-meaning world, but a -rosy colour bloomed in Miss Adgate's usually pale cheeks. She had never -appeared to such advantage; she had never looked so lovely, appeared so -brilliant, nor been so amusing. Rutherford, as though the storm had -gone to his head, Rutherford watching her covertly, vowed he could throw -himself at her feet before the roomful, and Ruth's intuitions warned -her; she had a feminine inkling of danger. She chatted and she laughed -from her corner by the table laden with excellent things to eat; but -she kept Rutherford at arm's length the while her fancy began to draw -a picture of Pontycroft, standing it beside Rutherford. For the first -time, she perceived that General Adgate recalled Pontycroft in -a measure. Tall, thin, spare, his aquiline features were like -Ponty-croft's, his bearing was that of a distinguished man. "He has -Harry Pontycroft's air of knowing that he knows," reflected Ruth -softly; tenderly to her soul she quoted a line Pontycroft long ago had -ironically applied to himself: - -"He who Knows that he Knows, follow him." - -Pontycroft loved to discourse for the pleasure of holding forth. General -Aldgate was reticent. His voice was low, well modulated; one could not -have helped listening to it, or to what he said; even though this had -not been wise or witty if often touched with irony. - -Rutherford, of medium stature, had the neck of a bull. His skin, -originally clear, was yet ensanguined by exposure to wind and weather; -he liked an out-of-door life and since he was heir to a fortune and -detested the counting house, his life went in hunting, shooting, and -fishing. He had a shock of black hair, clear black eyes, rather an -attractive habit of darting a keen glance at his interlocutor as he -spoke--a glance that seemed to grasp all there was to see, hidden or -upon the surface, in a flash. But his voice was nasal, his words rushed, -spluttered to be free; they issued chopped in two and left the idea -unformulated. It required some familiarity with the American vernacular -to understand him. - -"And he, a college man!" scoffed Miss Adgate. - -But at that instant--while Ruth indulged, I grieve to acknowledge it, -the spirit of mockery--a thunderous crash broke the unison of lively -voices. The score of people in the rooms flew to the windows. There, -tossed to earth, abased from glory, prone upon the ground--imploring -boughs lifted to heaven, a wreck--there lay the monster Adgate elm, one -of the hoary elms in the carriage sweep. It lay there as neatly cut as -with a scimitar. The splendid tree was literally slashed in twain by the -Blizzard's invisible weapon, the prostrate thing loomed, portentous, to -twenty pairs of eyes. - -With the rest, Ruth stared at the fallen King. There was a lump in her -throat.... No one spoke.... Every man and woman in the room had waxed -intimate with that old tree, had come to man's or woman's estate beside -it; they had played under it, insensibly had come to love it, as a part -of themselves, as a piece of their pleasant, happy lives. This comrade -and landmark was, too, one of the pardonable vanities of Oldbridge. - -"Praise Heaven it wasn't the roof," said, at length, the Master of -Barracks Hill. He knew, though, he would have preferred to have it -the roof. A roof may be replaced. His niece even, did not suspect the -passion of attachment any plant or tree upon his land could stir in him -upon occasion. - - -X - -Perseveringly the snowflakes descended. They continued to fall, fall, -fall, for another thirty-six hours. The wind next morning, though, had -stopped, and debris of yesterday's storm had been removed. A trackless -white garment of snow spread to the furthest reaches of Barracks Hill. - -"This is all very weird," said Ruth to Miranda, as, side by side, they -sat and gazed on leagues and leagues of the white silence. "Miranda, -this is all very well--Blizzards are very stirring; simple homely -pleasures are very pleasing, this landscape is _very beautiful_, -but,-----" Ruth suppressed a yawn. - -"Besides, why will young men make geese of themselves? One can't -get away from him, Miranda; a Blizzard even, does not keep him away! -Miranda! If there's an object, my dear kitten, I detest, it's a -sentimental young man." - -"Uncle," said Ruth, nonchalantly, to General Adgate that evening after -supper, as, with Miranda purring snugly beside her, the three -sat together in the drawing-room, "I have an invitation from the -Bolingbrokes, in Washington. They want me to come to them for a visit. -Would you--would you miss me very much?" she coaxed, and she went to him -and laid a caressing hand on the old man's cheek--"would you mind, very -much, if I were to accept?" - -"Mind, my dear?" General Adgate looked at her. "Who am I to say mind? -You are your own mistress. Miss you? That's another pair of sleeves." - -"But suppose I bring them back with me,--I mean the Bolingbrokes," -laughed she. "They're such dears.... You'd fall in love with her, the -sauciest sprite in Christendom. And he'll welcome the occasion to talk -international Politics with you! I believe," Ruth teased,--she drew up -the Empire settle before the fire, she took Miranda to her knees and sat -down again; "I believe that it's my Duty--to go--to go fetch them--to -play with you." With a final nod of decision Miss Adgate placed -two small, elaborately shod feet, in a pair of high-heeled, -steel-embroidered Florentine shoes, upon the fender; she began, with -equal decision, to remove the wrappers from _The Athenoum, The Saturday -Review_ and a couple of _Morning Posts_. - -"Go--my dear," said the old man gently. - -"Dear me! I feel like a brute," thought Miss Adgate. "What will he do if -I return to