


Confidence
by
Henry James
Library of America edition, 1983





It was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been
spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled northward with the
consciousness of several social duties that appealed to him from the
further side of the Alps, but he was under the charm of the Italian
spring, and he made a pretext for lingering. He had spent five days at
Siena, where he had intended to spend but two, and still it was
impossible to continue his journey. He was a young man of a
contemplative and speculative turn, and this was his first visit to
Italy, so that if he dallied by the way he should not be harshly
judged.  He had a fancy for sketching, and it was on his conscience to
take a few pictorial notes. There were two old inns at Siena, both of
them very shabby and very dirty. The one at which Longueville had
taken up his abode was entered by a dark, pestiferous arch-way,
surmounted by a sign which at a distance might have been read by the
travellers as the Dantean injunction to renounce all hope. The other
was not far off, and the day after his arrival, as he passed it, he
saw two ladies going in who evidently belonged to the large fraternity
of Anglo-Saxon tourists, and one of whom was young and carried herself
very well. Longueville had his shareor more than his
shareof gallantry, and this incident awakened a regret. If he
had gone to the other inn he might have had charming company: at his
own establishment there was no one but an ; aesthetic German who
smoked bad tobacco in the dining-room. He remarked to himself that
this was always his luck, and the remark was characteristic of the
man; it was charged with the feeling of the moment, but it was not
absolutely just; it was the result of an acute impression made by the
particular occasion; but it failed in appreciation of a providence
which had sprinkled Longueville's career with happy
accidentsaccidents, especially, in which his characteristic
gallantry was not allowed to rust for want of exercise.  He lounged,
however, contentedly enough through these bright, still days of a
Tuscan April, drawing much entertainment from the high picturesqueness
of the things about him. Siena, a few years since, was a flawless gift
of the Middle Ages to the modern imagination. No other Italian city
could have been more interesting to an observer fond of reconstructing
obsolete manners. This was a taste of Bernard Longueville's, who had a
relish for serious literature, and at one time had made several lively
excursions into medi&aelig;val history. His friends thought him very
clever, and at the same time had an easy feeling about him which was a
tribute to his freedom from pedantry. He was clever indeed, and an
excellent companion; but the real measure of his brilliancy was in the
success with which he entertained himself. He was much addicted to
conversing with his own wit, and he greatly enjoyed his own society.
Clever as he often was in talking with his friends, I am not sure that
his best things, as the phrase is, were not for his own ears. And this
was not on account of any cynical contempt for the understanding of
his fellow-creatures: it was simply because what I have called his own
society was more of a stimulus than that of most other people. And yet
he was not for this reason fond of solitude; he was, on the contrary,
a very sociable animal. It must be admitted at the outset that he had
a nature which seemed at several points to contradict itself, as will
probably be perceived in the course of this narration.

He entertained himself greatly with his reflections and meditations
upon Sienese architecture and early Tuscan art, upon Italian
street-life and the geological idiosyncrasies of the Apennines. If he
had only gone to the other inn, that nice-looking girl whom he had
seen passing under the dusky portal with her face turned away from him
might have broken bread with him at this intellectual banquet. Then
came a day, however, when it seemed for a moment that if she were
disposed she might gather up the crumbs of the feast. Longueville,
every morning after breakfast, took a turn in the great square of
Sienathe vast piazza, shaped like a horse-shoe, where the
market is held beneath the windows of that crenellated palace from
whose overhanging cornice a tall, straight tower springs up with a
movement as light as that of a single plume in the bonnet of a
captain. Here he strolled about, watching a brown contadino
disembarrass his donkey, noting the progress of half an hour's chaffer
over a bundle of carrots, wishing a young girl with eyes like animated
agates would let him sketch her, and gazing up at intervals at the
beautiful, slim tower, as it played at contrasts with the large blue
air. After he had spent the greater part of a week in these grave
considerations, he made up his mind to leave Siena. But he was not
content with what he had done for his portfolio.  Siena was eminently
sketchable, but he had not been industrious. On the last morning of
his visit, as he stood staring about him in the crowded piazza, and
feeling that, in spite of its picturesqueness, this was an awkward
place for setting up an easel, he bethought himself, by contrast, of a
quiet corner in another part of the town, which he had chanced upon in
one of his first walksan angle of a lonely terrace that abutted
upon the city-wall, where three or four superannuated objects seemed
to slumber in the sunshinethe open door of an empty church,
with a faded fresco exposed to the air in the arch above it, and an
ancient beggar-woman sitting beside it on a three-legged stool.  The
little terrace had an old polished parapet, about as high as a man's
breast, above which was a view of strange, sad-colored hills.
Outside, to the left, the wall of the town made an outward bend, and
exposed its rugged and rusty complexion. There was a smooth stone
bench set into the wall of the church, on which Longueville had rested
for an hour, observing the composition of the little picture of which
I have indicated the elements, and of which the parapet of the terrace
would form the foreground. The thing was what painters call a subject,
and he had promised himself to come back with his utensils. This
morning he returned to the inn and took possession of them, and then
he made his way through a labyrinth of empty streets, lying on the
edge of the town, within the wall, like the superfluous folds of a
garment whose wearer has shrunken with old age. He reached his little
grass-grown terrace, and found it as sunny and as private as before.
The old mendicant was mumbling petitions, sacred and profane, at the
church door; but save for this the stillness was unbroken. The yellow
sunshine warmed the brown surface of the city-wall, and lighted the
hollows of the Etruscan hills. Longueville settled himself on the
empty bench, and, arranging his little portable apparatus, began to
ply his brushes.  He worked for some time smoothly and rapidly, with
an agreeable sense of the absence of obstacles. It seemed almost an
interruption when, in the silent air, he heard a distant bell in the
town strike noon.  Shortly after this, there was another interruption.
The sound of a soft footstep caused him to look up; whereupon he saw a
young woman standing there and bending her eyes upon the graceful
artist. A second glance assured him that she was that nice girl whom
he had seen going into the other inn with her mother, and suggested
that she had just emerged from the little church. He suspected,
howeverI hardly know whythat she had been looking at him
for some moments before he perceived her. It would perhaps be
impertinent to inquire what she thought of him; but Longueville, in
the space of an instant, made two or three reflections upon the young
lady. One of them was to the effect that she was a handsome creature,
but that she looked rather bold; the burden of the other was
thatyes, decidedlyshe was a compatriot. She turned away
almost as soon as she met his eyes; he had hardly time to raise his
hat, as, after a moment's hesitation, he proceeded to do. She herself
appeared to feel a certain hesitation; she glanced back at the church
door, as if under the impulse to retrace her steps. She stood there a
moment longerlong enough to let him see that she was a person
of easy attitudesand then she walked away slowly to the parapet
of the terrace. Here she stationed herself, leaning her arms upon the
high stone ledge, presenting her back to Longueville, and gazing at
rural Italy. Longueville went on with his sketch, but less attentively
than before. He wondered what this young lady was doing there alone,
and then it occurred to him that her companionher mother,
presumablywas in the church. The two ladies had been in the
church when he arrived; women liked to sit in churches; they had been
there more than half an hour, and the mother had not enough of it even
yet. The young lady, however, at present preferred the view that
Longueville was painting; he became aware that she had placed herself
in the very centre of his foreground. His first feeling was that she
would spoil it; his second was that she would improve it. Little by
little she turned more into profile, leaning only one arm upon the
parapet, while the other hand, holding her folded parasol, hung down
at her side. She was motionless; it was almost as if she were standing
there on purpose to be drawn.  Yes, certainly she improved the
picture. Her profile, delicate and thin, defined itself against the
sky, in the clear shadow of a coquettish hat; her figure was light;
she bent and leaned easily; she wore a gray dress, fastened up as was
then the fashion, and displaying the broad edge of a crimson
petticoat. She kept her position; she seemed absorbed in the view.
Is she posingis she attitudinizing for my benefit?
Longueville asked of himself. And then it seemed to him that this was
a needless assumption, for the prospect was quite beautiful enough to
be looked at for itself, and there was nothing impossible in a pretty
girl having a love of fine landscape. But posing or not, he
went on, I will put her into my sketch. She has simply put
herself in. It will give it a human interest. There is nothing like
having a human interest So, with the ready skill that he
possessed, he introduced the young girl's figure into his foreground,
and at the end of ten minutes he had almost made something that had
the form of a likeness. If she will only be quiet for another ten
minutes, he said, the thing will really be a picture.  
Unfortunately, the young lady was not quiet; she had apparently had
enough of her attitude and her view. She turned away, facing
Longueville again, and slowly came back, as if to re-enter the church.
To do so she had to pass near him, and as she approached he
instinctively got up, holding his drawing in one hand. She looked at
him again, with that expression that he had mentally characterized as
bold, a few minutes beforewith dark, intelligent
eyes. Her hair was dark and dense; she was a strikingly handsome girl.

I am so sorry you moved, he said, confidently, in
English.  You were soso beautiful

She stopped, looking at him more directly than ever; and she looked
at his sketch, which he held out toward her. At the sketch, however,
she only glanced, whereas there was observation in the eye that she
bent upon Longueville. He never knew whether she had blushed; he
afterward thought she might have been frightened. Nevertheless, it was
not exactly terror that appeared to dictate her answer to
Longueville's speech.

I am much obliged to you. Don't you think you have looked at
me enough?

By no means. I should like so much to finish my drawing

I am not a professional model, said the young lady.

No. That 's my difficulty, Longueville answered,
laughing. I can't propose to remunerate you

The young lady seemed to think this joke in indifferent taste. She
turned away in silence; but something in her expression, in his
feeling at the time, in the situation, incited Longueville to higher
play. He felt a lively need of carrying his point.

You see it will be pure kindness, he went
on,a simple act of charity. Five minutes will be enough.
Treat me as an Italian beggar

She had laid down his sketch and had stepped forward. He stood
there, obsequious, clasping his hands and smiling.

His interruptress stopped and looked at him again, as if she
thought him a very odd person; but she seemed amused. Now, at any
rate, she was not frightened. She seemed even disposed to provoke him
a little.

I wish to go to my mother, she said.

Where is your mother? the young man asked.

In the church, of course. I did n't come here alone!

Of course not; but you may be sure that your mother is very
contented. I have been in that little church. It is charming. She is
just resting there; she is probably tired. If you will kindly give me
five minutes more, she will come out to you

Five minutes? the young girl asked.

Five minutes will do. I shall be eternally grateful
Longueville was amused at himself as he said this. He cared infinitely
less for his sketch than the words appeared to imply; but, somehow, he
cared greatly that this graceful stranger should do what he had
proposed.

The graceful stranger dropped an eye on the sketch again.

Is your picture so good as that? she asked.

I have a great deal of talent, he answered, laughing.
You shall see for yourself, when it is finished

She turned slowly toward the terrace again.

You certainly have a great deal of talent, to induce me to do
what you ask And she walked to where she had stood before.
Longueville made a movement to go with her, as if to show her the
attitude he meant; but, pointing with decision to his easel, she
said

You have only five minutes He immediately went back to
his work, and she made a vague attempt to take up her position.
You must tell me if this will do, she added, in a moment.

It will do beautifully, Longueville answered, in a happy
tone, looking at her and plying his brush. It is immensely good
of you to take so much trouble

For a moment she made no rejoinder, but presently she said

Of course if I pose at all I wish to pose well

You pose admirably, said Longueville.

After this she said nothing, and for several minutes he painted
rapidly and in silence. He felt a certain excitement, and the movement
of his thoughts kept pace with that of his brush. It was very true
that she posed admirably; she was a fine creature to paint. Her
prettiness inspired him, and also her audacity, as he was content to
regard it for the moment. He wondered about herwho she was, and
what she wasperceiving that the so-called audacity was not
vulgar boldness, but the play of an original and probably interesting
character. It was obvious that she was a perfect lady, but it was
equally obvious that she was irregularly clever. Longueville's little
figure was a successa charming success, he thought, as he put
on the last touches.  While he was doing this, his model's companion
came into view. She came out of the church, pausing a moment as she
looked from her daughter to the young man in the corner of the
terrace; then she walked straight over to the young girl. She was a
delicate little gentlewoman, with a light, quick step.

Longueville's five minutes were up; so, leaving his place, he
approached the two ladies, sketch in hand. The elder one, who had
passed her hand into her daughter's arm, looked up at him with clear,
surprised eyes; she was a charming old woman. Her eyes were very
pretty, and on either side of them, above a pair of fine dark brows,
was a band of silvery hair, rather coquettishly arranged.

It is my portrait, said her daughter, as Longueville drew
near.  This gentleman has been sketching me

Sketching you, dearest? murmured her mother. Was n't
it rather sudden?

Very suddenvery abrupt! exclaimed the young girl
with a laugh.

Considering all that, it 's very good, said Longueville,
offering his picture to the elder lady, who took it and began to
examine it. I can't tell you how much I thank you, he said
to his model.

It 's very well for you to thank me now, she replied.
You really had no right to begin

The temptation was so great

We should resist temptation. And you should have asked my
leave

I was afraid you would refuse it; and you stood there, just in
my line of vision

You should have asked me to get out of it

I should have been very sorry. Besides, it would have been
extremely rude

The young girl looked at him a moment.

Yes, I think it would. But what you have done is ruder

It is a hard case! said Longueville. What could I
have done, then, decently?

It 's a beautiful drawing, murmured the elder lady,
handing the thing back to Longueville. Her daughter, meanwhile, had
not even glanced at it.

You might have waited till I should go away, this
argumentative young person continued.

Longueville shook his head.

I never lose opportunities!

You might have sketched me afterwards, from memory

Longueville looked at her, smiling.

Judge how much better my memory will be now!

She also smiled a little, but instantly became serious.

For myself, it 's an episode I shall try to forget. I don't
like the part I have played in it

May you never play a less becoming one! cried
Longueville. I hope that your mother, at least, will accept a
memento of the occasion And he turned again with his sketch to
her companion, who had been listening to the girl's conversation with
this enterprising stranger, and looking from one to the other with an
air of earnest confusion.  Won't you do me the honor of keeping
my sketch? he said. I think it really looks like your
daughter

Oh, thank you, thank you; I hardly dare, murmured the
lady, with a deprecating gesture.

It will serve as a kind of amends for the liberty I have
taken, Longueville added; and he began to remove the drawing from
its paper block.

It makes it worse for you to give it to us, said the
young girl.

Oh, my dear, I am sure it 's lovely! exclaimed her
mother. It 's wonderfully like you

I think that also makes it worse!

Longueville was at last nettled. The young lady's perversity was
perhaps not exactly malignant; but it was certainly ungracious. She
seemed to desire to present herself as a beautiful tormentress.

How does it make it worse? he asked, with a frown.

