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diff --git a/old/52703-0.txt b/old/52703-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a8fc92c..0000000 --- a/old/52703-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3681 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Mademoiselle Miss and Other Stories, 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: Mademoiselle Miss and Other Stories - -Author: Henry Harland - -Release Date: August 2, 2016 [EBook #52703] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADEMOISELLE MISS AND OTHERS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -MADEMOISELLE MISS - -And Other Stories - -By Henry Harland - -London: William Heinemann Bedford Street - -MDCCCXCIII - - - -0001 - - - -0007 - - - - - -CONTENTS - -MADEMOISELLE MISS - -THE FUNERAL MARCH OF A MARIONNETTE - -THE PRODIGAL FATHER. - -A SLEEVELESS ERRAND. - -A LIGHT SOVEREIGN. - - - - - - - -MADEMOISELLE MISS - -“Mais que diable allait-elle faire en cette galère?” - -Paris is the gloomiest town in Christendom to-day,—though it is a -lovely day in April, and the breeze is full of softness, and the streets -are gay with people,—and the Latin Quarter is quite the dullest bit of -Paris: Mademoiselle Miss left last night for England. - -We all know what it is like when a person who has been an absorbing -interest in our lives suddenly goes away: how, apart from the immediate -pang of the separation and the after-pain of more or less consciously -missing the fugitive, there is a wide, complex, dim underworld of -emotion, that may be compared to the thorough-bass of a sad tune, and -seems in some sort to relate itself to the whole exterior universe. -The sun rises as usual, but the sunlight is not the same. Other folk, -apparently unconcerned, pursue the accustomed tenor of their way; but -we are vaguely surprised that this should be the case,—surprised, and -grieved, and a little resentful. We can’t realise without an effort -how completely exempt they are from the loss that has befallen us; -and we feel obscurely that their air of indifference is either sheer -braggadocio, or a symptom of moral insensibility. The truth of the -matter is, of course, that our departing friend has taken with him not -his particular body and baggage only, but an element from the earth -and the sky. and a fibre from ourselves. Everything is subtly, -incommunicably altered. We wake up to a changed horizon: and our -distress is none the less keen because the changeling bears a formal -resemblance to the vanished original. - -So! Mademoiselle Miss has gone to England; and to-day it is anew and -an unfamiliar and a most dismal Paris that confronts the little band of -worshippers she has left behind her. Indeed, it was already a new Paris -that the half dozen of us who had assembled at St. Lazare to see her -off, emerged into from the station last night, after her train had -rolled away. We found a corner seat for her in a third-class compartment -reserved for dames seules; and while some of us attended to the -registering of her box, others packed her light luggage into the rack -above her head; and this man had brought a bunch of violets, and that -a book for her to read; and Jean contributed a bottle of claret, and -Jacques a napkin full of sandwiches: and taken for all in all, we were -the forlornest little party you can easily conceive of, despite our -spasmodic attempts at merriment. We grouped ourselves round the window -of her carriage,—stopping the way thereby, though not with malice -aforethought, for such other solitary ladies as might wish to -enter,—whilst Miss smiled down upon us from eyes that were perilously -bright; and we sought to defy the ache that was in our hearts, by firing -off brisk little questions and injunctions, or abortive little jests. - -“Sure you’ve got your ticket all right?” - -“You must make a rush for a berth directly you reach Dieppe.” - -“Mind you write the moment you arrive.” - -“Oh, we’ll get news of her through Don Antonio.”—This was meant -as facetious, and we all laughed, though rather feebly: Don Antonio -being an aged Italian model whom Miss had painted a good deal, and -between whom and herself there was humorously supposed to have taken -place a desperate flirtation. - -We were constantly lapsing into silence, however; and for the last -five minutes we scarcely spoke at all. We simply waited there, moving -uneasily among ourselves, and gazed up at her. She kept on smiling at -us; but it was a rueful smile, and we could easily see that the tears -weren’t far behind it. Then suddenly a bell rang; the officials -shouted “En voiture;” there was a volley of good-byes, a confusion -of handshaking; the engine shrieked; her arm was drawn in through the -window; the train moved; and Miss was gone. - -We lingered for a moment on the platform, looking stupidly after the red -lamp at the end of the last carriage, as it waned swiftly smaller and -fainter in the distance. - -Presently someone pulled himself together sufficiently to say, “Well, -come on.” - -And we made our way out of the station into a Paris that was blank and -strange. Aubémont (Adolphe) was frankly holding his pocket-handkerchief -to his eyes; but we Anglo-Saxons chid and chaffed him till he put it out -of sight. - -“By Christopher! when I think of the way we treated that girl in the -beginning!” cried Chalks, an American, whose lay-name is Charles -K. Smith, but he’s called Chalks by all his English-speaking -fellow-craftsmen. - -Whereat—“Oh, shut up!” came in chorus from the rest of us. We -didn’t care to be reminded of those old days. - -Then little Schaas-Keym, the Dutchman, proposed that we should finish -the evening, and court oblivion, at the Galurin Cassé: and we adopted -his suggestion, and drank beer, and smoked, and chattered, and ate -cold beef and pickles, till the place was closed, at 2 a. m., when we -returned to the Quarter, six in a single cab. - -Thus we managed to wear out last night with sufficient comfort. We gave -ourselves no time, no chance, to think. We stood together, and drowned -our sorrow in the noise we made. And then, by the time we parted, -we were sleepy, so that we could go straight to our beds and forget -everything. - -But—this morning! - -It is proverbially on the next morning that a man’s wound begins to -hurt. For the others, since I’ve seen none of them, I can speak only -by inference: in the morning our little cénacle scatters to the four -corners of the town, not to be reunited till the hour of dinner; but -what reason is there to doubt that the day will have treated them very -much as it has treated me? And oh, the weary, dreary, bright spring day -it is! The Luxembourg is fragrant with budding trees, and vocal with -half a thousand romping children; the Boule-Miche is at its liveliest, -with a ceaseless ebb and flow of laughing young men and women; the -terrasse of the Vachette is a mass of gleaming top-hats and flaunting -feminine bonnets; and the sky overhead is one smooth blue vault, and the -sun is everywhere, a fume of gold: but the sparkle and the joyousness -of it all are gone. Turn where I will, I find the same awful sense of -emptiness. The streets are deserted, in spite of the crowds: I can -hear my solitary footsteps echo gruesomely through them. Paris is like -Pompeii. - -After luncheon, thinking to obtain relief by fleeing the Quarter (where -every blessed stick and stone has its bitter-sweet association with -her), I crossed the river, mixed with the throng in the Boulevard, sat -for a while at the Café de la Paix. But things were no whit better. The -sun shone with the same cheerless brilliancy; the air touched one with -the same light, uncomforting caress; the laughter of the wayfarers had -the same hollow ring. A blight had fallen upon man and nature. I came -back to the Rue Racine, and its ghosts of her. - -That exclamation of Smith’s last night, to which we all cried taboo, -really hit one of the salient points of the position: when I think of -the way we treated her in the beginning! Extenuating circumstances might -be pleaded for us, no doubt. It was only natural that we should -have treated her so, if tradition and convention can make a thing -natural—if it is natural that men should glare at a woman in a -smoking-carriage, for example. And besides, she has had her revenge. For -that matter, she was never conscious of our offences; but she has had -her revenge, if to see us one by one prostrate ourselves at her feet, -humble adorers, eager servitors,—if that may constitute revenge. And -then, we are told, though our sins be as red as scarlet, if we do truly -repent, they shall be washed as white as snow: and we have repented, -goodness knows how truly. All the same, forgiveness without -forgetfulness being but the guinea-stamp without the gold, I wish I -could forget the way we treated her in the beginning. - -One is judged by the company one keeps; and she kept—ours. It is -now some nine months ago that she appeared in it, at the Hôtel de -l’.céan et de Shakespere, in the Rue Racine. We were just hasty -enough, unobservant enough, blunt enough of perception, to judge her -accordingly,—to take for granted, in a casual, matter-of-course -fashion, that she would be a vessel of like clay to our own. - -The entrance to the Hôtel de l’.céan et de Shakespere, a narrow, -dark, ambiguous-looking entrance, is flanked by two tin signs. That at -the right hand reads, “Chambres ci Cabinets Meublés,” that at the -left, “Pension de Famille.” Call it a Pension de Famille, if you -will: at the epoch when Mademoiselle Miss arrived among us, we were, to -put it squarely, the most disreputable family in Europe. - -Our proprietress, Madame Bourdon, was a gelatinous old person from -Toulouse, with a pair of hazy blue eyes, a mottled complexion, a -worldly-wise smile, an indulgent heart, and an extremely nasal accent. -I speak of her as old; but she wasn’t old enough to know better, -apparently. At any rate she had a certain unbeneficed abbé perpetually -hanging to her apron-strings, and she kept him to dinner half a dozen -evenings in the week. Of her boarders all the men were students, all the -women étudiantes,—which, being interpreted, I suppose means students -too. There were Mesdames Germaine, Fifine, Olga, Yvonne, Zélie, and -Lucile,— - -“Whose names are six sweet symphonies,”—and perhaps it was because -Lucile was her niece that Madame had dubbed her shop a pension de -famille. You paid so much for your room and service, and then you could -take table d’hôte or not, as you elected. Most of us took it, because -it was only fifty francs a month, vin compris. Our ladies dined abroad a -good deal, being inconstant quantities, according to the custom of their -sex; but the men were almost always present in full number. We counted -seven: Chalks, Schaas-Keym, Aubêmont, Jeanselme, Campbell, Norton, and -myself. We formed a sort of close corporation, based upon a community of -tastes, interests, and circumstances. We were all “arts,”—except -Jeanselme, who was a “mines,” with a disordered tendency to break -out in verse: we were all ridiculously poor, and we were all fond of -bohemianising up and down the face of Paris. - -One evening in September of last year, on entering our -salle-à—manger, we beheld a stranger, an addition to our ranks; and -Madame, with a comprehensive gesture, introduced her to us in these -terms: “Une nouvelle, une anglaise, Mees,...” Then she made awful -hash of rather a long-winded English name: and we were content to accept -the newcomer simply as Miss. The concierge and the servants, though, (to -anticipate a little), treated Miss as a petit-nom, like Jane or Susan, -and prefixed the title Mademoiselle. The pleonasm seemed a happy one, -and we took it up: Mademoiselle Miss. On her visiting-card the legend -ran, “Miss Edith Thorowether.” It was probably as well, on the -whole, that French lips should not too frequently have tackled that. - -Now if she had been plain or elderly or constrained in her bearing or -ill-natured-looking, no doubt we should have felt at once the difference -between her and ourselves, and understood her presence with us as merely -the outward and visible sign of some inward and spiritual blunder. But, -as it happened, she was young and distinctly pretty; and she appeared to -be entirely at her ease; and she smiled graciously in acknowledgment of -the somewhat cursory nods with which we favoured her. We hadn’t the -wit or the intuitions to recognise her ease for the ease of innocence; -and our hotel was such a risky box; and ladies of English or American -origin were no especial novelty in the Quarter; and we didn’t stop to -examine this one critically, or to consider; and so things fell out in a -way we now find disagreeable to remember. It was Saul who had strayed by -hazard into the midst of our prophetic councils; and we mistook him -for one of our own prophetic caste, and proceeded to demean and express -ourselves in our usual prophetic manner. Fortunately, Saul’s -knowledge of our prophetic tongue was limited. We spoke the slang of the -Boulevards; whilst the little French that Mademoiselle Miss was mistress -of she had learned from Ollendorf and Corinne. - -The situation was partially cleared up, I forget how long afterwards, -by our discovering in her room, whither she had bidden us for an -evening’s entertainment, an ancient copy of a certain Handbook to -Paris,—“the badge of all our tribe,” as the tourist called it. On -opening to its list of hotels (which somebody did by chance), we -found the following note, with a pencil-mark against it: “Hotel de -l’.céan et de Shake-spere, Rue Racine, chiefly frequented by visitors -pursuing art-studies: well spoken-of and inexpensive.” That explained -it. Mademoiselle Miss had trusted to a guide that was ten years behind -the times: so the date on the title-page attested. And in ten years -how had the Hôtel de l’.céan et de Shake-spere fallen from its -respectable estate!—unless, ten years ago, the editor of that most -exemplary handbook had been egregiously imposed upon. In his current -edition the paragraph that I have cited does not appear. - -But to return to the evening of her arrival. In our salle-à-manger -there was a rigid division of the sexes. The men sat on one side of the -long table, the women on the other, with ‘Madame and her abbé cheek -by jowl at the head. It was the only arrangement Madame had been able -to effect, whereby to maintain amongst us something resembling order. -Mademoiselle Miss had a seat assigned to her between Zélie and Yvonne, -nearly opposite Chalks and myself; and she entered without embarrassment -into conversation with all four of us. That is to say, she responded -as well as she could in her broken classic French, and with perfect -amiability, to such remarks as we directed at her. Save in addressing -Madame or the abbé, nobody ever thought of saying vous at our -unceremonious board; and Miss showed neither displeasure nor surprise -when we included her in the prevailing tu. She had a quiet, sweet, -English voice; an extremely delicate complexion, pale rose merging -into lily-white (which we, I dare say, assumed was due to a scientific -management of rouge and powder); a pair of large gray eyes; a lot of -waving warm-brown hair; and a face so smooth of contour, so soft -and fine in texture, that one might have thought her a mere girl of -eighteen,—or twenty at the utmost,—whereas, in point of fact, as we -learned later on, she was twenty-three. - -On this first evening of her arrival, however, neophyte though she was, -we observed her with no special care, paid her no special attention, -nor felt any special curiosity regarding her. Ladies of the quality we -tacitly ascribed to her were such an old, old story for us; familiarity -had bred apathy; we took her for granted very much as we might have -taken for granted an addition to the number of chairs in the -room. Besides, an attitude of nil-admirari towards all things, and -particularly towards all things new, is the fashion of the Quarter; an -attitude of torpid omniscience, of world-weary sophistication. We have -seen everything, dissected everything, satisfied ourselves that stuffed -with sawdust. We are fin-de-siecle, we are décadents, and we are -Anglomaniacs to a man. To evince surprise at anything, therefore, or -more than a supremely languid interest in anything, is what, when we are -on our guard, most of us would die rather than do. Hence the questions -that we put to Miss were few, desultory, superficial, and served in no -wise to correct our misappreciation of her; whilst, together with the -affirmative propositions that we laid down, they pre-supposed a point of -view and a past experience similar to our own. - -Zélie, for example, asked her roundly (as one of a trade to another): -“Tu cherches un callage, hein? On fais l’indépendante?” - -Miss looked a little puzzled, but answered tentatively, “Non, pas -college. Je suis artiste.” - -Whereat one or two of us stared, thinking it meaningless; one or two -smiled, thinking it doubly-meaning; but the majority heeded it not; -and no one paused to consider the depths of ignorance (unless, indeed, -ignorance of the French language) that the reply might indicate. -I should perhaps add that with us the young ladies who dance at -Bullier’s, sing at the concerts apéritifs, or serve in the -brasseries-à-femmes, style themselves artistes. - -At the end of the dinner, when the stuff that Madame Bourdon -euphemistically calls coffee was brought in, we all broke out in loud -accord with a song that time-honoured custom has prescribed for the -event and moment. We are never treated to this beverage at the Hôtel -de l’.céan et de Shakespere, except on the advent of a nouveau or -a nouvelle, when it is charged to his or her account; and here is the -salute with which we hail it:— - - -A la recherch’ de la paternité! - -Chaforé? - -Accident arrivé - -A l’amèr’ Chicorée - -Par liaison passagère - -‘Vec le père - -Café. - -Papa Café? - -Pas, pas café! - - -L’amèr’ Chicorée est française, - -Fill’ de fermier, - -Et pourtant,—comment donc,—ell’ baise - -Cet étranger, - -Ce gros gaillard de païen - -Pacha Café? - -Shocking—hein? - - -Et le bébé, - -Chaforé? - -C’reti’n,— - -Baptisé - -A main pleine - -D’eau de Seine, - - -This atrocious doggerel, with its false rhymes and impossible -quantities, its bad puns and equivocal suggestions, we sang straight -through, at the tops of our voices; and Mademoiselle Miss listened -smiling. How were we to know that she hadn’t the faintest inkling of -what it was all about, and that her smile betokened nothing deeper than -pleasure in our high spirits and amusement at our vociferous energy? -By and by she rose from the table, wished us a polite good-evening, and -left the room. - -I think it was on the next night that we made up a party to go to -Bruant’s, in the Boulevard Rochechouart; and Zélie, moved by an -impulse of kindness, turned to Miss, and proposed that she should -join us. Miss asked what Bruant’s was; and Zélie answered vaguely, -“Comment, tu ne sais pas? Tant mieux, alors. Tu vas voir.” And Miss -retired to put on her bonnet. - -Thank goodness, if her acquaintance with French was slight, her -acquaintance with the jargon talked and chanted at the Cabaret du -Mirliton was null. Otherwise, she must always have remembered her visit -there with pain and humiliation, and she could never have forgiven us -for allowing her to make one of our expedition. As a matter of fact, -however, she is able to recall the occasion as that of a singularly -jolly little adventure, and is entirely unaware of the blame that we -deserved. - -At the outcry of - - -“O-là-là, - -C’tte gueule qu’elle a! - - -wherewith ladies crossing the threshold of Bruant’s establishment are -welcomed, Miss only smiled in a dazed way, never dreaming, I suppose, -that it was meant for her and her companions, but fancying that we -had entered in the middle of a noisy chorus. Then, when we had secured -places, and ordered our bocks, I dare say she employed a few minutes -in glancing round her, and receiving a general impression of the queer -little room,—with its dark colouring, its profuse jumble of ornaments -and paintings, its precious old Fifteenth Century fireplace, its giant -mirliton suspended from the ceiling, its dubious clients, and its -improbable orderer and master, handsome, brigandish-looking Aristide, -in his scarlet neck-cloth, his patent-leather riding-boots and corduroy -knickerbockers: all visible through an atmosphere rendered opalescent by -candlelight struggling with cigarette-smoke. - -At Bruants, as everybody knows, it is against the rules to call a -spade a spade; you must find a stronger name for it, and reserve the -comparatively inoffensive “spade” for some such mild implement as -a teaspoon. This is among Aristide’s numerous dainty methods of -certifying his scorn for the shifty refinements of modern life; and -besides, for reasons that are not obvious, he thinks it’s funny, -and expects people to laugh. So, when presently he swaggered up to our -little group of peaceable art-students, slapping our shoulders with -violent good-fellowship, he must needs hail us as mes mufles, mes -cochons, et cetera; and we of course had to approve ourselves no -milksops by smiling delightedly. Then he lowered his voice, and told us -he was in great distress. - -“I’ve no piano-banger. The cut-purse who usually does for me has -sent word that he’s laid up. Any of these chits here know how to thump -the ivories?”