England? Oh, why will people get fond of people!" - -Miranda purred.... The fire responded; a crisp, little musical -crepitation; the flames licked the wood, the logs consumed themselves, -in a cadenced song of happy Death and blessed Eternity. Punctured -by this music silence entered, cozily, warmly descended upon the New -England drawing-room. - - - - -&PART SEVENTH - - -I - -|MISS ADGATE accepted the Boling-brokes' invitation. She spent six weeks -of gaiety in Washington. Indeed it was refreshing to live in the world -again, to mix with people of the world; to have cogent reasons for -dressing exquisitely every night for dinner, to be taken in to dinner by -a facetious attaché, by, even, a complacent, redundant railway magnate; -or, happy compromise, by a Member of the Cabinet, for it is well known -that a Cabinet Minister may be amusing. Through the interchange -of frivolities and banter one could rise, not to more important -matters,--is anything much more important to the world than the light -touch and a witty conversation? But Miss Adgate found refreshment in -living again among people whose thoughts were sometimes occupied -by questions impersonal, of more or less consequence to the world's -history. - -Someone possessed of a grain of humour has assured us that the "World is -a good old Chum." - -Miss Adgate found the world at Washington a very good old chum during -those six weeks. "In all but the aesthetic sense," she reflected, -"America is an interesting land to live in." Plentiful wherever she -went, tittle-tattle, supplemented by her own observations, helped her -to form an idea of how this unwieldy bulk of a nation calling itself The -United States of America was being rescued from fatuous chaos, a mass -of political corruption and a superfluity of wealth, and lifted into an -arrogant, resolute Power. But a Power whose outlook was as far removed -from the simple hardy traditions of Puritan America as Earth is from -Heaven. - -An oligarchy of able men,--a handful,--chosen, directed, inspired by -a man yet abler, more audacious than they,--these were moulding, had -already changed the destiny, the policy of the United States. - -Miss Adgate recognised the efforts of the Man at the Helm. He had -followed a fixed idea, and the idea was the Greater Glory of his -Country; he had secured with his henchmen indisputable prestige to -the Nation, and, thanks to his star, his tenacity, his temerity, -America,--feared to-day if not honoured, was powerful. But not alas -approved of! "Damn approval!" (the worm will turn,--the watchword passed -through the land). "We are ourselves." - -The "ourselves" went very far. This at least was the modest, unexpressed -opinion of Miss Adgate,--it was shared, apparently, by the Man at the -Helm. He lectured the Nation like a father. The Nation knowing itself to -be unwholesome, inchoate, something ruthless, listened meekly. - -"But," Ruth reflected from the vantage of a calm and sympathetic -observation: "So many religions, no Faith! Where every man, in -disobedience to Christ, chooses to be his own Pope. Yet the Holy Father -has dedicated America to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.... But -the very elements in America, so violent and so ferocious,--the burning -Summers, the cruel Winters, the appalling cataclysms of Nature, if these -are reproduced in the violent characters of the people, inclined to rape -and rapine on a big or a little scale--at what end, _left to its own -devices_, will the American character issue? Will it," she wondered, -"become, inflated with power, the great Master Robber of the World? Or -will it perish utterly, hoist by its own petard?" - -"_Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Convertere ad Dominum Deum._"... Mournful and -tender, in the melodious, yearning, touching accents of Tenebrae, the -phrase filled her ears. - -"No man at the Helm," she sorrowfully said to herself, "shall save us -for more than his few years of tenure. The race cries for direction, a -sane outlet to its emotions. The sole influence which holds anarchy -at bay is Holy Mother Church, wise men tell us. Yes, the Divine -Authority!.. The sweet miracle of the Catholic Faith may save our people -from ending as a nation of brutes; may open to us the gates of Humility -and show to us the road to the 'Greater Glory of God.'" - -And then, Miss Adgate woke with a start from her musings. She shook -her pretty head. She returned to the practice of light banter and witty -causerie, the only efficacious methods within reach, she reflected, of -furthering the millennium her fancy painted for her native land. - - -II - -"My little dear Ruth," Lucilla wrote, "we're coming on the most -important mission to America. Namely, to see you. Yes, and haven't I a -bagful of news for your Royal Highness! - -"We sail by the _Cedric_ on the fifteenth of April, Harry can't leave -until then. To confess the truth, he is in Altronde. Civillo,--of -course you've seen it by the papers,--Civillo is gone to a greater -Principality, Bertram is King. - -"I want to see you--oh! And Ruth, I burn with curiosity to look on that -New England of yours. Harry, I'm convinced, is prepared to settle there. -He says, so pathetically, that at his time of life he feels the need of -planting cabbages and that the Upper Gardener at Pontycroft gives notice -when he tries to. He's heard that in New England gardeners are kind, -don't mind a bit; they just let you plant, right down; are affable; make -you settle right down and become one of 'em. But Harry says, too, -he pines at first hand to solve the inwardness of a land destined to -dominate us all. - -"Ruth, between you and me, in confidence, if America is to be the future -of Europe--well--then I'm glad I shall be dead. - -"But between you and me, my dear, what Henry Pontycroft wants is not -so much to plant cabbages neither is it to study politics... What he -truly-truly wants is a glimpse of the Young Person. He's missed you! Ah! -I have news. Your devoted, Lucilla." - -Over this flippant missive Ruth grew hot, then cold, then faint. And she -sat, for a long moment in a state of emotional upheaval, of senseless -vacuity--the while her head whirled and her heart went thump, thump, -thump! It was an entire quarter of an hour before this commotion -subsided, and left her with soft flutterings at her throat. - -"They're coming, they're coming, they're coming! He's coming... I shall -hear his voice, I shall see him. Oh, what has happened? Is it possible -that he's free? Oh, my God, my God, help me to wait," she cried. She -began to cry and to sob like a little child. She craved, wanted, longed -for, unendurably, overwhelmingly, that he should take her in his arms, -caress and fondle her, and, like a veritable little girl pat her cheek -and soothe her, let her unburden her woes, let her lie, her head in his -breast, while he said to her, "There, little child, there, don't cry." -And it was in Ponty-croft's voice that the words fell upon her ears, and -it was on Harry Pontycroft's breast that she dried her eyes. And they -were Pontycroft's eyes into which her eyes smiled, when, presently, -mocking him through her tears, but in oh, such heaven of bliss! she -repeated the trite refrain of the tritest, the most foolish of Ballads. - -"In God's hands!" said Ruth; she dried her eyes. "Like everything -else...." - -She put her hat and jacket on and went for a walk. When she reached the -house an hour later, she had found her peace, and though her eyes were -singularly bright and her manner curiously vivacious, this contributed -the more to her success of the evening at the Boling-brokes'. - -"Ruth--" Mrs. Bolingbroke rushed at her, enfolded her in an impetuous -hug, "you're delicious! Stay in Washington. Stay in Washington for -ever--" - -"Come to Barracks Hill with me," answered the young lady. "I must be -flitting almost at once." - -"No, no, no...." protested Mrs. Bolingbroke. But it was peaceably -arranged at last that the Bolingbrokes, having a _congé_ at Easter, -should come, then, to Barracks Hill. - -And so, on the fifteenth day of March, Ruth bade farewell to Washington -and travelled back to Oldbridge. - - -III - -One long month and one entire week to wait. 'If Time was interminable, -Miss Adgate resolved to make Time bear fruit. She took herself in hand. -She tried to quell the little tremors of joy which kept welling up in -her throat when she thought of the end of those five weeks. - -"They'll probably not come. They'll change their minds. If they do -come--it's more than likely some nonsense of Lucilla's!... Well.... -Besides I've other businesses to attend to," the lady said with a most -determined air. - -As the least profitless way of passing those interminable days, Ruth set -herself to the task of enhancing the natural beauties of Barracks Hill. -She caused paths to be cut through the woods; she enlarged the flower -gardens; she prepared the Morris House for her June visitors. As to the -library and the music-room they had long since been ready for -occupation. And in the interim of labour Miss Adgate gave a series of -children's parties, calling Jackie Enderfield to her assistance. Her -invitations vested in that young gentleman's hands, he became -cock-of-the-walk among the girls and boys of Oldbridge and Rutherford -was thus kept at bay. Yet notwithstanding these spartan derivatives, -Ruth walked on clouds, smiling at love. - -"She breathes roses and lilies," Miss Deborah Massington declared with -enthusiasm. - -Eighty, thereabout, Miss Deborah was sister to Mrs. Leffingwell and her -junior by ten years. - -"She has charm," Mrs. Leffingwell answered, discreetly, while they -watched Ruth's erect young buoyant figure disappear beyond the lindens. -"She makes one feel that everything's all right--better to come. I -wonder..." - -Ruth liked an hour spent in these ladies' bow-window; gay and fragrant -window, all vivid of sunshine, filled with blossoming geranium and -heliotrope. While she entertained them with tales of Italy, which they -could never hear enough about, Ruth Adgate reflected that the lives -of her grandmothers must have been just such quiet, such repressed, -contented lives as these. - -Mrs. Leffingwell and Miss Massington, types of New England's most -exquisite product--the old lady. The old lady who, with all her gentle -unworldliness, is a patrician to her finger tips. As the perfume -of rose-leaves is preserved in a fine porcelain jar--so the hushed -fragrance of these temperate lives emanates, yet stays, to the end. -White, ethereal, peaceful--and pictorially the replicas of Whistler's -mother, these two ladies were waited upon by a black servant, whose -gorgeous head-gear was the red, blue, and yellow bandanna. Each lady had -her window in the low-ceilinged, white-panelled drawing-room; each -was clad in good black silk; on each white head a cap reposed of fine -Honiton lace--and their gowns were finished with a transparent lace -collar and cuffs. Both ladies were slightly deaf; both were omnivorous -readers, both were eager listeners; both had the sense of humour; and -both were indulgent amused lookers-on at the small games of life which -they were no longer privileged to take part in; and if gracious patience -be a virtue these ladies may well be considered beautiful products of a -fast vanishing Puritan tradition. - -Easter fell on the twenty-third of April. The Bolingbrokes