He believed she was clever, and she was certainly ready. Now,
however, she reflected a moment before answering.

That you should give us your sketch, she said at last.

It was to your mother I offered it, Longueville observed.

But this observation, the fruit of his irritation, appeared to have
no effect upon the young girl.

Is n't it what painters call a study? she went on. A
study is of use to the painter himself. Your justification would be
that you should keep your sketch, and that it might be of use to
you

My daughter is a study, sir, you will say, said the elder
lady in a little, light, conciliating voice, and graciously accepting
the drawing again.

I will admit, said Longueville, that I am very
inconsistent.  Set it down to my esteem, madam, he added, looking
at the mother.

That 's for you, mamma, said his model, disengaging her
arm from her mother's hand and turning away.

The mamma stood looking at the sketch with a smile which seemed to
express a tender desire to reconcile all accidents.

It 's extremely beautiful, she murmured, and if you
insist on my taking it

I shall regard it as a great honor

Very well, then; with many thanks, I will keep it She
looked at the young man a moment, while her daughter walked away.
Longueville thought her a delightful little person; she struck him as
a sort of transfigured Quakeressa mystic with a practical side.
I am sure you think she 's a strange girl, she said.

She is extremely pretty

She is very clever, said the mother.

She is wonderfully graceful

Ah, but she 's good! cried the old lady.

I am sure she comes honestly by that, said Longueville,
expressively, while his companion, returning his salutation with a
certain scrupulous grace of her own, hurried after her daughter.

Longueville remained there staring at the view but not especially
seeing it. He felt as if he had at once enjoyed and lost an
opportunity.  After a while he tried to make a sketch of the old
beggar-woman who sat there in a sort of palsied immobility, like a
rickety statue at a church-door. But his attempt to reproduce her
features was not gratifying, and he suddenly laid down his brush. She
was not pretty enoughshe had a bad profile.

Two months later Bernard
Longueville was at Venice, still under the impression that he was
leaving Italy. He was not a man who made plans and held to them. He
made them, indeedfew men made morebut he made them as a
basis for variation. He had gone to Venice to spend a fortnight, and
his fortnight had taken the form of eight enchanting weeks. He had
still a sort of conviction that he was carrying out his plans; for it
must be confessed that where his pleasure was concerned he had
considerable skill in accommodating his theory to his practice.  His
enjoyment of Venice was extreme, but he was roused from it by a
summons he was indisposed to resist. This consisted of a letter from
an intimate friend who was living in Germanya friend whose name
was Gordon Wright. He had been spending the winter in Dresden, but his
letter bore the date of Baden-Baden. As it was not long, I may give it
entire.

I wish very much that you would come to this place. I think
you have been here before, so that you know how pretty it is, and how
amusing. I shall probably be here the rest of the summer. There are
some people I know and whom I want you to know. Be so good as to
arrive. Then I will thank you properly for your various Italian
rhapsodies. I can't reply on the same scaleI have n't the time.
Do you know what I am doing? I am making love. I find it a most
absorbing occupation. That is literally why I have not written to you
before. I have been making love ever since the last of May. It takes
an immense amount of time, and everything else has got terribly
behindhand. I don't mean to say that the experiment itself has gone on
very fast; but I am trying to push it forward. I have n't yet had time
to test its success; but in this I want your help. You know we great
physicists never make an experiment without an `assistant'a
humble individual who burns his fingers and stains his clothes in the
cause of science, but whose interest in the problem is only indirect.
I want you to be my assistant, and I will guarantee that your burns
and stains shall not be dangerous. She is an extremely interesting
girl, and I really want you to see herI want to know what you
think of her. She wants to know you, too, for I have talked a good
deal about you. There you have it, if gratified vanity will help you
on the way. Seriously, this is a real request. I want your opinion,
your impression. I want to see how she will affect you. I don't say I
ask for your advice; that, of course, you will not undertake to give.
But I desire a definition, a characterization; you know you toss off
those things. I don't see why I should n't tell you all thisI
have always told you everything. I have never pretended to know
anything about women, but I have always supposed that you knew
everything. You certainly have always had the tone of that sort of
omniscience. So come here as soon as possible and let me see that you
are not a humbug. She 's a very handsome girl

Longueville was so much amused with this appeal that he very soon
started for Germany. In the reader, Gordon Wright's letter will,
perhaps, excite surprise rather than hilarity; but Longueville thought
it highly characteristic of his friend. What it especially pointed to
was Gordon's want of imaginationa deficiency which was a matter
of common jocular allusion between the two young men, each of whom
kept a collection of acknowledged oddities as a playground for the
other's wit.  Bernard had often spoken of his comrade's want of
imagination as a bottomless pit, into which Gordon was perpetually
inviting him to lower himself. My dear fellow, Bernard said,
you must really excuse me; I cannot take these subterranean
excursions. I should lose my breath down there; I should never come up
alive. You know I have dropped things downlittle jokes and
metaphors, little fantasies and paradoxesand I have never heard
them touch bottom! This was an epigram on the part of a young man
who had a lively play of fancy; but it was none the less true that
Gordon Wright had a firmly-treading, rather than a winged, intellect.
Every phrase in his letter seemed, to Bernard, to march in stout-soled
walking-boots, and nothing could better express his attachment to the
process of reasoning things out than this proposal that his friend
should come and make a chemical analysisa geometrical
surveyof the lady of his love. That I shall have any
difficulty in forming an opinion, and any difficulty in expressing it
when formedof this he has as little idea as that he shall have
any difficulty in accepting it when expressed So Bernard
reflected, as he rolled in the train to Munich. Gordon's
mind, he went on, has no atmosphere; his intellectual
process goes on in the void. There are no currents and eddies to
affect it, no high winds nor hot suns, no changes of season and
temperature. His premises are neatly arranged, and his conclusions are
perfectly calculable

Yet for the man on whose character he so freely exercised his wit
Bernard Longueville had a strong affection. It is nothing against the
validity of a friendship that the parties to it have not a mutual
resemblance. There must be a basis of agreement, but the structure
reared upon it may contain a thousand disparities. These two young men
had formed an alliance of old, in college days, and the bond between
them had been strengthened by the simple fact of its having survived
the sentimental revolutions of early life. Its strongest link was a
sort of mutual respect. Their tastes, their pursuits were different;
but each of them had a high esteem for the other's character. It may
be said that they were easily pleased; for it is certain that neither
of them had performed any very conspicuous action. They were highly
civilized young Americans, born to an easy fortune and a tranquil
destiny, and unfamiliar with the glitter of golden opportunities. If I
did not shrink from disparaging the constitution of their native land
for their own credit, I should say that it had never been very
definitely proposed to these young gentlemen to distinguish
themselves.  On reaching manhood, they had each come into property
sufficient to make violent exertion superfluous. Gordon Wright,
indeed, had inherited a large estate. Their wants being tolerably
modest, they had not been tempted to strive for the glory of building
up commercial fortunesthe most obvious career open to young
Americans. They had, indeed, embraced no career at all, and if
summoned to give an account of themselves would, perhaps, have found
it hard to tell any very impressive story.  Gordon Wright was much
interested in physical science, and had ideas of his own on what is
called the endowment of research. His ideas had taken a practical
shape, and he had distributed money very freely among the
investigating classes, after which he had gone to spend a couple of
years in Germany, supposing it to be the land of laboratories. Here we
find him at present, cultivating relations with several learned bodies
and promoting the study of various tough branches of human knowledge,
by paying the expenses of difficult experiments. The experiments, it
must be added, were often of his own making, and he must have the
honor of whatever brilliancy attaches, in the estimation of the world,
to such pursuits. It was not, indeed, a brilliancy that dazzled
Bernard Longueville, who, however, was not easily dazzled by anything.
It was because he regarded him in so plain and direct a fashion, that
Bernard had an affection for his friendan affection to which it
would perhaps be difficult to assign a definite cause. Personal
sympathies are doubtless caused by something; but the causes are
remote, mysterious to our daily vision, like those of the particular
state of the weather. We content ourselves with remarking that it is
fine or that it rains, and the enjoyment of our likes and dislikes is
by no means apt to borrow its edge from the keenness of our analysis.
Longueville had a relish for fine qualitysuperior savour; and
he was sensible of this merit in the simple, candid, manly,
affectionate nature of his comrade, which seemed to him an excellent
thing of its kind. Gordon Wright had a tender heart and a strong
willa combination which, when the understanding is not too
limited, is often the motive of admirable actions. There might
sometimes be a question whether Gordon's understanding were
sufficiently unlimited, but the impulses of a generous temper often
play a useful part in filling up the gaps of an incomplete
imagination, and the general impression that Wright produced was
certainly that of intelligent good-nature. The reasons for
appreciating Bernard Longueville were much more manifest. He pleased
superficially, as well as fundamentally. Nature had sent him into the
world with an armful of good gifts. He was very
good-lookingtall, dark, agile, perfectly finished, so
good-looking that he might have been a fool and yet be forgiven. As
has already been intimated, however, he was far from being a fool. He
had a number of talents, which, during three or four years that
followed his leaving college, had received the discipline of the study
of the law. He had not made much of the law; but he had made something
of his talents. He was almost always spoken of as
accomplished; people asked why he did n't do something. This
question was never satisfactorily answered, the feeling being that
Longueville did more than many people in causing it to be asked.
Moreover, there was one thing he did constantlyhe enjoyed
himself. This is manifestly not a career, and it has been said at the
outset that he was not attached to any of the recognized professions.
But without going into details, he was a charming fellowclever,
urbane, free-handed, and with that fortunate quality in his appearance
which is known as distinction.

He had not specified, in
writing to Gordon Wright, the day on which he should arrive at
Baden-Baden; it must be confessed that he was not addicted to
specifying days. He came to his journey's end in the evening, and, on
presenting himself at the hotel from which his friend had dated his
letter, he learned that Gordon Wright had betaken himself after
dinner, according to the custom of Baden-Baden, to the grounds of the
Conversation-house. It was eight o'clock, and Longueville, after
removing the stains of travel, sat down to dine. His first impulse had
been to send for Gordon to come and keep him company at his repast;
but on second thought he determined to make it as brief as possible.
Having brought it to a close, he took his way to the Kursaal. The
great German watering-place is one of the prettiest nooks in Europe,
and of a summer evening in the gaming days, five-and-twenty years ago,
it was one of the most brilliant scenes. The lighted windows of the
great temple of hazard (of as chaste an architecture as if it had been
devoted to a much purer divinity) opened wide upon the gardens and
groves; the little river that issues from the bosky mountains of the
Black Forest flowed, with an air of brook-like innocence, past the
expensive hotels and lodging-houses; the orchestra, in a high pavilion
on the terrace of the Kursaal, played a discreet accompaniment to the
conversation of the ladies and gentlemen who, scattered over the large
expanse on a thousand little chairs, preferred for the time the
beauties of nature to the shuffle of coin and the calculation of
chance; while the faint summer stars, twinkling above the vague black
hills and woods, looked down at the indifferent groups without
venturing to drop their light upon them.

Longueville, noting all this, went straight into the gaming-rooms;
he was curious to see whether his friend, being fond of experiments,
was trying combinations at roulette. But he was not to be found in any
of the gilded chambers, among the crowd that pressed in silence about
the tables; so that Bernard presently came and began to wander about
the lamp-lit terrace, where innumerable groups, seated and strolling,
made the place a gigantic conversazione. It seemed to him very
agreeable and amusing, and he remarked to himself that, for a man who
was supposed not to take especially the Epicurean view of life, Gordon
Wright, in coming to Baden, had certainly made himself comfortable.
Longueville went his way, glancing from one cluster of talkers to
another; and at last he saw a face which brought him to a stop. He
stood a moment looking at it; he knew he had seen it before. He had an
excellent memory for faces; but it was some time before he was able to
attach an identity to this one. Where had he seen a little elderly
lady with an expression of timorous vigilance, and a band of hair as
softly white as a dove's wing? The answer to the question presently
cameWhere but in a grass-grown corner of an old Italian town?
The lady was the mother of his inconsequent model, so that this
mysterious personage was probably herself not far off. Before
Longueville had time to verify this induction, he found his eyes
resting upon the broad back of a gentleman seated close to the old
lady, and who, turning away from her, was talking to a young girl. It
was nothing but the back of this gentleman that he saw, but
nevertheless, with the instinct of true friendship, he recognized in
this featureless expanse the robust personality of Gordon Wright. In a
moment he had stepped forward and laid his hand upon Wright's
shoulder.

His friend looked round, and then sprang up with a joyous
exclamation and grasp of the hand.

My dear fellowmy dear Bernard! What on earthwhen
did you arrive?

While Bernard answered and explained a little, he glanced from his
friend's good, gratified face at the young girl with whom Wright had
been talking, and then at the lady on the other side, who was giving
him a bright little stare. He raised his hat to her and to the young
girl, and he became conscious, as regards the latter, of a certain
disappointment. She was very pretty; she was looking at him; but she
was not the heroine of the little incident of the terrace at Siena.

It 's just like Longueville, you know, Gordon Wright went
on; he always comes at you from behind; he 's so awfully fond of
surprises He was laughing; he was greatly pleased; he introduced
Bernard to the two ladies. You must know Mrs. Vivian; you must
know Miss Blanche Evers

Bernard took his place in the little circle; he wondered whether he
ought to venture upon a special recognition of Mrs. Vivian. Then it
seemed to him that he should leave the option of this step with the
lady, especially as he had detected recognition in her eye. But Mrs.
Vivian ventured upon nothing special; she contented herself with soft
generalitieswith remarking that she always liked to know when
people would arrive; that, for herself, she never enjoyed surprises.

And yet I imagine you have had your share, said
Longueville, with a smile. He thought this might remind her of the
moment when she came out of the little church at Siena and found her
daughter posturing to an unknown painter.

But Mrs. Vivian, turning her benignant head about, gave but a
superficial reply.

Oh, I have had my share of everything, good and bad. I don't
complain of anything And she gave a little deprecating laugh.