—chits being rather a liberal translation of the term -that he employed. - -“Chit yourself!” cried Zélie, playfully. “Vieux chien!” - -“Can you play the piano?” Chalks asked in English of Mademoiselle -Miss. “Bruant wants somebody to play his accompaniments.” - -“I can play a little. I could try,” she answered simply. - -And Bruant led her to the instrument, where she sat with her back to the -company, and worked hard for its entertainment, till, in about an -hour, the delinquent pianist turned up, apparently recovered from his -indisposition, and took her place. - -Now what were we to make of this? A young woman going to Bruants (than -which there is scarcely a shadier resort in all the shady by-ways of -Bohemia)—going to Bruant’s for the first time in her life, boldly -gets up, and takes part in the performance! How were we to penetrate -beneath the surface of her conduct, and perceive the world of innocence, -the supreme unconsciousness of evil, that lay hidden there, and -accounted for it? Bruant himself, to our shame be it owned,—rough, -ribald, rowdy Aristide,—saw what we were blind to. - -“How the devil does she come to be knocking about with your flash -mob?” he asked me, in the pauses of one of his songs; he struts -hither and thither through the room, as he sings, you know and exchanges -parenthetical remarks with everybody. “You’re no fit pals for the -likes of her, vous autres, b———, m————!”—words that -would put any English printing-machinery out of gear. - -“Why not?” I queried meekly. - -“Because she’s an honest girl, that’s all. She’s fallen among -thieves, and I believe she doesn’t know it. You oughtn’t to have -brought her to a sale trou like this.” - -“I didn’t bring her. She came of her own free will.” - -“Well, it’s some ridiculous mistake, mark what I’m telling you.” -And he moved off singing the second stanza of “Saint Lazare.” - -Upon the arrival of his own paid pianist, he conducted Miss back to her -seat at our table, made her a grand bow, thanked her in a speech every -word of which could have been found in the Academy Dictionary, and -insisted upon her drinking a galopin of beer with him, and clinking -glasses. She laughed and blushed a good deal; but it was plain that in -her heart she was murmuring, “What fun!” - -Afterwards we went to the Rat Mort for supper. Yes, heaven forgive us, -we took Mademoiselle Miss to the Rat Mort for supper! - -One thing, in recalling those early days, I catch myself perpetually -thanking our stars for, with a joy the obverse of a terror; and that -is that it was mercifully given to us to find her out before she had a -chance to do the same by us. Otherwise,—if we had persisted a little -longer in our error, and in our consequent modes of speech and conduct, -and she had come to understand,—my heart quails to picture the hurt -and mortification she would have suffered, the contempt and horror she -must have felt for us. But, by a good fortune that we had certainly done -nothing to deserve, our eyes were opened to her true colours in the very -nick of time; and we made haste to turn over a new leaf before she had -been able to spell out the old. I can hardly tell just how it began. It -began probably in vague misgivings, dim surmises, that gradually waxed -stronger and clearer, and were in the end confirmed by circumstances. -Little questions she would ask, little comments she would make, little -things she would do, struck us as odd, as hopeless to explain,—unless -on an hypothesis that at first seemed quite too far-fetched, but -by-and-by forced itself upon us as the only one that would in any way -fit the case; the hypothesis, namely, of her stupendous innocence; that, -indeed, as Bruant had divined, her presence with us was due to some -preposterous misconception; that, in her own perfect soundness and -honesty, she was totally unsuspicious of the corruption round about her. - -Chalks used to give expression to this growing sentiment of ours, by -shaking his head, looking half wise, half mystified, and muttering, -“There’s something queer about that girl. I’ll be gol-donged if I -can make her out.” - -Once for instance, she confided to us that she thought Madame Bourdon -must be a very religious person, because she was always with a priest. -It was clear that she proffered this remark in entire literalness -and good faith, with no ulterior intention of any sort; and we, after -staring at it for a minute or two, reflected upon it for a fortnight. -True enough, the black robe of Monsieur the Abbé did lend a -meretricious air of orthodoxy both to Madame and to her establishment. - -Then the fact came out, I can’t remember how, that she was working -at Julian’s,—taking “whole days,” too, which means nine or ten -hours of heavy labour in the pestilential air of a studio packed with -people, where every window is shut, and the temperature hovers between -eighty and ninety Fahrenheit. Why should she be breaking her back and -poisoning her lungs at Julian’s, if—-? - -“There’s something queer about her,” Chalks insisted. - -She was always extremely friendly, though, with the other ladies of our -household: visited them in their rooms, received them in her own, walked -out with them, chatted with them as freely as her French would let her; -and this confused us, and deferred our better judgment. It was hard to -believe that anybody, no matter how guileless, nor how ill-instructed in -their idiom, could rub elbows much with Zélie, Yvonne, Fifine, and -not become more or less distinctly aware of the peculiarities of their -temperament. If actions speak louder than words, manners nowadays are -masters of seven languages. - -Yet, one afternoon, in the garden of the Luxembourg, Miss asked of me, -“Are they all married, those young ladies at our hotel?” - -I looked at her for a moment in a sort of stupefaction. Was it her -pleasure to be jocular? No, she had spoken in utmost sobriety. - -“Married?” I echoed. “What on earth made you think they’re -married?” - -“Everybody calls them Madame. I thought in French Madame was only used -for married women, like Mrs. with us.” - -Some providential instinct in me bade me respect her simplicity, and -answer with a prevarication. - -“Oh, no,” I said, “not in the Latin Quarter, at any rate. It’s -the custom here to call all women Madame.” - -“But then,” she proceeded with swift logic, “why do they call me -Mademoiselle?” - -This was rather a “oner,” but I came up manfully. “Ah, -that’s—that’s because you’re English, don’t you see?” - -“Oh,” she murmured, apparently accepting the reason as sufficient. - -Then I ventured to sound her a little. - -“You like them, you find them pleasant, the girls at the hotel?” - -“Yes, I like them,” she answered deliberately. “Of course, their -ways aren’t quite English, are they? But I suppose one must expect -French girls to be different. They seem intelligent and good-natured, -and they’ve been very nice to me.” - -“I dare say you don’t always understand each other?” I suggested. - -“Oh dear no. That is what prevents our being intimate. French is -so difficult, and they talk so fast. It’s as much as I can do to -understand the masters at the school, though they speak very slowly and -clearly, because they know I’m English. But I think I’m learning -a little. I can understand a great deal more than I could when I first -came. Do all French girls smoke cigarettes? I knew that Spanish and -Russian women did, but I didn’t know it was the custom in France.” - -“Yes, decidedly,” I said to myself, - -“Chalks is right. There’s something ‘queer,’ about her.” - -But how to reconcile the theory of her “queerness” with the fact -of her residence here alone among us in the Latin Quarter of Paris? -Assuming her to be a well brought-up, innocent young English girl, how -in the name of verisimilitude had she contrived to get so far astray -from her natural orbit? - -Nevertheless, in the teeth of difficulties, the theory gained ground. -And as it did so, it was amusing to note the way in which the other -girls accepted it. They were thoroughly scandalized, poor dears. Their -sense of propriety bridled up in indignant astonishment. So long as they -had been able to reckon Miss, simply and homogeneously, a case of -total depravity,—a specimen of the British variety of their own -species,—they had placed no stint upon their affable commendation of -her. She was pas mal, très bien, très gentille, très comme il faut, -even très chic. But directly the suspicion began to work in their minds -that perhaps, after all, appearances had been misleading, and she might -prove an entirely vertical member of society,—then perforce they had -to wag their heads over her, and cry fie at her goings-on. What! how! a -respectable unmarried woman,—a demoiselle, du monde,—a jeune fille -bien élevie,—come by herself to Paris,—dwell unchaperoned in the -Hôtel de l’.céan et de Shakespere,—hob and nob familiarly with you -and me,—submit to be tutoyée by Tom, Dick, and Harry! Mais, allons -donc, it was really quite too shameless. And they played my ladies -Steyne and Bareacres to her inadequate Rebecca; looked askance at her -when she came into the room, drew in their precious skirts when they -had to pass her, gathered in corners to discuss her, and were, in fine, -profoundly and sincerely shocked. For, here below, there are no sterner -moralists, no more punctilious sticklers for the prunes and prisms of -conventionality, than those harmful, unnecessary cats, the Zélies and -the Germaines of the Quartier-Latin. - -“Mai’s, enfin, si c’est vrai,—si elle est réellement comme, -ça, nest-ce pas,—mais c’est une honte,” was one of their -refrains; and “Elle manque complètement de pudeur alors,” was -another; to which the chorus: “Oh, pour sur!” - -And poor little Miss couldn’t understand it. Observing the frigid and -austere reserve with which they met her, feeling their half suppressed -disapproval in the atmosphere, she searched her conscience vainly to -discover what she could have done to anger them, and was, for a time I -fear, exceedingly unhappy. - -We men, meanwhile, were cursing ourselves for blockheads, chewing -the sharp cud of repentance, and trying in a hundred sheepish, clumsy -fashions to make amends. It would have been diverting for an outsider to -have watched us; the deference with which we spoke and listened to her, -the interest we took in her work, the infinite little politenesses we -paid her. When all is said, the sins we were guilty of towards her had -been chiefly metaphysical; it was what we had thought, rather than what -we had done. But I don’t know that our contrition was on this account -any the less acute; we had thought such a lot. We fancied a sister of -our own in her position, and we conceived a frantic desire to punch -the heads of the men who should have dared to think of her as we, quite -nonchalantly and with no sense of daring, had thought of Miss. Our -biggest positive transgression was the latitude of speech we had allowed -ourselves at the table d’hôte; and the effect of that was happily -neutralised (no thanks to us) by the poverty of her French. But, though -our salvation lay in the circumstance, I am far from sure that it did -not aggravate our remorse. We were profiting by her limitations, -taking sanctuary in her ignorance; and that smacked disagreeably of the -sneakish. - -Our yearning to make amends was singularly complicated by the necessity -we were under, as much for her sake as for our own, to prevent her ever -guessing how (or even that) we had offended. Not to confess is to -shirk the better half of atonement; yet confession in this case was -impossible, concealment was imperative. That, if she should get so much -as a glimmer of the truth, it would blast us forever in her esteem, was -a consideration, but a trifling one to the thought of what her emotions -must be like to realise the sort of place she had lately held in ours. -No, she must never guess. With the consciousness in our hearts that -we had practised a kind of intellectual foul play upon her, and in our -minds a vivid picture of the different footing things would be on if she -only knew, we must continue cheerfully to enjoy her smiles and her good -graces, and try to look as if we felt that we deserved them. It was -bare-faced hypocrisy, it was a game of false pretences; but it was -Hobson’s choice. We could not even cease to thee-and-thou her, -lest she should wonder at the change, and from wonderment proceed to -ratiocination. - -“One thing we must do, though,” said Chalks, “we must get her -out of this so-called hotel. Blamed if I can guess how she ever came -here.” - -This was before we had found the guidebook in her room, long before we -had heard her simple story, which explained everything. - -“We’ve acted like a pack of hounds, that’s my opinion,” Chalks -went on. “And now we’ve got to step up to the captain’s office and -settle.” - -His rhetoric was confused, but I dare say we caught the idea. - -“We’ve been acting like a pack of poodles latterly,” somebody put -in, “following her about, fawning at her feet, fetching and carrying -for her.” - -“Well, and hadn’t we oughter?” demanded Chalks. “Is there any -gentleman here who doesn’t like it?” - -“Oh, no, I only mentioned the circumstance as a source of unction,” -said the speaker. - -“Chalks is right. We must get her out of the hotel,” Campbell -agreed. “She mustn’t be exposed any longer to contact with those -little beasts of Mimis.” - -“That’s all very well, but how are we to manage it?” inquired -Norton. “We can’t give her the word to move, without saying why. And -as I understand it, that’s precisely the last thing we wish to do.” - -“We want to get her out of the mud, without letting her know she’s -in it,” said another. - -“Yes, that’s the devil of it,” admitted Chalks. “But I’ll tell -you what,” he added, with an air of inspiration. “Why not work it -from the other end round? Get rid of the Mimis, and let Miss stop?” - -This proposition was so radical, so revolutionary, we were inclined -to greet it with derision. But Chalks stood by his guns. “How to do -it?” he cried. “Why, boycott ‘em. Make this shop too hot to hold -‘em. Cultivate the art of being infernally disagreeable. They’ll -clear out fast enough. Then there’d be no harm in Miss staying till -the end of time.” - -“What’ll Madame say?” - -“Oh, we can fill their places up with fellows. I’ll go touting among -the men at the school. Easy enough to bag a half a dozen.” - -“But what about Lucile?”—Lucile, it will be remembered, was -Madame’s niece. - -“That’s so,” confessed Chalks, dashed for a moment. “Lucile’s -the snag. But I guess on the whole Lucile will have to go too. I’ll -hire a man I know to want her room. Madame won’t let family feeling -stand in the way of trade. Especially the sky-pilot won’t, not he. And -I’d like to know who’s the boss of this shebang, if not Monsieur the -Abbé? There’s no love lying around loose between him and Lucile, as -it stands. Just let a man turn up and ask for her room, Madame’ll drop -her like a hot potato.” - -But from the labour of putting such schemes in operation we were saved -by a microbe: a mouse can serve a lion. Half of our male contingent went -down with the influenza: and our ladies, Lucile included, incontinently -fled the ship. They dreaded the infection; and the house was as -melancholy as a hospital; and noise being inhibited, they couldn’t -properly entertain their friends. Besides, I think they were glad enough -of an occasion to escape from the proximity of Miss. She had infused -an element of ozone into our moral atmosphere; their systems weren’t -accustomed to it; it filled them with a vague malaise: they made a break -for fouler air. - -And it was at this crisis that Miss came out strong. She laid aside all -business and excuses, and constituted herself our nurse. - -All day long, and very nearly all night long too, she was at it: flying -from room to room, administering medicines to this man, reading aloud -to that, spraying eucalyptus everywhere, running for the doctor when -somebody appeared to have taken a turn for the worse,—in short, -heaping coals of fire upon our heads with a lavish, untiring hand. When -we got up from our sick-beds, every mother’s son of us was dead in -love with her. From that time to the end she went about like a queen -with her body-guard; and there wasn’t one of us who wouldn’t have -given his life to spare her a pain in the little finger; and our rewards -were her smiles. It is to be noted that she accepted our devotion with -the same calm unconsciousness of anything extraordinary that she had -shown in the old days to our doubtful courtesy. She wore her crown -and wielded her gentle sceptre like one in the purple born, whilst her -subjects outdid each other in zeal to please her. - -Meantime we had learned her previous history; we had pieced it together -from a multitude of little casual utterances. Her father, some five -years ago, had died a bankrupt; and she had gone as governess with -an English family to the far West of America, where they had a cattle -ranch; and now she was on her way home, to seek a new engagement; and -she was breaking her pilgrimage with a season of art in Paris (she had -always wanted to cultivate her natural gift for painting); and she had -chosen the Hôtel de l’.céan et de Shakespere because her guide-book -recommended it. - -Now Norton had a sister married to a squire in Derbyshire; and one day -this good lady advertised in the Times for a governess; and Miss, who -kept watch on such advertisements (going to Neal’s library to study -the English papers), was on the point of answering it, when Norton cut -in with a “Let me write that letter for you. Mrs. Clere happens to be -my sister.” Of course Miss got the place; and it was to take it, and -begin her duties, that she left us last night. - -I follow her in fancy upon her journey, and imagine her arrival at the -big, respectable, dull country house; and I wonder will she regret a -little and think fondly now and then of Madame Bourdon’s hotel and the -ragged staff of comrades she has left behind her here. For the present -the Rue Racine is an abhorrent vacuum, and I am sick with nostagia for -the Paris of yesterday. - - - - - - - -THE FUNERAL MARCH OF A MARIONNETTE - -“Elle est morte et n’a point vécu.” - - -Who does not know the sensation that besets an ordinary man on entering -a familiar room, where, during his absence, some change has been -made?—a piece of furniture moved, an old hanging taken down, a -new picture put up?