arrived at -Barracks Hill the day before Easter, but on the morning of their arrival -came a disastrous piece of news. Almost the whole of Ruth's fortune -had been swept out of existence overnight in one of those cataclysmic -melodramas which melodramatic Nature loves to enact in the United -States. On Good Friday, the twenty-first of April, nineteen hundred -and eight, the town of Wyoming was annihilated by a tornado. The merry -monster chose the small hours before midnight, when, giving rein to his -pranksome cubfulness, he swept men, women, children into Eternity with -hardly a warning.... The mines--they formed the _raison d'être_ of -the town--caved in, flooded by a water spout. The entire district was -reduced to desolation. - -Seated at breakfast, in the crispest of white morning confections, Ruth -became informed of this and of her losses through the medium of the -Oldbridge _Morning Herald_, whose items she was reading aloud, a -concession, to her uncle. - -General Adgate, far more than his lovely niece, was affected by the -news. Had he not enjoyed vicariously the sense of her wealth? It had -tickled his fancy as well as his family pride to see her squander with a -lavish hand, without so much as a thought of the value of money. It had -pleased his sense of the incongruous that notwithstanding the obvious -joy she took in opening her fingers, in letting the gold slide through -them, she had acquiesced in, nay adopted, many of the Spartan habits of -New England; New England--which has never been purse-proud because she -has never, until lately, had very much money in her purse. Ruth, indeed, -had all she could do to cheer General Adgate. - -"If all is lost, save honour," she consoled, "_I_ have still some -investments in England by the mercy of which I shall not be poverty -stricken. I've as much as three thousand safe pounds a year coming from -there, you old darling," she cooed. "Harry Pontycroft invested it for me -long ago. That ought to be enough for any woman with economical tastes," -she assured him. "And I've a lot in the bank,--Heaven knows how much! -I've never spent anything like my income for I had nothing which seemed -worth spending it upon,--since, ugh!--I detest automobiles, and you know -it. We can still keep open house this summer and never trouble." - -Of a truth, Miss Adgate experienced relief,--why?--she did not try to -fathom--at the thought of her diminished fortunes. She might, possibly, -this blithe adventuress, or had she not been expecting guests, she -might, even, have tried to persuade General Adgate to lead her to the -scene of the disaster. I doubt, though, if she would have succeeded. - -A fat cheque went instead by the Red Cross Society to the relief of the -sufferers. And lo! the diminishing days were dwindled to a pinpoint. - - -IV - -When Mrs. Bolingbroke heard that Henry Pontycroft and Lucilla Dor were -on the sea, bound for America, she could not contain herself. - -"Good gracious, Ruth, what are they comin' for?" she exclaimed, -wide-eyed, gazing at Ruth. - -"Don't know," said Ruth, putting her nose into a bowlful of fresh roses -from Rutherford's hot-houses. "Oddly enough, to see me, perhaps?" she -added, laughing, and she made an effort to look her friend squarely and -jocosely in the face. - -"Richard," said Mrs. Bolingbroke penetratedly to her husband, "Ruth -Adgate is either the most consummate actress or the most innocent dove -the good God has ever, in His ability, wrought from the dust of which we -are made. If the Pontycrofts are on the sea it's for some extraordinary -reason. Ruth either suspects that reason, or she doesn't. But she looked -at me with those clear guileless eyes of hers, when she mentioned their -coming, and I, for one, can imagine any man telling her he'd burn Troy -Town for such a glance. Yet there's that Mr. Rutherford--crazily in love -with her, I'm told,--a splendid match as Americans go. She could marry -him and his money to-morrow if she liked. And since she's so daft about -New England, she could send him into politics and have quite a life. It -will be interesting to see how the Pontycrofts will act when they find -the sources of her income are swept away." - -"That's not a proper remark for you to make, my dear," replied the -Honourable Richard Bolingbroke, in a tone of unexpected severity. "Henry -Pontycroft's a sensitive, quixotic, high-minded, honourable English -gentleman. He's rich, moreover. Money plays no part in his coming. Lady -Dor I've known since I was a boy. She was a delightful girl, just as -now she's a charming woman. They'll be admirable additions to the house -party, and that's all that concerns you or me. Pontycroft will keep us -in roars of laughter and I'm curious to meet him in New England. You -may be sure he'll like this wonderful old place. He'll feel all the arid -romance of this aristocratic passionate bleak land. Who knows? He may be -the Prince come to wake it, humanise it, with a kiss. Oldbridge will not -have looked upon his like--it won't have heard anything to compare with -him, either, in its three hundred years of existence; never will again; -I hope it may make the best of its opportunity to give him a royal -welcome." - -"I feel crushed," pouted Mrs. Bolingbroke. "How should I, who've never -met Henry Pontycroft--know he's the paragon of wit and chivalry?" - -"That's precisely what Henry Pontycroft is," her husband answered -gravely, "He _is_ the paragon of wit and chivalry!" - -These young folk were pacing side by side in the moonlit garden after -the excellent New England repast, called supper; while Miss Ad-gate and -her uncle were busy with callers, upon the veranda. The night was the -first of a long series of warm May