Gordon Wright shook hands with Bernard again; he seemed really very
glad to see him. Longueville, remembering that Gordon had written to
him that he had been making love, began to seek in his
countenance for the ravages of passion. For the moment, however, they
were not apparent; the excellent, honest fellow looked placid and
contented. Gordon Wright had a clear gray eye, short, straight, flaxen
hair, and a healthy diffusion of color. His features were thick and
rather irregular; but his countenancein addition to the merit
of its expressionderived a certain grace from a powerful yellow
moustache, to which its wearer occasionally gave a martial twist.
Gordon Wright was not tall, but he was strong, and in his whole person
there was something well-planted and sturdy. He almost always dressed
in light-colored garments, and he wore round his neck an eternal blue
cravat. When he was agitated he grew very red. While he questioned
Longueville about his journey and his health, his whereabouts and his
intentions, the latter, among his own replies, endeavored to read in
Wright's eyes some account of his present situation. Was that pretty
girl at his side the ambiguous object of his adoration, and, in that
case, what was the function of the elder lady, and what had become of
her argumentative daughter? Perhaps this was another, a younger
daughter, though, indeed, she bore no resemblance to either of
Longueville's friends. Gordon Wright, in spite of Bernard's
interrogative glances, indulged in no optical confidences. He had too
much to tell. He would keep his story till they should be alone
together. It was impossible that they should adjourn just yet to
social solitude; the two ladies were under Gordon's protection. Mrs.
VivianBernard felt a satisfaction in learning her name; it was
as if a curtain, half pulled up and stopped by a hitch, had suddenly
been raised altogetherMrs. Vivian sat looking up and down the
terrace at the crowd of loungers and talkers with an air of tender
expectation.  She was probably looking for her elder daughter, and
Longueville could not help wishing also that this young lady would
arrive. Meanwhile, he saw that the young girl to whom Gordon had been
devoting himself was extremely pretty, and appeared eminently
approachable. Longueville had some talk with her, reflecting that if
she were the person concerning whom Gordon had written him, it
behooved him to appear to take an interest in her. This view of the
case was confirmed by Gordon Wright's presently turning away to talk
with Mrs. Vivian, so that his friend might be at liberty to make
acquaintance with their companion.

Though she had not been with the others at Siena, it seemed to
Longueville, with regard to her, too, that this was not the first time
he had seen her. She was simply the American pretty girl, whom he had
seen a thousand times. It was a numerous sisterhood, pervaded by a
strong family likeness. This young lady had charming eyes (of the
color of Gordon's cravats), which looked everywhere at once and yet
found time to linger in some places, where Longueville's own eyes
frequently met them. She had soft brown hair, with a silky-golden
thread in it, beautifully arranged and crowned by a smart little hat
that savoured of Paris. She had also a slender little figure, neatly
rounded, and delicate, narrow hands, prettily gloved. She moved about
a great deal in her place, twisted her little flexible body and tossed
her head, fingered her hair and examined the ornaments of her dress.
She had a great deal of conversation, Longueville speedily learned,
and she expressed herself with extreme frankness and decision. He
asked her, to begin with, if she had been long at Baden, but the
impetus of this question was all she required. Turning her charming,
conscious, coquettish little face upon him, she instantly began to
chatter.

I have been here about four weeks. I don't know whether you
call that long. It does n't seem long to me; I have had such a lovely
time.  I have met ever so many people here I knowevery day some
one turns up.  Now you have turned up to-day

Ah, but you don't know me, said Longueville, laughing.

Well, I have heard a great deal about you! cried the
young girl, with a pretty little stare of contradiction. I think
you know a great friend of mine, Miss Ella Maclane, of Baltimore. She
's travelling in Europe now Longueville's memory did not
instantly respond to this signal, but he expressed that rapturous
assent which the occasion demanded, and even risked the observation
that the young lady from Baltimore was very pretty. She 's far
too lovely, his companion went on. I have often heard her
speak of you. I think you know her sister rather better than you know
her. She has not been out very long. She is just as interesting as she
can be. Her hair comes down to her feet. She 's travelling in Norway.
She has been everywhere you can think of, and she 's going to finish
off with Finland. You can't go any further than that, can you? That 's
one comfort; she will have to turn round and come back. I want her
dreadfully to come to Baden-Baden

I wish she would, said Longueville. Is she
travelling alone?

Oh, no. They 've got some Englishman. They say he 's devoted
to Ella.  Every one seems to have an Englishman, now. We 've got one
here, Captain Lovelock, the Honourable Augustus Lovelock. Well, they
're awfully handsome. Ella Maclane is dying to come to Baden-Baden. I
wish you 'd write to her. Her father and mother have got some idea in
their heads; they think it 's improperwhat do you call
it?immoral. I wish you would write to her and tell her it is
n't. I wonder if they think that Mrs. Vivian would come to a place
that 's immoral. Mrs. Vivian says she would take her in a moment; she
does n't seem to care how many she has. I declare, she 's only too
kind. You know I 'm in Mrs.  Vivian's care. My mother 's gone to
Marienbad. She would let me go with Mrs. Vivian anywhere, on account
of the influenceshe thinks so much of Mrs. Vivian's influence.
I have always heard a great deal about it, have n't you? I must say it
's lovely; it 's had a wonderful effect upon me. I don't want to
praise myself, but it has. You ask Mrs. Vivian if I have n't been
good. I have been just as good as I can be. I have been so peaceful, I
have just sat here this way. Do you call this immoral? You 're not
obliged to gamble if you don't want to. Ella Maclane's father seems to
think you get drawn in. I 'm sure I have n't been drawn in. I know
what you 're going to sayyou 're going to say I have been drawn
out. Well, I have, to-night. We just sit here so quietlythere
's nothing to do but to talk. We make a little party by
ourselvesare you going to belong to our party? Two of us are
missingMiss Vivian and Captain Lovelock. Captain Lovelock has
gone with her into the rooms to explain the gamblingMiss Vivian
always wants everything explained. I am sure I understood it the first
time I looked at the tables. Have you ever seen Miss Vivian? She 's
very much admired, she 's so very unusual. Black hair 's so
uncommonI see you have got it toobut I mean for young
ladies. I am sure one sees everything here. There 's a woman that
comes to the tablesa Portuguese countesswho has hair
that is positively blue. I can't say I admire it when it comes to that
shade. Blue 's my favorite color, but I prefer it in the eyes,
continued Longueville's companion, resting upon him her own two
brilliant little specimens of the tint.

He listened with that expression of clear amusement which is not
always an indication of high esteem, but which even pretty chatterers,
who are not the reverse of estimable, often prefer to masculine
inattention; and while he listened Bernard, according to his wont,
made his reflections. He said to himself that there were two kinds of
pretty girlsthe acutely conscious and the finely unconscious.
Mrs. Vivian's prot&eacute;g&eacute;e was a member of the former
category; she belonged to the genus coquette. We all have our
conception of the indispensable, and the indispensable, to this young
lady, was a spectator; almost any male biped would serve the purpose.
To her spectator she addressed, for the moment, the whole volume of
her beingaddressed it in her glances, her attitudes, her
exclamations, in a hundred little experiments of tone and gesture and
position. And these rustling artifices were so innocent and obvious
that the directness of her desire to be well with her observer became
in itself a grace; it led Bernard afterward to say to himself that the
natural vocation and m&eacute;tier of little girls for whom existence
was but a shimmering surface, was to prattle and ruffle their plumage;
their view of life and its duties was as simple and superficial as
that of an Oriental bayadere. It surely could not be with regard to
this transparent little flirt that Gordon Wright desired advice; you
could literally see the daylightor rather the Baden
gaslighton the other side of her. She sat there for a minute,
turning her little empty head to and fro, and catching Bernard's eye
every time she moved; she had for the instant the air of having
exhausted all topics. Just then a young lady, with a gentleman at her
side, drew near to the little group, and Longueville, perceiving her,
instantly got up from his chair.

There 's a beauty of the unconscious class! he said to
himself.  He knew her face very well; he had spent half an hour in
copying it.

Here comes Miss Vivian! said Gordon Wright, also getting
up, as if to make room for the daughter near the mother.

She stopped in front of them, smiling slightly, and then she rested
her eyes upon Longueville. Their gaze at first was full and direct,
but it expressed nothing more than civil curiosity. This was
immediately followed, however, by the light of
recognitionrecognition embarrassed, and signalling itself by a
blush.

Miss Vivian's companion was a powerful, handsome fellow, with a
remarkable auburn beard, who struck the observer immediately as being
uncommonly well dressed. He carried his hands in the pockets of a
little jacket, the button-hole of which was adorned with a blooming
rose. He approached Blanche Evers, smiling and dandling his body a
little, and making her two or three jocular bows.

Well, I hope you have lost every penny you put on the
table! said the young girl, by way of response to his obeisances.

He began to laugh and repeat them.

I don't care what I lose, so longso long

So long as what, pray?

So long as you let me sit down by you! And he dropped,
very gallantly, into a chair on the other side of her.

I wish you would lose all your property! she replied,
glancing at Bernard.

It would be a very small stake, said Captain Lovelock.
Would you really like to see me reduced to misery?

While this graceful dialogue rapidly established itself, Miss
Vivian removed her eyes from Longueville's face and turned toward her
mother.  But Gordon Wright checked this movement by laying his hand on
Longueville's shoulder and proceeding to introduce his friend.

This is the accomplished creature, Mr. Bernard Longueville, of
whom you have heard me speak. One of his accomplishments, as you see,
is to drop down from the moon

No, I don't drop from the moon, said Bernard, laughing.
I drop fromSiena! He offered his hand to Miss Vivian,
who for an appreciable instant hesitated to extend her own. Then she
returned his salutation, without any response to his allusion to
Siena.

She declined to take a seat, and said she was tired and preferred
to go home. With this suggestion her mother immediately complied, and
the two ladies appealed to the indulgence of little Miss Evers, who
was obliged to renounce the society of Captain Lovelock. She enjoyed
this luxury, however, on the way to Mrs. Vivian's lodgings, toward
which they all slowly strolled, in the sociable Baden fashion.
Longueville might naturally have found himself next Miss Vivian, but
he received an impression that she avoided him. She walked in front,
and Gordon Wright strolled beside her, though Longueville noticed that
they appeared to exchange but few words. He himself offered his arm to
Mrs. Vivian, who paced along with a little lightly-wavering step,
making observations upon the beauties of Baden and the respective
merits of the hotels.

 [te







IV

Which of them is it? asked Longueville of his friend, after
they had bidden good-night to the three ladies and to Captain
Lovelock, who went off to begin, as he said, the evening. They stood,
when they had turned away from the door of Mrs. Vivian's lodgings, in
the little, rough-paved German street.

Which of them is what? Gordon asked, staring at his
companion.

Oh, come, said Longueville, you are not going to
begin to play at modesty at this hour! Did n't you write to me that
you had been making violent love?

Violent? No

The more shame to you! Has your love-making been feeble?

His friend looked at him a moment rather soberly.

I suppose you thought it a queer documentthat letter I
wrote you

I thought it characteristic, said Longueville smiling.

Is n't that the same thing?

Not in the least. I have never thought you a man of
oddities Gordon stood there looking at him with a serious eye,
half appealing, half questioning; but at these last words he glanced
away. Even a very modest man may wince a little at hearing himself
denied the distinction of a few variations from the common type.
Longueville made this reflection, and it struck him, also, that his
companion was in a graver mood than he had expected; though why, after
all, should he have been in a state of exhilaration? Your letter
was a very natural, interesting one, Bernard added.

Well, you see, said Gordon, facing his companion again,
I have been a good deal preoccupied

Obviously, my dear fellow!

I want very much to marry

It 's a capital idea, said Longueville.

I think almost as well of it, his friend declared,
as if I had invented it. It has struck me for the first
time

These words were uttered with a mild simplicity which provoked
Longueville to violent laughter.

My dear fellow, he exclaimed, you have, after all,
your little oddities

Singularly enough, however, Gordon Wright failed to appear
flattered by this concession.

I did n't send for you to laugh at me, he said.

Ah, but I have n't travelled three hundred miles to cry!
Seriously, solemnly, then, it is one of these young ladies that has
put marriage into your head?

Not at all. I had it in my head

Having a desire to marry, you proceeded to fall in love

I am not in love! said Gordon Wright, with some energy.

Ah, then, my dear fellow, why did you send for me?

Wright looked at him an instant in silence.

Because I thought you were a good fellow, as well as a clever
one

A good fellow! repeated Longueville. I don't
understand your confounded scientific nomenclature. But excuse me; I
won't laugh. I am not a clever fellow; but I am a good one He
paused a moment, and then laid his hand on his companion's shoulder.
My dear Gordon, it 's no use; you are in love

Well, I don't want to be, said Wright.

Heavens, what a horrible sentiment!

I want to marry with my eyes open. I want to know my wife. You
don't know people when you are in love with them. Your impressions are
colored

They are supposed to be, slightly. And you object to
color?

Well, as I say, I want to know the woman I marry, as I should
know any one else. I want to see her as clearly

Depend upon it, you have too great an appetite for knowledge;
you set too high an esteem upon the dry light of science

Ah! said Gordon promptly; of course I want to be
fond of her

Bernard, in spite of his protest, began to laugh again.

My dear Gordon, you are better than your theories. Your
passionate heart contradicts your frigid intellect. I repeat
ityou are in love

Please don't repeat it again, said Wright.

Bernard took his arm, and they walked along.

What shall I call it, then? You are engaged in making studies
for matrimony

I don't in the least object to your calling it that. My
studies are of extreme interest

And one of those young ladies is the fair volume that contains
the precious lesson, said Longueville. Or perhaps your
text-book is in two volumes?

No; there is one of them I am not studying at all. I never
could do two things at once

That proves you are in love. One can't be in love with two
women at once, but one may perfectly have two of themor as many
as you pleaseup for a competitive examination. However, as I
asked you before, which of these young ladies is it that you have
selected?

Gordon Wright stopped abruptly, eying his friend.

Which should you say?

Ah, that 's not a fair question, Bernard urged. It
would be invidious for me to name one rather than the other, and if I
were to mention the wrong one, I should feel as if I had been guilty
of a rudeness towards the other. Don't you see?

Gordon saw, perhaps, but he held to his idea of making his
companion commit himself.

Never mind the rudeness. I will do the same by you some day,
to make it up. Which of them should you think me likely to have taken
a fancy to? On general grounds, now, from what you know of me? He
proposed this problem with an animated eye.

You forget, his friend said, that though I know,
thank heaven, a good deal of you, I know very little of either of
those girls.  I have had too little evidence

Yes, but you are a man who notices. That 's why I wanted you
to come.  

I spoke only to Miss Evers

Yes, I know you have never spoken to Miss Vivian Gordon
Wright stood looking at Bernard and urging his point as he pronounced
these words. Bernard felt peculiarly conscious of his gaze. The words
represented an illusion, and Longueville asked himself quickly whether
it were not his duty to dispel it. The answer came more slowly than
the question, but still it came, in the shape of a negative. The
illusion was but a trifling one, and it was not for him, after all, to
let his friend know that he had already met Miss Vivian. It was for
the young girl herself, and since she had not done soalthough
she had the opportunityLongueville said to himself that he was
bound in honor not to speak. These reflections were very soon made,
but in the midst of them our young man, thanks to a great agility of
mind, found time to observe, tacitly, that it was odd, just there, to
see his honor thrusting in its nose. Miss Vivian, in her own
good time, would doubtless mention to Gordon the little incident of
Siena. It was Bernard's fancy, for a moment, that he already knew it,
and that the remark he had just uttered had an ironical accent; but
this impression was completely dissipated by the tone in which he
addedAll the same, you noticed her

Oh, yes; she is very noticeable

Well, then, said Gordon, you will see. I should like
you to make it out. Of course, if I am really giving my attention to
one to the exclusion of the other, it will be easy to discover

Longueville was half amused, half irritated by his friend's own
relish of his little puzzle.  `The exclusion of the other' has an
awkward sound, he answered, as they walked on. Am I to
notice that you are very rude to one of the young ladies?