—that teasing sense of strangeness, which, if -subordinate to the business of the moment, yet persists, uncomfortably -formless, till, for instance, the presiding genius of the place -inquires, “How do you like the way we have moved the piano?” or -something else happens to crystallise the sufferer’s mere vague -feeling into a perception; after which his spirit may be at rest again? - -When I woke this morning, here in my own dingy furnished room, in this -most dingy lodging-house, I had an experience very like that I mean to -suggest: something seemed wrong and unusual, something had been changed -overnight. This was the more perplexing, because my door had remained -locked and bolted ever since I had tucked myself into bed; and within -the room, after all, there isn’t much to change; only the bed itself, -and the armoire, and my writing-table, and my wash-hand-stand, and my -two dilapidated chairs; and these were still where they belonged. So -were the shabby green window-curtains, the bilious green paper on -the walls, the dismal green baldaquin above my head. Nevertheless, a -tantalising sense of something changed, of something taken away, of an -unwonted vacancy, haunted me through the brewing and the drinking of my -coffee, and through the first few whiffs of my cigarette. Then I put on -my hat, and “went to school,” and forgot about it. - -But when I came back, in the afternoon, I found that whatever the cause -might be of my curious psychical disturbance, it had not ceased to act. -No sooner had I got seated at my table, and begun to arrange my -notes, than down upon me settled, stronger if possible than ever, that -inexplicable feeling of emptiness in the room, of strangeness, of an -accustomed something gone. What could it mean? It was disquieting, -exasperating; it interfered with my work. I must investigate it, and put -an end to it, if I could. - -But just at that moment the current of my ideas was temporarily turned -by somebody rapping on my door. I called out, “Entrez!” and there -entered a young lady: a young lady in black, with soiled yellow ribbons, -and on her cheeks a little artificial bloom. The effect of this, -however, was mitigated by a series of flesh-colored ridges running -through it; and as the young person’s eyes, moreover, were red and -humid, I concluded that she had been shedding tears. I looked at her for -two or three seconds without being able to think who she was; but before -she had pronounced her “B’jour, monsieur,” I remembered: Madame -Germaine, the friend of poor little Zizi, my next-door neighbour. And -then, in a flash, the reason appeared to me for my queer dim feeling of -something not as usual in my surroundings, I had not heard Zizi cough! -That was it! Zizi, the poor little girl in the adjoining room,—behind -that door against which my armoire stands,—who for three months -past has scarcely left the house, but has coughed, coughed, coughed -perpetually: so that every night I have fallen asleep, and every -morning wakened, and every day pursued my indoor occupations, to that -distressing sound. Oh, our life is not all cakes and ale, here in the -Quarter; we have our ennuis, as well as the rest of mankind; and when -we are too poor to change our lodgings, we must be content to abide in -patience—whatever sounds our neighbours choose to make. - -At all events, so it came to pass that the sight of Madame Germaine, in -her soiled finery, cleared up my problem for me: Zizi had not coughed. -And I said to myself, “Ah, the poor little thing is better, and is -spending the day out of doors.” (It has been a lovely day, soft -as April, though in midwinter; and my inference, therefore, was not -overdrawn.) “And Madame Germaine,” I proceeded rapidly, “has come -to see her; and finding her away, has looked in on me.” - -Meanwhile my visitor stood still, just within the threshold, and gazed -solemnly, almost reproachfully, at me with her big protruding eyes: eyes -that, protruding always far more than enough, seemed now, swollen by -recent weeping, fairly ready to leave their sockets. What had she been -crying for, I wondered. Then I began our conversation with a cheery -“Zizi isn’t there?” - -“Ah, m’sieu! Ah, la pauv’ Zizi!”! was her response, in a sort -of hysterical gasp; and two fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, making -further havoc of her rouge. She took a few steps forward, and sank into -my arm-chair. “La pauv’ petite!” she sobbed, I was puzzled, of -course, and a little troubled. “What is it? What is the matter?” I -asked. “Zizi isn’t worse, surely? I haven’t heard her cough all -day.” - -“Oh, no, m’sieu, she isn’t worse. Oh, no, she—she is dead.” - -I don’t need to recount any more of my interview with Madame -Germaine, though it lasted a good half-hour longer, and was sufficiently -vivacious. I can’t describe to you the shock her announcement caused -me, nor the chill and despondency that have been growing on me ever -since. Zizi—dead? Zizi and Death!—the notions are too awfully -incongruous. I look at the door that separates our rooms,—the door -athwart which, in former times, I have heard so many bursts of laughter, -snatches of song, when Zizi would be entertaining her——she called -them “friends;” and, latterly, that hacking, unyielding cough of -hers,—I look at the door, and a sort of cold and blackness seems to -creep in from its edges; and then I fancy the darkened chamber beyond -it, with the open window, and Zizi’s little form stretched on the bed, -stark and dead,—poor little chirping, chattering, ribald Zizi! Oh, it -is ghastly. And all her trumpery, twopenny fripperies round about her, -their occupation gone: her sham jewels, and her flounces, and her tawdry -furs and laces, and her powder-puffs and rouge-pots—though it was only -towards the end that Zizi took to rouge. It is as if they were to -tell you that a doll is dead: can such things die? They are not wholly -inhuman, then? - -They have viscera? are made of real flesh and blood? can experience real -pains? and—and die? Here are you and I, serious folk, not without -some sense of the solemnity and mystery of God’s creation, here are -we still working the first degree of our arcana,—Life; and yonder lies -that tinselled little gewgaw, admitted to the second! She has passed the -dread portals, she has accomplished the miracle of Death! She was vain -and shallow and hard: she was malicious: she was shameless in her speech -as in her conduct: she was lively, it is true, and merry-mannered, and -pretty: but she had no affections, no illusions, no remorse; and lies -dropped like toads from her mouth whenever she opened it: yet she -is dead! And to-morrow women (who would have shrunk from her in -her lifetime, as from something pestilential) will reverently cross -themselves, and men (who would have.... ah, well, it is best not to -remember what the men would have done) will decently bare their heads, -as her poor coffin is borne through the streets on its way to the -graveyard. Isn’t it ghastly? Isn’t it quite enough to depress a -fellow, to sober him up, when there is only a thin partition, broken by -a door, to separate him from such a death-chamber?—Wait; I must tell -you something about Zizi, as I have known her. - -Long before our personal acquaintance began I used to see her here and -there in the Quarter: at the Bullier balls, or the Café Vachette, or -in the Luxembourg or the Boule-Miche when the weather was fine: and to -admire her as a singularly inoffensive specimen of her class. Those were -her palmy days. Her “friend” was a student of law, from the Quartier -Marbouf, with a pocketful of money and a pointed beard. She was the -smallest of possible little women, no higher than her law-student’s -heart, if he had one; and he was only a medium-sized Frenchman. She was -very daintily formed, with fine hands and feet; she had a great quantity -of black hair, and a pair of bright black eyes. Her face was pale, and -decidedly an interesting face: pert, if you please, and tremendously -mischievous, but suggestive of wit, of intelligence, even of humour and -passion: a most uncommon face, with character in it,—I believe I -may even say with distinction. It was a face you would have noticed -anywhere, to wonder who and what its owner might be. And then she used -to dress very well, very quietly: in refined grays or blacks: there was -absolutely nothing in her dress to betray her place in the world’s -economy: passing her in the street, you would have taken her for an -entirely irreproachable little housewife, with an unusually interesting -face. I used to see her in all the pleasure-resorts of the Quarter, ami -to admire her, and speculate about her in a languid, melancholy way. -Then I left town for the summer; and when I came back last September I -established myself here in the Hôtel du Saint Esprit. - -The first morning after my arrival I was awakened by queer but -unambiguous noises coming through that door, there behind my armoire; a -strident laugh, and a few hardy exclamations, that could leave me in -no doubt as to the sex and quality of my fellow-lodger. An hour or two -later I encountered Zizi on the landing; and the concierge informed me -that she was the tenant of the next room to my own. Such a neighbourship -would horrify you in London or New York: but we think nothing of -accidents much worse than that, here in the Latin Quarter of Paris. -Afterwards, night and morning, and more especially in those small hours -that are properly both or neither, I would hear Zizi’s laughter beyond -our dividing door; her laughter, or her thin little voice raised in a -stupid song, or the murmur of light talk, that would sometimes leap to -the pitch of anger, for I suspect that Zizi’s temper was uncertain; -and then, rare at first, but recurring more and more frequently, till it -became quite the dominant note, her hard, dry, racking little cough. - -Elinor was in Paris about this time. To my great joy, she had come to -pass the autumn, and perhaps the winter too; and she was very anxious -that I should show her something of the seamy side of life here. She had -taken lodgings on the other—the right and wrong—bank of the river; -and every afternoon, my day’s work done, I would join her there, and -we would go off together for little excursions into Bohemia. I happened -to be extraordinarily flush for the moment; I had nearly two hundred -pounds of ready money; and this was a help. Of course I took her to the -Moulin Rouge, which disgusted her, as I had warned her that it would; -and to the Chat Noir, which amused her; and I was fortunate enough -to get two seats for a performance at the Théâtre Libre, which -both amused and disgusted her at once; and I introduced her to the -jerry-built splendours of Bullier; and we took long delightful walks -together in the Luxembourg, where she would feed the sparrows with -crumbs of unnutritious bread; and we lunched, dined, and supped together -in an infinite number of droll restaurants; and now and then we went -slumming in the far north, or east, or south; and Pousset’s knew us, -and Vachette’s; and sometimes,’ for the fun or the convenience of -the thing, we would drop in among the demi-gomme of the Café de la -Paix: and she would have been altogether happy and contented save for -a single unfulfilled desire. She wanted to make acquaintance with some -member of the sisterhood of Sainte Grisette; she wanted, as a literary -woman, to see what such an one would be like; to convince herself -whether or not they were as black as I had painted them, for I had -painted them very black indeed. - -“Well,” I said at last, “you’ll be sorry for it, but since you -won’t take no for an answer, I’ll see what can be done.” - -Then one afternoon I was waiting for her by appointment, in that very -Café de la Paix, when whom should I see enter, and ensconce themselves -in a back room, but my neighbour Zizi, and her friend of the ribbons, -Madame Germaine. “When Elinor arrives,” I thought, “and if her -heart is still set on that sort of thing, I will introduce Zizi to her: -for Zizi is as nearly innocuous as a microbe of her variety very well -can be.” Elinor arrived a moment later: beautiful, strong, gracious, -and pure as a May morning: and I proposed the measure to her; and -her instant decision was, “Oh, yes, by all means.” So she and I -penetrated into the backroom, and took the table next to Zizi’s; -and presently Zizi gave me a sly little covert glance and smile; and -therewith I invited her and her companion to come and sit with us. - -“Madame permits?” demanded Zizi, raising her eyebrows, astonished -at such magnanimity on the part of a fellow-woman. Elinor smiled assent; -and the two étudiantes rose and placed themselves before our own slab -of marble. I asked them what they would take; of course they commanded -each a menthe à l’eau. But though I tried to suit the conversation to -their taste and level, they were not perfectly at ease. The presence of -Elinor, whom, for all that she was alone with a man in the Café de la -Paix, they could perceive with half an eye to be a bird of a totally -different feather to their own, embarrassed them a good deal. Their -desire to appear well before her, their determined best behaviour, tied -their tongues, and made them surpassingly dull; for when they are not -flavoured lavishly with Gallic salt, they are unimaginably insipid, -these little soubrettes in the comedy of evil. However, before we broke -up, I had engaged them to breakfast with us on the Sunday to follow. We -were all to meet at Fousset’s in the Boulevard at noon, and thence -we would proceed to the Abbaye de Thélème, where I would bespeak a -cabinet particulier. - -The Abbaye de Thélème is the riskiest of restaurants in a most risky -quarter: but Elinor wanted to see the seamy side of Parisian life, and I -was resolved to satisfy her once for all with a drastic measure of it. - -“Voyez-vous,” I heard Zizi boasting to her, in a whisper, “it -is forbidden for women to come alone to this café. But I am an honest -girl. The gérant knows me. They make no objection to me or to my -friends. Adieu, madame. Au revoir, proche,”—this last to me. Proche, -indeed! But in the Latin Quarter the word is often used as a substitute -for voisin. Then Zizi took her small self off, followed by Germaine. - -“Well,” I queried, as soon as Elinor and I were alone, “is your -thirst for experience satisfied? Are you happy at last?” - -“I am overcome with bewilderment. Who would have known that they -weren’t simply two ordinary bourgeoises? There wasn’t anything rowdy -or shocking about them.” - -“What! The rouge? The ribbons? The bulging eyes?” - -“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that one. I didn’t care much for her. -Still, even she looked no worse than—well, a shop-girl. But the -other, the little one. I shouldn’t have been surprised to meet her -anywhere,—at Madame X———’s, at Madame de Z———-’.. She -was dressed so quietly, in such good taste. Her manners were so subdued, -almost English. And her face,—it’s a face that would strike you -anywhere. So delicate, refined, so quaint and interesting. She -doesn’t rouge. And such lovely hair! Oh, I am sure she is full of good -qualities. What a shame and horror it is that... that... It makes one -feel inclined to loathe your whole sex.” - -Elinor’s commentary at this point became a lamentation, which it would -be irrelevant to repeat. “I must get her to tell me her story,” was -its conclusion. - -“Oh, she’ll tell you her story fast enough, only, I warn you, it -will be a pack of lies. The truth isn’t in them, those little puppets. -Don’t cherish any illusions about her. The most one can say for her is -that she’s a fairly harmless example of a desperately bad class. The -grisette of Musset, of Henry Murger, exists no longer, even if she ever -did exist. To-day Zizi was on her good behaviour. Sunday, I hope for -the sake of science, she’ll get off it, and be her wicked little self. -Yes, her face is remarkable, but it’s an absurd accident, a slip of -nature: not one of the qualities it would seem to indicate is anywhere -in her—neither wit nor humour nor emotion. She’s just a little -undersized cat; not a kitten: she has none of the innocent gentleness of -a kitten: an undergrown, hard, sprightly little cat. However, she can be -amusing enough when she’s roused; and on Sunday we are likely to have -a merry breakfast.” But herein I proved myself a false prophet. -We were still at the hors d’ouvres when Zizi began to cry. She had -coughed; and Elinor had asked her if she had a cold; and that question -precipitated a flood of tears. This was dispiriting. It is always -dispiriting to see one of these creatures anything but gay and flippant: -serious feeling is so crudely, so garishly, at variance with your -preconception of them, with the mood in which you approach them. And yet -they cry a good deal,—mostly, however, tears of mere spite or vexed -vanity; or, it may be, of hysteria, for they are frightfully subject -to what they call crises de nerfs. But Zizi’s tears now were of a -different water. Had she a cold? Oh, no, it was worse than that. The -doctor said her lungs were affected; and if she didn’t speedily change -her mode of life, she must go into a decline. And this, if you please, -was the dish laid on our table, there in the vulgar cabinet particulier -of that shady restaurant, under the crystal gasalier, and between the -four diamond-scratched looking-glasses that covered the walls,—this -was the dish served to us even before the oysters; and you may imagine, -therefore, with what appetite we attacked the good things that came -after. The doctor had told her that she must absolutely suspend her -dissipations for at least a six-month, and rest, and soigner herself, -and “feed up,” or she would surely become poitrinaire. “And do -nothing? How can I? Faut vivre, parbleu!” Her present friend-in-chief, -she explained, was at the School of Mines; his pension from his family -only amounted to two hundred and fifty francs a month; he was all that -is good, he would do his utmost for her; but she couldn’t live on what -he could spare her out of two hundred and fifty francs a month. - -With this she went off in a regular fit of hysterics; and Elinor had -her hands full, trying to bring her round. Hysterics are infectious; -and Madame Germaine sat in her place, and sobbed helplessly,—not in -sympathy, but by infection,—whilst her tears fell into her plate. - -I saw that Elinor was tremendously distressed, and I cursed the -misinspired moment when I had arranged this feast. “Terrible, -terrible!” she murmured, shaking her head and looking at me with -pained eyes. When at length Zizi was calm again, Elinor asked, “You -won’t mind if I speak with Monsieur in English?” and then said to -me, “This is quite too dreadful. We must do something for her. We must -save her from consumption; and perhaps at the same time we can redeem -her, make a good woman of her. She has it in her.” - -I respected Elinor’s sincerity too much to laugh at the utopian -quality of her optimism: so I waived the latter of her remarks, and -replied only to the former. “I should be glad to do anything possible -for her, but I don’t exactly see what is possible. Besides, I don’t -believe she’s threatened with consumption, any more than I am. This -is a pose, to make herself interestingly pathetic in your eyes, and get -some money. You’ll see—she’s going to strike me for fifty francs. -It’s the sum they usually ask for. And she wants to win your sanction -to the gift beforehand.” - -Surely enough, Zizi lifted up her tearful face, its features all puffed -out and empurpled, and said at this very moment, in a whimper that -ought to have hardened the softest heart, “If Monsieur could give me -a little money—a couple of louis—a fifty-franc note? I could buy -medicines and things.” - -“Nonsense,” said I, brutally; “you’d buy chiffons and things.” - -She laughed without offence, and gave me a knowing glance, but -protested, “Non, sérieusement, je veux me soigner.” Then she turned -to Elinor, and pleaded coaxingly, “Madame, tell him to give me fifty -francs—pour me soigner.” - -“No,” Elinor replied; “he won’t give you fifty francs, but this -is what he will do, what we will do. If you will obey the doctor’s -orders, send your friends about their business, and lead a perfectly -regular life for the time being, we will undertake to see that you want -for nothing during the next six months. After that, nous verrons! For -the present, that is what we offer you: six months in which to give -yourself every chance for a cure. Only, during those six months—faut -etre sage.” - -Of course, Zizi began to cry again; and, of course, she could do nothing -less than accept Madame’s proposition with some show of effusion: -though I mistrusted the whole-heartedness of her acceptance; she would -much rather have pocketed the fifty francs, and had done with us. - -Elinor and she fell to discussing sundry practical details. Good and -abundant food, warm clothing, healthful lodgings: these were the three -desiderata that Elinor prescribed. As for the last, Zizi assured us that -she already had them—“since I live in the same house as Monsieur,” -she explained, convincingly. - -But Elinor was not convinced. “Do your rooms face south?” was the -question she insisted on. - -Now Zizi, about the points of the compass, and such abstruse matters -generally, had no more idea than I have of Sanskrit; yet, “Oh, yes, my -room gives to the noon,” she answered, without turning a hair. -“And, anyhow, it is a very nice room.