The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Europeans, by Henry James

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by Henry James

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from thewindows of a gloomy-looking inn, is at no time an object of enliveningsuggestion; and the spectacle is not at its best when the mouldy tombstones andfunereal umbrage have received the ineffectual refreshment of a dull, moistsnow-fall. If, while the air is thickened by this frosty drizzle, the calendarshould happen to indicate that the blessed vernal season is already six weeksold, it will be admitted that no depressing influence is absent from the scene.This fact was keenly felt on a certain 12th of May, upwards of thirty yearssince, by a lady who stood looking out of one of the windows of the best hotelin the ancient city of Boston. She had stood there for half an hour—stoodthere, that is, at intervals; for from time to time she turned back into theroom and measured its length with a restless step. In the chimney-place was ared-hot fire which emitted a small blue flame; and in front of the fire, at atable, sat a young man who was busily plying a pencil. He had a number ofsheets of paper cut into small equal squares, and he was apparently coveringthem with pictorial designs—strange-looking figures. He worked rapidlyand attentively, sometimes threw back his head and held out his drawing atarm’s-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding humming and whistling. Thelady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts were voluminous. Shenever dropped her eyes upon his work; she only turned them, occasionally, asshe passed, to a mirror suspended above the toilet-table on the other side ofthe room. Here she paused a moment, gave a pinch to her waist with her twohands, or raised these members—they were very plump and pretty—tothe multifold braids of her hair, with a movement half caressing, halfcorrective. An attentive observer might have fancied that during these periodsof desultory self-inspection her face forgot its melancholy; but as soon as sheneared the window again it began to proclaim that she was a very ill-pleasedwoman. And indeed, in what met her eyes there was little to be pleased with.The window-panes were battered by the sleet; the head-stones in the grave-yardbeneath seemed to be holding themselves askance to keep it out of their faces.A tall iron railing protected them from the street, and on the other side ofthe railing an assemblage of Bostonians were trampling about in the liquidsnow. Many of them were looking up and down; they appeared to be waiting forsomething. From time to time a strange vehicle drew near to the place wherethey stood,—such a vehicle as the lady at the window, in spite of aconsiderable acquaintance with human inventions, had never seen before: a huge,low omnibus, painted in brilliant colors, and decorated apparently withjangling bells, attached to a species of groove in the pavement, through whichit was dragged, with a great deal of rumbling, bouncing and scratching, by acouple of remarkably small horses. When it reached a certain point the peoplein front of the grave-yard, of whom much the greater number were women,carrying satchels and parcels, projected themselves upon it in a compactbody—a movement suggesting the scramble for places in a life-boat atsea—and were engulfed in its large interior. Then the life-boat—orthe life-car, as the lady at the window of the hotel vaguely designatedit—went bumping and jingling away upon its invisible wheels, with thehelmsman (the man at the wheel) guiding its course incongruously from the prow.This phenomenon was repeated every three minutes, and the supply ofeagerly-moving women in cloaks, bearing reticules and bundles, renewed itselfin the most liberal manner. On the other side of the grave-yard was a row ofsmall red brick houses, showing a series of homely, domestic-looking backs; atthe end opposite the hotel a tall wooden church-spire, painted white, rose highinto the vagueness of the snow-flakes. The lady at the window looked at it forsome time; for reasons of her own she thought it the ugliest thing she had everseen. She hated it, she despised it; it threw her into a state of irritationthat was quite out of proportion to any sensible motive. She had never knownherself to care so much about church-spires.

She was not pretty; but even when it expressed perplexed irritation her facewas most interesting and agreeable. Neither was she in her first youth; yet,though slender, with a great deal of extremely well-fashioned roundness ofcontour—a suggestion both of maturity and flexibility—she carriedher three and thirty years as a light-wristed Hebe might have carried abrimming wine-cup. Her complexion was fatigued, as the French say; her mouthwas large, her lips too full, her teeth uneven, her chin rather commonlymodeled; she had a thick nose, and when she smiled—she was constantlysmiling—the lines beside it rose too high, toward her eyes. But theseeyes were charming: gray in color, brilliant, quickly glancing, gently resting,full of intelligence. Her forehead was very low—it was her only handsomefeature; and she had a great abundance of crisp dark hair, finely frizzled,which was always braided in a manner that suggested some Southern or Eastern,some remotely foreign, woman. She had a large collection of ear-rings, and worethem in alternation; and they seemed to give a point to her Oriental or exoticaspect. A compliment had once been paid her, which, being repeated to her, gaveher greater pleasure than anything she had ever heard. “A prettywoman?” someone had said. “Why, her features are very bad.”“I don’t know about her features,” a very discerning observerhad answered; “but she carries her head like a pretty woman.” Youmay imagine whether, after this, she carried her head less becomingly.

She turned away from the window at last, pressing her hands to her eyes.“It’s too horrible!” she exclaimed. “I shall goback—I shall go back!” And she flung herself into a chair beforethe fire.

“Wait a little, dear child,” said the young man softly, sketchingaway at his little scraps of paper.

The lady put out her foot; it was very small, and there was an immense rosetteon her slipper. She fixed her eyes for a while on this ornament, and then shelooked at the glowing bed of anthracite coal in the grate. “Did you eversee anything so hideous as that fire?” she demanded. “Did you eversee anything so—so affreuxas—as everything?” Shespoke English with perfect purity; but she brought out this French epithet in amanner that indicated that she was accustomed to using French epithets.

“I think the fire is very pretty,” said the young man, glancing atit a moment. “Those little blue tongues, dancing on top of the crimsonembers, are extremely picturesque. They are like a fire in an alchemist’slaboratory.”

“You are too good-natured, my dear,” his companion declared.

The young man held out one of his drawings, with his head on one side. Histongue was gently moving along his under-lip. “Good-natured—yes.Too good-natured—no.”

“You are irritating,” said the lady, looking at her slipper.

He began to retouch his sketch. “I think you mean simply that you areirritated.”

“Ah, for that, yes!” said his companion, with a little bitterlaugh. “It’s the darkest day of my life—and you know whatthat means.”

“Wait till tomorrow,” rejoined the young man.

“Yes, we have made a great mistake. If there is any doubt about it today,there certainly will be none tomorrow. Ce sera clair, au moins!”

The young man was silent a few moments, driving his pencil. Then at last,“There are no such things as mistakes,” he affirmed.

“Very true—for those who are not clever enough to perceive them.Not to recognize one’s mistakes—that would be happiness inlife,” the lady went on, still looking at her pretty foot.

“My dearest sister,” said the young man, always intent upon hisdrawing, “it’s the first time you have told me I am notclever.”

“Well, by your own theory I can’t call it a mistake,”answered his sister, pertinently enough.

The young man gave a clear, fresh laugh. “You, at least, are cleverenough, dearest sister,” he said.

“I was not so when I proposed this.”

“Was it you who proposed it?” asked her brother.

She turned her head and gave him a little stare. “Do you desire thecredit of it?”

“If you like, I will take the blame,” he said, looking up with asmile.

“Yes,” she rejoined in a moment, “you make no difference inthese things. You have no sense of property.”

The young man gave his joyous laugh again. “If that means I have noproperty, you are right!”

“Don’t joke about your poverty,” said his sister. “Thatis quite as vulgar as to boast about it.”

“My poverty! I have just finished a drawing that will bring me fiftyfrancs!”

“Voyons,”said the lady, putting out her hand.

He added a touch or two, and then gave her his sketch. She looked at it, butshe went on with her idea of a moment before. “If a woman were to ask youto marry her you would say, ‘Certainly, my dear, with pleasure!’And you would marry her and be ridiculously happy. Then at the end of threemonths you would say to her, ‘You know that blissful day when I beggedyou to be mine!’”

The young man had risen from the table, stretching his arms a little; he walkedto the window. “That is a description of a charming nature,” hesaid.

“Oh, yes, you have a charming nature; I regard that as our capital. If Ihad not been convinced of that I should never have taken the risk of bringingyou to this dreadful country.”

“This comical country, this delightful country!” exclaimed theyoung man, and he broke into the most animated laughter.

“Is it those women scrambling into the omnibus?” asked hiscompanion. “What do you suppose is the attraction?”

“I suppose there is a very good-looking man inside,” said the youngman.

“In each of them? They come along in hundreds, and the men in thiscountry don’t seem at all handsome. As for the women—I have neverseen so many at once since I left the convent.”

“The women are very pretty,” her brother declared, “and thewhole affair is very amusing. I must make a sketch of it.” And he cameback to the table quickly, and picked up his utensils—a smallsketching-board, a sheet of paper, and three or four crayons. He took his placeat the window with these things, and stood there glancing out, plying hispencil with an air of easy skill. While he worked he wore a brilliant smile.Brilliant is indeed the word at this moment for his strongly-lighted face. Hewas eight and twenty years old; he had a short, slight, well-made figure.Though he bore a noticeable resemblance to his sister, he was a better favoredperson: fair-haired, clear-faced, witty-looking, with a delicate finish offeature and an expression at once urbane and not at all serious, a warm blueeye, an eyebrow finely drawn and excessively arched—an eyebrow which, ifladies wrote sonnets to those of their lovers, might have been made the subjectof such a piece of verse—and a light moustache that flourished upwards asif blown that way by the breath of a constant smile. There was something in hisphysiognomy at once benevolent and picturesque. But, as I have hinted, it wasnot at all serious. The young man’s face was, in this respect, singular;it was not at all serious, and yet it inspired the liveliest confidence.

“Be sure you put in plenty of snow,” said his sister.“Bonté divine, what a climate!”

“I shall leave the sketch all white, and I shall put in the littlefigures in black,” the young man answered, laughing. “And I shallcall it—what is that line in Keats?—Mid-May’s EldestChild!”

“I don’t remember,” said the lady, “that mamma evertold me it was like this.”

“Mamma never told you anything disagreeable. And it’s not likethis—every day. You will see that tomorrow we shall have a splendidday.”

“Qu’en savez-vous?Tomorrow I shall go away.”

“Where shall you go?”

“Anywhere away from here. Back to Silberstadt. I shall write to theReigning Prince.”

The young man turned a little and looked at her, with his crayon poised.“My dear Eugenia,” he murmured, “were you so happy atsea?”

Eugenia got up; she still held in her hand the drawing her brother had givenher. It was a bold, expressive sketch of a group of miserable people on thedeck of a steamer, clinging together and clutching at each other, while thevessel lurched downward, at a terrific angle, into the hollow of a wave. It wasextremely clever, and full of a sort of tragi-comical power. Eugenia droppedher eyes upon it and made a sad grimace. “How can you draw such odiousscenes?” she asked. “I should like to throw it into thefire!” And she tossed the paper away. Her brother watched, quietly, tosee where it went. It fluttered down to the floor, where he let it lie. Shecame toward the window, pinching in her waist. “Why don’t youreproach me—abuse me?” she asked. “I think I should feelbetter then. Why don’t you tell me that you hate me for bringing youhere?”

“Because you would not believe it. I adore you, dear sister! I amdelighted to be here, and I am charmed with the prospect.”

“I don’t know what had taken possession of me. I had lost myhead,” Eugenia went on.

The young man, on his side, went on plying his pencil. “It is evidently amost curious and interesting country. Here we are, and I mean to enjoyit.”

His companion turned away with an impatient step, but presently came back.“High spirits are doubtless an excellent thing,” she said;“but you give one too much of them, and I can’t see that they havedone you any good.”

The young man stared, with lifted eyebrows, smiling; he tapped his handsomenose with his pencil. “They have made me happy!”

“That was the least they could do; they have made you nothing else. Youhave gone through life thanking fortune for such very small favors that she hasnever put herself to any trouble for you.”

“She must have put herself to a little, I think, to present me with soadmirable a sister.”

“Be serious, Felix. You forget that I am your elder.”

“With a sister, then, so elderly!” rejoined Felix, laughing.“I hoped we had left seriousness in Europe.”

“I fancy you will find it here. Remember that you are nearly thirty yearsold, and that you are nothing but an obscure Bohemian—a pennilesscorrespondent of an illustrated newspaper.”

“Obscure as much as you please, but not so much of a Bohemian as youthink. And not at all penniless! I have a hundred pounds in my pocket. I havean engagement to make fifty sketches, and I mean to paint the portraits of allour cousins, and of all theircousins, at a hundred dollars ahead.”

“You are not ambitious,” said Eugenia.

“You are, dear Baroness,” the young man replied.

The Baroness was silent a moment, looking out at the sleet-darkened grave-yardand the bumping horse-cars. “Yes, I am ambitious,” she said atlast. “And my ambition has brought me to this dreadful place!” Sheglanced about her—the room had a certain vulgar nudity; the bed and thewindow were curtainless—and she gave a little passionate sigh.“Poor old ambition!” she exclaimed. Then she flung herself downupon a sofa which stood near against the wall, and covered her face with herhands.

Her brother went on with his drawing, rapidly and skillfully; after somemoments he sat down beside her and showed her his sketch. “Now,don’t you think that’s pretty good for an obscure Bohemian?”he asked. “I have knocked off another fifty francs.”

Eugenia glanced at the little picture as he laid it on her lap. “Yes, itis very clever,” she said. And in a moment she added, “Do yousuppose our cousins do that?”

“Do what?”

“Get into those things, and look like that.”

Felix meditated awhile. “I really can’t say. It will be interestingto discover.”

“Oh, the rich people can’t!” said the Baroness.

“Are you very sure they are rich?” asked Felix, lightly.

His sister slowly turned in her place, looking at him. “Heavenlypowers!” she murmured. “You have a way of bringing outthings!”

“It will certainly be much pleasanter if they are rich,” Felixdeclared.

“Do you suppose if I had not known they were rich I would ever havecome?”

The young man met his sister’s somewhat peremptory eye with his bright,contented glance. “Yes, it certainly will be pleasanter,” herepeated.

“That is all I expect of them,” said the Baroness. “Idon’t count upon their being clever or friendly—at first—orelegant or interesting. But I assure you I insist upon their being rich.”

Felix leaned his head upon the back of the sofa and looked awhile at the oblongpatch of sky to which the window served as frame. The snow was ceasing; itseemed to him that the sky had begun to brighten. “I count upon theirbeing rich,” he said at last, “and powerful, and clever, andfriendly, and elegant, and interesting, and generally delightful! Tu vasvoir.” And he bent forward and kissed his sister. “Lookthere!” he went on. “As a portent, even while I speak, the sky isturning the color of gold; the day is going to be splendid.”

And indeed, within five minutes the weather had changed. The sun broke outthrough the snow-clouds and jumped into the Baroness’s room.“Bonté divine,” exclaimed this lady, “what aclimate!”

“We will go out and see the world,” said Felix.

And after a while they went out. The air had grown warm as well as brilliant;the sunshine had dried the pavements. They walked about the streets at hazard,looking at the people and the houses, the shops and the vehicles, the blazingblue sky and the muddy crossings, the hurrying men and the slow-strollingmaidens, the fresh red bricks and the bright green trees, the extraordinarymixture of smartness and shabbiness. From one hour to another the day had grownvernal; even in the bustling streets there was an odor of earth and blossom.Felix was immensely entertained. He had called it a comical country, and hewent about laughing at everything he saw. You would have said that Americancivilization expressed itself to his sense in a tissue of capital jokes. Thejokes were certainly excellent, and the young man’s merriment was joyousand genial. He possessed what is called the pictorial sense; and this firstglimpse of democratic manners stirred the same sort of attention that he wouldhave given to the movements of a lively young person with a bright complexion.Such attention would have been demonstrative and complimentary; and in thepresent case Felix might have passed for an undispirited young exile revisitingthe haunts of his childhood. He kept looking at the violent blue of the sky, atthe scintillating air, at the scattered and multiplied patches of color.

“Comme c’est bariolé, eh?” he said to his sister inthat foreign tongue which they both appeared to feel a mysterious promptingoccasionally to use.

“Yes, it is barioléindeed,” the Baroness answered. “Idon’t like the coloring; it hurts my eyes.”

“It shows how extremes meet,” the young man rejoined.“Instead of coming to the West we seem to have gone to the East. The waythe sky touches the house-tops is just like Cairo; and the red and bluesign-boards patched over the face of everything remind one of Mahometandecorations.”

“The young women are not Mahometan,” said his companion.“They can’t be said to hide their faces. I never saw anything sobold.”

“Thank Heaven they don’t hide their faces!” cried Felix.“Their faces are uncommonly pretty.”

“Yes, their faces are often very pretty,” said the Baroness, whowas a very clever woman. She was too clever a woman not to be capable of agreat deal of just and fine observation. She clung more closely than usual toher brother’s arm; she was not exhilarated, as he was; she said verylittle, but she noted a great many things and made her reflections. She was alittle excited; she felt that she had indeed come to a strange country, to makeher fortune. Superficially, she was conscious of a good deal of irritation anddispleasure; the Baroness was a very delicate and fastidious person. Of old,more than once, she had gone, for entertainment’s sake and in brilliantcompany, to a fair in a provincial town. It seemed to her now that she was atan enormous fair—that the entertainment and the désagrémentswerevery much the same. She found herself alternately smiling and shrinking; theshow was very curious, but it was probable, from moment to moment, that onewould be jostled. The Baroness had never seen so many people walking aboutbefore; she had never been so mixed up with people she did not know. But littleby little she felt that this fair was a more serious undertaking. She went withher brother into a large public garden, which seemed very pretty, but where shewas surprised at seeing no carriages. The afternoon was drawing to a close; thecoarse, vivid grass and the slender tree-boles were gilded by the levelsunbeams—gilded as with gold that was fresh from the mine. It was thehour at which ladies should come out for an airing and roll past a hedge ofpedestrians, holding their parasols askance. Here, however, Eugenia observed noindications of this custom, the absence of which was more anomalous as therewas a charming avenue of remarkably graceful, arching elms in the mostconvenient contiguity to a large, cheerful street, in which, evidently, amongthe more prosperous members of the bourgeoisie, a great deal ofpedestrianism went forward. Our friends passed out into this well lightedpromenade, and Felix noticed a great many more pretty girls and called hissister’s attention to them. This latter measure, however, wassuperfluous; for the Baroness had inspected, narrowly, these charming youngladies.

“I feel an intimate conviction that our cousins are like that,”said Felix.

The Baroness hoped so, but this is not what she said. “They are verypretty,” she said, “but they are mere little girls. Where are thewomen—the women of thirty?”

“Of thirty-three, do you mean?” her brother was going to ask; forhe understood often both what she said and what she did not say. But he onlyexclaimed upon the beauty of the sunset, while the Baroness, who had come toseek her fortune, reflected that it would certainly be well for her if thepersons against whom she might need to measure herself should all be merelittle girls. The sunset was superb; they stopped to look at it; Felix declaredthat he had never seen such a gorgeous mixture of colors. The Baroness alsothought it splendid; and she was perhaps the more easily pleased from the factthat while she stood there she was conscious of much admiring observation onthe part of various nice-looking people who passed that way, and to whom adistinguished, strikingly-dressed woman with a foreign air, exclaiming upon thebeauties of nature on a Boston street corner in the French tongue, could not bean object of indifference. Eugenia’s spirits rose. She surrenderedherself to a certain tranquil gaiety. If she had come to seek her fortune, itseemed to her that her fortune would be easy to find. There was a promise of itin the gorgeous purity of the western sky; there was an intimation in the mild,unimpertinent gaze of the passers of a certain natural facility in things.

“You will not go back to Silberstadt, eh?” asked Felix.

“Not tomorrow,” said the Baroness.

“Nor write to the Reigning Prince?”

“I shall write to him that they evidently know nothing about him overhere.”

“He will not believe you,” said the young man. “I advise youto let him alone.”

Felix himself continued to be in high good humor. Brought up among ancientcustoms and in picturesque cities, he yet found plenty of local color in thelittle Puritan metropolis. That evening, after dinner, he told his sister thathe should go forth early on the morrow to look up their cousins.

“You are very impatient,” said Eugenia.

“What can be more natural,” he asked, “after seeing all thosepretty girls today? If one’s cousins are of that pattern, the sooner oneknows them the better.”

“Perhaps they are not,” said Eugenia. “We ought to havebrought some letters—to some other people.”

“The other people would not be our kinsfolk.”

“Possibly they would be none the worse for that,” the Baronessreplied.

Her brother looked at her with his eyebrows lifted. “That was not whatyou said when you first proposed to me that we should come out here andfraternize with our relatives. You said that it was the prompting of naturalaffection; and when I suggested some reasons against it you declared that thevoix du sangshould go before everything.”

“You remember all that?” asked the Baroness.

“Vividly! I was greatly moved by it.”

She was walking up and down the room, as she had done in the morning; shestopped in her walk and looked at her brother. She apparently was going to saysomething, but she checked herself and resumed her walk. Then, in a fewmoments, she said something different, which had the effect of an explanationof the suppression of her earlier thought. “You will never be anythingbut a child, dear brother.”

“One would suppose that you, madam,” answered Felix, laughing,“were a thousand years old.”

“I am—sometimes,” said the Baroness.

“I will go, then, and announce to our cousins the arrival of a personageso extraordinary. They will immediately come and pay you their respects.”

Eugenia paced the length of the room again, and then she stopped before herbrother, laying her hand upon his arm. “They are not to come and seeme,” she said. “You are not to allow that. That is not the way Ishall meet them first.” And in answer to his interrogative glance shewent on. “You will go and examine, and report. You will come back andtell me who they are and what they are; their number, gender, their respectiveages—all about them. Be sure you observe everything; be ready to describeto me the locality, the accessories—how shall I say it?—the miseen scène. Then, at my own time, at my own hour, under circumstances of myown choosing, I will go to them. I will present myself—I will appearbefore them!” said the Baroness, this time phrasing her idea with acertain frankness.

“And what message am I to take to them?” asked Felix, who had alively faith in the justness of his sister’s arrangements.

She looked at him a moment—at his expression of agreeable veracity; and,with that justness that he admired, she replied, “Say what you please.Tell my story in the way that seems to you most—natural.” And shebent her forehead for him to kiss.

CHAPTER II

The next day was splendid, as Felix had prophesied; if the winter had suddenlyleaped into spring, the spring had for the moment as quickly leaped intosummer. This was an observation made by a young girl who came out of a largesquare house in the country, and strolled about in the spacious garden whichseparated it from a muddy road. The flowering shrubs and the neatly-disposedplants were basking in the abundant light and warmth; the transparent shade ofthe great elms—they were magnificent trees—seemed to thicken by thehour; and the intensely habitual stillness offered a submissive medium to thesound of a distant church-bell. The young girl listened to the church-bell; butshe was not dressed for church. She was bare-headed; she wore a white muslinwaist, with an embroidered border, and the skirt of her dress was of coloredmuslin. She was a young lady of some two or three and twenty years of age, andthough a young person of her sex walking bare-headed in a garden, of a Sundaymorning in spring-time, can, in the nature of things, never be a displeasingobject, you would not have pronounced this innocent Sabbath-breaker especiallypretty. She was tall and pale, thin and a little awkward; her hair was fair andperfectly straight; her eyes were dark, and they had the singularity of seemingat once dull and restless—differing herein, as you see, fatally from theideal “fine eyes,” which we always imagine to be both brilliant andtranquil. The doors and windows of the large square house were all wide open,to admit the purifying sunshine, which lay in generous patches upon the floorof a wide, high, covered piazza adjusted to two sides of the mansion—apiazza on which several straw-bottomed rocking-chairs and half a dozen of thosesmall cylindrical stools in green and blue porcelain, which suggest anaffiliation between the residents and the Eastern trade, were symmetricallydisposed. It was an ancient house—ancient in the sense of being eightyyears old; it was built of wood, painted a clean, clear, faded gray, andadorned along the front, at intervals, with flat wooden pilasters, paintedwhite. These pilasters appeared to support a kind of classic pediment, whichwas decorated in the middle by a large triple window in a boldly carved frame,and in each of its smaller angles by a glazed circular aperture. A large whitedoor, furnished with a highly-polished brass knocker, presented itself to therural-looking road, with which it was connected by a spacious pathway, pavedwith worn and cracked, but very clean, bricks. Behind it there were meadows andorchards, a barn and a pond; and facing it, a short distance along the road, onthe opposite side, stood a smaller house, painted white, with external shutterspainted green, a little garden on one hand and an orchard on the other. Allthis was shining in the morning air, through which the simple details of thepicture addressed themselves to the eye as distinctly as the items of a“sum” in addition.

A second young lady presently came out of the house, across the piazza,descended into the garden and approached the young girl of whom I have spoken.This second young lady was also thin and pale; but she was older than theother; she was shorter; she had dark, smooth hair. Her eyes, unlike theother’s, were quick and bright; but they were not at all restless. Shewore a straw bonnet with white ribbons, and a long, red, India scarf, which, onthe front of her dress, reached to her feet. In her hand she carried a littlekey.

“Gertrude,” she said, “are you very sure you had better notgo to church?”

Gertrude looked at her a moment, plucked a small sprig from a lilac-bush,smelled it and threw it away. “I am not very sure of anything!” sheanswered.

The other young lady looked straight past her, at the distant pond, which layshining between the long banks of fir trees. Then she said in a very softvoice, “This is the key of the dining-room closet. I think you had betterhave it, if anyone should want anything.”

“Who is there to want anything?” Gertrude demanded. “I shallbe all alone in the house.”

“Someone may come,” said her companion.

“Do you mean Mr. Brand?”

“Yes, Gertrude. He may like a piece of cake.”

“I don’t like men that are always eating cake!” Gertrudedeclared, giving a pull at the lilac-bush.

Her companion glanced at her, and then looked down on the ground. “Ithink father expected you would come to church,” she said. “Whatshall I say to him?”

“Say I have a bad headache.”

“Would that be true?” asked the elder lady, looking straight at thepond again.

“No, Charlotte,” said the younger one simply.

Charlotte transferred her quiet eyes to her companion’s face. “I amafraid you are feeling restless.”

“I am feeling as I always feel,” Gertrude replied, in the sametone.

Charlotte turned away; but she stood there a moment. Presently she looked downat the front of her dress. “Doesn’t it seem to you, somehow, as ifmy scarf were too long?” she asked.

Gertrude walked half round her, looking at the scarf. “I don’tthink you wear it right,” she said.

“How should I wear it, dear?”

“I don’t know; differently from that. You should draw itdifferently over your shoulders, round your elbows; you should look differentlybehind.”

“How should I look?” Charlotte inquired.

“I don’t think I can tell you,” said Gertrude, plucking outthe scarf a little behind. “I could do it myself, but I don’t thinkI can explain it.”

Charlotte, by a movement of her elbows, corrected the laxity that had come fromher companion’s touch. “Well, some day you must do it for me. Itdoesn’t matter now. Indeed, I don’t think it matters,” sheadded, “how one looks behind.”

“I should say it mattered more,” said Gertrude. “Then youdon’t know who may be observing you. You are not on your guard. Youcan’t try to look pretty.”

Charlotte received this declaration with extreme gravity. “I don’tthink one should ever try to look pretty,” she rejoined, earnestly.

Her companion was silent. Then she said, “Well, perhaps it’s not ofmuch use.”

Charlotte looked at her a little, and then kissed her. “I hope you willbe better when we come back.”

“My dear sister, I am very well!” said Gertrude.

Charlotte went down the large brick walk to the garden gate; her companionstrolled slowly toward the house. At the gate Charlotte met a young man, whowas coming in—a tall, fair young man, wearing a high hat and a pair ofthread gloves. He was handsome, but rather too stout. He had a pleasant smile.“Oh, Mr. Brand!” exclaimed the young lady.

“I came to see whether your sister was not going to church,” saidthe young man.

“She says she is not going; but I am very glad you have come. I think ifyou were to talk to her a little”.... And Charlotte lowered her voice.“It seems as if she were restless.”

Mr. Brand smiled down on the young lady from his great height. “I shallbe very glad to talk to her. For that I should be willing to absent myself fromalmost any occasion of worship, however attractive.”

“Well, I suppose you know,” said Charlotte, softly, as if positiveacceptance of this proposition might be dangerous. “But I am afraid Ishall be late.”

“I hope you will have a pleasant sermon,” said the young man.

“Oh, Mr. Gilman is always pleasant,” Charlotte answered. And shewent on her way.

Mr. Brand went into the garden, where Gertrude, hearing the gate close behindhim, turned and looked at him. For a moment she watched him coming; then sheturned away. But almost immediately she corrected this movement, and stoodstill, facing him. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead as he approached.Then he put on his hat again and held out his hand. His hat being removed, youwould have perceived that his forehead was very large and smooth, and his hairabundant but rather colorless. His nose was too large, and his mouth and eyeswere too small; but for all this he was, as I have said, a young man ofstriking appearance. The expression of his little clean-colored blue eyes wasirresistibly gentle and serious; he looked, as the phrase is, as good as gold.The young girl, standing in the garden path, glanced, as he came up, at histhread gloves.

“I hoped you were going to church,” he said. “I wanted towalk with you.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” Gertrude answered. “I am notgoing to church.”

She had shaken hands with him; he held her hand a moment. “Have you anyspecial reason for not going?”

“Yes, Mr. Brand,” said the young girl.

“May I ask what it is?”

She looked at him smiling; and in her smile, as I have intimated, there was acertain dullness. But mingled with this dullness was something sweet andsuggestive. “Because the sky is so blue!” she said.

He looked at the sky, which was magnificent, and then said, smiling too,“I have heard of young ladies staying at home for bad weather, but neverfor good. Your sister, whom I met at the gate, tells me you aredepressed,” he added.

“Depressed? I am never depressed.”

“Oh, surely, sometimes,” replied Mr. Brand, as if he thought this aregrettable account of one’s self.

“I am never depressed,” Gertrude repeated. “But I amsometimes wicked. When I am wicked I am in high spirits. I was wicked just nowto my sister.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I said things that puzzled her—on purpose.”

“Why did you do that, Miss Gertrude?” asked the young man.

She began to smile again. “Because the sky is so blue!”

“You say things that puzzle me,” Mr. Brand declared.

“I always know when I do it,” proceeded Gertrude. “But peoplepuzzle me more, I think. And they don’t seem to know!”

“This is very interesting,” Mr. Brand observed, smiling.

“You told me to tell you about my—my struggles,” the younggirl went on.

“Let us talk about them. I have so many things to say.”

Gertrude turned away a moment; and then, turning back, “You had better goto church,” she said.

“You know,” the young man urged, “that I have always onething to say.”

Gertrude looked at him a moment. “Please don’t say it now!”

“We are all alone,” he continued, taking off his hat; “allalone in this beautiful Sunday stillness.”

Gertrude looked around her, at the breaking buds, the shining distance, theblue sky to which she had referred as a pretext for her irregularities.“That’s the reason,” she said, “why I don’t wantyou to speak. Do me a favor; go to church.”

“May I speak when I come back?” asked Mr. Brand.

“If you are still disposed,” she answered.

“I don’t know whether you are wicked,” he said, “butyou are certainly puzzling.”

She had turned away; she raised her hands to her ears. He looked at her amoment, and then he slowly walked to church.

She wandered for a while about the garden, vaguely and without purpose. Thechurch-bell had stopped ringing; the stillness was complete. This young ladyrelished highly, on occasions, the sense of being alone—the absence ofthe whole family and the emptiness of the house. Today, apparently, theservants had also gone to church; there was never a figure at the open windows;behind the house there was no stout negress in a red turban, lowering thebucket into the great shingle-hooded well. And the front door of the big,unguarded home stood open, with the trustfulness of the golden age; or what ismore to the purpose, with that of New England’s silvery prime. Gertrudeslowly passed through it, and went from one of the empty rooms to theother—large, clear-colored rooms, with white wainscots, ornamented withthin-legged mahogany furniture, and, on the walls, with old-fashionedengravings, chiefly of scriptural subjects, hung very high. This agreeablesense of solitude, of having the house to herself, of which I have spoken,always excited Gertrude’s imagination; she could not have told you why,and neither can her humble historian. It always seemed to her that she must dosomething particular—that she must honor the occasion; and while sheroamed about, wondering what she could do, the occasion usually came to an end.Today she wondered more than ever. At last she took down a book; there was nolibrary in the house, but there were books in all the rooms. None of them wereforbidden books, and Gertrude had not stopped at home for the sake of a chanceto climb to the inaccessible shelves. She possessed herself of a very obviousvolume—one of the series of the Arabian Nights—and shebrought it out into the portico and sat down with it in her lap. There, for aquarter of an hour, she read the history of the loves of the PrinceCamaralzaman and the Princess Badoura. At last, looking up, she beheld, as itseemed to her, the Prince Camaralzaman standing before her. A beautiful youngman was making her a very low bow—a magnificent bow, such as she hadnever seen before. He appeared to have dropped from the clouds; he waswonderfully handsome; he smiled—smiled as if he were smiling on purpose.Extreme surprise, for a moment, kept Gertrude sitting still; then she rose,without even keeping her finger in her book. The young man, with his hat in hishand, still looked at her, smiling and smiling. It was very strange.

“Will you kindly tell me,” said the mysterious visitor, at last,“whether I have the honor of speaking to Miss Wentworth?”

“My name is Gertrude Wentworth,” murmured the young woman.

“Then—then—I have the honor—the pleasure—of beingyour cousin.”

The young man had so much the character of an apparition that this announcementseemed to complete his unreality. “What cousin? Who are you?” saidGertrude.

He stepped back a few paces and looked up at the house; then glanced round himat the garden and the distant view. After this he burst out laughing. “Isee it must seem to you very strange,” he said. There was, after all,something substantial in his laughter. Gertrude looked at him from head tofoot. Yes, he was remarkably handsome; but his smile was almost a grimace.“It is very still,” he went on, coming nearer again. And as sheonly looked at him, for reply, he added, “Are you all alone?”

“Everyone has gone to church,” said Gertrude.

“I was afraid of that!” the young man exclaimed. “But I hopeyou are not afraid of me.”

“You ought to tell me who you are,” Gertrude answered.

“I am afraid of you!” said the young man. “I had a differentplan. I expected the servant would take in my card, and that you would put yourheads together, before admitting me, and make out my identity.”