Oh dear, no. Do you think there is a danger of that?

Well, said Longueville, I have already guessed

Gordon Wright remonstrated. Don't guess yetwait a few
days. I won't tell you now

Let us see if he does n't tell me, said Bernard,
privately. And he meditated a moment. When I presented myself,
you were sitting very close to Miss Evers and talking very earnestly.
Your head was bent toward herit was very lover-like. Decidedly,
Miss Evers is the object!

For a single instant Gordon Wright hesitated, and thenI
hope I have n't seemed rude to Miss Vivian! he exclaimed.

Bernard broke into a light laugh. My dear Gordon, you are very
much in love! he remarked, as they arrived at their hotel.

Life at baden-baden proved a
very sociable affair, and Bernard Longueville perceived that he should
not lack opportunity for the exercise of those gifts of intelligence
to which Gordon Wright had appealed. The two friends took long walks
through the woods and over the mountains, and they mingled with human
life in the crowded precincts of the Conversation-house. They engaged
in a ramble on the morning after Bernard's arrival, and wandered far
away, over hill and dale. The Baden forests are superb, and the
composition of the landscape is most effective. There is always a
bosky dell in the foreground, and a purple crag embellished with a
ruined tower at a proper angle. A little timber-and-plaster village
peeps out from a tangle of plum-trees, and a way-side tavern, in
comfortable recurrence, solicits concessions to the national custom of
frequent refreshment.  Gordon Wright, who was a dogged pedestrian,
always enjoyed doing his ten miles, and Longueville, who was an
incorrigible stroller, felt a keen relish for the picturesqueness of
the country. But it was not, on this occasion, of the charms of the
landscape or the pleasures of locomotion that they chiefly discoursed.
Their talk took a more closely personal turn. It was a year since they
had met, and there were many questions to ask and answer, many arrears
of gossip to make up. As they stretched themselves on the grass on a
sun-warmed hill-side, beneath a great German oak whose arms were quiet
in the blue summer air, there was a lively exchange of impressions,
opinions, speculations, anecdotes.  Gordon Wright was surely an
excellent friend. He took an interest in you. He asked no idle
questions and made no vague professions; but he entered into your
situation, he examined it in detail, and what he learned he never
forgot. Months afterwards, he asked you about things which you
yourself had forgotten. He was not a man of whom it would be generally
said that he had the gift of sympathy; but he gave his attention to a
friend's circumstances with a conscientious fixedness which was at
least very far removed from indifference. Bernard had the gift of
sympathyor at least he was supposed to have it; but even he,
familiar as he must therefore have been with the practice of this
charming virtue, was at times so struck with his friend's fine faculty
of taking other people's affairs seriously that he constantly
exclaimed to himself, The excellent fellowthe admirable
nature!

Bernard had two or three questions to ask about the three persons
who appeared to have formed for some time his companion's principal
society, but he was indisposed to press them. He felt that he should
see for himself, and at a prospect of entertainment of this kind, his
fancy always kindled. Gordon was, moreover, at first rather shy of
confidences, though after they had lain on the grass ten minutes there
was a good deal said.

Now what do you think of her face? Gordon asked, after
staring a while at the sky through the oak-boughs.

Of course, in future, said Longueville, whenever you
make use of the personal pronoun feminine, I am to understand that
Miss Vivian is indicated

Her name is Angela, said Gordon; but of course I can
scarcely call her that

It 's a beautiful name, Longueville rejoined; but I
may say, in answer to your question, that I am not struck with the
fact that her face corresponds to it

You don't think her face beautiful, then?

I don't think it angelic. But how can I tell? I have only had
a glimpse of her

Wait till she looks at you and speakswait till she
smiles, said Gordon.

I don't think I saw her smileat least, not at me,
directly. I hope she will! Longueville went on. But who is
shethis beautiful girl with the beautiful name?

She is her mother's daughter, said Gordon Wright. I
don't really know a great deal more about her than that

And who is her mother?

A delightful little woman, devoted to Miss Vivian. She is a
widow, and Angela is her only child. They have lived a great deal in
Europe; they have but a modest income. Over here, Mrs. Vivian says,
they can get a lot of things for their money that they can't get at
home. So they stay, you see. When they are at home they live in New
York. They know some of my people there. When they are in Europe they
live about in different places. They are fond of Italy. They are
extremely nice; it 's impossible to be nicer. They are very fond of
books, fond of music, and art, and all that. They always read in the
morning. They only come out rather late in the day

I see they are very superior people, said Bernard.
And little Miss Everswhat does she do in the morning? I
know what she does in the evening!

I don't know what her regular habits are. I have n't paid much
attention to her. She is very pretty

Wundersch&ouml;n! said Bernard. But you were
certainly talking to her last evening

Of course I talk to her sometimes. She is totally different
from Angela Viviannot nearly so cultivated; but she seems very
charming

A little silly, eh? Bernard suggested.

She certainly is not so wise as Miss Vivian

That would be too much to ask, eh? But the Vivians, as kind as
they are wise, have taken her under their protection

Yes, said Gordon, they are to keep her another month
or two.  Her mother has gone to Marienbad, which I believe is thought
a dull place for a young girl; so that, as they were coming here, they
offered to bring her with them. Mrs. Evers is an old friend of Mrs.
Vivian, who, on leaving Italy, had come up to Dresden to be with her.
They spent a month there together; Mrs. Evers had been there since the
winter. I think Mrs. Vivian really came to Baden-Badenshe would
have preferred a less expensive placeto bring Blanche Evers.
Her mother wanted her so much to come

And was it for her sake that Captain Lovelock came, too?
Bernard asked.

Gordon Wright stared a moment.

I 'm sure I don't know!

Of course you can't be interested in that, said Bernard
smiling.  Who is Captain Lovelock?

He is an Englishman. I believe he is what 's called
aristocratically connectedthe younger brother of a lord, or
something of that sort

Is he a clever man?

I have n't talked with him much, but I doubt it. He is rather
rakish; he plays a great deal

But is that considered here a proof of rakishness? asked
Bernard.  Have n't you played a little yourself?

Gordon hesitated a moment.

Yes, I have played a little. I wanted to try some experiments.
I had made some arithmetical calculations of probabilities, which I
wished to test

Bernard gave a long laugh.

I am delighted with the reasons you give for amusing yourself!
Arithmetical calculations!

I assure you they are the real reasons! said Gordon,
blushing a little.

That 's just the beauty of it. You were not afraid of being
`drawn in,' as little Miss Evers says?

I am never drawn in, whatever the thing may be. I go in, or I
stay out; but I am not drawn, said Gordon Wright.

You were not drawn into coming with Mrs. Vivian and her
daughter from Dresden to this place?

I did n't come with them; I came a week later

My dear fellow, said Bernard, that distinction is
unworthy of your habitual candor

Well, I was not fascinated; I was not overmastered. I wanted
to come to Baden

I have no doubt you did. Had you become very intimate with
your friends in Dresden?

I had only seen them three times

After which you followed them to this place? Ah, don't say you
were not fascinated! cried Bernard, laughing and springing to his
feet.

That evening, in the gardens
of the Kursaal, he renewed acquaintance with Angela Vivian. Her mother
came, as usual, to sit and listen to the music, accompanied by Blanche
Evers, who was in turn attended by Captain Lovelock. This little party
found privacy in the crowd; they seated themselves in a quiet corner
in an angle of one of the barriers of the terrace, while the movement
of the brilliant Baden world went on around them. Gordon Wright
engaged in conversation with Mrs. Vivian, while Bernard enjoyed an
interview with her daughter. This young lady continued to ignore the
fact of their previous meeting, and our hero said to himself that all
he wished was to know what she preferredhe would rigidly
conform to it. He conformed to her present programme; he had ventured
to pronounce the word Siena the evening before, but he was careful not
to pronounce it again. She had her reasons for her own reserve; he
wondered what they were, and it gave him a certain pleasure to wonder.
He enjoyed the consciousness of their having a secret together, and it
became a kind of entertaining suspense to see how long she would
continue to keep it. For himself, he was in no hurry to let the
daylight in; the little incident at Siena had been, in itself, a
charming affair; but Miss Vivian's present attitude gave it a sort of
mystic consecration. He thought she carried it off very wellthe
theory that she had not seen him before; last evening she had been
slightly confused, but now she was as self-possessed as if the line
she had taken were a matter of conscience. Why should it be a matter
of conscience? Was she in love with Gordon Wright, and did she wish,
in consequence, to forgetand wish him not to suspectthat
she had ever received an expression of admiration from another man?
This was not likely; it was not likely, at least, that Miss Vivian
wished to pass for a prodigy of innocence; for if to be admired is to
pay a tribute to corruption, it was perfectly obvious that so handsome
a girl must have tasted of the tree of knowledge. As for her being in
love with Gordon Wright, that of course was another affair, and
Bernard did not pretend, as yet, to have an opinion on this point,
beyond hoping very much that she might be.

He was not wrong in the impression of her good looks that he had
carried away from the short interview at Siena. She had a charmingly
chiselled face, with a free, pure outline, a clear, fair complexion,
and the eyes and hair of a dusky beauty. Her features had a firmness
which suggested tranquillity, and yet her expression was light and
quick, a combinationor a contradictionwhich gave an
original stamp to her beauty. Bernard remembered that he had thought
it a trifle bold; but he now perceived that this had been
but a vulgar misreading of her dark, direct, observant eye. The eye
was a charming one; Bernard discovered in it, little by little, all
sorts of things; and Miss Vivian was, for the present, simply a
handsome, intelligent, smiling girl. He gave her an opportunity to
make an allusion to Siena; he said to her that his friend told him
that she and her mother had been spending the winter in Italy.

Oh yes, said Angela Vivian; we were in the far
south; we were five months at Sorrento

And nowhere else?

We spent a few days in Rome. We usually prefer the quiet
places; that is my mother's taste

It was not your mother's taste, then, said Bernard,
that brought you to Baden?

She looked at him a moment.

You mean that Baden is not quiet?

Longueville glanced about at the moving, murmuring crowd, at the
lighted windows of the Conversation-house, at the great orchestra
perched up in its pagoda.

This is not my idea of absolute tranquillity

Nor mine, either, said Miss Vivian. I am not fond of
absolute tranquillity

How do you arrange it, then, with your mother?

Again she looked at him a moment, with her clever, slightly mocking
smile.

As you see. By making her come where I wish

You have a strong will, said Bernard. I see
that

No. I have simply a weak mother. But I make sacrifices too,
sometimes

What do you call sacrifices?

Well, spending the winter at Sorrento

Bernard began to laugh, and then he told her she must have had a
very happy lifeto call a winter at Sorrento a
sacrifice

It depends upon what one gives up, said Miss Vivian.

What did you give up?

She touched him with her mocking smile again.

That is not a very civil question, asked in that way

You mean that I seem to doubt your abnegation?

You seem to insinuate that I had nothing to renounce. I gave
upI gave up and she looked about her, considering a
littleI gave up society

I am glad you remember what it was, said Bernard. If
I have seemed uncivil, let me make it up. When a woman speaks of
giving up society, what she means is giving up admiration. You can
never have given up thatyou can never have escaped from it. You
must have found it even at Sorrento

It may have been there, but I never found it. It was very
respectfulit never expressed itself

That is the deepest kind, said Bernard.

I prefer the shallower varieties, the young girl
answered.

Well, said Bernard, you must remember that although
shallow admiration expresses itself, all the admiration that expresses
itself is not shallow

Miss Vivian hesitated a moment.

Some of it is impertinent, she said, looking straight at
him, rather gravely.

Bernard hesitated about as long.

When it is impertinent it is shallow. That comes to the same
thing

The young girl frowned a little.

I am not sure that I understandI am rather stupid. But
you see how right I am in my taste for such places as this. I have to
come here to hear such ingenious remarks

You should add that my coming, as well, has something to do
with it

Everything! said Miss Vivian.

Everything? Does no one else make ingenious remarks? Does n't
my friend Wright?

Mr. Wright says excellent things, but I should not exactly
call them ingenious remarks

It is not what Wright says; it 's what he does. That 's the
charm! said Bernard.

His companion was silent for a moment. That 's not usually a
charm; good conduct is not thought pleasing

It surely is not thought the reverse! Bernard exclaimed.

It does n't rankin the opinion of most
peopleamong the things that make men agreeable

It depends upon what you call agreeable

Exactly so, said Miss Vivian. It all depends on
that

But the agreeable, Bernard went onit is n't
after all, fortunately, such a subtle idea! The world certainly is
agreed to think that virtue is a beautiful thing

Miss Vivian dropped her eyes a moment, and then, looking up,

Is it a charm? she asked.

For me there is no charm without it, Bernard declared.

I am afraid that for me there is, said the young girl.

Bernard was puzzledhe who was not often puzzled. His
companion struck him as altogether too clever to be likely to indulge
in a silly affectation of cynicism. And yet, without this, how could
one account for her sneering at virtue?

You talk as if you had sounded the depths of vice! he
said, laughing. What do you know about other than virtuous
charms?

I know, of course, nothing about vice; but I have known virtue
when it was very tiresome

Ah, then it was a poor affair. It was poor virtue. The best
virtue is never tiresome

Miss Vivian looked at him a little, with her fine discriminating
eye.

What a dreadful thing to have to think any virtue poor!

This was a touching reflection, and it might have gone further had
not the conversation been interrupted by Mrs. Vivian's appealing to
her daughter to aid a defective recollection of a story about a
Spanish family they had met at Biarritz, with which she had undertaken
to entertain Gordon Wright. After this, the little circle was joined
by a party of American friends who were spending a week at Baden, and
the conversation became general.

But on the following evening,
Bernard again found himself seated in friendly colloquy with this
interesting girl, while Gordon Wright discoursed with her mother on
one side, and little Blanche Evers chattered to the admiring eyes of
Captain Lovelock on the other.

You and your mother are very kind to that little girl,
our hero said; you must be a great advantage to her

Angela Vivian directed her eyes to her neighbors, and let them rest
a while on the young girl's little fidgeting figure and her fresh,
coquettish face. For some moments she said nothing, and to
Longueville, turning over several things in his mind, and watching
her, it seemed that her glance was one of disfavor. He divined, he
scarcely knew how, that her esteem for her pretty companion was small.

