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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8081-h.zip b/8081-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a1ff03 --- /dev/null +++ b/8081-h.zip diff --git a/8081-h/8081-h.htm b/8081-h/8081-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6294af2 --- /dev/null +++ b/8081-h/8081-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2148 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Louisa Pallant, by Henry James + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Louisa Pallant, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Louisa Pallant + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: July 24, 2009 [EBook #8081] +Last Updated: December 10, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUISA PALLANT *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + LOUISA PALLANT + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Henry James + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Never say you know the last words about any human heart! I was once + treated to a revelation which startled and touched me in the nature of a + person with whom I had been acquainted—well, as I supposed—for + years, whose character I had had good reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate + and in regard to whom I flattered myself I had nothing more to learn. + </p> + <p> + It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, nearly ten years ago, one + beautiful night toward the end of July. I had come to the place that day + from Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly occupied in waiting + for my young nephew, the only son of my sister, who had been entrusted to + my care by a very fond mother for the summer—I was expected to show + him Europe, only the very best of it—and was on his way from Paris + to join me. The excellent band discoursed music not too abstruse, while + the air was filled besides with the murmur of different languages, the + smoke of many cigars, the creak on the gravel of the gardens of strolling + shoes and the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. There were a hundred people + walking about, there were some in clusters at little tables and many on + benches and rows of chairs, watching the others as if they had paid for + the privilege and were rather disappointed. I was among these last; I sat + by myself, smoking my cigar and thinking of nothing very particular while + families and couples passed and repassed me. + </p> + <p> + I scarce know how long I had sat when I became aware of a recognition + which made my meditations definite. It was on my own part, and the object + of it was a lady who moved to and fro, unconscious of my observation, with + a young girl at her side. I hadn't seen her for ten years, and what first + struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. Henry Pallant, but that the + girl who was with her was remarkably pretty—or rather first of all + that every one who passed appeared extremely to admire. This led me also + to notice the young lady myself, and her charming face diverted my + attention for some time from that of her companion. The latter, moreover, + though it was night, wore a thin light veil which made her features vague. + The couple slowly walked and walked, but though they were very quiet and + decorous, and also very well dressed, they seemed to have no friends. + Every one observed but no one addressed them; they appeared even + themselves to exchange very few words. Moreover they bore with marked + composure and as if they were thoroughly used to it the attention they + excited. I am afraid it occurred to me to take for granted that they were + of an artful intention and that if they hadn't been the elder lady would + have handed the younger over a little less to public valuation and not + have sought so to conceal her own face. Perhaps this question came into my + mind too easily just then—in view of my prospective mentorship to my + nephew. If I was to show him only the best of Europe I should have to be + very careful about the people he should meet—especially the ladies—and + the relations he should form. I suspected him of great innocence and was + uneasy about my office. Was I completely relieved and reassured when I + became aware that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that the girl + was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child—Linda grown up + to charming beauty? + </p> + <p> + The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is + perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a while—I + wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I was anxious to + see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a great resort of the + English—the London season took up its tale there toward the first of + August—and I had an idea that in such a company as that Louisa would + naturally know people. It was my impression that she "cultivated" the + English, that she had been much in London and would be likely to have + views in regard to a permanent settlement there. This supposition was + quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knew there is no country + in which such attractions are more appreciated. You will see what time I + took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar I thought it all over. + There was no good reason in fact why I should have rushed into Mrs. + Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we had never really made + it up. Somehow even the circumstance that—after the first soreness—I + was glad to have lost her had never put us quite right with each other; + nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of her heartless behaviour + that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. I had forgiven her; I + hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to have married a girl who had + in her to take back her given word and break a fellow's heart for mere + flesh-pots—or the shallow promise, as it pitifully turned out, of + flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then—on the occasion of my + former visit to Europe; had looked each other in the eyes, had pretended + to be easy friends and had talked of the wickedness of the world as + composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure. I knew by that time + what she had given out—that I had driven her off by my insane + jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, before she had ever + seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-day a ground of real + reunion, especially if you add to it that she knew perfectly what I + thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, I believe, that your + friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows it mainly when it's + unfavourable, and this is especially the case if—let the solecism + pass!—he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant's fortunes; the + years went by for me in my own country, whereas she led her life, which I + vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband's death—virtually + that of a bankrupt—in foreign lands. I heard of her from time to + time; always as "established" somewhere, but on each occasion in a + different place. She drifted from country to country, and if she had been + of a hard composition at the beginning it could never occur to me that her + struggle with society, as it might be called, would have softened the + paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horribly worldly" I thought + immediately of the object of my early passion. I imagined she had debts, + and when I now at last made up my mind to recall myself to her it was + present to me that she might ask me to lend her money. More than anything + else, however, at this time of day, I was sorry for her, so that such an + idea didn't operate as a deterrent. + </p> + <p> + She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me—expressing as we + stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had dropped + from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she had been + waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting down with her + girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little, the seat + next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before her. She had then + looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't imagine who I was or + what I wanted; after which, smiling and extending her hands, she had + broken out: "Ah my dear old friend—what a delight!" If she had + waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own line she thus at + least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She was cordial, + friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was very glad to + see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that she gave me + neither then nor later any sign of a desire to contract a loan. She had + scant means—that I learned—yet seemed for the moment able to + pay her way. I took the empty chair and we remained in talk for an hour. + After a while she made me sit at her other side, next her daughter, whom + she wished to know me—to love me—as one of their oldest + friends. "It goes back, back, back, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant; "and + of course she remembers you as a child." Linda smiled all sweetly and + blankly, and I saw she remembered me not a whit. When her mother threw out + that they had often talked about me she failed to take it up, though she + looked extremely nice. Looking nice was her strong point; she was prettier + even than her mother had been. She was such a little lady that she made me + ashamed of having doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of her + position in the scale of propriety. Her appearance seemed to say that if + she had no acquaintances it was because she didn't want them—because + nobody there struck her as attractive: there wasn't the slightest + difficulty about her choosing her friends. Linda Pallant, young as she + was, and fresh and fair and charming, gentle and sufficiently shy, looked + somehow exclusive—as if the dust of the common world had never been + meant to besprinkle her. She was of thinner consistency than her mother + and clearly not a young woman of professions—except in so far as she + was committed to an interest in you by her bright pure candid smile. No + girl who had such a lovely way of parting her lips could pass for + designing. + </p> + <p> + As I sat between the pair I felt I had been taken possession of and that + for better or worse my stay at Homburg would be intimately associated with + theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and expressed unlimited + interest in each other's history since our last meeting. I mightn't judge + of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quite overflowed. She let + me see at any rate that her life had been a good deal what I supposed, + though the terms she employed to describe it were less crude than those of + my thought. She confessed they had drifted, she and her daughter, and were + drifting still. Her narrative rambled and took a wrong turn, a false + flight, or two, as I thought Linda noted, while she sat watching the + passers, in a manner that betrayed no consciousness of their attention, + without coming to her mother's aid. Once or twice Mrs. Pallant made me + rather feel a cross-questioner, which I had had no intention of being. I + took it that if the girl never put in a word it was because she had + perfect confidence in her parent's ability to come out straight. It was + suggested to me, I scarcely knew how, that this confidence between the two + ladies went to a great length; that their union of thought, their system + of reciprocal divination, was remarkable, and that they probably seldom + needed to resort to the clumsy and in some cases dangerous expedient of + communicating by sound. I suppose I made this reflexion not all at once—it + was not wholly the result of that first meeting. I was with them + constantly for the next several days and my impressions had time to + clarify. + </p> + <p> + I do remember, however, that it was on this first evening that Archie's + name came up. She attributed her own stay at Homburg to no refined nor + exalted motive—didn't put it that she was there from force of habit + or because a high medical authority had ordered her to drink the waters; + she frankly admitted the reason of her visit to have been simply that she + didn't know where else to turn. But she appeared to assume that my + behaviour rested on higher grounds and even that it required explanation, + the place being frivolous and modern—devoid of that interest of + antiquity which I had ever made so much of. "Don't you remember—ever + so long ago—that you wouldn't look at anything in Europe that wasn't + a thousand years old? Well, as we advance in life I suppose we don't think + that quite such a charm." And when I mentioned that I had arrived because + the place was as good as another for awaiting my nephew she exclaimed: + "Your nephew—what nephew? He must have come up of late." I answered + that his name was Archie Parker and that he was modern indeed; he was to + attain legal manhood in a few months and was in Europe for the first time. + My last news of him had been from Paris and I was expecting to hear + further from one day to the other. His father was dead, and though a + selfish bachelor, little versed in the care of children, I was + considerably counted on by his mother to see that he didn't smoke nor + flirt too much, nor yet tumble off an Alp. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother was my sister Charlotte, + whom she spoke of familiarly, though I knew she had scarce seen her. Then + in a moment it came to her which of the Parkers Charlotte had married; she + remembered the family perfectly from the old New York days—"that + disgustingly rich set." She said it was very nice having the boy come out + that way to my care; to which I replied that it was very nice for the boy. + She pronounced the advantage rather mine—I ought to have had + children; there was something so parental about me and I would have + brought them up so well. She could make an allusion like that—to all + that might have been and had not been—without a gleam of guilt in + her eye; and I foresaw that before I left the place I should have confided + to her that though I detested her and was very glad we had fallen out, yet + our old relations had left me no heart for marrying another woman. If I + had remained so single and so sterile the fault was nobody's but hers. She + asked what I meant to do with my nephew—to which I replied that it + was much more a question of what he would do with me. She wished to know + if he were a nice young man and had brothers and sisters and any + particular profession. I assured her I had really seen little of him; I + believed him to be six feet high and of tolerable parts. He was an only + son, but there was a little sister at home, a delicate, rather blighted + child, demanding all the mother's care. + </p> + <p> + "So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy, + doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant. + </p> + <p> + "Greater? I'm sure I don't know." + </p> + <p> + "Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all the + mother has. So that being in your hands—" + </p> + <p> + "Oh I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you mean that," I returned. + </p> + <p> + "Well, WE won't kill him, shall we, Linda?" my friend went on with a + laugh. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know—perhaps we shall!" smiled the girl. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which was + enhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices—flowers and + photographs and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old + brocade flung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again + at the Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburg + fashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days this revived + familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quite achieving + it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for me and the + conditions of our life were soothing—the feeling of summer and shade + and music and leisure in the German gardens and woods, where we strolled + and sat and gossiped; to which may be added a vague sociable sense that + among people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly not irresistible + we kept quite to ourselves. We were on the footing of old friends who + still had in regard to each other discoveries to make. We knew each + other's nature but didn't know each other's experience; so that when Mrs. + Pallant related to me what she had been "up to," as I called it, for so + many years, the former knowledge attached a hundred interpretative + footnotes—as if I had been editing an author who presented + difficulties—to the interesting page. There was nothing new to me in + the fact that I didn't esteem her, but there was relief in my finding that + this wasn't necessary at Homburg and that I could like her in spite of it. + She struck me, in the oddest way, as both improved and degenerate; the two + processes, in her nature, might have gone on together. She was battered + and world-worn and, spiritually speaking, vulgarised; something fresh had + rubbed off her—it even included the vivacity of her early desire to + do the best thing for herself—and something rather stale had rubbed + on. At the same time she betrayed a scepticism, and that was rather + becoming, for it had quenched the eagerness of her prime, the mercenary + principle I had so suffered from. She had grown weary and detached, and + since she affected me as more impressed with the evil of the world than + with the good, this was a gain; in other words her accretion of + indifference, if not of cynicism, showed a softer surface than that of her + old ambitions. Furthermore I had to recognise that her devotion to her + daughter was a kind of religion; she had done the very best possible for + Linda. + </p> + <p> + Linda was curious, Linda was interesting; I've seen girls I liked better—charming + as this one might be—but have never seen one who for the hour you + were with her (the impression passed somehow when she was out of sight) + occupied you so completely. I can best describe the attention she provoked + by saying that she struck you above all things as a felicitous FINAL + product—after the fashion of some plant or some fruit, some waxen + orchid or some perfect peach. She was clearly the result of a process of + calculation, a process patiently educative, a pressure exerted, and all + artfully, so that she should reach a high point. + </p> + <p> + This high point had been the star of her mother's heaven—it hung + before her so unquenchably—and had shed the only light (in default + of a better) that was to shine on the poor lady's path. It stood her + instead of every other ideal. The very most and the very best—that + was what the girl had been led on to achieve; I mean of course, since no + real miracle had been wrought, the most and the best she was capable of. + She was as pretty, as graceful, as intelligent, as well-bred, as + well-informed, as well-dressed, as could have been conceived for her; her + music, her singing, her German, her French, her English, her step, her + tone, her glance, her manner, everything in her person and movement, from + the shade and twist of her hair to the way you saw her finger-nails were + pink when she raised her hand, had been carried so far that one found + one's self accepting them as the very measure of young grace. I regarded + her thus as a model, yet it was a part of her perfection that she had none + of the stiffness of a pattern. If she held the observation it was because + you wondered where and when she would break down; but she never broke + down, either in her French accent or in her role of educated angel. + </p> + <p> + After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly his greatest resource, + and all the world knows why a party of four is more convenient than a + party of three. My nephew had kept me waiting a week, with a serenity all + his own; but this very coolness was a help to harmony—so long, that + is, as I didn't lose my temper with it. I didn't, for the most part, + because my young man's unperturbed acceptance of the most various forms of + good fortune had more than anything else the effect of amusing me. I had + seen little of him for the last three or four years; I wondered what his + impending majority would have made of him—he didn't at all carry + himself as if the wind of his fortune were rising—and I watched him + with a solicitude that usually ended in a joke. He was a tall + fresh-coloured youth, with a candid circular countenance and a love of + cigarettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed to more + strenuous studies. He was reassuringly natural, in a supercivilised age, + and I soon made up my mind that the formula of his character was in the + clearing of the inward scene by his so preordained lack of imagination. If + he was serene this was still further simplifying. After that I had time to + meditate on the line that divides the serene from the inane, the simple + from the silly. He wasn't clever; the fonder theory quite defied our + cultivation, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice; but on the other + hand it struck me his want of wit might be a good defensive weapon. It + wasn't the sort of density that would let him in, but the sort that would + keep him out. By which I don't mean that he had shortsighted suspicions, + but that on the contrary imagination would never be needed to save him, + since she would never put him in danger. He was in short a well-grown + well-washed muscular young American, whose extreme salubrity might have + made him pass for conceited. If he looked pleased with himself it was only + because he was pleased with life—as well he might be, with the + fortune that awaited the stroke of his twenty-first year—and his big + healthy independent person was an inevitable part of that. I am bound to + add that he was accommodating—for which I was grateful. His habits + were active, but he didn't insist on my adopting them and he made numerous + and generous sacrifices for my society. When I say he made them for mine I + must duly remember that mine and that of Mrs. Pallant and Linda were now + very much the same thing. He was willing to sit and smoke for hours under + the trees or, adapting his long legs to the pace of his three companions, + stroll through the nearer woods of the charming little hill-range of the + Taunus to those rustic Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk under a + trellis. Mrs. Pallant took a great interest in him; she made him, with his + easy uncle, a subject of discourse; she pronounced him a delightful + specimen, as a young gentleman of his period and country. She even asked + me the sort of "figure" his fortune might really amount to, and professed + a rage of envy when I told her what I supposed it to be. While we were so + occupied Archie, on his side, couldn't do less than converse with Linda, + nor to tell the truth did he betray the least inclination for any + different exercise. They strolled away together while their elders rested; + two or three times, in the evening, when the ballroom of the Kursaal was + lighted and dance-music played, they whirled over the smooth floor in a + waltz that stirred my memory. Whether it had the same effect on Mrs. + Pallant's I know not: she held her peace. We had on certain occasions our + moments, almost our half-hours, of unembarrassed silence while our young + companions disported themselves. But if at other times her enquiries and + comments were numerous on this article of my ingenuous charge, that might + very well have passed for a courteous recognition of the frequent + admiration I expressed for Linda—an admiration that drew from her, I + noticed, but scant direct response. I was struck thus with her reserve + when I spoke of her daughter—my remarks produced so little of a + maternal flutter. Her detachment, her air of having no fatuous illusions + and not being blinded by prejudice, seemed to me at times to savour of + affectation. Either she answered me with a vague and impatient sigh and + changed the subject, or else she said before doing so: "Oh yes, yes, she's + a very brilliant creature. She ought to be: God knows what I've done for + her!" The reader will have noted my fondness, in all cases, for the + explanations of things; as an example of which I had my theory here that + she was disappointed in the girl. Where then had her special calculation + failed? As she couldn't possibly have wished her prettier or more + pleasing, the pang must have been for her not having made a successful use + of her gifts. Had she expected her to "land" a prince the day after + leaving the schoolroom? There was after all plenty of time for this, with + Linda but two-and-twenty. It didn't occur to me to wonder if the source of + her mother's tepidity was that the young lady had not turned out so nice a + nature as she had hoped, because in the first place Linda struck me as + perfectly innocent, and because in the second I wasn't paid, in the French + phrase, for supposing Louisa Pallant much concerned on that score. The + last hypothesis I should have invoked was that of private despair at bad + moral symptoms. And in relation to Linda's nature I had before me the + daily spectacle of her manner with my nephew. It was as charming as it + could be without betrayal of a desire to lead him on. She was as familiar + as a cousin, but as a distant one—a cousin who had been brought up + to observe degrees. She was so much cleverer than Archie that she couldn't + help laughing at him, but she didn't laugh enough to exclude variety, + being well aware, no doubt, that a woman's cleverness most shines in + contrast with a man's stupidity when she pretends to take that stupidity + for her law. Linda Pallant moreover was not a chatterbox; as she knew the + value of many things she knew the value of intervals. There were a good + many in the conversation of these young persons; my nephew's own speech, + to say nothing of his thought, abounding in comfortable lapses; so that I + sometimes wondered how their association was kept at that pitch of + continuity of which it gave the impression. It was friendly enough, + evidently, when Archie sat near her—near enough for low murmurs, had + such risen to his lips—and watched her with interested eyes and with + freedom not to try too hard to make himself agreeable. She had always + something in hand—a flower in her tapestry to finish, the leaves of + a magazine to cut, a button to sew on her glove (she carried a little + work-bag in her pocket and was a person of the daintiest habits), a pencil + to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbook which she rested on her knee. When + we were indoors—mainly then at her mother's modest rooms—she + had always the resource of her piano, of which she was of course a perfect + mistress. + </p> + <p> + These pursuits supported her, they helped her to an assurance under such + narrow inspection—I ended by rebuking Archie for it; I told him he + stared the poor girl out of countenance—and she sought further + relief in smiling all over the place. When my young man's eyes shone at + her those of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to the trees and + clouds and other surrounding objects, including her mother and me. + Sometimes she broke into a sudden embarrassed happy pointless laugh. When + she wandered off with him she looked back at us in a manner that promised + it wasn't for long and that she was with us still in spirit. If I liked + her I had therefore my good reason: it was many a day since a pretty girl + had had the air of taking me so much into account. Sometimes when they + were so far away as not to disturb us she read aloud a little to Mr. + Archie. I don't know where she got her books—I never provided them, + and certainly he didn't. He was no reader and I fear he often dozed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + I remember the first time—it was at the end of about ten days of + this—that Mrs. Pallant remarked to me: "My dear friend, you're quite + AMAZING! You behave for all the world as if you were perfectly ready to + accept certain consequences." She nodded in the direction of our young + companions, but I nevertheless put her at the pains of saying what + consequences she meant. "What consequences? Why the very same consequences + that ensued when you and I first became acquainted." + </p> + <p> + I hesitated, but then, looking her in the eyes, said: "Do you mean she'd + throw him over?" + </p> + <p> + "You're not kind, you're not generous," she replied with a quick colour. + "I'm giving you a warning." + </p> + <p> + "You mean that my boy may fall in love with your girl?" + </p> + <p> + "Certainly. It looks even as if the harm might be already done." + </p> + <p> + "Then your warning comes too late," I significantly smiled. "But why do + you call it a harm?" + </p> + <p> + "Haven't you any sense of the rigour of your office?" she asked. "Is that + what his mother has sent him out to you for: that you shall find him the + first wife you can pick up, that you shall let him put his head into the + noose the day after his arrival?" + </p> + <p> + "Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind! I know moreover that his + mother doesn't want him to marry young. She holds it the worst of + mistakes, she feels that at that age a man never really chooses. He + doesn't choose till he has lived a while, till he has looked about and + compared." + </p> + <p> + "And what do you think then yourself?" + </p> + <p> + "I should like to say I regard the fact of falling in love, at whatever + age, as in itself an act of selection. But my being as I am at this time + of day would contradict me too much." + </p> + <p> + "Well then, you're too primitive. You ought to leave this place tomorrow." + </p> + <p> + "So as not to see Archie fall—?" + </p> + <p> + "You ought to fish him out now—from where he HAS fallen—and + take him straight away." + </p> + <p> + I wondered a little. "Do you think he's in very far?" + </p> + <p> + "If I were his mother I know what I should think. I can put myself in her + place—I'm not narrow-minded. I know perfectly well how she must + regard such a question." + </p> + <p> + "And don't you know," I returned, "that in America that's not thought + important—the way the mother regards it?" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Pallant had a pause—as if I mystified or vexed her. "Well, + we're not in America. We happen to be here." + </p> + <p> + "No; my poor sister's up to her neck in New York." + </p> + <p> + "I'm almost capable of writing to her to come out," said Mrs. Pallant. + </p> + <p> + "You ARE warning me," I cried, "but I hardly know of what! It seems to me + my responsibility would begin only at the moment your daughter herself + should seem in danger." + </p> + <p> + "Oh you needn't mind that—I'll take care of Linda." + </p> + <p> + But I went on. "If you think she's in danger already I'll carry him off + to-morrow." + </p> + <p> + "It would be the best thing you could do." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know—I should be very sorry to act on a false alarm. I'm + very well here; I like the place and the life and your society. Besides, + it doesn't strike me that—on her side—there's any real + symptom." + </p> + <p> + She looked at me with an air I had never seen in her face, and if I had + puzzled her she repaid me in kind. "You're very annoying. You don't + deserve what I'd fain do for you." + </p> + <p> + What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took up the + subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we should assume that a + girl like Linda—brilliant enough to make one of the greatest—would + fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. Might I enquire if her mother + had won a confession from her, if she had stammered out her secret? Mrs. + Pallant made me, on this, the point that they had no need to tell each + other such things—they hadn't lived together twenty years in such + intimacy for nothing. To which I returned that I had guessed as much, but + that there might be an exception for a great occasion like the present. If + Linda had shown nothing it was a sign that for HER the occasion wasn't + great; and I mentioned that Archie had spoken to me of the young lady only + to remark casually and rather patronisingly, after his first encounter + with her, that she was a regular little flower. (The little flower was + nearly three years older than himself.) Apart from this he hadn't alluded + to her and had taken up no allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me + again—for which I was prepared—that I was quite too primitive; + after which she said: "We needn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, + but I happen to know—how I obtained my knowledge isn't important—that + the moment Mr. Parker should propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. + Surely it's a detail worth mentioning to you." + </p> + <p> + I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him. I'll + look into the matter tonight." + </p> + <p> + "Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finer + view. "Remove him quickly—that's the only thing." + </p> + <p> + I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too + summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds; + and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to change + my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with my + middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So I temporised. + "Should you really object to the boy so much as a son-in-law? After all + he's a good fellow and a gentleman." + </p> + <p> + "My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with an + assurance that struck me. + </p> + <p> + The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly! But + it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU." + </p> + <p> + I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when she + spoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw. + We've been here a month—it will have served our purpose." + </p> + <p> + "Mercy on us, that will be a bore!" I protested; and for the rest of the + evening, till we separated—our conversation had taken place after + dinner at the Kursaal—she said little, preserving a subdued and + almost injured air. This somehow didn't appeal to me, since it was absurd + that Louisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put me in the wrong. + If ever a woman had been in the wrong herself—! I had even no need + to go into that. Archie and I, at all events, usually attended the ladies + back to their own door—they lived in a street of minor accommodation + at a certain distance from the Rooms—where we parted for the night + late, on the big cobblestones, in the little sleeping German town, under + the closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy interiors, our cheerful + English partings resounded. On this occasion indeed they rather + languished; the question that had come up for me with Mrs. Pallant + appeared—and by no intention of mine—to have brushed the young + couple with its chill. Archie and Linda too struck me as conscious and + dumb. + </p> + <p> + As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew I passed my hand into his arm + and put to him, by no roundabout approach, the question of whether he were + in serious peril of love. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know, I don't know—really, uncle, I don't know!" was, + however, all the satisfaction I could extract from the youth, who hadn't + the smallest vein of introspection. He mightn't know, but before we + reached the inn—we had a few more words on the subject—it + seemed to me that <i>I</i> did. His mind wasn't formed to accommodate at + one time many subjects of thought, but Linda Pallant certainly constituted + for the moment its principal furniture. She pervaded his consciousness, + she solicited his curiosity, she associated herself, in a manner as yet + informal and undefined, with his future. I could see that she held, that + she beguiled him as no one had ever done. I didn't betray to him, however, + that perception, and I spent my night a prey to the consciousness that, + after all, it had been none of my business to provide him with the sense + of being captivated. To put him in relation with a young enchantress was + the last thing his mother had expected of me or that I had expected of + myself. Moreover it was quite my opinion that he himself was too young to + be a judge of enchantresses. Mrs. Pallant was right and I had given high + proof of levity in regarding her, with her beautiful daughter, as a + "resource." There were other resources—one of which WOULD be most + decidedly to clear out. What did I know after all about the girl except + that I rejoiced to have escaped from marrying her mother? That mother, it + was true, was a singular person, and it was strange her conscience should + have begun to fidget in advance of my own. It was strange she should so + soon have felt Archie's peril, and even stranger that she should have then + wished to "save" him. The ways of women were infinitely subtle, and it was + no novelty to me that one never knew where they would turn up. As I + haven't hesitated in this report to expose the irritable side of my own + nature I shall confess that I even wondered if my old friend's solicitude + hadn't been a deeper artifice. Wasn't it possibly a plan of her own for + making sure of my young man—though I didn't quite see the logic of + it? If she regarded him, which she might in view of his large fortune, as + a great catch, mightn't she have arranged this little comedy, in their + personal interest, with the girl? + </p> + <p> + That possibility at any rate only made it a happier thought that I should + win my companion to some curiosity about other places. There were many of + course much more worth his attention than Homburg. In the course of the + morning—it was after our early luncheon—I walked round to Mrs. + Pallant's to let her know I was ready to take action; but even while I + went I again felt the unlikelihood of the part attributed by my fears and + by the mother's own, so far as they had been roused, to Linda. Certainly + if she was such a girl as these fears represented her she would fly at + higher game. It was with an eye to high game, Mrs. Pallant had frankly + admitted to me, that she had been trained, and such an education, to say + nothing of such a performer, justified a hope of greater returns. A young + American, the fruit of scant "modelling," who could give her nothing but + pocket-money, was a very moderate prize, and if she had been prepared to + marry for ambition—there was no such hardness in her face or tone, + but then there never is—her mark would be inevitably a "personage" + quelconque. I was received at my friend's lodging with the announcement + that she had left Homburg with her daughter half an hour before. The good + woman who had entertained the pair professed to know nothing of their + movements beyond the fact that they had gone to Frankfort, where, however, + it was her belief that they didn't intend to remain. They were evidently + travelling beyond. Sudden, their decision to move? Oh yes, the matter of a + moment. They must have spent the night in packing, they had so many things + and such pretty ones; and their poor maid, all the morning, had scarce had + time to swallow her coffee. But they clearly were ladies accustomed to + come and go. It didn't matter—with such rooms as hers she never + wanted: there was a new family coming in at three. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + This piece of strategy left me staring and made me, I must confess, quite + furious. My only consolation was that Archie, when I told him, looked as + blank as myself, and that the trick touched him more nearly, for I was not + now in love with Louisa. We agreed that we required an explanation and we + pretended to expect one the next day in the shape of a letter satisfactory + even to the point of being apologetic. When I say "we" pretended I mean + that I did, for my suspicion that he knew what had been on foot—through + an arrangement with Linda—lasted only a moment. If his resentment + was less than my own his surprise was equally great. I had been willing to + bolt, but I felt slighted by the ease with which Mrs. Pallant had shown + she could part with us. Archie professed no sense of a grievance, because + in the first place he was shy about it and because in the second it was + evidently not definite to him that he had been encouraged—equipped + as he was, I think, with no very particular idea of what constituted + encouragement. He was fresh from the wonderful country in which there may + between the ingenuous young be so little question of "intentions." He was + but dimly conscious of his own and could by no means have told me whether + he had been challenged or been jilted. I didn't want to exasperate him, + but when at the end of three days more we were still without news of our + late companions I observed that it was very simple:—they must have + been just hiding from us; they thought us dangerous; they wished to avoid + entanglements. They had found us too attentive and wished not to raise + false hopes. He appeared to accept this explanation and even had the air—so + at least I inferred from his asking me no questions—of judging the + matter might be delicate for myself. The poor youth was altogether much + mystified, and I smiled at the image in his mind of Mrs. Pallant fleeing + from his uncle's importunities. We decided to leave Homburg, but if we + didn't pursue our fugitives it wasn't simply that we were ignorant of + where they were. I could have found that out with a little trouble, but I + was deterred by the reflexion that this would be Louisa's reasoning. She + was a dreadful humbug and her departure had been a provocation—I + fear it was in that stupid conviction that I made out a little independent + itinerary with Archie. I even believed we should learn where they were + quite soon enough, and that our patience—even my young man's—would + be longer than theirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of triumph + when three weeks later—we happened to be at Interlaken—he + reported to me that he had received a note from Miss Pallant. The form of + this confidence was his enquiring if there were particular reasons why we + should longer delay our projected visit to the Italian lakes. Mightn't the + fear of the hot weather, which was moreover at that season our native + temperature, cease to operate, the middle of September having arrived? I + answered that we would start on the morrow if he liked, and then, pleased + apparently that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his little secret. + He showed me his letter, which was a graceful natural document—it + covered with a few flowing strokes but a single page of note-paper—not + at all compromising to the young lady. If, however, it was almost the + apology I had looked for—save that this should have come from the + mother—it was not ostensibly in the least an invitation. It + mentioned casually—the mention was mainly in the words at the head + of her paper—that they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno; but it + consisted mainly of the expression of a regret that they had had so + abruptly to leave Homburg. Linda failed to say under what necessity they + had found themselves; she only hoped we hadn't judged them too harshly and + would accept "this hasty line" as a substitute for the omitted good-bye. + She also hoped our days were passing pleasantly and with the same lovely + weather that prevailed south of the Alps; and she remained very sincerely + and with the kindest remembrances—! + </p> + <p> + The note contained no message from her mother, and it was open to me to + suppose, as I should prefer, either that Mrs. Pallant hadn't known she was + writing or that they wished to make us think she hadn't known. The letter + might pass as a common civility of the girl's to a person with whom she + had been on easy terms. It was, however, for something more than this that + my nephew took it; so at least I gathered from the touching candour of his + determination to go to Baveno. I judged it idle to drag him another way; + he had money in his own pocket and was quite capable of giving me the + slip. Yet—such are the sweet incongruities of youth—when I + asked him to what tune he had been thinking of Linda since they left us in + the lurch he replied: "Oh I haven't been thinking at all! Why should I?" + This fib was accompanied by an exorbitant blush. Since he was to obey his + young woman's signal I must equally make out where it would take him, and + one splendid morning we started over the Simplon in a post-chaise. + </p> + <p> + I represented to him successfully that it would be in much better taste + for us to alight at Stresa, which as every one knows is a resort of + tourists, also on the shore of the major lake, at about a mile's distance + from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we should have to inhabit + the same hotel as our friends, and this might be awkward in view of a + strained relation with them. Nothing would be easier than to go and come + between the two points, especially by the water, which would give Archie a + chance for unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at the vision of a pair + of oars; he pretended to take my plea for discretion very seriously, and I + could see that he had at once begun to calculate opportunities for + navigation with Linda. Our post-chaise—I had insisted on easy stages + and we were three days on the way—deposited us at Stresa toward the + middle of the afternoon, and it was within an amazingly short time that I + found myself in a small boat with my nephew, who pulled us over to Baveno + with vigorous strokes. I remember the sweetness of the whole impression. I + had had it before, but to my companion it was new, and he thought it as + pretty as the opera: the enchanting beauty of the place and, hour, the + stillness of the air and water, with the romantic fantastic Borromean + Islands set as great jewels in a crystal globe. We disembarked at the + steps by the garden-foot of the hotel, and somehow it seemed a perfectly + natural part of the lovely situation that I should immediately become + conscious of Mrs. Pallant and her daughter seated on the terrace and + quietly watching us. They had the air of expectation, which I think we had + counted on. I hadn't even asked Archie if he had answered Linda's note; + this was between themselves and in the way of supervision I had done + enough in coming with him. + </p> + <p> + There is no doubt our present address, all round, lacked a little the + easiest grace—or at least Louisa's and mine did. I felt too much the + appeal of her exhibition to notice closely the style of encounter of the + young people. I couldn't get it out of my head, as I have sufficiently + indicated, that Mrs. Pallant was playing a game, and I'm afraid she saw in + my face that this suspicion had been the motive of my journey. I had come + there to find her out. The knowledge of my purpose couldn't help her to + make me very welcome, and that's why I speak of our meeting constrainedly. + We observed none the less all the forms, and the admirable scene left us + plenty to talk about. I made no reference before Linda to the retreat from + Homburg. This young woman looked even prettier than she had done on the + eve of that manoeuvre and gave no sign of an awkward consciousness. She + again so struck me as a charming clever girl that I was freshly puzzled to + know why we should get—or should have got—into a tangle about + her. People had to want to complicate a situation to do it on so simple a + pretext as that Linda was in every way beautiful. This was the clear fact: + so why shouldn't the presumptions be in favour of every result of it? One + of the effects of that cause, on the spot, was that at the end of a very + short time Archie proposed to her to take a turn with him in his boat, + which awaited us at the foot of the steps. She looked at her mother with a + smiling "May I, mamma?" and Mrs. Pallant answered "Certainly, darling, if + you're not afraid." At this—I scarcely knew why—I sought the + relief of laughter: it must have affected me as comic that the girl's + general competence should suffer the imputation of that particular flaw. + She gave me a quick slightly sharp look as she turned away with my nephew; + it appeared to challenge me a little—"Pray what's the matter with + YOU?" It was the first expression of the kind I had ever seen in her face. + Mrs. Pallant's attention, on the other hand, rather strayed from me; after + we had been left there together she sat silent, not heeding me, looking at + the lake and mountains—at the snowy crests crowned with the flush of + evening. She seemed not even to follow our young companions as they got + into their boat and pushed off. For some minutes I respected her mood; I + walked slowly up and down the terrace and lighted a cigar, as she had + always permitted me to do at Homburg. I found in her, it was true, rather + a new air of weariness; her fine cold well-bred face was pale; I noted in + it new lines of fatigue, almost of age. At last I stopped in front of her + and—since she looked so sad—asked if she had been having bad + news. + </p> + <p> + "The only bad news was when I learned—through your nephew's note to + Linda—that you were coming to us." + </p> + <p> + "Ah then he wrote?" + </p> + <p> + "Certainly he wrote." + </p> + <p> + "You take it all harder than I do," I returned as I sat down beside her. + And then I added, smiling: "Have you written to his mother?" + </p> + <p> + Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. "Take care, take care, or + you'll have been more brutal than you'll afterwards like," she said with + an air of patience before the inevitable. + </p> + <p> + "Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew when + Linda wrote." + </p> + <p> + She had an hesitation. "Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn't have + done anything else. I let it go because I didn't know what course was + best. I'm afraid to oppose her to her face." + </p> + <p> + "Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl?" + </p> + <p> + "That girl? Much you know about her! It didn't follow you'd come. I didn't + take that for granted." + </p> + <p> + "I'm like you," I said—"I too am afraid of my nephew. I don't + venture to oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do—once he + wished it—was to come with him." + </p> + <p> + "I see. Well, there are grounds, after all, on which I'm glad," she rather + inscrutably added. + </p> + <p> + "Oh I was conscientious about that! But I've no authority; I can neither + drive him nor stay him—I can use no force," I explained. "Look at + the way he's pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me." + </p> + <p> + "You could tell him she's a bad hard girl—one who'd poison any good + man's life!" my companion broke out with a passion that startled me. + </p> + <p> + At first I could only gape. "Dear lady, what do you mean?" + </p> + <p> + She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and so + remained a minute; then she continued a little differently, though as if + she hadn't heard my question: "I hoped you were too disgusted with us—after + the way we left you planted." + </p> + <p> + "It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda hadn't + written. That patched it up," I gaily professed. But my gaiety was thin, + for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Do you really + mean that she won't do?" I added. + </p> + <p> + She made no direct answer; she only said after a little that it didn't + matter whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weeks + later, since it was destined to come at the first chance, the favouring + moment. Linda had marked my young man—and when Linda had marked a + thing! + </p> + <p> + "Bless my soul—how very grim—" But I didn't understand. "Do + you mean she's in love with him?" + </p> + <p> + "It's enough if she makes him think so—though even that isn't + essential." + </p> + <p> + Still I was at sea. "If she makes him think so? Dear old friend, what's + your idea? I've observed her, I've watched her, and when all's said what + has she done? She has been civil and pleasant to him, but it would have + been much more marked if she hadn't. She has really shown him, with her + youth and her natural charm, nothing more than common friendliness. Her + note was nothing; he let me see it." + </p> + <p> + "I don't think you've heard every word she has said to him," Mrs. Pallant + returned with an emphasis that still struck me as perverse. + </p> + <p> + "No more have you, I take it!" I promptly cried. She evidently meant more + than she said; but if this excited my curiosity it also moved, in a + different connexion, my indulgence. + </p> + <p> + "No, but I know my own daughter. She's a most remarkable young woman." + </p> + <p> + "You've an extraordinary tone about her," I declared "such a tone as I + think I've never before heard on a mother's lips. I've had the same + impression from you—that of a disposition to 'give her away,' but + never yet so strong." + </p> + <p> + At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there looking down at me. "You make + my reparation—my expiation—difficult!" And leaving me still + more astonished she moved along the terrace. + </p> + <p> + I overtook her presently and repeated her words. "Your reparation—your + expiation? What on earth are you talking about?" + </p> + <p> + "You know perfectly what I mean—it's too magnanimous of you to + pretend you don't." + </p> + <p> + "Well, at any rate," I said, "I don't see what good it does me, or what it + makes up to me for, that you should abuse your daughter." + </p> + <p> + "Oh I don't care; I shall save him!" she cried as we went, and with an + extravagance, as I felt, of sincerity. At the same moment two ladies, + apparently English, came toward us—scattered groups had been sitting + there and the inmates of the hotel were moving to and fro—and I + observed the immediate charming transition, the fruit of such years of + social practice, by which, as they greeted us, her tension and her + impatience dropped to recognition and pleasure. They stopped to speak to + her and she enquired with sweet propriety as to the "continued + improvement" of their sister. I strolled on and she presently rejoined me; + after which she had a peremptory note. "Come away from this—come + down into the garden." We descended to that blander scene, strolled + through it and paused on the border of the lake. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + The charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemn + expression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. In + the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. I + looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, remarked that from such + an excursion as that, on such a lake and at such an hour, a young man and + a young woman of common sensibility could only come back doubly pledged to + each other. + </p> + <p> + To this observation Mrs. Pallant's answer was, superficially at least, + irrelevant; she said after a pause: "With you, my dear man, one has + certainly to dot one's 'i's.' Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tell + you at Homburg, that we're miserably poor?" + </p> + <p> + "Isn't 'miserably' rather too much—living as you are at an expensive + hotel?" + </p> + <p> + Well, she promptly met this. "They take us en pension, for ever so little + a day. I've been knocking about Europe long enough to learn all sorts of + horrid arts. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we've spent half our life in + them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped never to put her + foot into one again. She feels that when she comes to such a place as this + she ought, if things were decently right, to find a villa of her own." + </p> + <p> + "Then her companion there's perfectly competent to give her one. Don't + think I've the least desire to push them into each other's arms—I + only ask to wash my hands of them. But I should like to know why you want, + as you said just now, to save him. When you speak as if your daughter were + a monster I take it you're not serious." + </p> + <p> + She was facing me in the rich short twilight, and to describe herself as + immeasurably more serious perhaps than she had ever been in her life she + had only to look at me without protestation. "It's Linda's standard. God + knows I myself could get on! She's ambitious, luxurious, determined to + have what she wants—more 'on the make' than any one I've ever seen. + Of course it's open to you to tell me it's my own fault, that I was so + before her and have made her so. But does that make me like it any + better?" + </p> + <p> + "Dear Mrs. Pallant, you're wonderful, you're terrible," I could only + stammer, lost in the desert of my thoughts. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, you've made up your mind about me; you see me in a certain way + and don't like the trouble of changing. Votre siege est fait. But you'll + HAVE to change—if you've any generosity!" Her eyes shone in the + summer dusk and the beauty of her youth came back to her. + </p> + <p> + "Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation?" I demanded. "I don't + see what you ever did to Archie." + </p> + <p> + "It's enough that he belongs to you. But it isn't for you I do it—it's + for myself," she strangely went on. + </p> + <p> + "Doubtless you've your own reasons—which I can't penetrate. But + can't you sacrifice something else? Must you sacrifice your only child?" + </p> + <p> + "My only child's my punishment, my only child's my stigma!" she cried in + her exaltation. + </p> + <p> + "It seems to me rather that you're hers." + </p> + <p> + "Hers? What does SHE know of such things?—what can she ever feel? + She's cased in steel; she has a heart of marble. It's true—it's + true," said Louisa Pallant. "She appals me!" + </p> + <p> + I laid my hand on my poor friend's; I uttered, with the intention of + checking and soothing her, the first incoherent words that came into my + head and I drew her toward a bench a few steps away. She dropped upon it; + I placed myself near her and besought her to consider well what she said. + She owed me nothing and I wished no one injured, no one denounced or + exposed for my sake. + </p> + <p> + "For your sake? Oh I'm not thinking of you!" she answered; and indeed the + next moment I thought my words rather fatuous. "It's a satisfaction to my + own conscience—for I HAVE one, little as you may think I've a right + to speak of it. I've been punished by my sin itself. I've been hideously + worldly, I've thought only of that, and I've taught her to be so—to + do the same. That's the only instruction I've ever given her, and she has + learned the lesson so well that now I see it stamped there in all her + nature, on all her spirit and on all her form, I'm horrified at my work. + For years we've lived that way; we've thought of nothing else. She has + profited so well by my beautiful influence that she has gone far beyond + the great original. I say I'm horrified," Mrs. Pallant dreadfully wound + up, "because she's horrible." + </p> + <p> + "My poor extravagant friend," I pleaded, "isn't it still more so to hear a + mother say such things?" + </p> + <p> + "Why so, if they're abominably true? Besides, I don't care what I say if I + save him." + </p> + <p> + I could only gape again at this least expected of all my adventures. "Do + you expect me then to repeat to him—?" + </p> + <p> + "Not in the least," she broke in; "I'll do it myself." At this I uttered + some strong inarticulate protest, but she went on with the grimmest + simplicity: "I was very glad at first, but it would have been better if we + hadn't met." + </p> + <p> + "I don't agree to that, for you interest me," I rather ruefully professed, + "immensely." + </p> + <p> + "I don't care if I do—so I interest HIM." + </p> + <p> + "You must reflect then that your denunciation can only strike me as, for + all its violence, vague and unconvincing. Never had a girl less the + appearance of bearing such charges out. You know how I've admired her." + </p> + <p> + "You know nothing about her! <i>I</i> do, you see, for she's the work of + my hand!" And Mrs. Pallant laughed for bitterness. "I've watched her for + years, and little by little, for the last two or three, it has come over + me. There's not a tender spot in her whole composition. To arrive at a + brilliant social position, if it were necessary, she would see me drown in + this lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there and see it—she + would push me in—and never feel a pang. That's my young lady!" Her + lucidity chilled me to the soul—it seemed to shine so flawless. "To + climb up to the top and be splendid and envied there," she went on—"to + do that at any cost or by any meanness and cruelty is the only thing she + has a heart for. She'd lie for it, she'd steal for it, she'd kill for it!" + My companion brought out these words with a cold confidence that had + evidently behind it some occult past process of growth. I watched her pale + face and glowing eyes; she held me breathless and frowning, but her + strange vindictive, or at least retributive, passion irresistibly imposed + itself. I found myself at last believing her, pitying her more than I + pitied the subject of her dreadful analysis. It was as if she had held her + tongue for longer than she could bear, suffering more and more the + importunity of the truth. It relieved her thus to drag that to the light, + and still she kept up the high and most unholy sacrifice. "God in his + mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that he has let + me see it in my daughter. It's myself he has let me see—myself as I + was for years. But she's worse—she IS, I assure you; she's worse + than I intended or dreamed." Her hands were clasped tightly together in + her lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked up + at the southern stars as if THEY would understand. + </p> + <p> + "Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me?" I finally asked. "Have + you ever put before her this terrible arraignment?" + </p> + <p> + "Put it before her? How can I put it before her when all she would have to + say would be: 'You, YOU, you base one, who made me—?'" + </p> + <p> + "Then why do you want to play her a trick?" + </p> + <p> + "I'm not bound to tell you, and you wouldn't see my point if I did. I + should play that boy a far worse one if I were to stay my hand." + </p> + <p> + Oh I had my view of this. "If he loves her he won't believe a word you + say." + </p> + <p> + "Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty." + </p> + <p> + "And shall you say to him," I asked, "simply what you've said to me?" + </p> + <p> + "Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that will + perhaps helpfully affect him. Only," she added with her proud decision, "I + must lose no time." + </p> + <p> + "If you're so bent on gaining time," I said, "why did you let her go out + in the boat with him?" + </p> + <p> + "Let her? how could I prevent it?" + </p> + <p> + "But she asked your permission." + </p> + <p> + "Ah that," she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!" + </p> + <p> + It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing. + "Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them + bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for what I've + made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself married to + her." + </p> + <p> + "There's not much danger of there being any such person," I wailed, "at + the rate you go on." + </p> + <p> + "I beg your pardon—there's a perfect possibility," said my + companion. "She'll marry—she'll marry 'well.' She'll marry a title + as well as a fortune. + </p> + <p> + "It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title," I attempted the grimace of + suggesting. + </p> + <p> + She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm acting a + part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can any one + TELL," asked Louisa Pallant—"with people like us?" + </p> + <p> + Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand on + her arm, holding her a while, and we looked at each other through the + dusk. "You couldn't do more if he were my son." + </p> + <p> + "Oh if he had been your son he'd have kept out of it! I like him for + himself. He's simple and sane and honest—he needs affection." + </p> + <p> + "He would have quite the most remarkable of mothers-in-law!" I commented. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Pallant gave a small dry laugh—she wasn't joking. We lingered + by the lake while I thought over what she had said to me and while she + herself apparently thought. I confess that even close at her side and + under the strong impression of her sincerity, her indifference to the + conventional graces, my imagination, my constitutional scepticism began to + range. Queer ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on HER side and not + on the girl's, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman at poor + Linda's expense? Was she determined, in spite of the young lady's + preference, to keep her daughter for a grander personage than a young + American whose dollars were not numerous enough—numerous as they + were—to make up for his want of high relationships, and had she + invented at once the boldest and the subtlest of games in order to keep + the case in her hands? If she was prepared really to address herself to + Archie she would have to go very far to overcome the mistrust he would be + sure to feel at a proceeding superficially so sinister? Was she prepared + to go far enough? The answer to these doubts was simply the way I had been + touched—it came back to me the next moment—when she used the + words "people like us." Their effect was to wring my heart. She seemed to + kneel in the dust, and I felt in a manner ashamed that I had let her sink + to it. She said to me at last that I must wait no longer, I must go away + before the young people came back. They were staying long, too long; all + the more reason then she should deal with my nephew that night. I must + drive back to Stresa, or if I liked I could go on foot: it wasn't far—for + an active man. She disposed of me freely, she was so full of her purpose; + and after we had quitted the garden and returned to the terrace above she + seemed almost to push me to leave her—I felt her fine consecrated + hands fairly quiver on my shoulders. I was ready to do as she prescribed; + she affected me painfully, she had given me a "turn," and I wanted to get + away from her. But before I went I asked her why Linda should regard my + young man as such a parti; it didn't square after all with her account of + the girl's fierce ambitions. By that account these favours to one so + graceless were a woeful waste of time. + </p> + <p> + "Oh she has worked it all out; she has regarded the question in every + light," said Mrs. Pallant. "If she has made up her mind it's because she + sees what she can do." + </p> + <p> + "Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?" + </p> + <p> + My friend's wonderful face pitied my simplicity. "Lord! for what do you + take us? We don't talk things over to-day. We know each other's point of + view and only have to act. We observe the highest proprieties of speech. + We never for a moment name anything ugly—we only just go at it. We + can take definitions, which are awkward things, for granted." + </p> + <p> + "But in this case," I nevertheless urged, "the poor thing can't possibly + be aware of your point of view." + </p> + <p> + "No," she conceded—"that's because I haven't played fair. Of course + she couldn't expect I'd cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. But + it was open to her to do the same." + </p> + <p> + "What do you mean by the same?" + </p> + <p> + "She might have fallen in love with a poor man. Then I should have been + 'done.'" + </p> + <p> + "A rich one's better; he can do more," I replied with conviction. + </p> + <p> + At this she appeared to have, in the oddest way, a momentary revulsion. + "So you'd have reason to know if you had led the life that we have! Never + to have had really enough—I mean to do just the few simple things + we've wanted; never to have had the sinews of war, I suppose you'd call + them, the funds for a campaign; to have felt every day and every hour the + hard eternal pinch and found the question of dollars and cents—and + so horridly few of them—mixed up with every experience, with every + impulse: that DOES make one mercenary, does make money seem a good beyond + all others; which it's quite natural it should! And it's why Linda's of + the opinion that a fortune's always a fortune. She knows all about that of + your nephew, how it's invested, how it may be expected to increase, + exactly on what sort of footing it would enable her to live. She has + decided that it's enough, and enough is as good as a feast. She thinks she + could lead him by the nose, and I dare say she could. She'll of course + make him live in these countries; she hasn't the slightest intention of + casting her pearls—but basta!" said my friend. "I think she has + views upon London, because in England he can hunt and shoot, and that will + make him leave her more or less to herself." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know about his leaving her to herself, but it strikes me that he + would like the rest of that matter very much," I returned. "That's not at + all a bad programme even from Archie's point of view." + </p> + <p> + "It's no use thinking of princes," she pursued as if she hadn't heard me. + "They're most of them more in want of money even than we. Therefore + 'greatness' is out of the question—we really recognised that at an + early stage. Your nephew's exactly the sort of young man we've always + built upon—if he wasn't, so impossibly, your nephew. From head to + foot he was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter when + she recognised him on the spot! One's enough of a prince to-day when one's + the right American: such a wonderful price is set on one's not being the + wrong! It does as well as anything and it's a great simplification. If you + don't believe me go to London and see." She had come with me out to the + road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and we stood there in the + sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, bidding her good-night, I couldn't + but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, poor Linda!" + </p> + <p> + "Oh she'll live to do better," said Mrs. Pallant. + </p> + <p> + "How can she do better—since you've described all she finds Archie + as perfection?" + </p> + <p> + She knew quite what she meant. "Ah better for HIM!" + </p> + <p> + I still had her hand—I still sought her eyes. "How came it you could + throw me over—such a woman as you?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over how could I do this for + you?" On which, disengaging herself, she turned quickly away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her + question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and the + real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the colour + of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa—a walk of half an + hour—in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in + which she had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have + made sitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me up + after I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was useless + to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie had not + reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensed with. + I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possible mischances. + Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake, that is of his + continued absence from Baveno—Mrs. Pallant would already have + dispatched me a messenger. It was foolish moreover to suppose anything + could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno by water to + rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and more than + sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had unlimited + confidence in his power to take care of himself in a much tighter place. I + went to my room at last; his own was at some distance, the people of the + hotel not having been able—it was the height of the autumn season—to + make us contiguous. Before I went to bed I had occasion to ring for a + servant, and I then learned by a chance enquiry that my nephew had + returned an hour before and had gone straight to his own quarters. I + hadn't supposed he could come in without my seeing him—I was + wandering about the saloons and terraces—and it had not occurred to + me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now—I was so + anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for evidently + he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity, and I slept + even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking our encounter—for + if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have looked for me in my + room—was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him would really + have come off. What had she said to him? What strong measures had she + taken? That almost morbid resolution I still seemed to hear the ring of + pointed to conceivable extremities that I shrank from considering. She had + spoken of these things while we parted there as something she would do for + me; but I had made the mental comment in walking away from her that she + hadn't done it yet. It wouldn't truly be done till Archie had truly backed + out. Perhaps it was done by this time; his avoiding me seemed almost a + proof. That was what I thought of most of the night. I spent a + considerable part of it at my window, looking out to the couchant Alps. + HAD he thought better of it?—was he making up his mind to think + better of it? There was a strange contradiction in the matter; there were + in fact more contradictions than ever. I had taken from Louisa what she + told me of Linda, and yet that other idea made me ashamed of my nephew. I + was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss of a great chance, if loss it + was to be; and yet I hoped her mother's grand treachery—I didn't + know what to call it—had been at least, to her lover, thoroughgoing. + It would need strong action in that lady to justify his retreat. For him + too I was sorry—if she had made on him the impression she desired. + Once or twice I was on the point of getting into my dressing-gown and + going forth to condole with him. I was sure he too had jumped up from his + bed and was looking out of his window at the everlasting hills. + </p> + <p> + But I am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast he + showed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources that later + experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterly resource + of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we think that too + simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with an effect + much less baffling. My young man looked not in the least as if he had lain + awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what he had done + after my premature departure—I explained this by saying I had been + tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wanted to go to bed—he + replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about the place; I like it + better than this one. We had an awfully jolly time on the water. <i>I</i> + wasn't in the least fagged." I didn't worry him with questions; it struck + me as gross to try to probe his secret. The only indication he gave was on + my saying after breakfast that I should go over again to see our friends + and my appearing to take for granted he would be glad to come too. Then he + let fall that he'd stop at Stresa—he had paid them such a tremendous + visit; also that he had arrears of letters. There was a freshness in his + scruples about the length of his visits, and I knew something about his + correspondence, which consisted entirely of twenty pages every week from + his mother. But he soothed my anxiety so little that it was really this + yearning that carried me back to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, + and as I got into it he stood watching me from the porch of the hotel with + his hands in his pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the + poor youth's face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly + foolish even, to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as + I observed him, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better + come with me" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my + call. I said to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it + wouldn't take much to bring him back. + </p> + <p> + The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in a + summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at large + had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on the + lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the Borromean + Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in the summer-house, + but she was there alone. On finding this the case I stopped short, rather + awkwardly—I might have been, from the way I suddenly felt, an + unmasked hypocrite, a proved conspirator against her security and honour. + But there was no embarrassment in lovely Linda; she looked up with a cry + of pleasure from the book she was reading and held out her hand with + engaging frankness. I felt again as if I had no right to that favour, + which I pretended not to have noticed. This gave no chill, however, to her + pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestry off the bench so that I might + sit down; she praised the place as a delightful shady corner. She had + never been fresher, fairer, kinder; she made her mother's awful talk about + her a hideous dream. She told me her mother was coming to join her; she + had remained indoors to write a letter. One couldn't write out there, + though it was so nice in other respects: the table refused to stand firm. + They too then had pretexts of letters between them—I judged this a + token that the situation was tense. It was the only one nevertheless that + Linda gave: like Archie she was young enough to carry it off. She had been + used to seeing us always together, yet she made no comment on my having + come over without him. I waited in vain for her to speak of this—it + would only be natural; her omission couldn't but have a sense. At last I + remarked that my nephew was very unsociable that morning; I had expected + him to join me, but he hadn't seemed to see the attraction. + </p> + <p> + "I'm very glad. You can tell him that if you like," said Linda Pallant. + </p> + <p> + I wondered at her. "If I tell him he'll come at once." + </p> + <p> + "Then don't tell him; I don't want him to come. He stayed too long last + night," she went on, "and kept me out on the water till I don't know what + o'clock. That sort of thing isn't done here, you know, and every one was + shocked when we came back—or rather, you see, when we didn't! I + begged him to bring me in, but he wouldn't. When we did return—I + almost had to take the oars myself—I felt as if every one had been + sitting up to time us, to stare at us. It was awfully awkward." + </p> + <p> + These words much impressed me; and as I have treated the reader to most of + the reflexions—some of them perhaps rather morbid—in which I + indulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother, I may as well + complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whether Linda—candid + and accomplished maiden—entertained the graceful thought of + strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove he had + "compromised" her. "Ah no doubt that was the reason he had a bad + conscience last evening!" I made answer. "When he came back to Stresa he + sneaked off to his room; he wouldn't look me in the face." + </p> + <p> + But my young lady was not to be ruffled. "Mamma was so vexed that she took + him apart and gave him a scolding. And to punish ME she sent me straight + to bed. She has very old-fashioned ideas—haven't you, mamma?" she + added, looking over my head at Mrs. Pallant, who had just come in behind + me. + </p> + <p> + I forget how her mother met Linda's appeal; Louisa stood there with two + letters, sealed and addressed, in her hand. She greeted me gaily and then + asked her daughter if she were possessed of postage-stamps. Linda + consulted a well-worn little pocket-book and confessed herself destitute; + whereupon her mother gave her the letters with the request that she would + go into the hotel, buy the proper stamps at the office, carefully affix + them and put the letters into the box. She was to pay for the stamps, not + have them put on the bill—a preference for which Mrs. Pallant gave + reasons. I had bought some at Stresa that morning and was on the point of + offering them when, apparently having guessed my intention, the elder lady + silenced me with a look. Linda announced without reserve that she hadn't + money and Louisa then fumbled for a franc. When she had found and bestowed + it the girl kissed her before going off with the letters. + </p> + <p> + "Darling mother, you haven't any too many of them, have you?" she + murmured; and she gave me, sidelong, as she left us, the prettiest + half-comical, half-pitiful smile. + </p> + <p> + "She's amazing—she's amazing," said Mrs. Pallant as we looked at + each other. + </p> + <p> + "Does she know what you've done?" + </p> + <p> + "She knows I've done something and she's making up her mind what it is. + She'll satisfy herself in the course of the next twenty-four hours—if + your nephew doesn't come back. I think I can promise you he won't." + </p> + <p> + "And won't she ask you?" + </p> + <p> + "Never!" + </p> + <p> + "Shan't you tell her? Can you sit down together in this summer-house, this + divine day, with such a dreadful thing as that between you?" + </p> + <p> + My question found my friend quite ready. "Don't you remember what I told + you about our relations—that everything was implied between us and + nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in common—our perpetual + worldliness, our always looking out for chances—are not the sort of + thing that can be uttered conveniently between persons who like to keep up + forms, as we both do: so that, always, if we've understood each other it + has been enough. We shall understand each other now, as we've always done, + and nothing will be changed. There has always been something between us + that couldn't be talked about." + </p> + <p> + "Certainly, she's amazing—she's amazing," I repeated; "but so are + you." And then I asked her what she had said to my boy. + </p> + <p> + She seemed surprised. "Hasn't he told you?" + </p> + <p> + "No, and he never will." + </p> + <p> + "I'm glad of that," she answered simply. + </p> + <p> + "But I'm not sure he won't come back. He didn't this morning, but he had + already half a mind to." + </p> + <p> + "That's your imagination," my companion said with her fine authority. "If + you knew what I told him you'd be sure." + </p> + <p> + "And you won't let me know?" + </p> + <p> + "Never, dear friend." + </p> + <p> + "And did he believe you?" + </p> + <p> + "Time will show—but I think so." + </p> + <p> + "And how did you make it plausible to him that you should take so + unnatural a course?" + </p> + <p> + For a moment she said nothing, only looking at me. Then at last: "I told + him the truth." + </p> + <p> + "The truth?" + </p> + <p> + "Take him away—take him away!" she broke out. "That's why I got rid + of Linda, to tell you you mustn't stay—you must leave Stresa + to-morrow. This time it's you who must do it. I can't fly from you again—it + costs too much!" And she smiled strangely. + </p> + <p> + "Don't be afraid; don't be afraid. We'll break camp again to-morrow—ah + me! But I want to go myself," I added. I took her hand in farewell, but + spoke again while I held it. "The way you put it, about Linda, was very + bad?" + </p> + <p> + "It was horrible." + </p> + <p> + I turned away—I felt indeed that I couldn't stay. She kept me from + going to the hotel, as I might meet Linda coming back, which I was far + from wishing to do, and showed me another way into the road. Then she + turned round to meet her daughter and spend the rest of the morning there + with her, spend it before the bright blue lake and the snowy crests of the + Alps. When I reached Stresa again I found my young man had gone off to + Milan—to see the cathedral, the servant said—leaving a message + for me to the effect that, as he shouldn't be back for a day or two, + though there were numerous trains, he had taken a few clothes. The next + day I received telegram-notice that he had determined to go on to Venice + and begged I would forward the rest of his luggage. "Please don't come + after me," this missive added; "I want to be alone; I shall do no harm." + That sounded pathetic to me, in the light of what I knew, and I was glad + to leave him to his own devices. He proceeded to Venice and I re-crossed + the Alps. For several weeks after this I expected to discover that he had + rejoined Mrs. Pallant; but when we met that November in Paris I saw he had + nothing to hide from me save indeed the secret of what our extraordinary + friend had said to him. This he concealed from me then and has concealed + ever since. He returned to America before Christmas—when I felt the + crisis over. I've never again seen the wronger of my youth. About a year + after our more recent adventure her daughter Linda married, in London, a + young Englishman the heir to a large fortune, a fortune acquired by his + father in some prosaic but flourishing industry. Mrs. Gimingham's admired + photographs—such is Linda's present name—may be obtained from + the principal stationers. I am convinced her mother was sincere. My nephew + has not even yet changed his state, my sister at last thinks it high time. + I put before her as soon as I next saw her the incidents here recorded, + and—such is the inconsequence of women—nothing can exceed her + reprobation of Louisa Pallant. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Louisa Pallant, by Henry James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUISA PALLANT *** + +***** This file should be named 8081-h.htm or 8081-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/0/8/8081/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Louisa Pallant + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8081] +Posting Date: July 24, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUISA PALLANT *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + + + + +LOUISA PALLANT + +By Henry James + + + + +I + +Never say you know the last words about any human heart! I was once +treated to a revelation which startled and touched me in the nature of a +person with whom I had been acquainted--well, as I supposed--for years, +whose character I had had good reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate and +in regard to whom I flattered myself I had nothing more to learn. + +It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, nearly ten years ago, +one beautiful night toward the end of July. I had come to the place that +day from Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly occupied in +waiting for my young nephew, the only son of my sister, who had been +entrusted to my care by a very fond mother for the summer--I was +expected to show him Europe, only the very best of it--and was on his +way from Paris to join me. The excellent band discoursed music not too +abstruse, while the air was filled besides with the murmur of different +languages, the smoke of many cigars, the creak on the gravel of the +gardens of strolling shoes and the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. There +were a hundred people walking about, there were some in clusters at +little tables and many on benches and rows of chairs, watching +the others as if they had paid for the privilege and were rather +disappointed. I was among these last; I sat by myself, smoking my cigar +and thinking of nothing very particular while families and couples +passed and repassed me. + +I scarce know how long I had sat when I became aware of a recognition +which made my meditations definite. It was on my own part, and the +object of it was a lady who moved to and fro, unconscious of my +observation, with a young girl at her side. I hadn't seen her for ten +years, and what first struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. Henry +Pallant, but that the girl who was with her was remarkably pretty--or +rather first of all that every one who passed appeared extremely to +admire. This led me also to notice the young lady myself, and her +charming face diverted my attention for some time from that of her +companion. The latter, moreover, though it was night, wore a thin light +veil which made her features vague. The couple slowly walked and +walked, but though they were very quiet and decorous, and also very well +dressed, they seemed to have no friends. Every one observed but no +one addressed them; they appeared even themselves to exchange very few +words. Moreover they bore with marked composure and as if they were +thoroughly used to it the attention they excited. I am afraid it +occurred to me to take for granted that they were of an artful intention +and that if they hadn't been the elder lady would have handed the +younger over a little less to public valuation and not have sought so to +conceal her own face. Perhaps this question came into my mind too easily +just then--in view of my prospective mentorship to my nephew. If I was +to show him only the best of Europe I should have to be very careful +about the people he should meet--especially the ladies--and the +relations he should form. I suspected him of great innocence and was +uneasy about my office. Was I completely relieved and reassured when +I became aware that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that the +girl was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child--Linda grown up +to charming beauty? + +The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is +perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a +while--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I was +anxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a great +resort of the English--the London season took up its tale there toward +the first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as that +Louisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that she +"cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and would +be likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there. This +supposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knew +there is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated. You +will see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar I +thought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should have +rushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we had +never really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance that--after the +first soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put us quite right +with each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of her +heartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. I +had forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to have +married a girl who had in her to take back her given word and break +a fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise, as it +pitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then--on +the occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each other in the +eyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the wickedness +of the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure. +I knew by that time what she had given out--that I had driven her off by +my insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, before +she had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-day +a ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it that she knew +perfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, I +believe, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows it +mainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the case if--let +the solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant's +fortunes; the years went by for me in my own country, whereas she led +her life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband's +death--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I heard of +her from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but on each +occasion in a different place. She drifted from country to country, and +if she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it could never +occur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be called, would +have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horribly +worldly" I thought immediately of the object of my early passion. I +imagined she had debts, and when I now at last made up my mind to recall +myself to her it was present to me that she might ask me to lend her +money. More than anything else, however, at this time of day, I was +sorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate as a deterrent. + +She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing as +we stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had +dropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she +had been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting down +with her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little, +the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before +her. She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't +imagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and extending +her hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what a delight!" +If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own line +she thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She was +cordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was very +glad to see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that she +gave me neither then nor later any sign of a desire to contract a loan. +She had scant means--that I learned--yet seemed for the moment able to +pay her way. I took the empty chair and we