—Come and see,” she added, -impulsively. “I should be charmed to show you.” - -“I suppose it will be all right?” Elinor asked of me. - -“Oh, no worse than the rest,” I acquiesced. - -And so we took a cab, and were driven to the Rue St. Jacques. Madame -Germaine parted from us at the threshold of the eating-house. “I have -an engagement in the Parc Monceau,” she informed us, in the candour of -her heart. Zizi jeered at her a good deal as we drove across the town. -“Her ribbons—hein? Her goggle-eyes! Not at all comme il faut. But -a brave girl. She loves me like a sister. Monsieur smiles. No, word of -honour, it is not as you think.” If I had thought as Zizi thought I -thought, I shouldn’t have smiled; but she, of course, couldn’t be -expected to understand that. “Poor Germaine! Her real name is Gobbeau, -Marthe Gobbeau. She is stupid and ugly, but she is good-natured,” -which was more, perhaps, than one could say with truth of her little -critic. “Her mother is an ouvreuse in the Théâtre de Belleville.” - -“And her father?” queried Elinor. - -“Her father!” cried Zizi, and she was about to continue, when it -occurred to her to respect Elinor’s unsophistication. She gave me -a furtive wink, and said, gravely, “Oh, her father lives in -the twenty-first arrondissement.” Elinor was not aware that the -arrondissements of Paris number only twenty, and so she could not -realise either the double meaning or the antiquity of this evasion. - -Zizi’s room was precisely like a thousand other rooms in the Latin -Quarter, though rather more luxurious than most: much more so than mine, -for example. To begin with, she had a carpet, her private property, a -sober-hued Brussels carpet, that covered almost the entire floor; then -she had four chairs, each practicable and reasonably fresh-looking; her -bed was enriched by a counterpane of crimson silk, and crimson too were -the hangings over it. The walls were decorated in the prevailing style -of her class and epoch, with tambourines, toy trumpets, empty bonbon -boxes, and so forth, hung from tin-tacks. But the chief impression that -you got of the room was one of cleanliness and order: Zizi, still for -all slips of hers, was French. - -“How very neat it is, how exquisitely neat,” Elinor murmured, in -evident surprise. - -Zizi smiled complacently,—with what they call proper pride. “Pas -mal, hein? Asses chic, eh?” she questioned, whilst her eyes snapped -triumphantly. - -“Yes,” Elinor admitted, “it is very nice, but—it looks due -north.” - -And she proceeded to develop her favourite hygienic thesis, to the -effect that no one could keep well who lived in a room that had no sun, -the application being that Zizi must change her quarters. To-morrow, -Monday, she must find a room that really did “give to the noon;” and -at three o’clock we would meet her at the Vachette, and go with her to -inspect it. Of course we were to pay the rent. - -“My dear Elinor,” I said, when we had taken leave of Zizi, “I -am sorry to discourage you, but your benevolent schemes will come to -nothing. She won’t change her lodgings, and she won’t change her -mode of life. We would much better have given her a little ready cash, -and got rid of her. An endeavour to be respectable, if only ad interim -as it were, would weary her too much. You rashly promised to see -that she wanted for nothing. Can you see that she has plenty of -excitement?—which is the breath of her nostrils. To-morrow she will -draw back; she will tell you that on the whole she finds she can’t -accept your bigger offer, and will renew her request for fifty -francs.” - -“If I didn’t know you weren’t, I should think you were a perfectly -soulless cynic,” was Elinor’s rejoinder. - -But, cynic or no cynic, I was right. Elinor, in agreeing to meet Zizi at -Vachettes on the morrow, had forgotten a previous engagement, which -she remembered afterwards; so I went to the rendezvous alone, charged, -however, with full powers to act as I might deem best. Zizi was a -quarter-hour late, but she didn’t mind that, apparently; at any rate -she vouchsafed no apology for having kept me waiting. She made haste -to let me know that she couldn’t possibly change her lodgings; she -hadn’t even looked for others: her mother wouldn’t hear of it, for -one thing; and then—her friends? They all have mothers, somehow or -other, though the notion seems incongruous: yet I suppose it’s only -natural. Zizi’s was a purple-faced old sage femme from the purlieus of -‘Montmartre. She had taken counsel with her mother, she said, and -her mother wouldn’t hear of her changing her abode. And then—her -friends? When they came to see her, and found that she had moved, -they would be displeased; they wouldn’t follow her up. Business is -business, after all, but in our youth we were taught that friendship -isn’t. Anyhow, Zizi foresaw herself quite friendless if she moved. -“But my room is very well. If you and Madame want to support me, why -not support me there?” - -I echoed, rather feebly perhaps, Elinor’s lecture on the advantages of -sunlight; and in any case, I told her, desirous as Madame and I were -to “support her,” we positively declined to permit ourselves that -indulgence, unless she took a sunny room: what we really wished was to -help her to get well; we were persuaded that she couldn’t get well in -a northern aspect; and we had no sort of eagerness to throw our money -from the windows. It was pretty clear to me that she had begun to -distrust our motives: such unaccustomed kindness, such reckless -extravagance, bore on their face a suspicious look. - -“Et cette dame?” she queried. “Cette anglaise? Qu est-ce qu’elle -me veut? Elle est ta maîtresse, hein? Femme mariée, eh? Et toi, avec -ton petit air Sainte-Nitouche, va! I’ll tell you what: give me some -money, fifty francs, to buy medicines, to pay a doctor. Come on! Fifty -francs—it isn’t much.” - -“Yes, it is, my dear,” I retorted. “It’s a jolly lot, as you -know very well. But still, if you prefer the part, when you might have -the whole, that is your affair; and so I’m going to give it to you. -Only, mind, this will begin and end the whole transaction. We give -you fifty francs, but we will never give you another penny.” Then I -smuggled a fifty-franc note into her pretty little hand,—smuggled it, -so that the waiters and the other consommateurs shouldn’t see. - -But Zizi was troubled by no such false shame. She smoothed the note -out, and held it up to the light, scrutinising it rigorously. Having -satisfied herself that it wasn’t a counterfeit, she crammed it into -a small silver purse, closed the purse with a snap, and buried it in -an occult female pocket. At last she turned her face towards mine, -and said, “T’es bon, toi. That will bring you luck. Kiss me.” I -suggested that the café was rather too public a place for kissing. The -fifty-franc note radiated its genial warmth throughout her small frame, -and she quite “chippered up,” and laughed and chatted with me very -pleasantly. “Why do you never come to see me,—since we live in the -same house?” she was good enough to ask. And she tried to pump me, in -a naughty insinuating way, about Elinor, her benefactress. - -But Zizi was launched upon her descent into Avernus. Her cough got worse -and worse; her cheeks grew hollow, her whole face dragged-looking; her -figure lost its elasticity. She took to rouge and powder, and introduced -falsetto notes into her toilet. With her failing health, her friends -began to fail her too: coughs and fevers and eyes unnaturally bright are -disturbing elements, and put a strain on friendship. She had to seek for -new ones, and was to be met with a good deal in the Boulevards. Whenever -she spied Elinor and me on her horizon, she bore down upon us, and -begged for money: and she was always spying us, always turning up; it -seemed as if she must have dogged our footsteps. Thus you cast your -bread upon the waters, and it comes back to you in the fulness of time. -She was French, as I have remarked before: but she showed no discretion, -and no respect for places or occasions. Not infrequently, therefore, -her familiar hailings of us were embarrassing. By and by she acquired a -light-hearted habit of entering the Vachette, ordering what she would, -and leaving it to be scored to my account; and I had to remonstrate. At -last she found out Elinor’s address, and called upon her. But Elinor -was going to London the next day; so nothing came of that. This was in -December; and early in the same month Zizi began to keep her room. She -was probably very ill; she coughed perpetually. She coughed a good deal -when it wasn’t necessary, and only racked without relieving her poor -chest, to say nothing of her neighbours’ nerves. I used to urge her to -control her cough, not to cough when she could help it; but self-control -of any sort was beyond her tradition; and she would always cough at the -slightest impulse. Once in a great while, if she was a little better, -and the weather favoured, she would put on her rouge and her finery, and -go out,—to “pécher à la ligne,” as she expressed it. Then, on -her re-entrance, I would hear forlorn attempts at song and laughter, -which would inevitably end in long, pitiful fits of coughing. - -And now it is all over; Zizi is dead; and I am as much shocked as if the -event were inconsequent and unexpected, as if she hadn’t been coughing -her life out steadily these three months past. Ah, well, the difficulty -is to reconcile one’s idea of Zizi with anything not vain and hollow -and make-believe, with anything natural and sincere; and death is so -hideously natural, so horribly sincere. For the first time since her -birth, I dare say, she has done a sincere thing, a real thing,—she has -died! - - - - - - - -THE PRODIGAL FATHER. - -His wife had died some five and twenty years before, leaving him with -an infant son upon his hands; and she had made him promise that the boy -should be brought up as a “good American.” - -He, poor man, was a desperately bad one. The very word, for instance, -as he pronounced it, forgot to rhyme with hurricane; and, lest anybody -should be disposed to look indulgently upon the said offence, I hasten -to add that he persistently sounded the e in clerk unlike the i in -dirk. Besides (the homeliness of the detail may be forgiven to -its significance), he suffered his nose, as an instrument for the -communication of ideas, to sink into disuse and atrophy. - -And he lived in London, and brazenly acknowledged that he liked it -better than New York. - -A serious old friend, writing from oversea to remonstrate with him, -spoke of duty and patriotism, and got this pert reply:— - -“Duty, my dear, is the last weakness of great minds; and patriotism, -as manifested at any rate by such travelling fellow-countrymen of ours -as I have met on British soil, patriotism corrupts good manners. Of the -patriots themselves I may say, as of divers birds, orators, operas, and -women, that they should be seen perhaps, but certainly not heard; and if -I could not talk, I should not wish to live.” - -As a matter of principle all this rather shocked his young American wife -(a Massachusetts girl, who had been bred in the straitest sect of the -national religion), though in practice she was nearly as shameless as -himself. Anyhow, she submitted cheerfully to a residence in England, and -forbore to draw comparisons;—indeed, if she had drawn them, it is not -inconceivable that they might have redounded less to the disparagement -of the elder country than one could have desired.. But then she fell -ill, and came to die, and was smitten with home-sickness; and fond -memories of the land of her girlhood begot a sort of dim remorse for the -small place she had lately let it hold in her affections; and groping -blindly for something in the nature of atonement, she made her husband -promise that the boy should be educated as a good American, in an -American school, and at Harvard College. - -Afterwards, he transported the baby and its nurse to Beacon Street in -Boston, and deposited them with the dead lady’s parents. And as soon -as he decently could be returned to England; and twenty-five years -passed during which neither father nor son crossed the Atlantic. - -This I am afraid must be confessed, that he was a very, very frivolous -young person;—he carried his age as jauntily as his gloves and his -walking-stick, and would have been genuinely surprised if anybody had -spoken of him as otherwise than young, though he was fifty-seven. - -With a beggarly five hundred a year to his patrimony, he lived at the -rate of half as many thousand, he who had never earned a sixpence. He -had never had time, he said; he had been kept too busy doing nothing; he -had found no leisure for productive industry. What with teas and dinners -and dances, with visits in country houses and dashes across the channel, -with reading and conversation, dreaming and sleeping, his days and -nights had been too full; and so he had had to raise the balance of -his expenditures by leaving the greater number of his debts unpaid. For -pocket-money he resorted to what he called reversed post-obits. His son -would some day, by inheritance from his maternal grandparents, be a rich -man; and he would surely not refuse, on his father’s death, to buy up -such stamped paper as might bear his father’s autograph; and the Jews -(a race that always set great hopes upon posterity) were happy, with -this prospect in view, to accommodate him at sixty per cent, per annum. - -He was tall and lean and loosely built, much given to lounging about in -queer twisted postures, as if double-jointed; whereby a friend was led -to suggest for his consideration that, when hard-up, he might turn an -honest penny by enlisting in some itinerant menagerie as India-rubber -man. One of his eyes met the world unarmoured, with a perfectly vacant -stare; the other glimmered ambiguously behind a circular shield of -glass. He had an odd, musical, rather piping voice, in which he drawled -forth absurdities with such a plaintive, weary, spoiled-child intonation -as seemed to hint wits tottering and spirits drooping under an almost -insupportable burden of fatigue and disappointment; whence, for a -stranger, it was not at once easy to determine if his utterances were -funny or only inconsequential. When I first made his acquaintance, I -remember, I thought for a minute or two that I had stumbled upon a tired -imbecile,—then an amusing one,—then an inspired. Some people branded -him a snob, others a sort of metaphysical rake, but all agreed that he -was an entertaining man. - -He had translated the hitherto incomprehensible-seeming motto of his -house, “Estre que fayre,”—“To be rather than to do.” To be: to -be on all sides a highly developed mortal,—a scholar, a connoisseur, -a good talker, an amiable companion, a healthy animal,—was his aim -in life, so nearly as it could be said of him that he had an aim. And -therefore he played golf (it was heartrending, he declared, to see how -badly), took an intelligent interest in foot-ball, read everything -(save the hyperbole!) and kept abreast of what was being done in music, -painting’, sculpture, and keramics: in short, went heavily in for -all forms of unremunerative culture. The theatre he avoided, because he -deemed acting at its best but a bad reflection of the creative arts, -and at its worst, as he maintained we got it nowadays, a mere infectious -disease of the nervous system. Neither would he hunt, shoot, fish, nor -eat of any flesh, because, he explained, it would be unpleasant to have -to consider himself a beast of prey. He had a skillful cook, however, -and fared sumptuously every day on such comestibles as plovers’ eggs -and truffles, milk, honey, fruits, and flowers (is not the laborious -artichoke a flower?), and simple bread and cheese served in half a -hundred delectable disguises. He dined out, to be sure, six or seven -evenings in the week; but these were Barmecide feasts for him, and on -coming home he could sup. When he went to stay in the country he -took his cook with him, instead of his man; and people bore with his -eccentricities because he could say diverting things. - -He was an epicure, though a vegetarian, a cynic in a benignant, trifling -way, and a pessimist, though a debonair one. - -“A little cheerful pessimism, is a great help here below,” he used -to urge. “It takes one over many a rough place. Has it ever struck you -to reflect how much worse the world might be, if it weren’t so bad?” - -Occasionally, no doubt, his pessimism glowed with a less merry hue: -when, for instance, he would be short of funds and hard pressed by duns. -“How many noble fellows have fought loyally in the battle to lead a -life of sweet idleness, and fallen overpowered by the cruel greed of -tradesmen! Am I to be of their number?” he would ask himself sadly at -such moments. - -He was the most indefatigable of human men when engaged in pursuits -that were entirely profitless, like arranging picnics, going to parties, -inventing paradoxes, or drinking tea; but when it came to anything -remotely approaching the sphere of Ought, he was the most indolent, the -most prone to procrastination. Far, far too indolent, for example, to be -a possible correspondent,—unless he were addressing a money-lender or -a woman,—whence it resulted that he and his son had written to each -other but desultorily and briefly, and knew appallingly little of each -other’s state of mind. Three or four years ago the boy, having taken -his degree at Harvard, had poised for an instant on the brink of a -resolution to run over and pay his sire a visit; but then he had decided -to wait about doing that till he should have put in “the requisite -number of terms at the Law School to secure his admission to the Bar,” -as he expressed it. - -Now, it appeared, the requisite number had been achieved, for early in -May, along with the first whiffs of warm air, shimmers of sunshine, -and rumblings of carriage-wheels in the Park, the elder man received a -letter that ran like this:— - -“My dear Father, - -“You will, I am sure, be glad to know that I have passed my final -examinations, and shall shortly have the right to sign LL. B. after my -name, as well as to practise in the courts. - -“I mean to sail for Europe on the 1st of June, by the Teutonic, and -shall reach London about the 8th. I should like to spend the summer with -you in England, familiarising myself with British institutions, and in -the fall go through France and Germany, and down into Italy to pass the -winter. But of course I should submit my plans to your revision. - -“My grandfather and grandmother are keeping very well, and join me in -love to you. - -“Your affectionate son, - -“Harold Weir.” - -“The lad seems to have some humour,” was the senior Weir’s -reflection upon this epistle. “‘British institutions’ is rather -droll. And if his style seems a trifle stiff in the joints, that only -results from youth and a legal education. I trust to Providence, though, -that he mayn’t have LL. B. engraved upon his card;—these Americans -are capable of anything. However I shall be glad to see him.” - -And he began to picture pleasantly to himself the fun that awaited him -in having a well set-up young man of five and twenty, whose pockets were -full of money (the maternal grandfather saw to that, thank goodness), -to knock about with; and he looked forward almost eagerly to the 8th of -June. They would finish the season in town together, and afterwards do -a round of country houses, and then make for the Continent: and, taking -one consideration with another, it would be a tremendous lark. That -Harold was well set-up he knew from a photograph. His only fear on -the score of appearance concerned his colouring. That might be trying. -However, he would hope not; and anyhow, in this world we must take the -bitter with the sweet. - -He went to Euston (having had due telegraphic warning from Liverpool) to -welcome the youth on the platform; and he didn’t quite know whether -to be pleased or dismayed when he saw him step from a third-class -compartment of the train. It was rather smart than otherwise to travel -third-class, of course; but how could a young American, fresh from -democracy, be aware of this somewhat recondite canon of aristocratic -manners? and might the circumstance not argue, therefore, parsimony or a -vulgar taste? - -He had no doubt at all, however, about the nature of the emotion that -Harold’s hat aroused in him; for not only was it a “topper,” -but—as if travelling from Liverpool in a topper weren’t in itself -enough—it had to be a topper of an outlandish, un-English model; and -he shuddered to speculate for what plebeian provincial thing people -might have been mistaking this last fruit of his gentle family tree. He -hurried the hat’s wearer out of sight, accordingly, into his brougham, -and gave the word to drive. - -“But my baggage?” cried the son. - -“Oh, my man will stop behind and look after that. Give him your -receipt.” - -His hat apart, Harold was really a very presentable fellow, tall and -broad-shouldered, with a clear eye, a healthy brown skin, and a generous -allowance of well-cropped brown hair; and on the whole he wasn’t badly -dressed: so that his father’s heart began to warm to him at once. His -cheeks and lips were