I don't know that I am very kind, said Miss Vivian.
I have done nothing in particular for her

Mr. Wright tells me you came to this place mainly on her
account

I came for myself, said Miss Vivian. The
consideration you speak of perhaps had weight with my mother

You are not an easy person to say appreciative things to,
Bernard rejoined. One is tempted to say them; but you don't take
them

The young girl colored as she listened to this observation.

I don't think you know, she murmured, looking away. Then,
Set it down to modesty, she added.

That, of course, is what I have done. To what else could one
possibly attribute an indifference to compliments?

There is something else. One might be proud

There you are again! Bernard exclaimed. You won't
even let me praise your modesty

I would rather you should rebuke my pride

That is so humble a speech that it leaves no room for
rebuke

For a moment Miss Vivian said nothing.

Men are singularly base, she declared presently, with a
little smile. They don't care in the least to say things that
might help a person. They only care to say things that may seem
effective and agreeable

I see: you think that to say agreeable things is a great
misdemeanor.  

It comes from their vanity, Miss Vivian went on, as if
she had not heard him. They wish to appear agreeable and get
credit for cleverness and tendresse, no matter how silly it would be
for another person to believe them

Bernard was a good deal amused, and a little nettled.

Women, then, he said, have rather a fondness for
producing a bad impressionthey like to appear
disagreeable?

His companion bent her eyes upon her fan for a moment as she opened
and closed it.

They are capable of resigning themselves to itfor a
purpose

Bernard was moved to extreme merriment.

For what purpose?

I don't know that I mean for a purpose, said Miss Vivian;
but for a necessity

Ah, what an odious necessity!

Necessities usually are odious. But women meet them. Men evade
them and shirk them

I contest your proposition. Women are themselves necessities;
but they are not odious ones! And Bernard added, in a moment,
One could n't evade them, if they were!

I object to being called a necessity, said Angela Vivian.
It diminishes one's merit

Ah, but it enhances the charm of life!

For men, doubtless!

The charm of life is very great, Bernard went on, looking
up at the dusky hills and the summer stars, seen through a sort of
mist of music and talk, and of powdery light projected from the softly
lurid windows of the gaming-rooms. The charm of life is extreme.
I am unacquainted with odious necessities. I object to nothing!

Angela Vivian looked about her as he had donelooked perhaps
a moment longer at the summer stars; and if she had not already proved
herself a young lady of a contradictory turn, it might have been
supposed she was just then tacitly admitting the charm of life to be
considerable.

Do you suppose Miss Evers often resigns herself to being
disagreeablefor a purpose? asked Longueville, who had
glanced at Captain Lovelock's companion again.

She can't be disagreeable; she is too gentle, too soft

Do you mean too silly?

I don't know that I call her silly. She is not very wise; but
she has no pretensionsabsolutely noneso that one is not
struck with anything incongruous

What a terrible description! I suppose one ought to have a few
pretensions

You see one comes off more easily without them, said Miss
Vivian.

Do you call that coming off easily?

She looked at him a moment gravely.

I am very fond of Blanche, she said.

Captain Lovelock is rather fond of her, Bernard went on.

The girl assented.

He is completely fascinatedhe is very much in love with
her

And do they mean to make an international match?

I hope not; my mother and I are greatly troubled

Is n't he a good fellow?

He is a good fellow; but he is a mere trifler. He has n't a
penny, I believe, and he has very expensive habits. He gambles a great
deal. We don't know what to do

You should send for the young lady's mother

We have written to her pressingly. She answers that Blanche
can take care of herself, and that she must stay at Marienbad to
finish her cure.  She has just begun a new one

Ah well, said Bernard, doubtless Blanche can take
care of herself

For a moment his companion said nothing; then she exclaimed

It 's what a girl ought to be able to do!

I am sure you are! said Bernard.

She met his eyes, and she was going to make some rejoinder; but
before she had time to speak, her mother's little, clear, conciliatory
voice interposed. Mrs. Vivian appealed to her daughter, as she had
done the night before.

Dear Angela, what was the name of the gentleman who delivered
that delightful course of lectures that we heard in Geneva,
onwhat was the title?`The Redeeming Features of the
Pagan Morality.' 

Angela flushed a little.

I have quite forgotten his name, mamma, she said, without
looking round.

Come and sit by me, my dear, and we will talk them over. I
wish Mr.  Wright to hear about them, Mrs. Vivian went on.

Do you wish to convert him to paganism? Bernard asked.

The lectures were very dull; they had no redeeming
features, said Angela, getting up, but turning away from her
mother. She stood looking at Bernard Longueville; he saw she was
annoyed at her mother's interference. Every now and then,
she said, I take a turn through the gaming-rooms. The last time,
Captain Lovelock went with me.  Will you come to-night?

Bernard assented with expressive alacrity; he was charmed with her
not wishing to break off her conversation with him.

Ah, we 'll all go! said Mrs. Vivian, who had been
listening, and she invited the others to accompany her to the Kursaal.

They left their places, but Angela went first, with Bernard
Longueville by her side; and the idea of her having publicly braved
her mother, as it were, for the sake of his society, lent for the
moment an almost ecstatic energy to his tread. If he had been tempted
to presume upon his triumph, however, he would have found a check in
the fact that the young girl herself tasted very soberly of the sweets
of defiance. She was silent and grave; she had a manner which took the
edge from the wantonness of filial independence. Yet, for all this,
Bernard was pleased with his position; and, as he walked with her
through the lighted and crowded rooms, where they soon detached
themselves from their companions, he felt that peculiar satisfaction
which best expresses itself in silence. Angela looked a while at the
rows of still, attentive faces, fixed upon the luminous green circle,
across which little heaps of louis d'or were being pushed to and fro,
and she continued to say nothing. Then at last she exclaimed simply,
Come away! They turned away and passed into another chamber,
in which there was no gambling. It was an immense apartment,
apparently a ball-room; but at present it was quite unoccupied. There
were green velvet benches all around it, and a great polished floor
stretched away, shining in the light of chandeliers adorned with
innumerable glass drops. Miss Vivian stood a moment on the threshold;
then she passed in, and they stopped in the middle of the place,
facing each other, and with their figures reflected as if they had
been standing on a sheet of ice. There was no one in the room; they
were entirely alone.

Why don't you recognize me? Bernard murmured quickly.

Recognize you?

Why do you seem to forget our meeting at Siena?

She might have answered if she had answered immediately; but she
hesitated, and while she did so something happened at the other end of
the room which caused her to shift her glance. A green velvet porti;
agere suspended in one of the door-waysnot that through which
our friends had passedwas lifted, and Gordon Wright stood
there, holding it up, and looking at them. His companions were behind
him.

Ah, here they are! cried Gordon, in his loud, clear
voice.

This appeared to strike Angela Vivian as an interruption, and
Bernard saw it very much in the same light.

He forbore to ask her his
question againshe might tell him at her convenience. But the
days passed by, and she never told himshe had her own reasons.
Bernard talked with her very often; conversation formed indeed the
chief entertainment of the quiet little circle of which he was a
member. They sat on the terrace and talked in the mingled starlight
and lamplight, and they strolled in the deep green forests and wound
along the side of the gentle Baden hills, under the influence of
colloquial tendencies. The Black Forest is a country of almost
unbroken shade, and in the still days of midsummer the whole place was
covered with a motionless canopy of verdure. Our friends were not
extravagant or audacious people, and they looked at Baden life very
much from the outsidethey sat aloof from the brightly lighted
drama of professional revelry. Among themselves as well, however, a
little drama went forward in which each member of the company had a
part to play. Bernard Longueville had been surprised at first at what
he would have called Miss Vivian's approachablenessat the
frequency with which he encountered opportunities for sitting near her
and entering into conversation. He had expected that Gordon Wright
would deem himself to have established an anticipatory claim upon the
young lady's attention, and that, in pursuance of this claim, he would
occupy a recognized place at her side. Gordon was, after all, wooing
her; it was very natural he should seek her society. In fact, he was
never very far off; but Bernard, for three or four days, had the
anomalous consciousness of being still nearer. Presently, however, he
perceived that he owed this privilege simply to his friend's desire
that he should become acquainted with Miss Vivianshould receive
a vivid impression of a person in whom Gordon was so deeply
interested. After this result might have been supposed to be attained,
Gordon Wright stepped back into his usual place and showed her those
small civilities which were the only homage that the quiet conditions
of their life rendered possiblewalked with her, talked with
her, brought her a book to read, a chair to sit upon, a couple of
flowers to place in the bosom of her gown, treated her, in a word,
with a sober but by no means inexpressive gallantry. He had not been
making violent love, as he told Longueville, and these demonstrations
were certainly not violent. Bernard said to himself that if he were
not in the secret, a spectator would scarcely make the discovery that
Gordon cherished an even very safely tended flame. Angela Vivian, on
her side, was not strikingly responsive. There was nothing in her
deportment to indicate that she was in love with her systematic
suitor. She was perfectly gracious and civil. She smiled in his face
when he shook hands with her; she looked at him and listened when he
talked; she let him stroll beside her in the Lichtenthal Alley; she
read, or appeared to read, the books he lent her, and she decorated
herself with the flowers he offered. She seemed neither bored nor
embarrassed, neither irritated nor oppressed. But it was Bernard's
belief that she took no more pleasure in his attentions than a pretty
girl must always take in any recognition of her charms. If she 's
not indifferent, he said to himself, she is, at any rate,
impartialprofoundly impartial

It was not till the end of a week that Gordon Wright told him
exactly how his business stood with Miss Vivian and what he had reason
to expect and hopea week during which their relations had been
of the happiest and most comfortable cast, and during which Bernard,
rejoicing in their long walks and talks, in the charming weather, in
the beauty and entertainment of the place, and in other things
besides, had not ceased to congratulate himself on coming to Baden.
Bernard, after the first day, had asked his friend no questions. He
had a great respect for opportunity, coming either to others or to
himself, and he left Gordon to turn his lantern as fitfully as might
be upon the subject which was tacitly open between them, but of which
as yet only the mere edges had emerged into light. Gordon, on his
side, seemed content for the moment with having his clever friend
under his hand; he reserved him for final appeal or for some other
mysterious use.

You can't tell me you don't know her now, he said, one
evening as the two young men strolled along the Lichtenthal
Alleynow that you have had a whole week's observation of
her

What is a week's observation of a singularly clever and
complicated woman? Bernard asked.

Ah, your week has been of some use. You have found out she is
complicated! Gordon rejoined.

My dear Gordon, Longueville exclaimed, I don't see
what it signifies to you that I should find Miss Vivian out! When a
man 's in love, what need he care what other people think of the loved
object?

It would certainly be a pity to care too much. But there is
some excuse for him in the loved object being, as you say,
complicated

Nonsense! That 's no excuse. The loved object is always
complicated

Gordon walked on in silence a moment.

Well, then, I don't care a button what you think!

Bravo! That 's the way a man should talk, cried
Longueville.

Gordon indulged in another fit of meditation, and then he
said

Now that leaves you at liberty to say what you please

Ah, my dear fellow, you are ridiculous! said Bernard.

That 's precisely what I want you to say. You always think me
too reasonable

Well, I go back to my first assertion. I don't know Miss
VivianI mean I don't know her to have opinions about her. I
don't suppose you wish me to string you off a dozen mere
banalit&eacute;s`She 's a charming girlevidently a
superior personhas a great deal of style.' 

Oh no, said Gordon; I know all that. But, at any
rate, he added, you like her, eh?

I do more, said Longueville. I admire her

Is that doing more? asked Gordon, reflectively.

Well, the greater, whichever it is, includes the less

You won't commit yourself, said Gordon. My dear
Bernard, he added, I thought you knew such an immense deal
about women!

Gordon Wright was of so kindly and candid a nature that it is
hardly conceivable that this remark should have been framed to make
Bernard commit himself by putting him on his mettle. Such a view would
imply indeed on Gordon's part a greater familiarity with the uses of
irony than he had ever possessed, as well as a livelier conviction of
the irritable nature of his friend's vanity. In fact, however, it may
be confided to the reader that Bernard was pricked in a tender place,
though the resentment of vanity was not visible in his answer.

You were quite wrong, he simply said. I am as
ignorant of women as a monk in his cloister

You try to prove too much. You don't think her
sympathetic! And as regards this last remark, Gordon Wright must
be credited with a certain ironical impulse.

Bernard stopped impatiently.

I ask you again, what does it matter to you what I think of
her?

It matters in this sensethat she has refused me

Refused you? Then it is all over, and nothing matters

No, it is n't over, said Gordon, with a positive
head-shake.  Don't you see it is n't over?

Bernard smiled, laid his hand on his friend's shoulder and patted
it a little.

Your attitude might almost pass for that of resignation

I 'm not resigned! said Gordon Wright.

Of course not. But when were you refused?

Gordon stood a minute with his eyes fixed on the ground. Then, at
last looking up,

Three weeks agoa fortnight before you came. But let us
walk along, he said, and I will tell you all about it

I proposed to her three weeks ago, said Gordon, as they
walked along. My heart was very much set upon it. I was very hard
hitI was deeply smitten. She had been very kind to meshe
had been charmingI thought she liked me. Then I thought her
mother was pleased, and would have liked it. Mrs. Vivian, in fact,
told me as much; for of course I spoke to her first. Well, Angela does
like meor at least she didand I see no reason to suppose
she has changed. Only she did n't like me enough. She said the
friendliest and pleasantest things to me, but she thought that she
knew me too little, and that I knew her even less. She made a great
point of thatthat I had no right, as yet, to trust her. I told
her that if she would trust me, I was perfectly willing to trust her;
but she answered that this was poor reasoning.  She said that I was
trustworthy and that she was not, andin short, all sorts of
nonsense. She abused herself roundlyaccused herself of no end
of defects

What defects, for instance?

Oh, I have n't remembered them. She said she had a bad
temperthat she led her mother a dreadful life. Now, poor Mrs.
Vivian says she is an angel

Ah yes, Bernard observed; Mrs. Vivian says that,
very freely

Angela declared that she was jealous, ungenerous,
unforgivingall sorts of things. I remember she said `I am very
false,' and I think she remarked that she was cruel

But this did n't put you off, said Bernard.

Not at all. She was making up

She makes up very well! Bernard exclaimed, laughing.

Do you call that well?

I mean it was very clever

It was not clever from the point of view of wishing to
discourage me.  

Possibly. But I am sure, said Bernard, that if I had
been present at your interviewexcuse the impudence of the
hypothesisI should have been struck with the young
lady's and he paused a moment.

With her what?