Gertrude had been wondering with a quick intensity which brought its result;and the result seemed an answer—a wondrous, delightful answer—toher vague wish that something would befall her. “I know—Iknow,” she said. “You come from Europe.”

“We came two days ago. You have heard of us, then—you believe inus?”

“We have known, vaguely,” said Gertrude, “that we hadrelations in France.”

“And have you ever wanted to see us?” asked the young man.

Gertrude was silent a moment. “I have wanted to see you.”

“I am glad, then, it is you I have found. We wanted to see you, so wecame.”

“On purpose?” asked Gertrude.

The young man looked round him, smiling still. “Well, yes; on purpose.Does that sound as if we should bore you?” he added. “I don’tthink we shall—I really don’t think we shall. We are rather fond ofwandering, too; and we were glad of a pretext.”

“And you have just arrived?”

“In Boston, two days ago. At the inn I asked for Mr. Wentworth. He mustbe your father. They found out for me where he lived; they seemed often to haveheard of him. I determined to come, without ceremony. So, this lovely morning,they set my face in the right direction, and told me to walk straight beforeme, out of town. I came on foot because I wanted to see the country. I walkedand walked, and here I am! It’s a good many miles.”

“It is seven miles and a half,” said Gertrude, softly. Now thatthis handsome young man was proving himself a reality she found herself vaguelytrembling; she was deeply excited. She had never in her life spoken to aforeigner, and she had often thought it would be delightful to do so. Here wasone who had suddenly been engendered by the Sabbath stillness for her privateuse; and such a brilliant, polite, smiling one! She found time and means tocompose herself, however: to remind herself that she must exercise a sort ofofficial hospitality. “We are very—very glad to see you,” shesaid. “Won’t you come into the house?” And she moved towardthe open door.

“You are not afraid of me, then?” asked the young man again, withhis light laugh.

She wondered a moment, and then, “We are not afraid—here,”she said.

“Ah, comme vous devez avoir raison!”cried the young man,looking all round him, appreciatively. It was the first time that Gertrude hadheard so many words of French spoken. They gave her something of a sensation.Her companion followed her, watching, with a certain excitement of his own,this tall, interesting-looking girl, dressed in her clear, crisp muslin. Hepaused in the hall, where there was a broad white staircase with a whitebalustrade. “What a pleasant house!” he said. “It’slighter inside than it is out.”

“It’s pleasanter here,” said Gertrude, and she led the wayinto the parlor,—a high, clean, rather empty-looking room. Here theystood looking at each other,—the young man smiling more than ever;Gertrude, very serious, trying to smile.

“I don’t believe you know my name,” he said. “I amcalled Felix Young. Your father is my uncle. My mother was his half sister, andolder than he.”

“Yes,” said Gertrude, “and she turned Roman Catholic andmarried in Europe.”

“I see you know,” said the young man. “She married and shedied. Your father’s family didn’t like her husband. They called hima foreigner; but he was not. My poor father was born in Sicily, but his parentswere American.”

“In Sicily?” Gertrude murmured.

“It is true,” said Felix Young, “that they had spent theirlives in Europe. But they were very patriotic. And so are we.”

“And you are Sicilian,” said Gertrude.

“Sicilian, no! Let’s see. I was born at a little place—a dearlittle place—in France. My sister was born at Vienna.”

“So you are French,” said Gertrude.

“Heaven forbid!” cried the young man. Gertrude’s eyes werefixed upon him almost insistently. He began to laugh again. “I can easilybe French, if that will please you.”

“You are a foreigner of some sort,” said Gertrude.

“Of some sort—yes; I suppose so. But who can say of what sort? Idon’t think we have ever had occasion to settle the question. You knowthere are people like that. About their country, their religion, theirprofession, they can’t tell.”

Gertrude stood there gazing; she had not asked him to sit down. She had neverheard of people like that; she wanted to hear. “Where do you live?”she asked.

“They can’t tell that, either!” said Felix. “I amafraid you will think they are little better than vagabonds. I have livedanywhere—everywhere. I really think I have lived in every city inEurope.” Gertrude gave a little long soft exhalation. It made the youngman smile at her again; and his smile made her blush a little. To take refugefrom blushing she asked him if, after his long walk, he was not hungry orthirsty. Her hand was in her pocket; she was fumbling with the little key thather sister had given her. “Ah, my dear young lady,” he said,clasping his hands a little, “if you could give me, in charity, a glassof wine!”

Gertrude gave a smile and a little nod, and went quickly out of the room.Presently she came back with a very large decanter in one hand and a plate inthe other, on which was placed a big, round cake with a frosted top. Gertrude,in taking the cake from the closet, had had a moment of acute consciousnessthat it composed the refection of which her sister had thought that Mr. Brandwould like to partake. Her kinsman from across the seas was looking at thepale, high-hung engravings. When she came in he turned and smiled at her, as ifthey had been old friends meeting after a separation. “You wait upon meyourself?” he asked. “I am served like the gods!” She hadwaited upon a great many people, but none of them had ever told her that. Theobservation added a certain lightness to the step with which she went to alittle table where there were some curious red glasses—glasses coveredwith little gold sprigs, which Charlotte used to dust every morning with herown hands. Gertrude thought the glasses very handsome, and it was a pleasure toher to know that the wine was good; it was her father’s famous madeira.Felix Young thought it excellent; he wondered why he had been told that therewas no wine in America. She cut him an immense triangle out of the cake, andagain she thought of Mr. Brand. Felix sat there, with his glass in one hand andhis huge morsel of cake in the other—eating, drinking, smiling, talking.“I am very hungry,” he said. “I am not at all tired; I amnever tired. But I am very hungry.”

“You must stay to dinner,” said Gertrude. “At twoo’clock. They will all have come back from church; you will see theothers.”

“Who are the others?” asked the young man. “Describe themall.”

“You will see for yourself. It is you that must tell me; now, about yoursister.”

“My sister is the Baroness Münster,” said Felix.

On hearing that his sister was a Baroness, Gertrude got up and walked aboutslowly, in front of him. She was silent a moment. She was thinking of it.“Why didn’t she come, too?” she asked.

“She did come; she is in Boston, at the hotel.”

“We will go and see her,” said Gertrude, looking at him.

“She begs you will not!” the young man replied. “She sendsyou her love; she sent me to announce her. She will come and pay her respectsto your father.”

Gertrude felt herself trembling again. A Baroness Münster, who sent a brilliantyoung man to “announce” her; who was coming, as the Queen of Shebacame to Solomon, to pay her “respects” to quiet Mr.Wentworth—such a personage presented herself to Gertrude’s visionwith a most effective unexpectedness. For a moment she hardly knew what to say.“When will she come?” she asked at last.

“As soon as you will allow her—tomorrow. She is veryimpatient,” answered Felix, who wished to be agreeable.

“Tomorrow, yes,” said Gertrude. She wished to ask more about her;but she hardly knew what could be predicated of a Baroness Münster. “Isshe—is she—married?”

Felix had finished his cake and wine; he got up, fixing upon the young girl hisbright, expressive eyes. “She is married to a German prince—PrinceAdolf, of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. He is not the reigning prince; he is ayounger brother.”

Gertrude gazed at her informant; her lips were slightly parted. “Is shea—a Princess?” she asked at last.

“Oh, no,” said the young man; “her position is rather asingular one. It’s a morganatic marriage.”

“Morganatic?” These were new names and new words to poor Gertrude.

“That’s what they call a marriage, you know, contracted between ascion of a ruling house and—and a common mortal. They made Eugenia aBaroness, poor woman; but that was all they could do. Now they want to dissolvethe marriage. Prince Adolf, between ourselves, is a ninny; but his brother, whois a clever man, has plans for him. Eugenia, naturally enough, makesdifficulties; not, however, that I think she cares much—she’s avery clever woman; I’m sure you’ll like her—but she wants tobother them. Just now everything is en l’air.”

The cheerful, off-hand tone in which her visitor related this darkly romantictale seemed to Gertrude very strange; but it seemed also to convey a certainflattery to herself, a recognition of her wisdom and dignity. She felt a dozenimpressions stirring within her, and presently the one that was uppermost foundwords. “They want to dissolve her marriage?” she asked.

“So it appears.”

“And against her will?”

“Against her right.”

“She must be very unhappy!” said Gertrude.

Her visitor looked at her, smiling; he raised his hand to the back of his headand held it there a moment. “So she says,” he answered.“That’s her story. She told me to tell it you.”

“Tell me more,” said Gertrude.

“No, I will leave that to her; she does it better.”

Gertrude gave her little excited sigh again. “Well, if she isunhappy,” she said, “I am glad she has come to us.”

She had been so interested that she failed to notice the sound of a footstep inthe portico; and yet it was a footstep that she always recognized. She heard itin the hall, and then she looked out of the window. They were all coming backfrom church—her father, her sister and brother, and their cousins, whoalways came to dinner on Sunday. Mr. Brand had come in first; he was in advanceof the others, because, apparently, he was still disposed to say what she hadnot wished him to say an hour before. He came into the parlor, looking forGertrude. He had two little books in his hand. On seeing Gertrude’scompanion he slowly stopped, looking at him.

“Is this a cousin?” asked Felix.

Then Gertrude saw that she must introduce him; but her ears, and, by sympathy,her lips, were full of all that he had been telling her. “This is thePrince,” she said, “the Prince ofSilberstadt-Schreckenstein!”

Felix burst out laughing, and Mr. Brand stood staring, while the others, whohad passed into the house, appeared behind him in the open doorway.

CHAPTER III

That evening at dinner Felix Young gave his sister, the Baroness Münster, anaccount of his impressions. She saw that he had come back in the highestpossible spirits; but this fact, to her own mind, was not a reason forrejoicing. She had but a limited confidence in her brother’s judgment;his capacity for taking rose-colored views was such as to vulgarize one of theprettiest of tints. Still, she supposed he could be trusted to give her themere facts; and she invited him with some eagerness to communicate them.“I suppose, at least, they didn’t turn you out from thedoor;” she said. “You have been away some ten hours.”

“Turn me from the door!” Felix exclaimed. “They took me totheir hearts; they killed the fatted calf.”

“I know what you want to say: they are a collection of angels.”

“Exactly,” said Felix. “They are a collection ofangels—simply.”

“C’est bien vague,” remarked the Baroness. “Whatare they like?”

“Like nothing you ever saw.”

“I am sure I am much obliged; but that is hardly more definite.Seriously, they were glad to see you?”

“Enchanted. It has been the proudest day of my life. Never, never have Ibeen so lionized! I assure you, I was cock of the walk. My dear sister,”said the young man, “nous n’avons qu’à nous tenir; weshall be great swells!”

Madame Münster looked at him, and her eye exhibited a slight responsive spark.She touched her lips to a glass of wine, and then she said, “Describethem. Give me a picture.”

Felix drained his own glass. “Well, it’s in the country, among themeadows and woods; a wild sort of place, and yet not far from here. Only, sucha road, my dear! Imagine one of the Alpine glaciers reproduced in mud. But youwill not spend much time on it, for they want you to come and stay, once forall.”

“Ah,” said the Baroness, “they want me to come and stay, oncefor all? Bon.”

“It’s intensely rural, tremendously natural; and all overhung withthis strange white light, this far-away blue sky. There’s a big woodenhouse—a kind of three-story bungalow; it looks like a magnified Nurembergtoy. There was a gentleman there that made a speech to me about it and calledit a ‘venerable mansion;’ but it looks as if it had been built lastnight.”

“Is it handsome—is it elegant?” asked the Baroness.

Felix looked at her a moment, smiling. “It’s very clean! Nosplendors, no gilding, no troops of servants; rather straight-backed chairs.But you might eat off the floors, and you can sit down on the stairs.”

“That must be a privilege. And the inhabitants are straight-backed too,of course.”

“My dear sister,” said Felix, “the inhabitants arecharming.”

“In what style?”

“In a style of their own. How shall I describe it? It’s primitive;it’s patriarchal; it’s the tonof the golden age.”

“And have they nothing golden but their ton? Are there no symptomsof wealth?”

“I should say there was wealth without symptoms. A plain, homely way oflife: nothing for show, and very little for—what shall I callit?—for the senses; but a great aisance, and a lot of money, outof sight, that comes forward very quietly for subscriptions to institutions,for repairing tenements, for paying doctor’s bills; perhaps even forportioning daughters.”

“And the daughters?” Madame Münster demanded. “How many arethere?”

“There are two, Charlotte and Gertrude.”

“Are they pretty?”

“One of them,” said Felix.

“Which is that?”

The young man was silent, looking at his sister. “Charlotte,” hesaid at last.

She looked at him in return. “I see. You are in love with Gertrude. Theymust be Puritans to their finger-tips; anything but gay!”

“No, they are not gay,” Felix admitted. “They are sober; theyare even severe. They are of a pensive cast; they take things hard. I thinkthere is something the matter with them; they have some melancholy memory orsome depressing expectation. It’s not the epicurean temperament. Myuncle, Mr. Wentworth, is a tremendously high-toned old fellow; he looks as ifhe were undergoing martyrdom, not by fire, but by freezing. But we shall cheerthem up; we shall do them good. They will take a good deal of stirring up; butthey are wonderfully kind and gentle. And they are appreciative. They think oneclever; they think one remarkable!”

“That is very fine, so far as it goes,” said the Baroness.“But are we to be shut up to these three people, Mr. Wentworth and thetwo young women—what did you say their names were—Deborah andHephzibah?”

“Oh, no; there is another little girl, a cousin of theirs, a very prettycreature; a thorough little American. And then there is the son of thehouse.”

“Good!” said the Baroness. “We are coming to the gentlemen.What of the son of the house?”

“I am afraid he gets tipsy.”

“He, then, has the epicurean temperament! How old is he?”

“He is a boy of twenty; a pretty young fellow, but I am afraid he hasvulgar tastes. And then there is Mr. Brand—a very tall young man, a sortof lay-priest. They seem to think a good deal of him, but I don’t exactlymake him out.”

“And is there nothing,” asked the Baroness, “between theseextremes—this mysterious ecclesiastic and that intemperate youth?”

“Oh, yes, there is Mr. Acton. I think,” said the young man, with anod at his sister, “that you will like Mr. Acton.”

“Remember that I am very fastidious,” said the Baroness. “Hashe very good manners?”

“He will have them with you. He is a man of the world; he has been toChina.”

Madame Münster gave a little laugh. “A man of the Chinese world! He mustbe very interesting.”

“I have an idea that he brought home a fortune,” said Felix.

“That is always interesting. Is he young, good-looking, clever?”

“He is less than forty; he has a baldish head; he says witty things. Irather think,” added the young man, “that he will admire theBaroness Münster.”

“It is very possible,” said this lady. Her brother never knew howshe would take things; but shortly afterwards she declared that he had made avery pretty description and that on the morrow she would go and see forherself.

They mounted, accordingly, into a great barouche—a vehicle as to whichthe Baroness found nothing to criticise but the price that was asked for it andthe fact that the coachman wore a straw hat. (At Silberstadt Madame Münster hadhad liveries of yellow and crimson.) They drove into the country, and theBaroness, leaning far back and swaying her lace-fringed parasol, looked toright and to left and surveyed the way-side objects. After a while shepronounced them affreux. Her brother remarked that it was apparently acountry in which the foreground was inferior to the plans reculés; andthe Baroness rejoined that the landscape seemed to be all foreground. Felix hadfixed with his new friends the hour at which he should bring his sister; it wasfour o’clock in the afternoon. The large, clean-faced house wore, to hiseyes, as the barouche drove up to it, a very friendly aspect; the high, slenderelms made lengthening shadows in front of it. The Baroness descended; herAmerican kinsfolk were stationed in the portico. Felix waved his hat to them,and a tall, lean gentleman, with a high forehead and a clean shaven face, cameforward toward the garden gate. Charlotte Wentworth walked at his side.Gertrude came behind, more slowly. Both of these young ladies wore rustlingsilk dresses. Felix ushered his sister into the gate. “Be verygracious,” he said to her. But he saw the admonition was superfluous.Eugenia was prepared to be gracious as only Eugenia could be. Felix knew nokeener pleasure than to be able to admire his sister unrestrictedly; for if theopportunity was frequent, it was not inveterate. When she desired to please shewas to him, as to everyone else, the most charming woman in the world. Then heforgot that she was ever anything else; that she was sometimes hard andperverse; that he was occasionally afraid of her. Now, as she took his arm topass into the garden, he felt that she desired, that she proposed, to please,and this situation made him very happy. Eugenia would please.

The tall gentleman came to meet her, looking very rigid and grave. But it was arigidity that had no illiberal meaning. Mr. Wentworth’s manner waspregnant, on the contrary, with a sense of grand responsibility, of thesolemnity of the occasion, of its being difficult to show sufficient deferenceto a lady at once so distinguished and so unhappy. Felix had observed on theday before his characteristic pallor; and now he perceived that there wassomething almost cadaverous in his uncle’s high-featured white face. Butso clever were this young man’s quick sympathies and perceptions that healready learned that in these semi-mortuary manifestations there was no causefor alarm. His light imagination had gained a glimpse of Mr. Wentworth’sspiritual mechanism, and taught him that, the old man being infinitelyconscientious, the special operation of conscience within him announced itselfby several of the indications of physical faintness.

The Baroness took her uncle’s hand, and stood looking at him with herugly face and her beautiful smile. “Have I done right to come?” sheasked.

“Very right, very right,” said Mr. Wentworth, solemnly. He hadarranged in his mind a little speech; but now it quite faded away. He feltalmost frightened. He had never been looked at in just that way—with justthat fixed, intense smile—by any woman; and it perplexed and weighed uponhim, now, that the woman who was smiling so and who had instantly given him avivid sense of her possessing other unprecedented attributes, was his ownniece, the child of his own father’s daughter. The idea that his nieceshould be a German Baroness, married “morganatically” to a Prince,had already given him much to think about. Was it right, was it just, was itacceptable? He always slept badly, and the night before he had lain awake muchmore even than usual, asking himself these questions. The strange word“morganatic” was constantly in his ears; it reminded him of acertain Mrs. Morgan whom he had once known and who had been a bold, unpleasantwoman. He had a feeling that it was his duty, so long as the Baroness looked athim, smiling in that way, to meet her glance with his own scrupulouslyadjusted, consciously frigid organs of vision; but on this occasion he failedto perform his duty to the last. He looked away toward his daughters. “Weare very glad to see you,” he had said. “Allow me to introduce mydaughters—Miss Charlotte Wentworth, Miss Gertrude Wentworth.”

The Baroness thought she had never seen people less demonstrative. ButCharlotte kissed her and took her hand, looking at her sweetly and solemnly.Gertrude seemed to her almost funereal, though Gertrude might have found asource of gaiety in the fact that Felix, with his magnificent smile, had beentalking to her; he had greeted her as a very old friend. When she kissed theBaroness she had tears in her eyes. Madame Münster took each of these youngwomen by the hand, and looked at them all over. Charlotte thought her verystrange-looking and singularly dressed; she could not have said whether it waswell or ill. She was glad, at any rate, that they had put on their silkgowns—especially Gertrude. “My cousins are very pretty,” saidthe Baroness, turning her eyes from one to the other. “Your daughters arevery handsome, sir.”

Charlotte blushed quickly; she had never yet heard her personal appearancealluded to in a loud, expressive voice. Gertrude looked away—not atFelix; she was extremely pleased. It was not the compliment that pleased her;she did not believe it; she thought herself very plain. She could hardly havetold you the source of her satisfaction; it came from something in the way theBaroness spoke, and it was not diminished—it was rather deepened, oddlyenough—by the young girl’s disbelief. Mr. Wentworth was silent; andthen he asked, formally, “Won’t you come into the house?”

“These are not all; you have some other children,” said theBaroness.

“I have a son,” Mr. Wentworth answered.

“And why doesn’t he come to meet me?” Eugenia cried. “Iam afraid he is not so charming as his sisters.”

“I don’t know; I will see about it,” the old man declared.

“He is rather afraid of ladies,” Charlotte said, softly.

“He is very handsome,” said Gertrude, as loud as she could.

“We will go in and find him. We will draw him out of hiscachette.” And the Baroness took Mr. Wentworth’s arm, whowas not aware that he had offered it to her, and who, as they walked toward thehouse, wondered whether he ought to have offered it and whether it was properfor her to take it if it had not been offered. “I want to know youwell,” said the Baroness, interrupting these meditations, “and Iwant you to know me.”

“It seems natural that we should know each other,” Mr. Wentworthrejoined. “We are near relatives.”

“Ah, there comes a moment in life when one reverts, irresistibly, toone’s natural ties—to one’s natural affections. You must havefound that!” said Eugenia.

Mr. Wentworth had been told the day before by Felix that Eugenia was veryclever, very brilliant, and the information had held him in some suspense. Thiswas the cleverness, he supposed; the brilliancy was beginning. “Yes, thenatural affections are very strong,” he murmured.

“In some people,” the Baroness declared. “Not in all.”Charlotte was walking beside her; she took hold of her hand again, smilingalways. “And you, cousine, where did you get that enchantingcomplexion?” she went on; “such lilies and roses?” The rosesin poor Charlotte’s countenance began speedily to predominate over thelilies, and she quickened her step and reached the portico. “This is thecountry of complexions,” the Baroness continued, addressing herself toMr. Wentworth. “I am convinced they are more delicate. There are verygood ones in England—in Holland; but they are very apt to be coarse.There is too much red.”

“I think you will find,” said Mr. Wentworth, “that thiscountry is superior in many respects to those you mention. I have been toEngland and Holland.”

“Ah, you have been to Europe?” cried the Baroness. “Whydidn’t you come and see me? But it’s better, after all, thisway,” she said. They were entering the house; she paused and looked roundher. “I see you have arranged your house—your beautifulhouse—in the—in the Dutch taste!”

“The house is very old,” remarked Mr. Wentworth. “GeneralWashington once spent a week here.”

“Oh, I have heard of Washington,” cried the Baroness. “Myfather used to tell me of him.”

Mr. Wentworth was silent a moment, and then, “I found he was very wellknown in Europe,” he said.

Felix had lingered in the garden with Gertrude; he was standing before her andsmiling, as he had done the day before. What had happened the day before seemedto her a kind of dream. He had been there and he had changed everything; theothers had seen him, they had talked with him; but that he should come again,that he should be part of the future, part of her small, familiar,much-meditating life—this needed, afresh, the evidence of her senses. Theevidence had come to her senses now; and her senses seemed to rejoice in it.“What do you think of Eugenia?” Felix asked. “Isn’t shecharming?”

“She is very brilliant,” said Gertrude. “But I can’ttell yet. She seems to me like a singer singing an air. You can’t telltill the song is done.”

“Ah, the song will never be done!” exclaimed the young man,laughing. “Don’t you think her handsome?”

Gertrude had been disappointed in the beauty of the Baroness Münster; she hadexpected her, for mysterious reasons, to resemble a very pretty portrait of theEmpress Josephine, of which there hung an engraving in one of the parlors, andwhich the younger Miss Wentworth had always greatly admired. But the Baronesswas not at all like that—not at all. Though different, however, she wasvery wonderful, and Gertrude felt herself most suggestively corrected. It wasstrange, nevertheless, that Felix should speak in that positive way about hissister’s beauty. “I think I shallthink her handsome,”Gertrude said. “It must be very interesting to know her. I don’tfeel as if I ever could.”

“Ah, you will know her well; you will become great friends,” Felixdeclared, as if this were the easiest thing in the world.

“She is very graceful,” said Gertrude, looking after the Baroness,suspended to her father’s arm. It was a pleasure to her to say thatanyone was graceful.

Felix had been looking about him. “And your little cousin, ofyesterday,” he said, “who was so wonderfully pretty—what hasbecome of her?”

“She is in the parlor,” Gertrude answered. “Yes, she is verypretty.” She felt as if it were her duty to take him straight into thehouse, to where he might be near her cousin. But after hesitating a moment shelingered still. “I didn’t believe you would come back,” shesaid.

“Not come back!” cried Felix, laughing. “You didn’tknow, then, the impression made upon this susceptible heart of mine.”

She wondered whether he meant the impression her cousin Lizzie had made.“Well,” she said, “I didn’t think we should ever seeyou again.”

“And pray what did you think would become of me?”

“I don’t know. I thought you would melt away.”

“That’s a compliment to my solidity! I melt very often,” saidFelix, “but there is always something left of me.”

“I came and waited for you by the door, because the others did,”Gertrude went on. “But if you had never appeared I should not have beensurprised.”

“I hope,” declared Felix, looking at her, “that you wouldhave been disappointed.”

She looked at him a little, and shook her head. “No—no!”

“Ah, par exemple!”cried the young man. “You deservethat I should never leave you.”

Going into the parlor they found Mr. Wentworth performing introductions. Ayoung man was standing before the Baroness, blushing a good deal, laughing alittle, and shifting his weight from one foot to the other—a slim,mild-faced young man, with neatly-arranged features, like those of Mr.Wentworth. Two other gentlemen, behind him, had risen from their seats, and alittle apart, near one of the windows, stood a remarkably pretty young girl.The young girl was knitting a stocking; but, while her fingers quickly moved,she looked with wide, brilliant eyes at the Baroness.

“And what is your son’s name?” said Eugenia, smiling at theyoung man.

“My name is Clifford Wentworth, ma’am,” he said in atremulous voice.

“Why didn’t you come out to meet me, Mr. Clifford Wentworth?”the Baroness demanded, with her beautiful smile.

“I didn’t think you would want me,” said the young man,slowly sidling about.

“One always wants a beau cousin,—if one has one! But if youare very nice to me in future I won’t remember it against you.” AndMadame Münster transferred her smile to the other persons present. It restedfirst upon the candid countenance and long-skirted figure of Mr. Brand, whoseeyes were intently fixed upon Mr. Wentworth, as if to beg him not to prolong ananomalous situation. Mr. Wentworth pronounced his name. Eugenia gave him a verycharming glance, and then looked at the other gentleman.

This latter personage was a man of rather less than the usual stature and theusual weight, with a quick, observant, agreeable dark eye, a small quantity ofthin dark hair, and a small moustache. He had been standing with his hands inhis pockets; and when Eugenia looked at him he took them out. But he did not,like Mr. Brand, look evasively and urgently at their host. He metEugenia’s eyes; he appeared to appreciate the privilege of meeting them.Madame Münster instantly felt that he was, intrinsically, the most importantperson present. She was not unconscious that this impression was in some degreemanifested in the little sympathetic nod with which she acknowledged Mr.Wentworth’s announcement, “My cousin, Mr. Acton!”

“Your cousin—not mine?” said the Baroness.

“It only depends upon you,” Mr. Acton declared, laughing.

The Baroness looked at him a moment, and noticed that he had very white teeth.“Let it depend upon your behavior,” she said. “I think I hadbetter wait. I have cousins enough. Unless I can also claimrelationship,” she added, “with that charming young lady,”and she pointed to the young girl at the window.

“That’s my sister,” said Mr. Acton. And Gertrude Wentworthput her arm round the young girl and led her forward. It was not, apparently,that she needed much leading. She came toward the Baroness with a light, quickstep, and with perfect self-possession, rolling her stocking round its needles.She had dark blue eyes and dark brown hair; she was wonderfully pretty.

Eugenia kissed her, as she had kissed the other young women, and then held heroff a little, looking at her. “Now this is quite anothertype,” she said; she pronounced the word in the French manner.“This is a different outline, my uncle, a different character, from thatof your own daughters. This, Felix,” she went on, “is very muchmore what we have always thought of as the American type.”

The young girl, during this exposition, was smiling askance at everyone inturn, and at Felix out of turn. “I find only one type here!” criedFelix, laughing. “The type adorable!”

This sally was received in perfect silence, but Felix, who learned all thingsquickly, had already learned that the silences frequently observed among hisnew acquaintances were not necessarily restrictive or resentful. It was, as onemight say, the silence of expectation, of modesty. They were all standing roundhis sister, as if they were expecting her to acquit herself of the exhibitionof some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent. Their attitude seemed to implythat she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, ingauze and spangles. This attitude gave a certain ironical force to MadameMünster’s next words. “Now this is your circle,” she said toher uncle. “This is your salon. These are your regularhabitués, eh? I am so glad to see you all together.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Wentworth, “they are always dropping in andout. You must do the same.”

“Father,” interposed Charlotte Wentworth, “they must dosomething more.” And she turned her sweet, serious face, that seemed atonce timid and placid, upon their interesting visitor. “What is yourname?” she asked.

“Eugenia-Camilla-Dolores,” said the Baroness, smiling. “Butyou needn’t say all that.”

“I will say Eugenia, if you will let me. You must come and stay withus.”

The Baroness laid her hand upon Charlotte’s arm very tenderly; but shereserved herself. She was wondering whether it would be possible to“stay” with these people. “It would be verycharming—very charming,” she said; and her eyes wandered over thecompany, over the room. She wished to gain time before committing herself. Herglance fell upon young Mr. Brand, who stood there, with his arms folded and hishand on his chin, looking at her. “The gentleman, I suppose, is a sort ofecclesiastic,” she said to Mr. Wentworth, lowering her voice a little.

“He is a minister,” answered Mr. Wentworth.

“A Protestant?” asked Eugenia.

“I am a Unitarian, madam,” replied Mr. Brand, impressively.

“Ah, I see,” said Eugenia. “Something new.” She hadnever heard of this form of worship.

Mr. Acton began to laugh, and Gertrude looked anxiously at Mr. Brand.

“You have come very far,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“Very far—very far,” the Baroness replied, with a gracefulshake of her head—a shake that might have meant many different things.

“That’s a reason why you ought to settle down with us,” saidMr. Wentworth, with that dryness of utterance which, as Eugenia was toointelligent not to feel, took nothing from the delicacy of his meaning.

She looked at him, and for an instant, in his cold, still face, she seemed tosee a far-away likeness to the vaguely remembered image of her mother. Eugeniawas a woman of sudden emotions, and now, unexpectedly, she felt one rising inher heart. She kept looking round the circle; she knew that there wasadmiration in all the eyes that were fixed upon her. She smiled at them all.

“I came to look—to try—to ask,” she said. “Itseems to me I have done well. I am very tired; I want to rest.” Therewere tears in her eyes. The luminous interior, the gentle, tranquil people, thesimple, serious life—the sense of these things pressed upon her with anovermastering force, and she felt herself yielding to one of the most genuineemotions she had ever known. “I should like to stay here,” shesaid. “Pray take me in.”

Though she was smiling, there were tears in her voice as well as in her eyes.“My dear niece,” said Mr. Wentworth, softly. And Charlotte put outher arms and drew the Baroness toward her; while Robert Acton turned away, withhis hands stealing into his pockets.

CHAPTER IV

A few days after the Baroness Münster had presented herself to her Americankinsfolk she came, with her brother, and took up her abode in that small whitehouse adjacent to Mr. Wentworth’s own dwelling of which mention hasalready been made. It was on going with his daughters to return her visit thatMr. Wentworth placed this comfortable cottage at her service; the offer beingthe result of a domestic colloquy, diffused through the ensuing twenty-fourhours, in the course of which the two foreign visitors were discussed andanalyzed with a great deal of earnestness and subtlety. The discussion wentforward, as I say, in the family circle; but that circle on the eveningfollowing Madame Münster’s return to town, as on many other occasions,included Robert Acton and his pretty sister. If you had been present, it wouldprobably not have seemed to you that the advent of these brilliant strangerswas treated as an exhilarating occurrence, a pleasure the more in this tranquilhousehold, a prospective source of entertainment. This was not Mr.Wentworth’s way of treating any human occurrence. The sudden irruptioninto the well-ordered consciousness of the Wentworths of an element not allowedfor in its scheme of usual obligations required a readjustment of that sense ofresponsibility which constituted its principal furniture. To consider an event,crudely and baldly, in the light of the pleasure it might bring them was anintellectual exercise with which Felix Young’s American cousins werealmost wholly unacquainted, and which they scarcely supposed to be largelypursued in any section of human society. The arrival of Felix and his sisterwas a satisfaction, but it was a singularly joyless and inelastic satisfaction.It was an extension of duty, of the exercise of the more recondite virtues; butneither Mr. Wentworth, nor Charlotte, nor Mr. Brand, who, among these excellentpeople, was a great promoter of reflection and aspiration, frankly adverted toit as an extension of enjoyment. This function was ultimately assumed byGertrude Wentworth, who was a peculiar girl, but the full compass of whosepeculiarities had not been exhibited before they very ingeniously found theirpretext in the presence of these possibly too agreeable foreigners. Gertrude,however, had to struggle with a great accumulation of obstructions, both of thesubjective, as the metaphysicians say, and of the objective, order; and indeedit is no small part of the purpose of this little history to set forth herstruggle. What seemed paramount in this abrupt enlargement of Mr.Wentworth’s sympathies and those of his daughters was an extension of thefield of possible mistakes; and the doctrine, as it may almost be called, ofthe oppressive gravity of mistakes was one of the most cherished traditions ofthe Wentworth family.

“I don’t believe she wants to come and stay in this house,”said Gertrude; Madame Münster, from this time forward, receiving no otherdesignation than the personal pronoun. Charlotte and Gertrude acquiredconsiderable facility in addressing her, directly, as “Eugenia;”but in speaking of her to each other they rarely called her anything but“she.”

“Doesn’t she think it good enough for her?” cried littleLizzie Acton, who was always asking unpractical questions that required, instrictness, no answer, and to which indeed she expected no other answer thansuch as she herself invariably furnished in a small, innocently-satiricallaugh.

“She certainly expressed a willingness to come,” said Mr.Wentworth.

“That was only politeness,” Gertrude rejoined.

“Yes, she is very polite—very polite,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“She is too polite,” his son declared, in a softly growling tonewhich was habitual to him, but which was an indication of nothing worse than avaguely humorous intention. “It is very embarrassing.”

“That is more than can be said of you, sir,” said Lizzie Acton,with her little laugh.

“Well, I don’t mean to encourage her,” Clifford went on.

“I’m sure I don’t care if you do!” cried Lizzie.

“She will not think of you, Clifford,” said Gertrude, gravely.

“I hope not!” Clifford exclaimed.

“She will think of Robert,” Gertrude continued, in the same tone.