shaven clean, like an actor’s or a priest’s, -whereby a certain rigidity was imparted to the lines of his mouth. He -held himself rather rigidly too, and bolt upright: but as his father -had noticed a somewhat similar effect in the bearing of a good many -unexceptionable young Oxford and Cambridge men, he put it down to the -fashion of a generation, and didn’t allow it to distress him. - -“I had no idea you kept a carriage,” Harold remarked, after an -interval. - -“Oh, I should ruin myself in cab-fares, you know,” Weir explained. - -“I presume London is a pretty dear city?” - -“Oh, for that—shocking!” - -“I came down on the cars third-class. I want to get near the people -while I am over here, and see for myself how their status compares to -that of ours. I want to get a thorough idea of the economic condition -of England, and see whether what David A. Wells claims for free trade is -true.” - -“Ah, yes—yes,” his father responded, dashed a little. But the -boy’s voice was not unpleasant; his accent, considering whence -he came, far better than could have been expected; and as for -his locutions, his choice of words, “I must cure you of your -Americanisms,” the hopeful parent added. - -“Sir?” the son queried, staring. - -“There, to begin with, don’t call me sir. Reserve that for Royalty. -I said I must try to break you of some of your Americanisms.” - -“Oh, I know. The English say railway for railroad, and box for -trunk.” - -“Ah, if it began and ended there!” sighed Weir. - -“But I don’t see why our way isn’t as good as theirs. We’ve got -a population of sixty millions to their thirty, and——” - -“Oh come, now! Don’t confuse the argument by introducing figures.” - -But at this Harold stared so hard that his father’s conscience smote -him a little, and he asked sympathetically, “I’m afraid you take -life rather seriously, don’t you?” - -“Why, certainly,” the young man answered with gravity. “Isn’t -that the way to take it?” - -“Oh, bless you, no. It’s too grim a business. The proper spirit to -take it in is one of unseemly levity.” - -“I don’t think I understand you—unless you’re joking.” - -“You need limbering up a bit, that’s all,” declared his father. -“But I say, we must get you a decent hat. Later in the day I’m going -to trot you off to Mrs. Midsomer-Norton’s for tea. Well stop at -a hatter’s now.” And he gave the necessary instructions to his -coachman. - -“What is the matter with the hat I’ve got on?” - -“We’re not wearing that shape in London.” - -“What will a new one cost?” - -“Don’t know. I’m sure. Five-and twenty shillings, I expect.” - -“Well, this one cost me eight dollars in Boston just about three -weeks ago. Don’t you think it would be extravagant to get a new one so -soon?” - -“Oh, damn the extravagance. We must ‘gae fine’ whatever we do.” - -This time there was a distinct shadow of pain in Harold’s stare; and -he preserved a rueful silence till the brougham drew up at Scott’s. -He followed his father into the shop, however, and submitted stolidly to -the operation of being fitted. When it came to paying, he pulled a very -long face indeed, and appeared to have an actual mechanical difficulty -in squeezing the essential coin from his purse. - -“Now you look like a Christian,” his father averred, as they got -back into the carriage. - -“I hate to throw away money, though.” - -“For goodness’ sake don’t tell me you’re close-fisted.” - -“I don’t think it’s right to throw away money.” - -“That’s a New England prejudice. You’ll soon get over it here.” - -“I don’t know. A man ought never to be wasteful—especially with -what he hasn’t earned.” - -“Ah, there’s where I can’t agree with you. If a man had earned his -money he might naturally have some affection for it, and wish to keep -it. But those who like you and me are entirely vicarious in their -sacrifice, and spend what other folk have done the grubbing for, can -afford to be royally free-handed.” - -Harold made no response, but it was evident that he had a load on his -mind for the remainder of their drive. - -At Mrs. Midsomer-Norton’s the young man’s bewilderment and -melancholy seemed to deepen into something not far short of horror, -as he formed one of a group about his father, and heard that -personage singsong out, with an air of intense fatigue, his flippant -inconsequences. - -There was a little mite of a man present, with a fat white face and -a great shock of red hair, whom the others called the Bard; and he -announced that he was writing a poem in which it would be necessary to -give a general definition of Woman in a single line; and he called upon -the company to help him. - -“Woman,” wailed Weir, languidly, as he leaned upon the mantelpiece, -“Woman is—such sweet sorrow.” - -There was a laugh at this, in which, however, Harold could not join. -Then the Bard cried, “That’s too abstract;” and Weir retorted, -drawling, “Oh, if you must have her defined in terms of matter, Woman -is a mass of pins.” Harold slunk away into a corner, to hide his -shame. He felt that his father was playing the fool outrageously. - -The Bard curled himself up, cross-legged like the bearded Turk, upon the -hearthrug, and repeated some verses. He called them a “villanelle,” -and said they were “after the French.” - - -“I have lost my silk umbrella, - -Someone else no doubt has found it: - -I would like to catch the fella! - - -“Or it may be a femella - -Cast her fascination round it. - -I have lost my silk umbrella. - - -“Male or female, beau or hella, - -Who hath ventured to impound it, - -I would like to catch the fella! - - -“Talk about a tourterella! - -I’d rather lose a score, confound it. - -I have lost my silk umbrella. - - -“It was new and it was swella! - -If I had his head I’d pound it, - -I would like to catch the fella. - - -“ Hearken to my ritoumella, - -From my heart of hearts I sound it,— - -I have lost my silk umbrella, - -I would like to catch the fella.” - - -Everybody laughed; but Harold thought the verses silly and -uninteresting, and full of vain repetitions; and he wondered that -grown-up men and women could waste their time upon such trivialities. - -On their way home he took his father to task. “Of course you didn’t -mean the things you said in that lady’s house?” he began. - -“Why? Did I say anything I hadn’t oughter?” - -Harold frowned in wonder at his father’s grammar, and replied -severely, “You said a good many things that you couldn’t have meant -You said a lie in time saves nine. You said consistency is the last -refuge of a scoundrel. You said a lot of things that I can’t remember, -but which seemed to me rather queer.” - -“Oh, we’re a dreadfully frisky set, you know,” Weir explained. -Then he turned aside for an instant, to get rid of an importunate -hansom, that had sauntered after them for a hundred yards, the driver -raining invitations upon them from his “dicky.”—“No, I -won’t be driven. I’ll be led, but I won’t be driven,” he said, -resolutely. “You’ll get accustomed to us, though,” he continued, -addressing his son. - -“Do you mean to say the people of your set are always like that? -Why, there wasn’t a single person there that you could converse with -seriously about anything.” - -“I didn’t want to, I’m sure,” his father protested. - -But the son’s commentary was not to be diverted. “I asked that -gentleman they called Major what he thought the effect of smokeless -powder would be upon future warfare; and he looked perfectly paralysed, -and said he didn’t know, he was sure. And that member of Parliament -from Sheffingham, I asked him what the population of Sheffingham was, -and he didn’t know. And that lady,—Lady Angela something,—-I asked -her how she liked ‘Robert Elsmere,’ and she said she didn’t know -him.” - -“I’m afraid our friends thought you had rather a morbid appetite for -information, Harold.” - -“Well, I must say, I thought they were very superficial. All froth and -glitter. Nothing solid or genuine about them. And that poem that little -red-haired man recited! Now in American houses of that sort you’d hear -serious conversation.” - -“Your taste is austere. But you must be charitable, you must make -allowances. Besides, some of us aren’t so superficial as you’d -think. All that glitters isn’t pinchbeck. Major Northbrook, for -example, is the best polo player in England. And Lady Angela Folbourne -is very nearly the most disreputable woman. A reg’lar bad un, you -know, and makes no bones of it, either. Perfectly, frankly, cynically -wicked. Yet somehow or other she contrives to keep her place in -society, and goes to Court. You see, she must have solid qualities, real -abilities, somewhere?” - -“How do you mean she’s wicked,—in what sense?” - -“Oh, I say! You mustn’t expect me to dot my i’s and cross my t’s -like that. A sort of société en commandite, you know.” - -“You mean——?” - -“Yes, quite so.” - -“Why, but then, gracious heavens! she’s no better than a—than a -professional——” - -“Worse, worse, my clear. She’s an amateur.” - -“I’m surprised you should know such a woman.” - -“Oh, bless you, she’s a Vestal Virgin to ladies I could introduce -you to across the Channel.” - -“How horrible!” cried the young American. - -“For pity’s sake, don’t tell me you’re a Nonconformist,” his -father pleaded. - -“I’m an Episcopalian,” the son answered. He relapsed into his -stare; and then at dinner it turned out that he was a teetotaller and -didn’t use tobacco. - -In his diary, before he went to bed. Harold made this entry:— - -“London cab-fares are sixpence a mile, with a minimum of a shilling. -There are upwards of 10,000 cabs in London. The city is better paved -than Boston, but not so clean. Many of the wards preserve their original -parochial systems of government. The people aren’t so go-ahead as -ours, and the whole place lacks modernity. The tone of English society -seems to be very low. To-morrow I shall visit Westminster Abbey, St. -Paul’s Cathedral, Hyde Park, the British Museum, and the Victoria -Embankment. Qy.: what was the cost of the construction of the latter?” - -That will give a notion of the dance he led his father on the following -day. Harold stared at most of the “sights,” as he called them, in -solemn silence. Of Westminster, however, he remarked that it was in a -bad state of repair. “The English people don’t seem to have much -enterprise about them,” he said. “Now if this were in America—” -But his father did not catch the conclusion. St. Paul’s struck him as -surprisingly dirty. “You should see the new Auditorium in Chicago,” -he suggested. “I was out there last year. That’s what I call fine -architecture.” And then, as they drove along the Embankment, he -propounded his query anent its cost; and his father cried, “If you ask -me questions like that. I shall faint.” Harold’s diary that night -received this pathetic confidence:— - -“On the whole London doesn’t come up to any of the large American -cities. As for my father, I hoped yesterday that he was only putting it -on for a joke, but I’m afraid now that he really is very light-minded. -He wears an eyeglass and speaks with a strong English accent. Expenses -this day. And so forth.” - -The elder Weir, at the same time, was likewise engaged in literary -composition:— - -“My Dear Mrs. Winchfield.— - -“I am in great distress about my son. You don’t believe I’ve got -one? Oh, but I give you my word! He’s just reached me from America, -where I left him as a hostage a quarter of a century ago. And he’s -full of the most awful heathenish ideas. I never met so serious -a person. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke; he thinks I’m -undignified, if you can imagine that; and he objects to my calling him -Hal, though his name is Harold. I feel like a frisky little boy beside -him,—like the child that is father to the man. Then his thirst for -knowledge is positively disgraceful. He has nearly killed me to-day, -doing London, guide-book in hand, and asking such embarrassing -questions. Can you tell me, please, how long the Houses of Parliament -were a-building? - -“And how many dollars there are in the vaults of the Bank of England? -And what the salary of a policeman is? And who is ‘about the biggest -lawyer over here?’ The way he dragged me up and down the town was -most unfilial. We’ve been everywhere, I think, except to my club. But -he’s a very good-looking fellow, and I don’t doubt he’s got the -right sort of stuff dormant in him somewhere, only it wants bringing -out. I can’t help feeling that what he needs is the influence of a -fine, sensitive, irresponsible woman, someone altogether wayward -and ribald, to lighten and loosen him, and impart a little froth and -elasticity. - -“I was entirely broken-hearted when I heard that you were going to -stop at Sere all summer; but even for adversity there are sweet uses; -and I wish you would ask my boy down to stay with you. I’m sure you -can do him good, unless too many months of country air have made a sober -woman of you. Do try to Christianise him, and a father’s heart will -reward you with its blessing. - -“Yours always, - -“A. Weir.” - -Then Harold went down to Sere; and a fortnight later Mrs. Winchfield -wrote as follows to his parent:— - -“Dear Weir,— - -“I’m afraid it’s hopeless. I’ve done my utmost, and I’ve -failed grotesquely. Yesterday I chanced to say, in your young one’s -presence, to Colonel Buttington, who’s staying here, that if my -husband were only away, I should so enjoy a desperate flirtation with -him. Harold, dear boy, looked scandalised, and by and by, catching -me alone, he asked (in the words of Father William’s interlocutor) -whether I thought at my age it was right? He is like the Frenchman -who took his wife to the play, and chid her when she laughed, saying, -‘Nous ne sommes pas ici pour nous amuser,’ I am sending him back by -the morning train to morrow. Keep him with you, and try to cultivate a -few domestic virtues. A vous, - -“Margaret Winchfield.” - -Harold arrived, looking very grave. But his father looked graver still, -and he invited the young man into the library, and gave him a piece of -his mind. It produced no sensible effect. At last, “Well, I hope at -least you tipped the servants liberally?” the poor man questioned. - -“No, sir, I don’t believe in tipping servants. What are they paid -their wages for?” - -“You’re quite irreclaimable,” the father cried. “May I ask how -long you mean to remain in England?” - -“I think I shall need about two months to do it thoroughly.” - -His father left the room, and gave orders to his man to pack for a long -journey. - - - - - - - -A SLEEVELESS ERRAND. - -“J’ai perdu via tourterelle, - -Je veux aller apres elle.” - - -I. - -It had been the old familiar story, in its most hackneyed version. - -She was nineteen; he was three or four and twenty, with an income -just sufficient to keep him in bread and cheese, and for prospects and -position those of an art-student in a land of money-grubbers. And -her parents, who were wise in their generation, wouldn’t hear of a -betrothal; whilst the young people, who were foolish in theirs, hadn’t -the courage of their folly. And so—the usual thing happened. They -vowed eternal constancy—“If it can’t be you, it sha’n’. be -anyone!”—and said good-bye. - -He left his native hemisphere, to acquire technique in the schools of -Paris; and she, after an interval of a year or two, married another man. - -Yet, though in its letter their tale was commonplace enough, the spirit -of it, on his side at least, was a little rare. I suppose that most -young lovers love with a good deal of immediate energy; but his love -proved to be of a fibre that could resist the tooth of time. At any -rate, years went their way, and he never quite got over it; he was true -to that conventional old vow. - -This resulted in part, no doubt, from the secluded, the concentrated, -manner of his life, passed aloof from actuality, in a studio au -cinquième, alone with his colour-tubes and his ideals; but I think it -was due in part also to his temperament. He was the sort of man of whom -those who know him will exclaim, when his name comes up, “Ah yes—the -dear fellow!” Everybody liked him, and all laughed at him more or -less. He was extremely simple-minded and trustful, very quiet, very -modest, very gentle and sympathetic; by no means without wit, nor -altogether without humour, yet in the main disposed to take things a -trifle too seriously in a world where levity tempered by suspicion is -the only safe substitute for a wholesome, whole-souled cynicism. Though -an uncompromising realist in his theories, I suspect that down at bottom -he was inclined to be romantic, if not even sentimental. His friends -would generally change the subject when he came into the room, because -to the ordinary flavour of men’s talk he showed a womanish repugnance. -In the beginning, on this account, they had of course voted him a prig; -but they had ended by regarding it as a bothersome little eccentricity, -that must be borne with in view of his many authentic virtues. - -For the rest, he had a sweet voice, a good figure and carriage, a -clean-cut Saxon face, and a pleasing, graceful talent, which, in the -course of time, fostered by industry, had brought him an honourable -mention, several medals, then the red ribbon, and at last the red -rosette. - -He was what they call a successful man; and he had succeeded in a career -where success carries a certain measure of celebrity: yet it was a habit -of his mind to think of himself as a failure. This was partly because -he had too just a realising sense of the nature of art, to fancy that -success in art—success in giving material form to the visions of the -imagination—is ever possible; an artist might be defined as one whose -mission it is to fail. At all events, neither medals nor decorations -could blind him to the circumstance that there was a terrible gulf -between what he had intended and what he had accomplished, between the -great pictures of his dreams and the canvasses that bore his signature. -But in thinking of himself as a failure, I am sure he was chiefly -influenced by the recollection that he had not been able to marry that -dark-eyed young American girl twenty years before. - -At first it had changed life to a sort of waking nightmare for him. He -had come abroad with a heart that felt as if it had been crushed between -the upper and the nether millstones. His ambition was dead, and his -interest in the world. He could not work, because he could see no colour -in the sky, and nothing but futility in art; and he could not play,—he -could not throw himself into the dissipations of the Quarter, and so -benumb his hurt a little with immediate physical excitements,—because -pleasure in all its forms had lost its savour. Then a kindly Providence -interposed, and ordained that he should drink a glass of infected water, -or breathe a mouthful of poisoned air, and fall ill of typhoid fever, -and forget; and when he was convalescent, and remembered again, he -remembered this: that she had sworn on her soul to be constant to him. -Whereupon he said, “I will work like twenty Trojans, and annihilate -time, and earn money, and go home with an assured position; and then her -parents can have no further pretext for withholding their consent.” In -this resolution he found great comfort. - -He had been working like twenty Trojans for about a twelvemonth, when he -got the news of her marriage to the other man. - -It chanced to reach him (in a letter from a friend, saying it would be -celebrated in a fortnight) on the very day of its occurrence; and that, -by a pleasant coincidence, was his birthday. In a fit of cynical -despair he asked a lot of his schoolfellows, and a few, ladies of the -neighbourhood, to dine with him; and they feasted and made merry till -well into the following morning, when, for the first and almost the -only time in his life, he had to be helped home, drunk. His drunkenness, -though, was perhaps not altogether to be regretted. It kept him from -thinking; and for that particular night it was conceivably better, on -the whole, that he should not think. - -His mood of cynical recklessness lasted for a month or two. He -celebrated the wedding—faisait la noce, as the local idiom runs—in -a double sense, and with feverish diligence. For a moment it seemed -a toss-up what would become of him: whether he would sink into the -condition of a chronic noceur, or return to the former decent tenor of -his way. It happened, however, that he had no appetite for alcohol, and -that bad music, bad air, evil communications, gaslight, and late hours -failed to afford him any permanent satisfaction: whilst, as for other -women,—who that has savoured nectar can care for milk and water?