With her ability

Well, her ability was not sufficient to induce me to give up
my idea.  She told me that after I had known her six months I should
detest her

I have no doubt she could make you do it if she should try.
That 's what I mean by her ability

She calls herself cruel, said Gordon, but she has
not had the cruelty to try. She has been very reasonableshe has
been perfect. I agreed with her that I would drop the subject for a
while, and that meanwhile we should be good friends. We should take
time to know each other better and act in accordance with further
knowledge. There was no hurry, since we trusted each otherwrong
as my trust might be. She had no wish that I should go away. I was not
in the least disagreeable to her; she liked me extremely, and I was
perfectly free to try and please her. Only I should drop my proposal,
and be free to take it up again or leave it alone, later, as I should
choose. If she felt differently then, I should have the benefit of it,
and if I myself felt differently, I should also have the benefit of
it

That 's a very comfortable arrangement. And that 's your
present situation? asked Bernard.

Gordon hesitated a moment.

More or less, but not exactly

Miss Vivian feels differently? said Bernard.

Not that I know of

Gordon's companion, with a laugh, clapped him on the shoulder
again.

Admirable youth, you are a capital match!

Are you alluding to my money?

To your money and to your modesty. There is as much of one as
of the otherwhich is saying a great deal

Well, said Gordon, in spite of that enviable
combination, I am not happy

I thought you seemed pensive! Bernard exclaimed. It
's you, then, who feel differently

Gordon gave a sigh.

To say that is to say too much

What shall we say, then? his companion asked, kindly.

Gordon stopped again; he stood there looking up at a certain
particularly lustrous star which twinkledthe night was
cloudyin an open patch of sky, and the vague brightness shone
down on his honest and serious visage.

I don't understand her, he said.

Oh, I 'll say that with you any day! cried Bernard.
I can't help you there

You must help me; and Gordon Wright deserted his star.
You must keep me in good humor

Please to walk on, then. I don't in the least pity you; she is
very charming with you

True enough; but insisting on that is not the way to keep me
in good humorwhen I feel as I do

How is it you feel?

Puzzled to deathbewildereddepressed!

This was but the beginning of Gordon Wright's list; he went on to
say that though he thought as highly of Miss Vivian as he
had ever done, he felt less at his ease with her than in the first
weeks of their acquaintance, and this condition made him uncomfortable
and unhappy.

I don't know what 's the matter, said poor Gordon. I
don't know what has come between us. It is n't her faultI don't
make her responsible for it. I began to notice it about a fortnight
agobefore you came; shortly after that talk I had with her that
I have just described to you. Her manner has n't changed and I have no
reason to suppose that she likes me any the less; but she makes a
strange impression on meshe makes me uneasy. It 's only her
nature coming out, I supposewhat you might call her
originality. She 's thoroughly originalshe 's a kind of
mysterious creature. I suppose that what I feel is a sort of
fascination; but that is just what I don't like. Hang it, I don't want
to be fascinatedI object to being fascinated!

This little story had taken some time in the telling, so that the
two young men had now reached their hotel.

Ah, my dear Gordon, said Bernard, we speak a
different language. If you don't want to be fascinated, what is one to
say to you? `Object to being fascinated!' There 's a man easy to
satisfy!  Raffin&eacute;, va!

Well, see here now, said Gordon, stopping in the door-way
of the inn; when it comes to the point, do you like it
yourself?

When it comes to the point? Bernard exclaimed. I
assure you I don't wait till then. I like the beginningI
delight in the approach of itI revel in the prospect

That's just what I did. But now that the thing has
comeI don't revel. To be fascinated is to be mystified. Damn
it, I like my libertyI like my judgment!

So do Ilike yours, said Bernard, laughing, as they
took their bedroom candles.

Bernard talked of this matter
rather theoretically, inasmuch as to his own sense, he was in a state
neither of incipient nor of absorbed fascination. He got on very
easily, however, with Angela Vivian, and felt none of the mysterious
discomfort alluded to by his friend. The element of mystery attached
itself rather to the young lady's mother, who gave him the impression
that for undiscoverable reasons she avoided his society. He regretted
her evasive deportment, for he found something agreeable in this shy
and scrupulous little woman, who struck him as a curious specimen of a
society of which he had once been very fond. He learned that she was
of old New England stock, but he had not needed this information to
perceive that Mrs. Vivian was animated by the genius of Boston.
She has the Boston temperament, he said, using a phrase with
which he had become familiar and which evoked a train of associations.
But then he immediately added that if Mrs.  Vivian was a daughter of
the Puritans, the Puritan strain in her disposition had been mingled
with another element. It is the Boston temperament
sophisticated, he said; perverted a littleperhaps
even corrupted. It is the local east-wind with an infusion from
climates less tonic It seemed to him that Mrs. Vivian was a
Puritan grown worldlya Bostonian relaxed; and this impression,
oddly enough, contributed to his wish to know more of her. He felt
like going up to her very politely and saying, Dear lady and most
honored compatriot, what in the world have I done to displease you?
You don't approve of me, and I am dying to know the reason why. I
should be so happy to exert myself to be agreeable to you. It 's no
use; you give me the cold shoulder. When I speak to you, you look the
other way; it is only when I speak to your daughter that you look at
me. It is true that at those times you look at me very hard, and if I
am not greatly mistaken, you are not gratified by what you see. You
count the words I address to your beautiful Angelayou time our
harmless little interviews. You interrupt them indeed whenever you
can; you call her awayyou appeal to her; you cut across the
conversation. You are always laying plots to keep us apart. Why can't
you leave me alone? I assure you I am the most innocent of men. Your
beautiful Angela can't possibly be injured by my conversation, and I
have no designs whatever upon her peace of mind. What on earth have I
done to offend you?

These observations Bernard Longueville was disposed to make, and
one afternoon, the opportunity offering, they rose to his lips and
came very near passing them. In fact, however, at the last moment, his
eloquence took another turn. It was the custom of the orchestra at the
Kursaal to play in the afternoon, and as the music was often good, a
great many people assembled under the trees, at three o'clock, to
listen to it. This was not, as a regular thing, an hour of re-union
for the little group in which we are especially interested; Miss
Vivian, in particular, unless an excursion of some sort had been
agreed upon the day before, was usually not to be seen in the
precincts of the Conversation-house until the evening. Bernard, one
afternoon, at three o'clock, directed his steps to this small
world-centre of Baden, and, passing along the terrace, soon
encountered little Blanche Evers strolling there under a pink parasol
and accompanied by Captain Lovelock. This young lady was always
extremely sociable; it was quite in accordance with her habitual
geniality that she should stop and say how d' ye do to our hero.

Mr. Longueville is growing very frivolous, she said,
coming to the Kursaal at all sorts of hours

There is nothing frivolous in coming here with the hope of
finding you, the young man answered. That is very
serious

It would be more serious to lose Miss Evers than to find
her, remarked Captain Lovelock, with gallant jocosity.

I wish you would lose me! cried the young girl. I
think I should like to be lost. I might have all kinds of
adventures

I `guess' so! said Captain Lovelock, hilariously.

Oh, I should find my way. I can take care of myself!
Blanche went on.

Mrs. Vivian does n't think so, said Bernard, who had just
perceived this lady, seated under a tree with a book, over the top of
which she was observing her pretty prot&eacute;g&eacute;e. Blanche
looked toward her and gave her a little nod and a smile. Then
chattering on to the young men

She 's awfully careful. I never saw any one so careful. But I
suppose she is right. She promised my mother she would be tremendously
particular; but I don't know what she thinks I would do

That is n't flattering to me, said Captain Lovelock.
Mrs.  Vivian does n't approve of meshe wishes me in
Jamaica. What does she think me capable of?

And me, now? Bernard asked. She likes me least of
all, and I, on my side, think she 's so nice

Can't say I 'm very sweet on her, said the Captain.
She strikes me as feline

Blanche Evers gave a little cry of horror.

Stop, sir, this instant! I won't have you talk that way about
a lady who has been so kind to me

She is n't so kind to you. She would like to lock you up where
I can never see you

I 'm sure I should n't mind that! cried the young girl,
with a little laugh and a toss of her head. Mrs. Vivian has the
most perfect characterthat 's why my mother wanted me to come
with her.  And if she promised my mother she would be careful, is n't
she right to keep her promise? She 's a great deal more careful than
mamma ever was, and that 's just what mamma wanted. She would never
take the trouble herself. And then she was always scolding me. Mrs.
Vivian never scolds me. She only watches me, but I don't mind
that

I wish she would watch you a little less and scold you a
little more, said Captain Lovelock.

I have no doubt you wish a great many horrid things, his
companion rejoined, with delightful asperity.

Ah, unfortunately I never have anything I wish! sighed
Lovelock.

Your wishes must be comprehensive, said Bernard. It
seems to me you have a good deal

The Englishman gave a shrug.

It 's less than you might think. She is watching us more
furiously than ever, he added, in a moment, looking at Mrs.
Vivian. Mr.  Gordon Wright is the only man she likes. She is
awfully fond of Mr.  Gordon Wright

Ah, Mrs. Vivian shows her wisdom! said Bernard.

He is certainly very handsome, murmured Blanche Evers,
glancing several times, with a very pretty aggressiveness, at Captain
Lovelock.  I must say I like Mr. Gordon Wright. Why in the world
did you come here without him? she went on, addressing herself to
Bernard.  You two are so awfully inseparable. I don't think I
ever saw you alone before

Oh, I have often seen Mr. Gordon Wright alone, said
Captain Lovelockthat is, alone with Miss Vivian. That 's
what the old lady likes; she can't have too much of that

The young girl, poised for an instant in one of her pretty
attitudes, looked at him from head to foot.

Well, I call that scandalous! Do you mean that she wants to
make a match?

I mean that the young man has six thousand a year

It 's no matter what he hassix thousand a year is n't
much! And we don't do things in that way in our country. We have n't
those horrid match-making arrangements that you have in your dreadful
country.  American mothers are not like English mothers

Oh, any one can see, of course, said Captain Lovelock,
that Mr. Gordon Wright is dying of love for Miss Vivian

I can't see it! cried Blanche.

He dies easier than I, eh?

I wish you would die! said Blanche. At any rate,
Angela is not dying of love for Mr. Wright

Well, she will marry him all the same, Lovelock declared.

Blanche Evers glanced at Bernard.

Why don't you contradict that? she asked. Why don't
you speak up for your friend?

I am quite ready to speak for my friend, said Bernard,
but I am not ready to speak for Miss Vivian

Well, I am, Blanche declared. She won't marry
him

If she does n't, I 'll eat my hat! said Captain Lovelock.
What do you mean, he went on, by saying that in America
a pretty girl's mother does n't care for a young fellow's
property?

Well, they don'twe consider that dreadful. Why don't
you say so, Mr. Longueville? Blanche demanded. I never saw
any one take things so quietly. Have n't you got any patriotism?

My patriotism is modified by an indisposition to
generalize, said Bernard, laughing. On this point permit me
not to generalize. I am interested in the particular casein
ascertaining whether Mrs.  Vivian thinks very often of Gordon Wright's
income

Miss Evers gave a little toss of disgust.

If you are so awfully impartial, you had better go and ask
her

That 's a good ideaI think I will go and ask her,
said Bernard.

Captain Lovelock returned to his argument.

Do you mean to say that your mother would be indifferent to
the fact that I have n't a shilling in the world?

Indifferent? Blanche demanded. Oh no, she would be
sorry for you. She is very charitableshe would give you a
shilling!

She would n't let you marry me, said Lovelock.

She would n't have much trouble to prevent it! cried the
young girl.

Bernard had had enough of this intellectual fencing.

Yes, I will go and ask Mrs. Vivian, he repeated. And he
left his companions to resume their walk.

It had seemed to him a good
idea to interrogate Mrs. Vivian; but there are a great many good ideas
that are never put into execution. As he approached her with a smile
and a salutation, and, with the air of asking leave to take a liberty,
seated himself in the empty chair beside her, he felt a humorous
relish of her own probable dismay which relaxed the investigating
impulse. His impulse was now simply to prove to her that he was the
most unobjectionable fellow in the worlda proposition which
resolved itself into several ingenious observations upon the weather,
the music, the charms and the drawbacks of Baden, the merits of the
volume that she held in her lap. If Mrs. Vivian should be annoyed,
should be fluttered, Bernard would feel very sorry for her; there was
nothing in the world that he respected more than the moral
consciousness of a little Boston woman whose view of life was serious
and whose imagination was subject to alarms. He held it to be a temple
of delicacy, where one should walk on tiptoe, and he wished to exhibit
to Mrs. Vivian the possible lightness of his own step. She herself was
incapable of being rude or ungracious, and now that she was fairly
confronted with the plausible object of her mistrust, she composed
herself to her usual attitude of refined liberality. Her book was a
volume of Victor Cousin.

You must have an extraordinary power of abstracting your
mind, Bernard said to her, observing it. Studying philosophy
at the Baden Kursaal strikes me as a real intellectual feat

Don't you think we need a little philosophy here?

By all meanswhat we bring with us. But I should n't
attempt the use of the text-book on the spot

You should n't speak of yourself as if you were not
clever, said Mrs. Vivian. Every one says you are so very
clever

Longueville stared; there was an unexpectedness in the speech and
an incongruity in Mrs. Vivian's beginning to flatter him. He needed to
remind himself that if she was a Bostonian, she was a Bostonian
perverted.

Ah, my dear madam, every one is no one, he said,
laughing.

It was Mr. Wright, in particular, she rejoined. He
has always told us that

He is blinded by friendship

Ah yes, we know about your friendship, said Mrs. Vivian.
He has told us about that

You are making him out a terrible talker!

We think he talks so wellwe are so very fond of his
conversation

It 's usually excellent, said Bernard. But it
depends a good deal on the subject

Oh, rejoined Mrs. Vivian, we always let him choose
his subjects And dropping her eyes as if in sudden reflection,
she began to smooth down the crumpled corner of her volume.

It occurred to Bernard thatby some mysterious
impulseshe was suddenly presenting him with a chance to ask her
the question that Blanche Evers had just suggested. Two or three other
things as well occurred to him. Captain Lovelock had been struck with
the fact that she favored Gordon Wright's addresses to her daughter,
and Captain Lovelock had a grotesque theory that she had set her heart
upon seeing this young lady come into six thousand a year. Miss
Evers's devoted swain had never struck Bernard as a brilliant
reasoner, but our friend suddenly found himself regarding him as one
of the inspired. The form of depravity into which the New England
conscience had lapsed on Mrs.  Vivian's part was an undue appreciation
of a possible son-in-law's income! In this illuminating discovery
everything else became clear.  Mrs. Vivian disliked her humble servant
because he had not thirty thousand dollars a year, and because at a
moment when it was Angela's prime duty to concentrate her thoughts
upon Gordon Wright's great advantages, a clever young man of paltry
fortune was a superfluous diversion.