Robert Acton began to blush; but there was no occasion for it, for everyone waslooking at Gertrude—everyone, at least, save Lizzie, who, with her prettyhead on one side, contemplated her brother.

“Why do you attribute motives, Gertrude?” asked Mr. Wentworth.

“I don’t attribute motives, father,” said Gertrude. “Ionly say she will think of Robert; and she will!”

“Gertrude judges by herself!” Acton exclaimed, laughing.“Don’t you, Gertrude? Of course the Baroness will think of me. Shewill think of me from morning till night.”

“She will be very comfortable here,” said Charlotte, with somethingof a housewife’s pride. “She can have the large northeast room. Andthe French bedstead,” Charlotte added, with a constant sense of thelady’s foreignness.

“She will not like it,” said Gertrude; “not even if you pinlittle tidies all over the chairs.”

“Why not, dear?” asked Charlotte, perceiving a touch of irony here,but not resenting it.

Gertrude had left her chair; she was walking about the room; her stiff silkdress, which she had put on in honor of the Baroness, made a sound upon thecarpet. “I don’t know,” she replied. “She will wantsomething more—more private.”

“If she wants to be private she can stay in her room,” Lizzie Actonremarked.

Gertrude paused in her walk, looking at her. “That would not bepleasant,” she answered. “She wants privacy and pleasuretogether.”

Robert Acton began to laugh again. “My dear cousin, what apicture!”

Charlotte had fixed her serious eyes upon her sister; she wondered whence shehad suddenly derived these strange notions. Mr. Wentworth also observed hisyounger daughter.

“I don’t know what her manner of life may have been,” hesaid; “but she certainly never can have enjoyed a more refined andsalubrious home.”

Gertrude stood there looking at them all. “She is the wife of aPrince,” she said.

“We are all princes here,” said Mr. Wentworth; “and Idon’t know of any palace in this neighborhood that is to let.”

“Cousin William,” Robert Acton interposed, “do you want to dosomething handsome? Make them a present, for three months, of the little houseover the way.”

“You are very generous with other people’s things!” cried hissister.

“Robert is very generous with his own things,” Mr. Wentworthobserved dispassionately, and looking, in cold meditation, at his kinsman.

“Gertrude,” Lizzie went on, “I had an idea you were so fondof your new cousin.”

“Which new cousin?” asked Gertrude.

“I don’t mean the Baroness!” the young girl rejoined, withher laugh. “I thought you expected to see so much of him.”

“Of Felix? I hope to see a great deal of him,” said Gertrude,simply.

“Then why do you want to keep him out of the house?”

Gertrude looked at Lizzie Acton, and then looked away.

“Should you want me to live in the house with you, Lizzie?” askedClifford.

“I hope you never will. I hate you!” Such was this younglady’s reply.

“Father,” said Gertrude, stopping before Mr. Wentworth and smiling,with a smile the sweeter, as her smile always was, for its rarity; “dolet them live in the little house over the way. It will be lovely!”

Robert Acton had been watching her. “Gertrude is right,” he said.“Gertrude is the cleverest girl in the world. If I might take theliberty, I should strongly recommend their living there.”

“There is nothing there so pretty as the northeast room,” Charlotteurged.

“She will make it pretty. Leave her alone!” Acton exclaimed.

Gertrude, at his compliment, had blushed and looked at him: it was as ifsomeone less familiar had complimented her. “I am sure she will make itpretty. It will be very interesting. It will be a place to go to. It will be aforeign house.”

“Are we very sure that we need a foreign house?” Mr. Wentworthinquired. “Do you think it desirable to establish a foreignhouse—in this quiet place?”

“You speak,” said Acton, laughing, “as if it were a questionof the poor Baroness opening a wine-shop or a gaming-table.”

“It would be too lovely!” Gertrude declared again, laying her handon the back of her father’s chair.

“That she should open a gaming-table?” Charlotte asked, with greatgravity.

Gertrude looked at her a moment, and then, “Yes, Charlotte,” shesaid, simply.

“Gertrude is growing pert,” Clifford Wentworth observed, with hishumorous young growl. “That comes of associating with foreigners.”

Mr. Wentworth looked up at his daughter, who was standing beside him; he drewher gently forward. “You must be careful,” he said. “You mustkeep watch. Indeed, we must all be careful. This is a great change; we are tobe exposed to peculiar influences. I don’t say they are bad. Idon’t judge them in advance. But they may perhaps make it necessary thatwe should exercise a great deal of wisdom and self-control. It will be adifferent tone.”

Gertrude was silent a moment, in deference to her father’s speech; thenshe spoke in a manner that was not in the least an answer to it. “I wantto see how they will live. I am sure they will have different hours. She willdo all kinds of little things differently. When we go over there it will belike going to Europe. She will have a boudoir. She will invite us todinner—very late. She will breakfast in her room.”

Charlotte gazed at her sister again. Gertrude’s imagination seemed to herto be fairly running riot. She had always known that Gertrude had a great dealof imagination—she had been very proud of it. But at the same time shehad always felt that it was a dangerous and irresponsible faculty; and now, toher sense, for the moment, it seemed to threaten to make her sister a strangeperson who should come in suddenly, as from a journey, talking of the peculiarand possibly unpleasant things she had observed. Charlotte’s imaginationtook no journeys whatever; she kept it, as it were, in her pocket, with theother furniture of this receptacle—a thimble, a little box of peppermint,and a morsel of court-plaster. “I don’t believe she would have anydinner—or any breakfast,” said Miss Wentworth. “I don’tbelieve she knows how to do anything herself. I should have to get her ever somany servants, and she wouldn’t like them.”

“She has a maid,” said Gertrude; “a French maid. Shementioned her.”

“I wonder if the maid has a little fluted cap and red slippers,”said Lizzie Acton. “There was a French maid in that play that Robert tookme to see. She had pink stockings; she was very wicked.”

“She was a soubrette,” Gertrude announced, who had neverseen a play in her life. “They call that a soubrette. It will be a greatchance to learn French.” Charlotte gave a little soft, helpless groan.She had a vision of a wicked, theatrical person, clad in pink stockings and redshoes, and speaking, with confounding volubility, an incomprehensible tongue,flitting through the sacred penetralia of that large, clean house. “Thatis one reason in favor of their coming here,” Gertrude went on.“But we can make Eugenia speak French to us, and Felix. I mean tobegin—the next time.”

Mr. Wentworth had kept her standing near him, and he gave her his earnest,thin, unresponsive glance again. “I want you to make me a promise,Gertrude,” he said.

“What is it?” she asked, smiling.

“Not to get excited. Not to allow these—these occurrences to be anoccasion for excitement.”

She looked down at him a moment, and then she shook her head. “Idon’t think I can promise that, father. I am excited already.”

Mr. Wentworth was silent a while; they all were silent, as if in recognition ofsomething audacious and portentous.

“I think they had better go to the other house,” said Charlotte,quietly.

“I shall keep them in the other house,” Mr. Wentworth subjoined,more pregnantly.

Gertrude turned away; then she looked across at Robert Acton. Her cousin Robertwas a great friend of hers; she often looked at him this way instead of sayingthings. Her glance on this occasion, however, struck him as a substitute for alarger volume of diffident utterance than usual, inviting him to observe, amongother things, the inefficiency of her father’s design—if design itwas—for diminishing, in the interest of quiet nerves, their occasions ofcontact with their foreign relatives. But Acton immediately complimented Mr.Wentworth upon his liberality. “That’s a very nice thing todo,” he said, “giving them the little house. You will have treatedthem handsomely, and, whatever happens, you will be glad of it.” Mr.Wentworth was liberal, and he knew he was liberal. It gave him pleasure to knowit, to feel it, to see it recorded; and this pleasure is the only palpable formof self-indulgence with which the narrator of these incidents will be able tocharge him.

“A three days’ visit at most, over there, is all I should havefound possible,” Madame Münster remarked to her brother, after they hadtaken possession of the little white house. “It would have been toointime—decidedly too intime. Breakfast, dinner, and teaen famille—it would have been the end of the world if I could havereached the third day.” And she made the same observation to her maidAugustine, an intelligent person, who enjoyed a liberal share of herconfidence. Felix declared that he would willingly spend his life in the bosomof the Wentworth family; that they were the kindest, simplest, most amiablepeople in the world, and that he had taken a prodigious fancy to them all. TheBaroness quite agreed with him that they were simple and kind; they werethoroughly nice people, and she liked them extremely. The girls were perfectladies; it was impossible to be more of a lady than Charlotte Wentworth, inspite of her little village air. “But as for thinking them the bestcompany in the world,” said the Baroness, “that is another thing;and as for wishing to live porte à portewith them, I should as soonthink of wishing myself back in the convent again, to wear a bombazine apronand sleep in a dormitory.” And yet the Baroness was in high good humor;she had been very much pleased. With her lively perception and her refinedimagination, she was capable of enjoying anything that was characteristic,anything that was good of its kind. The Wentworth household seemed to her veryperfect in its kind—wonderfully peaceful and unspotted; pervaded by asort of dove-colored freshness that had all the quietude and benevolence ofwhat she deemed to be Quakerism, and yet seemed to be founded upon a degree ofmaterial abundance for which, in certain matters of detail, one might havelooked in vain at the frugal little court of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. Sheperceived immediately that her American relatives thought and talked verylittle about money; and this of itself made an impression upon Eugenia’simagination. She perceived at the same time that if Charlotte or Gertrudeshould ask their father for a very considerable sum he would at once place itin their hands; and this made a still greater impression. The greatestimpression of all, perhaps, was made by another rapid induction. The Baronesshad an immediate conviction that Robert Acton would put his hand into hispocket every day in the week if that rattle-pated little sister of his shouldbid him. The men in this country, said the Baroness, are evidently veryobliging. Her declaration that she was looking for rest and retirement had beenby no means wholly untrue; nothing that the Baroness said was wholly untrue. Itis but fair to add, perhaps, that nothing that she said was wholly true. Shewrote to a friend in Germany that it was a return to nature; it was likedrinking new milk, and she was very fond of new milk. She said to herself, ofcourse, that it would be a little dull; but there can be no better proof of hergood spirits than the fact that she thought she should not mind its being alittle dull. It seemed to her, when from the piazza of her eleemosynary cottageshe looked out over the soundless fields, the stony pastures, the clear-facedponds, the rugged little orchards, that she had never been in the midst of sopeculiarly intense a stillness; it was almost a delicate sensual pleasure. Itwas all very good, very innocent and safe, and out of it something good mustcome. Augustine, indeed, who had an unbounded faith in her mistress’swisdom and far-sightedness, was a great deal perplexed and depressed. She wasalways ready to take her cue when she understood it; but she liked tounderstand it, and on this occasion comprehension failed. What, indeed, was theBaroness doing dans cette galère? what fish did she expect to land outof these very stagnant waters? The game was evidently a deep one. Augustinecould trust her; but the sense of walking in the dark betrayed itself in thephysiognomy of this spare, sober, sallow, middle-aged person, who had nothingin common with Gertrude Wentworth’s conception of a soubrette, by themost ironical scowl that had ever rested upon the unpretending tokens of thepeace and plenty of the Wentworths. Fortunately, Augustine could quenchskepticism in action. She quite agreed with her mistress—or rather shequite out-stripped her mistress—in thinking that the little white housewas pitifully bare. “Il faudra,”said Augustine,“lui faire un peu de toilette.”And she began to hang upportièresin the doorways; to place wax candles, procured after someresearch, in unexpected situations; to dispose anomalous draperies over thearms of sofas and the backs of chairs. The Baroness had brought with her to theNew World a copious provision of the element of costume; and the two MissWentworths, when they came over to see her, were somewhat bewildered by theobtrusive distribution of her wardrobe. There were India shawls suspended,curtain-wise, in the parlor door, and curious fabrics, corresponding toGertrude’s metaphysical vision of an opera-cloak, tumbled about in thesitting-places. There were pink silk blinds in the windows, by which the roomwas strangely bedimmed; and along the chimney-piece was disposed a remarkableband of velvet, covered with coarse, dirty-looking lace. “I have beenmaking myself a little comfortable,” said the Baroness, much to theconfusion of Charlotte, who had been on the point of proposing to come and helpher put her superfluous draperies away. But what Charlotte mistook for analmost culpably delayed subsidence Gertrude very presently perceived to be themost ingenious, the most interesting, the most romantic intention. “Whatis life, indeed, without curtains?” she secretly asked herself; and sheappeared to herself to have been leading hitherto an existence singularlygarish and totally devoid of festoons.

Felix was not a young man who troubled himself greatly aboutanything—least of all about the conditions of enjoyment. His faculty ofenjoyment was so large, so unconsciously eager, that it may be said of it thatit had a permanent advance upon embarrassment and sorrow. His sentient facultywas intrinsically joyous, and novelty and change were in themselves a delightto him. As they had come to him with a great deal of frequency, his life hadbeen more agreeable than appeared. Never was a nature more perfectly fortunate.It was not a restless, apprehensive, ambitious spirit, running a race with thetyranny of fate, but a temper so unsuspicious as to put Adversity off herguard, dodging and evading her with the easy, natural motion of a wind-shiftedflower. Felix extracted entertainment from all things, and all hisfaculties—his imagination, his intelligence, his affections, hissenses—had a hand in the game. It seemed to him that Eugenia and he hadbeen very well treated; there was something absolutely touching in thatcombination of paternal liberality and social considerateness which marked Mr.Wentworth’s deportment. It was most uncommonly kind of him, for instance,to have given them a house. Felix was positively amused at having a house ofhis own; for the little white cottage among the apple trees—the chalet,as Madame Münster always called it—was much more sensibly his own thanany domiciliary quatrième, looking upon a court, with the rent overdue.Felix had spent a good deal of his life in looking into courts, with a perhapsslightly tattered pair of elbows resting upon the ledge of a high-perchedwindow, and the thin smoke of a cigarette rising into an atmosphere in whichstreet-cries died away and the vibration of chimes from ancient belfries becamesensible. He had never known anything so infinitely rural as these New Englandfields; and he took a great fancy to all their pastoral roughnesses. He hadnever had a greater sense of luxurious security; and at the risk of making himseem a rather sordid adventurer I must declare that he found an irresistiblecharm in the fact that he might dine every day at his uncle’s. The charmwas irresistible, however, because his fancy flung a rosy light over thishomely privilege. He appreciated highly the fare that was set before him. Therewas a kind of fresh-looking abundance about it which made him think that peoplemust have lived so in the mythological era, when they spread their tables uponthe grass, replenished them from cornucopias, and had no particular need ofkitchen stoves. But the great thing that Felix enjoyed was having found afamily—sitting in the midst of gentle, generous people whom he might callby their first names. He had never known anything more charming than theattention they paid to what he said. It was like a large sheet of clean,fine-grained drawing-paper, all ready to be washed over with effective splashesof water-color. He had never had any cousins, and he had never before foundhimself in contact so unrestricted with young unmarried ladies. He wasextremely fond of the society of ladies, and it was new to him that it might beenjoyed in just this manner. At first he hardly knew what to make of his stateof mind. It seemed to him that he was in love, indiscriminately, with threegirls at once. He saw that Lizzie Acton was more brilliantly pretty thanCharlotte and Gertrude; but this was scarcely a superiority. His pleasure camefrom something they had in common—a part of which was, indeed, thatphysical delicacy which seemed to make it proper that they should always dressin thin materials and clear colors. But they were delicate in other ways, andit was most agreeable to him to feel that these latter delicacies wereappreciable by contact, as it were. He had known, fortunately, many virtuousgentlewomen, but it now appeared to him that in his relations with them(especially when they were unmarried) he had been looking at pictures underglass. He perceived at present what a nuisance the glass had been—how itperverted and interfered, how it caught the reflection of other objects andkept you walking from side to side. He had no need to ask himself whetherCharlotte and Gertrude, and Lizzie Acton, were in the right light; they werealways in the right light. He liked everything about them: he was, forinstance, not at all above liking the fact that they had very slender feet andhigh insteps. He liked their pretty noses; he liked their surprised eyes andtheir hesitating, not at all positive way of speaking; he liked so much knowingthat he was perfectly at liberty to be alone for hours, anywhere, with eitherof them; that preference for one to the other, as a companion of solitude,remained a minor affair. Charlotte Wentworth’s sweetly severe featureswere as agreeable as Lizzie Acton’s wonderfully expressive blue eyes; andGertrude’s air of being always ready to walk about and listen was ascharming as anything else, especially as she walked very gracefully. After awhile Felix began to distinguish; but even then he would often wish, suddenly,that they were not all so sad. Even Lizzie Acton, in spite of her fine littlechatter and laughter, appeared sad. Even Clifford Wentworth, who had extremeyouth in his favor, and kept a buggy with enormous wheels and a little sorrelmare with the prettiest legs in the world—even this fortunate lad was aptto have an averted, uncomfortable glance, and to edge away from you at times,in the manner of a person with a bad conscience. The only person in the circlewith no sense of oppression of any kind was, to Felix’s perception,Robert Acton.

It might perhaps have been feared that after the completion of those gracefuldomiciliary embellishments which have been mentioned Madame Münster would havefound herself confronted with alarming possibilities of ennui. But asyet she had not taken the alarm. The Baroness was a restless soul, and sheprojected her restlessness, as it may be said, into any situation that laybefore her. Up to a certain point her restlessness might be counted upon toentertain her. She was always expecting something to happen, and, until it wasdisappointed, expectancy itself was a delicate pleasure. What the Baronessexpected just now it would take some ingenuity to set forth; it is enough thatwhile she looked about her she found something to occupy her imagination. Sheassured herself that she was enchanted with her new relatives; she professed toherself that, like her brother, she felt it a sacred satisfaction to have founda family. It is certain that she enjoyed to the utmost the gentleness of herkinsfolk’s deference. She had, first and last, received a great deal ofadmiration, and her experience of well-turned compliments was veryconsiderable; but she knew that she had never been so real a power, nevercounted for so much, as now when, for the first time, the standard ofcomparison of her little circle was a prey to vagueness. The sense, indeed,that the good people about her had, as regards her remarkable self, no standardof comparison at all gave her a feeling of almost illimitable power. It wastrue, as she said to herself, that if for this reason they would be able todiscover nothing against her, so they would perhaps neglect to perceive some ofher superior points; but she always wound up her reflections by declaring thatshe would take care of that.

Charlotte and Gertrude were in some perplexity between their desire to show allproper attention to Madame Münster and their fear of being importunate. Thelittle house in the orchard had hitherto been occupied during the summer monthsby intimate friends of the family, or by poor relations who found in Mr.Wentworth a landlord attentive to repairs and oblivious of quarter-day. Underthese circumstances the open door of the small house and that of the large one,facing each other across their homely gardens, levied no tax upon hourlyvisits. But the Misses Wentworth received an impression that Eugenia was nofriend to the primitive custom of “dropping in;” she evidently hadno idea of living without a door-keeper. “One goes into your house asinto an inn—except that there are no servants rushing forward,” shesaid to Charlotte. And she added that that was very charming. Gertrudeexplained to her sister that she meant just the reverse; she didn’t likeit at all. Charlotte inquired why she should tell an untruth, and Gertrudeanswered that there was probably some very good reason for it which they shoulddiscover when they knew her better. “There can surely be no good reasonfor telling an untruth,” said Charlotte. “I hope she does not thinkso.”

They had of course desired, from the first, to do everything in the way ofhelping her to arrange herself. It had seemed to Charlotte that there would bea great many things to talk about; but the Baroness was apparently inclined totalk about nothing.

“Write her a note, asking her leave to come and see her. I think that iswhat she will like,” said Gertrude.

“Why should I give her the trouble of answering me?” Charlotteasked. “She will have to write a note and send it over.”

“I don’t think she will take any trouble,” said Gertrude,profoundly.

“What then will she do?”

“That is what I am curious to see,” said Gertrude, leaving hersister with an impression that her curiosity was morbid.

They went to see the Baroness without preliminary correspondence; and in thelittle salon which she had already created, with its becoming light and itsfestoons, they found Robert Acton.

Eugenia was intensely gracious, but she accused them of neglecting her cruelly.“You see Mr. Acton has had to take pity upon me,” she said.“My brother goes off sketching, for hours; I can never depend upon him.So I was to send Mr. Acton to beg you to come and give me the benefit of yourwisdom.”

Gertrude looked at her sister. She wanted to say, “Thatis whatshe would have done.” Charlotte said that they hoped the Baroness wouldalways come and dine with them; it would give them so much pleasure; and, inthat case, she would spare herself the trouble of having a cook.

“Ah, but I must have a cook!” cried the Baroness. “An oldnegress in a yellow turban. I have set my heart upon that. I want to look outof my window and see her sitting there on the grass, against the background ofthose crooked, dusky little apple trees, pulling the husks off a lapful ofIndian corn. That will be local color, you know. There isn’t much of ithere—you don’t mind my saying that, do you?—so one must makethe most of what one can get. I shall be most happy to dine with you wheneveryou will let me; but I want to be able to ask you sometimes. And I want to beable to ask Mr. Acton,” added the Baroness.

“You must come and ask me at home,” said Acton. “You mustcome and see me; you must dine with me first. I want to show you my place; Iwant to introduce you to my mother.” He called again upon Madame Münster,two days later. He was constantly at the other house; he used to walk acrossthe fields from his own place, and he appeared to have fewer scruples than hiscousins with regard to dropping in. On this occasion he found that Mr. Brandhad come to pay his respects to the charming stranger; but after Acton’sarrival the young theologian said nothing. He sat in his chair with his twohands clasped, fixing upon his hostess a grave, fascinated stare. The Baronesstalked to Robert Acton, but, as she talked, she turned and smiled at Mr. Brand,who never took his eyes off her. The two men walked away together; they weregoing to Mr. Wentworth’s. Mr. Brand still said nothing; but after theyhad passed into Mr. Wentworth’s garden he stopped and looked back forsome time at the little white house. Then, looking at his companion, with hishead bent a little to one side and his eyes somewhat contracted, “Now Isuppose that’s what is called conversation,” he said; “realconversation.”

“It’s what I call a very clever woman,” said Acton, laughing.

“It is most interesting,” Mr. Brand continued. “I only wishshe would speak French; it would seem more in keeping. It must be quite thestyle that we have heard about, that we have read about—the style ofconversation of Madame de Staël, of Madame Récamier.”

Acton also looked at Madame Münster’s residence among its hollyhocks andapple trees. “What I should like to know,” he said, smiling,“is just what has brought Madame Récamier to live in that place!”

CHAPTER V

Mr. Wentworth, with his cane and his gloves in his hand, went every afternoonto call upon his niece. A couple of hours later she came over to the greathouse to tea. She had let the proposal that she should regularly dine therefall to the ground; she was in the enjoyment of whatever satisfaction was to bederived from the spectacle of an old negress in a crimson turban shelling peasunder the apple trees. Charlotte, who had provided the ancient negress, thoughtit must be a strange household, Eugenia having told her that Augustine managedeverything, the ancient negress included—Augustine who was naturallydevoid of all acquaintance with the expurgatory English tongue. By far the mostimmoral sentiment which I shall have occasion to attribute to CharlotteWentworth was a certain emotion of disappointment at finding that, in spite ofthese irregular conditions, the domestic arrangements at the small house wereapparently not—from Eugenia’s peculiar point ofview—strikingly offensive. The Baroness found it amusing to go to tea;she dressed as if for dinner. The tea-table offered an anomalous andpicturesque repast; and on leaving it they all sat and talked in the largepiazza, or wandered about the garden in the starlight, with their ears full ofthose sounds of strange insects which, though they are supposed to be, all overthe world, a part of the magic of summer nights, seemed to the Baroness to havebeneath these western skies an incomparable resonance.

Mr. Wentworth, though, as I say, he went punctiliously to call upon her, wasnot able to feel that he was getting used to his niece. It taxed hisimagination to believe that she was really his half-sister’s child. Hissister was a figure of his early years; she had been only twenty when she wentabroad, never to return, making in foreign parts a willful and undesirablemarriage. His aunt, Mrs. Whiteside, who had taken her to Europe for the benefitof the tour, gave, on her return, so lamentable an account of Mr. AdolphusYoung, to whom the headstrong girl had united her destiny, that it operated asa chill upon family feeling—especially in the case of the half-brothers.Catherine had done nothing subsequently to propitiate her family; she had noteven written to them in a way that indicated a lucid appreciation of theirsuspended sympathy; so that it had become a tradition in Boston circles thatthe highest charity, as regards this young lady, was to think it well to forgether, and to abstain from conjecture as to the extent to which her aberrationswere reproduced in her descendants. Over these young people—a vaguereport of their existence had come to his ears—Mr. Wentworth had not, inthe course of years, allowed his imagination to hover. It had plenty ofoccupation nearer home, and though he had many cares upon his conscience theidea that he had been an unnatural uncle was, very properly, never among thenumber. Now that his nephew and niece had come before him, he perceived thatthey were the fruit of influences and circumstances very different from thoseunder which his own familiar progeny had reached a vaguely-qualified maturity.He felt no provocation to say that these influences had been exerted for evil;but he was sometimes afraid that he should not be able to like hisdistinguished, delicate, lady-like niece. He was paralyzed and bewildered byher foreignness. She spoke, somehow, a different language. There was somethingstrange in her words. He had a feeling that another man, in his place, wouldaccommodate himself to her tone; would ask her questions and joke with her,reply to those pleasantries of her own which sometimes seemed startling asaddressed to an uncle. But Mr. Wentworth could not do these things. He couldnot even bring himself to attempt to measure her position in the world. She wasthe wife of a foreign nobleman who desired to repudiate her. This had asingular sound, but the old man felt himself destitute of the materials for ajudgment. It seemed to him that he ought to find them in his own experience, asa man of the world and an almost public character; but they were not there, andhe was ashamed to confess to himself—much more to reveal to Eugenia byinterrogations possibly too innocent—the unfurnished condition of thisrepository.

It appeared to him that he could get much nearer, as he would have said, to hisnephew; though he was not sure that Felix was altogether safe. He was so brightand handsome and talkative that it was impossible not to think well of him; andyet it seemed as if there were something almost impudent, almostvicious—or as if there ought to be—in a young man being at once sojoyous and so positive. It was to be observed that while Felix was not at all aserious young man there was somehow more of him—he had more weight andvolume and resonance—than a number of young men who were distinctlyserious. While Mr. Wentworth meditated upon this anomaly his nephew wasadmiring him unrestrictedly. He thought him a most delicate, generous,high-toned old gentleman, with a very handsome head, of the ascetic type, whichhe promised himself the profit of sketching. Felix was far from having made asecret of the fact that he wielded the paint-brush, and it was not his ownfault if it failed to be generally understood that he was prepared to executethe most striking likenesses on the most reasonable terms. “He is anartist—my cousin is an artist,” said Gertrude; and she offered thisinformation to everyone who would receive it. She offered it to herself, as itwere, by way of admonition and reminder; she repeated to herself at oddmoments, in lonely places, that Felix was invested with this sacred character.Gertrude had never seen an artist before; she had only read about such people.They seemed to her a romantic and mysterious class, whose life was made up ofthose agreeable accidents that never happened to other persons. And it merelyquickened her meditations on this point that Felix should declare, as herepeatedly did, that he was really not an artist. “I have never gone intothe thing seriously,” he said. “I have never studied; I have had notraining. I do a little of everything, and nothing well. I am only anamateur.”

It pleased Gertrude even more to think that he was an amateur than to thinkthat he was an artist; the former word, to her fancy, had an even subtlerconnotation. She knew, however, that it was a word to use more soberly. Mr.Wentworth used it freely; for though he had not been exactly familiar with it,he found it convenient as a help toward classifying Felix, who, as a young manextremely clever and active and apparently respectable and yet not engaged inany recognized business, was an importunate anomaly. Of course the Baroness andher brother—she was always spoken of first—were a welcome topic ofconversation between Mr. Wentworth and his daughters and their occasionalvisitors.

“And the young man, your nephew, what is his profession?” asked anold gentleman—Mr. Broderip, of Salem—who had been Mr.Wentworth’s classmate at Harvard College in the year 1809, and who cameinto his office in Devonshire Street. (Mr. Wentworth, in his later years, usedto go but three times a week to his office, where he had a large amount ofhighly confidential trust-business to transact.)

“Well, he’s an amateur,” said Felix’s uncle, withfolded hands, and with a certain satisfaction in being able to say it. And Mr.Broderip had gone back to Salem with a feeling that this was probably a“European” expression for a broker or a grain exporter.

“I should like to do your head, sir,” said Felix to his uncle oneevening, before them all—Mr. Brand and Robert Acton being also present.“I think I should make a very fine thing of it. It’s an interestinghead; it’s very mediaeval.”

Mr. Wentworth looked grave; he felt awkwardly, as if all the company had comein and found him standing before the looking-glass. “The Lord madeit,” he said. “I don’t think it is for man to make it overagain.”

“Certainly the Lord made it,” replied Felix, laughing, “andhe made it very well. But life has been touching up the work. It is a veryinteresting type of head. It’s delightfully wasted and emaciated. Thecomplexion is wonderfully bleached.” And Felix looked round at thecircle, as if to call their attention to these interesting points. Mr.Wentworth grew visibly paler. “I should like to do you as an old prelate,an old cardinal, or the prior of an order.”

“A prelate, a cardinal?” murmured Mr. Wentworth. “Do yourefer to the Roman Catholic priesthood?”

“I mean an old ecclesiastic who should have led a very pure, abstinentlife. Now I take it that has been the case with you, sir; one sees it in yourface,” Felix proceeded. “You have been very—a very moderate.Don’t you think one always sees that in a man’s face?”

“You see more in a man’s face than I should think of lookingfor,” said Mr. Wentworth coldly.

The Baroness rattled her fan, and gave her brilliant laugh. “It is a riskto look so close!” she exclaimed. “My uncle has some peccadilloeson his conscience.” Mr. Wentworth looked at her, painfully at a loss; andin so far as the signs of a pure and abstinent life were visible in his facethey were then probably peculiarly manifest. “You are a beauvieillard, dear uncle,” said Madame Münster, smiling with her foreigneyes.

“I think you are paying me a compliment,” said the old man.

“Surely, I am not the first woman that ever did so!” cried theBaroness.

“I think you are,” said Mr. Wentworth gravely. And turning to Felixhe added, in the same tone, “Please don’t take my likeness. Mychildren have my daguerreotype. That is quite satisfactory.”

“I won’t promise,” said Felix, “not to work your headinto something!”

Mr. Wentworth looked at him and then at all the others; then he got up andslowly walked away.

“Felix,” said Gertrude, in the silence that followed, “I wishyou would paint my portrait.”

Charlotte wondered whether Gertrude was right in wishing this; and she lookedat Mr. Brand as the most legitimate way of ascertaining. Whatever Gertrude didor said, Charlotte always looked at Mr. Brand. It was a standing pretext forlooking at Mr. Brand—always, as Charlotte thought, in the interest ofGertrude’s welfare. It is true that she felt a tremulous interest inGertrude being right; for Charlotte, in her small, still way, was an heroicsister.

“We should be glad to have your portrait, Miss Gertrude,” said Mr.Brand.

“I should be delighted to paint so charming a model,” Felixdeclared.

“Do you think you are so lovely, my dear?” asked Lizzie Acton, withher little inoffensive pertness, biting off a knot in her knitting.

“It is not because I think I am beautiful,” said Gertrude, lookingall round. “I don’t think I am beautiful, at all.” She spokewith a sort of conscious deliberateness; and it seemed very strange toCharlotte to hear her discussing this question so publicly. “It isbecause I think it would be amusing to sit and be painted. I have alwaysthought that.”

“I am sorry you have not had better things to think about, mydaughter,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“You are very beautiful, cousin Gertrude,” Felix declared.

“That’s a compliment,” said Gertrude. “I put all thecompliments I receive into a little money-jug that has a slit in the side. Ishake them up and down, and they rattle. There are not many yet—only twoor three.”

“No, it’s not a compliment,” Felix rejoined. “See; I amcareful not to give it the form of a compliment. I didn’t think you werebeautiful at first. But you have come to seem so little by little.”

“Take care, now, your jug doesn’t burst!” exclaimed Lizzie.

“I think sitting for one’s portrait is only one of the variousforms of idleness,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Their name islegion.”

“My dear sir,” cried Felix, “you can’t be said to beidle when you are making a man work so!”

“One might be painted while one is asleep,” suggested Mr. Brand, asa contribution to the discussion.

“Ah, do paint me while I am asleep,” said Gertrude to Felix,smiling. And she closed her eyes a little. It had by this time become a matterof almost exciting anxiety to Charlotte what Gertrude would say or would donext.

She began to sit for her portrait on the following day—in the open air,on the north side of the piazza. “I wish you would tell me what you thinkof us—how we seem to you,” she said to Felix, as he sat before hiseasel.

“You seem to me the best people in the world,” said Felix.

“You say that,” Gertrude resumed, “because it saves you thetrouble of saying anything else.”

The young man glanced at her over the top of his canvas. “What elseshould I say? It would certainly be a great deal of trouble to say anythingdifferent.”

“Well,” said Gertrude, “you have seen people before that youhave liked, have you not?”

“Indeed I have, thank Heaven!”

“And they have been very different from us,” Gertrude went on.

“That only proves,” said Felix, “that there are a thousanddifferent ways of being good company.”

“Do you think us good company?” asked Gertrude.

“Company for a king!”

Gertrude was silent a moment; and then, “There must be a thousanddifferent ways of being dreary,” she said; “and sometimes I thinkwe make use of them all.”

Felix stood up quickly, holding up his hand. “If you could only keep thatlook on your face for half an hour—while I catch it!” he said.“It is uncommonly handsome.”

“To look handsome for half an hour—that is a great deal to ask ofme,” she answered.

“It would be the portrait of a young woman who has taken some vow, somepledge, that she repents of,” said Felix, “and who is thinking itover at leisure.”

“I have taken no vow, no pledge,” said Gertrude, very gravely;“I have nothing to repent of.”

“My dear cousin, that was only a figure of speech. I am very sure that noone in your excellent family has anything to repent of.”