nights, the moon hung, majestic and -round, over the fringes of wood termed the Wigwam. A rustic bench stood -invitingly under the big syringa, now a perfumed canopy of white. As -they stood on the upper terrace it was easy to distinguish descending -terraces marked by rows of silvery budding irises swollen or in -bloom.... The magic smells of white and purple lilac were touched with -a whiff of apple blossoms from the hill and beyond--below--the Mantic -gleamed in the moonlight amid trees all a feathery, spring incrustation -of minute green foliage. - -"This is a divine spot," said Bolingbroke, suddenly kissing his wife, -"but we must rejoin the others." - -Lucilla Dor and Harry Pontycroft arrived the following day and were -installed in the Morris House at the other side of the hill, where -two neat Irish girls waited upon them under the enlightening, tempered -instruction of Pontycroft's man and of Lucilla's maid. - - -V - -Spring was abroad in her witchery. She had come with a rush, with a good -will, with an--abundance, 'and all of a sudden-like'--as she has, after -many days of dallying, a way of doing in New England. She had been coy; -she had flirted; she had tantalised--a day here, a day there--with dewy -warmth of soft blue skies, her robes diaphanous April cloud. Then she -had veiled her face, vexed for one knew not what offences,--had turned -her coldest shoulder, shed her most frigid tears. She had looked forth, -wreathed again in smiles, while she put wonder-working fingers to shrubs -and branches... and again she had withdrawn herself in deepest greyest -dudgeon. - -But now, she was come, come. The birds were building and calling and -fluttering, in all the emotion, the refreshing joy of an ever-renewed -bridalhood. A young male wren who had discovered a bird-house, fixed on -the off-chance of so happy an event as to entice him there--by Jobias, -to the top of a rustic pole in the rose garden--tore his throat open in -the rapture of telling the world what a place for a nest he had found, -and how sweet she was. - -"Shameless uxorious creature," Ponty said, as he came over the hill and -paused to listen to him. - -Unaccountably enough, Ruth, as he came into the garden, Ruth issued from -the house dressed in white; dressed in white, without a hat, a watteau -sunshade in her hand. - -"Good morning, my pretty maid," said Pontycroft, "you're not going -a-milking in that costume, are you?" He eyed her sharply with the -quizzical glint she knew well. - -"Good morning," Ruth answered, in perfect composure. Yet at the -anticipation of seeing Pontycroft alone, she had many times felt -the earth quake under her,--"I'm going to call upon Lucilla," she -vouchsafed. - -"Oh, Lucilla's knocked up. I came with a message from her. She wants -me to say she's had her breakfast in bed and won't rise until luncheon. -Lucilla's tired from the journey. You two women must have talked -yourselves weary, if a mere man may judge of such matter. Oh, the hour -at which I caught sight of Paolina conducting you over the hill last -night!" said Ponty. - -"It was a beautiful moonlit night," said Ruth, inhaling the morning air -with delight, "and so,--why not?" - -"Why not, indeed," he agreed. "What a surprise it was, though, to find -the Boling-brokes here. He's a decent chap." - -"Yes, I like them very much," Ruth said, absently. - -"And your uncle," Ponty proceeded, "I like _him_ very much," he -paraphrased. "We held an uproarious pow-wow in the library, the three of -us, last night, while you women discussed chiffons in the music-room. -By-the-bye, that was rather a nice thing that somebody played," and -Ponty hummed the first bars of the Valse Lente. "You were the musician, -I suspect." - -"I suppose so," Ruth said, negligently. They were standing beside the -flight of stone steps which leads from the rose-garden to the hill. - -"Where are the Bolingbrokes?" enquired Pontycroft. - -"Gone for the day, with the Wetherbys, on their yacht. It's a party of -twelve and they expect to come back by moonlight." - -"And why, pray, were not the rest of us included?" he asked. - -Ruth began to laugh. "They did include the rest of us," she answered. -"What _is_ the use of beating about the bush in this fashion? You've -something to tell me, I hear. Say it." And leaving Pontycroft to -consider her suggestion Ruth ran up the steps and fled lightly over the -carpet woven of white saxifrage and violets thickly strewn among the -turf, to the bench under the big oak at the summit of the hill. Here -she sat herself, opened her blush-rose sunshade and defiantly watched -Pontycroft stroll towards her. - -He followed. He stood, deliberating before her for a moment. Then, -bending a knee: - -"Your Royal Highness, will your Royal Highness accept the Crown of -Altronde from the hands of the King's unworthy Ambassador?" he asked. - -Ruth caught her breath. - -"What do you mean?" she queried, in a most violent disappointment of -surprise. - -"Your gracious Majesty," answered Ponty-croft, "I mean,--that I am -come all the way from Europe and from a certain small but -not-to-be-sneezed-at Principality called Altronde in order to ask you to -wear with King Bertram, the ermine and the purple.... If we must put it -bluntly, the King implores you to share his throne, his heart and his -crown." - -"Oh," Ruth said, "how very absurd." - -"Not at all absurd," said Pontycroft; he still knelt, one knee to earth. - -"And he looks every inch Ambassador and not in the least ridiculous," -Ruth thought smiling to herself, "in this superlatively ridiculous -posture." - -"The Queen Mama is more than anxious to welcome you with wide-open -arms," continued Pontycroft. - -"Ah?" Ruth slightly raised her