When you say clever, everything is relative, he presently
observed. Now, there is Captain Lovelock; he has a certain kind
of cleverness; he is very observant

Mrs. Vivian glanced up with a preoccupied air.

We don't like Captain Lovelock, she said.

I have heard him say capital things, Bernard answered.

We think him brutal, said Mrs. Vivian. Please don't
praise Captain Lovelock

Oh, I only want to be just

Mrs. Vivian for a moment said nothing.

Do you want very much to be just? she presently asked.

It 's my most ardent desire

I 'm glad to hear thatand I can easily believe it,
said Mrs.  Vivian.

Bernard gave her a grateful smile, but while he smiled, he asked
himself a serious question. Why the deuce does she go on
flattering me?You have always been very kind to me, he
said aloud.

It 's on Mr. Wright's account, she answered demurely.

In speaking the words I have just quoted, Bernard Longueville had
felt himself, with a certain compunction, to be skirting the edge of
clever impudence; but Mrs. Vivian's quiet little reply suggested to
him that her cleverness, if not her impudence, was almost equal to his
own. He remarked to himself that he had not yet done her justice.

You bring everything back to Gordon Wright, he said,
continuing to smile.

Mrs. Vivian blushed a little.

It is because he is really at the foundation of everything
that is pleasant for us here. When we first came we had some very
disagreeable rooms, and as soon as he arrived he found us some
excellent onesthat were less expensive. And then, Mr.
Longueville, she added, with a soft, sweet emphasis which should
properly have contradicted the idea of audacity, but which, to
Bernard's awakened sense, seemed really to impart a vivid color to it,
he was also the cause of your joining our little party

Oh, among his services that should never be forgotten. You
should set up a tablet to commemorate it, in the wall of the
Kursaal!The wicked little woman! Bernard mentally
subjoined.

Mrs. Vivian appeared quite unruffled by his sportive sarcasm, and
she continued to enumerate her obligations to Gordon Wright.

There are so many ways in which a gentleman can be of
assistance to three poor lonely women, especially when he is at the
same time so friendly and so delicate as Mr. Wright. I don't know what
we should have done without him, and I feel as if every one ought to
know it. He seems like a very old friend. My daughter and I quite
worship him. I will not conceal from you that when I saw you coming
through the grounds a short time ago without him I was very much
disappointed. I hope he is not ill

Bernard sat listening, with his eyes on the ground.

Oh no, he is simply at home writing letters

Mrs. Vivian was silent a moment.

I suppose he has a very large correspondence

I really don't know. Just now that I am with him he has a
smaller one than usual

Ah yes. When you are separated I suppose you write volumes to
each other. But he must have a great many business letters

It is very likely, said Bernard. And if he has, you
may be sure he writes them

Order and method! Mrs. Vivian exclaimed. With his
immense property those virtues are necessary

Bernard glanced at her a moment.

My dear Lovelock, he said to himself, you are not
such a fool as you seem.Gordon's virtues are always necessary,
doubtless, he went on. But should you say his property was
immense?

Mrs. Vivian made a delicate little movement of deprecation.
Oh, don't ask me to say! I know nothing about it; I only supposed
he was rich

He is rich; but he is not a Cr&oelig;sus

Oh, you fashionable young men have a standard of luxury!
said Mrs. Vivian, with a little laugh. To a poverty-stricken
widow such a fortune as Mr. Wright's seems magnificent

Don't call me such horrible names! exclaimed Bernard.
Our friend has certainly money enough and to spare

That was all I meant. He once had occasion to allude to his
property, but he was so modest, so reserved in the tone he took about
it, that one hardly knew what to think

He is ashamed of being rich, said Bernard. He would
be sure to represent everything unfavorably

That 's just what I thought! This ejaculation was more
eager than Mrs. Vivian might have intended, but even had it been less
so, Bernard was in a mood to appreciate it. I felt that we should
make allowances for his modesty. But it was in very good taste,
Mrs.  Vivian added.

He 's a fortunate man, said Bernard. He gets credit
for his good tasteand he gets credit for the full figure of his
income as well!

Ah, murmured Mrs. Vivian, rising lightly, as if to make
her words appear more casual, I don't know the full figure of his
income.  

She was turning away, and Bernard, as he raised his hat and
separated from her, felt that it was rather cruel that he should let
her go without enlightening her ignorance. But he said to himself that
she knew quite enough. Indeed, he took a walk along the Lichtenthal
Alley and carried out this line of reflection. Whether or no Miss
Vivian were in love with Gordon Wright, her mother was enamored of
Gordon's fortune, and it had suddenly occurred to her that instead of
treating the friend of her daughter's suitor with civil mistrust, she
would help her case better by giving him a hint of her state of mind
and appealing to his sense of propriety. Nothing could be more natural
than that Mrs.  Vivian should suppose that Bernard desired his
friend's success; for, as our thoughtful hero said to himself, what
she had hitherto taken it into her head to fear was not that Bernard
should fall in love with her daughter, but that her daughter should
fall in love with him.  Watering-place life is notoriously conducive
to idleness of mind, and Bernard strolled for half an hour along the
overarched avenue, glancing alternately at these two insupposable
cases.

A few days afterward, late in the evening, Gordon Wright came to
his room at the hotel.

I have just received a letter from my sister, he said.
I am afraid I shall have to go away

Ah, I 'm sorry for that, said Bernard, who was so well
pleased with the actual that he desired no mutation.

I mean only for a short time, Gordon explained. My
poor sister writes from England, telling me that my brother-in-law is
suddenly obliged to go home. She has decided not to remain behind, and
they are to sail a fortnight hence. She wants very much to see me
before she goes, and as I don't know when I shall see her again, I
feel as if I ought to join her immediately and spend the interval with
her.  That will take about a fortnight

I appreciate the sanctity of family ties and I project myself
into your situation, said Bernard. On the other hand, I
don't envy you a breathless journey from Baden to Folkestone

It 's the coming back that will be breathless, exclaimed
Gordon, smiling.

You will certainly come back, then?

Most certainly. Mrs. Vivian is to be here another month

I understand. Well, we shall miss you very much

Gordon Wright looked for a moment at his companion.

You will stay here, then? I am so glad of that

I was taking it for granted; but on reflectionwhat do
you recommend?

I recommend you to stay

My dear fellow, your word is law, said Bernard.

I want you to take care of those ladies, his friend went
on.  I don't like to leave them alone

You are joking! cried Bernard. When did you ever
hear of my `taking care' of any one? It 's as much as I can do to take
care of myself

This is very easy, said Gordon. I simply want to
feel that they have a man about them

They will have a man at any ratethey have the devoted
Lovelock

That 's just why I want them to have another. He has only an
eye to Miss Evers, who, by the way, is extremely bored with him. You
look after the others. You have made yourself very agreeable to them,
and they like you extremely

Ah, said Bernard, laughing, if you are going to be
coarse and flattering, I collapse. If you are going to titillate my
vanity, I succumb

It won't be so disagreeable, Gordon observed, with an
intention vaguely humorous.

Oh no, it won't be disagreeable. I will go to Mrs. Vivian
every morning, hat in hand, for my orders

Gordon Wright, with his hands in his pockets and a meditative
expression, took several turns about the room.

It will be a capital chance, he said, at last, stopping
in front of his companion.

A chance for what?

A chance to arrive at a conclusion about my young friend

Bernard gave a gentle groan.

Are you coming back to that? Did n't I arrive at a conclusion
long ago? Did n't I tell you she was a delightful girl?

Do you call that a conclusion? The first comer could tell me
that at the end of an hour

Do you want me to invent something different? Bernard
asked.  I can't invent anything better

I don't want you to invent anything. I only want you to
observe herto study her in complete independence. You will have
her to yourselfmy absence will leave you at liberty. Hang it,
sir, Gordon declared, I should think you would like it!

Damn it, sir, you 're delicious! Bernard answered; and he
broke into an irrepressible laugh. I don't suppose it 's for my
pleasure that you suggest the arrangement

Gordon took a turn about the room again.

No, it 's for mine. At least, it 's for my benefit

For your benefit?

I have got all sorts of ideasI told you the other day.
They are all mixed up together and I want a fresh impression

My impressions are never fresh, Bernard replied.

They would be if you had a little good-willif you
entered a little into my dilemma The note of reproach was so
distinct in these words that Bernard stood staring. You never
take anything seriously, his companion went on.

Bernard tried to answer as seriously as possible.

Your dilemma seems to me of all dilemmas the strangest

That may be; but different people take things differently.
Don't you see, Gordon went on with a sudden outbreak of
passiondon't you see that I am horribly divided in mind? I
care immensely for Angela Vivianand yetand yetI
am afraid of her

Afraid of her?

I am afraid she 's cleverer than Ithat she would be a
difficult wife; that she might do strange things

What sort of things?

Well, that she might flirt, for instance

That 's not a thing for a man to fear

Not when he supposes his wife to be fond of himno. But
I don't suppose thatI have given that up. If I should induce
Angela Vivian to accept me she would do it on grounds purely
reasonable. She would think it best, simply. That would give her a
chance to repent

Bernard sat for some time looking at his friend.

You say she is cleverer than you. It 's impossible to be
cleverer than you

Oh, come, Longueville! said Gordon, angrily.

I am speaking very seriously. You have done a remarkably
clever thing. You have impressed me with the reality, and
withwhat shall I term it?the estimable character of what
you call your dilemma. Now this fresh impression of minewhat do
you propose to do with it when you get it?

Such things are always useful. It will be a good thing to
have

I am much obliged to you; but do you propose to let anything
depend upon it? Do you propose to take or to leave Miss
Vivianthat is, to return to the charge or to give up
tryingin consequence of my fresh impression?

Gordon seemed perfectly unembarrassed by this question, in spite of
the ironical light which it projected upon his sentimental perplexity.

I propose to do what I choose! he said.

That 's a relief to me, Bernard rejoined. This idea
of yours is, after all, only the play of the scientific mind

I shall contradict you flat if I choose, Gordon went on.

Ah, it 's well to warn me of that, said Bernard,
laughing.  Even the most sincere judgment in the world likes to
be notified a little of the danger of being contradicted

Is yours the most sincere judgment in the world? Gordon
demanded.

That 's a very pertinent question. Does n't it occur to you
that you may have reason to be jealousleaving me alone, with an
open field, with the woman of your choice?

I wish to heaven I could be jealous! Gordon exclaimed.
That would simplify the thingthat would give me a
lift

And the next day, after some more talk, it seemed really with a
hope of this contingencythough, indeed, he laughed about
itthat he started for England.

For the three or four days
that followed Gordon Wright's departure, Bernard saw nothing of the
ladies who had been committed to his charge.  They chose to remain in
seclusion, and he was at liberty to interpret this fact as an
expression of regret at the loss of Gordon's good offices. He knew
other people at Baden, and he went to see them and endeavored, by
cultivating their society, to await in patience the re-appearance of
Mrs. Vivian and her companions. But on the fourth day he became
conscious that other people were much less interesting than the trio
of American ladies who had lodgings above the confectioner's, and he
made bold to go and knock at their door. He had been asked to take
care of them, and this function presupposed contact. He had met
Captain Lovelock the day before, wandering about with a rather
crest-fallen aspect, and the young Englishman had questioned him
eagerly as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Vivian.

Gad, I believe they 've left the placeleft the place
without giving a fellow warning! cried Lovelock.

Oh no, I think they are here still, said Bernard. My
friend Wright has gone away for a week or two, but I suspect the
ladies are simply staying at home

Gad, I was afraid your friend Wright had taken them away with
him; he seems to keep them all in his pocket. I was afraid he had
given them marching orders; they 'd have been sure to gothey
're so awfully fond of his pocket! I went to look them up
yesterdayupon my word I did.  They live at a baker's in a
little back-street; people do live in rum places when they come
abroad! But I assure you, when I got there, I 'm damned if I could
make out whether they were there or not. I don't speak a word of
German, and there was no one there but the baker's wife.  She was a
low brute of a womanshe could n't understand a word I said,
though she gave me plenty of her own tongue. I had to give it up.
They were not at home, but whether they had left Baden or
notthat was beyond my finding out. If they are here, why the
deuce don't they show?  Fancy coming to Baden-Baden to sit moping at a
pastry-cook's!

Captain Lovelock was evidently irritated, and it was Bernard's
impression that the turn of luck over yonder where the gold-pieces
were chinking had something to do with the state of his temper. But
more fortunate himself, he ascertained from the baker's wife that
though Mrs.  Vivian and her daughter had gone out, their companion,
the youngest ladythe little young ladywas
above in the sitting-room.

Blanche Evers was sitting at the window with a book, but she
relinquished the volume with an alacrity that showed it had not been
absorbing, and began to chatter with her customary frankness.

Well, I must say I am glad to see some one! cried the
young girl, passing before the mirror and giving a touch to her
charming tresses.

Even if it 's only me, Bernard exclaimed, laughing.

I did n't mean that. I am sure I am very glad to see
youI should think you would have found out that by this time. I
mean I 'm glad to see any oneespecially a man. I suppose it 's
improper for me to say thatespecially to you! Thereyou
see I do think more of you than of some gentlemen. Why especially to
you? Well, because you always seem to me to want to take advantage. I
did n't say a base advantage; I did n't accuse you of anything
dreadful. I 'm sure I want to take advantage, tooI take it
whenever I can. You see I take advantage of your being hereI
've got so many things to say. I have n't spoken a word in three days,
and I 'm sure it is a pleasant changea gentleman's visit.  All
of a sudden we have gone into mourning; I 'm sure I don't know who 's
dead. Is it Mr. Gordon Wright? It 's some idea of Mrs.
Vivian'sI 'm sure it is n't mine. She thinks we have been often
enough to the Kursaal. I don't know whether she thinks it 's wicked,
or what. If it 's wicked the harm 's already done; I can't be any
worse than I am now.  I have seen all the improper people and I have
learnt all their names; Captain Lovelock has told me their names,
plenty of times. I don't see what good it does me to be shut up here
with all those names running in my ears. I must say I do prefer
society. We have n't been to the Kursaal for four dayswe have
only gone out for a drive. We have taken the most interminable drives.
I do believe we have seen every old ruin in the whole country. Mrs.
Vivian and Angela are so awfully fond of scenerythey talk about
it by the half-hour. They talk about the mountains and trees as if
they were people they knewas if they were gentlemen! I mean as
if the mountains and trees were gentlemen. Of course scenery 's
lovely, but you can't walk about with a tree. At any rate, that has
been all our societyfoliage! Foliage and women; but I suppose
women are a sort of foliage. They are always rustling about and
dropping off. That 's why I could n't make up my mind to go out with
them this afternoon. They 've gone to see the Waterworthsthe
Waterworths arrived yesterday and are staying at some hotel. Five
daughtersall unmarried! I don't know what kind of foliage they
are; some peculiar kindthey don't drop off. I thought I had had
about enough ladies' societythree women all sticking together!
I don't think it 's good for a young girl to have nothing but ladies'
societyit 's so awfully limited. I suppose I ought to stand up
for my own sex and tell you that when we are alone together we want
for nothing. But we want for everything, as it happens! Women's talk
is limitedevery one knows that. That 's just what mamma did n't
want when she asked Mrs. Vivian to take charge of me. Now, Mr.
Longueville, what are you laughing at?you are always laughing
at me. She wanted me to be unlimitedis that what you say? Well,
she did n't want me to be narrowed down; she wanted me to have plenty
of conversation. She wanted me to be fitted for societythat 's
what mamma wanted. She wanted me to have ease of manner; she thinks
that if you don't acquire it when you are young you never have it at
all. She was so happy to think I should come to Baden; but she would
n't approve of the life I 've been leading the last four days. That 's
no way to acquire ease of mannersitting all day in a small
parlor with two persons of one's own sex! Of course Mrs. Vivian's
influencethat 's the great thing. Mamma said it was like the
odor of a flower. But you don't want to keep smelling a flower all
day, even the sweetest; that 's the shortest way to get a headache.
Apropos of flowers, do you happen to have heard whether Captain
Lovelock is alive or dead? Do I call him a flower? No; I call him a
flower-pot. He always has some fine young plant in his button-hole. He
has n't been near me these ten yearsI never heard of anything
so rude!