“And yet we are always repenting!” Gertrude exclaimed. “Thatis what I mean by our being dreary. You know it perfectly well; you onlypretend that you don’t.”

Felix gave a quick laugh. “The half hour is going on, and yet you arehandsomer than ever. One must be careful what one says, you see.”

“To me,” said Gertrude, “you can say anything.”

Felix looked at her, as an artist might, and painted for some time in silence.

“Yes, you seem to me different from your father and sister—frommost of the people you have lived with,” he observed.

“To say that one’s self,” Gertrude went on, “is likesaying—by implication, at least—that one is better. I am notbetter; I am much worse. But they say themselves that I am different. It makesthem unhappy.”

“Since you accuse me of concealing my real impressions, I may admit thatI think the tendency—among you generally—is to be made unhappy tooeasily.”

“I wish you would tell that to my father,” said Gertrude.

“It might make him more unhappy!” Felix exclaimed, laughing.

“It certainly would. I don’t believe you have seen people likethat.”

“Ah, my dear cousin, how do you know what I have seen?” Felixdemanded. “How can I tell you?”

“You might tell me a great many things, if you only would. You have seenpeople like yourself—people who are bright and gay and fond of amusement.We are not fond of amusement.”

“Yes,” said Felix, “I confess that rather strikes me. Youdon’t seem to me to get all the pleasure out of life that you might. Youdon’t seem to me to enjoy..... Do you mind my saying this?” heasked, pausing.

“Please go on,” said the girl, earnestly.

“You seem to me very well placed for enjoying. You have money and libertyand what is called in Europe a ‘position.’ But you take a painfulview of life, as one may say.”

“One ought to think it bright and charming and delightful, eh?”asked Gertrude.

“I should say so—if one can. It is true it all depends uponthat,” Felix added.

“You know there is a great deal of misery in the world,” said hismodel.

“I have seen a little of it,” the young man rejoined. “But itwas all over there—beyond the sea. I don’t see any here. This is aparadise.”

Gertrude said nothing; she sat looking at the dahlias and the currant-bushes inthe garden, while Felix went on with his work. “To‘enjoy,’” she began at last, “to take life—notpainfully, must one do something wrong?”

Felix gave his long, light laugh again. “Seriously, I think not. And forthis reason, among others: you strike me as very capable of enjoying, if thechance were given you, and yet at the same time as incapable ofwrong-doing.”

“I am sure,” said Gertrude, “that you are very wrong intelling a person that she is incapable of that. We are never nearer to evilthan when we believe that.”

“You are handsomer than ever,” observed Felix, irrelevantly.

Gertrude had got used to hearing him say this. There was not so much excitementin it as at first. “What ought one to do?” she continued. “Togive parties, to go to the theatre, to read novels, to keep late hours?”

“I don’t think it’s what one does or one doesn’t dothat promotes enjoyment,” her companion answered. “It is thegeneral way of looking at life.”

“They look at it as a discipline—that’s what they do here. Ihave often been told that.”

“Well, that’s very good. But there is another way,” addedFelix, smiling: “to look at it as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity—yes,” said Gertrude. “One would getmore pleasure that way.”

“I don’t attempt to say anything better for it than that it hasbeen my own way—and that is not saying much!” Felix had laid downhis palette and brushes; he was leaning back, with his arms folded, to judgethe effect of his work. “And you know,” he said, “I am a verypetty personage.”

“You have a great deal of talent,” said Gertrude.

“No—no,” the young man rejoined, in a tone of cheerfulimpartiality, “I have not a great deal of talent. It is nothing at allremarkable. I assure you I should know if it were. I shall always be obscure.The world will never hear of me.” Gertrude looked at him with a strangefeeling. She was thinking of the great world which he knew and which she didnot, and how full of brilliant talents it must be, since it could afford tomake light of his abilities. “You needn’t in general attach muchimportance to anything I tell you,” he pursued; “but you maybelieve me when I say this,—that I am little better than a good-naturedfeather-head.”

“A feather-head?” she repeated.

“I am a species of Bohemian.”

“A Bohemian?” Gertrude had never heard this term before, save as ageographical denomination; and she quite failed to understand the figurativemeaning which her companion appeared to attach to it. But it gave her pleasure.

Felix had pushed back his chair and risen to his feet; he slowly came towardher, smiling. “I am a sort of adventurer,” he said, looking down ather.

She got up, meeting his smile. “An adventurer?” she repeated.“I should like to hear your adventures.”

For an instant she believed that he was going to take her hand; but he droppedhis own hands suddenly into the pockets of his painting-jacket. “There isno reason why you shouldn’t,” he said. “I have been anadventurer, but my adventures have been very innocent. They have all been happyones; I don’t think there are any I shouldn’t tell. They were verypleasant and very pretty; I should like to go over them in memory. Sit downagain, and I will begin,” he added in a moment, with his naturallypersuasive smile.

Gertrude sat down again on that day, and she sat down on several other days.Felix, while he plied his brush, told her a great many stories, and shelistened with charmed avidity. Her eyes rested upon his lips; she was veryserious; sometimes, from her air of wondering gravity, he thought she wasdispleased. But Felix never believed for more than a single moment in anydispleasure of his own producing. This would have been fatuity if the optimismit expressed had not been much more a hope than a prejudice. It is beside thematter to say that he had a good conscience; for the best conscience is a sortof self-reproach, and this young man’s brilliantly healthy nature spentitself in objective good intentions which were ignorant of any test saveexactness in hitting their mark. He told Gertrude how he had walked over Franceand Italy with a painter’s knapsack on his back, paying his way often byknocking off a flattering portrait of his host or hostess. He told her how hehad played the violin in a little band of musicians—not of highcelebrity—who traveled through foreign lands giving provincial concerts.He told her also how he had been a momentary ornament of a troupe of strollingactors, engaged in the arduous task of interpreting Shakespeare to French andGerman, Polish and Hungarian audiences.

While this periodical recital was going on, Gertrude lived in a fantasticworld; she seemed to herself to be reading a romance that came out in dailynumbers. She had known nothing so delightful since the perusal of NicholasNickleby. One afternoon she went to see her cousin, Mrs. Acton,Robert’s mother, who was a great invalid, never leaving the house. Shecame back alone, on foot, across the fields—this being a short way whichthey often used. Felix had gone to Boston with her father, who desired to takethe young man to call upon some of his friends, old gentlemen who rememberedhis mother—remembered her, but said nothing about her—and severalof whom, with the gentle ladies their wives, had driven out from town to paytheir respects at the little house among the apple trees, in vehicles whichreminded the Baroness, who received her visitors with discriminating civility,of the large, light, rattling barouche in which she herself had made herjourney to this neighborhood. The afternoon was waning; in the western sky thegreat picture of a New England sunset, painted in crimson and silver, wassuspended from the zenith; and the stony pastures, as Gertrude traversed them,thinking intently to herself, were covered with a light, clear glow. At theopen gate of one of the fields she saw from the distance a man’s figure;he stood there as if he were waiting for her, and as she came nearer sherecognized Mr. Brand. She had a feeling as of not having seen him for sometime; she could not have said for how long, for it yet seemed to her that hehad been very lately at the house.

“May I walk back with you?” he asked. And when she had said that hemight if he wanted, he observed that he had seen her and recognized her half amile away.

“You must have very good eyes,” said Gertrude.

“Yes, I have very good eyes, Miss Gertrude,” said Mr. Brand. Sheperceived that he meant something; but for a long time past Mr. Brand hadconstantly meant something, and she had almost got used to it. She felt,however, that what he meant had now a renewed power to disturb her, to perplexand agitate her. He walked beside her in silence for a moment, and then headded, “I have had no trouble in seeing that you are beginning to avoidme. But perhaps,” he went on, “one needn’t have had very goodeyes to see that.”

“I have not avoided you,” said Gertrude, without looking at him.

“I think you have been unconscious that you were avoiding me,” Mr.Brand replied. “You have not even known that I was there.”

“Well, you are here now, Mr. Brand!” said Gertrude, with a littlelaugh. “I know that very well.”

He made no rejoinder. He simply walked beside her slowly, as they were obligedto walk over the soft grass. Presently they came to another gate, which wasclosed. Mr. Brand laid his hand upon it, but he made no movement to open it; hestood and looked at his companion. “You are very muchinterested—very much absorbed,” he said.

Gertrude glanced at him; she saw that he was pale and that he looked excited.She had never seen Mr. Brand excited before, and she felt that the spectacle,if fully carried out, would be impressive, almost painful. “Absorbed inwhat?” she asked. Then she looked away at the illuminated sky. She feltguilty and uncomfortable, and yet she was vexed with herself for feeling so.But Mr. Brand, as he stood there looking at her with his small, kind,persistent eyes, represented an immense body of half-obliterated obligations,that were rising again into a certain distinctness.

“You have new interests, new occupations,” he went on. “Idon’t know that I can say that you have new duties. We have always oldones, Gertrude,” he added.

“Please open the gate, Mr. Brand,” she said; and she felt as if, insaying so, she were cowardly and petulant. But he opened the gate, and allowedher to pass; then he closed it behind himself. Before she had time to turn awayhe put out his hand and held her an instant by the wrist.

“I want to say something to you,” he said.

“I know what you want to say,” she answered. And she was on thepoint of adding, “And I know just how you will say it;” but thesewords she kept back.

“I love you, Gertrude,” he said. “I love you very much; Ilove you more than ever.”

He said the words just as she had known he would; she had heard them before.They had no charm for her; she had said to herself before that it was verystrange. It was supposed to be delightful for a woman to listen to such words;but these seemed to her flat and mechanical. “I wish you would forgetthat,” she declared.

“How can I—why should I?” he asked.

“I have made you no promise—given you no pledge,” she said,looking at him, with her voice trembling a little.

“You have let me feel that I have an influence over you. You have openedyour mind to me.”

“I never opened my mind to you, Mr. Brand!” Gertrude cried, withsome vehemence.

“Then you were not so frank as I thought—as we all thought.”

“I don’t see what anyone else had to do with it!” cried thegirl.

“I mean your father and your sister. You know it makes them happy tothink you will listen to me.”

She gave a little laugh. “It doesn’t make them happy,” shesaid. “Nothing makes them happy. No one is happy here.”

“I think your cousin is very happy—Mr. Young,” rejoined Mr.Brand, in a soft, almost timid tone.

“So much the better for him!” And Gertrude gave her little laughagain.

The young man looked at her a moment. “You are very much changed,”he said.

“I am glad to hear it,” Gertrude declared.

“I am not. I have known you a long time, and I have loved you as youwere.”

“I am much obliged to you,” said Gertrude. “I must be goinghome.”

He on his side, gave a little laugh.

“You certainly do avoid me—you see!”

“Avoid me, then,” said the girl.

He looked at her again; and then, very gently, “No I will not avoidyou,” he replied; “but I will leave you, for the present, toyourself. I think you will remember—after a while—some of thethings you have forgotten. I think you will come back to me; I have great faithin that.”

This time his voice was very touching; there was a strong, reproachful force inwhat he said, and Gertrude could answer nothing. He turned away and stoodthere, leaning his elbows on the gate and looking at the beautiful sunset.Gertrude left him and took her way home again; but when she reached the middleof the next field she suddenly burst into tears. Her tears seemed to her tohave been a long time gathering, and for some moments it was a kind of glee toshed them. But they presently passed away. There was something a little hardabout Gertrude; and she never wept again.

CHAPTER VI

Going of an afternoon to call upon his niece, Mr. Wentworth more than oncefound Robert Acton sitting in her little drawing-room. This was in no degree,to Mr. Wentworth, a perturbing fact, for he had no sense of competing with hisyoung kinsman for Eugenia’s good graces. Madame Münster’s uncle hadthe highest opinion of Robert Acton, who, indeed, in the family at large, wasthe object of a great deal of undemonstrative appreciation. They were all proudof him, in so far as the charge of being proud may be brought against peoplewho were, habitually, distinctly guiltless of the misdemeanor known as“taking credit.” They never boasted of Robert Acton, nor indulgedin vainglorious reference to him; they never quoted the clever things he hadsaid, nor mentioned the generous things he had done. But a sort offrigidly-tender faith in his unlimited goodness was a part of their personalsense of right; and there can, perhaps, be no better proof of the high esteemin which he was held than the fact that no explicit judgment was ever passedupon his actions. He was no more praised than he was blamed; but he was tacitlyfelt to be an ornament to his circle. He was the man of the world of thefamily. He had been to China and brought home a collection of curiosities; hehad made a fortune—or rather he had quintupled a fortune alreadyconsiderable; he was distinguished by that combination of celibacy,“property,” and good humor which appeals to even the most subduedimaginations; and it was taken for granted that he would presently place theseadvantages at the disposal of some well-regulated young woman of his own“set.” Mr. Wentworth was not a man to admit to himselfthat—his paternal duties apart—he liked any individual much betterthan all other individuals; but he thought Robert Acton extremely judicious;and this was perhaps as near an approach as he was capable of to the eagernessof preference, which his temperament repudiated as it would have disengageditself from something slightly unchaste. Acton was, in fact, veryjudicious—and something more beside; and indeed it must be claimed forMr. Wentworth that in the more illicit parts of his preference there hoveredthe vague adumbration of a belief that his cousin’s final merit was acertain enviable capacity for whistling, rather gallantly, at the sanctions ofmere judgment—for showing a larger courage, a finer quality of pluck,than common occasion demanded. Mr. Wentworth would never have risked theintimation that Acton was made, in the smallest degree, of the stuff of a hero;but this is small blame to him, for Robert would certainly never have risked ithimself. Acton certainly exercised great discretion in allthings—beginning with his estimate of himself. He knew that he was by nomeans so much of a man of the world as he was supposed to be in local circles;but it must be added that he knew also that his natural shrewdness had a reachof which he had never quite given local circles the measure. He was addicted totaking the humorous view of things, and he had discovered that even in thenarrowest circles such a disposition may find frequent opportunities. Suchopportunities had formed for some time—that is, since his return fromChina, a year and a half before—the most active element in thisgentleman’s life, which had just now a rather indolent air. He wasperfectly willing to get married. He was very fond of books, and he had ahandsome library; that is, his books were much more numerous than Mr.Wentworth’s. He was also very fond of pictures; but it must be confessed,in the fierce light of contemporary criticism, that his walls were adorned withseveral rather abortive masterpieces. He had got his learning—and therewas more of it than commonly appeared—at Harvard College; and he took apleasure in old associations, which made it a part of his daily contentment tolive so near this institution that he often passed it in driving to Boston. Hewas extremely interested in the Baroness Münster.

She was very frank with him; or at least she intended to be. “I am sureyou find it very strange that I should have settled down in this out-of-the-waypart of the world!” she said to him three or four weeks after she hadinstalled herself. “I am certain you are wondering about my motives. Theyare very pure.” The Baroness by this time was an old inhabitant; the bestsociety in Boston had called upon her, and Clifford Wentworth had taken herseveral times to drive in his buggy.

Robert Acton was seated near her, playing with a fan; there were always severalfans lying about her drawing-room, with long ribbons of different colorsattached to them, and Acton was always playing with one. “No, Idon’t find it at all strange,” he said slowly, smiling. “Thata clever woman should turn up in Boston, or its suburbs—that does notrequire so much explanation. Boston is a very nice place.”

“If you wish to make me contradict you,” said the Baroness,“vous vous y prenez mal. In certain moods there is nothing I amnot capable of agreeing to. Boston is a paradise, and we are in the suburbs ofParadise.”

“Just now I am not at all in the suburbs; I am in the placeitself,” rejoined Acton, who was lounging a little in his chair. He was,however, not always lounging; and when he was he was not quite so relaxed as hepretended. To a certain extent, he sought refuge from shyness in thisappearance of relaxation; and like many persons in the same circumstances hesomewhat exaggerated the appearance. Beyond this, the air of being much at hisease was a cover for vigilant observation. He was more than interested in thisclever woman, who, whatever he might say, was clever not at all after theBoston fashion; she plunged him into a kind of excitement, held him in vaguesuspense. He was obliged to admit to himself that he had never yet seen a womanjust like this—not even in China. He was ashamed, for inscrutablereasons, of the vivacity of his emotion, and he carried it off, superficially,by taking, still superficially, the humorous view of Madame Münster. It was notat all true that he thought it very natural of her to have made this piouspilgrimage. It might have been said of him in advance that he was too good aBostonian to regard in the light of an eccentricity the desire of even theremotest alien to visit the New England metropolis. This was an impulse forwhich, surely, no apology was needed; and Madame Münster was the fortunatepossessor of several New England cousins. In fact, however, Madame Münsterstruck him as out of keeping with her little circle; she was at the best a veryagreeable, a gracefully mystifying anomaly. He knew very well that it would notdo to address these reflections too crudely to Mr. Wentworth; he would neverhave remarked to the old gentleman that he wondered what the Baroness was upto. And indeed he had no great desire to share his vague mistrust with anyone.There was a personal pleasure in it; the greatest pleasure he had known atleast since he had come from China. He would keep the Baroness, for better orworse, to himself; he had a feeling that he deserved to enjoy a monopoly ofher, for he was certainly the person who had most adequately gauged hercapacity for social intercourse. Before long it became apparent to him that theBaroness was disposed to lay no tax upon such a monopoly.

One day (he was sitting there again and playing with a fan) she asked him toapologize, should the occasion present itself, to certain people in Boston forher not having returned their calls. “There are half a dozenplaces,” she said; “a formidable list. Charlotte Wentworth haswritten it out for me, in a terrifically distinct hand. There is no ambiguityon the subject; I know perfectly where I must go. Mr. Wentworth informs me thatthe carriage is always at my disposal, and Charlotte offers to go with me, in apair of tight gloves and a very stiff petticoat. And yet for three days I havebeen putting it off. They must think me horribly vicious.”

“You ask me to apologize,” said Acton, “but you don’ttell me what excuse I can offer.”

“That is more,” the Baroness declared, “than I am held to. Itwould be like my asking you to buy me a bouquet and giving you the money. Ihave no reason except that—somehow—it’s too violent aneffort. It is not inspiring. Wouldn’t that serve as an excuse, in Boston?I am told they are very sincere; they don’t tell fibs. And then Felixought to go with me, and he is never in readiness. I don’t see him. He isalways roaming about the fields and sketching old barns, or taking ten-milewalks, or painting someone’s portrait, or rowing on the pond, or flirtingwith Gertrude Wentworth.”

“I should think it would amuse you to go and see a few people,”said Acton. “You are having a very quiet time of it here. It’s adull life for you.”

“Ah, the quiet,—the quiet!” the Baroness exclaimed.“That’s what I like. It’s rest. That’s what I came herefor. Amusement? I have had amusement. And as for seeing people—I havealready seen a great many in my life. If it didn’t sound ungracious Ishould say that I wish very humbly your people here would leave mealone!”

Acton looked at her a moment, and she looked at him. She was a woman who tookbeing looked at remarkably well. “So you have come here for rest?”he asked.

“So I may say. I came for many of those reasons that are noreasons—don’t you know?—and yet that are really the best: tocome away, to change, to break with everything. When once one comes away onemust arrive somewhere, and I asked myself why I shouldn’t arrivehere.”

“You certainly had time on the way!” said Acton, laughing.

Madame Münster looked at him again; and then, smiling: “And I havecertainly had time, since I got here, to ask myself why I came. However, Inever ask myself idle questions. Here I am, and it seems to me you ought onlyto thank me.”

“When you go away you will see the difficulties I shall put in yourpath.”

“You mean to put difficulties in my path?” she asked, rearrangingthe rosebud in her corsage.

“The greatest of all—that of having been soagreeable——”

“That I shall be unable to depart? Don’t be too sure. I have leftsome very agreeable people over there.”

“Ah,” said Acton, “but it was to come here, where Iam!”

“I didn’t know of your existence. Excuse me for saying anything sorude; but, honestly speaking, I did not. No,” the Baroness pursued,“it was precisely not to see you—such people as you—that Icame.”

“Such people as me?” cried Acton.

“I had a sort of longing to come into those natural relations which Iknew I should find here. Over there I had only, as I may say, artificialrelations. Don’t you see the difference?”

“The difference tells against me,” said Acton. “I suppose Iam an artificial relation.”

“Conventional,” declared the Baroness; “veryconventional.”

“Well, there is one way in which the relation of a lady and a gentlemanmay always become natural,” said Acton.

“You mean by their becoming lovers? That may be natural or not. And atany rate,” rejoined Eugenia, “nous n’en sommes paslà!”

They were not, as yet; but a little later, when she began to go with him todrive, it might almost have seemed that they were. He came for her severaltimes, alone, in his high “wagon,” drawn by a pair of charminglight-limbed horses. It was different, her having gone with Clifford Wentworth,who was her cousin, and so much younger. It was not to be imagined that sheshould have a flirtation with Clifford, who was a mere shame-faced boy, andwhom a large section of Boston society supposed to be “engaged” toLizzie Acton. Not, indeed, that it was to be conceived that the Baroness was apossible party to any flirtation whatever; for she was undoubtedly a marriedlady. It was generally known that her matrimonial condition was of the“morganatic” order; but in its natural aversion to suppose thatthis meant anything less than absolute wedlock, the conscience of the communitytook refuge in the belief that it implied something even more.

Acton wished her to think highly of American scenery, and he drove her to greatdistances, picking out the prettiest roads and the largest points of view. Ifwe are good when we are contented, Eugenia’s virtues should now certainlyhave been uppermost; for she found a charm in the rapid movement through a wildcountry, and in a companion who from time to time made the vehicle dip, with amotion like a swallow’s flight, over roads of primitive construction, andwho, as she felt, would do a great many things that she might ask him.Sometimes, for a couple of hours together, there were almost no houses; therewere nothing but woods and rivers and lakes and horizons adorned withbright-looking mountains. It seemed to the Baroness very wild, as I have said,and lovely; but the impression added something to that sense of the enlargementof opportunity which had been born of her arrival in the New World.

One day—it was late in the afternoon—Acton pulled up his horses onthe crest of a hill which commanded a beautiful prospect. He let them stand along time to rest, while he sat there and talked with Madame Münster. Theprospect was beautiful in spite of there being nothing human within sight.There was a wilderness of woods, and the gleam of a distant river, and aglimpse of half the hill-tops in Massachusetts. The road had a wide, grassymargin, on the further side of which there flowed a deep, clear brook; therewere wild flowers in the grass, and beside the brook lay the trunk of a fallentree. Acton waited a while; at last a rustic wayfarer came trudging along theroad. Acton asked him to hold the horses—a service he consented torender, as a friendly turn to a fellow-citizen. Then he invited the Baroness todescend, and the two wandered away, across the grass, and sat down on the logbeside the brook.

“I imagine it doesn’t remind you of Silberstadt,” said Acton.It was the first time that he had mentioned Silberstadt to her, for particularreasons. He knew she had a husband there, and this was disagreeable to him;and, furthermore, it had been repeated to him that this husband wished to puther away—a state of affairs to which even indirect reference was to bedeprecated. It was true, nevertheless, that the Baroness herself had oftenalluded to Silberstadt; and Acton had often wondered why her husband wished toget rid of her. It was a curious position for a lady—this being known asa repudiated wife; and it is worthy of observation that the Baroness carried itoff with exceeding grace and dignity. She had made it felt, from the first,that there were two sides to the question, and that her own side, when sheshould choose to present it, would be replete with touching interest.

“It does not remind me of the town, of course,” she said, “ofthe sculptured gables and the Gothic churches, of the wonderful Schloss, withits moat and its clustering towers. But it has a little look of some otherparts of the principality. One might fancy one’s self among those grandold German forests, those legendary mountains; the sort of country one seesfrom the windows at Schreckenstein.”

“What is Schreckenstein?” asked Acton.

“It is a great castle,—the summer residence of the ReigningPrince.”

“Have you ever lived there?”

“I have stayed there,” said the Baroness. Acton was silent; helooked a while at the uncastled landscape before him. “It is the firsttime you have ever asked me about Silberstadt,” she said. “I shouldthink you would want to know about my marriage; it must seem to you verystrange.”

Acton looked at her a moment. “Now you wouldn’t like me to saythat!”

“You Americans have such odd ways!” the Baroness declared.“You never ask anything outright; there seem to be so many things youcan’t talk about.”

“We Americans are very polite,” said Acton, whose nationalconsciousness had been complicated by a residence in foreign lands, and who yetdisliked to hear Americans abused. “We don’t like to tread uponpeople’s toes,” he said. “But I should like very much to hearabout your marriage. Now tell me how it came about.”

“The Prince fell in love with me,” replied the Baroness simply.“He pressed his suit very hard. At first he didn’t wish me to marryhim; on the contrary. But on that basis I refused to listen to him. So heoffered me marriage—in so far as he might. I was young, and I confess Iwas rather flattered. But if it were to be done again now, I certainly shouldnot accept him.”

“How long ago was this?” asked Acton.

“Oh—several years,” said Eugenia. “You should never aska woman for dates.”

“Why, I should think that when a woman was relating history “ Actonanswered. “And now he wants to break it off?”

“They want him to make a political marriage. It is his brother’sidea. His brother is very clever.”

“They must be a precious pair!” cried Robert Acton.

The Baroness gave a little philosophic shrug. “Que voulez-vous?They are princes. They think they are treating me very well. Silberstadt is aperfectly despotic little state, and the Reigning Prince may annul the marriageby a stroke of his pen. But he has promised me, nevertheless, not to do sowithout my formal consent.”

“And this you have refused?”

“Hitherto. It is an indignity, and I have wished at least to make itdifficult for them. But I have a little document in my writing-desk which Ihave only to sign and send back to the Prince.”

“Then it will be all over?”

The Baroness lifted her hand, and dropped it again. “Of course I shallkeep my title; at least, I shall be at liberty to keep it if I choose. And Isuppose I shall keep it. One must have a name. And I shall keep my pension. Itis very small—it is wretchedly small; but it is what I live on.”

“And you have only to sign that paper?” Acton asked.

The Baroness looked at him a moment. “Do you urge it?”

He got up slowly, and stood with his hands in his pockets. “What do yougain by not doing it?”

“I am supposed to gain this advantage—that if I delay, ortemporize, the Prince may come back to me, may make a stand against hisbrother. He is very fond of me, and his brother has pushed him only little bylittle.”

“If he were to come back to you,” said Acton, “wouldyou—would you take him back?”

The Baroness met his eyes; she colored just a little. Then she rose. “Ishould have the satisfaction of saying, ‘Now it is my turn. I break withyour Serene Highness!’”

They began to walk toward the carriage. “Well,” said Robert Acton,“it’s a curious story! How did you make his acquaintance?”

“I was staying with an old lady—an old Countess—in Dresden.She had been a friend of my father’s. My father was dead; I was very muchalone. My brother was wandering about the world in a theatrical troupe.”

“Your brother ought to have stayed with you,” Acton observed,“and kept you from putting your trust in princes.”

The Baroness was silent a moment, and then, “He did what he could,”she said. “He sent me money. The old Countess encouraged the Prince; shewas even pressing. It seems to me,” Madame Münster added, gently,“that—under the circumstances—I behaved very well.”

Acton glanced at her, and made the observation—he had made itbefore—that a woman looks the prettier for having unfolded her wrongs orher sufferings. “Well,” he reflected, audibly, “I should liketo see you send his Serene Highness—somewhere!”

Madame Münster stooped and plucked a daisy from the grass. “And not signmy renunciation?”

“Well, I don’t know—I don’t know,” said Acton.

“In one case I should have my revenge; in another case I should have myliberty.”

Acton gave a little laugh as he helped her into the carriage. “At anyrate,” he said, “take good care of that paper.”

A couple of days afterward he asked her to come and see his house. The visithad already been proposed, but it had been put off in consequence of hismother’s illness. She was a constant invalid, and she had passed theserecent years, very patiently, in a great flowered arm-chair at her bedroomwindow. Lately, for some days, she had been unable to see anyone; but now shewas better, and she sent the Baroness a very civil message. Acton had wishedtheir visitor to come to dinner; but Madame Münster preferred to begin with asimple call. She had reflected that if she should go to dinner Mr. Wentworthand his daughters would also be asked, and it had seemed to her that thepeculiar character of the occasion would be best preserved in atête-à-têtewith her host. Why the occasion should have a peculiarcharacter she explained to no one. As far as anyone could see, it was simplyvery pleasant. Acton came for her and drove her to his door, an operation whichwas rapidly performed. His house the Baroness mentally pronounced a very goodone; more articulately, she declared that it was enchanting. It was large andsquare and painted brown; it stood in a well-kept shrubbery, and wasapproached, from the gate, by a short drive. It was, moreover, a much moremodern dwelling than Mr. Wentworth’s, and was more redundantlyupholstered and expensively ornamented. The Baroness perceived that herentertainer had analyzed material comfort to a sufficiently fine point. Andthen he possessed the most delightful chinoiseries—trophies of hissojourn in the Celestial Empire: pagodas of ebony and cabinets of ivory;sculptured monsters, grinning and leering on chimney-pieces, in front ofbeautifully figured hand-screens; porcelain dinner-sets, gleaming behind theglass doors of mahogany buffets; large screens, in corners, covered with tensesilk and embroidered with mandarins and dragons. These things were scatteredall over the house, and they gave Eugenia a pretext for a complete domiciliaryvisit. She liked it, she enjoyed it; she thought it a very nice place. It had amixture of the homely and the liberal, and though it was almost a museum, thelarge, little-used rooms were as fresh and clean as a well-kept dairy. LizzieActon told her that she dusted all the pagodas and other curiosities every daywith her own hands; and the Baroness answered that she was evidently ahousehold fairy. Lizzie had not at all the look of a young lady who dustedthings; she wore such pretty dresses and had such delicate fingers that it wasdifficult to imagine her immersed in sordid cares. She came to meet MadameMünster on her arrival, but she said nothing, or almost nothing, and theBaroness again reflected—she had had occasion to do so before—thatAmerican girls had no manners. She disliked this little American girl, and shewas quite prepared to learn that she had failed to commend herself to MissActon. Lizzie struck her as positive and explicit almost to pertness; and theidea of her combining the apparent incongruities of a taste for housework andthe wearing of fresh, Parisian-looking dresses suggested the possession of adangerous energy. It was a source of irritation to the Baroness that in thiscountry it should seem to matter whether a little girl were a trifle less or atrifle more of a nonentity; for Eugenia had hitherto been conscious of no moralpressure as regards the appreciation of diminutive virgins. It was perhaps anindication of Lizzie’s pertness that she very soon retired and left theBaroness on her brother’s hands. Acton talked a great deal about hischinoiseries; he knew a good deal about porcelain and bric-à-brac. TheBaroness, in her progress through the house, made, as it were, a great manystations. She sat down everywhere, confessed to being a little tired, and askedabout the various objects with a curious mixture of alertness and inattention.If there had been anyone to say it to she would have declared that she waspositively in love with her host; but she could hardly make thisdeclaration—even in the strictest confidence—to Acton himself. Itgave her, nevertheless, a pleasure that had some of the charm of unwontednessto feel, with that admirable keenness with which she was capable of feelingthings, that he had a disposition without any edges; that even his humorousirony always expanded toward the point. One’s impression of his honestywas almost like carrying a bunch of flowers; the perfume was most agreeable,but they were occasionally an inconvenience. One could trust him, at any rate,round all the corners of the world; and, withal, he was not absolutely simple,which would have been excess; he was only relatively simple, which was quiteenough for the Baroness.

Lizzie reappeared to say that her mother would now be happy to receive MadameMünster; and the Baroness followed her to Mrs. Acton’s apartment. Eugeniareflected, as she went, that it was not the affectation of impertinence thatmade her dislike this young lady, for on that ground she could easily havebeaten her. It was not an aspiration on the girl’s part to rivalry, but akind of laughing, childishly-mocking indifference to the results of comparison.Mrs. Acton was an emaciated, sweet-faced woman of five and fifty, sitting withpillows behind her, and looking out on a clump of hemlocks. She was verymodest, very timid, and very ill; she made Eugenia feel grateful that sheherself was not like that—neither so ill, nor, possibly, so modest. On achair, beside her, lay a volume of Emerson’s Essays. It was a greatoccasion for poor Mrs. Acton, in her helpless condition, to be confronted witha clever foreign lady, who had more manner than any lady—any dozenladies—that she had ever seen.

“I have heard a great deal about you,” she said, softly, to theBaroness.

“From your son, eh?” Eugenia asked. “He has talked to meimmensely of you. Oh, he talks of you as you would like,” the Baronessdeclared; “as such a son musttalk of such a mother!”

Mrs. Acton sat gazing; this was part of Madame Münster’s“manner.” But Robert Acton was gazing too, in vivid consciousnessthat he had barely mentioned his mother to their brilliant guest. He nevertalked of this still maternal presence,—a presence refined to suchdelicacy that it had almost resolved itself, with him, simply into thesubjective emotion of gratitude. And Acton rarely talked of his emotions. TheBaroness turned her smile toward him, and she instantly felt that she had beenobserved to be fibbing. She had struck a false note. But who were these peopleto whom such fibbing was not pleasing? If they were annoyed, the Baroness wasequally so; and after the exchange of a few civil inquiries and low-voicedresponses she took leave of Mrs. Acton. She begged Robert not to come home withher; she would get into the carriage alone; she preferred that. This wasimperious, and she thought he looked disappointed. While she stood before thedoor with him—the carriage was turning in the gravel-walk—thisthought restored her serenity.

When she had given him her hand in farewell she looked at him a moment.“I have almost decided to dispatch that paper,” she said.

He knew that she alluded to the document that she had called her renunciation;and he assisted her into the carriage without saying anything. But just beforethe vehicle began to move he said, “Well, when you have in factdispatched it, I hope you will let me know!”