—who -that has lost a rose can be consoled with an artificial flower? This was -how he put it to himself All the women he knew on the right bank of the -Seine were, to his taste, mortally insipid; those whom he knew on the -left were stuffed with sawdust. - -And the consequence was that one morning he went to work again; and in -spite of the dull pain in his heart, he worked steadily, doggedly, from -day to day, from year to year, scarcely noting the progress of time, in -the absorbed and methodical nature of his life, till presently he had -turned forty, and was what they call a successful man. Of course the -dull pain in his heart had softened gradually into something that -was not entirely painful; into something whose sadness was mixed with -sweetness, like plaintive music; but her image remained enshrined as -an idol in his memory, and I doubt if ever a day passed without his -spending some portion thereof in worship before it. He never walked -abroad, either, through the Paris streets, without thinking, “What -if I should meet her!” (It would be almost inevitable that she should -some time come to Paris.) And at this prospect his heart would leap and -his pulses quicken like a boy’s. For art and love between them had -kept him young; it had indeed never struck him to count his lustres, or -to reflect that in point of them he was middle-aged. Besides, he lived -in a country whose amiable custom it is to call every man a lad until he -marries. Regularly once a year, in the autumn, he had sent a picture to -be exhibited at New York, in the hope that she might see it. - -He gave his brushes to be washed rather earlier than usual this -afternoon, and went for a stroll in the garden of the Luxembourg. The -air was languorous with the warmth and the scent of spring; in the -sunshine the marble queens, smiling their still, stony smile, gleamed -with a thousand tints of rose and amethyst, as if they had been carved -of some iridescent substance, like mother-of-pearl. The face of the old -palace glowed with mellow fire; the sleek, dark-green foliage of the -chestnut-trees was tipped here and there with pallid gold; and in -the deep shade of the allées underneath innumerable children romped -vociferously, and innumerable pairs of lovers sentimentalised in -silence. Of course they were only mock lovers, students and their -étudiantes; but one could forget that for the moment, and all else that -is ugly, in the circumambient charm. - -He took a penny chair by and by, and sat down at the edge of the -terrace, and watched the dance of light and shadow on the waters of the -fountain, and thanked Heaven for the keen, untranslatable delight he -was able to feel in the beauty of the world. He drank it in with every -sense, as if it were an ethereal form of wine; but no wine was so -delicious, no wine could have penetrated and thrilled and stimulated -him as it did. It was a part of his philosophy,—I might almost say an -article of his religion,—to count his faculty for deriving -exquisite pleasure from every phase of the beautiful as in some sort a -compensation for many of the good things of life that he had missed; and -yet, in one way at least, so far from serving as a compensation, it only -added to his loss. In the presence of whatever was beautiful, under the -spell of it, he always longed with intensified pain for her. And now -presently, as he had done in like circumstances countless times before, -he sighed for her, inwardly: “Ah, if she were here! If we could enjoy -it all together!”—I dare say, poor man, it was a little ridiculous -at his age; but he did not see the humour. - -He pictured her to himself, her slender figure, her white, eager face, -with its penumbra of brown hair, soft as smoke, and its dark eyes, deep -and luminous, as if pale fires were burning infinitely far within them. -He heard her voice, low and melodious, and her crisp, girlish laughter. -And she smiled upon him, a faint, sad smile, that was full of tenderness -and yearning and regret. He took her hands, her warm little rosy hands, -and marvelled over them, as he caressed them. They were like images in -miniature of herself, so sensitive, so fragile, so helpless-seeming, -yet possessed of such amazing talents: for when he watched them leaping -above the ivory keys of her piano, invariably striking the right note -with the right degree of stress and the right interval of time (although -to an uninitiated witness their movement must have appeared quite -wanton), he wondered at them as a pair of witches. - -If he had not reckoned his own years, or marked their action upon -himself, it is certain that he had treated her with no less forbearance. -She came back to him always the same; always the girl of nineteen whom -he had left behind him nearly a quarter of a century ago. - -Ah, if she were only with him now, here in the quaint old garden of the -Luxembourg! How complete and unutterable his joy would be! He would lead -her beside the great basin of the fountain, where the goldfishes flashed -like flames; and they would stop before the statues of the queens, and -tell over for each other the romantic histories of those dead royal -ladies; and how much warmer the sunshine would be, how much greener the -earth, how much sweeter the fragrance of the air! By and by they would -enter the museum, where he would show her that picture of his which the -State had honoured him by buying, and which, he had received a whispered -promise, should some day find its way into the Louvre. Afterwards they -would saunter down the Boulevard, past the Castle of Cluny, across the -bridge, into the open space before Notre Dame. And all the while they -would talk, talk, talk, making up for the time that they had lost; and -their wounds would be healed, and their hearts would be at rest. It was -strange, he thought, that she had never come abroad. All Americans come -sooner or later, and one is perpetually running across those one happens -to know. - -He had never run across her, however, though he had never left off -expecting to do so. This very afternoon, for instance, how entirely -natural it would seem to meet her. The annual irruption of his -country-people had begun; thousands of them were in Paris at this -moment: why not she among them? And she would certainly not come to -Paris without visiting the Luxembourg; and to-day was a perfect day for -such a visit; and—if he should look up now.... - -He looked up, holding his breath for a second, almost thinking to see -her advancing towards him. Surely enough, somebody was advancing towards -him, standing before him there in the path, making signals to him. But, -as the mists of his day-dream cleared away, he perceived that it was -only the old woman come to take his penny for the chair. - -He went home, a very lonely man in a very empty world. - -It felt cold to him now; the sky had grown gray. He had a fire kindled -in his drawing-room, and sat dejectedly before it through the twilight. -After a while his servant brought in the lamps, at the same time handing -him a parcel that had come from his bookseller’s. The parcel was -wrapped in an old copy of the Paris edition of the New York Herald; and -he spread it out, and glanced at it listlessly. It always filled him -with a vague sort of melancholy to look at an old newspaper; on the day -of its appearance the life that it recorded, the joys and pains, had -seemed of so great importance, such instant interest; and now they -mattered as little, they were as much a part of ancient history, as -the lives and the joys and the sorrows of the Cæsars. His eye fell -presently upon a column headed Obituary; and there he read of the death -of Samuel Merrow. He turned the paper up hurriedly to discover its date; -November of last year; quite six months ago. Samuel Merrow had died at -New York, six months ago; and Samuel Merrow was her husband. II - -There were not many passengers on the steamer; at this season the -current of travel ran in the opposite direction. There was a puffy -little white-haired, important man, who accosted him on the deck, the -second day out, and asked whether it was his first visit abroad that -he was returning from. He reflected for a moment, and answered yes; for -though he had lived abroad half a lifetime, he had crossed the ocean -only once before. He was too shy to enter upon an explanation, so he -answered yes. Then the puffy man boasted of the immense numbers of -voyages he had made. “Oh, I know Europe!” he declaimed, and told -how his business—he described himself as “buyer” for a firm of -printing-ink importers—took him to that continent two or three times -a year. He had an inquiring mind, and a great facility for questioning -people. “Excuse me, Mr. Aigrefield,” he said (he had learned our -friend’s name from the passenger-list) “but what does that red -button in your buttonhole mean? Some society you belong to?” - -Aigrefield, concealing what he suffered, again sought refuge in an -ambiguous yes; but he slunk away to his cabin, and put the “red -button” in his box: it was absurd to wear the insignia of a French -order outside of France. - -Then, of course, the ship’s company was completed by a highly -intelligent lady in eyeglasses, who lay in a deck-chair all day, and -read Mr. Pater’s Mariys (the volume lasted her throughout the -voyage); a statistical clergyman, returning from his vacation, a mine of -practical misinformation; a couple of Frenchmen, travelling no one could -guess why, since they seemed quite cast-down and in despair about it; -a half-dozen Hebrews, travelling one couldn’t help knowing wherefore, -since they discussed “voollens” and prices and shipments at the -tops of their cheerful voices; and the inevitable young Western girl, -travelling alone. For the first time in twenty years, almost, he had -descended from the cloud he lived in, and was rubbing against the -actualities of the earth. - -The highly intelligent lady “knew who he was,” as she told him -sweetly, and would speak of nothing but art, in her highly intelligent -way. If he had had more humour, her perfervid enthusiasms, couched in an -extremely rudimental studio-slang (she talked a vast deal of values -and keys, of atmosphere and light, of things being badly modelled or -a little “out”)—if he had had more humour, all this might -have amused him; but he was, as we have said, somewhat too literally -inclined; and the cant of it jarred upon him, and made him sick at -heart. Her formula for opening up a topic, “Now, Mr. Aigrefield, tell -me, what do you think of...” became an obsession, that would descend -upon him in the dead of night, making him dread the morrow. All these -people, he remarked, Mr. Aigrefielded him unpityingly. He wished the -English language had, for the use of his compatriots (in England they -seem to get on well enough without forever naming names) a mode of -address similar to the French monsieur. - -But the solitary young Western girl he liked. She had made her first -appeal to his eye, through her form and colour; but when he came to know -her a little he liked her for her spirit. She was tall, with a strong, -supple figure, a face picturesque in the discreet irregularity of -its features, a pair of limpid gray eyes, a fresh complexion, and an -overhanging ornament of warm brown hair. She was much given to smiling, -also,—a smile that played in lovely curves about lips, if anything, a -thought too full, a semitone too scarlet,—whence he inferred that -she had an amiable disposition, a light heart, and an easy conscience. -Hearing her speak, he observed that her voice was of a depth, -smoothness, and rotundity, that atoned in great measure for the -occidental quality of her accent. At all events, he was drawn to her: -they walked the deck a good deal together, and often had their chairs -placed side by side. He philosophised her attraction for him by saying, -“She is a force of nature, she is fresh and simple.” The “buyer” -for the firm of printing-ink importers had struck him as fresh, indeed, -but not as simple; the lady who read Mr. Pater, as simple but not -fresh; the Hebrew gentlemen, even the unhappy Frenchmen, if you will, as -natural forces: but the Western girl combined these several advantages -in her single person, and so she became his favourite amongst his -shipmates. - -Her name was Lillian Goddard; she lived in Minneapolis, where, as she -informed him, her father was a judge. She had been abroad nearly a year, -had passed the winter in Rome, could speak a little Italian, a little -French, and an immense deal of American. I have described her as young, -and I hope it will not be considered an anachronism when I add that her -age was twenty-six. - -She was tremendously patriotic, and appeared shocked and grieved when -she learned that he had remained continuously absent from his country -for a score of years. - -“Why, the more I saw of Europe, the more I loved dear old America,” -she declared, in her deep voice. - -She was just as homesick as she could be, she said, and couldn’t get -back to Minneapolis fast enough. Did he know the West?—and again -she appeared shocked at discovering the profundities of his ignorance -concerning it. Oh, he must certainly see the West. No American could -begin to appreciate his country till he had seen the West. The people -out there were so alive, so go-ahead; and they took such an interest -in all forms of culture too, in literature, music, painting, the drama. -“Why, look at the big magazines,—they depend for their circulation -on the West.” And then, the homes of the West! “Oh, if I lived in -Europe, I should lose my faith in human nature. Western people are -so warmhearted. I’m afraid you’re awfully unpatriotic, Mr. -Aigrefield.” - -He reminded her that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel; and -anyhow, he pleaded, it was too much to expect of one small man that -he should be patriotic for a continent. But she shook her head at his -perversity, and guessed he’d be proud enough of his Continent if he -had seen it, and insisted that he must come to Minneapolis, and look -round. - -He liked her amazingly. As their voyage grew older, he found himself -taking a greater and greater pleasure in her propinquity; looking -forward with something akin to eagerness to meeting her on deck, as he -accomplished his morning toilet; and recalling fondly their commerce -of the day, as he turned in at night. Besides, the charm of her strong, -irregular beauty grew upon him, and he said to her, smiling, “When I -come to Minneapolis you must let me try a portrait of you.” - -“Ah, then you are really coming?” she demanded, striving to fix him -in a pious resolution. - -He laughed vaguely, and she protested, “Oh, shame, Mr. Aigrefield, now -you are wriggling out!” - -He felt that she was sweet and sound and honest: direct, vigorous, -bracing: he wondered if indeed she might not owe these qualities, in -some part, to her native Western soil; and he admitted that the West was -beginning to take a place in his affections. Heretofore, it had been a -mere geographical abstraction for him, and one he would have shrunk from -realising through experience. He imagined the colouring would be hard, -the action violent, the atmosphere raw and rough. - -“Well, whether I really come or not, I am sure I should really like -to,” he said now. - -“That’s such an innocent desire,” she cried, with a touch of -mockery. “I don’t think it would be selfish to indulge it.” - -“And if I do come, you will sit for me?” - -“Oh, I’d do anything in such a cause—to make a patriot of you!” - -At the outset of his journey, his impatience to reach the end of it was -so great, the progress of the steamer had seemed exasperatingly slow. -But as they began to near New York, a vague dread of what might await -him there, a vague recoil from the potential and the unknown, made him -almost wish that the throbbing of the engines were not so rapid. A -cloud of dismal possibilities haunted his imagination, filling it with a -strange chill and ache. He had never paused before to think of the -many things that had had time to happen in twenty years; and now they -assailed his mind in a mass, and appalled it. Even the preliminary -business of discovering her whereabouts, for instance, might prove -difficult enough; and then——-? In matters of this sort, at any -rate, it is the next step which costs. In twenty years what ties and -affections she might have formed, that would make him a necessary -stranger to her life, and leave no room for him in her heart. He was -jealous of a supposititious lover (he had lived in France too long to -remember that in America lovers are not the fashion), of supposititious -children, supposititious interests and occupations: jealous and afraid. -And of course it was always to be reckoned with as in the bounds of the -conceivable, that she might be disconsolate for the loss of Mr. -Merrow: though this, for some reason, seemed the least likely of -the contingencies he had to face. Mr. Merrow, he knew, had been a -cotton-broker; he had always fancied him as a big, rather florid person, -with a husky voice: capable perhaps of inspiring a mild fondness, but -not of a character to take hold upon the deeper emotional strands of -Pauline’s nature. - -His nervousness increased inordinately after the pilot came aboard. He -marched rapidly backwards and forwards on the deck, scarcely conscious -of what he was saying to Miss Goddard, who kept pace with him. She -laughed presently—her deep contralto laughter; and then he inquired -very seriously whether he had said anything absurd. - -“Don’t you know what you said?” she exclaimed. - -“I—I don’t just remember. I was thinking of something else,” he -confessed, knitting his brows. - -“Well, that’s not very complimentary to me, now, is it? Still, if -you can say such things without knowing it, I suppose I must forgive -you. I asked you what you thought was the best short definition of life, -and you said a chance to make mistakes.” - -“I never could have said anything so good if I had had my wits about -me,” he explained. - -Countless old memories and associations were surging up within him now; -and as he leaned over the rail and gazed into the murky waters of -the New York Bay, the European chapters of his life became a mere -parenthesis, and the text joined itself to the word at which it had been -interrupted when he was four and twenty. Sorry patriot though he might -be, he was still made of flesh and blood; and he could not approach -the land of his childhood, his youth, his love and loss, without some -stirrings of the heartstrings besides those that were evoked by the -prospect of meeting her. His other old companions would no doubt be -dead or scattered; or they would have forgotten him as he, indeed, till -yesterday had forgotten them. Anyhow, he would not attempt to look them -up. He knew that he should feel an alien among his own people; he would -not heighten the dreariness of that situation by ferreting out former -intimates to find himself unrecognized, or by inquiring about them to -be told that they were dead. He hadn’t very clearly formulated his -positive intentions, but they probably lay in his sub-consciousness, -brief and to the point, if somewhat short-sighted and unpractical: -he would do his wooing as speedily as might be, and bear his bride -triumphantly over-sea, to his home in Paris. - -He bade Miss Goddard good-bye on the dock, whilst his trunks were being -rifled by the Custom House inspector. - -“Now, mind, you are to come to Minneapolis,” she insisted, as her -hand lay in his, returning its pressure; and he could perceive a shade -of earnestness behind the smile that lighted up her eyes. - -“Good-bye, good-bye,” he answered, fervently, moved all at once by -a feeling he would have had some difficulty in naming. “I may surprise -you by turning up there one of these days.” - -Then her hand was withdrawn, and she disappeared in a hackney-carriage. -He went back to the task of getting his luggage examined, with a sense -of having been abandoned by his last friend. - -“What fortitude it must require to live here,” was the reflection -that made him shake his head, as he drove over the rough paving-stones, -through the dirty, ignoble streets, to his hotel. It struck him as more -depressing still, when he emerged from the sordid tangle of the lower -town into the smug rectangularity of the upper. He was sure that Pauline -would be glad enough to exchange it all for the airy perspectives, the -cleanliness, the gay colours, the variety of Paris. Of course he would -have to give up his bachelor chambers overlooking the Luxembourg. -He would rent, or buy, or even build, a proper house for her, in the -quarter of the Etoile, or near the Parc Monceau. - -He turned over the pages of the Directory that the hotel-clerk -condescendingly