remained in talk for an hour. +After a while she made me sit at her other side, next her daughter, whom +she wished to know me--to love me--as one of their oldest friends. "It +goes back, back, back, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant; "and of course +she remembers you as a child." Linda smiled all sweetly and blankly, and +I saw she remembered me not a whit. When her mother threw out that they +had often talked about me she failed to take it up, though she looked +extremely nice. Looking nice was her strong point; she was prettier even +than her mother had been. She was such a little lady that she made me +ashamed of having doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of her +position in the scale of propriety. Her appearance seemed to say that +if she had no acquaintances it was because she didn't want them--because +nobody there struck her as attractive: there wasn't the slightest +difficulty about her choosing her friends. Linda Pallant, young as +she was, and fresh and fair and charming, gentle and sufficiently shy, +looked somehow exclusive--as if the dust of the common world had never +been meant to besprinkle her. She was of thinner consistency than her +mother and clearly not a young woman of professions--except in so far as +she was committed to an interest in you by her bright pure candid smile. +No girl who had such a lovely way of parting her lips could pass for +designing. + +As I sat between the pair I felt I had been taken possession of and that +for better or worse my stay at Homburg would be intimately associated +with theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and expressed +unlimited interest in each other's history since our last meeting. I +mightn't judge of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quite +overflowed. She let me see at any rate that her life had been a good +deal what I supposed, though the terms she employed to describe it were +less crude than those of my thought. She confessed they had drifted, +she and her daughter, and were drifting still. Her narrative rambled +and took a wrong turn, a false flight, or two, as I thought Linda +noted, while she sat watching the passers, in a manner that betrayed no +consciousness of their attention, without coming to her mother's aid. +Once or twice Mrs. Pallant made me rather feel a cross-questioner, which +I had had no intention of being. I took it that if the girl never put in +a word it was because she had perfect confidence in her parent's ability +to come out straight. It was suggested to me, I scarcely knew how, that +this confidence between the two ladies went to a great length; that +their union of thought, their system of reciprocal divination, was +remarkable, and that they probably seldom needed to resort to the clumsy +and in some cases dangerous expedient of communicating by sound. I +suppose I made this reflexion not all at once--it was not wholly the +result of that first meeting. I was with them constantly for the next +several days and my impressions had time to clarify. + +I do remember, however, that it was on this first evening that Archie's +name came up. She attributed her own stay at Homburg to no refined nor +exalted motive--didn't put it that she was there from force of habit or +because a high medical authority had ordered her to drink the waters; +she frankly admitted the reason of her visit to have been simply that +she didn't know where else to turn. But she appeared to assume that +my behaviour rested on higher grounds and even that it required +explanation, the place being frivolous and modern--devoid of that +interest of antiquity which I had ever made so much of. "Don't you +remember--ever so long ago--that you wouldn't look at anything in Europe +that wasn't a thousand years old? Well, as we advance in life I suppose +we don't think that quite such a charm." And when I mentioned that I had +arrived because the place was as good as another for awaiting my nephew +she exclaimed: "Your nephew--what nephew? He must have come up of +late." I answered that his name was Archie Parker and that he was modern +indeed; he was to attain legal manhood in a few months and was in Europe +for the first time. My last news of him had been from Paris and I was +expecting to hear further from one day to the other. His father was +dead, and though a selfish bachelor, little versed in the care of +children, I was considerably counted on by his mother to see that he +didn't smoke nor flirt too much, nor yet tumble off an Alp. + +Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother was my sister +Charlotte, whom she spoke of familiarly, though I knew she had scarce +seen her. Then in a moment it came to her which of the Parkers Charlotte +had married; she remembered the family perfectly from the old New York +days--"that disgustingly rich set." She said it was very nice having the +boy come out that way to my care; to which I replied that it was very +nice for the boy. She pronounced the advantage rather mine--I ought to +have had children; there was something so parental about me and I would +have brought them up so well. She could make an allusion like that--to +all that might have been and had not been--without a gleam of guilt +in her eye; and I foresaw that before I left the place I should have +confided to her that though I detested her and was very glad we had +fallen out, yet our old relations had left me no heart for marrying +another woman. If I had remained so single and so sterile the fault was +nobody's but hers. She asked what I meant to do with my nephew--to which +I replied that it was much more a question of what he would do with +me. She wished to know if he were a nice young man and had brothers and +sisters and any particular profession. I assured her I had really seen +little of him; I believed him to be six feet high and of tolerable +parts. He was an only son, but there was a little sister at home, a +delicate, rather blighted child, demanding all the mother's care. + +"So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy, +doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant. + +"Greater? I'm sure I don't know." + +"Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all the +mother has. So that being in your hands--" + +"Oh I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you mean that," I returned. + +"Well, WE won't kill him, shall we, Linda?" my friend went on with a +laugh. + +"I don't know--perhaps we shall!" smiled the girl. + + + + +II + +I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which was +enhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices--flowers and photographs +and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old brocade +flung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again at +the Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburg +fashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days this +revived familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quite +achieving it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for me +and the conditions of our life were soothing--the feeling of summer and +shade and music and leisure in the German gardens and woods, where we +strolled and sat and gossiped; to which may be added a vague sociable +sense that among people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly not +irresistible we kept quite to ourselves. We were on the footing of old +friends who still had in regard to each other discoveries to make. We +knew each other's nature but didn't know each other's experience; so +that when Mrs. Pallant related to me what she had been "up to," as I +called it, for so many years, the former knowledge attached a hundred +interpretative footnotes--as if I had been editing an author who +presented difficulties--to the interesting page. There was nothing new +to me in the fact that I didn't esteem her, but there was relief in my +finding that this wasn't necessary at Homburg and that I could like her +in spite of it. She struck me, in the oddest way, as both improved +and degenerate; the two processes, in her nature, might have gone on +together. She was battered and world-worn and, spiritually speaking, +vulgarised; something fresh had rubbed off her--it even included the +vivacity of her early desire to do the best thing for herself--and +something rather stale had rubbed on. At the same time she betrayed +a scepticism, and that was rather becoming, for it had quenched the +eagerness of her prime, the mercenary principle I had so suffered from. +She had grown weary and detached, and since she affected me as more +impressed with the evil of the world than with the good, this was a +gain; in other words her accretion of indifference, if not of cynicism, +showed a softer surface than that of her old ambitions. Furthermore +I had to recognise that her devotion to her daughter was a kind of +religion; she had done the very best possible for Linda. + +Linda was curious, Linda was interesting; I've seen girls I liked +better--charming as this one might be--but have never seen one who for +the hour you were with her (the impression passed somehow when she +was out of sight) occupied you so completely. I can best describe the +attention she provoked by saying that she struck you above all things +as a felicitous FINAL product--after the fashion of some plant or some +fruit, some waxen orchid or some perfect peach. She was clearly the +result of a process of calculation, a process patiently educative, a +pressure exerted, and all artfully, so that she should reach a high +point. + +This high point had been the star of her mother's heaven--it hung +before her so unquenchably--and had shed the only light (in default of a +better) that was to shine on the poor lady's path. It stood her instead +of every other ideal. The very most and the very best--that was what the +girl had been led on to achieve; I mean of course, since no real miracle +had been wrought, the most and the best she was capable of. She was as +pretty, as graceful, as intelligent, as well-bred, as well-informed, +as well-dressed, as could have been conceived for her; her music, her +singing, her German, her French, her English, her step, her tone, her +glance, her manner, everything in her person and movement, from the +shade and twist of her hair to the way you saw her finger-nails were +pink when she raised her hand, had been carried so far that one found +one's self accepting them as the very measure of young grace. I regarded +her thus as a model, yet it was a part of her perfection that she had +none of the stiffness of a pattern. If she held the observation it was +because you wondered where and when she would break down; but she never +broke down, either in her French accent or in her role of educated +angel. + +After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly his greatest resource, +and all the world knows why a party of four is more convenient than a +party of three. My nephew had kept me waiting a week, with a serenity +all his own; but this very coolness was a help to harmony--so long, that +is, as I didn't lose my temper with it. I didn't, for the most part, +because my young man's unperturbed acceptance of the most various forms +of good fortune had more than anything else the effect of amusing me. I +had seen little of him for the last three or four years; I wondered what +his impending majority would have made of him--he didn't at all carry +himself as if the wind of his fortune were rising--and I watched +him with a solicitude that usually ended in a joke. He was a tall +fresh-coloured youth, with a candid circular countenance and a love +of cigarettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed to more +strenuous studies. He was reassuringly natural, in a supercivilised age, +and I soon made up my mind that the formula of his character was in the +clearing of the inward scene by his so preordained lack of imagination. +If he was serene this was still further simplifying. After that I had +time to meditate on the line that divides the serene from the inane, the +simple from the silly. He wasn't clever; the fonder theory quite defied +our cultivation, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice; but on +the other hand it struck me his want of wit might be a good defensive +weapon. It wasn't the sort of density that would let him in, but +the sort that would keep him out. By which I don't mean that he had +shortsighted suspicions, but that on the contrary imagination would +never be needed to save him, since she would never put him in danger. +He was in short a well-grown well-washed muscular young American, whose +extreme salubrity might have made him pass for conceited. If he looked +pleased with himself it was only because he was pleased with life--as +well he might be, with the fortune that awaited the stroke of his +twenty-first year--and his big healthy independent person was +an inevitable part of that. I am bound to add that he was +accommodating--for which I was grateful. His habits were active, but +he didn't insist on my adopting them and he made numerous and generous +sacrifices for my society. When I say he made them for mine I must duly +remember that mine and that of Mrs. Pallant and Linda were now very +much the same thing. He was willing to sit and smoke for hours under the +trees or, adapting his long legs to the pace of his three companions, +stroll through the nearer woods of the charming little hill-range of the +Taunus to those rustic Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk under +a trellis. Mrs. Pallant took a great interest in him; she made him, with +his easy uncle, a subject of discourse; she pronounced him a delightful +specimen, as a young gentleman of his period and country. She even +asked me the sort of "figure" his fortune might really amount to, and +professed a rage of envy when I told her what I supposed it to be. While +we were so occupied Archie, on his side, couldn't do less than converse +with Linda, nor to tell the truth did he betray the least inclination +for any different exercise. They strolled away together while their +elders rested; two or three times, in the evening, when the ballroom of +the Kursaal was lighted and dance-music played, they whirled over the +smooth floor in a waltz that stirred my memory. Whether it had the +same effect on Mrs. Pallant's I know not: she held her peace. We had on +certain occasions our moments, almost our half-hours, of unembarrassed +silence while our young companions disported themselves. But if at other +times her enquiries and comments were numerous on this article of my +ingenuous charge, that might very well have passed for a courteous +recognition of the frequent admiration I expressed for Linda--an +admiration that drew from her, I noticed, but scant direct response. +I was struck thus with her reserve when I spoke of her daughter--my +remarks produced so little of a maternal flutter. Her detachment, her +air of having no fatuous illusions and not being blinded by prejudice, +seemed to me at times to savour of affectation. Either she answered me +with a vague and impatient sigh and changed the subject, or else she +said before doing so: "Oh yes, yes, she's a very brilliant creature. +She ought to be: God knows what I've done for her!" The reader will have +noted my fondness, in all cases, for the explanations of things; as an +example of which I had my theory here that she was disappointed in the +girl. Where then had her special calculation failed? As she couldn't +possibly have wished her prettier or more pleasing, the pang must have +been for her not having made a successful use of her gifts. Had she +expected her to "land" a prince the day after leaving the schoolroom? +There was after all plenty of time for this, with Linda but +two-and-twenty. It didn't occur to me to wonder if the source of her +mother's tepidity was that the young lady had not turned out so nice a +nature as she had hoped, because in the first place Linda struck me +as perfectly innocent, and because in the second I wasn't paid, in +the French phrase, for supposing Louisa Pallant much concerned on that +score. The last hypothesis I should have invoked was that of private +despair at bad moral symptoms. And in relation to Linda's nature I had +before me the daily spectacle of her manner with my nephew. It was as +charming as it could be without betrayal of a desire to lead him on. She +was as familiar as a cousin, but as a distant one--a cousin who had been +brought up to observe degrees. She was so much cleverer than Archie +that she couldn't help laughing at him, but she didn't laugh enough to +exclude variety, being well aware, no doubt, that a woman's cleverness +most shines in contrast with a man's stupidity when she pretends to take +that stupidity for her law. Linda Pallant moreover was not a chatterbox; +as she knew the value of many things she knew the value of intervals. +There were a good many in the conversation of these young persons; +my nephew's own speech, to say nothing of his thought, abounding in +comfortable lapses; so that I sometimes wondered how their association +was kept at that pitch of continuity of which it gave the impression. +It was friendly enough, evidently, when Archie sat near her--near +enough for low murmurs, had such risen to his lips--and watched her with +interested eyes and with freedom not to try too hard to make himself +agreeable. She had always something in hand--a flower in her tapestry +to finish, the leaves of a magazine to cut, a button to sew on her glove +(she carried a little work-bag in her pocket and was a person of the +daintiest habits), a pencil to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbook +which she rested on her knee. When we were indoors--mainly then at her +mother's modest rooms--she had always the resource of her piano, of +which she was of course a perfect mistress. + +These pursuits supported her, they helped her to an assurance under +such narrow inspection--I ended by rebuking Archie for it; I told him he +stared the poor girl out of countenance--and she sought further relief +in smiling all over the place. When my young man's eyes shone at her +those of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to the trees and +clouds and other surrounding objects, including her mother and me. +Sometimes she broke into a sudden embarrassed happy pointless laugh. +When she wandered off with him she looked back at us in a manner that +promised it wasn't for long and that she was with us still in spirit. +If I liked her I had therefore my good reason: it was many a day since a +pretty girl had had the air of taking me so much into account. Sometimes +when they were so far away as not to disturb us she read aloud a little +to Mr. Archie. I don't know where she got her books--I never provided +them, and certainly he didn't. He was no reader and I fear he often +dozed. + + + + +III + +I remember the first time--it was at the end of about ten days of +this--that Mrs. Pallant remarked to me: "My dear friend, you're quite +AMAZING! You behave for all the world as if you were perfectly ready to +accept certain consequences." She nodded in the direction of our young +companions, but I nevertheless put her at the pains of saying +what consequences she meant. "What consequences? Why the very same +consequences that ensued when you and I first became acquainted." + +I hesitated, but then, looking her in the eyes, said: "Do you mean she'd +throw him over?" + +"You're not kind, you're not generous," she replied with a quick colour. +"I'm giving you a warning." + +"You mean that my boy may fall in love with your girl?" + +"Certainly. It looks even as if the harm might be already done." + +"Then your warning comes too late," I significantly smiled. "But why do +you call it a harm?" + +"Haven't you any sense of the rigour of your office?" she asked. "Is +that what his mother has sent him out to you for: that you shall find +him the first wife you can pick up, that you shall let him put his head +into the noose the day after his arrival?" + +"Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind! I know moreover that +his mother doesn't want him to marry young. She holds it the worst of +mistakes, she feels that at that age a man never really chooses. He +doesn't choose till he has lived a while, till he has looked about and +compared." + +"And what do you think then yourself?" + +"I should like to say I regard the fact of falling in love, at whatever +age, as in itself an act of selection. But my being as I am at this time +of day would contradict me too much." + +"Well then, you're too primitive. You ought to leave this place +tomorrow." + +"So as not to see Archie fall--?" + +"You ought to fish him out now--from where he HAS fallen--and take him +straight away." + +I wondered a little. "Do you think he's in very far?" + +"If I were his mother I know what I should think. I can put myself in +her place--I'm not narrow-minded. I know perfectly well how she must +regard such a question." + +"And don't you know," I returned, "that in America that's not thought +important--the way the mother regards it?" + +Mrs. Pallant had a pause--as if I mystified or vexed her. "Well, we're +not in America. We happen to be here." + +"No; my poor sister's up to her neck in New York." + +"I'm almost capable of writing to her to come out," said Mrs. Pallant. + +"You ARE warning me," I cried, "but I hardly know of what! It seems +to me my responsibility would begin only at the moment your daughter +herself should seem in danger." + +"Oh you needn't mind that--I'll take care of Linda." + +But I went on. "If you think she's in danger already I'll carry him off +to-morrow." + +"It would be the best thing you could do." + +"I don't know--I should be very sorry to act on a false alarm. I'm very +well here; I like the place and the life and your society. Besides, it +doesn't strike me that--on her side--there's any real symptom." + +She looked at me with an air I had never seen in her face, and if I +had puzzled her she repaid me in kind. "You're very annoying. You don't +deserve what I'd fain do for you." + +What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took up +the subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we should +assume that a girl like Linda--brilliant enough to make one of the +greatest--would fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. Might +I enquire if her mother had won a confession from her, if she had +stammered out her secret? Mrs. Pallant made me, on this, the point +that they had no need to tell each other such things--they hadn't lived +together twenty years in such intimacy for nothing. To which I returned +that I had guessed as much, but that there might be an exception for +a great occasion like the present. If Linda had shown nothing it was a +sign that for HER the occasion wasn't great; and I mentioned that Archie +had spoken to me of the young lady only to remark casually and rather +patronisingly, after his first encounter with her, that she was a +regular little flower. (The little flower was nearly three years older +than himself.) Apart from this he hadn't alluded to her and had taken +up no allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me again--for which I +was prepared--that I was quite too primitive; after which she said: "We +needn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, but I happen to know--how +I obtained my knowledge isn't important--that the moment Mr. Parker +should propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a +detail worth mentioning to you." + +I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him. +I'll look into the matter tonight." + +"Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finer +view. "Remove him quickly--that's the only thing." + +I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too +summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds; +and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to +change my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with +my middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So +I temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as a +son-in-law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman." + +"My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with an +assurance that struck me. + +The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly! +But it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU." + +I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when she +spoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw. +We've been here a month--it will have served our purpose." + +"Mercy on us, that will be a bore!" I protested; and for the rest of +the evening, till we separated--our conversation had taken place after +dinner at the Kursaal--she said little, preserving a subdued and almost +injured air. This somehow didn't appeal to me, since it was absurd that +Louisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put me in the wrong. If +ever a woman had been in the wrong herself--! I had even no need to go +into that. Archie and I, at all events, usually attended the ladies back +to their own door--they lived in a street of minor accommodation at a +certain distance from the Rooms--where we parted for the night late, +on the big cobblestones, in the little sleeping German town, under +the closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy interiors, our cheerful +English partings resounded. On this occasion indeed they rather +languished; the question that had come up for me with Mrs. Pallant +appeared--and by no intention of mine--to have brushed the young couple +with its chill. Archie and Linda too struck me as conscious and dumb. + +As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew I passed my hand into his +arm and put to him, by no roundabout approach, the question of whether +he were in serious peril of love. + +"I don't know, I don't know--really, uncle, I don't know!" was, however, +all the satisfaction I could extract from the youth, who hadn't the +smallest vein of introspection. He mightn't know, but before we reached +the inn--we had a few more words on the subject--it seemed to me that +_I_ did. His mind wasn't formed to accommodate at one time many subjects +of thought, but Linda Pallant certainly constituted for the moment its +principal furniture. She pervaded his consciousness, she solicited +his curiosity, she associated herself, in a manner as yet informal and +undefined, with his future. I could see that she held, that she beguiled +him as no one had ever done. I didn't betray to him, however, that +perception, and I spent my night a prey to the consciousness that, after +all, it had been none of my business to provide him with the sense of +being captivated. To put him in relation with a young enchantress was +the last thing his mother had expected of me or that I had expected of +myself. Moreover it was quite my opinion that he himself was too young +to be a judge of enchantresses. Mrs. Pallant was right and I had given +high proof of levity in regarding her, with her beautiful daughter, as +a "resource." There were other resources--one of which WOULD be most +decidedly to clear out. What did I know after all about the girl except +that I rejoiced to have escaped from marrying her mother? That mother, +it was true, was a singular person, and it was strange her conscience +should have begun to fidget in advance of my own. It was strange she +should so soon have felt Archie's peril, and even stranger that she +should have then wished to "save" him. The ways of women were infinitely +subtle, and it was no novelty to me that one never knew where they would +turn up. As I haven't hesitated in this report to expose the irritable +side of my own nature I shall confess that I even wondered if my old +friend's solicitude hadn't been a deeper artifice. Wasn't it possibly a +plan of her own for making sure of my young man--though I didn't quite +see the logic of it? If she regarded him, which she might in view of his +large fortune, as a great catch, mightn't she have arranged this little +comedy, in their personal interest, with the girl? + +That possibility at any rate only made it a happier thought that I +should win my companion to some curiosity about other places. There were +many of course much more worth his attention than Homburg. In the course +of the morning--it was after our early luncheon--I walked round to Mrs. +Pallant's to let her know I was ready to take action; but even while I +went I again felt the unlikelihood of the part attributed by my fears +and by the mother's own, so far as they had been roused, to Linda. +Certainly if she was such a girl as these fears represented her she +would fly at higher game. It was with an eye to high game, Mrs. Pallant +had frankly admitted to me, that she had been trained, and such an +education, to say nothing of such a performer, justified a hope of +greater returns. A young American, the fruit of scant "modelling," who +could give her nothing but pocket-money, was a very moderate prize, +and if she had been prepared to marry for ambition--there was no such +hardness in her face or tone, but then there never is--her mark would +be inevitably a "personage" quelconque. I was received at my friend's +lodging with the announcement that she had left Homburg with her +daughter half an hour before. The good woman who had entertained the +pair professed to know nothing of their movements beyond the fact that +they had gone to Frankfort, where, however, it was her belief that they +didn't intend to remain. They were evidently travelling beyond. Sudden, +their decision to move? Oh yes, the matter of a moment. They must have +spent the night in packing, they had so many things and such pretty +ones; and their poor maid, all the morning, had scarce had time to +swallow her coffee. But they clearly were ladies accustomed to come and +go. It didn't matter--with such rooms as hers she never wanted: there +was a new family coming in at three. + + + + +IV + +This piece of strategy left me staring and made me, I must confess, +quite furious. My only consolation was that Archie, when I told him, +looked as blank as myself, and that the trick touched him more nearly, +for I was not now in love with Louisa. We agreed that we required an +explanation and we pretended to expect one the next day in the shape of +a letter satisfactory even to the point of being apologetic. When I say +"we" pretended I mean that I did, for my suspicion that he knew what had +been on foot--through an arrangement with Linda--lasted only a moment. +If his resentment was less than my own his surprise was equally great. +I had been willing to bolt, but I felt slighted by the ease with which +Mrs. Pallant had shown she could part with us. Archie professed no +sense of a grievance, because in the first place he was shy about it and +because in the second it was evidently not definite to him that he had +been encouraged--equipped as he was, I think, with no very particular +idea of what constituted encouragement. He was fresh from the wonderful +country in which there may between the ingenuous young be so little +question of "intentions." He was but dimly conscious of his own and +could by no means have told me whether he had been challenged or been +jilted. I didn't want to exasperate him, but when at the end of three +days more we were still without news of our late companions I observed +that it was very simple:--they must have been just hiding from us; they +thought us dangerous; they wished to avoid entanglements. They had found +us too attentive and wished not to raise false hopes. He appeared to +accept this explanation and even had the air--so at least I inferred +from his asking me no questions--of judging the matter might