CHAPTER VII

Felix Young finished Gertrude’s portrait, and he afterwards transferredto canvas the features of many members of that circle of which it may be saidthat he had become for the time the pivot and the centre. I am afraid it mustbe confessed that he was a decidedly flattering painter, and that he impartedto his models a romantic grace which seemed easily and cheaply acquired by thepayment of a hundred dollars to a young man who made “sitting” soentertaining. For Felix was paid for his pictures, making, as he did, no secretof the fact that in guiding his steps to the Western world affectionatecuriosity had gone hand in hand with a desire to better his condition. He tookhis uncle’s portrait quite as if Mr. Wentworth had never averted himselffrom the experiment; and as he compassed his end only by the exercise of gentleviolence, it is but fair to add that he allowed the old man to give him nothingbut his time. He passed his arm into Mr. Wentworth’s one summermorning—very few arms indeed had ever passed into Mr.Wentworth’s—and led him across the garden and along the road intothe studio which he had extemporized in the little house among the apple trees.The grave gentleman felt himself more and more fascinated by his clever nephew,whose fresh, demonstrative youth seemed a compendium of experiences sostrangely numerous. It appeared to him that Felix must know a great deal; hewould like to learn what he thought about some of those things as regards whichhis own conversation had always been formal, but his knowledge vague. Felix hada confident, gayly trenchant way of judging human actions which Mr. Wentworthgrew little by little to envy; it seemed like criticism made easy. Forming anopinion—say on a person’s conduct—was, with Mr. Wentworth, agood deal like fumbling in a lock with a key chosen at hazard. He seemed tohimself to go about the world with a big bunch of these ineffectual instrumentsat his girdle. His nephew, on the other hand, with a single turn of the wrist,opened any door as adroitly as a horse-thief. He felt obliged to keep up theconvention that an uncle is always wiser than a nephew, even if he could keepit up no otherwise than by listening in serious silence to Felix’s quick,light, constant discourse. But there came a day when he lapsed from consistencyand almost asked his nephew’s advice.

“Have you ever entertained the idea of settling in the UnitedStates?” he asked one morning, while Felix brilliantly plied his brush.

“My dear uncle,” said Felix, “excuse me if your questionmakes me smile a little. To begin with, I have never entertained an idea. Ideasoften entertain me; but I am afraid I have never seriously made a plan.I know what you are going to say; or rather, I know what you think, for Idon’t think you will say it—that this is very frivolous andloose-minded on my part. So it is; but I am made like that; I take things asthey come, and somehow there is always some new thing to follow the last. Inthe second place, I should never propose to settle. I can’tsettle, my dear uncle; I’m not a settler. I know that is what strangersare supposed to do here; they always settle. But I haven’t—toanswer your question—entertained that idea.”

“You intend to return to Europe and resume your irregular manner oflife?” Mr. Wentworth inquired.

“I can’t say I intend. But it’s very likely I shall go backto Europe. After all, I am a European. I feel that, you know. It will depend agood deal upon my sister. She’s even more of a European than I; here, youknow, she’s a picture out of her setting. And as for‘resuming,’ dear uncle, I really have never given up my irregularmanner of life. What, for me, could be more irregular than this?”

“Than what?” asked Mr. Wentworth, with his pale gravity.

“Well, than everything! Living in the midst of you, this way; thischarming, quiet, serious family life; fraternizing with Charlotte and Gertrude;calling upon twenty young ladies and going out to walk with them; sitting withyou in the evening on the piazza and listening to the crickets, and going tobed at ten o’clock.”

“Your description is very animated,” said Mr. Wentworth; “butI see nothing improper in what you describe.”

“Neither do I, dear uncle. It is extremely delightful; I shouldn’tlike it if it were improper. I assure you I don’t like improper things;though I dare say you think I do,” Felix went on, painting away.

“I have never accused you of that.”

“Pray don’t,” said Felix, “because, you see, at bottomI am a terrible Philistine.”

“A Philistine?” repeated Mr. Wentworth.

“I mean, as one may say, a plain, God-fearing man.” Mr. Wentworthlooked at him reservedly, like a mystified sage, and Felix continued, “Itrust I shall enjoy a venerable and venerated old age. I mean to live long. Ican hardly call that a plan, perhaps; but it’s a keen desire—a rosyvision. I shall be a lively, perhaps even a frivolous old man!”

“It is natural,” said his uncle, sententiously, “that oneshould desire to prolong an agreeable life. We have perhaps a selfishindisposition to bring our pleasure to a close. But I presume,” he added,“that you expect to marry.”

“That too, dear uncle, is a hope, a desire, a vision,” said Felix.It occurred to him for an instant that this was possibly a preface to the offerof the hand of one of Mr. Wentworth’s admirable daughters. But in thename of decent modesty and a proper sense of the hard realities of this world,Felix banished the thought. His uncle was the incarnation of benevolence,certainly; but from that to accepting—much more postulating—theidea of a union between a young lady with a dowry presumptively brilliant and apenniless artist with no prospect of fame, there was a very long way. Felix hadlately become conscious of a luxurious preference for the society—ifpossible unshared with others—of Gertrude Wentworth; but he had relegatedthis young lady, for the moment, to the coldly brilliant category ofunattainable possessions. She was not the first woman for whom he hadentertained an unpractical admiration. He had been in love with duchesses andcountesses, and he had made, once or twice, a perilously near approach tocynicism in declaring that the disinterestedness of women had been overrated.On the whole, he had tempered audacity with modesty; and it is but fair to himnow to say explicitly that he would have been incapable of taking advantage ofhis present large allowance of familiarity to make love to the younger of hishandsome cousins. Felix had grown up among traditions in the light of whichsuch a proceeding looked like a grievous breach of hospitality. I have saidthat he was always happy, and it may be counted among the present sources ofhis happiness that he had as regards this matter of his relations with Gertrudea deliciously good conscience. His own deportment seemed to him suffused withthe beauty of virtue—a form of beauty that he admired with the samevivacity with which he admired all other forms.

“I think that if you marry,” said Mr. Wentworth presently,“it will conduce to your happiness.”

“Sicurissimo!”Felix exclaimed; and then, arresting hisbrush, he looked at his uncle with a smile. “There is something I feeltempted to say to you. May I risk it?”

Mr. Wentworth drew himself up a little. “I am very safe; I don’trepeat things.” But he hoped Felix would not risk too much.

Felix was laughing at his answer.

“It’s odd to hear you telling me how to be happy. I don’tthink you know yourself, dear uncle. Now, does that sound brutal?”

The old man was silent a moment, and then, with a dry dignity that suddenlytouched his nephew: “We may sometimes point out a road we are unable tofollow.”

“Ah, don’t tell me you have had any sorrows,” Felix rejoined.“I didn’t suppose it, and I didn’t mean to allude to them. Isimply meant that you all don’t amuse yourselves.”

“Amuse ourselves? We are not children.”

“Precisely not! You have reached the proper age. I was saying that theother day to Gertrude,” Felix added. “I hope it was notindiscreet.”

“If it was,” said Mr. Wentworth, with a keener irony than Felixwould have thought him capable of, “it was but your way of amusingyourself. I am afraid you have never had a trouble.”

“Oh, yes, I have!” Felix declared, with some spirit; “beforeI knew better. But you don’t catch me at it again.”

Mr. Wentworth maintained for a while a silence more expressive than adeep-drawn sigh. “You have no children,” he said at last.

“Don’t tell me,” Felix exclaimed, “that your charmingyoung people are a source of grief to you!”

“I don’t speak of Charlotte.” And then, after a pause, Mr.Wentworth continued, “I don’t speak of Gertrude. But I feelconsiderable anxiety about Clifford. I will tell you another time.”

The next time he gave Felix a sitting his nephew reminded him that he had takenhim into his confidence. “How is Clifford today?” Felix asked.“He has always seemed to me a young man of remarkable discretion. Indeed,he is only too discreet; he seems on his guard against me—as if hethought me rather light company. The other day he told hissister—Gertrude repeated it to me—that I was always laughing athim. If I laugh it is simply from the impulse to try and inspire him withconfidence. That is the only way I have.”

“Clifford’s situation is no laughing matter,” said Mr.Wentworth. “It is very peculiar, as I suppose you have guessed.”

“Ah, you mean his love affair with his cousin?”

Mr. Wentworth stared, blushing a little. “I mean his absence fromcollege. He has been suspended. We have decided not to speak of it unless weare asked.”

“Suspended?” Felix repeated.

“He has been requested by the Harvard authorities to absent himself forsix months. Meanwhile he is studying with Mr. Brand. We think Mr. Brand willhelp him; at least we hope so.”

“What befell him at college?” Felix asked. “He was too fondof pleasure? Mr. Brand certainly will not teach him any of thosesecrets!”

“He was too fond of something of which he should not have been fond. Isuppose it is considered a pleasure.”

Felix gave his light laugh. “My dear uncle, is there any doubt about itsbeing a pleasure? C’est de son âge, as they say in France.”

“I should have said rather it was a vice of later life—ofdisappointed old age.”

Felix glanced at his uncle, with his lifted eyebrows, and then, “Of whatare you speaking?” he demanded, smiling.

“Of the situation in which Clifford was found.”

“Ah, he was found—he was caught?”

“Necessarily, he was caught. He couldn’t walk; he staggered.”

“Oh,” said Felix, “he drinks! I rather suspected that, fromsomething I observed the first day I came here. I quite agree with you that itis a low taste. It’s not a vice for a gentleman. He ought to give itup.”

“We hope for a good deal from Mr. Brand’s influence,” Mr.Wentworth went on. “He has talked to him from the first. And he nevertouches anything himself.”

“I will talk to him—I will talk to him!” Felix declared,gayly.

“What will you say to him?” asked his uncle, with someapprehension.

Felix for some moments answered nothing. “Do you mean to marry him to hiscousin?” he asked at last.

“Marry him?” echoed Mr. Wentworth. “I shouldn’t thinkhis cousin would want to marry him.”

“You have no understanding, then, with Mrs. Acton?”

Mr. Wentworth stared, almost blankly. “I have never discussed suchsubjects with her.”

“I should think it might be time,” said Felix. “Lizzie Actonis admirably pretty, and if Clifford is dangerous....”

“They are not engaged,” said Mr. Wentworth. “I have no reasonto suppose they are engaged.”

“Par exemple!”cried Felix. “A clandestine engagement?Trust me, Clifford, as I say, is a charming boy. He is incapable of that.Lizzie Acton, then, would not be jealous of another woman.”

“I certainly hope not,” said the old man, with a vague sense ofjealousy being an even lower vice than a love of liquor.

“The best thing for Clifford, then,” Felix propounded, “is tobecome interested in some clever, charming woman.” And he paused in hispainting, and, with his elbows on his knees, looked with brightcommunicativeness at his uncle. “You see, I believe greatly in theinfluence of women. Living with women helps to make a man a gentleman. It isvery true Clifford has his sisters, who are so charming. But there should be adifferent sentiment in play from the fraternal, you know. He has Lizzie Acton;but she, perhaps, is rather immature.”

“I suspect Lizzie has talked to him, reasoned with him,” said Mr.Wentworth.

“On the impropriety of getting tipsy—on the beauty of temperance?That is dreary work for a pretty young girl. No,” Felix continued;“Clifford ought to frequent some agreeable woman, who, without evermentioning such unsavory subjects, would give him a sense of its being veryridiculous to be fuddled. If he could fall in love with her a little, so muchthe better. The thing would operate as a cure.”

“Well, now, what lady should you suggest?” asked Mr. Wentworth.

“There is a clever woman under your hand. My sister.”

“Your sister—under my hand?” Mr. Wentworth repeated.

“Say a word to Clifford. Tell him to be bold. He is well disposedalready; he has invited her two or three times to drive. But I don’tthink he comes to see her. Give him a hint to come—to come often. He willsit there of an afternoon, and they will talk. It will do him good.”

Mr. Wentworth meditated. “You think she will exercise a helpfulinfluence?”

“She will exercise a civilizing—I may call it asobering—influence. A charming, clever, witty woman alwaysdoes—especially if she is a little of a coquette. My dear uncle, thesociety of such women has been half my education. If Clifford is suspended, asyou say, from college, let Eugenia be his preceptress.”

Mr. Wentworth continued thoughtful. “You think Eugenia is acoquette?” he asked.

“What pretty woman is not?” Felix demanded in turn. But this, forMr. Wentworth, could at the best have been no answer, for he did not think hisniece pretty. “With Clifford,” the young man pursued,“Eugenia will simply be enough of a coquette to be a little ironical.That’s what he needs. So you recommend him to be nice with her, you know.The suggestion will come best from you.”

“Do I understand,” asked the old man, “that I am to suggestto my son to make a—a profession of—of affection to MadameMünster?”

“Yes, yes—a profession!” cried Felix sympathetically.

“But, as I understand it, Madame Münster is a married woman.”

“Ah,” said Felix, smiling, “of course she can’t marryhim. But she will do what she can.”

Mr. Wentworth sat for some time with his eyes on the floor; at last he got up.“I don’t think,” he said, “that I can undertake torecommend my son any such course.” And without meeting Felix’ssurprised glance he broke off his sitting, which was not resumed for afortnight.

Felix was very fond of the little lake which occupied so many of Mr.Wentworth’s numerous acres, and of a remarkable pine grove which lay uponthe further side of it, planted upon a steep embankment and haunted by thesummer breeze. The murmur of the air in the far off tree-tops had a strangedistinctness; it was almost articulate. One afternoon the young man came out ofhis painting-room and passed the open door of Eugenia’s little salon.Within, in the cool dimness, he saw his sister, dressed in white, buried in herarm-chair, and holding to her face an immense bouquet. Opposite to her satClifford Wentworth, twirling his hat. He had evidently just presented thebouquet to the Baroness, whose fine eyes, as she glanced at him over the bigroses and geraniums, wore a conversational smile. Felix, standing on thethreshold of the cottage, hesitated for a moment as to whether he shouldretrace his steps and enter the parlor. Then he went his way and passed intoMr. Wentworth’s garden. That civilizing process to which he had suggestedthat Clifford should be subjected appeared to have come on of itself. Felix wasvery sure, at least, that Mr. Wentworth had not adopted his ingenious devicefor stimulating the young man’s aesthetic consciousness. “Doubtlesshe supposes,” he said to himself, after the conversation that has beennarrated, “that I desire, out of fraternal benevolence, to procure forEugenia the amusement of a flirtation—or, as he probably calls it, anintrigue—with the too susceptible Clifford. It must be admitted—andI have noticed it before—that nothing exceeds the license occasionallytaken by the imagination of very rigid people.” Felix, on his own side,had of course said nothing to Clifford; but he had observed to Eugenia that Mr.Wentworth was much mortified at his son’s low tastes. “We ought todo something to help them, after all their kindness to us,” he had added.“Encourage Clifford to come and see you, and inspire him with a taste forconversation. That will supplant the other, which only comes from hispuerility, from his not taking his position in the world—that of a richyoung man of ancient stock—seriously enough. Make him a little moreserious. Even if he makes love to you it is no great matter.”

“I am to offer myself as a superior form of intoxication—asubstitute for a brandy bottle, eh?” asked the Baroness. “Truly, inthis country one comes to strange uses.”

But she had not positively declined to undertake Clifford’s highereducation, and Felix, who had not thought of the matter again, being hauntedwith visions of more personal profit, now reflected that the work of redemptionhad fairly begun. The idea in prospect had seemed of the happiest, but inoperation it made him a trifle uneasy. “What if Eugenia—what ifEugenia”—he asked himself softly; the question dying away in hissense of Eugenia’s undetermined capacity. But before Felix had timeeither to accept or to reject its admonition, even in this vague form, he sawRobert Acton turn out of Mr. Wentworth’s enclosure, by a distant gate,and come toward the cottage in the orchard. Acton had evidently walked from hisown house along a shady by-way and was intending to pay a visit to MadameMünster. Felix watched him a moment; then he turned away. Acton could be leftto play the part of Providence and interrupt—if interruption wereneeded—Clifford’s entanglement with Eugenia.

Felix passed through the garden toward the house and toward a postern gatewhich opened upon a path leading across the fields, beside a little wood, tothe lake. He stopped and looked up at the house; his eyes rested moreparticularly upon a certain open window, on the shady side. Presently Gertrudeappeared there, looking out into the summer light. He took off his hat to herand bade her good-day; he remarked that he was going to row across the pond,and begged that she would do him the honor to accompany him. She looked at hima moment; then, without saying anything, she turned away. But she soonreappeared below in one of those quaint and charming Leghorn hats, tied withwhite satin bows, that were worn at that period; she also carried a greenparasol. She went with him to the edge of the lake, where a couple of boatswere always moored; they got into one of them, and Felix, with gentle strokes,propelled it to the opposite shore. The day was the perfection of summerweather; the little lake was the color of sunshine; the plash of the oars wasthe only sound, and they found themselves listening to it. They disembarked,and, by a winding path, ascended the pine-crested mound which overlooked thewater, whose white expanse glittered between the trees. The place wasdelightfully cool, and had the added charm that—in the softly soundingpine boughs—you seemed to hear the coolness as well as feel it. Felix andGertrude sat down on the rust-colored carpet of pine-needles and talked of manythings. Felix spoke at last, in the course of talk, of his going away; it wasthe first time he had alluded to it.

“You are going away?” said Gertrude, looking at him.

“Some day—when the leaves begin to fall. You know I can’tstay forever.”

Gertrude transferred her eyes to the outer prospect, and then, after a pause,she said, “I shall never see you again.”

“Why not?” asked Felix. “We shall probably both survive mydeparture.”

But Gertrude only repeated, “I shall never see you again. I shall neverhear of you,” she went on. “I shall know nothing about you. I knewnothing about you before, and it will be the same again.”

“I knew nothing about you then, unfortunately,” said Felix.“But now I shall write to you.”

“Don’t write to me. I shall not answer you,” Gertrudedeclared.

“I should of course burn your letters,” said Felix.

Gertrude looked at him again. “Burn my letters? You sometimes say strangethings.”

“They are not strange in themselves,” the young man answered.“They are only strange as said to you. You will come to Europe.”

“With whom shall I come?” She asked this question simply; she wasvery much in earnest. Felix was interested in her earnestness; for some momentshe hesitated. “You can’t tell me that,” she pursued.“You can’t say that I shall go with my father and my sister; youdon’t believe that.”

“I shall keep your letters,” said Felix, presently, for all answer.

“I never write. I don’t know how to write.” Gertrude, forsome time, said nothing more; and her companion, as he looked at her, wished ithad not been “disloyal” to make love to the daughter of an oldgentleman who had offered one hospitality. The afternoon waned; the shadowsstretched themselves; and the light grew deeper in the western sky. Two personsappeared on the opposite side of the lake, coming from the house and crossingthe meadow. “It is Charlotte and Mr. Brand,” said Gertrude.“They are coming over here.” But Charlotte and Mr. Brand only camedown to the edge of the water, and stood there, looking across; they made nomotion to enter the boat that Felix had left at the mooring-place. Felix wavedhis hat to them; it was too far to call. They made no visible response, andthey presently turned away and walked along the shore.

“Mr. Brand is not demonstrative,” said Felix. “He is neverdemonstrative to me. He sits silent, with his chin in his hand, looking at me.Sometimes he looks away. Your father tells me he is so eloquent; and I shouldlike to hear him talk. He looks like such a noble young man. But with me hewill never talk. And yet I am so fond of listening to brilliant imagery!”

“He is very eloquent,” said Gertrude; “but he has nobrilliant imagery. I have heard him talk a great deal. I knew that when theysaw us they would not come over here.”

“Ah, he is making la cour, as they say, to your sister? Theydesire to be alone?”

“No,” said Gertrude, gravely, “they have no such reason asthat for being alone.”

“But why doesn’t he make la courto Charlotte?” Felixinquired. “She is so pretty, so gentle, so good.”

Gertrude glanced at him, and then she looked at the distantly-seen couple theywere discussing. Mr. Brand and Charlotte were walking side by side. They mighthave been a pair of lovers, and yet they might not. “They think I shouldnot be here,” said Gertrude.

“With me? I thought you didn’t have those ideas.”

“You don’t understand. There are a great many things youdon’t understand.”

“I understand my stupidity. But why, then, do not Charlotte and Mr.Brand, who, as an elder sister and a clergyman, are free to walk abouttogether, come over and make me wiser by breaking up the unlawful interviewinto which I have lured you?”

“That is the last thing they would do,” said Gertrude.

Felix stared at her a moment, with his lifted eyebrows. “Je n’ycomprends rien!”he exclaimed; then his eyes followed for a while theretreating figures of this critical pair. “You may say what youplease,” he declared; “it is evident to me that your sister is notindifferent to her clever companion. It is agreeable to her to be walking therewith him. I can see that from here.” And in the excitement of observationFelix rose to his feet.

Gertrude rose also, but she made no attempt to emulate her companion’sdiscovery; she looked rather in another direction. Felix’s words hadstruck her; but a certain delicacy checked her. “She is certainly notindifferent to Mr. Brand; she has the highest opinion of him.”

“One can see it—one can see it,” said Felix, in a tone ofamused contemplation, with his head on one side. Gertrude turned her back tothe opposite shore; it was disagreeable to her to look, but she hoped Felixwould say something more. “Ah, they have wandered away into thewood,” he added.

Gertrude turned round again. “She is notin love with him,”she said; it seemed her duty to say that.

“Then he is in love with her; or if he is not, he ought to be. She issuch a perfect little woman of her kind. She reminds me of a pair ofold-fashioned silver sugar-tongs; you know I am very fond of sugar. And she isvery nice with Mr. Brand; I have noticed that; very gentle and gracious.”

Gertrude reflected a moment. Then she took a great resolution. “She wantshim to marry me,” she said. “So of course she is nice.”

Felix’s eyebrows rose higher than ever. “To marry you! Ah, ah, thisis interesting. And you think one must be very nice with a man to induce him todo that?”

Gertrude had turned a little pale, but she went on, “Mr. Brand wants ithimself.”

Felix folded his arms and stood looking at her. “I see—Isee,” he said quickly. “Why did you never tell me thisbefore?”

“It is disagreeable to me to speak of it even now. I wished simply toexplain to you about Charlotte.”

“You don’t wish to marry Mr. Brand, then?”

“No,” said Gertrude, gravely.

“And does your father wish it?”

“Very much.”

“And you don’t like him—you have refused him?”

“I don’t wish to marry him.”

“Your father and sister think you ought to, eh?”

“It is a long story,” said Gertrude. “They think there aregood reasons. I can’t explain it. They think I have obligations, and thatI have encouraged him.”

Felix smiled at her, as if she had been telling him an amusing story aboutsomeone else. “I can’t tell you how this interests me,” hesaid. “Now you don’t recognize these reasons—theseobligations?”

“I am not sure; it is not easy.” And she picked up her parasol andturned away, as if to descend the slope.

“Tell me this,” Felix went on, going with her: “are youlikely to give in—to let them persuade you?”

Gertrude looked at him with the serious face that she had constantly worn, inopposition to his almost eager smile. “I shall never marry Mr.Brand,” she said.

“I see!” Felix rejoined. And they slowly descended the hilltogether, saying nothing till they reached the margin of the pond. “It isyour own affair,” he then resumed; “but do you know, I am notaltogether glad? If it were settled that you were to marry Mr. Brand I shouldtake a certain comfort in the arrangement. I should feel more free. I have noright to make love to you myself, eh?” And he paused, lightly pressinghis argument upon her.

“None whatever,” replied Gertrude quickly—too quickly.

“Your father would never hear of it; I haven’t a penny. Mr. Brand,of course, has property of his own, eh?”

“I believe he has some property; but that has nothing to do withit.”

“With you, of course not; but with your father and sister it must have.So, as I say, if this were settled, I should feel more at liberty.”

“More at liberty?” Gertrude repeated. “Please unfasten theboat.”

Felix untwisted the rope and stood holding it. “I should be able to saythings to you that I can’t give myself the pleasure of saying now,”he went on. “I could tell you how much I admire you, without seeming topretend to that which I have no right to pretend to. I should make violent loveto you,” he added, laughing, “if I thought you were so placed asnot to be offended by it.”

“You mean if I were engaged to another man? That is strangereasoning!” Gertrude exclaimed.

“In that case you would not take me seriously.”

“I take everyone seriously,” said Gertrude. And without his helpshe stepped lightly into the boat.

Felix took up the oars and sent it forward. “Ah, this is what you havebeen thinking about? It seemed to me you had something on your mind. I wishvery much,” he added, “that you would tell me some of theseso-called reasons—these obligations.”

“They are not real reasons—good reasons,” said Gertrude,looking at the pink and yellow gleams in the water.

“I can understand that! Because a handsome girl has had a spark ofcoquetry, that is no reason.”

“If you mean me, it’s not that. I have not done that.”

“It is something that troubles you, at any rate,” said Felix.

“Not so much as it used to,” Gertrude rejoined.

He looked at her, smiling always. “That is not saying much, eh?”But she only rested her eyes, very gravely, on the lighted water. She seemed tohim to be trying to hide the signs of the trouble of which she had just toldhim. Felix felt, at all times, much the same impulse to dissipate visiblemelancholy that a good housewife feels to brush away dust. There was somethinghe wished to brush away now; suddenly he stopped rowing and poised his oars.“Why should Mr. Brand have addressed himself to you, and not to yoursister?” he asked. “I am sure she would listen to him.”

Gertrude, in her family, was thought capable of a good deal of levity; but herlevity had never gone so far as this. It moved her greatly, however, to hearFelix say that he was sure of something; so that, raising her eyes toward him,she tried intently, for some moments, to conjure up this wonderful image of alove-affair between her own sister and her own suitor. We know that Gertrudehad an imaginative mind; so that it is not impossible that this effort shouldhave been partially successful. But she only murmured, “Ah, Felix! ah,Felix!”

“Why shouldn’t they marry? Try and make them marry!” criedFelix.

“Try and make them?”

“Turn the tables on them. Then they will leave you alone. I will help youas far as I can.”

Gertrude’s heart began to beat; she was greatly excited; she had neverhad anything so interesting proposed to her before. Felix had begun to rowagain, and he now sent the boat home with long strokes. “I believe shedoescare for him!” said Gertrude, after they had disembarked.

“Of course she does, and we will marry them off. It will make them happy;it will make everyone happy. We shall have a wedding and I will write anepithalamium.”

“It seems as if it would make mehappy,” said Gertrude.

“To get rid of Mr. Brand, eh? To recover your liberty?”

Gertrude walked on. “To see my sister married to so good a man.”

Felix gave his light laugh. “You always put things on those grounds; youwill never say anything for yourself. You are all so afraid, here, of beingselfish. I don’t think you know how,” he went on. “Let meshow you! It will make me happy for myself, and for just the reverse of what Itold you a while ago. After that, when I make love to you, you will have tothink I mean it.”

“I shall never think you mean anything,” said Gertrude. “Youare too fantastic.”

“Ah,” cried Felix, “that’s a license to say everything!Gertrude, I adore you!”

CHAPTER VIII

Charlotte and Mr. Brand had not returned when they reached the house; but theBaroness had come to tea, and Robert Acton also, who now regularly asked for aplace at this generous repast or made his appearance later in the evening.Clifford Wentworth, with his juvenile growl, remarked upon it.

“You are always coming to tea nowadays, Robert,” he said. “Ishould think you had drunk enough tea in China.”

“Since when is Mr. Acton more frequent?” asked the Baroness.

“Since you came,” said Clifford. “It seems as if you were akind of attraction.”

“I suppose I am a curiosity,” said the Baroness. “Give metime and I will make you a salon.”

“It would fall to pieces after you go!” exclaimed Acton.

“Don’t talk about her going, in that familiar way,” Cliffordsaid. “It makes me feel gloomy.”

Mr. Wentworth glanced at his son, and taking note of these words, wondered ifFelix had been teaching him, according to the programme he had sketched out, tomake love to the wife of a German prince.

Charlotte came in late with Mr. Brand; but Gertrude, to whom, at least, Felixhad taught something, looked in vain, in her face, for the traces of a guiltypassion. Mr. Brand sat down by Gertrude, and she presently asked him why theyhad not crossed the pond to join Felix and herself.

“It is cruel of you to ask me that,” he answered, very softly. Hehad a large morsel of cake before him; but he fingered it without eating it.“I sometimes think you are growing cruel,” he added.

Gertrude said nothing; she was afraid to speak. There was a kind of rage in herheart; she felt as if she could easily persuade herself that she waspersecuted. She said to herself that it was quite right that she should notallow him to make her believe she was wrong. She thought of what Felix had saidto her; she wished indeed Mr. Brand would marry Charlotte. She looked away fromhim and spoke no more. Mr. Brand ended by eating his cake, while Felix satopposite, describing to Mr. Wentworth the students’ duels at Heidelberg.After tea they all dispersed themselves, as usual, upon the piazza and in thegarden; and Mr. Brand drew near to Gertrude again.

“I didn’t come to you this afternoon because you were notalone,” he began; “because you were with a newer friend.”

“Felix? He is an old friend by this time.”

Mr. Brand looked at the ground for some moments. “I thought I wasprepared to hear you speak in that way,” he resumed. “But I find itvery painful.”

“I don’t see what else I can say,” said Gertrude.

Mr. Brand walked beside her for a while in silence; Gertrude wished he would goaway. “He is certainly very accomplished. But I think I ought to adviseyou.”

“To advise me?”

“I think I know your nature.”

“I think you don’t,” said Gertrude, with a soft laugh.

“You make yourself out worse than you are—to please him,” Mr.Brand said, gently.

“Worse—to please him? What do you mean?” asked Gertrude,stopping.

Mr. Brand stopped also, and with the same soft straight-forwardness, “Hedoesn’t care for the things you care for—the great questions oflife.”

Gertrude, with her eyes on his, shook her head. “I don’t care forthe great questions of life. They are much beyond me.”

“There was a time when you didn’t say that,” said Mr. Brand.

“Oh,” rejoined Gertrude, “I think you made me talk a greatdeal of nonsense. And it depends,” she added, “upon what you callthe great questions of life. There are some things I care for.”

“Are they the things you talk about with your cousin?”

“You should not say things to me against my cousin, Mr. Brand,”said Gertrude. “That is dishonorable.”

He listened to this respectfully; then he answered, with a little vibration ofthe voice, “I should be very sorry to do anything dishonorable. But Idon’t see why it is dishonorable to say that your cousin isfrivolous.”

“Go and say it to himself!”

“I think he would admit it,” said Mr. Brand. “That is thetone he would take. He would not be ashamed of it.”

“Then I am not ashamed of it!” Gertrude declared. “That isprobably what I like him for. I am frivolous myself.”

“You are trying, as I said just now, to lower yourself.”

“I am trying for once to be natural!” cried Gertrude passionately.“I have been pretending, all my life; I have been dishonest; it is youthat have made me so!” Mr. Brand stood gazing at her, and she went on,“Why shouldn’t I be frivolous, if I want? One has a right to befrivolous, if it’s one’s nature. No, I don’t care for thegreat questions. I care for pleasure—for amusement. Perhaps I am fond ofwicked things; it is very possible!”

Mr. Brand remained staring; he was even a little pale, as if he had beenfrightened. “I don’t think you know what you are saying!” heexclaimed.

“Perhaps not. Perhaps I am talking nonsense. But it is only with you thatI talk nonsense. I never do so with my cousin.”

“I will speak to you again, when you are less excited,” said Mr.Brand.

“I am always excited when you speak to me. I must tell youthat—even if it prevents you altogether, in future. Your speaking to meirritates me. With my cousin it is very different. That seems quiet andnatural.”

He looked at her, and then he looked away, with a kind of helpless distress, atthe dusky garden and the faint summer stars. After which, suddenly turningback, “Gertrude, Gertrude!” he softly groaned. “Am I reallylosing you?”

She was touched—she was pained; but it had already occurred to her thatshe might do something better than say so. It would not have alleviated hercompanion’s distress to perceive, just then, whence she hadsympathetically borrowed this ingenuity. “I am not sorry for you,”Gertrude said; “for in paying so much attention to me you are following ashadow—you are wasting something precious. There is something else youmight have that you don’t look at—something better than I am. Thatis a reality!” And then, with intention, she looked at him and tried tosmile a little. He thought this smile of hers very strange; but she turned awayand left him.

She wandered about alone in the garden wondering what Mr. Brand would make ofher words, which it had been a singular pleasure for her to utter. Shortlyafter, passing in front of the house, she saw at a distance two personsstanding near the garden gate. It was Mr. Brand going away and biddinggood-night to Charlotte, who had walked down with him from the house. Gertrudesaw that the parting was prolonged. Then she turned her back upon it. She hadnot gone very far, however, when she heard her sister slowly following her. Sheneither turned round nor waited for her; she knew what Charlotte was going tosay. Charlotte, who at last overtook her, in fact presently began; she hadpassed her arm into Gertrude’s.

“Will you listen to me, dear, if I say something very particular?”

“I know what you are going to say,” said Gertrude. “Mr. Brandfeels very badly.”

“Oh, Gertrude, how can you treat him so?” Charlotte demanded. Andas her sister made no answer she added, “After all he has done foryou!”

“What has he done for me?”

“I wonder you can ask, Gertrude. He has helped you so. You told me soyourself, a great many times. You told me that he helped you to struggle withyour—your peculiarities. You told me that he had taught you how to governyour temper.”

For a moment Gertrude said nothing. Then, “Was my temper very bad?”she asked.

“I am not accusing you, Gertrude,” said Charlotte.

“What are you doing, then?” her sister demanded, with a shortlaugh.

“I am pleading for Mr. Brand—reminding you of all you owehim.”

“I have given it all back,” said Gertrude, still with her littlelaugh. “He can take back the virtue he imparted! I want to be wickedagain.”

Her sister made her stop in the path, and fixed upon her, in the darkness, asweet, reproachful gaze. “If you talk this way I shall almost believe it.Think of all we owe Mr. Brand. Think of how he has always expected something ofyou. Think how much he has been to us. Think of his beautiful influence uponClifford.”

“He is very good,” said Gertrude, looking at her sister. “Iknow he is very good. But he shouldn’t speak against Felix.”

“Felix is good,” Charlotte answered, softly but promptly.“Felix is very wonderful. Only he is so different. Mr. Brand is muchnearer to us. I should never think of going to Felix with a trouble—witha question. Mr. Brand is much more to us, Gertrude.”

“He is very—very good,” Gertrude repeated. “He is moreto you; yes, much more. Charlotte,” she added suddenly, “you are inlove with him!”