pointed out to him, and found that Mr. Morrow’s -address had been twenty-something in a street that had no name, but only -a number and a point of the compass to serve for one; and that seemed to -him in thorough keeping with the unimaginative, business-like character -of the deceased cotton-broker. Pauline, in her widowhood, would very -likely have moved away. It was too late to make a call to-day, being -nearly dinner-time (he had forgotten that in New York it is not -forbidden to call after dinner), but he would write her a little note, -informing her of his arrival, and proposing to come to-morrow in -the forenoon. On the corner of the envelope he would put “Please -forward,” to anticipate the event of her having moved. Then he could -leave it to destiny and the post-office authorities to do the rest. III - -THE Fifth Avenue reached out in an endless straight line before him, the -prose of its architecture being obscured by the gathering twilight, and -punctuated monotonously by the street-lamps. Attached to one of these -he found a letter-box presently, and into it he dropped the note that -he had written. “Does Mrs. Merrow—Pauline Lake that was—remember -Henry Aigrefield? And if so, may he call upon her to-morrow at -eleven?” That was how, after destroying a dozen sheets of paper, he -had at last contrived to phrase his message. - -He walked slowly up the long Avenue, cut at right angles, and at fixed -intervals of two hundred feet, by streets that looked enough like one -another to suggest the notion that they had all been cast in the same -dreary mould, and furnished to the municipality ready-made; past the -innumerable coffee-coloured houses, with their damnable iteration of -rigid little doorsteps; and he wondered at the purblind complacency of a -people who could honestly regard this as among the finest thoroughfares -of the world. The region he was traversing reminded him of certain -melancholy acres in the south of London, where the city-clerk has his -humble, cheerless home: it was such a neighbourhood grown rich and -pretentious, but in nowise mellowed or beautified. - -Would she live in one of these insignificant boxes of brown stone? -“26, E. 51,” the address he had read in the Directory, sounded -sufficiently unpromising. It had been Mr. Merrow’s house, and Mr. -Morrow had been a practical New Yorker. But the interior? He pictured -the interior as entirely lovely and delightful, for, in the nature of -things, the interior would owe its character to Mr. Merrow’s wife. -A good distemper on the walls, something light in key, yet -warm—brick-dust, or a pearly, rosy gray; simple, graceful chairs and -tables; a few good pictures, numberless good books in good bindings: -over all the soft glow of candlelight; and in the midst of all, giving -unity and meaning to it all, a lady, a tall slender lady, in a black -gown, with a pale serious face, dark eyes full of sleeping fire, and -above her white brow a rich shadow of brown hair. She was reading, her -head bent a little, her feet resting on a small tabouret of some dull -red stuff that lent depth to the bottom of the picture, while the -candlelight playing upon her hair, upon her cheek and throat, upon the -ivory page of her book and the hand that held it, made the upper and -middle portions radiant. After twenty years how little changed she was! -Her face had lost nothing of its girlish delicacy, its maiden innocence, -it had only gained a quality of firmness, of seriousness and strength. -He found a woman where he had left a child, but the woman was only the -child ripened and ennobled. As the door opened to admit him, she -raised her eyes, puzzled for a moment, not seeing who he was; but then, -suddenly, she stood up and moved towards him, calling his name, very -low, very low, so that it fell upon his ears like a note of music. And -his heart pounded suffocatingly, and he trembled deliciously in all his -limbs. - -Why, he began to ask himself now, why, after all, should he put off till -to-morrow the realisation of this great joy? If it was unconventional -to pay a call in the evening, she, who had never been a stickler for the -conventionalities, would forgive it to the ardour and the impatience of -his passion, He had waited for her twenty years; that was long enough, -without adding to it another interminable period of twelve hours. -Anyhow, there could be no harm in his ringing the bell of No. 26, E. 51, -and inquiring whether she still lived there, and, if not, whither she -had gone. Thereby a further saving of precious hours might be effected; -and—and he would do it. - -The house, indeed, appeared in no particular different to the multitude -that he had left behind him; but he could have embraced the Irish -maid-servant who opened the door for him, because to both of his -questions she answered yes. Yes, Mrs. Merrow lived here; and yes, she -was at home. Would he walk into the parlour, please, and what name -should she say? Lest the name should get perverted in its transmission, -he equipped her with his card. Then he sat down in the “parlour” to -await his fate. - -It was a bare room, and, by the glare of the gas that lighted it, he saw -that the influence of Mr. Merrow had penetrated at least thus far beyond -his threshold. The floor was covered by a carpet in the flowery taste -of 1860. The chairs were upholstered in thick, hot-hued plush, with a -geometric pattern embossed upon it. A vast procession of little vases -and things in porcelain, multiplied by the mantel-mirror and the -pier-glass, shed an added forlornness on the spaces they were meant to -decorate, but only cluttered up, Pauline’s domain, he concluded, would -be above stairs. - -The door swung open after a few minutes, and he rose, with a -sudden heart-leap, to greet her. But no—it was only a fat, -uninteresting-looking woman (a visitor, a sister-in-law, he reasoned -swiftly) come to make Pauline’s excuses, probably, if she kept -him waiting. He noticed that the fat lady was in mourning; and that -confirmed his guess that she would prove to be a relative of the -late Mr. Merrow. She wore her hair in a series of stiff ringlets -(“bandelettes” I believe they are technically called) over a high, -sloping forehead; the hair was thin and stringy, so that, he told -himself, her brother had no doubt been bald. Two untransparent eyes -gazed placidly out of the white expanses of her face; and he thought, -as he took her in, that she might serve as an incarnation of all the -dulness and platitude that he had felt in the air about him from the -hour of his landing in New York. - -However, he stood there, silent, making a sort of interrogative bow, and -waiting for her to state her business. - -She had seemed to be studying him with some curiosity, of a mild, -phlegmatic kind, from which he argued that perhaps she was not wholly -unenlightened about his former relation to her brother’s widow. But -now he experienced a distinct spasm of horror, as she threw her head to -one side, and, opening her lips, remarked lymphatically, in a resigned, -unresonant voice, “Well, I declare! Is that you, Harry Aigrefield? -Why, you’re as gray as a rat!” - -He sank back into his chair, overwhelmed by the abrupt disenchantment; -and he understood that it was reciprocal. IV - -He sat, inert, amid the pieces of his broken idol, for perhaps a half -hour, and chatted with Mrs. Merrow of various things. She asked him if -he was still as crazy about painting pictures as he used to be: to which -he answered, with a hollow laugh, that he feared he was. Well, she said, -playfully, she presumed there always had to be some harum-scarum people -in the world; and added that “Sam” had “simply coined money” as -a cotton-broker, and left her very well off. He had died of pneumonia, -following an attack of the “grip.” - -“I suppose it seems kind of funny to you, getting back to America -after so many years?” she queried, languidly “Things are -considerably changed.” - -He admitted that this was true, and bade her good-night. She went with -him to the door, where she gave him an inelastic handshake, accompanied -by an invitation to call again. - -In his bedroom at the hotel he sat before his window till late into the -night, smoking cigarettes, and trying to pull himself together. The last -lingering afterglow of his youth had been put out; and therewith the -whole colour of the universe was altered. He felt that he had reversed -the case of the bourgeois gentilhomme, and been dealing in bad poetry -for twenty years,—in other words, making a sentimental ass of himself; -and his chagrin at this was as sharp as his grief over his recent -disillusion. - -Samuel Merrow was dead, but so was Pauline Lake; or perhaps Pauline -Lake, as he had loved her, had never existed outside of his own -imagination. At any rate, Henry Aigrefield was dead, dead as the leaves -of last autumn; and this was another man, who wore his clothes and bore -his name. - -He glanced at his looking-glass, and he saw indeed, as he had lately -been reminded, that this new, respectable-appearing, middle-aged -personage was “as gray as a rat,”—though he did not like the -figure better for its truth. It required several hours of hard mental -labour to get the necessary readjustment of his faculties so much as -started. The past had ceased to be the most important fraction of time -for him; the present and the future had become of moment. - -In the dust and confusion of his wreck, only one thing was entirely -clear: he couldn’t stand New York. But the question where to go was as -large as the circumference of the earth. Straight back to Paris? Or -what of that other region he had heard so much about during the past few -days, the West? By and by the form of Miss Lillian Goddard began to move -refreshingly in and out among his musings; he pictured the smile with -which she would welcome him, if, by chance, he should turn his steps -towards Minneapolis. It was a smile that seemed to promise a hundred -undefined pleasantnesses, and it warmed his heart. “If I should go to -Minneapolis——” he began; then he sat stockstill in his chair for -twenty minutes; and then he got up with the air of a man who has taken a -vigorous resolve. - -As he undressed, he hummed softly to himself a line or two of his -favourite poet,— - - -“That shall be to-morrow, - -Not to-night: - -I must bury sorrow - -Out of sight.” - - - - - - - - -A LIGHT SOVEREIGN. I. - -THE cause of the uproar proved to be simple enough. - -Emerging into the Bischofsplatz, from the street that I had followed, I -found a great crowd gathered before the Marmorhof, shouting, “Death -to Conrad!” and “Where is Mathilde?” with all the force of its -collective lungs. The Marmorhof was the residence of Prince Conrad, -brother to the reigning Grand Duke Otto—reigning, indeed, but now very -old and ill, and like to die. The legitimate successor to the throne -would have been Otto’s grand-daughter, Mathilde, the only surviving -child of his eldest son, Franz-Victor, who had been dead these ten -years. But the Grand Duke’s brother, Conrad, was covetous of her -rights; covetous, and, as her friends alleged, unscrupulous. For a long -while, it was said, Mathilde had been in terror of her life. Conrad was -unscrupulous, and, were she but out of the way, Conrad would come to -reign. Rumour, indeed, whispered that he had made three actual attempts -to compass her death: two by poison, one by the dagger, each, thanks -to some miracle, unsuccessful. But, a fortnight since, upon the first -supervention of fatal symptoms in the malady of poor old Otto, Mathilde -had mysteriously disappeared. Her whereabouts unknown, all X———was -in commotion. - -“She has fled and is in hiding,” surmised some people, “to escape -the designs of her wicked uncle.” - -“No,” retorted others, “but he, the wicked uncle himself, has -kidnapped and sequestered her, perhaps even made away with her. Who can -tell?” - -As an inquiring stranger, the situation interested me, and, from the top -of a convenient doorstep, I gazed now upon this deep-voiced Teutonic mob -with a good deal of curiosity. - -It must have numbered upwards of a thousand individuals, compact in its -centre and near the palace, but scattering towards its edges; a sea of -faces, of pale, frowning faces; a surging, troubled sea. Young men’s -faces for the most part; many of them beardless. “Students from the -University,” I guessed. - -My own station was at the outskirts of the assemblage, the station of -a casual spectator. Sharing my door-step with me were a couple of -sharp-faced priests, two or three prettyish young girls—bareheaded, -presumably escaped from some of the neighbouring shops—and a young man -with a pointed black beard, rather long black hair, and a broad-brimmed, -soft felt hat, who somehow looked as if he might be a member of that -guild to which I myself belonged, the ancient and questionable company -of artists. - -To him I addressed myself for information.... “Students, I suppose?” - -“Yes, their leaders are students. The students and the artisans of -the town are of the princess’s party. The army, the clergy, and the -country folk are for the prince.” He had discerned from my accent that -I was a foreigner: whence, doubtless, the fulness of his answer. - -“It seems a harmless mob enough,” I suggested. “They make a lot of -noise, to be sure; but that breaks no bones.” - -“There’s just the point,” said he. “The princess’s friends -fight only with their throats. Otherwise the present complication might -never have arisen.” - -Meanwhile the multitude continued to shout its loudest; and for Conrad, -on the whole, the quarter-hour must have been a bad one. - -Presently, however, the call of a bugle wound in the distance, and -drew nearer and nearer, till the bugler in person appeared, gorgeous -in uniform, mounted upon a white horse, advancing slowly up the -Bischofsplatz, towards the crowd, trumpeting with all his might. - -“What is the meaning of that?” I asked. - -“A signal to disperse,” answered my companion. “He looks like a -major-general, doesn’t he? But he’s only a trumpet-sergeant, and -he’s followed at a hundred yards by a battalion of infantry. His -trumpet-blast is by way of warning. Disperse! Or, if you tarry, beware -the soldiery!” - -“His warning does not seem to pass unheeded,” I remarked. - -“Oh, they’re a chicken-hearted lot, these friends of the -princess,” he assented contemptuously. - -Already the mob had begun to melt. In a few minutes only a few -stragglers in knots here and there were left, amongst them my -acquaintance and myself. - -He was a handsome young fellow, with a thin dark face, bright brown -eyes, and a voice so soft that if I had heard without seeing him, I -should almost have supposed the speaker to be a woman. - -“We, too, had better be off,” said he. - -“And prove ourselves also chicken-hearted?” queried I. - -“Oh, discretion is the better part of valour,” he returned. - -“But I should like to see the arrival of the military,” I submitted. - -“Ha! Like or not, I’m afraid you’ll have to now,” he cried. -“Here they come.” - -With a murmurous tramp, tramp, they were pouring into the Bischofsplatz -from the side streets leading to it. - -“We must take to our heels, said my young man. - -“We were merely on-lookers,” said I. - -“Conscious innocence,” laughed he. “Nevertheless, we had better -run for it.” - -And, with our fellow loiterers, we began ignominiously to run away. But -before we had run far we were stopped by the voice of an officer. - -“Halt! Halt! Halt, or we fire!” - -As one man we halted. The officer rode up to us, and, with true military -taciturnity, vouchsafed not a word either in question or explanation, -but formed us in ranks of four abreast, and surrounded us with his men. -Then he gave the command to march. We were, perhaps, two dozen captives, -all told, and a good quarter of our number were women. - -“What are we in for now?” I wondered aloud. - -“Disgrace, decapitation, deprivation of civil rights, or, say, a night -in the Castle of St. Michael, at the very least,” replied my friend, -shrugging his shoulders. - -“Ah, that will be romantic,” said I, feeling like one launched upon -a life of adventure. II - -He was right We were marched across the town and into the courtyard of -the Castle of St Michael. By the time we got there, and the heavy oaken -gates were shut behind us, it was nearly dark. - -“Here you pass the night,” announced our officer. “In the -morning—humph, we will see.” - -“Do you mean to say they are going to afford us no better -accommodation than this?” I demanded. - -“So it seems,” replied the dark young man. “Fortunately, however, -the night is warm, the skies are clear, and to commune with the stars is -reputed to be elevating for the spirit.” - -Our officer had vanished into the castle, leaving us a corporal and -three privates as a guard of honour. We, the prisoners, gathered -together in the middle of the courtyard, and held a sort of impromptu -indignation meeting. The women were especially eloquent in their -complaints. Two of these I recognized as having been among my neighbours -of the door-step, and we exchanged compassionate glances. The other four -were oldish women, who wore caps and aprons, and looked like servants. - -“Cooks,” whispered my comrade. “Some good burghers will be kept -waiting for their suppers. Oh, what a lark!” - -Our convention finally broke up with a resolution to the effect that, -though we had been most shabbily treated, there was nothing to be done. - -“We must suffer and be still. Let us make ourselves as comfortable as -we can, and seek distraction in an interchange of ideas,” proposed my -mate. He seated himself upon a barrel that lay lengthwise against the -castle wall, and motioned to me to place myself beside him. - -“You are English?” he inquired, in an abrupt German way. - -“No, I am American.” - -“Ah, it is the same thing. A tourist?” - -“You think it is the same thing?” I questioned sadly. “You little -know. But——yes, I am a tourist.” - -“Have you been long in X———?” - -“Three days.” - -“For heaven’s sake, what have you found to keep you here three -days?” - -“I am a painter. The town is paintable.” - -“Still life! Nature morte!” he cried. “It is the dullest -little town in Christendom. But I’m glad you are a painter. I am a -musician—a fiddler.” - -“I suspected we were of the same ilk,” said I. - -“Did you, though? That was shrewd. But I, too, seemed to scent a -kindred soul.” - -“Here is my card. If we’re not beheaded in the morning, I hope we -may see more of each other,” I went on, warming up. - -He took my card, and, by the light of a match struck for the occasion, -read aloud, “Mr. Arthur Wainwright,” pronouncing the English name -without difficulty. “I have no card, but my name is Sebastian Roch.” - -“You speak English?” was my inference. “Oh, yes, I speak a kind of -English,” he confessed, using the tongue in question. He had scarcely -a trace of a foreign accent. - -“You speak it uncommonly well.” - -“Oh, I learned it as a child, and then I have relatives in England.” - -“Do you suppose there would be any objection to our smoking?” I -asked. - -“Oh, no! let us smoke by all means.” - -I offered him my cigarette case. Our cigarettes afire, we resumed our -talk. - -“Tell me, what in your opinion is the truth about Mathilde?” I -began. “Is she in voluntary hiding, or is her uncle at the bottom of -it?” - -“Ah, that is too hard a riddle,” he protested. “I know nothing -about it, and I have scarcely an opinion. But I may say very frankly -that I am not of her partisans. She has no worse enemy than I.” - -“What! Really? I’m surprised at that. I thought all the youth of -X——— were devoted to her.” - -“She’s a harmless enough person in her way, perhaps, and I have -nothing positive to charge against her; only I don’t think she’s -made of the stuff for a reigning monarch. She’s too giddy, too -light-headed; she thinks too little of her dignity. Court ceremonial is -infinitely tiresome to her; and the slow, dead life of X——— she -fairly hates. Harmless, necessary X——— she has been known to call -it. She was never meant to be the captain of this tiny ship of State; -and with such a crew! You should see the ministers and courtiers! Dry -bones and parchment, puffed up with tedious German eddigette! She was -born a Bohemian, an artist, like you or me. I pity her, poor -thing—I pity everyone whose destiny it is to inhabit this dreary -Principality—but I can’t approve of her. She, too, by-the-by, plays -the violin. My own thought is, beware of fiddling monarchs!” - -“You hint a Nero.” - -“Pay a Nero crossed with a Haroun-al-Raschid. I fear her reign would -be diversified by many a midnight escapade, like the merry Caliph’s, -only without his