be delicate +for myself. The poor youth was altogether much mystified, and I smiled +at the image in his mind of Mrs. Pallant fleeing from his uncle's +importunities. We decided to leave Homburg, but if we didn't pursue our +fugitives it wasn't simply that we were ignorant of where they were. I +could have found that out with a little trouble, but I was deterred by +the reflexion that this would be Louisa's reasoning. She was a dreadful +humbug and her departure had been a provocation--I fear it was in that +stupid conviction that I made out a little independent itinerary with +Archie. I even believed we should learn where they were quite soon +enough, and that our patience--even my young man's--would be longer than +theirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of triumph when three +weeks later--we happened to be at Interlaken--he reported to me that he +had received a note from Miss Pallant. The form of this confidence was +his enquiring if there were particular reasons why we should longer +delay our projected visit to the Italian lakes. Mightn't the fear of the +hot weather, which was moreover at that season our native temperature, +cease to operate, the middle of September having arrived? I answered +that we would start on the morrow if he liked, and then, pleased +apparently that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his little +secret. He showed me his letter, which was a graceful natural +document--it covered with a few flowing strokes but a single page of +note-paper--not at all compromising to the young lady. If, however, it +was almost the apology I had looked for--save that this should have come +from the mother--it was not ostensibly in the least an invitation. It +mentioned casually--the mention was mainly in the words at the head +of her paper--that they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno; but it +consisted mainly of the expression of a regret that they had had so +abruptly to leave Homburg. Linda failed to say under what necessity they +had found themselves; she only hoped we hadn't judged them too harshly +and would accept "this hasty line" as a substitute for the omitted +good-bye. She also hoped our days were passing pleasantly and with the +same lovely weather that prevailed south of the Alps; and she remained +very sincerely and with the kindest remembrances--! + +The note contained no message from her mother, and it was open to me to +suppose, as I should prefer, either that Mrs. Pallant hadn't known she +was writing or that they wished to make us think she hadn't known. The +letter might pass as a common civility of the girl's to a person with +whom she had been on easy terms. It was, however, for something more +than this that my nephew took it; so at least I gathered from the +touching candour of his determination to go to Baveno. I judged it idle +to drag him another way; he had money in his own pocket and was quite +capable of giving me the slip. Yet--such are the sweet incongruities of +youth--when I asked him to what tune he had been thinking of Linda since +they left us in the lurch he replied: "Oh I haven't been thinking at +all! Why should I?" This fib was accompanied by an exorbitant blush. +Since he was to obey his young woman's signal I must equally make out +where it would take him, and one splendid morning we started over the +Simplon in a post-chaise. + +I represented to him successfully that it would be in much better taste +for us to alight at Stresa, which as every one knows is a resort +of tourists, also on the shore of the major lake, at about a mile's +distance from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we should have to +inhabit the same hotel as our friends, and this might be awkward in view +of a strained relation with them. Nothing would be easier than to go and +come between the two points, especially by the water, which would give +Archie a chance for unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at the +vision of a pair of oars; he pretended to take my plea for discretion +very seriously, and I could see that he had at once begun to calculate +opportunities for navigation with Linda. Our post-chaise--I had insisted +on easy stages and we were three days on the way--deposited us at Stresa +toward the middle of the afternoon, and it was within an amazingly short +time that I found myself in a small boat with my nephew, who pulled us +over to Baveno with vigorous strokes. I remember the sweetness of the +whole impression. I had had it before, but to my companion it was new, +and he thought it as pretty as the opera: the enchanting beauty of the +place and, hour, the stillness of the air and water, with the romantic +fantastic Borromean Islands set as great jewels in a crystal globe. We +disembarked at the steps by the garden-foot of the hotel, and somehow +it seemed a perfectly natural part of the lovely situation that I should +immediately become conscious of Mrs. Pallant and her daughter seated on +the terrace and quietly watching us. They had the air of expectation, +which I think we had counted on. I hadn't even asked Archie if he had +answered Linda's note; this was between themselves and in the way of +supervision I had done enough in coming with him. + +There is no doubt our present address, all round, lacked a little the +easiest grace--or at least Louisa's and mine did. I felt too much the +appeal of her exhibition to notice closely the style of encounter of the +young people. I couldn't get it out of my head, as I have sufficiently +indicated, that Mrs. Pallant was playing a game, and I'm afraid she saw +in my face that this suspicion had been the motive of my journey. I had +come there to find her out. The knowledge of my purpose couldn't help +her to make me very welcome, and that's why I speak of our meeting +constrainedly. We observed none the less all the forms, and the +admirable scene left us plenty to talk about. I made no reference before +Linda to the retreat from Homburg. This young woman looked even prettier +than she had done on the eve of that manoeuvre and gave no sign of an +awkward consciousness. She again so struck me as a charming clever girl +that I was freshly puzzled to know why we should get--or should have +got--into a tangle about her. People had to want to complicate a +situation to do it on so simple a pretext as that Linda was in every way +beautiful. This was the clear fact: so why shouldn't the presumptions +be in favour of every result of it? One of the effects of that cause, +on the spot, was that at the end of a very short time Archie proposed to +her to take a turn with him in his boat, which awaited us at the foot of +the steps. She looked at her mother with a smiling "May I, mamma?" and +Mrs. Pallant answered "Certainly, darling, if you're not afraid." At +this--I scarcely knew why--I sought the relief of laughter: it must have +affected me as comic that the girl's general competence should suffer +the imputation of that particular flaw. She gave me a quick slightly +sharp look as she turned away with my nephew; it appeared to challenge +me a little--"Pray what's the matter with YOU?" It was the first +expression of the kind I had ever seen in her face. Mrs. Pallant's +attention, on the other hand, rather strayed from me; after we had been +left there together she sat silent, not heeding me, looking at the lake +and mountains--at the snowy crests crowned with the flush of evening. +She seemed not even to follow our young companions as they got into +their boat and pushed off. For some minutes I respected her mood; I +walked slowly up and down the terrace and lighted a cigar, as she had +always permitted me to do at Homburg. I found in her, it was true, +rather a new air of weariness; her fine cold well-bred face was pale; +I noted in it new lines of fatigue, almost of age. At last I stopped in +front of her and--since she looked so sad--asked if she had been having +bad news. + +"The only bad news was when I learned--through your nephew's note to +Linda--that you were coming to us." + +"Ah then he wrote?" + +"Certainly he wrote." + +"You take it all harder than I do," I returned as I sat down beside her. +And then I added, smiling: "Have you written to his mother?" + +Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. "Take care, take care, +or you'll have been more brutal than you'll afterwards like," she said +with an air of patience before the inevitable. + +"Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew when +Linda wrote." + +She had an hesitation. "Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn't have +done anything else. I let it go because I didn't know what course was +best. I'm afraid to oppose her to her face." + +"Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl?" + +"That girl? Much you know about her! It didn't follow you'd come. I +didn't take that for granted." + +"I'm like you," I said--"I too am afraid of my nephew. I don't venture +to oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do--once he wished +it--was to come with him." + +"I see. Well, there are grounds, after all, on which I'm glad," she +rather inscrutably added. + +"Oh I was conscientious about that! But I've no authority; I can neither +drive him nor stay him--I can use no force," I explained. "Look at the +way he's pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me." + +"You could tell him she's a bad hard girl--one who'd poison any good +man's life!" my companion broke out with a passion that startled me. + +At first I could only gape. "Dear lady, what do you mean?" + +She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and so +remained a minute; then she continued a little differently, though as +if she hadn't heard my question: "I hoped you were too disgusted with +us--after the way we left you planted." + +"It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda +hadn't written. That patched it up," I gaily professed. But my gaiety +was thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Do +you really mean that she won't do?" I added. + +She made no direct answer; she only said after a little that it didn't +matter whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weeks +later, since it was destined to come at the first chance, the favouring +moment. Linda had marked my young man--and when Linda had marked a +thing! + +"Bless my soul--how very grim--" But I didn't understand. "Do you mean +she's in love with him?" + +"It's enough if she makes him think so--though even that isn't +essential." + +Still I was at sea. "If she makes him think so? Dear old friend, what's +your idea? I've observed her, I've watched her, and when all's said what +has she done? She has been civil and pleasant to him, but it would have +been much more marked if she hadn't. She has really shown him, with her +youth and her natural charm, nothing more than common friendliness. Her +note was nothing; he let me see it." + +"I don't think you've heard every word she has said to him," Mrs. +Pallant returned with an emphasis that still struck me as perverse. + +"No more have you, I take it!" I promptly cried. She evidently meant +more than she said; but if this excited my curiosity it also moved, in a +different connexion, my indulgence. + +"No, but I know my own daughter. She's a most remarkable young woman." + +"You've an extraordinary tone about her," I declared "such a tone as +I think I've never before heard on a mother's lips. I've had the same +impression from you--that of a disposition to 'give her away,' but never +yet so strong." + +At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there looking down at me. "You +make my reparation--my expiation--difficult!" And leaving me still more +astonished she moved along the terrace. + +I overtook her presently and repeated her words. "Your reparation--your +expiation? What on earth are you talking about?" + +"You know perfectly what I mean--it's too magnanimous of you to pretend +you don't." + +"Well, at any rate," I said, "I don't see what good it does me, or what +it makes up to me for, that you should abuse your daughter." + +"Oh I don't care; I shall save him!" she cried as we went, and with an +extravagance, as I felt, of sincerity. At the same moment two ladies, +apparently English, came toward us--scattered groups had been sitting +there and the inmates of the hotel were moving to and fro--and I +observed the immediate charming transition, the fruit of such years +of social practice, by which, as they greeted us, her tension and her +impatience dropped to recognition and pleasure. They stopped to speak +to her and she enquired with sweet propriety as to the "continued +improvement" of their sister. I strolled on and she presently rejoined +me; after which she had a peremptory note. "Come away from this--come +down into the garden." We descended to that blander scene, strolled +through it and paused on the border of the lake. + + + + +V + +The charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemn +expression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. +In the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. +I looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, remarked that from +such an excursion as that, on such a lake and at such an hour, a young +man and a young woman of common sensibility could only come back doubly +pledged to each other. + +To this observation Mrs. Pallant's answer was, superficially at least, +irrelevant; she said after a pause: "With you, my dear man, one has +certainly to dot one's 'i's.' Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tell +you at Homburg, that we're miserably poor?" + +"Isn't 'miserably' rather too much--living as you are at an expensive +hotel?" + +Well, she promptly met this. "They take us en pension, for ever so +little a day. I've been knocking about Europe long enough to learn all +sorts of horrid arts. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we've spent half +our life in them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped never +to put her foot into one again. She feels that when she comes to such a +place as this she ought, if things were decently right, to find a villa +of her own." + +"Then her companion there's perfectly competent to give her one. Don't +think I've the least desire to push them into each other's arms--I only +ask to wash my hands of them. But I should like to know why you want, as +you said just now, to save him. When you speak as if your daughter were +a monster I take it you're not serious." + +She was facing me in the rich short twilight, and to describe herself as +immeasurably more serious perhaps than she had ever been in her life she +had only to look at me without protestation. "It's Linda's standard. God +knows I myself could get on! She's ambitious, luxurious, determined to +have what she wants--more 'on the make' than any one I've ever seen. +Of course it's open to you to tell me it's my own fault, that I was +so before her and have made her so. But does that make me like it any +better?" + +"Dear Mrs. Pallant, you're wonderful, you're terrible," I could only +stammer, lost in the desert of my thoughts. + +"Oh yes, you've made up your mind about me; you see me in a certain way +and don't like the trouble of changing. Votre siege est fait. But you'll +HAVE to change--if you've any generosity!" Her eyes shone in the summer +dusk and the beauty of her youth came back to her. + +"Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation?" I demanded. "I +don't see what you ever did to Archie." + +"It's enough that he belongs to you. But it isn't for you I do it--it's +for myself," she strangely went on. + +"Doubtless you've your own reasons--which I can't penetrate. But can't +you sacrifice something else? Must you sacrifice your only child?" + +"My only child's my punishment, my only child's my stigma!" she cried in +her exaltation. + +"It seems to me rather that you're hers." + +"Hers? What does SHE know of such things?--what can she ever feel? She's +cased in steel; she has a heart of marble. It's true--it's true," said +Louisa Pallant. "She appals me!" + +I laid my hand on my poor friend's; I uttered, with the intention of +checking and soothing her, the first incoherent words that came into my +head and I drew her toward a bench a few steps away. She dropped upon +it; I placed myself near her and besought her to consider well what she +said. She owed me nothing and I wished no one injured, no one denounced +or exposed for my sake. + +"For your sake? Oh I'm not thinking of you!" she answered; and indeed +the next moment I thought my words rather fatuous. "It's a satisfaction +to my own conscience--for I HAVE one, little as you may think I've a +right to speak of it. I've been punished by my sin itself. I've been +hideously worldly, I've thought only of that, and I've taught her to be +so--to do the same. That's the only instruction I've ever given her, and +she has learned the lesson so well that now I see it stamped there in +all her nature, on all her spirit and on all her form, I'm horrified at +my work. For years we've lived that way; we've thought of nothing else. +She has profited so well by my beautiful influence that she has gone far +beyond the great original. I say I'm horrified," Mrs. Pallant dreadfully +wound up, "because she's horrible." + +"My poor extravagant friend," I pleaded, "isn't it still more so to hear +a mother say such things?" + +"Why so, if they're abominably true? Besides, I don't care what I say if +I save him." + +I could only gape again at this least expected of all my adventures. "Do +you expect me then to repeat to him--?" + +"Not in the least," she broke in; "I'll do it myself." At this I uttered +some strong inarticulate protest, but she went on with the grimmest +simplicity: "I was very glad at first, but it would have been better if +we hadn't met." + +"I don't agree to that, for you interest me," I rather ruefully +professed, "immensely." + +"I don't care if I do--so I interest HIM." + +"You must reflect then that your denunciation can only strike me as, +for all its violence, vague and unconvincing. Never had a girl less the +appearance of bearing such charges out. You know how I've admired her." + +"You know nothing about her! _I_ do, you see, for she's the work of my +hand!" And Mrs. Pallant laughed for bitterness. "I've watched her for +years, and little by little, for the last two or three, it has come over +me. There's not a tender spot in her whole composition. To arrive at a +brilliant social position, if it were necessary, she would see me drown +in this lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there and see +it--she would push me in--and never feel a pang. That's my young lady!" +Her lucidity chilled me to the soul--it seemed to shine so flawless. "To +climb up to the top and be splendid and envied there," she went on--"to +do that at any cost or by any meanness and cruelty is the only thing she +has a heart for. She'd lie for it, she'd steal for it, she'd kill for +it!" My companion brought out these words with a cold confidence that +had evidently behind it some occult past process of growth. I watched +her pale face and glowing eyes; she held me breathless and frowning, but +her strange vindictive, or at least retributive, passion irresistibly +imposed itself. I found myself at last believing her, pitying her more +than I pitied the subject of her dreadful analysis. It was as if she had +held her tongue for longer than she could bear, suffering more and more +the importunity of the truth. It relieved her thus to drag that to the +light, and still she kept up the high and most unholy sacrifice. "God +in his mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that he +has let me see it in my daughter. It's myself he has let me see--myself +as I was for years. But she's worse--she IS, I assure you; she's worse +than I intended or dreamed." Her hands were clasped tightly together in +her lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked up +at the southern stars as if THEY would understand. + +"Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me?" I finally asked. "Have +you ever put before her this terrible arraignment?" + +"Put it before her? How can I put it before her when all she would have +to say would be: 'You, YOU, you base one, who made me--?'" + +"Then why do you want to play her a trick?" + +"I'm not bound to tell you, and you wouldn't see my point if I did. I +should play that boy a far worse one if I were to stay my hand." + +Oh I had my view of this. "If he loves her he won't believe a word you +say." + +"Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty." + +"And shall you say to him," I asked, "simply what you've said to me?" + +"Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that will +perhaps helpfully affect him. Only," she added with her proud decision, +"I must lose no time." + +"If you're so bent on gaining time," I said, "why did you let her go out +in the boat with him?" + +"Let her? how could I prevent it?" + +"But she asked your permission." + +"Ah that," she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!" + +It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing. +"Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed. + +"I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them +bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for what +I've made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself +married to her." + +"There's not much danger of there being any such person," I wailed, "at +the rate you go on." + +"I beg your pardon--there's a perfect possibility," said my companion. +"She'll marry--she'll marry 'well.' She'll marry a title as well as a +fortune. + +"It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title," I attempted the grimace of +suggesting. + +She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm acting +a part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can any +one TELL," asked Louisa Pallant--"with people like us?" + +Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand +on her arm, holding her a while, and we looked at each other through the +dusk. "You couldn't do more if he were my son." + +"Oh if he had been your son he'd have kept out of it! I like him for +himself. He's simple and sane and honest--he needs affection." + +"He would have quite the most remarkable of mothers-in-law!" I +commented. + +Mrs. Pallant gave a small dry laugh--she wasn't joking. We lingered +by the lake while I thought over what she had said to me and while she +herself apparently thought. I confess that even close at her side and +under the strong impression of her sincerity, her indifference to the +conventional graces, my imagination, my constitutional scepticism began +to range. Queer ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on HER side and +not on the girl's, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman at +poor Linda's expense? Was she determined, in spite of the young lady's +preference, to keep her daughter for a grander personage than a young +American whose dollars were not numerous enough--numerous as they +were--to make up for his want of high relationships, and had she +invented at once the boldest and the subtlest of games in order to keep +the case in her hands? If she was prepared really to address herself to +Archie she would have to go very far to overcome the mistrust he would +be sure to feel at a proceeding superficially so sinister? Was she +prepared to go far enough? The answer to these doubts was simply the way +I had been touched--it came back to me the next moment--when she used +the words "people like us." Their effect was to wring my heart. She +seemed to kneel in the dust, and I felt in a manner ashamed that I had +let her sink to it. She said to me at last that I must wait no longer, I +must go away before the young people came back. They were staying long, +too long; all the more reason then she should deal with my nephew that +night. I must drive back to Stresa, or if I liked I could go on foot: +it wasn't far--for an active man. She disposed of me freely, she was so +full of her purpose; and after we had quitted the garden and returned to +the terrace above she seemed almost to push me to leave her--I felt her +fine consecrated hands fairly quiver on my shoulders. I was ready to do +as she prescribed; she affected me painfully, she had given me a "turn," +and I wanted to get away from her. But before I went I asked her why +Linda should regard my young man as such a parti; it didn't square after +all with her account of the girl's fierce ambitions. By that account +these favours to one so graceless were a woeful waste of time. + +"Oh she has worked it all out; she has regarded the question in every +light," said Mrs. Pallant. "If she has made up her mind it's because she +sees what she can do." + +"Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?" + +My friend's wonderful face pitied my simplicity. "Lord! for what do you +take us? We don't talk things over to-day. We know each other's point of +view and only have to act. We observe the highest proprieties of speech. +We never for a moment name anything ugly--we only just go at it. We can +take definitions, which are awkward things, for granted." + +"But in this case," I nevertheless urged, "the poor thing can't possibly +be aware of your point of view." + +"No," she conceded--"that's because I haven't played fair. Of course she +couldn't expect I'd cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. But +it was open to her to do the same." + +"What do you mean by the same?" + +"She might have fallen in love with a poor man. Then I should have been +'done.'" + +"A rich one's better; he can do more," I replied with conviction. + +At this she appeared to have, in the oddest way, a momentary revulsion. +"So you'd have reason to know if you had led the life that we have! +Never to have had really enough--I mean to do just the few simple things +we've wanted; never to have had the sinews of war, I suppose you'd call +them, the funds for a campaign; to have felt every day and every hour +the hard eternal pinch and found the question of dollars and cents--and +so horridly few of them--mixed up with every experience, with every +impulse: that DOES make one mercenary, does make money seem a good +beyond all others; which it's quite natural it should! And it's why +Linda's of the opinion that a fortune's always a fortune. She knows all +about that of your nephew, how it's invested, how it may be expected to +increase, exactly on what sort of footing it would enable her to live. +She has decided that it's enough, and enough is as good as a feast. She +thinks she could lead him by the nose, and I dare say she could. She'll +of course make him live in these countries; she hasn't the slightest +intention of casting her pearls--but basta!" said my friend. "I think +she has views upon London, because in England he can hunt and shoot, and +that will make him leave her more or less to herself." + +"I don't know about his leaving her to herself, but it strikes me that +he would like the rest of that matter very much," I returned. "That's +not at all a bad programme even from Archie's point of view." + +"It's no use thinking of princes," she pursued as if she hadn't heard +me. "They're most of them more in want of money even than we. Therefore +'greatness' is out of the question--we really recognised that at an +early stage. Your nephew's exactly the sort of young man we've always +built upon--if he wasn't, so impossibly, your nephew. From head to foot +he was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter when +she recognised him on the spot! One's enough of a prince to-day when +one's the right American: such a wonderful price is set on one's +not being the wrong! It does as well as anything and it's a great +simplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see." She had +come with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and +we stood there in the sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, bidding +her good-night, I couldn't but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, poor +Linda!" + +"Oh she'll live to do better," said Mrs. Pallant. + +"How can she do better--since you've described all she finds Archie as +perfection?" + +She knew quite what she meant. "Ah better for HIM!" + +I still had her hand--I still sought her eyes. "How came it you could +throw me over--such a woman as you?" + +"Well, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over how could I do this for +you?" On which, disengaging herself, she turned quickly away. + + + + +VI + +I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her +question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and +the real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the +colour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa--a walk of half an +hour--in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in which +she had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have made +sitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me up +after I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was useless +to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie had +not reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensed +with. I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possible +mischances. Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake, +that is of his continued absence from Baveno--Mrs. Pallant would already +have dispatched me a messenger. It was foolish moreover to suppose +anything could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno by +water to rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and more +than sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had +unlimited confidence in his power to take care of himself in a much +tighter place. I went to my room at last; his own was at some distance, +the people of the hotel not having been able--it was the height of +the autumn season--to make us contiguous. Before I went to bed I had +occasion to ring for a servant, and I then learned by a chance enquiry +that my nephew had returned an hour before and had gone straight to +his own quarters. I hadn't supposed he could come in without my seeing +him--I was wandering about the saloons and terraces--and it had not +occurred to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now--I +was so anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for +evidently he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity, +and I slept even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking our +encounter--for if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have looked +for me in my room--was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him +would really have come off. What had she said to him? What strong +measures had she taken? That almost morbid resolution I still seemed to +hear the ring of pointed to conceivable extremities that I shrank from +considering. She had spoken of these things while we parted there as +something she would do for me; but I had made the mental comment in +walking away from her that she hadn't done it yet. It wouldn't truly be +done till Archie had truly backed out. Perhaps it was done by this time; +his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. That was what I thought of most +of the night. I spent a considerable part of it at my window, looking +out to the couchant Alps. HAD he thought better of it?