“Oh, Gertrude!” cried poor Charlotte; and her sister saw herblushing in the darkness.

Gertrude put her arm round her. “I wish he would marry you!” shewent on.

Charlotte shook herself free. “You must not say such things!” sheexclaimed, beneath her breath.

“You like him more than you say, and he likes you more than heknows.”

“This is very cruel of you!” Charlotte Wentworth murmured.

But if it was cruel Gertrude continued pitiless. “Not if it’strue,” she answered. “I wish he would marry you.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“I mean to tell him so!” said Gertrude.

“Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude!” her sister almost moaned.

“Yes, if he speaks to me again about myself. I will say, ‘Whydon’t you marry Charlotte? She’s a thousand times better thanI.’”

“You arewicked; you arechanged!” cried her sister.

“If you don’t like it you can prevent it,” said Gertrude.“You can prevent it by keeping him from speaking to me!” And withthis she walked away, very conscious of what she had done; measuring it andfinding a certain joy and a quickened sense of freedom in it.

Mr. Wentworth was rather wide of the mark in suspecting that Clifford had begunto pay unscrupulous compliments to his brilliant cousin; for the young man hadreally more scruples than he received credit for in his family. He had acertain transparent shamefacedness which was in itself a proof that he was notat his ease in dissipation. His collegiate peccadilloes had aroused a domesticmurmur as disagreeable to the young man as the creaking of his boots would havebeen to a house-breaker. Only, as the house-breaker would have simplifiedmatters by removing his chaussures, it had seemed to Clifford that theshortest cut to comfortable relations with people—relations which shouldmake him cease to think that when they spoke to him they meant somethingimproving—was to renounce all ambition toward a nefarious development.And, in fact, Clifford’s ambition took the most commendable form. Hethought of himself in the future as the well-known and much-liked Mr.Wentworth, of Boston, who should, in the natural course of prosperity, havemarried his pretty cousin, Lizzie Acton; should live in a wide-fronted house,in view of the Common; and should drive, behind a light wagon, over the dampautumn roads, a pair of beautifully matched sorrel horses. Clifford’svision of the coming years was very simple; its most definite features werethis element of familiar matrimony and the duplication of his resources fortrotting. He had not yet asked his cousin to marry him; but he meant to do soas soon as he had taken his degree. Lizzie was serenely conscious of hisintention, and she had made up her mind that he would improve. Her brother, whowas very fond of this light, quick, competent little Lizzie, saw on his side noreason to interpose. It seemed to him a graceful social law that Clifford andhis sister should become engaged; he himself was not engaged, but everyoneelse, fortunately, was not such a fool as he. He was fond of Clifford, as well,and had his own way—of which it must be confessed he was a littleashamed—of looking at those aberrations which had led to the youngman’s compulsory retirement from the neighboring seat of learning. Actonhad seen the world, as he said to himself; he had been to China and had knockedabout among men. He had learned the essential difference between a nice youngfellow and a mean young fellow, and was satisfied that there was no harm inClifford. He believed—although it must be added that he had not quite thecourage to declare it—in the doctrine of wild oats, and thought it auseful preventive of superfluous fears. If Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte and Mr.Brand would only apply it in Clifford’s case, they would be happier; andActon thought it a pity they should not be happier. They took the boy’smisdemeanors too much to heart; they talked to him too solemnly; theyfrightened and bewildered him. Of course there was the great standard ofmorality, which forbade that a man should get tipsy, play at billiards formoney, or cultivate his sensual consciousness; but what fear was there thatpoor Clifford was going to run a tilt at any great standard? It had, however,never occurred to Acton to dedicate the Baroness Münster to the redemption of arefractory collegian. The instrument, here, would have seemed to him quite toocomplex for the operation. Felix, on the other hand, had spoken in obedience tothe belief that the more charming a woman is the more numerous, literally, areher definite social uses.

Eugenia herself, as we know, had plenty of leisure to enumerate her uses. As Ihave had the honor of intimating, she had come four thousand miles to seek herfortune; and it is not to be supposed that after this great effort she couldneglect any apparent aid to advancement. It is my misfortune that in attemptingto describe in a short compass the deportment of this remarkable woman I amobliged to express things rather brutally. I feel this to be the case, forinstance, when I say that she had primarily detected such an aid to advancementin the person of Robert Acton, but that she had afterwards remembered that aprudent archer has always a second bowstring. Eugenia was a woman offinely-mingled motive, and her intentions were never sensibly gross. She had asort of aesthetic ideal for Clifford which seemed to her a disinterested reasonfor taking him in hand. It was very well for a fresh-colored young gentleman tobe ingenuous; but Clifford, really, was crude. With such a pretty face he oughtto have prettier manners. She would teach him that, with a beautiful name, theexpectation of a large property, and, as they said in Europe, a socialposition, an only son should know how to carry himself.

Once Clifford had begun to come and see her by himself and for himself, he camevery often. He hardly knew why he should come; he saw her almost every eveningat his father’s house; he had nothing particular to say to her. She wasnot a young girl, and fellows of his age called only upon young girls. Heexaggerated her age; she seemed to him an old woman; it was happy that theBaroness, with all her intelligence, was incapable of guessing this. Butgradually it struck Clifford that visiting old women might be, if not anatural, at least, as they say of some articles of diet, an acquired taste. TheBaroness was certainly a very amusing old woman; she talked to him as nolady—and indeed no gentleman—had ever talked to him before.

“You should go to Europe and make the tour,” she said to him oneafternoon. “Of course, on leaving college you will go.”

“I don’t want to go,” Clifford declared. “I know somefellows who have been to Europe. They say you can have better fun here.”

“That depends. It depends upon your idea of fun. Your friends probablywere not introduced.”

“Introduced?” Clifford demanded.

“They had no opportunity of going into society; they formed norelations.” This was one of a certain number of words that theBaroness often pronounced in the French manner.

“They went to a ball, in Paris; I know that,” said Clifford.

“Ah, there are balls and balls; especially in Paris. No, you must go, youknow; it is not a thing from which you can dispense yourself. You needit.”

“Oh, I’m very well,” said Clifford. “I’m notsick.”

“I don’t mean for your health, my poor child. I mean for yourmanners.”

“I haven’t got any manners!” growled Clifford.

“Precisely. You don’t mind my assenting to that, eh?” askedthe Baroness with a smile. “You must go to Europe and get a few. You canget them better there. It is a pity you might not have come while I was livingin—in Germany. I would have introduced you; I had a charming littlecircle. You would perhaps have been rather young; but the younger one begins, Ithink, the better. Now, at any rate, you have no time to lose, and when Ireturn you must immediately come to me.”

All this, to Clifford’s apprehension, was a great mixture—hisbeginning young, Eugenia’s return to Europe, his being introduced to hercharming little circle. What was he to begin, and what was her little circle?His ideas about her marriage had a good deal of vagueness; but they were in sofar definite as that he felt it to be a matter not to be freely mentioned. Hesat and looked all round the room; he supposed she was alluding in some way toher marriage.

“Oh, I don’t want to go to Germany,” he said; it seemed tohim the most convenient thing to say.

She looked at him a while, smiling with her lips, but not with her eyes.

“You have scruples?” she asked.

“Scruples?” said Clifford.

“You young people, here, are very singular; one doesn’t know whereto expect you. When you are not extremely improper you are so terribly proper.I dare say you think that, owing to my irregular marriage, I live with loosepeople. You were never more mistaken. I have been all the moreparticular.”

“Oh, no,” said Clifford, honestly distressed. “I neverthought such a thing as that.”

“Are you very sure? I am convinced that your father does, and yoursisters. They say to each other that here I am on my good behavior, but thatover there—married by the left hand—I associate with lightwomen.”

“Oh, no,” cried Clifford, energetically, “they don’tsay such things as that to each other!”

“If they think them they had better say them,” the Baronessrejoined. “Then they can be contradicted. Please contradict that wheneveryou hear it, and don’t be afraid of coming to see me on account of thecompany I keep. I have the honor of knowing more distinguished men, my poorchild, than you are likely to see in a life-time. I see very few women; butthose are women of rank. So, my dear young Puritan, you needn’t beafraid. I am not in the least one of those who think that the society of womenwho have lost their place in the vrai mondeis necessary to form a youngman. I have never taken that tone. I have kept my place myself, and I think weare a much better school than the others. Trust me, Clifford, and I will provethat to you,” the Baroness continued, while she made the agreeablereflection that she could not, at least, be accused of perverting her youngkinsman. “So if you ever fall among thieves don’t go about saying Isent you to them.”

Clifford thought it so comical that he should know—in spite of herfigurative language—what she meant, and that she should mean what heknew, that he could hardly help laughing a little, although he tried hard.“Oh, no! oh, no!” he murmured.

“Laugh out, laugh out, if I amuse you!” cried the Baroness.“I am here for that!” And Clifford thought her a very amusingperson indeed. “But remember,” she said on this occasion,“that you are coming—next year—to pay me a visit overthere.”

About a week afterwards she said to him, point-blank, “Are you seriouslymaking love to your little cousin?”

“Seriously making love”—these words, on MadameMünster’s lips, had to Clifford’s sense a portentous andembarrassing sound; he hesitated about assenting, lest he should commit himselfto more than he understood. “Well, I shouldn’t say it if Iwas!” he exclaimed.

“Why wouldn’t you say it?” the Baroness demanded.“Those things ought to be known.”

“I don’t care whether it is known or not,” Clifford rejoined.“But I don’t want people looking at me.”

“A young man of your importance ought to learn to bearobservation—to carry himself as if he were quite indifferent to it. Iwon’t say, exactly, unconscious,” the Baroness explained.“No, he must seem to know he is observed, and to think it natural heshould be; but he must appear perfectly used to it. Now you haven’t that,Clifford; you haven’t that at all. You must have that, you know.Don’t tell me you are not a young man of importance,” Eugeniaadded. “Don’t say anything so flat as that.”

“Oh, no, you don’t catch me saying that!” cried Clifford.

“Yes, you must come to Germany,” Madame Münster continued. “Iwill show you how people can be talked about, and yet not seem to know it. Youwill be talked about, of course, with me; it will be said you are my lover. Iwill show you how little one may mind that—how little I shall mindit.”

Clifford sat staring, blushing and laughing. “I shall mind it a gooddeal!” he declared.

“Ah, not too much, you know; that would be uncivil. But I give you leaveto mind it a little; especially if you have a passion for Miss Acton.Voyons; as regards that, you either have or you have not. It is verysimple to say it.”

“I don’t see why you want to know,” said Clifford.

“You ought to want me to know. If one is arranging a marriage, one tellsone’s friends.”

“Oh, I’m not arranging anything,” said Clifford.

“You don’t intend to marry your cousin?”

“Well, I expect I shall do as I choose!”

The Baroness leaned her head upon the back of her chair and closed her eyes, asif she were tired. Then opening them again, “Your cousin is verycharming!” she said.

“She is the prettiest girl in this place,” Clifford rejoined.

“‘In this place’ is saying little; she would be charminganywhere. I am afraid you are entangled.”

“Oh, no, I’m not entangled.”

“Are you engaged? At your age that is the same thing.”

Clifford looked at the Baroness with some audacity. “Will you tell noone?”

“If it’s as sacred as that—no.”

“Well, then—we are not!” said Clifford.

“That’s the great secret—that you are not, eh?” askedthe Baroness, with a quick laugh. “I am very glad to hear it. You arealtogether too young. A young man in your position must choose and compare; hemust see the world first. Depend upon it,” she added, “you shouldnot settle that matter before you have come abroad and paid me that visit.There are several things I should like to call your attention to first.”

“Well, I am rather afraid of that visit,” said Clifford. “Itseems to me it will be rather like going to school again.”

The Baroness looked at him a moment.

“My dear child,” she said, “there is no agreeable man who hasnot, at some moment, been to school to a clever woman—probably a littleolder than himself. And you must be thankful when you get your instructionsgratis. With me you would get it gratis.”

The next day Clifford told Lizzie Acton that the Baroness thought her the mostcharming girl she had ever seen.

Lizzie shook her head. “No, she doesn’t!” she said.

“Do you think everything she says,” asked Clifford, “is to betaken the opposite way?”

“I think that is!” said Lizzie.

Clifford was going to remark that in this case the Baroness must desire greatlyto bring about a marriage between Mr. Clifford Wentworth and Miss ElizabethActon; but he resolved, on the whole, to suppress this observation.

CHAPTER IX

It seemed to Robert Acton, after Eugenia had come to his house, that somethinghad passed between them which made them a good deal more intimate. It was hardto say exactly what, except her telling him that she had taken her resolutionwith regard to the Prince Adolf; for Madame Münster’s visit had made nodifference in their relations. He came to see her very often; but he had cometo see her very often before. It was agreeable to him to find himself in herlittle drawing-room; but this was not a new discovery. There was a change,however, in this sense: that if the Baroness had been a great deal inActon’s thoughts before, she was now never out of them. From the firstshe had been personally fascinating; but the fascination now had becomeintellectual as well. He was constantly pondering her words and motions; theywere as interesting as the factors in an algebraic problem. This is saying agood deal; for Acton was extremely fond of mathematics. He asked himselfwhether it could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not;hoped it not so much for his own sake as for that of the amatory passionitself. If this was love, love had been overrated. Love was a poetic impulse,and his own state of feeling with regard to the Baroness was largelycharacterized by that eminently prosaic sentiment—curiosity. It was true,as Acton with his quietly cogitative habit observed to himself, that curiosity,pushed to a given point, might become a romantic passion; and he certainlythought enough about this charming woman to make him restless and even a littlemelancholy. It puzzled and vexed him at times to feel that he was not moreardent. He was not in the least bent upon remaining a bachelor. In his youngeryears he had been—or he had tried to be—of the opinion that itwould be a good deal “jollier” not to marry, and he had flatteredhimself that his single condition was something of a citadel. It was a citadel,at all events, of which he had long since leveled the outworks. He had removedthe guns from the ramparts; he had lowered the draw-bridge across the moat. Thedraw-bridge had swayed lightly under Madame Münster’s step; why should henot cause it to be raised again, so that she might be kept prisoner? He had anidea that she would become—in time at least, and on learning theconveniences of the place for making a lady comfortable—a tolerablypatient captive. But the draw-bridge was never raised, and Acton’sbrilliant visitor was as free to depart as she had been to come. It was part ofhis curiosity to know why the deuce so susceptible a man was notin lovewith so charming a woman. If her various graces were, as I have said, thefactors in an algebraic problem, the answer to this question was theindispensable unknown quantity. The pursuit of the unknown quantity wasextremely absorbing; for the present it taxed all Acton’s faculties.

Toward the middle of August he was obliged to leave home for some days; an oldfriend, with whom he had been associated in China, had begged him to come toNewport, where he lay extremely ill. His friend got better, and at the end of aweek Acton was released. I use the word “released” advisedly; forin spite of his attachment to his Chinese comrade he had been but ahalf-hearted visitor. He felt as if he had been called away from the theatreduring the progress of a remarkably interesting drama. The curtain was up allthis time, and he was losing the fourth act; that fourth act which would havebeen so essential to a just appreciation of the fifth. In other words, he wasthinking about the Baroness, who, seen at this distance, seemed a trulybrilliant figure. He saw at Newport a great many pretty women, who certainlywere figures as brilliant as beautiful light dresses could make them; butthough they talked a great deal—and the Baroness’s strong point wasperhaps also her conversation—Madame Münster appeared to lose nothing bythe comparison. He wished she had come to Newport too. Would it not be possibleto make up, as they said, a party for visiting the famous watering-place andinvite Eugenia to join it? It was true that the complete satisfaction would beto spend a fortnight at Newport with Eugenia alone. It would be a greatpleasure to see her, in society, carry everything before her, as he was sureshe would do. When Acton caught himself thinking these thoughts he began towalk up and down, with his hands in his pockets, frowning a little and lookingat the floor. What did it prove—for it certainly provedsomething—this lively disposition to be “off” somewhere withMadame Münster, away from all the rest of them? Such a vision, certainly,seemed a refined implication of matrimony, after the Baroness should haveformally got rid of her informal husband. At any rate, Acton, with hischaracteristic discretion, forbore to give expression to whatever else it mightimply, and the narrator of these incidents is not obliged to be more definite.

He returned home rapidly, and, arriving in the afternoon, lost as little timeas possible in joining the familiar circle at Mr. Wentworth’s. Onreaching the house, however, he found the piazzas empty. The doors and windowswere open, and their emptiness was made clear by the shafts of lamp-light fromthe parlors. Entering the house, he found Mr. Wentworth sitting alone in one ofthese apartments, engaged in the perusal of the North American Review.After they had exchanged greetings and his cousin had made discreet inquiryabout his journey, Acton asked what had become of Mr. Wentworth’scompanions.

“They are scattered about, amusing themselves as usual,” said theold man. “I saw Charlotte, a short time since, seated, with Mr. Brand,upon the piazza. They were conversing with their customary animation. I supposethey have joined her sister, who, for the hundredth time, was doing the honorsof the garden to her foreign cousin.”

“I suppose you mean Felix,” said Acton. And on Mr.Wentworth’s assenting, he said, “And the others?”

“Your sister has not come this evening. You must have seen her athome,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“Yes. I proposed to her to come. She declined.”

“Lizzie, I suppose, was expecting a visitor,” said the old man,with a kind of solemn slyness.

“If she was expecting Clifford, he had not turned up.”

Mr. Wentworth, at this intelligence, closed the North American Reviewand remarked that he had understood Clifford to say that he was going to seehis cousin. Privately, he reflected that if Lizzie Acton had had no news of hisson, Clifford must have gone to Boston for the evening: an unnatural course ofa summer night, especially when accompanied with disingenuous representations.

“You must remember that he has two cousins,” said Acton, laughing.And then, coming to the point, “If Lizzie is not here,” he added,“neither apparently is the Baroness.”

Mr. Wentworth stared a moment, and remembered that queer proposition ofFelix’s. For a moment he did not know whether it was not to be wishedthat Clifford, after all, might have gone to Boston. “The Baroness hasnot honored us tonight,” he said. “She has not come over for threedays.”

“Is she ill?” Acton asked.

“No; I have been to see her.”

“What is the matter with her?”

“Well,” said Mr. Wentworth, “I infer she has tired ofus.”

Acton pretended to sit down, but he was restless; he found it impossible totalk with Mr. Wentworth. At the end of ten minutes he took up his hat and saidthat he thought he would “go off.” It was very late; it was teno’clock.

His quiet-faced kinsman looked at him a moment. “Are you goinghome?” he asked.

Acton hesitated, and then answered that he had proposed to go over and take alook at the Baroness.

“Well, you are honest, at least,” said Mr. Wentworth, sadly.

“So are you, if you come to that!” cried Acton, laughing.“Why shouldn’t I be honest?”

The old man opened the North Americanagain, and read a few lines.“If we have ever had any virtue among us, we had better keep hold of itnow,” he said. He was not quoting.

“We have a Baroness among us,” said Acton. “That’s whatwe must keep hold of!” He was too impatient to see Madame Münster againto wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he hadpassed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of roadthat separated him from Eugenia’s provisional residence, he stopped amoment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlorwas open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shiningthrough them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was asort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame Münster again; he became awarethat his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made himstop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza,and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. Hecould see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. Shecame to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at hima moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious.

“Mais entrez donc!”she said at last. Acton passed in acrossthe window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. Butthe next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. “Betterlate than never,” she said. “It is very kind of you to come at thishour.”

“I have just returned from my journey,” said Acton.

“Ah, very kind, very kind,” she repeated, looking about her whereto sit.

“I went first to the other house,” Acton continued. “Iexpected to find you there.”

She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to moveabout the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her,conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. “Idon’t know whether I ought to tell you to sit down,” she said.“It is too late to begin a visit.”

“It’s too early to end one,” Acton declared; “and weneedn’t mind the beginning.”

She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her lowchair, while he took a place near her. “We are in the middle,then?” she asked. “Was that where we were when you went away? No, Ihaven’t been to the other house.”

“Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?”

“I don’t know how many days it is.”

“You are tired of it,” said Acton.

She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. “That is a terribleaccusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself.”

“I am not attacking you,” said Acton. “I expected somethingof this kind.”

“It’s a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed yourjourney.”

“Not at all,” Acton declared. “I would much rather have beenhere with you.”

“Now you areattacking me,” said the Baroness. “Youare contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity.”

“I confess I never get tired of people I like.”

“Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and asophisticated mind!”

“Something has happened to you since I went away,” said Acton,changing his place.

“Your going away—that is what has happened to me.”

“Do you mean to say that you have missed me?” he asked.

“If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. Iam very dishonest and my compliments are worthless.”

Acton was silent for some moments. “You have broken down,” he saidat last.

Madame Münster left her chair, and began to move about.

“Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again.”

“You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn’tbe afraid to say so—to me at least.”

“You shouldn’t say such things as that,” the Baronessanswered. “You should encourage me.”

“I admire your patience; that is encouraging.”

“You shouldn’t even say that. When you talk of my patience you aredisloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had tosuffer?”

“Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly,” said Acton, laughing.“Nevertheless, we all admire your patience.”

“You all detest me!” cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence,turning her back toward him.

“You make it hard,” said Acton, getting up, “for a man to saysomething tender to you.” This evening there was something particularlystriking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressedemotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behavedvery well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of acruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the restshe found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she hadmingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorlesspleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. Shehad conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had hadthe tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a moredownright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her andthat she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had beenon his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now acertain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree ofconfidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. “Wedon’t detest you,” he went on. “I don’t know what youmean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don’t know anything about theothers. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead.Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so.”

Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now sheslowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. “What can be themotive,” she asked, “of a man like you—an honest man, agalant homme—in saying so base a thing as that?”

“Does it sound very base?” asked Acton, candidly. “I supposeit does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don’t mean itliterally.”

The Baroness stood looking at him. “How do you mean it?” she asked.

This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bitfoolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking amoment, and then he turned back. “You know that document that you were tosend to Germany,” he said. “You called it your‘renunciation.’ Did you ever send it?”

Madame Münster’s eyes expanded; she looked very grave. “What asingular answer to my question!”

“Oh, it isn’t an answer,” said Acton. “I have wished toask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. Thequestion, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at anytime.”

The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, “I think I have told you toomuch!” she said.

This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed asense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, andwatched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of thepiazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he hadhitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. “I wish you wouldask something of me,” he presently said. “Is there nothing I can dofor you? If you can’t stand this dull life any more, let me amuseyou!”

The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan whichshe held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes werefixed on him. “You are very strange tonight,” she said, with alittle laugh.

“I will do anything in the world,” he rejoined, standing in frontof her. “Shouldn’t you like to travel about and see something ofthe country? Won’t you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, youknow.”

“With you, do you mean?”

“I should be delighted to take you.”

“You alone?”

Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. “Well, yes; wemight go alone,” he said.

“If you were not what you are,” she answered, “I should feelinsulted.”

“How do you mean—what I am?”

“If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If youwere not a queer Bostonian.”

“If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expectinsults,” said Acton, “I am glad I am what I am. You had muchbetter come to Niagara.”

“If you wish to ‘amuse’ me,” the Baroness declared,“you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually.”

He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with hereyes only showing above it. There was a moment’s silence, and then hesaid, returning to his former question, “Have you sent that document toGermany?”

Again there was a moment’s silence. The expressive eyes of Madame Münsterseemed, however, half to break it.

“I will tell you—at Niagara!” she said.

She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the roomopened—the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed hergaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. TheBaroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave himno greeting; he was looking at Eugenia.

“Ah, you were here?” exclaimed Acton.

“He was in Felix’s studio,” said Madame Münster. “Hewanted to see his sketches.”

Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself withhis hat. “You chose a bad moment,” said Acton; “youhadn’t much light.”

“I hadn’t any!” said Clifford, laughing.

“Your candle went out?” Eugenia asked. “You should have comeback here and lighted it again.”

Clifford looked at her a moment. “So I have—come back. But I haveleft the candle!”

Eugenia turned away. “You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better gohome.”

“Well,” said Clifford, “good-night!”

“Haven’t you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returnedfrom a dangerous journey?” Acton asked.

“How do you do?” said Clifford. “I thought—I thoughtyou were——” and he paused, looking at the Baroness again.

“You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was—this morning.”

“Good-night, clever child!” said Madame Münster, over her shoulder.

Clifford stared at her—not at all like a clever child; and then, with oneof his little facetious growls, took his departure.

“What is the matter with him?” asked Acton, when he was gone.“He seemed rather in a muddle.”

Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. “Thematter—the matter”—she answered. “But you don’tsay such things here.”

“If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that.”

“He doesn’t drink any more. I have cured him. And inreturn—he’s in love with me.”

It was Acton’s turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but hesaid nothing about her. He began to laugh. “I don’t wonder at hispassion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of yourbrother’s paint-brushes.”

Eugenia was silent a little. “He had not been in the studio. I inventedthat at the moment.”

“Invented it? For what purpose?”

“He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming tosee me at midnight—passing only through the orchard and throughFelix’s painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems toamuse him,” added Eugenia, with a little laugh.

Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view ofClifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romanticelement. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after amoment’s hesitation his seriousness explained itself. “I hope youdon’t encourage him,” he said. “He must not be inconstant topoor Lizzie.”

“To your sister?”

“You know they are decidedly intimate,” said Acton.

“Ah,” cried Eugenia, smiling, “has she—hasshe——”

“I don’t know,” Acton interrupted, “what she has. But Ialways supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable toher.”

“Ah, par exemple!” the Baroness went on. “The littlemonster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought tobe ashamed of himself.”

Acton was silent a moment. “You had better say nothing about it.”

“I had told him as much already, on general grounds,” said theBaroness. “But in this country, you know, the relations of young peopleare so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when youwould quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, andthat young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marryingher; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, yousuddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with hergoverness—your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never awayfrom her mamma—a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticednothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of theirage, are on the point of setting up as man and wife.” The Baroness spokewith a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languidgrace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. Itseemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye—a note ofirony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in hervoice. If Madame Münster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; shebegan to move about the room again, and he looked at her without sayinganything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared thatit was three o’clock in the morning and that he must go.

“I have not been here an hour,” he said, “and they are stillsitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has notcome in.”

“Oh, at the other house,” cried Eugenia, “they are terriblepeople! I don’t know what they may do over there. I am a quiet littlehumdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to havevisitors in the small hours—especially clever men like you. Sogood-night!”

Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night anddeparted, he was still a good deal mystified.

The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at homeand saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had anatural desire to make it tally with Madame Münster’s account ofClifford’s disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to thetask, resolved at last to ask help of the young man’s candor. He waitedtill he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in thegrounds.

“I wish very much you would answer me a question,” Acton said.“What were you doing, last night, at Madame Münster’s?”

Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with aromantic secret. “What did she tell you?” he asked.

“That is exactly what I don’t want to say.”

“Well, I want to tell you the same,” said Clifford; “andunless I know it perhaps I can’t.”

They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman.“She said she couldn’t fancy what had got into you; you appeared tohave taken a violent dislike to her.”

Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. “Oh, come,” he growled,“you don’t mean that!”

“And that when—for common civility’s sake—you cameoccasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time inFelix’s studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches.”

“Oh, come!” growled Clifford, again.

“Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?”

“Yes, lots of them!” said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of thediscussion, for his sarcastic powers. “Well,” he presently added,“I thought you were my father.”

“You knew someone was there?”

“We heard you coming in.”

Acton meditated. “You had been with the Baroness, then?”

“I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was myfather.”

“And on that,” asked Acton, “you ran away?”

“She told me to go—to go out by the studio.”

Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would havesat down. “Why should she wish you not to meet your father?”

“Well,” said Clifford, “father doesn’t like to see methere.”

Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon thisassertion. “Has he said so,” he asked, “to theBaroness?”

“Well, I hope not,” said Clifford. “He hasn’t saidso—in so many words—to me. But I know it worries him; and I want tostop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too.”

“To stop coming to see her?”

“I don’t know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugeniaknows everything,” Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own.

“Ah,” said Acton, interrogatively, “Eugenia knowseverything?”

“She knew it was not father coming in.”

“Then why did you go?”

Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. “Well, I was afraid it was. Andbesides, she told me to go, at any rate.”

“Did she think it was I?” Acton asked.

“She didn’t say so.”

Again Robert Acton reflected. “But you didn’t go,” hepresently said; “you came back.”

“I couldn’t get out of the studio,” Clifford rejoined.“The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lowerhalf of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So theywere no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. Ididn’t want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn’t standit any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a littleflurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn’t she?” Clifford added,in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanentlyclouded by the sense of his own discomfort.

“Beautifully!” said Acton. “Especially,” he continued,“when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must havebeen a good deal annoyed.”

“Oh,” cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man whofeels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremelyjust in his impressions, “Eugenia doesn’t care for anything!”

Acton hesitated a moment. “Thank you for telling me this,” he saidat last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford’s shoulder, he added,“Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with theBaroness?”

“No, sir!” said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand.

CHAPTER X

The first sunday that followed Robert Acton’s return from Newportwitnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rainbegan to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughtersput on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, wentalso, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the wholeobservance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remainedat home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however,never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regularattendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which Ibegan with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room,watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but aportion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate,against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind,the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; itappeared to have a kind of human movement—a menacing, warning intention.The room was very cold; Madame Münster put on a shawl and walked about. Thenshe determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, thecontrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first asource of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of acrackling flame. This old woman’s name was Azarina. The Baroness hadbegun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, foramusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; herconversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome oldladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that aftershe had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of anhour’s entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. Shehad thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not methim since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming;several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only awindow-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning ofthat episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in thesepages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had apeculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to dosomething; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If shecould have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have steppedupon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon thatprofoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is notexactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuchas she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance hadbeen made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from thesense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil onthis big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plantswhose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to seeherself surrounded—a species of vegetation for which she carried acollection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chiefhappiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certainimpression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, onnearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he hadcounted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to havelost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable.“Surely je n’en suis pas là,”she said to herself,“that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Actonshouldn’t honor me with a visit!” Yet she was vexed that he had notcome; and she was vexed at her vexation.

Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet fromhis coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek andhalf-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. “Ah, you have afire,” he said.

“Les beaux jours sont passés,”replied the Baroness.

“Never, never! They have only begun,” Felix declared, plantinghimself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his handsbehind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with anexpression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even inthe tints of a wet Sunday.

His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw inhis face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things,but her brother’s disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. Isay frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which shegave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself thathis happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a pose; butshe was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highlysuccessful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not knownthe need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterestedgenius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he wouldunderstand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort aboutFelix—the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate,this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame Münster feltthat there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix wasdelicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of thevery few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he wasnot thinking of anything uncomfortable.

“Dear brother,” said Eugenia at last, “do stop making lesyeux douxat the rain.”

“With pleasure. I will make them at you!” answered Felix.

“How much longer,” asked Eugenia, in a moment, “do youpropose to remain in this lovely spot?”

Felix stared. “Do you want to go away—already?”

“‘Already’ is delicious. I am not so happy as you.”

Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. “The fact is I amhappy,” he said in his light, clear tone.

“And do you propose to spend your life in making love to GertrudeWentworth?”

“Yes!” said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister.

The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, “Do youlike her?” she asked.

“Don’t you?” Felix demanded.

The Baroness was silent a moment. “I will answer you in the words of thegentleman who was asked if he liked music: ‘Je ne la crainspas!’’”

“She admires you immensely,” said Felix.

“I don’t care for that. Other women should not admire one.”

“They should dislike you?”

Again Madame Münster hesitated. “They should hate me! It’s ameasure of the time I have been losing here that they don’t.”

“No time is lost in which one has been happy!” said Felix, with abright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating.

“And in which,” rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh,“one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!”

Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. “I have securedGertrude’s affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured herfortune. That may come—or it may not.”

“Ah, well, it may!That’s the great point.”

“It depends upon her father. He doesn’t smile upon our union. Youknow he wants her to marry Mr. Brand.”

“I know nothing about it!” cried the Baroness. “Please to puton a log.” Felix complied with her request and sat watching thequickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, “And you propose toelope with mademoiselle?”

“By no means. I don’t wish to do anything that’s disagreeableto Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us.”

“But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him.”

“I want to please everyone!” exclaimed Felix, joyously. “Ihave a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not myplace to make love to Gertrude.”

“So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!”

Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. “You say you are notafraid of her,” he said. “But perhaps you ought to be—alittle. She’s a very clever person.”

“I begin to see it!” cried the Baroness. Her brother, making norejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last,with an altered accent, Madame Münster put another question. “You expect,at any rate, to marry?”

“I shall be greatly disappointed if we don’t.”

“A disappointment or two will do you good!” the Baroness declared.“And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?”

“It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go toEurope. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world.”

“Ah, like me, when I came here!” said the Baroness, with a littlelaugh.

“No, not like you,” Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with acertain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, andhe also got up. “Gertrude is not at all like you,” he went on;“but in her own way she is almost as clever.” He paused a moment;his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition toexpress it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar diskwhen only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed tohim to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he alwaysappreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her.“I am very much in love with Gertrude,” he said. Eugenia turnedaway and walked about the room, and Felix continued. “She is veryinteresting, and very different from what she seems. She has never had achance. She is very brilliant. We will go to Europe and amuse ourselves.”

The Baroness had gone to the window, where she stood looking out. The day wasdrearier than ever; the rain was doggedly falling. “Yes, to amuseyourselves,” she said at last, “you had decidedly better go toEurope!” Then she turned round, looking at her brother. A chair stoodnear her; she leaned her hands upon the back of it. “Don’t youthink it is very good of me,” she asked, “to come all this way withyou simply to see you properly married—if properly it is?”

“Oh, it will be properly!” cried Felix, with light eagerness.

The Baroness gave a little laugh. “You are thinking only of yourself, andyou don’t answer my question. While you are amusing yourself—withthe brilliant Gertrude—what shall I be doing?”

“Vous serez de la partie!”cried Felix.

“Thank you: I should spoil it.” The Baroness dropped her eyes forsome moments. “Do you propose, however, to leave me here?” sheinquired.

Felix smiled at her. “My dearest sister, where you are concerned I neverpropose. I execute your commands.”