intermixture of wrong-righting. She’d seek her own -amusement solely; though to seek that in X———! you might as well -seek for blood in a broomstick. Oh, she’d make no end of mischief. The -devil hath no agent like a woman bored.” - -“That’s rather true.” I agreed, laughing, “And Conrad? What of -him?” - -“Oh, Conrad’s a beast; a squint-eyed, calculating beast. But a beast -might make a good enough Grand Duke; and anyhow, a beast is all that a -beastly little Grand Duchy like this deserves. However, to tell you my -secret feeling, I don’t believe he’ll have the chance to prove it. -Mathilde, for all her ennui, is described as tenacious of her -rights, and as a cleverish little body, too, down at bottom.. That is -inconsistent, but there’s the woman of it. I can’t help suspecting, -somehow, that unless he has really killed and buried her, she will -contrive by hook or crook to come to her throne.” - -That night was long, though we accomplished a lot of talking: cold it -seemed, too, though we were in midsummer. I dozed a little, with the -stone wall of the castle for my pillow, half-conscious all the while -that Sebastian Roch was carrying on a bantering flirtation with the two -young girls. At daybreak our guard was changed. At six o’clock we were -visited by a dapper little lieutenant, who looked us over, asked our -names and other personal questions, scratched his chin for a moment -reflectively, and finally, with an air of inspiration, bade us begone. -The gates were thrown open and we issued from our prison, free. - -“It’s been almost a sensation,” said Sebastian Roch. “So one can -experience almost a sensation, even in X———! Live and learn.” - -“You are not a patriot,” said I. - -“My dear sir, I am patriotism incarnate. Only I find my country dull. -If that be treason, make the most of it. I could not love thee, dear, so -well, loved I not dulness less. It is not every night of my life that I -am arrested, and sit on a barrel smoking cigarettes with an enlightened -foreigner. The English are not generally accounted a lively race, but -by comparison with the inhabitants of X———they shine like -diamonds.” - -“I dare say,” I acquiesced. “But I’m not English—I’m -American.” - -“So I perceive from your accent,” answered he impertinently. “But -as I told you once before, it amounts to the same thing. You wear your -rue with a difference, that is all.” - -“Speaking of sensations,” said I, “I would sell my birthright for -a cup of coffee.” - -“You’ll find no coffee-house awake at this hour,” said Sebastian. - -“Then I’ll wake one up.” - -“What! and provoke a violation of the law. By law they’re not -allowed to open till seven o’clock.” - -“Oh, laws be hanged! I must have a cup of coffee.” - -“Really, you are delightful,” asserted Sebastian, putting his arm -through mine. - -Presently we came to a beer hall, at whose door I began to bang. -My friend stood by, shaking with laughter, Which seemed to me -disproportionate to the humour of the event. - -“You are easily amused,” said I. - -“Oh, no, far from it. But this is such a lark you know,” said he. - -By and by, we were seated opposite each other at a table, sipping hot -coffee. - -As I looked at Sebastian Roch I observed a startling phenomenon. The -apex of his right whisker had become detached from the skin, and was -standing out half an inch aloof from his cheek! The sight sent a shiver -down my spine. It was certainly most unnatural. His eyes were bright, -his voice was soft, he spoke English like a man and a brother, and his -character seemed whimsical and open; but his beard, his dashing, black, -pointed beard—which I’m not sure I hadn’t been envying him a -little—was eerie, and, instinctively I felt for my watch. It was -safe in its place and so was my purse. Therefore, at the door of the -Bierhaus, in due time, we bade each other a friendly good-bye, he -promising to look me up one of these days at my hotel. - -“I have enjoyed your society more than you can think,” he said. -“Some of these days I will drop in and see you, à limproviste.” III - -That afternoon I again found myself in the Bischofsplatz, seated at one -of the open-air tables of the café, when a man passed me, clad in the -garb of a Franciscan monk. He had a pointed black beard, this monk, and -a pair of flashing dark eyes; and, though he quickly drew his head into -his cowl at our conjunction, I had no difficulty whatever in identifying -him with my queerly-hirsute prison mate, Sebastian Roch. - -“Dear me! he has become a monk. It must have been a swift -conversion,” thought I, looking after him. - -He marched straight across the Bischofsplatz and into the courtyard of -the Marmorhof, where he was lost to view. - -“The beggar! He is one of Conrad’s spies,” I concluded: and -I searched my memory, to recall if I had said anything that might -compromise me in the course of our conversation. - -A few hours later I sat down to my dinner in the coffee-room of the -Hôtel de Rome, and was about to fall to at the good things before -me, when I was arrested in the act by a noise of hurrying feet on the -pavement without, and a tumult of excited voices. Something clearly was -“up;” and, not to miss it, I hurried to the street-door of the inn. - -There I discovered mine host and hostess, supported by the entire -personnel of their establishment, agape with astonishment, as a -loquacious citizen poured news into their ears. - -“Otto is dead,” said he. “He died at six o’clock. And Conrad -has been assassinated. It was between four and five this afternoon. -A Franciscan monk presented himself at the Marmorhof, and demanded an -audience of the prince. The guard, of course, refused him admittance; -but he was determined, and at last the Prince’s Chamberlain gave him -a hearing. The upshot was he wrote a word or two upon a slip of paper, -sealed it with wax, and begged that it might be delivered to his -Highness forthwith, swearing that it contained information of the utmost -importance to his welfare. The chamberlain conveyed his paper to the -prince, who, directly he had read it, uttered a great oath, and ordered -that the monk be ushered into his presence, and that they be left alone -together. More than an hour passed. At a little after six arrived the -news of the death of the old duke. An officer entered the prince’s -chamber, to report it to him. There, if you please, he found his -Highness stretched out dead upon the floor, with a knife in his -heart. The monk had vanished. They could find no trace whatever of his -whereabouts. Also had vanished the paper he had sent in to the prince. -But, what the police regard as an important clue, he had left another -paper, twisted round the handle of the dagger, whereon was scrawled, -in a disguised hand: ‘In the country of the blind, it may be, the -one-eyed men are kings, but Conrad only squinted!’ And now the -grand point of it all is this,—shut up in an inner apartment of the -Marmorhof, they have found the Hereditary Grand Duchess Mathilde, -alive and well. Conrad has been keeping her a prisoner there these two -weeks.” - -The tidings thus delivered proved to be correct. “The Duke is dead! -Long live the Duchess!” cried the populace. - -It was like a dear old-fashioned blood-and-thunder opera, and I was -almost behind the scenes. But oh, that hypocritical young fiddler-monk, -Sebastian Roch! Would he make good his promise, after this, to look me -up? The police were said to be prosecuting a diligent endeavour to look -him up, but with, as yet, indifferent success. - -Of course, upon the accession of the new ruler, the print shops of the -town displayed her Highness’s portraits for sale—photographs and -chromo-lithographs; you paid your money and you took your choice. These -represented her as a slight young woman, with a delicate, interesting -face, a somewhat sarcastic mouth, a great abundance of yellowish hair, -and in striking contrast to this, a pair of brilliant dark eyes—on -the whole, a picturesque and pleasing, if not conventionally a handsome, -person. I could not for the life of me have explained it, but there was -something in her face that annoyed me with a sense of having seen it -before, though I was sure I never had. In the course of a fortnight, -however, I did see her—caught a flying glimpse of her as she drove -through the Marktstrasse in her victoria, attended by all manner of -pomp and circumstance. She lay back upon her cushions, looking pale and -interesting, but sadly bored, and responded with a languid smile to -the hat-lifting of her subjects. I stared at her intently, and again -I experienced that exasperating sensation of having seen her -somewhere—where?—when?—in what circumstances?—before. IV - -One night I was awakened from my slumbers by a violent banging at my -door. - -“Who’s there?” I demanded. “What’s the matter?” - -“Open—open in the name of the law!” commanded a deep bass voice. - -“Good heavens! what can the row be now?” I wondered. - -“Open, or we break in the door,” cried the voice. - -“You must really give me time to put something on,” I protested, and -hurriedly wrapped myself in some clothes. - -Then I opened the door. - -A magnificently uniformed young officer stepped into the room, followed -by three gendarmes with drawn sabres. The officer inclined his head -slightly, and said: “Herr Veinricht, ich glaube?” - -His was not the voice that I had heard through the door, gruff and -trombone-like, but a much softer voice, and much higher in pitch. -Somehow it did not seem altogether the voice of a stranger to me, and -yet the face of a stranger his face emphatically was—a very florid -face, surmounted by a growth of short red hair, and decorated by a -bristling red moustache. His eyes were overhung by bushy red eyebrows, -and, in the uncertain candlelight, I could not make out their colour. - -“Yes, I am Herr Veinricht,” I admitted, resigning myself to this -German version of my name. - -“English?” he questioned curtly. - -“No, not English—American.” - -“Macht nichts! I arrest you in the name of the Grand Duchess.” - -“Arrest me! Will you be good enough to inform me upon what charge?” - -“Upon the charge of consorting with dangerous characters, and being -an enemy to the tranquillity of the State. You will please to dress as -quickly as possible. A carriage awaits you below.” - -“Good Lord! they have somehow connected me with Sebastian Roch,” -I groaned inwardly. And I began to put certain finishing touches to my -toilet. - -“No, no,” cried the officer. “You must put on your dress-suit. -Can you be so ignorant of criminal etiquette as not to know that State -prisoners are required to wear their dress-suits?” - -“It seems an absurd regulation,” said I, “but I will put on my -dress-suit.” - -“We will await you outside your door; but let me warn you, should you -attempt to escape through your window, you will be shot in a hundred -places,” said the officer, and retired with his minions. - -The whole population of the hotel were in the corridors through which I -had presently to pass with my custodians, and they pressed after us to -the street. A closed carriage stood there, with four horses attached, -each “near” horse bearing a postilion. - -Three other horses, saddled, were tied to posts about the hotel -entrance. These the gendarmes mounted. - -“Will you enter the carriage?” said the officer. - -But my spirit rose in arms. “I insist upon knowing what I’m arrested -for. I want to understand the definite nature of the charge against -me.” - -“I am not a magistrate. Will you kindly enter the carriage?” - -“Oh, this is a downright outrage,” I declared, and entered the -carriage. - -The officer leaped in after me, the door was slammed to, the postilions -yelled at their horses, off we drove, followed by the rhythmical -clank-clank of the gendarmes. - -“I should like to get at the meaning of all this, you know,” I -informed my captor. - -“My dear sir, you do not begin to appreciate the premises. One less -ignorant of military fashions would have perceived from my coat long -since that I am a provost-marshal.” - -“Well, and what of that? I suppose you are none the less able to -explain my position to me.” - -“Position, sir! This is trifling. But I must caution you that whatever -you say will be remembered, and, if incriminating, used against you.” - -“It is a breach of international comity,” said I. - -“Oh, we are the best of friends with England,” he said, lightly. - -“But I am an American, I would have you to know.” - -“Macht nichts!” said he. - -“Macht nichts!” I echoed, angrily. “You think so! I shall bring -the case to the notice of the United States Legation, and you shall -see.” - -“How? And precipitate a war between two friendly powers?” - -“You laugh! but who laughs last laughs best, and I promise you the -Grand Duchy of X———shall be made to pay for this pleasantry with a -vengeance.” - -“This is not the first time you have been arrested while in -these dominions,” he said, sternly, “and I must remind you that -lèse-majesté is a hanging matter.” - -“Lèse-majesté!” I repeated, half in scorn, half in terror. - -“Ya wohl, mein Herr,” he answered. “But, after all, I am simply -obeying orders,” he added, with an inflection almost apologetic. - -Where had I heard of that curious soft voice before? A voice so soft -that his German sounded almost like Italian. - -Meanwhile we had driven across the town, past the walls, and into the -open country. - -“You are perhaps conducting me to the frontier?” I suggested, -deriving some relief from the fancy. - -“Oh, hardly so far as that, let us hope,” he answered, with what -struck me as a suppressed chuckle. - -“Far?” I cried. “Can you use the word in speaking of a -pocket-handkerchief?” - -“It is small, but it is picturesque, it is paintable,” said he. -“And, what is more, by every syllable you utter against it you weave -a strand into your halter, and drive a nail into your coffin. Suicide is -imprudent, not to say immoral.” - -“If I could meet you on equal terms,” I cried, “I would pay you -for your derision with a good sound Anglo-Saxon thrashing.” - -“Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a painter’s hide,” he retorted, -laughing outright. - -We drove on in silence for perhaps a quarter of an hour longer; then -at last our horses’ hoofs resounded upon stone, and we drew up. My -officer descended from the carriage; I followed him. We were standing -under a massive archway lighted by a hanging lantern. Before a small -door pierced in the stone wall fronting us a sentinel was posted, with -his musket presented in salute. - -The three gendarmes sprang from their saddles. - -“Farewell, Herr Veinricht,” said the provost-marshal. “I have -enjoyed our drive together more than I can tell you.” Then turning to -his subordinates, “Conduct this gentleman to the Tower chamber,” he -commanded. - -One of the gendarmes preceding me, the other two coming behind, I was -conveyed up a winding stone staircase, into a big octagonal-shaped room. - -The room was lighted by innumerable candles set in sconces round the -walls. It was comfortably, even richly furnished, and decorated with -a considerable degree of taste. A warm-hued Persian carpet covered the -stone floor; books, pictures, bibelots, were scattered discriminatingly -about; and in one corner there stood a grand piano, open, with a violin -and bow lying on it. - -My gendarmes bowed themselves out, shutting the door behind them with an -ominous clangour. - -“If this is my dungeon cell,” I thought, “I shall not be so -uncomfortable, after all. But how preposterous of them to force me to -wear my dress-suit.” - -I threw myself into an easy-chair, buried my face in my hands, and tried -to reflect upon my situation. - -I can’t tell how much time may have passed in this way; perhaps twenty -minutes or half an hour. Then, suddenly, I was disturbed by the sound of -a light little cough behind me, a discreet little “ahem.” I looked -up quickly. A lady had entered the apartment, and was standing in the -middle of it, smiling in contemplation of my desperate attitude. - -“Good heavens!” I gasped, but not audibly, as her face grew clear to -my startled sight. “The Grand Duchess her self!” - -“I am glad to see you, Mr. Wainwright,” her Highness began, in -English. “X——— is a dull little place—oh, believe me, the -dullest of its size in Christendom—and they tell me you are an amusing -man. I trust they tell the truth.” - -Of course the reader has foreseen it from the outset; otherwise why -should I be detaining him with this anecdote? But upon me it came as -a thunderbolt; and in my emotion I forgot myself, and exclaimed aloud, -“Sebastian Roch!” The face of the Grand Duchess had haunted me -with a sense of familiarity; the voice of my redheaded officer in the -carriage had seemed not strange to me; but now that I saw the face, and -heard the voice, at one and the same time, all was clear—“Sebastian -Roch!” - -“You said——?” the gracious lady questioned, arching her eyes. - -“Nothing, madame. I was about to thank your Highness for her kindness, -but——” - -“But your mind wandered, and you made some irrelevant military -observation about a bastion rock. It is, perhaps, aphasia.” - -“Very probably,” I assented. - -“But you are a man of honour, are you not?” - -“I hope so.” - -“The English generally are. You can keep a State secret, especially -when you happen to have learned it by a sort of accident, can you -not?” - -“I am a tomb for such things, madame.” - -“That is well. And besides, you must consider that not all homicide is -murder. Sometimes one is driven to kill in self-defence.” - -“I have not a doubt of that.” - -“I am only sorry it should, all have happened before you saw him. -His squint was a rarity; it would have pleased your sense of humour. -X———is the dullest little principality,” she went on, “oh, but -dull, dull, dull! I am sometimes forced in despair to perpetrate little -jokes. Yet you have actually stopped here five weeks. It must be as -they say, that the English people take their pleasures sadly. You are a -painter, I am told.” - -“Yes, your Highness; I make a shift at painting.” - -“And I at fiddling. But I lack a discriminating audience. I think -you had better paint my portrait. I will play my fiddle to you. Between -whiles we will talk. On occasions, I may tell you, I smoke cigarettes; -one must have some excitement. We will try to enliven things a little. -Do you think we shall succeed?” - -“Oh, I should not despair of doing so.” - -“That is nice of you. I have a most ridiculous High Chancellor; you -might draw caricatures of him. And my First Lady of the Chamber has a -preposterous lisp. I do hope I shall be amused.” - -As she spoke, she extended her left hand towards me; I took it, and was -about to give it a friendly shake. - -“No, no, not that,” said she. “Oh, I forgot, you are an American, -and the ABC of court etiquette is Sanskrit to you. Must I tell you what -to do?” - -To cut a long story short, I thought my lines had fallen unto me in -extremely pleasant places; and so, indeed, they had—for a while. I -passed a merry summer at the Court of X———, alternating between -the Residenz in town, and the Schloss beyond the walls. I made a good -many preliminary studies for the princess’s portrait, whilst she -played her violin; and between times, as she had promised, we talked, -practised court etiquette, smoked cigarettes, and laughed at scandal. -But when I began upon the final canvas, I at least had to become a -little sober. I wanted to make a masterpiece of it. We had two or three -sittings, during which I worked away in grim silence, and the Grand -Duchess yawned. - -Then one night I was again roused from the middle of my slumbers, taken -in custody by a colonel of dragoons, conducted to a closed carriage, -and driven abroad through the darkness. When our carriage came to a -standstill we found ourselves in the Austrian village of Z————, -beyond the X——— frontier There Colonel von Schlangewurtzel bade me -good-bye. At the same time he handed me a letter. I hastened to tear -it open. Upon a sheet of court paper, in a pretty feminine hand, I read -these words. - -“You promised to amuse me. But it seems you take your droll British -art au grand sérieux. We have better portrait-painters among our -natives; and you will find models cheap and plentiful at Z————. - -“Farewell!” THE END - - - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mademoiselle Miss and Other Stories, by -Henry Harland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADEMOISELLE MISS AND OTHERS *** - -***** This file should be named 52703-0.txt or 52703-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/7/0/52703/ - -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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