--was he making up +his mind to think better of it? There was a strange contradiction in the +matter; there were in fact more contradictions than ever. I had taken +from Louisa what she told me of Linda, and yet that other idea made me +ashamed of my nephew. I was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss of +a great chance, if loss it was to be; and yet I hoped her mother's grand +treachery--I didn't know what to call it--had been at least, to her +lover, thoroughgoing. It would need strong action in that lady to +justify his retreat. For him too I was sorry--if she had made on him the +impression she desired. Once or twice I was on the point of getting into +my dressing-gown and going forth to condole with him. I was sure he +too had jumped up from his bed and was looking out of his window at the +everlasting hills. + +But I am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast he +showed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources that +later experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterly +resource of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we think +that too simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with an +effect much less baffling. My young man looked not in the least as if he +had lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what +he had done after my premature departure--I explained this by saying I +had been tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wanted +to go to bed--he replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about the +place; I like it better than this one. We had an awfully jolly time +on the water. _I_ wasn't in the least fagged." I didn't worry him with +questions; it struck me as gross to try to probe his secret. The only +indication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should go +over again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted he +would be glad to come too. Then he let fall that he'd stop at Stresa--he +had paid them such a tremendous visit; also that he had arrears of +letters. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of his +visits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consisted +entirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he soothed my +anxiety so little that it was really this yearning that carried me back +to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it he +stood watching me from the porch of the hotel with his hands in his +pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the poor youth's +face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even, +to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observed +him, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better come with +me" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my call. I +said to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it wouldn't +take much to bring him back. + +The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in a +summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at large +had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on +the lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the +Borromean Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in +the summer-house, but she was there alone. On finding this the case +I stopped short, rather awkwardly--I might have been, from the way I +suddenly felt, an unmasked hypocrite, a proved conspirator against her +security and honour. But there was no embarrassment in lovely Linda; she +looked up with a cry of pleasure from the book she was reading and held +out her hand with engaging frankness. I felt again as if I had no right +to that favour, which I pretended not to have noticed. This gave no +chill, however, to her pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestry +off the bench so that I might sit down; she praised the place as a +delightful shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, kinder; she +made her mother's awful talk about her a hideous dream. She told me +her mother was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to write +a letter. One couldn't write out there, though it was so nice in other +respects: the table refused to stand firm. They too then had pretexts +of letters between them--I judged this a token that the situation was +tense. It was the only one nevertheless that Linda gave: like Archie she +was young enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us always +together, yet she made no comment on my having come over without him. I +waited in vain for her to speak of this--it would only be natural; her +omission couldn't but have a sense. At last I remarked that my nephew +was very unsociable that morning; I had expected him to join me, but he +hadn't seemed to see the attraction. + +"I'm very glad. You can tell him that if you like," said Linda Pallant. + +I wondered at her. "If I tell him he'll come at once." + +"Then don't tell him; I don't want him to come. He stayed too long last +night," she went on, "and kept me out on the water till I don't know +what o'clock. That sort of thing isn't done here, you know, and every +one was shocked when we came back--or rather, you see, when we didn't! I +begged him to bring me in, but he wouldn't. When we did return--I almost +had to take the oars myself--I felt as if every one had been sitting up +to time us, to stare at us. It was awfully awkward." + +These words much impressed me; and as I have treated the reader to +most of the reflexions--some of them perhaps rather morbid--in which I +indulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother, I may as +well complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whether +Linda--candid and accomplished maiden--entertained the graceful thought +of strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove he had +"compromised" her. "Ah no doubt that was the reason he had a bad +conscience last evening!" I made answer. "When he came back to Stresa he +sneaked off to his room; he wouldn't look me in the face." + +But my young lady was not to be ruffled. "Mamma was so vexed that she +took him apart and gave him a scolding. And to punish ME she sent me +straight to bed. She has very old-fashioned ideas--haven't you, mamma?" +she added, looking over my head at Mrs. Pallant, who had just come in +behind me. + +I forget how her mother met Linda's appeal; Louisa stood there with two +letters, sealed and addressed, in her hand. She greeted me gaily and +then asked her daughter if she were possessed of postage-stamps. +Linda consulted a well-worn little pocket-book and confessed herself +destitute; whereupon her mother gave her the letters with the request +that she would go into the hotel, buy the proper stamps at the office, +carefully affix them and put the letters into the box. She was to pay +for the stamps, not have them put on the bill--a preference for which +Mrs. Pallant gave reasons. I had bought some at Stresa that morning and +was on the point of offering them when, apparently having guessed my +intention, the elder lady silenced me with a look. Linda announced +without reserve that she hadn't money and Louisa then fumbled for a +franc. When she had found and bestowed it the girl kissed her before +going off with the letters. + +"Darling mother, you haven't any too many of them, have you?" she +murmured; and she gave me, sidelong, as she left us, the prettiest +half-comical, half-pitiful smile. + +"She's amazing--she's amazing," said Mrs. Pallant as we looked at each +other. + +"Does she know what you've done?" + +"She knows I've done something and she's making up her mind what it is. +She'll satisfy herself in the course of the next twenty-four hours--if +your nephew doesn't come back. I think I can promise you he won't." + +"And won't she ask you?" + +"Never!" + +"Shan't you tell her? Can you sit down together in this summer-house, +this divine day, with such a dreadful thing as that between you?" + +My question found my friend quite ready. "Don't you remember what I +told you about our relations--that everything was implied between us +and nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in common--our perpetual +worldliness, our always looking out for chances--are not the sort of +thing that can be uttered conveniently between persons who like to keep +up forms, as we both do: so that, always, if we've understood each other +it has been enough. We shall understand each other now, as we've always +done, and nothing will be changed. There has always been something +between us that couldn't be talked about." + +"Certainly, she's amazing--she's amazing," I repeated; "but so are you." +And then I asked her what she had said to my boy. + +She seemed surprised. "Hasn't he told you?" + +"No, and he never will." + +"I'm glad of that," she answered simply. + +"But I'm not sure he won't come back. He didn't this morning, but he had +already half a mind to." + +"That's your imagination," my companion said with her fine authority. +"If you knew what I told him you'd be sure." + +"And you won't let me know?" + +"Never, dear friend." + +"And did he believe you?" + +"Time will show--but I think so." + +"And how did you make it plausible to him that you should take so +unnatural a course?" + +For a moment she said nothing, only looking at me. Then at last: "I told +him the truth." + +"The truth?" + +"Take him away--take him away!" she broke out. "That's why I got rid of +Linda, to tell you you mustn't stay--you must leave Stresa to-morrow. +This time it's you who must do it. I can't fly from you again--it costs +too much!" And she smiled strangely. + +"Don't be afraid; don't be afraid. We'll break camp again to-morrow--ah +me! But I want to go myself," I added. I took her hand in farewell, but +spoke again while I held it. "The way you put it, about Linda, was very +bad?" + +"It was horrible." + +I turned away--I felt indeed that I couldn't stay. She kept me from +going to the hotel, as I might meet Linda coming back, which I was far +from wishing to do, and showed me another way into the road. Then she +turned round to meet her daughter and spend the rest of the morning +there with her, spend it before the bright blue lake and the snowy +crests of the Alps. When I reached Stresa again I found my young man +had gone off to Milan--to see the cathedral, the servant said--leaving a +message for me to the effect that, as he shouldn't be back for a day or +two, though there were numerous trains, he had taken a few clothes. The +next day I received telegram-notice that he had determined to go on to +Venice and begged I would forward the rest of his luggage. "Please don't +come after me," this missive added; "I want to be alone; I shall do no +harm." That sounded pathetic to me, in the light of what I knew, and I +was glad to leave him to his own devices. He proceeded to Venice and I +re-crossed the Alps. For several weeks after this I expected to discover +that he had rejoined Mrs. Pallant; but when we met that November in +Paris I saw he had nothing to hide from me save indeed the secret of +what our extraordinary friend had said to him. This he concealed from +me then and has concealed ever since. He returned to America before +Christmas--when I felt the crisis over. I've never again seen the +wronger of my youth. About a year after our more recent adventure her +daughter Linda married, in London, a young Englishman the heir to a +large fortune, a fortune acquired by his father in some prosaic but +flourishing industry. Mrs. Gimingham's admired photographs--such is +Linda's present name--may be obtained from the principal stationers. I +am convinced her mother was sincere. My nephew has not even yet changed +his state, my sister at last thinks it high time. I put before her as +soon as I next saw her the incidents here recorded, and--such is the +inconsequence of women--nothing can exceed her reprobation of Louisa +Pallant. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Louisa Pallant, by Henry James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUISA PALLANT *** + +***** This file should be named 8081.txt or 8081.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/0/8/8081/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Louisa Pallant + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8081] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 12, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUISA PALLANT *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + +LOUISA PALLANT + +HENRY JAMES + + + +I + +Never say you know the last words about any human heart! I was once +treated to a revelation which startled and touched me in the nature of a +person with whom I had been acquainted--well, as I supposed--for years, +whose character I had had good reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate and +in regard to whom I flattered myself I had nothing more to learn. + +It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, nearly ten years ago, +one beautiful night toward the end of July. I had come to the place that +day from Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly occupied in +waiting for my young nephew, the only son of my sister, who had been +entrusted to my care by a very fond mother for the summer--I was +expected to show him Europe, only the very best of it--and was on his +way from Paris to join me. The excellent band discoursed music not too +abstruse, while the air was filled besides with the murmur of different +languages, the smoke of many cigars, the creak on the gravel of the +gardens of strolling shoes and the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. There +were a hundred people walking about, there were some in clusters at +little tables and many on benches and rows of chairs, watching the +others as if they had paid for the privilege and were rather +disappointed. I was among these last; I sat by myself, smoking my cigar +and thinking of nothing very particular while families and couples +passed and repassed me. + +I scarce know how long I had sat when I became aware of a recognition +which made my meditations definite. It was on my own part, and the +object of it was a lady who moved to and fro, unconscious of my +observation, with a young girl at her side. I hadn't seen her for ten +years, and what first struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. Henry +Pallant, but that the girl who was with her was remarkably pretty--or +rather first of all that every one who passed appeared extremely to +admire. This led me also to notice the young lady myself, and her +charming face diverted my attention for some time from that of her +companion. The latter, moreover, though it was night, wore a thin light +veil which made her features vague. The couple slowly walked and walked, +but though they were very quiet and decorous, and also very well +dressed, they seemed to have no friends. Every one observed but no one +addressed them; they appeared even themselves to exchange very few +words. Moreover they bore with marked composure and as if they were +thoroughly used to it the attention they excited. I am afraid it +occurred to me to take for granted that they were of an artful intention +and that if they hadn't been the elder lady would have handed the +younger over a little less to public valuation and not have sought so to +conceal her own face. Perhaps this question came into my mind too easily +just then--in view of my prospective mentorship to my nephew. If I was +to show him only the best of Europe I should have to be very careful +about the people he should meet--especially the ladies--and the +relations he should form. I suspected him of great innocence and was +uneasy about my office. Was I completely relieved and reassured when I +became aware that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that the +girl was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child--Linda grown up +to charming beauty? + +The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is +perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a +while--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I was +anxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a great +resort of the English--the London season took up its tale there toward +the first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as that +Louisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that she +"cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and would be +likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there. This +supposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knew +there is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated. You +will see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar I +thought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should have +rushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we had +never really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance that--after the +first soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put us quite right +with each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of her +heartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. I +had forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to have +married a girl who had in her to take back her given word and break a +fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise, as it +pitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then--on +the occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each other in the +eyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the wickedness +of the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure. I +knew by that time what she had given out--that I had driven her off by +my insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, before she +had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-day a +ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it that she knew +perfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, I +believe, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows it +mainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the case if--let +the solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant's +fortunes; the years went by for me in my own country, whereas she led +her life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband's +death--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I heard of her +from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but on each +occasion in a different place. She drifted from country to country, and +if she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it could never +occur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be called, would +have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horribly +worldly" I thought immediately of the object of my early passion. I +imagined she had debts, and when I now at last made up my mind to recall +myself to her it was present to me that she might ask me to lend her +money. More than anything else, however, at this time of day, I was +sorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate as a deterrent. + +She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing as we +stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had +dropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she +had been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting down +with her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little, +the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before her. +She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't +imagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and extending +her hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what a delight!" +If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own line +she thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She was +cordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was very +glad to see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that she +gave me neither then nor later any sign of a desire to contract a loan. +She had scant means--that I learned--yet seemed for the moment able to +pay her way. I took the empty chair and we remained in talk for an hour. +After a while she made me sit at her other side, next her daughter, whom +she wished to know me--to love me--as one of their oldest friends. "It +goes back, back, back, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant; "and of course +she remembers you as a child." Linda smiled all sweetly and blankly, and +I saw she remembered me not a whit. When her mother threw out that they +had often talked about me she failed to take it up, though she looked +extremely nice. Looking nice was her strong point; she was prettier even +than her mother had been. She was such a little lady that she made me +ashamed of having doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of her +position in the scale of propriety. Her appearance seemed to say that if +she had no acquaintances it was because she didn't want them--because +nobody there struck her as attractive: there wasn't the slightest +difficulty about her choosing her friends. Linda Pallant, young as she +was, and fresh and fair and charming, gentle and sufficiently shy, +looked somehow exclusive--as if the dust of the common world had never +been meant to besprinkle her. She was of thinner consistency than her +mother and clearly not a young woman of professions--except in so far as +she was committed to an interest in you by her bright pure candid smile. +No girl who had such a lovely way of parting her lips could pass for +designing. + +As I sat between the pair I felt I had been taken possession of and that +for better or worse my stay at Homburg would be intimately associated +with theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and expressed +unlimited interest in each other's history since our last meeting. I +mightn't judge of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quite +overflowed. She let me see at any rate that her life had been a good +deal what I supposed, though the terms she employed to describe it were +less crude than those of my thought. She confessed they had drifted, she +and her daughter, and were drifting still. Her narrative rambled and +took a wrong turn, a false flight, or two, as I thought Linda noted, +while she sat watching the passers, in a manner that betrayed no +consciousness of their attention, without coming to her mother's aid. +Once or twice Mrs. Pallant made me rather feel a cross-questioner, which +I had had no intention of being. I took it that if the girl never put in +a word it was because she had perfect confidence in her parent's ability +to come out straight. It was suggested to me, I scarcely knew how, that +this confidence between the two ladies went to a great length; that +their union of thought, their system of reciprocal divination, was +remarkable, and that they probably seldom needed to resort to the clumsy +and in some cases dangerous expedient of communicating by sound. I +suppose I made this reflexion not all at once--it was not wholly the +result of that first meeting. I was with them constantly for the next +several days and my impressions had time to clarify. + +I do remember, however, that it was on this first evening that Archie's +name came up. She attributed her own stay at Homburg to no refined nor +exalted motive--didn't put it that she was there from force of habit or +because a high medical authority had ordered her to drink the waters; +she frankly admitted the reason of her visit to have been simply that +she didn't know where else to turn. But she appeared to assume that my +behaviour rested on higher grounds and even that it required +explanation, the place being frivolous and modern--devoid of that +interest of antiquity which I had ever made so much of. "Don't you +remember--ever so long ago--that you wouldn't look at anything in Europe +that wasn't a thousand years old? Well, as we advance in life I suppose +we don't think that quite such a charm." And when I mentioned that I had +arrived because the place was as good as another for awaiting my nephew +she exclaimed: "Your nephew--what nephew? He must have come up of late." +I answered that his name was Archie Parker and that he was modern +indeed; he was to attain legal manhood in a few months and was in Europe +for the first time. My last news of him had been from Paris and I was +expecting to hear further from one day to the other. His father was +dead, and though a selfish bachelor, little versed in the care of +children, I was considerably counted on by his mother to see that he +didn't smoke nor flirt too much, nor yet tumble off an Alp. + +Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother was my sister +Charlotte, whom she spoke of familiarly, though I knew she had scarce +seen her. Then in a moment it came to her which of the Parkers Charlotte +had married; she remembered the family perfectly from the old New York +days--"that disgustingly rich set." She said it was very nice having the +boy come out that way to my care; to which I replied that it was very +nice for the boy. She pronounced the advantage rather mine--I ought to +have had children; there was something so parental about me and I would +have brought them up so well. She could make an allusion like that--to +all that might have been and had not been--without a gleam of guilt in +her eye; and I foresaw that before I left the place I should have +confided to her that though I detested her and was very glad we had +fallen out, yet our old relations had left me no heart for marrying +another woman. If I had remained so single and so sterile the fault was +nobody's but hers. She asked what I meant to do with my nephew--to which +I replied that it was much more a question of what he would do with me. +She wished to know if he were a nice young man and had brothers and +sisters and any particular profession. I assured her I had really seen +little of him; I believed him to be six feet high and of tolerable +parts. He was an only son, but there was a little sister at home, a +delicate, rather blighted child, demanding all the mother's care. + +"So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy, +doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant. + +"Greater? I'm sure I don't know." + +"Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all the +mother has. So that being in your hands--" + +"Oh I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you mean that," I returned. + +"Well, WE won't kill him, shall we, Linda?" my friend went on with a +laugh. + +"I don't know--perhaps we shall!" smiled the girl. + + + +II + +I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which was +enhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices--flowers and photographs +and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old brocade +flung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again at the +Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburg +fashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days this revived +familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quite +achieving it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for me and +the conditions of our life were soothing--the feeling of summer and +shade and music and leisure in the German gardens and woods, where we +strolled and sat and gossiped; to which may be added a vague sociable +sense that among people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly not +irresistible we kept quite to ourselves. We were on the footing of old +friends who still had in regard to each other discoveries to make. We +knew each other's nature but didn't know each other's experience; so +that when Mrs. Pallant related to me what she had been "up to," as I +called it, for so many years, the former knowledge attached a hundred +interpretative footnotes--as if I had been editing an author who +presented difficulties--to the interesting page. There was nothing new +to me in the fact that I didn't esteem her, but there was relief in my +finding that this wasn't necessary at Homburg and that I could like her +in spite of it. She struck me, in the oddest way, as both improved and +degenerate; the two processes, in her nature, might have gone on +together. She was battered and world-worn and, spiritually speaking, +vulgarised; something fresh had rubbed off her--it even included the +vivacity of her early desire to do the best thing for herself--and +something rather stale had rubbed on. At the same time she betrayed a +scepticism, and that was rather becoming, for it had quenched the +eagerness of her prime, the mercenary principle I had so suffered from. +She had grown weary and detached, and since she affected me as more +impressed with the evil of the world than with the good, this was a +gain; in other words her accretion of indifference, if not of cynicism, +showed a softer surface than that of her old ambitions. Furthermore I +had to recognise that her devotion to her daughter was a kind of +religion; she had done the very best possible for Linda. + +Linda was curious, Linda was interesting; I've seen girls I liked +better--charming as this one might be--but have never seen one who for +the hour you were with her (the impression passed somehow when she was +out of sight) occupied you so completely. I can best describe the +attention she provoked by saying that she struck you above all things as +a felicitous FINAL product--after the fashion of some plant or some +fruit, some waxen orchid or some perfect peach. She was clearly the +result of a process of calculation, a process patiently educative, a +pressure exerted, and all artfully, so that she should reach a high +point. + +This high point had been the star of her mother's heaven--it hung before +her so unquenchably--and had shed the only light (in default of a +better) that was to shine on the poor lady's path. It stood her instead +of every other ideal. The very most and the very best--that was what the +girl had been led on to achieve; I mean of course, since no real miracle +had been wrought, the most and the best she was capable of. She was as +pretty, as graceful, as intelligent, as well-bred, as well-informed, as +well-dressed, as could have been conceived for her; her music, her +singing, her German, her French, her English, her step, her tone, her +glance, her manner, everything in her person and movement, from the +shade and twist of her hair to the way you saw her finger-nails were +pink when she raised her hand, had been carried so far that one found +one's self accepting them as the very measure of young grace. I regarded +her thus as a model, yet it was a part of her perfection that she had +none of the stiffness of a pattern. If she held the observation it was +because you wondered where and when she would break down; but she never +broke down, either in her French accent or in her role of educated +angel. + +After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly his greatest resource, +and all the world knows why a party of four is more convenient than a +party of three. My nephew had kept me waiting a week, with a serenity +all his own; but this very coolness was a help to harmony--so long, that +is, as I didn't lose my temper with it. I didn't, for the most part, +because my young man's unperturbed acceptance of the most various forms +of good fortune had more than anything else the effect of amusing me. I +had seen little of him for the last three or four years; I wondered what +his impending majority would have made of him--he didn't at all carry +himself as if the wind of his fortune were rising--and I watched him +with a solicitude that usually ended in a joke. He was a tall fresh- +coloured youth, with a candid circular countenance and a love of +cigarettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed to more +strenuous studies. He was reassuringly natural, in a supercivilised age, +and I soon made up my mind that the formula of his character was in the +clearing of the inward scene by his so preordained lack of imagination. +If he was serene this was still further simplifying. After that I