eyebrows. - -"Yes. It's true she kicked a bit," said Ponty. He got to his feet and -with his handkerchief flapped a straw or two from his knee. "But Bertram -made a devil of a row; there was no standing it she explained to me with -tears in her eyes. The Queen Mama has had to capitulate, and Bertram's -counting these very moments as ever are, pining to hear you have -accepted him. I'm to go _de ce pas_ to the telegraph office and wire -'yes'--so soon as you've made your haughty little mind up that you'll -have him." - -"Ah," Ruth said. "It is very interesting----" - -But suddenly she felt her heart leap into her throat. She trembled, -yet she spoke resolutely. "Harry," she said, "Harry--you've told me -something startling and--not very important. But why don't you tell me -that the woman who wrote the letter--is dead?" - -An unaccountable stillness fell for an instant over the landscape. Ruth -left her bench under the oak and walked off, walked away to where the -rocks come cropping up along the brow of the hill. The panorama spread -before her was one of fresh, palely verdant meadows and woods; the -Mantic, turbulent from spring freshets, was bordered with trees in the -early paleness of their green leaves; the green frail rondures of the -Wigwam foliage in delicate and varied shades,--these were dappled -with sunlight and blue sky. A far panoply of purple hills, marking the -borderland, shutting away the boisterous outer world as by a charmed -circle, enclosed the small, the joyous world of the little inland town, -the valley and the seven hills of Oldbridge. - -Pontycroft approached mechanically, slowly. He stood by Ruth's side, he -looked off with her at this exquisite efflorescence of spring in the new -world. - -"It's a beautiful view," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "Europe -could scarcely do better.... And so Lucilla told you?" he queried, -carelessly. "Put not thy trust in woman. She vowed by her most sacred -vows she'd never say a word until I told her to." - -"I dare say I wormed it out of her," Ruth replied, laughing, and,--it -was too apparent,--she was laughing at him. - -"I don't quite gather what it is that makes you so merry this morning," -said Pontycroft; "unless it is this heavenly Spring day, and that's -enough for twenty hopes and fears to rap and knock and enter in our -souls.... But please do recollect that while you loiter, considering -the indisputably lovely landscape, there's a chap in Altronde -waiting--impatient's no word for it--for a wire. Kindly give your -attention to the Royal Incident, the real question of actuality, for a -moment, and let me be off as soon as possible to the Post Office." - -"Long ago, I seem to remember," Ruth said, slowly, "long ago, I seem to -hear myself saying in a garden in Florence, that the Royal Incident was -closed. It is closed. I haven't changed my mind, on the contrary. If you -must of your will leave my hill at this perfect hour and--and be sending -messages to the other side of the world--then, you needs must! But--pray -remember your own favourite saw, that 'opportunity comes once in a -lifetime.' Jobias goes home at noon, can't he take your message? If -Prince, I beg his pardon, King,--if Bertram has to live in suspense for -a few hours, let that be my little revenge. 'If it feed nothing else, it -will feed my revenge,'" laughed Ruth. - -Having given expression to this heartless sentiment, she began to tread, -cautiously, among the flowers--the saxifrage, the violets, the little -green-golden buttercups between,--her light steps responding with love -to what she was pleased to think was their caress. From the plain and -from the woods mounted gentle homely sounds, the hautbois of the New -England Spring--the blows of a distant axe, the felling of trees, a -carpenter's hammer taptapping,--and children's cries resounding as they -romped at play; all mounted together, in a joyous choiring, with birds' -songs and twitterings which fell about them from every tree far and -near; the earth, the sky--musical, alive with carols and thanksgiving. - -"I bring a garland for your head of flowers fresh and fair," Ruth -hummed, pacing a little ahead of Pontycroft, and her foot rhythmically -touched ground at each stress of the song. - -"'I had, once, a double double grandmother,' my friend Jack Enderfield -is fond of saying," said Ruth, as she continued her walk to the measure -of the verse. "A great, great, so great _Meregrand!_ She was French. -Her name was Priscilla. Priscilla Mulline. She's rather a person in -New England History--you'll forgive my mentioning her. When the man she -cared for came, as emissary from the man she didn't care for, to ask -her to marry him--do you remember what she answered?" Ruth kept her -eyes fixed upon the tips of her toes, and they, like little mice, little -white mice, went in and out, below the flounces of her gown. - -Pontycroft gasped,--took a step towards her. But his lean and bony -face, which for a moment had betrayed him, assumed again the look of -disillusion. - -"Oh," he rejoined, "the foolish girl made hash of her future, -perpetrated a _mot_ which, no doubt, she lived to repent. A _mot_ which -one of your American poets has quite suitably recorded. By it, Miss -Priscilla Mulline lost her chance of making a very good match. She lost -her golden opportunity. She cut off her chances of having a jolly good -time in a big, jolly world." - -"You're abominable," Ruth said, and permitted herself two actions very -much at variance,--she stamped her foot and she smiled obliquely at the -object of her wrath. "You're abominable. I want you to tell me what she -answered." - -"Oh, you've forgotten it?" said he. "I've well-nigh forgotten it -myself.... I believe, though, she did ask the chap Alden why the deuce -(pardon the expletive) he didn't speak for himself. Am I right?" - -"Well, why didn't he?" enquired Ruth, impatiently. - -"Because he was a duffer, I suppose," said Ponty, with a fine effect of -ending the discussion. "But now, my dear young one, be serious. Here's -your chance...." Ponty-croft's voice became argumentative. "I've crossed -the ocean to lay a crown at your feet. A crown from which you may get -considerable fun and splendour. Bertram's rich, you're rich. You are, -both of you, handsome, virtuous, clever, and at the mating age. You can -make of your little Principality, your Kingdom, the centre of the -enlightenment and art of Europe. Find me a philosopher, an artist, or a -man of wit who doesn't appreciate a King! Under your wise encouragement -Art, at last, will come into her own.... Oh, think of the poor devils of -hangers-on of Genius you'll be able to lift from Purgatories of -obscurity into the light!" - -"You've made one trifling mistake," interrupted Ruth; "there's something -I have not told you, an element you must omit from the equation of that -Castle in Altronde you are building for me. I'm not rich.... The Town -of Wyoming, let me tell you, is no more. My millions, and a good thing -too--have collapsed. They've shrunken to the few thousands you invested, -ages ago, do you remember? in British Consols? On them I shall run this -dear old place,--I shall dress, modestly----" - -"Ruth, Ruth, Ruth!" interrupted Pontycroft, aghast. - -"Yes, it all occurred about a week ago while you were at sea, and -that, I suppose, is why you didn't hear of it. These accidents, here -in America, happen so often. Marconi didn't find the item of sufficient -importance, I dare say, to give it a place." - -"Well.... Here's a kettle of fish! Whew!" whistled Pontycroft. "You -young limb of mischief, why didn't you tell me? _Ouf_" cried he, with a -great pant of relief. "_Ouf_,--poor Bertram! He has no luck." They had -been sauntering, backwards and forward, over a grassy road which runs -up hill and down dale through the green-sward planted with apple trees. -Pontycroft leaned, now, against a tree. He gazed at Ruth without a word. -A rosy-tipped cluster of apple blossoms nodded just above his head. -He reached up, plucked it; and offered it to the lady with the crimson -sunshade who stood in the sunlight before him. - -"'Oh, Fairy Godmother! Feel my heart,'" Ruth whispered, under her -breath. "I should like to show you my Riviera," she said hastily, -reddening under his gaze, and she stuck the apple blossoms into her -belt. - -Ruth skirted the grey rocks which crop above the brow of the hill to the -left. She led Pontycroft down a green bank to a patch of brighter green -nestling for quite a distance under the shelter of the overhanging -cliffs. Here were eglantine, here were violets in profusion; Solomon's -seal, red and purple columbine; and the purple liverwort, and a shower -of those frail white wind-flowers called anemones, although in no wise -do they resemble their European cousins. Young ferns, pale green fronds, -sprang vigorously from the clefts in the rocks, juniper and barberry -bushes and a savin lent here and there a hardy note and an added shelter -to the scattering of spring blossoms. - -"It's so exclusive here," laughed Ruth, taking a lichen-covered seat -formed in the grey stone. "These canny flowers have discovered the place -for themselves after the habit of the land.... Sit down," she invited -him. She crossed her hands in her lap, she looked towards him; a -mischievous light glanced bewitchingly in her dark eyes. - -"Dear child," Pontycroft began--he was trying, very hard, to resume his -paternal air. - -"Please don't 'dear child' me any more--I haven't brought you here for -that," petulantly cried Ruth. "I won't have you for a father and -I've already got an uncle, and I don't think you'd make, for me, a -satisfactory brother." - -"Miss Adgate," said Pontycroft, he possessed himself of one of her -hands, and examining it carefully (it was, as we know a very white hand -with slim and rosy fingers), "Miss Ad-gate, I have a proposition to make -to you. Since my schemes, since all my weary plottings and plannings for -a Royal End for you, do, it seems, gang aft agley,--though, and mark my -words, Bertram is no stickler for lucre; but since they've been knocked -flat on the head by a blow of chance, let me suggest that we make a -fresh start, let us consider a new alliance for you. - -"Here," he said--he laid a large bony hand tightly, as though afraid -of its escape, over the little hand he held in his,--"here is a novel, -international situation, a situation, free, thank goodness, of any -blessed complications. Shall you and I,"--he lifted the hand to his lips -again, he touched his lips tenderly to each finger-tip, and Ruth looked -on--"shall you and I get married? Shall we run this dear place together? -Shall we love it, live in it? I had dreamed, for you, infant, of a royal -end. What will you? Heaven mercifully disposes.... But I _had_ dreamed -for you a Royal End!" - -"I do not like being proposed to in this manner," said Ruth, rounding -upon him with a smiling face. - -"Oh, my dear, blessed angel little Ruth!" cried Pontycroft, letting -himself go. "Ruth... Hopelessly, hopelessly, denied me--found at last. -Little Lady Precious Ruth! Ruth whom I love, Ruth whom I dote on--Ruth -whom I've worshipped ever since she was a toddling child in her father's -house... Ruth!" Miss Adgate could feel the beating of Ponty-croft's -heart as she stayed against his side. - -"Shall we live here together?" he asked presently. "You--you--of course -you love this old place! I