“I believe,” said Eugenia, slowly, “that you are the mostheartless person living. Don’t you see that I am in trouble?”

“I saw that you were not cheerful, and I gave you some good news.”

“Well, let me give you some news,” said the Baroness. “Youprobably will not have discovered it for yourself. Robert Acton wants to marryme.”

“No, I had not discovered that. But I quite understand it. Why does itmake you unhappy?”

“Because I can’t decide.”

“Accept him, accept him!” cried Felix, joyously. “He is thebest fellow in the world.”

“He is immensely in love with me,” said the Baroness.

“And he has a large fortune. Permit me in turn to remind you ofthat.”

“Oh, I am perfectly aware of it,” said Eugenia. “That’sa great item in his favor. I am terribly candid.” And she left her placeand came nearer her brother, looking at him hard. He was turning over severalthings; she was wondering in what manner he really understood her.

There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, andthere was what she meant, and there was something, between the two, that wasneither. It is probable that, in the last analysis, what she meant was thatFelix should spare her the necessity of stating the case more exactly andshould hold himself commissioned to assist her by all honorable means to marrythe best fellow in the world. But in all this it was never discovered whatFelix understood.

“Once you have your liberty, what are your objections?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t particularly like him.”

“Oh, try a little.”

“I am trying now,” said Eugenia. “I should succeed better ifhe didn’t live here. I could never live here.”

“Make him go to Europe,” Felix suggested.

“Ah, there you speak of happiness based upon violent effort,” theBaroness rejoined. “That is not what I am looking for. He would neverlive in Europe.”

“He would live anywhere, with you!” said Felix, gallantly.

His sister looked at him still, with a ray of penetration in her charming eyes;then she turned away again. “You see, at all events,” she presentlywent on, “that if it had been said of me that I had come over here toseek my fortune it would have to be added that I have found it!”

“Don’t leave it lying!” urged Felix, with smiling solemnity.

“I am much obliged to you for your interest,” his sister declared,after a moment. “But promise me one thing: pas de zèle!If Mr.Acton should ask you to plead his cause, excuse yourself.”

“I shall certainly have the excuse,” said Felix, “that I havea cause of my own to plead.”

“If he should talk of me—favorably,” Eugenia continued,“warn him against dangerous illusions. I detest importunities; I want todecide at my leisure, with my eyes open.”

“I shall be discreet,” said Felix, “except to you. To you Iwill say, Accept him outright.”

She had advanced to the open doorway, and she stood looking at him. “Iwill go and dress and think of it,” she said; and he heard her movingslowly to her apartments.

Late in the afternoon the rain stopped, and just afterwards there was a greatflaming, flickering, trickling sunset. Felix sat in his painting-room and didsome work; but at last, as the light, which had not been brilliant, began tofade, he laid down his brushes and came out to the little piazza of thecottage. Here he walked up and down for some time, looking at the splendidblaze of the western sky and saying, as he had often said before, that this wascertainly the country of sunsets. There was something in these glorious deepsof fire that quickened his imagination; he always found images and promises inthe western sky. He thought of a good many things—of roaming about theworld with Gertrude Wentworth; he seemed to see their possible adventures, in aglowing frieze, between the cloud-bars; then of what Eugenia had just beentelling him. He wished very much that Madame Münster would make a comfortableand honorable marriage. Presently, as the sunset expanded and deepened, thefancy took him of making a note of so magnificent a piece of coloring. Hereturned to his studio and fetched out a small panel, with his palette andbrushes, and, placing the panel against a window-sill, he began to daub withgreat gusto. While he was so occupied he saw Mr. Brand, in the distance, slowlycome down from Mr. Wentworth’s house, nursing a large folded umbrella. Hewalked with a joyless, meditative tread, and his eyes were bent upon theground. Felix poised his brush for a moment, watching him; then, by a suddenimpulse, as he drew nearer, advanced to the garden-gate and signaled tohim—the palette and bunch of brushes contributing to this effect.

Mr. Brand stopped and started; then he appeared to decide to acceptFelix’s invitation. He came out of Mr. Wentworth’s gate and passedalong the road; after which he entered the little garden of the cottage. Felixhad gone back to his sunset; but he made his visitor welcome while he rapidlybrushed it in.

“I wanted so much to speak to you that I thought I would call you,”he said, in the friendliest tone. “All the more that you have been to seeme so little. You have come to see my sister; I know that. But youhaven’t come to see me—the celebrated artist. Artists are verysensitive, you know; they notice those things.” And Felix turned round,smiling, with a brush in his mouth.

Mr. Brand stood there with a certain blank, candid majesty, pulling togetherthe large flaps of his umbrella. “Why should I come to see you?” heasked. “I know nothing of Art.”

“It would sound very conceited, I suppose,” said Felix, “if Iwere to say that it would be a good little chance for you to learn something.You would ask me why you should learn; and I should have no answer to that. Isuppose a minister has no need for Art, eh?”

“He has need for good temper, sir,” said Mr. Brand, with decision.

Felix jumped up, with his palette on his thumb and a movement of the liveliestdeprecation. “That’s because I keep you standing there while Isplash my red paint! I beg a thousand pardons! You see what bad manners Artgives a man; and how right you are to let it alone. I didn’t mean youshould stand, either. The piazza, as you see, is ornamented with rustic chairs;though indeed I ought to warn you that they have nails in the wrong places. Iwas just making a note of that sunset. I never saw such a blaze of differentreds. It looks as if the Celestial City were in flames, eh? If that were reallythe case I suppose it would be the business of you theologians to put out thefire. Fancy me—an ungodly artist—quietly sitting down to paintit!”

Mr. Brand had always credited Felix Young with a certain impudence, but itappeared to him that on this occasion his impudence was so great as to make aspecial explanation—or even an apology—necessary. And theimpression, it must be added, was sufficiently natural. Felix had at all timesa brilliant assurance of manner which was simply the vehicle of his goodspirits and his good will; but at present he had a special design, and as hewould have admitted that the design was audacious, so he was conscious ofhaving summoned all the arts of conversation to his aid. But he was so far fromdesiring to offend his visitor that he was rapidly asking himself what personalcompliment he could pay the young clergyman that would gratify him most. If hecould think of it, he was prepared to pay it down. “Have you beenpreaching one of your beautiful sermons today?” he suddenly asked, layingdown his palette. This was not what Felix had been trying to think of, but itwas a tolerable stop-gap.

Mr. Brand frowned—as much as a man can frown who has very fair, softeyebrows, and, beneath them, very gentle, tranquil eyes. “No, I have notpreached any sermon today. Did you bring me over here for the purpose of makingthat inquiry?”

Felix saw that he was irritated, and he regretted it immensely; but he had nofear of not being, in the end, agreeable to Mr. Brand. He looked at him,smiling and laying his hand on his arm. “No, no, not for that—notfor that. I wanted to ask you something; I wanted to tell you something. I amsure it will interest you very much. Only—as it is something ratherprivate—we had better come into my little studio. I have a westernwindow; we can still see the sunset. Andiamo!” And he gave alittle pat to his companion’s arm.

He led the way in; Mr. Brand stiffly and softly followed. The twilight hadthickened in the little studio; but the wall opposite the western window wascovered with a deep pink flush. There were a great many sketches andhalf-finished canvasses suspended in this rosy glow, and the corners of theroom were vague and dusky. Felix begged Mr. Brand to sit down; then glancinground him, “By Jove, how pretty it looks!” he cried. But Mr. Brandwould not sit down; he went and leaned against the window; he wondered whatFelix wanted of him. In the shadow, on the darker parts of the wall, he saw thegleam of three or four pictures that looked fantastic and surprising. Theyseemed to represent naked figures. Felix stood there, with his head a littlebent and his eyes fixed upon his visitor, smiling intensely, pulling hismoustache. Mr. Brand felt vaguely uneasy. “It is very delicate—whatI want to say,” Felix began. “But I have been thinking of it forsome time.”

“Please to say it as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Brand.

“It’s because you are a clergyman, you know,” Felix went on.“I don’t think I should venture to say it to a common man.”

Mr. Brand was silent a moment. “If it is a question of yielding to aweakness, of resenting an injury, I am afraid I am a very common man.”

“My dearest friend,” cried Felix, “this is not an injury;it’s a benefit—a great service! You will like it extremely. Onlyit’s so delicate!” And, in the dim light, he continued to smileintensely. “You know I take a great interest in my cousins—inCharlotte and Gertrude Wentworth. That’s very evident from my havingtraveled some five thousand miles to see them.” Mr. Brand said nothingand Felix proceeded. “Coming into their society as a perfect stranger Ireceived of course a great many new impressions, and my impressions had a greatfreshness, a great keenness. Do you know what I mean?”

“I am not sure that I do; but I should like you to continue.”

“I think my impressions have always a good deal of freshness,” saidMr. Brand’s entertainer; “but on this occasion it was perhapsparticularly natural that—coming in, as I say, from outside—Ishould be struck with things that passed unnoticed among yourselves. And then Ihad my sister to help me; and she is simply the most observant woman in theworld.”

“I am not surprised,” said Mr. Brand, “that in our littlecircle two intelligent persons should have found food for observation. I amsure that, of late, I have found it myself!”

“Ah, but I shall surprise you yet!” cried Felix, laughing.“Both my sister and I took a great fancy to my cousin Charlotte.”

“Your cousin Charlotte?” repeated Mr. Brand.

“We fell in love with her from the first!”

“You fell in love with Charlotte?” Mr. Brand murmured.

“Dame!” exclaimed Felix, “she’s a very charmingperson; and Eugenia was especially smitten.” Mr. Brand stood staring, andhe pursued, “Affection, you know, opens one’s eyes, and we noticedsomething. Charlotte is not happy! Charlotte is in love.” And Felix,drawing nearer, laid his hand again upon his companion’s arm.

There was something akin to an acknowledgment of fascination in the way Mr.Brand looked at him; but the young clergyman retained as yet quite enoughself-possession to be able to say, with a good deal of solemnity, “She isnot in love with you.”

Felix gave a light laugh, and rejoined with the alacrity of a maritimeadventurer who feels a puff of wind in his sail. “Ah, no; if she were inlove with me I should know it! I am not so blind as you.”

“As I?”

“My dear sir, you are stone blind. Poor Charlotte is dead in love withyou!”

Mr. Brand said nothing for a moment; he breathed a little heavily. “Isthat what you wanted to say to me?” he asked.

“I have wanted to say it these three weeks. Because of late she has beenworse. I told you,” added Felix, “it was very delicate.”

“Well, sir”—Mr. Brand began; “well,sir——”

“I was sure you didn’t know it,” Felix continued. “Butdon’t you see—as soon as I mention it—how everything isexplained?” Mr. Brand answered nothing; he looked for a chair and softlysat down. Felix could see that he was blushing; he had looked straight at hishost hitherto, but now he looked away. The foremost effect of what he had heardhad been a sort of irritation of his modesty. “Of course,” saidFelix, “I suggest nothing; it would be very presumptuous in me to adviseyou. But I think there is no doubt about the fact.”

Mr. Brand looked hard at the floor for some moments; he was oppressed with amixture of sensations. Felix, standing there, was very sure that one of themwas profound surprise. The innocent young man had been completely unsuspiciousof poor Charlotte’s hidden flame. This gave Felix great hope; he was surethat Mr. Brand would be flattered. Felix thought him very transparent, andindeed he was so; he could neither simulate nor dissimulate. “I scarcelyknow what to make of this,” he said at last, without looking up; andFelix was struck with the fact that he offered no protest or contradiction.Evidently Felix had kindled a train of memories—a retrospectiveillumination. It was making, to Mr. Brand’s astonished eyes, a verypretty blaze; his second emotion had been a gratification of vanity.

“Thank me for telling you,” Felix rejoined. “It’s agood thing to know.”

“I am not sure of that,” said Mr. Brand.

“Ah, don’t let her languish!” Felix murmured, lightly andsoftly.

“You doadvise me, then?” And Mr. Brand looked up.

“I congratulate you!” said Felix, smiling. He had thought at firsthis visitor was simply appealing; but he saw he was a little ironical.

“It is in your interest; you have interfered with me,” the youngclergyman went on.

Felix still stood and smiled. The little room had grown darker, and the crimsonglow had faded; but Mr. Brand could see the brilliant expression of his face.“I won’t pretend not to know what you mean,” said Felix atlast. “But I have not really interfered with you. Of what you had tolose—with another person—you have lost nothing. And think what youhave gained!”

“It seems to me I am the proper judge, on each side,” Mr. Branddeclared. He got up, holding the brim of his hat against his mouth and staringat Felix through the dusk.

“You have lost an illusion!” said Felix.

“What do you call an illusion?”

“The belief that you really know—that you have ever reallyknown—Gertrude Wentworth. Depend upon that,” pursued Felix.“I don’t know her yet; but I have no illusions; I don’tpretend to.”

Mr. Brand kept gazing, over his hat. “She has always been a lucid, limpidnature,” he said, solemnly.

“She has always been a dormant nature. She was waiting for a touchstone.But now she is beginning to awaken.”

“Don’t praise her to me!” said Mr. Brand, with a littlequaver in his voice. “If you have the advantage of me that is notgenerous.”

“My dear sir, I am melting with generosity!” exclaimed Felix.“And I am not praising my cousin. I am simply attempting a scientificdefinition of her. She doesn’t care for abstractions. Now I think thecontrary is what you have always fancied—is the basis on which you havebeen building. She is extremely preoccupied with the concrete. I care for theconcrete, too. But Gertrude is stronger than I; she whirls me along!”

Mr. Brand looked for a moment into the crown of his hat. “It’s amost interesting nature.”

“So it is,” said Felix. “But it pulls—itpulls—like a runaway horse. Now I like the feeling of a runaway horse;and if I am thrown out of the vehicle it is no great matter. But if youshould be thrown, Mr. Brand”—and Felix paused amoment—“another person also would suffer from the accident.”

“What other person?”

“Charlotte Wentworth!”

Mr. Brand looked at Felix for a moment sidewise, mistrustfully; then his eyesslowly wandered over the ceiling. Felix was sure he was secretly struck withthe romance of the situation. “I think this is none of ourbusiness,” the young minister murmured.

“None of mine, perhaps; but surely yours!”

Mr. Brand lingered still, looking at the ceiling; there was evidently somethinghe wanted to say. “What do you mean by Miss Gertrude being strong?”he asked abruptly.

“Well,” said Felix meditatively, “I mean that she has had agreat deal of self-possession. She was waiting—for years; even when sheseemed, perhaps, to be living in the present. She knew how to wait; she had apurpose. That’s what I mean by her being strong.”

“But what do you mean by her purpose?”

“Well—the purpose to see the world!”

Mr. Brand eyed his strange informant askance again; but he said nothing. Atlast he turned away, as if to take leave. He seemed bewildered, however; forinstead of going to the door he moved toward the opposite corner of the room.Felix stood and watched him for a moment—almost groping about in thedusk; then he led him to the door, with a tender, almost fraternal movement.“Is that all you have to say?” asked Mr. Brand.

“Yes, it’s all—but it will bear a good deal of thinkingof.”

Felix went with him to the garden-gate, and watched him slowly walk away intothe thickening twilight with a relaxed rigidity that tried to rectify itself.“He is offended, excited, bewildered, perplexed—andenchanted!” Felix said to himself. “That’s a capitalmixture.”

CHAPTER XI

Since that visit paid by the Baroness Münster to Mrs. Acton, of which someaccount was given at an earlier stage of this narrative, the intercoursebetween these two ladies had been neither frequent nor intimate. It was notthat Mrs. Acton had failed to appreciate Madame Münster’s charms; on thecontrary, her perception of the graces of manner and conversation of herbrilliant visitor had been only too acute. Mrs. Acton was, as they said inBoston, very “intense,” and her impressions were apt to be too manyfor her. The state of her health required the restriction of emotion; and thisis why, receiving, as she sat in her eternal arm-chair, very few visitors, evenof the soberest local type, she had been obliged to limit the number of herinterviews with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to herimagination—Mrs. Acton’s imagination was a marvel—all thatshe had ever read of the most stirring historical periods. But she had sent theBaroness a great many quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays fromher garden and baskets of beautiful fruit. Felix had eaten the fruit, and theBaroness had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages. Onthe day that followed that rainy Sunday of which mention has been made, Eugeniadetermined to go and pay the beneficent invalid a “visited’adieux”; so it was that, to herself, she qualified herenterprise. It may be noted that neither on the Sunday evening nor on theMonday morning had she received that expected visit from Robert Acton. To hisown consciousness, evidently he was “keeping away;” and as theBaroness, on her side, was keeping away from her uncle’s, whither, forseveral days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regretsfor absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design. Mr.Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia’s seclusion; certainintervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a natural part ofthe graceful, rhythmic movement of so remarkable a life. Gertrude especiallyheld these periods in honor; she wondered what Madame Münster did at suchtimes, but she would not have permitted herself to inquire too curiously.

The long rain had freshened the air, and twelve hours’ brilliant sunshinehad dried the roads; so that the Baroness, in the late afternoon, proposing towalk to Mrs. Acton’s, exposed herself to no great discomfort. As with hercharming undulating step she moved along the clean, grassy margin of the road,beneath the thickly-hanging boughs of the orchards, through the quiet of thehour and place and the rich maturity of the summer, she was even conscious of asort of luxurious melancholy. The Baroness had the amiable weakness ofattaching herself to places—even when she had begun with a littleaversion; and now, with the prospect of departure, she felt tenderly towardthis well-wooded corner of the Western world, where the sunsets were sobeautiful and one’s ambitions were so pure. Mrs. Acton was able toreceive her; but on entering this lady’s large, freshly-scented room theBaroness saw that she was looking very ill. She was wonderfully white andtransparent, and, in her flowered arm-chair, she made no attempt to move. Butshe flushed a little—like a young girl, the Baroness thought—andshe rested her clear, smiling eyes upon those of her visitor. Her voice was lowand monotonous, like a voice that had never expressed any human passions.

“I have come to bid you good-bye,” said Eugenia. “I shallsoon be going away.”

“When are you going away?”

“Very soon—any day.”

“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Acton. “I hoped you wouldstay—always.”

“Always?” Eugenia demanded.

“Well, I mean a long time,” said Mrs. Acton, in her sweet, feebletone. “They tell me you are so comfortable—that you have got such abeautiful little house.”

Eugenia stared—that is, she smiled; she thought of her poor little chaletand she wondered whether her hostess were jesting. “Yes, my house isexquisite,” she said; “though not to be compared to yours.”

“And my son is so fond of going to see you,” Mrs. Acton added.“I am afraid my son will miss you.”

“Ah, dear madam,” said Eugenia, with a little laugh, “Ican’t stay in America for your son!”

“Don’t you like America?”

The Baroness looked at the front of her dress. “If I liked it—thatwould not be staying for your son!”

Mrs. Acton gazed at her with her grave, tender eyes, as if she had not quiteunderstood. The Baroness at last found something irritating in the sweet, softstare of her hostess; and if one were not bound to be merciful to greatinvalids she would almost have taken the liberty of pronouncing her, mentally,a fool. “I am afraid, then, I shall never see you again,” said Mrs.Acton. “You know I am dying.”

“Ah, dear madam,” murmured Eugenia.

“I want to leave my children cheerful and happy. My daughter willprobably marry her cousin.”

“Two such interesting young people,” said the Baroness, vaguely.She was not thinking of Clifford Wentworth.

“I feel so tranquil about my end,” Mrs. Acton went on. “It iscoming so easily, so surely.” And she paused, with her mild gaze alwayson Eugenia’s.

The Baroness hated to be reminded of death; but even in its imminence, so faras Mrs. Acton was concerned, she preserved her good manners. “Ah, madam,you are too charming an invalid,” she rejoined.

But the delicacy of this rejoinder was apparently lost upon her hostess, whowent on in her low, reasonable voice. “I want to leave my children brightand comfortable. You seem to me all so happy here—just as you are. So Iwish you could stay. It would be so pleasant for Robert.”

Eugenia wondered what she meant by its being pleasant for Robert; but she feltthat she would never know what such a woman as that meant. She got up; she wasafraid Mrs. Acton would tell her again that she was dying. “Good-bye,dear madam,” she said. “I must remember that your strength isprecious.”

Mrs. Acton took her hand and held it a moment. “Well, you havebeen happy here, haven’t you? And you like us all, don’t you? Iwish you would stay,” she added, “in your beautiful littlehouse.”

She had told Eugenia that her waiting-woman would be in the hall, to show herdownstairs; but the large landing outside her door was empty, and Eugenia stoodthere looking about. She felt irritated; the dying lady had not “lamain heureuse.”She passed slowly downstairs, still looking about.The broad staircase made a great bend, and in the angle was a high window,looking westward, with a deep bench, covered with a row of flowering plants incurious old pots of blue china-ware. The yellow afternoon light came in throughthe flowers and flickered a little on the white wainscots. Eugenia paused amoment; the house was perfectly still, save for the ticking, somewhere, of agreat clock. The lower hall stretched away at the foot of the stairs, halfcovered over with a large Oriental rug. Eugenia lingered a little, noticing agreat many things. “Comme c’est bien!”she said toherself; such a large, solid, irreproachable basis of existence the placeseemed to her to indicate. And then she reflected that Mrs. Acton was soon towithdraw from it. The reflection accompanied her the rest of the waydownstairs, where she paused again, making more observations. The hall wasextremely broad, and on either side of the front door was a wide, deeply-setwindow, which threw the shadows of everything back into the house. There werehigh-backed chairs along the wall and big Eastern vases upon tables, and, oneither side, a large cabinet with a glass front and little curiosities within,dimly gleaming. The doors were open—into the darkened parlor, thelibrary, the dining-room. All these rooms seemed empty. Eugenia passed along,and stopped a moment on the threshold of each. “Comme c’estbien!”she murmured again; she had thought of just such a house asthis when she decided to come to America. She opened the front door forherself—her light tread had summoned none of the servants—and onthe threshold she gave a last look. Outside, she was still in the humor forcurious contemplation; so instead of going directly down the little drive, tothe gate, she wandered away towards the garden, which lay to the right of thehouse. She had not gone many yards over the grass before she paused quickly;she perceived a gentleman stretched upon the level verdure, beneath a tree. Hehad not heard her coming, and he lay motionless, flat on his back, with hishands clasped under his head, staring up at the sky; so that the Baroness wasable to reflect, at her leisure, upon the question of his identity. It was thatof a person who had lately been much in her thoughts; but her first impulse,nevertheless, was to turn away; the last thing she desired was to have the airof coming in quest of Robert Acton. The gentleman on the grass, however, gaveher no time to decide; he could not long remain unconscious of so agreeable apresence. He rolled back his eyes, stared, gave an exclamation, and then jumpedup. He stood an instant, looking at her.

“Excuse my ridiculous position,” he said.

“I have just now no sense of the ridiculous. But, in case you have,don’t imagine I came to see you.”

“Take care,” rejoined Acton, “how you put it into my head! Iwas thinking of you.”

“The occupation of extreme leisure!” said the Baroness. “Tothink of a woman when you are in that position is no compliment.”

“I didn’t say I was thinking well!” Acton affirmed, smiling.

She looked at him, and then she turned away.

“Though I didn’t come to see you,” she said, “rememberat least that I am within your gates.”

“I am delighted—I am honored! Won’t you come into thehouse?”

“I have just come out of it. I have been calling upon your mother. I havebeen bidding her farewell.”

“Farewell?” Acton demanded.

“I am going away,” said the Baroness. And she turned away again, asif to illustrate her meaning.

“When are you going?” asked Acton, standing a moment in his place.But the Baroness made no answer, and he followed her.

“I came this way to look at your garden,” she said, walking back tothe gate, over the grass. “But I must go.”

“Let me at least go with you.” He went with her, and they saidnothing till they reached the gate. It was open, and they looked down the roadwhich was darkened over with long bosky shadows. “Must you go straighthome?” Acton asked.

But she made no answer. She said, after a moment, “Why have you not beento see me?” He said nothing, and then she went on, “Why don’tyou answer me?”

“I am trying to invent an answer,” Acton confessed.

“Have you none ready?”

“None that I can tell you,” he said. “But let me walk withyou now.”

“You may do as you like.”

She moved slowly along the road, and Acton went with her. Presently he said,“If I had done as I liked I would have come to see you severaltimes.”

“Is that invented?” asked Eugenia.

“No, that is natural. I stayed away because——”

“Ah, here comes the reason, then!”

“Because I wanted to think about you.”

“Because you wanted to lie down!” said the Baroness. “I haveseen you lie down—almost—in my drawing-room.”

Acton stopped in the road, with a movement which seemed to beg her to linger alittle. She paused, and he looked at her awhile; he thought her very charming.“You are jesting,” he said; “but if you are really going awayit is very serious.”

“If I stay,” and she gave a little laugh, “it is more seriousstill!”

“When shall you go?”

“As soon as possible.”

“And why?”

“Why should I stay?”

“Because we all admire you so.”

“That is not a reason. I am admired also in Europe.” And she beganto walk homeward again.

“What could I say to keep you?” asked Acton. He wanted to keep her,and it was a fact that he had been thinking of her for a week. He was in lovewith her now; he was conscious of that, or he thought he was; and the onlyquestion with him was whether he could trust her.

“What you can say to keep me?” she repeated. “As I want verymuch to go it is not in my interest to tell you. Besides, I can’timagine.”

He went on with her in silence; he was much more affected by what she had toldhim than appeared. Ever since that evening of his return from Newport her imagehad had a terrible power to trouble him. What Clifford Wentworth had toldhim—that had affected him, too, in an adverse sense; but it had notliberated him from the discomfort of a charm of which his intelligence wasimpatient. “She is not honest, she is not honest,” he keptmurmuring to himself. That is what he had been saying to the summer sky, tenminutes before. Unfortunately, he was unable to say it finally, definitively;and now that he was near her it seemed to matter wonderfully little. “Sheis a woman who will lie,” he had said to himself. Now, as he went along,he reminded himself of this observation; but it failed to frighten him as ithad done before. He almost wished he could make her lie and then convict her ofit, so that he might see how he should like that. He kept thinking of this ashe walked by her side, while she moved forward with her light, gracefuldignity. He had sat with her before; he had driven with her; but he had neverwalked with her.

“By Jove, how comme il fautshe is!” he said, as he observedher sidewise. When they reached the cottage in the orchard she passed into thegate without asking him to follow; but she turned round, as he stood there, tobid him good-night.

“I asked you a question the other night which you never answered,”he said. “Have you sent off that document—liberatingyourself?”

She hesitated for a single moment—very naturally. Then,“Yes,” she said, simply.

He turned away; he wondered whether that would do for his lie. But he saw heragain that evening, for the Baroness reappeared at her uncle’s. He hadlittle talk with her, however; two gentlemen had driven out from Boston, in abuggy, to call upon Mr. Wentworth and his daughters, and Madame Münster was anobject of absorbing interest to both of the visitors. One of them, indeed, saidnothing to her; he only sat and watched with intense gravity, and leanedforward solemnly, presenting his ear (a very large one), as if he were deaf,whenever she dropped an observation. He had evidently been impressed with theidea of her misfortunes and reverses: he never smiled. His companion adopted alighter, easier style; sat as near as possible to Madame Münster; attempted todraw her out, and proposed every few moments a new topic of conversation.Eugenia was less vividly responsive than usual and had less to say than, fromher brilliant reputation, her interlocutor expected, upon the relative meritsof European and American institutions; but she was inaccessible to RobertActon, who roamed about the piazza with his hands in his pockets, listening forthe grating sound of the buggy from Boston, as it should be brought round tothe side-door. But he listened in vain, and at last he lost patience. Hissister came to him and begged him to take her home, and he presently went offwith her. Eugenia observed him leaving the house with Lizzie; in her presentmood the fact seemed a contribution to her irritated conviction that he hadseveral precious qualities. “Even that mal-élevéelittlegirl,” she reflected, “makes him do what she wishes.”

She had been sitting just within one of the long windows that opened upon thepiazza; but very soon after Acton had gone away she got up abruptly, just whenthe talkative gentleman from Boston was asking her what she thought of the“moral tone” of that city. On the piazza she encountered CliffordWentworth, coming round from the other side of the house. She stopped him; shetold him she wished to speak to him.

“Why didn’t you go home with your cousin?” she asked.

Clifford stared. “Why, Robert has taken her,” he said.

“Exactly so. But you don’t usually leave that to him.”

“Oh,” said Clifford, “I want to see those fellows start off.They don’t know how to drive.”

“It is not, then, that you have quarreled with your cousin?”

Clifford reflected a moment, and then with a simplicity which had, for theBaroness, a singularly baffling quality, “Oh, no; we have made up!”he said.

She looked at him for some moments; but Clifford had begun to be afraid of theBaroness’s looks, and he endeavored, now, to shift himself out of theirrange. “Why do you never come to see me any more?” she asked.“Have I displeased you?”

“Displeased me? Well, I guess not!” said Clifford, with a laugh.

“Why haven’t you come, then?”

“Well, because I am afraid of getting shut up in that back room.”

Eugenia kept looking at him. “I should think you would like that.”

“Like it!” cried Clifford.

“I should, if I were a young man calling upon a charming woman.”

“A charming woman isn’t much use to me when I am shut up in thatback room!”

“I am afraid I am not of much use to you anywhere!” said MadameMünster. “And yet you know how I have offered to be.”

“Well,” observed Clifford, by way of response, “there comesthe buggy.”

“Never mind the buggy. Do you know I am going away?”

“Do you mean now?”

“I mean in a few days. I leave this place.”

“You are going back to Europe?”

“To Europe, where you are to come and see me.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll come out there,” said Clifford.

“But before that,” Eugenia declared, “you must come and seeme here.”

“Well, I shall keep clear of that back room!” rejoined her simpleyoung kinsman.

The Baroness was silent a moment. “Yes, you must comefrankly—boldly. That will be very much better. I see that now.”

“I see it!” said Clifford. And then, in an instant,“What’s the matter with that buggy?” His practiced ear hadapparently detected an unnatural creak in the wheels of the light vehicle whichhad been brought to the portico, and he hurried away to investigate so grave ananomaly.

The Baroness walked homeward, alone, in the starlight, asking herself aquestion. Was she to have gained nothing—was she to have gained nothing?

Gertrude Wentworth had held a silent place in the little circle gathered aboutthe two gentlemen from Boston. She was not interested in the visitors; she waswatching Madame Münster, as she constantly watched her. She knew that Eugeniaalso was not interested—that she was bored; and Gertrude was absorbed instudy of the problem how, in spite of her indifference and her absentattention, she managed to have such a charming manner. That was the mannerGertrude would have liked to have; she determined to cultivate it, and shewished that—to give her the charm—she might in future very often bebored. While she was engaged in these researches, Felix Young was looking forCharlotte, to whom he had something to say. For some time, now, he had hadsomething to say to Charlotte, and this evening his sense of the propriety ofholding some special conversation with her had reached themotive-point—resolved itself into acute and delightful desire. Hewandered through the empty rooms on the large ground-floor of the house, andfound her at last in a small apartment denominated, for reasons not immediatelyapparent, Mr. Wentworth’s “office:” an extremely neat andwell-dusted room, with an array of law-books, in time-darkened sheep-skin, onone of the walls; a large map of the United States on the other, flanked oneither side by an old steel engraving of one of Raphael’s Madonnas; andon the third several glass cases containing specimens of butterflies andbeetles. Charlotte was sitting by a lamp, embroidering a slipper. Felix did notask for whom the slipper was destined; he saw it was very large.

He moved a chair toward her and sat down, smiling as usual, but, at first, notspeaking. She watched him, with her needle poised, and with a certain shy,fluttered look which she always wore when he approached her. There wassomething in Felix’s manner that quickened her modesty, herself-consciousness; if absolute choice had been given her she would havepreferred never to find herself alone with him; and in fact, though she thoughthim a most brilliant, distinguished, and well-meaning person, she had exerciseda much larger amount of tremulous tact than he had ever suspected, tocircumvent the accident of tête-à-tête. Poor Charlotte could have givenno account of the matter that would not have seemed unjust both to herself andto her foreign kinsman; she could only have said—or rather, she wouldnever have said it—that she did not like so much gentleman’ssociety at once. She was not reassured, accordingly, when he began, emphasizinghis words with a kind of admiring radiance, “My dear cousin, I amenchanted at finding you alone.”

“I am very often alone,” Charlotte observed. Then she quicklyadded, “I don’t mean I am lonely!”

“So clever a woman as you is never lonely,” said Felix. “Youhave company in your beautiful work.” And he glanced at the big slipper.

“I like to work,” declared Charlotte, simply.

“So do I!” said her companion. “And I like to idle too. Butit is not to idle that I have come in search of you. I want to tell yousomething very particular.”

“Well,” murmured Charlotte; “of course, if youmust——”

“My dear cousin,” said Felix, “it’s nothing that ayoung lady may not listen to. At least I suppose it isn’t. Butvoyons; you shall judge. I am terribly in love.”

“Well, Felix,” began Miss Wentworth, gravely. But her very gravityappeared to check the development of her phrase.

“I am in love with your sister; but in love, Charlotte—inlove!” the young man pursued. Charlotte had laid her work in her lap; herhands were tightly folded on top of it; she was staring at the carpet.“In short, I’m in love, dear lady,” said Felix. “Now Iwant you to help me.”

“To help you?” asked Charlotte, with a tremor.

“I don’t mean with Gertrude; she and I have a perfectunderstanding; and oh, how well she understands one! I mean with your fatherand with the world in general, including Mr. Brand.”

“Poor Mr. Brand!” said Charlotte, slowly, but with a simplicitywhich made it evident to Felix that the young minister had not repeated to MissWentworth the talk that had lately occurred between them.

“Ah, now, don’t say ‘poor’ Mr. Brand! I don’tpity Mr. Brand at all. But I pity your father a little, and I don’t wantto displease him. Therefore, you see, I want you to plead for me. Youdon’t think me very shabby, eh?”

“Shabby?” exclaimed Charlotte softly, for whom Felix representedthe most polished and iridescent qualities of mankind.