had +time to meditate on the line that divides the serene from the inane, the +simple from the silly. He wasn't clever; the fonder theory quite defied +our cultivation, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice; but on the +other hand it struck me his want of wit might be a good defensive +weapon. It wasn't the sort of density that would let him in, but the +sort that would keep him out. By which I don't mean that he had +shortsighted suspicions, but that on the contrary imagination would +never be needed to save him, since she would never put him in danger. He +was in short a well-grown well-washed muscular young American, whose +extreme salubrity might have made him pass for conceited. If he looked +pleased with himself it was only because he was pleased with life--as +well he might be, with the fortune that awaited the stroke of his +twenty-first year--and his big healthy independent person was an +inevitable part of that. I am bound to add that he was accommodating-- +for which I was grateful. His habits were active, but he didn't insist +on my adopting them and he made numerous and generous sacrifices for my +society. When I say he made them for mine I must duly remember that mine +and that of Mrs. Pallant and Linda were now very much the same thing. He +was willing to sit and smoke for hours under the trees or, adapting his +long legs to the pace of his three companions, stroll through the nearer +woods of the charming little hill-range of the Taunus to those rustic +Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk under a trellis. Mrs. Pallant +took a great interest in him; she made him, with his easy uncle, a +subject of discourse; she pronounced him a delightful specimen, as a +young gentleman of his period and country. She even asked me the sort of +"figure" his fortune might really amount to, and professed a rage of +envy when I told her what I supposed it to be. While we were so occupied +Archie, on his side, couldn't do less than converse with Linda, nor to +tell the truth did he betray the least inclination for any different +exercise. They strolled away together while their elders rested; two or +three times, in the evening, when the ballroom of the Kursaal was +lighted and dance-music played, they whirled over the smooth floor in a +waltz that stirred my memory. Whether it had the same effect on Mrs. +Pallant's I know not: she held her peace. We had on certain occasions +our moments, almost our half-hours, of unembarrassed silence while our +young companions disported themselves. But if at other times her +enquiries and comments were numerous on this article of my ingenuous +charge, that might very well have passed for a courteous recognition of +the frequent admiration I expressed for Linda--an admiration that drew +from her, I noticed, but scant direct response. I was struck thus with +her reserve when I spoke of her daughter--my remarks produced so little +of a maternal flutter. Her detachment, her air of having no fatuous +illusions and not being blinded by prejudice, seemed to me at times to +savour of affectation. Either she answered me with a vague and impatient +sigh and changed the subject, or else she said before doing so: "Oh yes, +yes, she's a very brilliant creature. She ought to be: God knows what +I've done for her!" The reader will have noted my fondness, in all +cases, for the explanations of things; as an example of which I had my +theory here that she was disappointed in the girl. Where then had her +special calculation failed? As she couldn't possibly have wished her +prettier or more pleasing, the pang must have been for her not having +made a successful use of her gifts. Had she expected her to "land" a +prince the day after leaving the schoolroom? There was after all plenty +of time for this, with Linda but two-and-twenty. It didn't occur to me +to wonder if the source of her mother's tepidity was that the young lady +had not turned out so nice a nature as she had hoped, because in the +first place Linda struck me as perfectly innocent, and because in the +second I wasn't paid, in the French phrase, for supposing Louisa Pallant +much concerned on that score. The last hypothesis I should have invoked +was that of private despair at bad moral symptoms. And in relation to +Linda's nature I had before me the daily spectacle of her manner with my +nephew. It was as charming as it could be without betrayal of a desire +to lead him on. She was as familiar as a cousin, but as a distant one--a +cousin who had been brought up to observe degrees. She was so much +cleverer than Archie that she couldn't help laughing at him, but she +didn't laugh enough to exclude variety, being well aware, no doubt, that +a woman's cleverness most shines in contrast with a man's stupidity when +she pretends to take that stupidity for her law. Linda Pallant moreover +was not a chatterbox; as she knew the value of many things she knew the +value of intervals. There were a good many in the conversation of these +young persons; my nephew's own speech, to say nothing of his thought, +abounding in comfortable lapses; so that I sometimes wondered how their +association was kept at that pitch of continuity of which it gave the +impression. It was friendly enough, evidently, when Archie sat near her +--near enough for low murmurs, had such risen to his lips--and watched +her with interested eyes and with freedom not to try too hard to make +himself agreeable. She had always something in hand--a flower in her +tapestry to finish, the leaves of a magazine to cut, a button to sew on +her glove (she carried a little work-bag in her pocket and was a person +of the daintiest habits), a pencil to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbook +which she rested on her knee. When we were indoors--mainly then at her +mother's modest rooms--she had always the resource of her piano, of +which she was of course a perfect mistress. + +These pursuits supported her, they helped her to an assurance under such +narrow inspection--I ended by rebuking Archie for it; I told him he +stared the poor girl out of countenance--and she sought further relief +in smiling all over the place. When my young man's eyes shone at her +those of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to the trees and +clouds and other surrounding objects, including her mother and me. +Sometimes she broke into a sudden embarrassed happy pointless laugh. +When she wandered off with him she looked back at us in a manner that +promised it wasn't for long and that she was with us still in spirit. If +I liked her I had therefore my good reason: it was many a day since a +pretty girl had had the air of taking me so much into account. Sometimes +when they were so far away as not to disturb us she read aloud a little +to Mr. Archie. I don't know where she got her books--I never provided +them, and certainly he didn't. He was no reader and I fear he often +dozed. + + + + +III + +I remember the first time--it was at the end of about ten days of this-- +that Mrs. Pallant remarked to me: "My dear friend, you're quite AMAZING! +You behave for all the world as if you were perfectly ready to accept +certain consequences." She nodded in the direction of our young +companions, but I nevertheless put her at the pains of saying what +consequences she meant. "What consequences? Why the very same +consequences that ensued when you and I first became acquainted." + +I hesitated, but then, looking her in the eyes, said: "Do you mean she'd +throw him over?" + +"You're not kind, you're not generous," she replied with a quick colour. +"I'm giving you a warning." + +"You mean that my boy may fall in love with your girl?" + +"Certainly. It looks even as if the harm might be already done." + +"Then your warning comes too late," I significantly smiled. "But why do +you call it a harm?" + +"Haven't you any sense of the rigour of your office?" she asked. "Is +that what his mother has sent him out to you for: that you shall find +him the first wife you can pick up, that you shall let him put his head +into the noose the day after his arrival?" + +"Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind! I know moreover that +his mother doesn't want him to marry young. She holds it the worst of +mistakes, she feels that at that age a man never really chooses. He +doesn't choose till he has lived a while, till he has looked about and +compared." + +"And what do you think then yourself?" + +"I should like to say I regard the fact of falling in love, at whatever +age, as in itself an act of selection. But my being as I am at this time +of day would contradict me too much." + +"Well then, you're too primitive. You ought to leave this place tomorrow." + +"So as not to see Archie fall--?" + +"You ought to fish him out now--from where he HAS fallen--and take him +straight away." + +I wondered a little. "Do you think he's in very far?" + +"If I were his mother I know what I should think. I can put myself in +her place--I'm not narrow-minded. I know perfectly well how she must +regard such a question." + +"And don't you know," I returned, "that in America that's not thought +important--the way the mother regards it?" + +Mrs. Pallant had a pause--as if I mystified or vexed her. "Well, we're +not in America. We happen to be here." + +"No; my poor sister's up to her neck in New York." + +"I'm almost capable of writing to her to come out," said Mrs. Pallant. + +"You ARE warning me," I cried, "but I hardly know of what! It seems to +me my responsibility would begin only at the moment your daughter +herself should seem in danger." + +"Oh you needn't mind that--I'll take care of Linda." + +But I went on. "If you think she's in danger already I'll carry him off +to-morrow." + +"It would be the best thing you could do." + +"I don't know--I should be very sorry to act on a false alarm. I'm very +well here; I like the place and the life and your society. Besides, it +doesn't strike me that--on her side--there's any real symptom." + +She looked at me with an air I had never seen in her face, and if I had +puzzled her she repaid me in kind. "You're very annoying. You don't +deserve what I'd fain do for you." + +What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took up +the subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we should assume +that a girl like Linda--brilliant enough to make one of the greatest-- +would fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. Might I enquire if her +mother had won a confession from her, if she had stammered out her +secret? Mrs. Pallant made me, on this, the point that they had no need +to tell each other such things--they hadn't lived together twenty years +in such intimacy for nothing. To which I returned that I had guessed as +much, but that there might be an exception for a great occasion like the +present. If Linda had shown nothing it was a sign that for HER the +occasion wasn't great; and I mentioned that Archie had spoken to me of +the young lady only to remark casually and rather patronisingly, after +his first encounter with her, that she was a regular little flower. (The +little flower was nearly three years older than himself.) Apart from +this he hadn't alluded to her and had taken up no allusion of mine. Mrs. +Pallant informed me again--for which I was prepared--that I was quite +too primitive; after which she said: "We needn't discuss the case if you +don't wish to, but I happen to know--how I obtained my knowledge isn't +important--that the moment Mr. Parker should propose to my daughter +she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a detail worth mentioning to you." + +I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him. +I'll look into the matter tonight." + +"Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finer +view. "Remove him quickly--that's the only thing." + +I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too +summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds; +and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to change +my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with my +middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So I +temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as a son-in- +law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman." + +"My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with an +assurance that struck me. + +The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly! +But it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU." + +I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when she +spoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw. +We've been here a month--it will have served our purpose." + +"Mercy on us, that will be a bore!" I protested; and for the rest of the +evening, till we separated--our conversation had taken place after +dinner at the Kursaal--she said little, preserving a subdued and almost +injured air. This somehow didn't appeal to me, since it was absurd that +Louisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put me in the wrong. If +ever a woman had been in the wrong herself--! I had even no need to go +into that. Archie and I, at all events, usually attended the ladies back +to their own door--they lived in a street of minor accommodation at a +certain distance from the Rooms--where we parted for the night late, on +the big cobblestones, in the little sleeping German town, under the +closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy interiors, our cheerful +English partings resounded. On this occasion indeed they rather +languished; the question that had come up for me with Mrs. Pallant +appeared--and by no intention of mine--to have brushed the young couple +with its chill. Archie and Linda too struck me as conscious and dumb. + +As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew I passed my hand into his +arm and put to him, by no roundabout approach, the question of whether +he were in serious peril of love. + +"I don't know, I don't know--really, uncle, I don't know!" was, however, +all the satisfaction I could extract from the youth, who hadn't the +smallest vein of introspection. He mightn't know, but before we reached +the inn--we had a few more words on the subject--it seemed to me that +_I_ did. His mind wasn't formed to accommodate at one time many subjects +of thought, but Linda Pallant certainly constituted for the moment its +principal furniture. She pervaded his consciousness, she solicited his +curiosity, she associated herself, in a manner as yet informal and +undefined, with his future. I could see that she held, that she beguiled +him as no one had ever done. I didn't betray to him, however, that +perception, and I spent my night a prey to the consciousness that, after +all, it had been none of my business to provide him with the sense of +being captivated. To put him in relation with a young enchantress was +the last thing his mother had expected of me or that I had expected of +myself. Moreover it was quite my opinion that he himself was too young +to be a judge of enchantresses. Mrs. Pallant was right and I had given +high proof of levity in regarding her, with her beautiful daughter, as a +"resource." There were other resources--one of which WOULD be most +decidedly to clear out. What did I know after all about the girl except +that I rejoiced to have escaped from marrying her mother? That mother, +it was true, was a singular person, and it was strange her conscience +should have begun to fidget in advance of my own. It was strange she +should so soon have felt Archie's peril, and even stranger that she +should have then wished to "save" him. The ways of women were infinitely +subtle, and it was no novelty to me that one never knew where they would +turn up. As I haven't hesitated in this report to expose the irritable +side of my own nature I shall confess that I even wondered if my old +friend's solicitude hadn't been a deeper artifice. Wasn't it possibly a +plan of her own for making sure of my young man--though I didn't quite +see the logic of it? If she regarded him, which she might in view of his +large fortune, as a great catch, mightn't she have arranged this little +comedy, in their personal interest, with the girl? + +That possibility at any rate only made it a happier thought that I +should win my companion to some curiosity about other places. There were +many of course much more worth his attention than Homburg. In the course +of the morning--it was after our early luncheon--I walked round to Mrs. +Pallant's to let her know I was ready to take action; but even while I +went I again felt the unlikelihood of the part attributed by my fears +and by the mother's own, so far as they had been roused, to Linda. +Certainly if she was such a girl as these fears represented her she +would fly at higher game. It was with an eye to high game, Mrs. Pallant +had frankly admitted to me, that she had been trained, and such an +education, to say nothing of such a performer, justified a hope of +greater returns. A young American, the fruit of scant "modelling," who +could give her nothing but pocket-money, was a very moderate prize, and +if she had been prepared to marry for ambition--there was no such +hardness in her face or tone, but then there never is--her mark would be +inevitably a "personage" quelconque. I was received at my friend's +lodging with the announcement that she had left Homburg with her +daughter half an hour before. The good woman who had entertained the +pair professed to know nothing of their movements beyond the fact that +they had gone to Frankfort, where, however, it was her belief that they +didn't intend to remain. They were evidently travelling beyond. Sudden, +their decision to move? Oh yes, the matter of a moment. They must have +spent the night in packing, they had so many things and such pretty +ones; and their poor maid, all the morning, had scarce had time to +swallow her coffee. But they clearly were ladies accustomed to come and +go. It didn't matter--with such rooms as hers she never wanted: there +was a new family coming in at three. + + + + +IV + +This piece of strategy left me staring and made me, I must confess, +quite furious. My only consolation was that Archie, when I told him, +looked as blank as myself, and that the trick touched him more nearly, +for I was not now in love with Louisa. We agreed that we required an +explanation and we pretended to expect one the next day in the shape of +a letter satisfactory even to the point of being apologetic. When I say +"we" pretended I mean that I did, for my suspicion that he knew what had +been on foot--through an arrangement with Linda--lasted only a moment. +If his resentment was less than my own his surprise was equally great. I +had been willing to bolt, but I felt slighted by the ease with which +Mrs. Pallant had shown she could part with us. Archie professed no sense +of a grievance, because in the first place he was shy about it and +because in the second it was evidently not definite to him that he had +been encouraged--equipped as he was, I think, with no very particular +idea of what constituted encouragement. He was fresh from the wonderful +country in which there may between the ingenuous young be so little +question of "intentions." He was but dimly conscious of his own and +could by no means have told me whether he had been challenged or been +jilted. I didn't want to exasperate him, but when at the end of three +days more we were still without news of our late companions I observed +that it was very simple:--they must have been just hiding from us; they +thought us dangerous; they wished to avoid entanglements. They had found +us too attentive and wished not to raise false hopes. He appeared to +accept this explanation and even had the air--so at least I inferred +from his asking me no questions--of judging the matter might be delicate +for myself. The poor youth was altogether much mystified, and I smiled +at the image in his mind of Mrs. Pallant fleeing from his uncle's +importunities. We decided to leave Homburg, but if we didn't pursue our +fugitives it wasn't simply that we were ignorant of where they were. I +could have found that out with a little trouble, but I was deterred by +the reflexion that this would be Louisa's reasoning. She was a dreadful +humbug and her departure had been a provocation--I fear it was in that +stupid conviction that I made out a little independent itinerary with +Archie. I even believed we should learn where they were quite soon +enough, and that our patience--even my young man's--would be longer than +theirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of triumph when three +weeks later--we happened to be at Interlaken--he reported to me that he +had received a note from Miss Pallant. The form of this confidence was +his enquiring if there were particular reasons why we should longer +delay our projected visit to the Italian lakes. Mightn't the fear of the +hot weather, which was moreover at that season our native temperature, +cease to operate, the middle of September having arrived? I answered +that we would start on the morrow if he liked, and then, pleased +apparently that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his little +secret. He showed me his letter, which was a graceful natural document-- +it covered with a few flowing strokes but a single page of note-paper-- +not at all compromising to the young lady. If, however, it was almost +the apology I had looked for--save that this should have come from the +mother--it was not ostensibly in the least an invitation. It mentioned +casually--the mention was mainly in the words at the head of her paper-- +that they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno; but it consisted mainly +of the expression of a regret that they had had so abruptly to leave +Homburg. Linda failed to say under what necessity they had found +themselves; she only hoped we hadn't judged them too harshly and would +accept "this hasty line" as a substitute for the omitted good-bye. She +also hoped our days were passing pleasantly and with the same lovely +weather that prevailed south of the Alps; and she remained very +sincerely and with the kindest remembrances--! + +The note contained no message from her mother, and it was open to me to +suppose, as I should prefer, either that Mrs. Pallant hadn't known she +was writing or that they wished to make us think she hadn't known. The +letter might pass as a common civility of the girl's to a person with +whom she had been on easy terms. It was, however, for something more +than this that my nephew took it; so at least I gathered from the +touching candour of his determination to go to Baveno. I judged it idle +to drag him another way; he had money in his own pocket and was quite +capable of giving me the slip. Yet--such are the sweet incongruities of +youth--when I asked him to what tune he had been thinking of Linda since +they left us in the lurch he replied: "Oh I haven't been thinking at +all! Why should I?" This fib was accompanied by an exorbitant blush. +Since he was to obey his young woman's signal I must equally make out +where it would take him, and one splendid morning we started over the +Simplon in a post-chaise. + +I represented to him successfully that it would be in much better taste +for us to alight at Stresa, which as every one knows is a resort of +tourists, also on the shore of the major lake, at about a mile's +distance from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we should have to +inhabit the same hotel as our friends, and this might be awkward in view +of a strained relation with them. Nothing would be easier than to go and +come between the two points, especially by the water, which would give +Archie a chance for unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at the +vision of a pair of oars; he pretended to take my plea for discretion +very seriously, and I could see that he had at once begun to calculate +opportunities for navigation with Linda. Our post-chaise--I had insisted +on easy stages and we were three days on the way--deposited us at +Stresa toward the middle of the afternoon, and it was within an +amazingly short time that I found myself in a small boat with my nephew, +who pulled us over to Baveno with vigorous strokes. I remember the +sweetness of the whole impression. I had had it before, but to my +companion it was new, and he thought it as pretty as the opera: the +enchanting beauty of the place and, hour, the stillness of the air and +water, with the romantic fantastic Borromean Islands set as great jewels +in a crystal globe. We disembarked at the steps by the garden-foot of +the hotel, and somehow it seemed a perfectly natural part of the lovely +situation that I should immediately become conscious of Mrs. Pallant and +her daughter seated on the terrace and quietly watching us. They had the +air of expectation, which I think we had counted on. I hadn't even asked +Archie if he had answered Linda's note; this was between themselves and +in the way of supervision I had done enough in coming with him. + +There is no doubt our present address, all round, lacked a little the +easiest grace--or at least Louisa's and mine did. I felt too much the +appeal of her exhibition to notice closely the style of encounter of the +young people. I couldn't get it out of my head, as I have sufficiently +indicated, that Mrs. Pallant was playing a game, and I'm afraid she saw +in my face that this suspicion had been the motive of my journey. I had +come there to find her out. The knowledge of my purpose couldn't help +her to make me very welcome, and that's why I speak of our meeting +constrainedly. We observed none the less all the forms, and the +admirable scene left us plenty to talk about. I made no reference before +Linda to the retreat from Homburg. This young woman looked even prettier +than she had done on the eve of that manoeuvre and gave no sign of an +awkward consciousness. She again so struck me as a charming clever girl +that I was freshly puzzled to know why we should get--or should have +got--into a tangle about her. People had to want to complicate a +situation to do it on so simple a pretext as that Linda was in every way +beautiful. This was the clear fact: so why shouldn't the presumptions be +in favour of every result of it? One of the effects of that cause, on +the spot, was that at the end of a very short time Archie proposed to +her to take a turn with him in his boat, which awaited us at the foot of +the steps. She looked at her mother with a smiling "May I, mamma?" and +Mrs. Pallant answered "Certainly, darling, if you're not afraid." At +this--I scarcely knew why--I sought the relief of laughter: it must have +affected me as comic that the girl's general competence should suffer +the imputation of that particular flaw. She gave me a quick slightly +sharp look as she turned away with my nephew; it appeared to challenge +me a little--"Pray what's the matter with YOU?" It was the first +expression of the kind I had ever seen in her face. Mrs. Pallant's +attention, on the other hand, rather strayed from me; after we had been +left there together she sat silent, not heeding me, looking at the lake +and mountains--at the snowy crests crowned with the flush of evening. +She seemed not even to follow our young companions as they got into +their boat and pushed off. For some minutes I respected her mood; I +walked slowly up and down the terrace and lighted a cigar, as she had +always permitted me to do at Homburg. I found in her, it was true, +rather a new air of weariness; her fine cold well-bred face was pale; I +noted in it new lines of fatigue, almost of age. At last I stopped in +front of her and--since she looked so sad--asked if she had been having +bad news. + +"The only bad news was when I learned--through your nephew's note to +Linda--that you were coming to us." + +"Ah then he wrote?" + +"Certainly he wrote." + +"You take it all harder than I do," I returned as I sat down beside her. +And then I added, smiling: "Have you written to his mother?" + +Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. "Take care, take care, +or you'll have been more brutal than you'll afterwards like," she said +with an air of patience before the inevitable. + +"Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew when +Linda wrote." + +She had an hesitation. "Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn't have +done anything else. I let it go because I didn't know what course was +best. I'm afraid to oppose her to her face." + +"Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl?" + +"That girl? Much you know about her! It didn't follow you'd come. I +didn't take that for granted." + +"I'm like you," I said--"I too am afraid of my nephew. I don't venture +to oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do--once he wished +it--was to come with him." + +"I see. Well, there are grounds, after all, on which I'm glad," she +rather inscrutably added. + +"Oh I was conscientious about that! But I've no authority; I can neither +drive him nor stay him--I can use no force," I explained. "Look at the +way he's pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me." + +"You could tell him she's a bad hard girl--one who'd poison any good +man's life!" my companion broke out with a passion that startled me. + +At first I could only gape. "Dear lady, what do you mean?" + +She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and so +remained a minute; then she continued a little differently, though as if +she hadn't heard my question: "I hoped you were too disgusted with us-- +after the way we left you planted." + +"It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda +hadn't written. That patched it up," I gaily professed. But my gaiety +was thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Do +you really mean that she won't do?" I added. + +She made no direct answer; she only said after a little that it didn't +matter whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weeks +later, since it was destined to come at the first chance, the favouring +moment. Linda had marked my young man--and when Linda had marked a +thing! + +"Bless my soul--how very grim--" But I didn't understand. "Do you mean +she's in love with him?" + +"It's enough if she makes him think so--though even that isn't +essential." + +Still I was at sea. "If she makes him think so? Dear old friend, what's +your idea? I've observed her, I've watched her, and when all's said what +has she done? She has been civil and pleasant to him, but it would have +been much more marked if she hadn't. She has really shown him, with her +youth and her natural charm, nothing more than common friendliness. Her +note was nothing; he let me see it." + +"I don't think you've heard every word she has said to him," Mrs. +Pallant returned with an emphasis that still struck me as perverse. + +"No more have you, I take it!" I promptly cried. She evidently meant +more than she said; but if this excited my curiosity it also moved, in a +different connexion, my indulgence. + +"No, but I know my own daughter. She's a most remarkable young woman." + +"You've an extraordinary tone about her," I declared "such a tone as I +think I've never before heard on a mother's lips. I've had the same +impression from you--that of a disposition to 'give her away,' but never +yet so strong." + +At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there looking down at me. "You +make my reparation--my expiation--difficult!" And leaving me still more +astonished she moved along the terrace. + +I overtook her presently and repeated her words. "Your reparation--your +expiation? What on earth are you talking about?" + +"You know perfectly what I mean--it's too magnanimous of you to pretend +you don't." + +"Well, at any rate," I said, "I don't see what good it does me, or what +it makes up to me for, that you should abuse your daughter." + +"Oh I don't care; I shall save him!" she cried as we went, and with an +extravagance, as I felt, of sincerity. At the same moment two ladies, +apparently English, came toward us--scattered groups had been sitting +there and the inmates of the hotel were moving to and fro--and I +observed the immediate charming transition, the fruit of such years of +social practice, by which, as they greeted us, her tension and her +impatience dropped to recognition and pleasure. They stopped to speak to +her and she enquired with sweet propriety as to the "continued +improvement" of their sister. I strolled on and she presently rejoined +me; after which she had a peremptory note. "Come away from this--come +down into the garden." We descended to that blander scene, strolled +through it and paused on the border of the lake. + + + +V + +The charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemn +expression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. In +the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. I +looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, remarked that from +such an excursion as that, on such a lake and at such an hour, a young +man and a young woman of common sensibility could only come back doubly +pledged to each other. + +To this observation Mrs. Pallant's answer was, superficially at least, +irrelevant; she said after a pause: "With you, my dear man, one has +certainly to dot one's 'i's.' Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tell +you at Homburg, that we're miserably poor?" + +"Isn't 'miserably' rather too much--living as you are at an expensive +hotel?" + +Well, she promptly met this. "They take us en pension, for ever so +little a day. I've been knocking about Europe long enough to learn all +sorts of horrid arts. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we've spent half +our life in them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped never +to put her foot into one again. She feels that when she comes to such a +place as this she ought, if things were decently right, to find a villa +of her own." + +"Then her companion there's perfectly competent to give her one. Don't +think I've the least desire to push them into each other's arms--I only +ask to wash my hands of them. But I should like to know why you want, as +you said just now, to save him. When you speak as if your daughter were +a monster I take it you're not serious." + +She was facing me in the rich short twilight, and to describe herself as +immeasurably more serious perhaps than she had ever been in her life she +had only to look at me without protestation. "It's Linda's standard. God +knows I myself could get on! She's ambitious, luxurious, determined to +have what she wants--more 'on the make' than any one I've ever seen. Of +course it's open to you to tell me it's my own fault, that I was so +before her and have made her so. But does that make me like it any +better?" + +"Dear Mrs. Pallant, you're wonderful, you're terrible," I could only +stammer, lost in the desert of my thoughts. + +"Oh yes, you've made up your mind about me; you see me in a certain way +and don't like the trouble of changing. Votre siege est fait. But you'll +HAVE to change--if you've any generosity!" Her eyes shone in the summer +dusk and the beauty of her youth came back to her. + +"Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation?" I demanded. "I +don't see what you ever did to Archie." + +"It's enough that he belongs to you. But it isn't for you I do it--it's +for myself," she strangely went on. + +"Doubtless you've your own reasons--which I can't penetrate. But can't +you sacrifice something else? Must you sacrifice your only child?" + +"My only child's my punishment, my only child's my stigma!" she cried in +her exaltation. + +"It seems to me rather that you're hers." + +"Hers? What does SHE know of such things?--what can she ever feel? She's +cased in steel; she has a heart of marble. It's true--it's true," said +Louisa Pallant. "She appals me!" + +I laid my hand on my poor friend's; I uttered, with the intention of +checking and soothing her, the first incoherent words that came into my +head and I drew her toward a bench a few steps away. She dropped upon +it; I placed myself near her and besought her to consider well what she +said. She owed me nothing and I wished no one injured, no one denounced +or exposed for my sake. + +"For your sake? Oh I'm not thinking of you!" she answered; and indeed +the next moment I thought my words rather fatuous. "It's a satisfaction +to my own conscience--for I HAVE one, little as you may think I've a +right to speak of it. I've been punished by my sin itself. I've been +hideously worldly, I've thought only of that, and I've taught her to be +so--to do the same. That's the only instruction I've ever given her, and +she has learned the lesson so well that now I see it stamped there in +all her nature, on all her spirit and on all her form, I'm horrified at +my work. For years we've lived that way; we've thought of nothing else. +She has profited so well by my beautiful influence that she has gone far +beyond the great original. I say I'm horrified," Mrs. Pallant dreadfully +wound up, "because she's horrible." + +"My poor extravagant friend," I pleaded, "isn't it still more so to hear +a mother say such things?" + +"Why so, if they're abominably true? Besides, I don't care what I say if +I save him." + +I could only gape again at this least expected of all my adventures. "Do +you expect me then to repeat to him--?" + +"Not in the least," she broke in; "I'll do it myself." At this I uttered +some strong inarticulate protest, but she went on with the grimmest +simplicity: "I was very glad at first, but it would have been better if +we hadn't met." + +"I don't agree to that, for you interest me," I rather ruefully +professed, "immensely." + +"I don't care if I do--so I interest HIM." + +"You must reflect then that your denunciation can only strike me as, for +all its violence, vague and unconvincing. Never had a girl less the +appearance of bearing such charges out. You know how I've admired her." + +"You know nothing about her! _I_ do, you see, for she's the work of my +hand!" And Mrs. Pallant laughed for bitterness. "I've watched her for +years, and little by little, for the last two or three, it has come over +me. There's not a tender spot in her whole composition. To arrive at a +brilliant social position, if it were necessary, she would see me drown +in this lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there and see it +--she would push me in--and never feel a pang. That's my young lady!" Her +lucidity chilled me to the soul--it seemed to shine so flawless. "To +climb up to the top and be splendid and envied there," she went on--"to +do that at any cost or by any meanness and cruelty is the only thing she +has a heart for. She'd lie for it, she'd steal for it, she'd kill for +it!" My companion brought out these words with a cold confidence that +had evidently behind it some occult past process of growth. I watched +her pale face and glowing eyes; she held me breathless and frowning, but +her strange vindictive, or at least retributive, passion irresistibly +imposed itself. I found myself at last believing her, pitying her more +than I pitied the subject of her dreadful analysis. It was as if she had +held her tongue for longer than she could bear, suffering more and more +the importunity of the truth. It relieved her thus to drag that to the +light, and still she kept up the high and most unholy sacrifice. "God in +his mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that he +has let me see it in my daughter. It's myself he has let me see--myself +as I was for years. But she's worse--she IS, I assure you; she's worse +than I intended or dreamed." Her hands were clasped tightly together in +her lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked up +at the southern stars as if THEY would understand. + +"Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me?" I finally asked. "Have +you ever put before her this terrible arraignment?" + +"Put it before her? How can I put it before her when all she would have +to say would be: 'You, YOU, you base one, who made me--?'" + +"Then why do you want to play her a trick?" + +"I'm not bound to tell you, and you wouldn't see my point if I did. I +should play that boy a far worse one if I were to stay my hand." + +Oh I had my view of this. "If he loves her he won't believe a word you +say." + +"Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty." + +"And shall you say to him," I asked, "simply what you've said to me?" + +"Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that will +perhaps helpfully affect him. Only," she added with her proud decision, +"I must lose no time." + +"If you're so bent on gaining time," I said, "why did you let her go out +in the boat with him?" + +"Let her? how could I prevent it?" + +"But she asked your permission." + +"Ah that," she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!" + +It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing. +"Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed. + +"I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them +bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for what +I've made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself +married to her." + +"There's not much danger of there being any such person," I wailed, "at +the rate you go on." + +"I beg your pardon--there's a perfect possibility," said my companion. +"She'll marry--she'll marry 'well.' She'll marry a title as well as a +fortune. + +"It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title," I attempted the grimace of +suggesting. + +She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm acting +a part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can any +one TELL," asked Louisa Pallant--"with people like us?" + +Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand on +her arm, holding her a while, and we looked at each other through the +dusk. "You couldn't do more if he were my son." + +"Oh if he had been your son he'd have kept out of it! I like him for +himself. He's simple and sane and honest--he needs affection." + +"He would have quite the most remarkable of mothers-in-law!" I +commented. + +Mrs. Pallant gave a small dry laugh--she wasn't joking. We lingered by +the lake while I thought over what she had said to me and while she +herself apparently thought. I confess that even close at her side and +under the strong impression of her sincerity, her indifference to the +conventional graces, my imagination, my constitutional scepticism began +to range. Queer ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on HER side and +not on the girl's, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman at poor +Linda's expense? Was she determined, in spite of the young lady's +preference, to keep her daughter for a grander personage than a young +American whose dollars were not numerous enough--numerous as they were-- +to make up for his want of high relationships, and had she invented at +once the boldest and the subtlest of games in order to keep the case in +her hands? If she was prepared really to address herself to Archie she +would have to go very far to overcome the mistrust he would be sure to +feel at a proceeding superficially so sinister? Was she prepared to go +far enough? The answer to these doubts was simply the way I had been +touched--it came back to me the next moment--when she used the words +"people like us." Their effect was to wring my heart. She seemed to +kneel in the dust, and I felt in a manner ashamed that I had let her +sink to it. She said to me at last that I must wait no longer, I must go +away before the young people came back. They were staying long, too +long; all the more reason then she should deal with my nephew that +night. I must drive back to Stresa, or if I liked I could go on foot: it +wasn't far--for an active man. She disposed of me freely, she was so +full of her purpose; and after we had quitted the garden and returned to +the terrace above she seemed almost to push me to leave her--I felt her +fine consecrated hands fairly quiver on my shoulders. I was ready to do +as she prescribed; she affected me painfully, she had given me a "turn," +and I wanted to get away from her. But before I went I asked her why +Linda should regard my young man as such a parti; it didn't square after +all with her account of the girl's fierce ambitions. By that account +these favours to one so graceless were a woeful waste of time. + +"Oh she has worked it all out; she has regarded the question in every +light," said Mrs. Pallant. "If she has made up her mind it's because she +sees what she can do." + +"Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?" + +My friend's wonderful face pitied my simplicity. "Lord! for what do you +take us? We don't talk things over to-day. We know each other's point of +view and only have to act. We observe the highest proprieties of speech. +We never for a moment name anything ugly--we only just go at it. We can +take definitions, which are awkward things, for granted." + +"But in this case," I nevertheless urged, "the poor thing can't possibly +be aware of your point of view." + +"No," she conceded--"that's because I haven't played fair. Of course she +couldn't expect I'd cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. But +it was open to her to do the same." + +"What do you mean by the same?" + +"She might have fallen in love with a poor man. Then I should have been +'done.'" + +"A rich one's better; he can do more," I replied with conviction. + +At this she appeared to have, in the oddest way, a momentary revulsion. +"So you'd have reason to know if you had led the life that we have! +Never to have had really enough--I mean to do just the few simple things +we've wanted; never to have had the sinews of war, I suppose you'd call +them, the funds for a campaign; to have felt every day and every hour +the hard eternal pinch and found the question of dollars and cents--and +so horridly few of them--mixed up with every experience, with every +impulse: that DOES make one mercenary, does make money seem a good +beyond all others; which it's quite natural it should! And it's why +Linda's of the opinion that a fortune's always a fortune. She knows all +about that of your nephew, how it's invested, how it may be expected to +increase, exactly on what sort of footing it would enable her to live. +She has decided that it's enough, and enough is as good as a feast. She +thinks she could lead him by the nose, and I dare say she could. She'll +of course make him live in these countries; she hasn't the slightest +intention of casting her pearls--but basta!" said my friend. "I think +she has views upon London, because in England he can hunt and shoot, and +that will make him leave her more or less to herself." + +"I don't know about his leaving her to herself, but it strikes me that +he would like the rest of that matter very much," I returned. "That's +not at all a bad programme even from Archie's point of view." + +"It's no use thinking of princes," she pursued as if she hadn't heard +me. "They're most of them more in want of money even than we. Therefore +'greatness' is out of the question--we really recognised that at an +early stage. Your nephew's exactly the sort of young man we've always +built upon--if he wasn't, so impossibly, your nephew. From head to foot +he was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter when +she recognised him on the spot! One's enough of a prince to-day when +one's the right American: such a wonderful price is set on one's not +being the wrong! It does as well as anything and it's a great +simplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see." She had +come with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and +we stood there in the sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, bidding her +good-night, I couldn't but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, poor +Linda!" + +"Oh she'll live to do better," said Mrs. Pallant. + +"How can she do better--since you've described all she finds Archie as +perfection?" + +She knew quite what she meant. "Ah better for HIM!" + +I still had her hand--I still sought her eyes. "How came it you could +throw me over--such a woman as you?" + +"Well, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over how could I do this for +you?" On which, disengaging herself, she turned quickly away. + + + + +VI + +I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her +question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and the +real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the +colour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa--a walk of half an +hour--in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in which +she had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have made +sitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me up +after I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was useless +to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie had not +reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensed +with. I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possible +mischances. Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake, +that is of his continued absence from Baveno--Mrs. Pallant would already +have dispatched me a messenger. It was foolish moreover to suppose +anything could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno by +water to rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and more +than sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had +unlimited confidence in his power to take care of himself in a much +tighter place. I went to my room at last; his own was at some distance, +the people of the hotel not having been able--it was the height of the +autumn season--to make us contiguous. Before I went to bed I had +occasion to ring for a servant, and I then learned by a chance enquiry +that my nephew had returned an hour before and had gone straight to his +own quarters. I hadn't supposed he could come in without my seeing him-- +I was wandering about the saloons and terraces--and it had not occurred +to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now--I was so +anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for evidently +he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity, and I +slept even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking our +encounter--for if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have looked +for me in my room--was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him +would really have come off. What had she said to him? What strong +measures had she taken? That almost morbid resolution I still seemed to +hear the ring of pointed to conceivable extremities that I shrank from +considering. She had spoken of these things while we parted there as +something she would do for me; but I had made the mental comment in +walking away from her that she hadn't done it yet. It wouldn't truly be +done till Archie had truly backed out. Perhaps it was done by this time; +his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. That was what I thought of most +of the night. I spent a considerable part of it at my window, looking +out to the couchant Alps. HAD he thought better of it?--was he making up +his mind to think better of it? There was a strange contradiction in the +matter; there were in fact more contradictions than ever. I had taken +from Louisa what she told me of Linda, and yet that other idea made me +ashamed of my nephew. I was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss of +a great chance, if loss it was to be; and yet I hoped her mother's grand +treachery--I didn't know what to call it--had been at least, to her +lover, thoroughgoing. It would need strong action in that lady to +justify his retreat. For him too I was sorry--if she had made on him the +impression she desired. Once or twice I was on the point of getting into +my dressing-gown and going forth to condole with him. I was sure he too +had jumped up from his bed and was looking out of his window at the +everlasting hills. + +But I am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast he +showed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources that +later experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterly +resource of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we think +that too simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with an +effect much less baffling. My young man looked not in the least as if he +had lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what +he had done after my premature departure--I explained this by saying I +had been tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wanted +to go to bed--he replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about the +place; I like it better than this one. We had an awfully jolly time on +the water. _I_ wasn't in the least fagged." I didn't worry him with +questions; it struck me as gross to try to probe his secret. The only +indication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should go +over again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted he +would be glad to come too. Then he let fall that he'd stop at Stresa--he +had paid them such a tremendous visit; also that he had arrears of +letters. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of his +visits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consisted +entirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he soothed my +anxiety so little that it was really this yearning that carried me back +to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it he +stood watching me from the porch of the hotel with his hands in his +pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the poor youth's +face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even, +to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observed +him, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better come with +me" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my call. I +said to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it wouldn't +take much to bring him back. + +The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in a +summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at large +had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on the +lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the Borromean +Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in the summer- +house, but she was there alone. On finding this the case I stopped +short, rather awkwardly--I might have been, from the way I suddenly +felt, an unmasked hypocrite, a proved conspirator against her security +and honour. But there was no embarrassment in lovely Linda; she looked +up with a cry of pleasure from the book she was reading and held out her +hand with engaging frankness. I felt again as if I had no right to that +favour, which I pretended not to have noticed. This gave no chill, +however, to her pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestry off the +bench so that I might sit down; she praised the place as a delightful +shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, kinder; she made her +mother's awful talk about her a hideous dream. She told me her mother +was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to write a letter. One +couldn't write out there, though it was so nice in other respects: the +table refused to stand firm. They too then had pretexts of letters +between them--I judged this a token that the situation was tense. It +was the only one nevertheless that Linda gave: like Archie she was young +enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us always together, +yet she made no comment on my having come over without him. I waited in +vain for her to speak of this--it would only be natural; her omission +couldn't but have a sense. At last I remarked that my nephew was very +unsociable that morning; I had expected him to join me, but he hadn't +seemed to see the attraction. + +"I'm very glad. You can tell him that if you like," said Linda Pallant. + +I wondered at her. "If I tell him he'll come at once." + +"Then don't tell him; I don't want him to come. He stayed too long last +night," she went on, "and kept me out on the water till I don't know +what o'clock. That sort of thing isn't done here, you know, and every +one was shocked when we came back--or rather, you see, when we didn't! I +begged him to bring me in, but he wouldn't. When we did return--I almost +had to take the oars myself--I felt as if every one had been sitting up +to time us, to stare at us. It was awfully awkward." + +These words much impressed me; and as I have treated the reader to most +of the reflexions--some of them perhaps rather morbid--in which I +indulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother, I may as well +complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whether Linda-- +candid and accomplished maiden--entertained the graceful thought of +strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove he had +"compromised" her. "Ah no doubt that was the reason he had a bad +conscience last evening!" I made answer. "When he came back to Stresa he +sneaked off to his room; he wouldn't look me in the face." + +But my young lady was not to be ruffled. "Mamma was so vexed that she +took him apart and gave him a scolding. And to punish ME she sent me +straight to bed. She has very old-fashioned ideas--haven't you, mamma?" +she added, looking over my head at Mrs. Pallant, who had just come in +behind me. + +I forget how her mother met Linda's appeal; Louisa stood there with two +letters, sealed and addressed, in her hand. She greeted me gaily and +then asked her daughter if she were possessed of postage-stamps. Linda +consulted a well-worn little pocket-book and confessed herself +destitute; whereupon her mother gave her the letters with the request +that she would go into the hotel, buy the proper stamps at the office, +carefully affix them and put the letters into the box. She was to pay +for the stamps, not have them put on the bill--a preference for which +Mrs. Pallant gave reasons. I had bought some at Stresa that morning and +was on the point of offering them when, apparently having guessed my +intention, the elder lady silenced me with a look. Linda announced +without reserve that she hadn't money and Louisa then fumbled for a +franc. When she had found and bestowed it the girl kissed her before +going off with the letters. + +"Darling mother, you haven't any too many of them, have you?" she +murmured; and she gave me, sidelong, as she left us, the prettiest half- +comical, half-pitiful smile. + +"She's amazing--she's amazing," said Mrs. Pallant as we looked at each +other. + +"Does she know what you've done?" + +"She knows I've done something and she's making up her mind what it is. +She'll satisfy herself in the course of the next twenty-four hours--if +your nephew doesn't come back. I think I can promise you he won't." + +"And won't she ask you?" + +"Never!" + +"Shan't you tell her? Can you sit down together in this summer-house, +this divine day, with such a dreadful thing as that between you?" + +My question found my friend quite ready. "Don't you remember what I told +you about our relations--that everything was implied between us and +nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in common--our perpetual +worldliness, our always looking out for chances--are not the sort of +thing that can be uttered conveniently between persons who like to keep +up forms, as we both do: so that, always, if we've understood each other +it has been enough. We shall understand each other now, as we've always +done, and nothing will be changed. There has always been something +between us that couldn't be talked about." + +"Certainly, she's amazing--she's amazing," I repeated; "but so are you." +And then I asked her what she had said to my boy. + +She seemed surprised. "Hasn't he told you?" + +"No, and he never will." + +"I'm glad of that," she answered simply. + +"But I'm not sure he won't come back. He didn't this morning, but he had +already half a mind to." + +"That's your imagination," my companion said with her fine authority. +"If you knew what I told him you'd be sure." + +"And you won't let me know?" + +"Never, dear friend." + +"And did he believe you?" + +"Time will show--but I think so." + +"And how did you make it plausible to him that you should take so +unnatural a course?" + +For a moment she said nothing, only looking at me. Then at last: "I told +him the truth." + +"The truth?" + +"Take him away--take him away!" she broke out. "That's why I got rid of +Linda, to tell you you mustn't stay--you must leave Stresa to-morrow. +This time it's you who must do it. I can't fly from you again--it costs +too much!" And she smiled strangely. + +"Don't be afraid; don't be afraid. We'll break camp again to-morrow--ah +me! But I want to go myself," I added. I took her hand in farewell, but +spoke again while I held it. "The way you put it, about Linda, was very +bad?" + +"It was horrible." + +I turned away--I felt indeed that I couldn't stay. She kept me from +going to the hotel, as I might meet Linda coming back, which I was far +from wishing to do, and showed me another way into the road. Then she +turned round to meet her daughter and spend the rest of the morning +there with her, spend it before the bright blue lake and the snowy +crests of the Alps. When I reached Stresa again I found my young man had +gone off to Milan--to see the cathedral, the servant said--leaving a +message for me to the effect that, as he shouldn't be back for a day or +two, though there were numerous trains, he had taken a few clothes. The +next day I received telegram-notice that he had determined to go on to +Venice and begged I would forward the rest of his luggage. "Please don't +come after me," this missive added; "I want to be alone; I shall do no +harm." That sounded pathetic to me, in the light of what I knew, and I +was glad to leave him to his own devices. He proceeded to Venice and I +re-crossed the Alps. For several weeks after this I expected to discover +that he had rejoined Mrs. Pallant; but when we met that November in +Paris I saw he had nothing to hide from me save indeed the secret of +what our extraordinary friend had said to him. This he concealed from me +then and has concealed ever since. He returned to America before +Christmas--when I felt the crisis over. I've never again seen the +wronger of my youth. About a year after our more recent adventure her +daughter Linda married, in London, a young Englishman the heir to a +large fortune, a fortune acquired by his father in some prosaic but +flourishing industry. Mrs. Gimingham's admired photographs--such is +Linda's present name--may be obtained from the principal stationers. I +am convinced her mother was sincere. My nephew has not even yet changed +his state, my sister at last thinks it high time. I put before her as +soon as I next saw her the incidents here recorded, and--such is the +inconsequence of women--nothing can exceed her reprobation of Louisa +Pallant. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Louisa Pallant, by Henry James + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUISA PALLANT *** + +This file should be named palln10.txt or palln10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, palln11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, palln10a.txt + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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