love it because you do. And Thou, singing -beside me in the Wilderness! It needs us, doesn't it? This peaceful -Wilderness, this New England Garden of Eden!" - -"Eden, from which William Rutherford has killed the snake," laughed Ruth -blinking a crystal tear that rolled down her cheek. - -"Rutherford?" Pontycroft frowned, "_who_ is William Rutherford?" - -"Oh, nobody. No one in particular," Ruth hastened to reply. "A mere -mighty hunter before the Lord." And Pontycroft did not pursue the -subject of William Rutherford. - -"But," said Ruth a trifle anxiously, in a moment, "we must go abroad -from time to time? We could never forsake Pontycroft. - -"Oh, hang Pontycroft. Lucilla shall have it for her kids." - -"I want it for mine," said Ruth. Then she looked away and blushed -crimson--and then she laughed. - -"What is the motto, Harry, of your house?" she queried, irrelevantly. -"I've forgotten." - -"It once was," Pontycroft said, and he smiled at her: "_Super mare, -super fluvia._" - -"Once?" said Ruth, a little shyly, "_once?_ And now?" - -"_Constantia_, now, henceforth," he whispered with a throbbing of the -heart.... "But will your uncle be pleased at all this?" he enquired. - -"My uncle?" said Ruth, waking from a reverie. "Oh--he would have liked -me to marry Rutherford, I imagine. But if you're awfully nice to him, -and if you let him see how infatuated you are with Barracks Hill--he'll -end, I know, by giving me and you his blessing. But I won't give up -England--and I want Italy, too,--Venice, Rome!" wilfully persisted Ruth. - -"You precious little piece of covetous cosmopolitanism! Haven't you -learned that if in Heaven, may be, it is given us to be everywhere--in -this life: One Paradise, one Eden? In this world one Eden shall suffice, -for things learned on earth may or may not be practised in Heaven; but -love is, ever was, the language of repetition. In this life the lesson -is to be contented with a single Paradise." - -"Oh," exclaimed Miss Adgate, laying her hand on Ponty's mouth. "Oh, -middle-aged sentiment... not in the Catechism. Don't, I beg, say it -again!" - -He seized the hand, he pressed his lips to it, he pressed it against his -breast. - -"Even an infant like you," he whispered, "let alone a world-worn chap -like the man you propose to take as a husband, can't stand perpetual -motion." - -"Very well," Ruth compromised, "shall we alternate with a year in -England, one here, one in Italy, Jobias and Paolina to pack for us. That -will make it easy." - -"Ah," laughed Pontycroft, "you shall see! The pendulum is bound to -narrow its oscillations! We'll earn a well-needed rest,--_here_." - -"Oh me!" sighed Ruth, "ah me!" cried Ruth. "In that event how charmed -our ancestors will be. But, I forgot! You haven't heard the story." Ruth -told it gaily and waited, curious to see what Harry Pontycroft would -say. - -"Dear young one, these old four-posters," he began--"are the most -dangerous things to sleep in," and Ruth was seized with laughter. - -"But I'll never sell them to the nearest dealer in old bric-a-brac. -Rather," she concluded, "we'll do as you advised, we'll take the -greatest care not to offend our forbears. But-----" her forefinger went -up impressively, "but a destiny was in preparation for us--I felt it, -Harry, on the very day after I reached here. Harry, I felt, I knew, -Destiny had something up her sleeve. The day I went for a walk alone," -said Ruth, with a serious air. "It is a delicious destiny... to be -married in the little Parish church by that Saint of a Priest and to -live here, 'forever afterwards'!" (with a malicious nod,) "with a break -now and then to Europe." - -"Moreover and because journeys end in lovers' meeting, we'll probably -have a June wedding," Pontycroft unexpectedly suggested, wise in his -generation. - -"A June wedding!... I've built better than I knew," exclaimed Ruth. -"I've asked a house party of friends, friends of yours, Lucilla's and -mine, to come here in June. Let them haste to the wedding--I'll have -Jackie Enderfield for page and he shall carry my train." - -"Another admirer," Ponty said resigned. - -"The merest bit of a boy of twelve. Without him, without my uncle, these -wits like as not had perished utterly. Jack when he's a man intends to -marry a woman with a low voice and a red glint in her hair. He will turn -Catholic with my consent and go abroad and write. He doesn't believe -either in Divorce--in other words, you perceive he _is_ an intellectual. -But," she said, rising, "we've forgotten--oh, we've forgotten to send -that message by Jobias to poor King Bertram! We shall have to take it -ourselves." - -Henry Pontycroft and Ruth descended the hill along the violet-sprinkled -road. - -"Ruth," he urged, as they went their way, "for conscience sake, -consider,--consider, little Ruth," he said, "ah, consider.... It is not -yet too late, infant, and I had dreamed for Ruth Adgate of a Royal End!" - -"Ah," Miss Adgate replied; a little happy sigh escaped from her lips; -she looked down at the apple blossoms in her belt,--strange to say, the -apple blossoms were fresh as though just plucked. - -"Harry," she replied, with a little quizzical look, "I, too, had dreamed -for Ruth Adgate of a Royal End.... Both our dreams have come true! _Love -is the Royal End_." - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Royal End, by Henry Harland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROYAL END *** - -***** This file should be named 51980-8.txt or 51980-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/8/51980/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -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. 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