“I don’t mean in my appearance,” rejoined Felix, laughing;for Charlotte was looking at his boots. “I mean in my conduct. Youdon’t think it’s an abuse of hospitality?”

“To—to care for Gertrude?” asked Charlotte.

“To have really expressed one’s self. Because I haveexpressed myself, Charlotte; I must tell you the whole truth—I have! Ofcourse I want to marry her—and here is the difficulty. I held off as longas I could; but she is such a terribly fascinating person! She’s astrange creature, Charlotte; I don’t believe you really know her.”Charlotte took up her tapestry again, and again she laid it down. “I knowyour father has had higher views,” Felix continued; “and I thinkyou have shared them. You have wanted to marry her to Mr. Brand.”

“Oh, no,” said Charlotte, very earnestly. “Mr. Brand hasalways admired her. But we did not want anything of that kind.”

Felix stared. “Surely, marriage was what you proposed.”

“Yes; but we didn’t wish to force her.”

“A la bonne heure!That’s very unsafe you know. With thesearranged marriages there is often the deuce to pay.”

“Oh, Felix,” said Charlotte, “we didn’t want to‘arrange.’”

“I am delighted to hear that. Because in such cases—even when thewoman is a thoroughly good creature—she can’t help looking for acompensation. A charming fellow comes along—and voilà!”Charlotte sat mutely staring at the floor, and Felix presently added, “Dogo on with your slipper, I like to see you work.”

Charlotte took up her variegated canvas, and began to draw vague blue stitchesin a big round rose. “If Gertrude is so—so strange,” shesaid, “why do you want to marry her?”

“Ah, that’s it, dear Charlotte! I like strange women; I always haveliked them. Ask Eugenia! And Gertrude is wonderful; she says the most beautifulthings!”

Charlotte looked at him, almost for the first time, as if her meaning requiredto be severely pointed. “You have a great influence over her.”

“Yes—and no!” said Felix. “I had at first, I think; butnow it is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; it is reciprocal. Sheaffects me strongly—for she isso strong. I don’t believeyou know her; it’s a beautiful nature.”

“Oh, yes, Felix; I have always thought Gertrude’s naturebeautiful.”

“Well, if you think so now,” cried the young man, “wait andsee! She’s a folded flower. Let me pluck her from the parent tree and youwill see her expand. I’m sure you will enjoy it.”

“I don’t understand you,” murmured Charlotte. “Ican’t, Felix.”

“Well, you can understand this—that I beg you to say a good wordfor me to your father. He regards me, I naturally believe, as a very lightfellow, a Bohemian, an irregular character. Tell him I am not all this; if Iever was, I have forgotten it. I am fond of pleasure—yes; but of innocentpleasure. Pain is all one; but in pleasure, you know, there are tremendousdistinctions. Say to him that Gertrude is a folded flower and that I am aserious man!”

Charlotte got up from her chair slowly rolling up her work. “We know youare very kind to everyone, Felix,” she said. “But we are extremelysorry for Mr. Brand.”

“Of course you are—you especially! Because,” added Felixhastily, “you are a woman. But I don’t pity him. It ought to beenough for any man that you take an interest in him.”

“It is not enough for Mr. Brand,” said Charlotte, simply. And shestood there a moment, as if waiting conscientiously for anything more thatFelix might have to say.

“Mr. Brand is not so keen about his marriage as he was,” hepresently said. “He is afraid of your sister. He begins to think she iswicked.”

Charlotte looked at him now with beautiful, appealing eyes—eyes intowhich he saw the tears rising. “Oh, Felix, Felix,” she cried,“what have you done to her?”

“I think she was asleep; I have waked her up!”

But Charlotte, apparently, was really crying, she walked straight out of theroom. And Felix, standing there and meditating, had the apparent brutality totake satisfaction in her tears.

Late that night Gertrude, silent and serious, came to him in the garden; it wasa kind of appointment. Gertrude seemed to like appointments. She plucked ahandful of heliotrope and stuck it into the front of her dress, but she saidnothing. They walked together along one of the paths, and Felix looked at thegreat, square, hospitable house, massing itself vaguely in the starlight, withall its windows darkened.

“I have a little of a bad conscience,” he said. “Ioughtn’t to meet you this way till I have got your father’sconsent.”

Gertrude looked at him for some time. “I don’t understandyou.”

“You very often say that,” he said. “Considering how littlewe understand each other, it is a wonder how well we get on!”

“We have done nothing but meet since you came here—but meet alone.The first time I ever saw you we were alone,” Gertrude went on.“What is the difference now? Is it because it is at night?”

“The difference, Gertrude,” said Felix, stopping in the path,“the difference is that I love you more—more than before!”And then they stood there, talking, in the warm stillness and in front of theclosed dark house. “I have been talking to Charlotte—been trying tobespeak her interest with your father. She has a kind of sublime perversity;was ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her own head?”

“You are too careful,” said Gertrude; “you are toodiplomatic.”

“Well,” cried the young man, “I didn’t come here tomake anyone unhappy!”

Gertrude looked round her awhile in the odorous darkness. “I will doanything you please,” she said.

“For instance?” asked Felix, smiling.

“I will go away. I will do anything you please.”

Felix looked at her in solemn admiration. “Yes, we will go away,”he said. “But we will make peace first.”

Gertrude looked about her again, and then she broke out, passionately,“Why do they try to make one feel guilty? Why do they make it sodifficult? Why can’t they understand?”

“I will make them understand!” said Felix. He drew her hand intohis arm, and they wandered about in the garden, talking, for an hour.

CHAPTER XII

Felix allowed Charlotte time to plead his cause; and then, on the third day, hesought an interview with his uncle. It was in the morning; Mr. Wentworth was inhis office; and, on going in, Felix found that Charlotte was at that moment inconference with her father. She had, in fact, been constantly near him sinceher interview with Felix; she had made up her mind that it was her duty torepeat very literally her cousin’s passionate plea. She had accordinglyfollowed Mr. Wentworth about like a shadow, in order to find him at hand whenshe should have mustered sufficient composure to speak. For poor Charlotte, inthis matter, naturally lacked composure; especially when she meditated uponsome of Felix’s intimations. It was not cheerful work, at the best, tokeep giving small hammer-taps to the coffin in which one had laid away, forburial, the poor little unacknowledged offspring of one’s own misbehavingheart; and the occupation was not rendered more agreeable by the fact that theghost of one’s stifled dream had been summoned from the shades by thestrange, bold words of a talkative young foreigner. What had Felix meant bysaying that Mr. Brand was not so keen? To herself her sister’s justlydepressed suitor had shown no sign of faltering. Charlotte trembled all overwhen she allowed herself to believe for an instant now and then that,privately, Mr. Brand might have faltered; and as it seemed to give more forceto Felix’s words to repeat them to her father, she was waiting until sheshould have taught herself to be very calm. But she had now begun to tell Mr.Wentworth that she was extremely anxious. She was proceeding to develop thisidea, to enumerate the objects of her anxiety, when Felix came in.

Mr. Wentworth sat there, with his legs crossed, lifting his dry, purecountenance from the Boston Advertiser. Felix entered smiling, as if hehad something particular to say, and his uncle looked at him as if he bothexpected and deprecated this event. Felix vividly expressing himself had cometo be a formidable figure to his uncle, who had not yet arrived at definiteviews as to a proper tone. For the first time in his life, as I have said, Mr.Wentworth shirked a responsibility; he earnestly desired that it might not belaid upon him to determine how his nephew’s lighter propositions shouldbe treated. He lived under an apprehension that Felix might yet beguile himinto assent to doubtful inductions, and his conscience instructed him that thebest form of vigilance was the avoidance of discussion. He hoped that thepleasant episode of his nephew’s visit would pass away without a furtherlapse of consistency.

Felix looked at Charlotte with an air of understanding, and then at Mr.Wentworth, and then at Charlotte again. Mr. Wentworth bent his refined eyebrowsupon his nephew and stroked down the first page of the Advertiser.“I ought to have brought a bouquet,” said Felix, laughing.“In France they always do.”

“We are not in France,” observed Mr. Wentworth, gravely, whileCharlotte earnestly gazed at him.

“No, luckily, we are not in France, where I am afraid I should have aharder time of it. My dear Charlotte, have you rendered me that delightfulservice?” And Felix bent toward her as if someone had been presentinghim.

Charlotte looked at him with almost frightened eyes; and Mr. Wentworth thoughtthis might be the beginning of a discussion. “What is the bouquetfor?” he inquired, by way of turning it off.

Felix gazed at him, smiling. “Pour la demande!”And then,drawing up a chair, he seated himself, hat in hand, with a kind of conscioussolemnity.

Presently he turned to Charlotte again. “My good Charlotte, my admirableCharlotte,” he murmured, “you have not played me false—youhave not sided against me?”

Charlotte got up, trembling extremely, though imperceptibly. “You mustspeak to my father yourself,” she said. “I think you are cleverenough.”

But Felix, rising too, begged her to remain. “I can speak better to anaudience!” he declared.

“I hope it is nothing disagreeable,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“It’s something delightful, for me!” And Felix, laying downhis hat, clasped his hands a little between his knees. “My dearuncle,” he said, “I desire, very earnestly, to marry your daughterGertrude.” Charlotte sank slowly into her chair again, and Mr. Wentworthsat staring, with a light in his face that might have been flashed back from aniceberg. He stared and stared; he said nothing. Felix fell back, with his handsstill clasped. “Ah—you don’t like it. I was afraid!” Heblushed deeply, and Charlotte noticed it—remarking to herself that it wasthe first time she had ever seen him blush. She began to blush herself and toreflect that he might be much in love.

“This is very abrupt,” said Mr. Wentworth, at last.

“Have you never suspected it, dear uncle?” Felix inquired.“Well, that proves how discreet I have been. Yes, I thought youwouldn’t like it.”

“It is very serious, Felix,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“You think it’s an abuse of hospitality!” exclaimed Felix,smiling again.

“Of hospitality?—an abuse?” his uncle repeated very slowly.

“That is what Felix said to me,” said Charlotte, conscientiously.

“Of course you think so; don’t defend yourself!” Felixpursued. “It isan abuse, obviously; the most I can claim is thatit is perhaps a pardonable one. I simply fell head over heels in love; one canhardly help that. Though you are Gertrude’s progenitor I don’tbelieve you know how attractive she is. Dear uncle, she contains the elementsof a singularly—I may say a strangely—charming woman!”

“She has always been to me an object of extreme concern,” said Mr.Wentworth. “We have always desired her happiness.”

“Well, here it is!” Felix declared. “I will make her happy.She believes it, too. Now hadn’t you noticed that?”

“I had noticed that she was much changed,” Mr. Wentworth declared,in a tone whose unexpressive, unimpassioned quality appeared to Felix to reveala profundity of opposition. “It may be that she is only becoming what youcall a charming woman.”

“Gertrude, at heart, is so earnest, so true,” said Charlotte, verysoftly, fastening her eyes upon her father.

“I delight to hear you praise her!” cried Felix.

“She has a very peculiar temperament,” said Mr. Wentworth.

“Eh, even that is praise!” Felix rejoined. “I know I am notthe man you might have looked for. I have no position and no fortune; I cangive Gertrude no place in the world. A place in the world—that’swhat she ought to have; that would bring her out.”

“A place to do her duty!” remarked Mr. Wentworth.

“Ah, how charmingly she does it—her duty!” Felix exclaimed,with a radiant face. “What an exquisite conception she has of it! But shecomes honestly by that, dear uncle.” Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte bothlooked at him as if they were watching a greyhound doubling. “Of coursewith me she will hide her light under a bushel,” he continued; “Ibeing the bushel! Now I know you like me—you have certainly proved it.But you think I am frivolous and penniless and shabby!Granted—granted—a thousand times granted. I have been a loosefish—a fiddler, a painter, an actor. But there is this to be said: In thefirst place, I fancy you exaggerate; you lend me qualities I haven’t had.I have been a Bohemian—yes; but in Bohemia I always passed for agentleman. I wish you could see some of my old camarades—theywould tell you! It was the liberty I liked, but not the opportunities! My sinswere all peccadilloes; I always respected my neighbor’s property—myneighbor’s wife. Do you see, dear uncle?” Mr. Wentworth ought tohave seen; his cold blue eyes were intently fixed. “And then,c’est fini!It’s all over. Je me range. I havesettled down to a jog-trot. I find I can earn my living—a very fairone—by going about the world and painting bad portraits. It’s not aglorious profession, but it is a perfectly respectable one. You won’tdeny that, eh? Going about the world, I say? I must not deny that, for that Iam afraid I shall always do—in quest of agreeable sitters. When I sayagreeable, I mean susceptible of delicate flattery and prompt of payment.Gertrude declares she is willing to share my wanderings and help to pose mymodels. She even thinks it will be charming; and that brings me to my thirdpoint. Gertrude likes me. Encourage her a little and she will tell youso.”

Felix’s tongue obviously moved much faster than the imagination of hisauditors; his eloquence, like the rocking of a boat in a deep, smooth lake,made long eddies of silence. And he seemed to be pleading and chattering still,with his brightly eager smile, his uplifted eyebrows, his expressive mouth,after he had ceased speaking, and while, with his glance quickly turning fromthe father to the daughter, he sat waiting for the effect of his appeal.“It is not your want of means,” said Mr. Wentworth, after a periodof severe reticence.

“Now it’s delightful of you to say that! Only don’t sayit’s my want of character. Because I have a character—I assure youI have; a small one, a little slip of a thing, but still somethingtangible.”

“Ought you not to tell Felix that it is Mr. Brand, father?”Charlotte asked, with infinite mildness.

“It is not only Mr. Brand,” Mr. Wentworth solemnly declared. And helooked at his knee for a long time. “It is difficult to explain,”he said. He wished, evidently, to be very just. “It rests on moralgrounds, as Mr. Brand says. It is the question whether it is the best thing forGertrude.”

“What is better—what is better, dear uncle?” Felix rejoinedurgently, rising in his urgency and standing before Mr. Wentworth. His unclehad been looking at his knee; but when Felix moved he transferred his gaze tothe handle of the door which faced him. “It is usually a fairly goodthing for a girl to marry the man she loves!” cried Felix.

While he spoke, Mr. Wentworth saw the handle of the door begin to turn; thedoor opened and remained slightly ajar, until Felix had delivered himself ofthe cheerful axiom just quoted. Then it opened altogether and Gertrude stoodthere. She looked excited; there was a spark in her sweet, dull eyes. She camein slowly, but with an air of resolution, and, closing the door softly, lookedround at the three persons present. Felix went to her with tender gallantry,holding out his hand, and Charlotte made a place for her on the sofa. ButGertrude put her hands behind her and made no motion to sit down.

“We are talking of you!” said Felix.

“I know it,” she answered. “That’s why I came.”And she fastened her eyes on her father, who returned her gaze very fixedly. Inhis own cold blue eyes there was a kind of pleading, reasoning light.

“It is better you should be present,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Weare discussing your future.”

“Why discuss it?” asked Gertrude. “Leave it to me.”

“That is, to me!” cried Felix.

“I leave it, in the last resort, to a greater wisdom than ours,”said the old man.

Felix rubbed his forehead gently. “But en attendantthe lastresort, your father lacks confidence,” he said to Gertrude.

“Haven’t you confidence in Felix?” Gertrude was frowning;there was something about her that her father and Charlotte had never seen.Charlotte got up and came to her, as if to put her arm round her; but suddenly,she seemed afraid to touch her.

Mr. Wentworth, however, was not afraid. “I have had more confidence inFelix than in you,” he said.

“Yes, you have never had confidence in me—never, never! Idon’t know why.”

“Oh sister, sister!” murmured Charlotte.

“You have always needed advice,” Mr. Wentworth declared. “Youhave had a difficult temperament.”

“Why do you call it difficult? It might have been easy, if you hadallowed it. You wouldn’t let me be natural. I don’t know what youwanted to make of me. Mr. Brand was the worst.”

Charlotte at last took hold of her sister. She laid her two hands uponGertrude’s arm. “He cares so much for you,” she almostwhispered.

Gertrude looked at her intently an instant; then kissed her. “No, he doesnot,” she said.

“I have never seen you so passionate,” observed Mr. Wentworth, withan air of indignation mitigated by high principles.

“I am sorry if I offend you,” said Gertrude.

“You offend me, but I don’t think you are sorry.”

“Yes, father, she is sorry,” said Charlotte.

“I would even go further, dear uncle,” Felix interposed. “Iwould question whether she really offends you. How can she offend you?”

To this Mr. Wentworth made no immediate answer. Then, in a moment, “Shehas not profited as we hoped.”

“Profited? Ah voilà!” Felix exclaimed.

Gertrude was very pale; she stood looking down. “I have told Felix Iwould go away with him,” she presently said.

“Ah, you have said some admirable things!” cried the young man.

“Go away, sister?” asked Charlotte.

“Away—away; to some strange country.”

“That is to frighten you,” said Felix, smiling at Charlotte.

“To—what do you call it?” asked Gertrude, turning an instantto Felix. “To Bohemia.”

“Do you propose to dispense with preliminaries?” asked Mr.Wentworth, getting up.

“Dear uncle, vous plaisantez!” cried Felix. “It seemsto me that these are preliminaries.”

Gertrude turned to her father. “I haveprofited,” she said.“You wanted to form my character. Well, my character is formed—formy age. I know what I want; I have chosen. I am determined to marry thisgentleman.”

“You had better consent, sir,” said Felix very gently.

“Yes, sir, you had better consent,” added a very different voice.

Charlotte gave a little jump, and the others turned to the direction from whichit had come. It was the voice of Mr. Brand, who had stepped through the longwindow which stood open to the piazza. He stood patting his forehead with hispocket-handkerchief; he was very much flushed; his face wore a singularexpression.

“Yes, sir, you had better consent,” Mr. Brand repeated, comingforward. “I know what Miss Gertrude means.”

“My dear friend!” murmured Felix, laying his hand caressingly onthe young minister’s arm.

Mr. Brand looked at him; then at Mr. Wentworth; lastly at Gertrude. He did notlook at Charlotte. But Charlotte’s earnest eyes were fastened to his owncountenance; they were asking an immense question of it. The answer to thisquestion could not come all at once; but some of the elements of it were there.It was one of the elements of it that Mr. Brand was very red, that he held hishead very high, that he had a bright, excited eye and an air of embarrassedboldness—the air of a man who has taken a resolve, in the execution ofwhich he apprehends the failure, not of his moral, but of his personal,resources. Charlotte thought he looked very grand; and it is incontestable thatMr. Brand felt very grand. This, in fact, was the grandest moment of his life;and it was natural that such a moment should contain opportunities ofawkwardness for a large, stout, modest young man.

“Come in, sir,” said Mr. Wentworth, with an angular wave of hishand. “It is very proper that you should be present.”

“I know what you are talking about,” Mr. Brand rejoined. “Iheard what your nephew said.”

“And he heard what you said!” exclaimed Felix, patting him again onthe arm.

“I am not sure that I understood,” said Mr. Wentworth, who hadangularity in his voice as well as in his gestures.

Gertrude had been looking hard at her former suitor. She had been puzzled, likeher sister; but her imagination moved more quickly than Charlotte’s.“Mr. Brand asked you to let Felix take me away,” she said to herfather.

The young minister gave her a strange look. “It is not because Idon’t want to see you any more,” he declared, in a tone intended asit were for publicity.

“I shouldn’t think you would want to see me any more,”Gertrude answered, gently.

Mr. Wentworth stood staring. “Isn’t this rather a change,sir?” he inquired.

“Yes, sir.” And Mr. Brand looked anywhere; only still not atCharlotte. “Yes, sir,” he repeated. And he held his handkerchief afew moments to his lips.

“Where are our moral grounds?” demanded Mr. Wentworth, who hadalways thought Mr. Brand would be just the thing for a younger daughter with apeculiar temperament.

“It is sometimes very moral to change, you know,” suggested Felix.

Charlotte had softly left her sister’s side. She had edged gently towardher father, and now her hand found its way into his arm. Mr. Wentworth hadfolded up the Advertiserinto a surprisingly small compass, and, holdingthe roll with one hand, he earnestly clasped it with the other. Mr. Brand waslooking at him; and yet, though Charlotte was so near, his eyes failed to meether own. Gertrude watched her sister.

“It is better not to speak of change,” said Mr. Brand. “Inone sense there is no change. There was something I desired—something Iasked of you; I desire something still—I ask it of you.” And hepaused a moment; Mr. Wentworth looked bewildered. “I should like, in myministerial capacity, to unite this young couple.”

Gertrude, watching her sister, saw Charlotte flushing intensely, and Mr.Wentworth felt her pressing upon his arm. “Heavenly Powers!”murmured Mr. Wentworth. And it was the nearest approach to profanity he hadever made.

“That is very nice; that is very handsome!” Felix exclaimed.

“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Wentworth; though it was plainthat everyone else did.

“That is very beautiful, Mr. Brand,” said Gertrude, emulatingFelix.

“I should like to marry you. It will give me great pleasure.”

“As Gertrude says, it’s a beautiful idea,” said Felix.

Felix was smiling, but Mr. Brand was not even trying to. He himself treated hisproposition very seriously. “I have thought of it, and I should like todo it,” he affirmed.

Charlotte, meanwhile, was staring with expanded eyes. Her imagination, as Ihave said, was not so rapid as her sister’s, but now it had taken severallittle jumps. “Father,” she murmured, “consent!”

Mr. Brand heard her; he looked away. Mr. Wentworth, evidently, had noimagination at all. “I have always thought,” he began, slowly,“that Gertrude’s character required a special line ofdevelopment.”

“Father,” repeated Charlotte, “consent.”

Then, at last, Mr. Brand looked at her. Her father felt her leaning moreheavily upon his folded arm than she had ever done before; and this, with acertain sweet faintness in her voice, made him wonder what was the matter. Helooked down at her and saw the encounter of her gaze with the youngtheologian’s; but even this told him nothing, and he continued to bebewildered. Nevertheless, “I consent,” he said at last,“since Mr. Brand recommends it.”

“I should like to perform the ceremony very soon,” observed Mr.Brand, with a sort of solemn simplicity.

“Come, come, that’s charming!” cried Felix, profanely.

Mr. Wentworth sank into his chair. “Doubtless, when you understandit,” he said, with a certain judicial asperity.

Gertrude went to her sister and led her away, and Felix having passed his arminto Mr. Brand’s and stepped out of the long window with him, the old manwas left sitting there in unillumined perplexity.

Felix did no work that day. In the afternoon, with Gertrude, he got into one ofthe boats and floated about with idly-dipping oars. They talked a good deal ofMr. Brand—though not exclusively.

“That was a fine stroke,” said Felix. “It was reallyheroic.”

Gertrude sat musing, with her eyes upon the ripples. “That was what hewanted to be; he wanted to do something fine.”

“He won’t be comfortable till he has married us,” said Felix.“So much the better.”

“He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral pleasure. Iknow him so well,” Gertrude went on. Felix looked at her; she spokeslowly, gazing at the clear water. “He thought of it a great deal, nightand day. He thought it would be beautiful. At last he made up his mind that itwas his duty, his duty to do just that—nothing less than that. He feltexalted; he felt sublime. That’s how he likes to feel. It is better forhim than if I had listened to him.”

“It’s better for me,” smiled Felix. “But do you know,as regards the sacrifice, that I don’t believe he admired you when thisdecision was taken quite so much as he had done a fortnight before?”

“He never admired me. He admires Charlotte; he pitied me. I know him sowell.”

“Well, then, he didn’t pity you so much.”

Gertrude looked at Felix a little, smiling. “You shouldn’t permityourself,” she said, “to diminish the splendor of his action. Headmires Charlotte,” she repeated.

“That’s capital!” said Felix laughingly, and dipping hisoars. I cannot say exactly to which member of Gertrude’s phrase healluded; but he dipped his oars again, and they kept floating about.

Neither Felix nor his sister, on that day, was present at Mr. Wentworth’sat the evening repast. The two occupants of the chalet dined together, and theyoung man informed his companion that his marriage was now an assured fact.Eugenia congratulated him, and replied that if he were as reasonable a husbandas he had been, on the whole, a brother, his wife would have nothing tocomplain of.

Felix looked at her a moment, smiling. “I hope,” he said,“not to be thrown back on my reason.”

“It is very true,” Eugenia rejoined, “that one’s reasonis dismally flat. It’s a bed with the mattress removed.”

But the brother and sister, later in the evening, crossed over to the largerhouse, the Baroness desiring to compliment her prospective sister-in-law. Theyfound the usual circle upon the piazza, with the exception of CliffordWentworth and Lizzie Acton; and as everyone stood up as usual to welcome theBaroness, Eugenia had an admiring audience for her compliment to Gertrude.

Robert Acton stood on the edge of the piazza, leaning against one of the whitecolumns, so that he found himself next to Eugenia while she acquitted herselfof a neat little discourse of congratulation.

“I shall be so glad to know you better,” she said; “I haveseen so much less of you than I should have liked. Naturally; now I see thereason why! You will love me a little, won’t you? I think I may say Igain on being known.” And terminating these observations with the softestcadence of her voice, the Baroness imprinted a sort of grand official kiss uponGertrude’s forehead.

Increased familiarity had not, to Gertrude’s imagination, diminished themysterious impressiveness of Eugenia’s personality, and she feltflattered and transported by this little ceremony. Robert Acton also seemed toadmire it, as he admired so many of the gracious manifestations of MadameMünster’s wit.

They had the privilege of making him restless, and on this occasion he walkedaway, suddenly, with his hands in his pockets, and then came back and leanedagainst his column. Eugenia was now complimenting her uncle upon hisdaughter’s engagement, and Mr. Wentworth was listening with his usualplain yet refined politeness. It is to be supposed that by this time hisperception of the mutual relations of the young people who surrounded him hadbecome more acute; but he still took the matter very seriously, and he was notat all exhilarated.

“Felix will make her a good husband,” said Eugenia. “He willbe a charming companion; he has a great quality—indestructiblegaiety.”

“You think that’s a great quality?” asked the old man.

Eugenia meditated, with her eyes upon his. “You think one gets tired ofit, eh?”

“I don’t know that I am prepared to say that,” said Mr.Wentworth.

“Well, we will say, then, that it is tiresome for others but delightfulfor one’s self. A woman’s husband, you know, is supposed to be hersecond self; so that, for Felix and Gertrude, gaiety will be a commonproperty.”

“Gertrude was always very gay,” said Mr. Wentworth. He was tryingto follow this argument.

Robert Acton took his hands out of his pockets and came a little nearer to theBaroness. “You say you gain by being known,” he said. “Onecertainly gains by knowing you.”

“What have yougained?” asked Eugenia.

“An immense amount of wisdom.”

“That’s a questionable advantage for a man who was already sowise!”

Acton shook his head. “No, I was a great fool before I knew you!”

“And being a fool you made my acquaintance? You are verycomplimentary.”

“Let me keep it up,” said Acton, laughing. “I hope, for ourpleasure, that your brother’s marriage will detain you.”

“Why should I stop for my brother’s marriage when I would not stopfor my own?” asked the Baroness.

“Why shouldn’t you stop in either case, now that, as you say, youhave dissolved that mechanical tie that bound you to Europe?”

The Baroness looked at him a moment. “As I say? You look as if youdoubted it.”

“Ah,” said Acton, returning her glance, “that is a remnant ofmy old folly! We have other attractions,” he added. “We are to haveanother marriage.”

But she seemed not to hear him; she was looking at him still. “My wordwas never doubted before,” she said.

“We are to have another marriage,” Acton repeated, smiling.

Then she appeared to understand. “Another marriage?” And she lookedat the others. Felix was chattering to Gertrude; Charlotte, at a distance, waswatching them; and Mr. Brand, in quite another quarter, was turning his back tothem, and, with his hands under his coat-tails and his large head on one side,was looking at the small, tender crescent of a young moon. “It ought tobe Mr. Brand and Charlotte,” said Eugenia, “but it doesn’tlook like it.”

“There,” Acton answered, “you must judge just now bycontraries. There is more than there looks to be. I expect that combination oneof these days; but that is not what I meant.”

“Well,” said the Baroness, “I never guess my own lovers; so Ican’t guess other people’s.”

Acton gave a loud laugh, and he was about to add a rejoinder when Mr. Wentworthapproached his niece. “You will be interested to hear,” the old mansaid, with a momentary aspiration toward jocosity, “of anothermatrimonial venture in our little circle.”

“I was just telling the Baroness,” Acton observed.

“Mr. Acton was apparently about to announce his own engagement,”said Eugenia.

Mr. Wentworth’s jocosity increased. “It is not exactly that; but itis in the family. Clifford, hearing this morning that Mr. Brand had expressed adesire to tie the nuptial knot for his sister, took it into his head to arrangethat, while his hand was in, our good friend should perform a like ceremony forhimself and Lizzie Acton.”

The Baroness threw back her head and smiled at her uncle; then turning, with anintenser radiance, to Robert Acton, “I am certainly very stupid not tohave thought of that,” she said. Acton looked down at his boots, as if hethought he had perhaps reached the limits of legitimate experimentation, andfor a moment Eugenia said nothing more. It had been, in fact, a sharp knock,and she needed to recover herself. This was done, however, promptly enough.“Where are the young people?” she asked.

“They are spending the evening with my mother.”

“Is not the thing very sudden?”

Acton looked up. “Extremely sudden. There had been a tacit understanding;but within a day or two Clifford appears to have received some mysteriousimpulse to precipitate the affair.”

“The impulse,” said the Baroness, “was the charms of yourvery pretty sister.”

“But my sister’s charms were an old story; he had always knownher.” Acton had begun to experiment again.

Here, however, it was evident the Baroness would not help him. “Ah, onecan’t say! Clifford is very young; but he is a nice boy.”

“He’s a likeable sort of boy, and he will be a rich man.”This was Acton’s last experiment. Madame Münster turned away.

She made but a short visit and Felix took her home. In her little drawing-roomshe went almost straight to the mirror over the chimney-piece, and, with acandle uplifted, stood looking into it. “I shall not wait for yourmarriage,” she said to her brother. “Tomorrow my maid shall packup.”

“My dear sister,” Felix exclaimed, “we are to be marriedimmediately! Mr. Brand is too uncomfortable.”

But Eugenia, turning and still holding her candle aloft, only looked about thelittle sitting-room at her gimcracks and curtains and cushions. “My maidshall pack up,” she repeated. “Bonté divine, what rubbish! Ifeel like a strolling actress; these are my ‘properties.’”

“Is the play over, Eugenia?” asked Felix.

She gave him a sharp glance. “I have spoken my part.”

“With great applause!” said her brother.

“Oh, applause—applause!” she murmured. And she gathered uptwo or three of her dispersed draperies. She glanced at the beautiful brocade,and then, “I don’t see how I can have endured it!” she said.

“Endure it a little longer. Come to my wedding.”

“Thank you; that’s your affair. My affairs are elsewhere.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Germany—by the first ship.”

“You have decided not to marry Mr. Acton?”

“I have refused him,” said Eugenia.

Her brother looked at her in silence. “I am sorry,” he rejoined atlast. “But I was very discreet, as you asked me to be. I saidnothing.”

“Please continue, then, not to allude to the matter,” said Eugenia.

Felix inclined himself gravely. “You shall be obeyed. But your positionin Germany?” he pursued.

“Please to make no observations upon it.”

“I was only going to say that I supposed it was altered.”

“You are mistaken.”

“But I thought you had signed——”

“I have not signed!” said the Baroness.

Felix urged her no further, and it was arranged that he should immediatelyassist her to embark.

Mr. Brand was indeed, it appeared, very impatient to consummate his sacrificeand deliver the nuptial benediction which would set it off so handsomely; butEugenia’s impatience to withdraw from a country in which she had notfound the fortune she had come to seek was even less to be mistaken. It is trueshe had not made any very various exertion; but she appeared to feel justifiedin generalizing—in deciding that the conditions of action on thisprovincial continent were not favorable to really superior women. The elderworld was, after all, their natural field. The unembarrassed directness withwhich she proceeded to apply these intelligent conclusions appeared to thelittle circle of spectators who have figured in our narrative but the supremeexhibition of a character to which the experience of life had imparted aninimitable pliancy. It had a distinct effect upon Robert Acton, who, for thetwo days preceding her departure, was a very restless and irritated mortal. Shepassed her last evening at her uncle’s, where she had never been morecharming; and in parting with Clifford Wentworth’s affianced bride shedrew from her own finger a curious old ring and presented it to her with theprettiest speech and kiss. Gertrude, who as an affianced bride was alsoindebted to her gracious bounty, admired this little incident extremely, andRobert Acton almost wondered whether it did not give him the right, asLizzie’s brother and guardian, to offer in return a handsome present tothe Baroness. It would have made him extremely happy to be able to offer ahandsome present to the Baroness; but he abstained from this expression of hissentiments, and they were in consequence, at the very last, by so much the lesscomfortable. It was almost at the very last that he saw her—late thenight before she went to Boston to embark.

“For myself, I wish you might have stayed,” he said. “But notfor your own sake.”

“I don’t make so many differences,” said the Baroness.“I am simply sorry to be going.”

“That’s a much deeper difference than mine,” Acton declared;“for you mean you are simply glad!”

Felix parted with her on the deck of the ship. “We shall often meet overthere,” he said.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Europe seems to me muchlarger than America.”

Mr. Brand, of course, in the days that immediately followed, was not the onlyimpatient spirit; but it may be said that of all the young spirits interestedin the event none rose more eagerly to the level of the occasion. Gertrude lefther father’s house with Felix Young; they were imperturbably happy andthey went far away. Clifford and his young wife sought their felicity in anarrower circle, and the latter’s influence upon her husband was such asto justify, strikingly, that theory of the elevating effect of easy intercoursewith clever women which Felix had propounded to Mr. Wentworth. Gertrude was fora good while a distant figure, but she came back when Charlotte married Mr.Brand. She was present at the wedding feast, where Felix’s gaietyconfessed to no change. Then she disappeared, and the echo of a gaiety of herown, mingled with that of her husband, often came back to the home of herearlier years. Mr. Wentworth at last found himself listening for it; and RobertActon, after his mother’s death, married a particularly nice young girl.

The End

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