Captain Lovelock came on the morrow, Bernard finding him in Mrs.
Vivian's little sitting-room on paying a second visit. On this
occasion the two other ladies were at home and Bernard was not
exclusively indebted to Miss Evers for entertainment. It was to this
source of hospitality, however, that Lovelock mainly appealed,
following the young girl out upon the little balcony that was
suspended above the confectioner's window. Mrs. Vivian sat writing at
one of the windows of the sitting-room, and Bernard addressed his
conversation to Angela.

Wright requested me to keep an eye on you, he said;
but you seem very much inclined to keep out of my
jurisdiction

I supposed you had gone away, she answerednow
that your friend is gone

By no means. Gordon is a charming fellow, but he is by no
means the only attraction of Baden. Besides, I have promised him to
look after youto take care of you

The girl looked at him a moment in silencea little askance.

I thought you had probably undertaken something of that
sort, she presently said.

It was of course a very natural request for Gordon to
make

Angela got up and turned away; she wandered about the room and went
and stood at one of the windows. Bernard found the movement abrupt and
not particularly gracious; but the young man was not easy to snub. He
followed her, and they stood at the second windowthe long
window that opened upon the balcony. Miss Evers and Captain Lovelock
were leaning on the railing, looking into the street and apparently
amusing themselves highly with what they saw.

I am not sure it was a natural request for him to make,
said Angela.

What could have been more sodevoted as he is to
you?

She hesitated a moment; then with a little laugh

He ought to have locked us up and said nothing about it

It 's not so easy to lock you up, said Bernard. I
know Wright has great influence with you, but you are after all
independent beings

I am not an independent being. If my mother and Mr. Wright
were to agree together to put me out of harm's way they could easily
manage it

You seem to have been trying something of that sort, said
Bernard. You have been so terribly invisible

It was because I thought you had designs upon us; that you
were watching for usto take care of us

You contradict yourself! You said just now that you believed I
had left Baden

That was an artificiala conventional speech. Is n't a
lady always supposed to say something of that sort to a visitor by way
of pretending to have noticed that she has not seen him?

You know I would never have left Baden without coming to bid
you good-bye, said Bernard.

The girl made no rejoinder; she stood looking out at the little
sunny, slanting, rough-paved German street.

Are you taking care of us now? she asked in a moment.
Has the operation begun? Have you heard the news, mamma? she
went on. Do you know that Mr. Wright has made us over to Mr.
Longueville, to be kept till called for? Suppose Mr. Wright should
never call for us!

Mrs. Vivian left her writing-table and came toward Bernard, smiling
at him and pressing her hands together.

There is no fear of that, I think, she said. I am
sure I am very glad we have a gentleman near us. I think you will be a
very good care-taker, Mr. Longueville, and I recommend my daughter to
put great faith in your judgment And Mrs. Vivian gave him an
intensea pleading, almost affectinglittle smile.

I am greatly touched by your confidence and I shall do
everything I can think of to merit it, said the young man.

Ah, mamma's confidence is wonderful! Angela exclaimed.
There was never anything like mamma's confidence. I am very
different; I have no confidence. And then I don't like being
deposited, like a parcel, or being watched, like a curious animal. I
am too fond of my liberty

That is the second time you have contradicted yourself,
said Bernard. You said just now that you were not an independent
being

Angela turned toward him quickly, smiling and frowning at once.

You do watch one, certainly! I see it has already begun
Mrs.  Vivian laid her hand upon her daughter's with a little murmur of
tender deprecation, and the girl bent over and kissed her. Mamma
will tell you it 's the effect of agitation, she
saidthat I am nervous, and don't know what I say. I am
supposed to be agitated by Mr. Wright's departure; is n't that it,
mamma?

Mrs. Vivian turned away, with a certain soft severity.

I don't know, my daughter. I don't understand you

A charming pink flush had come into Angela's cheek and a noticeable
light into her eye. She looked admirably handsome, and Bernard frankly
gazed at her. She met his gaze an instant, and then she went on.

Mr. Longueville does n't understand me either. You must know
that I am agitated, she continued. Every now and then I have
moments of talking nonsense. It 's the air of Baden, I think; it 's
too exciting.  It 's only lately I have been so. When you go away I
shall be horribly ashamed

If the air of Baden has such an effect upon you, said
Bernard, it is only a proof the more that you need the solicitous
attention of your friends

That may be; but, as I told you just now, I have no
confidencenone whatever, in any one or anything. Therefore, for
the present, I shall withdraw from the worldI shall seclude
myself. Let us go on being quiet, mamma. Three or four days of it have
been so charming. Let the parcel lie till it 's called for. It is much
safer it should n't be touched at all. I shall assume that,
metaphorically speaking, Mr.  Wright, who, as you have intimated, is
our earthly providence, has turned the key upon us. I am locked up. I
shall not go out, except upon the balcony! And with this, Angela
stepped out of the long window and went and stood beside Miss Evers.

Bernard was extremely amused, but he was also a good deal puzzled,
and it came over him that it was not a wonder that poor Wright should
not have found this young lady's disposition a perfectly decipherable
page.  He remained in the room with Mrs. Vivianhe stood there
looking at her with his agreeably mystified smile. She had turned
away, but on perceiving that her daughter had gone outside she came
toward Bernard again, with her habitual little air of eagerness
mitigated by discretion. There instantly rose before his mind the
vision of that moment when he had stood face to face with this same
apologetic mamma, after Angela had turned her back, on the grass-grown
terrace at Siena.  To make the vision complete, Mrs. Vivian took it
into her head to utter the same words.

I am sure you think she is a strange girl

Bernard recognized them, and he gave a light laugh.

You told me that the first time you ever saw mein that
quiet little corner of an Italian town

Mrs. Vivian gave a little faded, elderly blush.

Don't speak of that, she murmured, glancing at the open
window.  It was a little accident of travel

I am dying to speak of it, said Bernard. It was such
a charming accident for me! Tell me this, at leasthave you kept
my sketch?

Mrs. Vivian colored more deeply and glanced at the window again.

No, she just whispered.

Bernard looked out of the window too. Angela was leaning against
the railing of the balcony, in profile, just as she had stood while he
painted her, against the polished parapet at Siena. The young man's
eyes rested on her a moment, then, as he glanced back at her mother:

Has she kept it? he asked.

I don't know, said Mrs. Vivian, with decision.

The decision was excessiveit expressed the poor lady's
distress at having her veracity tested. Dear little daughter of
the Puritansshe can't tell a fib! Bernard exclaimed to
himself. And with this flattering conclusion he took leave of her.

It was affirmed at an early
stage of this narrative that he was a young man of a contemplative and
speculative turn, and he had perhaps never been more true to his
character than during an hour or two that evening as he sat by himself
on the terrace of the Conversation-house, surrounded by the crowd of
its frequenters, but lost in his meditations.  The place was full of
movement and sound, but he had tilted back his chair against the great
green box of an orange-tree, and in this easy attitude, vaguely and
agreeably conscious of the music, he directed his gaze to the
star-sprinkled vault of the night. There were people coming and going
whom he knew, but he said nothing to any onehe preferred to be
alone; he found his own company quite absorbing. He felt very happy,
very much amused, very curiously preoccupied. The feeling was a
singular one. It partook of the nature of intellectual excitement. He
had a sense of having received carte blanche for the expenditure of
his wits. Bernard liked to feel his intelligence at play; this is,
perhaps, the highest luxury of a clever man. It played at present over
the whole field of Angela Vivian's oddities of conductfor,
since his visit in the afternoon, Bernard had felt that the spectacle
was considerably enlarged. He had come to feel, also, that poor
Gordon's predicament was by no means an unnatural one. Longueville had
begun to take his friend's dilemma very seriously indeed. The girl was
certainly a curious study.

The evening drew to a close and the crowd of Bernard's
fellow-loungers dispersed. The lighted windows of the Kursaal still
glittered in the bosky darkness, and the lamps along the terrace had
not been extinguished; but the great promenade was almost deserted;
here and there only a lingering couplethe red tip of a cigar
and the vague radiance of a light dressgave animation to the
place. But Bernard sat there still in his tilted chair, beneath his
orange-tree; his imagination had wandered very far and he was awaiting
its return to the fold. He was on the point of rising, however, when
he saw three figures come down the empty vista of the
terracefigures which even at a distance had a familiar air. He
immediately left his seat and, taking a dozen steps, recognized Angela
Vivian, Blanche Evers and Captain Lovelock. In a moment he met them in
the middle of the terrace.

Blanche immediately announced that they had come for a midnight
walk.

And if you think it 's improper, she exclaimed, it
's not my inventionit 's Miss Vivian's

I beg pardonit 's mine, said Captain Lovelock.
I desire the credit of it. I started the idea; you never would
have come without me

I think it would have been more proper to come without you
than with you, Blanche declared. You know you 're a dreadful
character

I 'm much worse when I 'm away from you than when I 'm with
you, said Lovelock. You keep me in order

The young girl gave a little cry.

I don't know what you call order! You can't be worse than you
have been to-night

Angela was not listening to this; she turned away a little, looking
about at the empty garden.

This is the third time to-day that you have contradicted
yourself, he said. Though he spoke softly he went nearer to her;
but she appeared not to hear himshe looked away.

You ought to have been there, Mr. Longueville, Blanche
went on.  We have had a most lovely night; we sat all the evening
on Mrs.  Vivian's balcony, eating ices. To sit on a balcony, eating
icesthat 's my idea of heaven

With an angel by your side, said Captain Lovelock.

You are not my idea of an angel, retorted Blanche.

I 'm afraid you 'll never learn what the angels are really
like, said the Captain. That 's why Miss Evers got Mrs.
Vivian to take rooms over the baker'sso that she could have
ices sent up several times a day. Well, I 'm bound to say the baker's
ices are not bad

Considering that they have been baked! But they affect the
mind, Blanche went on. They would have affected Captain
Lovelock'sonly he has n't any. They certainly affected
Angela'sputting it into her head, at eleven o'clock, to come
out to walk

Angela did nothing whatever to defend herself against this
ingenious sally; she simply stood there in graceful abstraction.
Bernard was vaguely vexed at her neither looking at him nor speaking
to him; her indifference seemed a contravention of that right of
criticism which Gordon had bequeathed to him.

I supposed people went to bed at eleven o'clock, he said.

Angela glanced about her, without meeting his eye.

They seem to have gone

Miss Evers strolled on, and her Captain of course kept pace with
her; so that Bernard and Miss Vivian were left standing together. He
looked at her a moment in silence, but her eye still avoided his own.

You are remarkably inconsistent, Bernard presently said.
You take a solemn vow of seclusion this afternoon, and no sooner
have you taken it than you proceed to break it in this outrageous
manner

She looked at him nowa long timelonger than she had
ever done before.

This is part of the examination, I suppose, she said.

Bernard hesitated an instant.

What examination?

The one you have undertakenon Mr. Wright's behalf

What do you know about that?

Ah, you admit it then? the girl exclaimed, with an eager
laugh.

I don't in the least admit it, said Bernard, conscious
only for the moment of the duty of loyalty to his friend and feeling
that negation here was simply a point of honor.

I trust more to my own conviction than to your denial. You
have engaged to bring your superior wisdom and your immense experience
to bear upon me! That 's the understanding

You must think us a pretty pair of wiseacres, said
Bernard.

There it isyou already begin to answer for what I
think. When Mr.  Wright comes back you will be able to tell him that I
am `outrageous'! And she turned away and walked on, slowly
following her companions.

What do you care what I tell him? Bernard asked. You
don't care a straw

She said nothing for a moment, then, suddenly, she stopped again,
dropping her eyes.

I beg your pardon, she said, very gently; I care a
great deal.  It 's as well that you should know that

Bernard stood looking at her; her eyes were still lowered.

Do you know what I shall tell him? I shall tell him that about
eleven o'clock at night you become peculiarly attractive

She went on again a few steps; Miss Evers and Captain Lovelock had
turned round and were coming toward her.

It is very true that I am outrageous, she said; it
was extremely silly and in very bad taste to come out at this hour.
Mamma was not at all pleased, and I was very unkind to her. I only
wanted to take a turn, and now we will go back On the others
coming up she announced this resolution, and though Captain Lovelock
and his companion made a great outcry, she carried her point. Bernard
offered no opposition. He contented himself with walking back to her
mother's lodging with her almost in silence. The little winding
streets were still and empty; there was no sound but the chatter and
laughter of Blanche and her attendant swain. Angela said nothing.

This incident presented itself at first to Bernard's mind as a sort
of declaration of war. The girl had guessed that she was to be made a
subject of speculative scrutiny. The idea was not agreeable to her
independent spirit, and she placed herself boldly on the defensive.
She took her stand upon her right to defeat his purpose by every
possible meansto perplex, elude, deceive himin plain
English, to make a fool of him. This was the construction which for
several days Bernard put upon her deportment, at the same time that he
thought it immensely clever of her to have guessed what had been going
on in his mind. She made him feel very much ashamed of his critical
attitude, and he did everything he could think of to put her off her
guard and persuade her that for the moment he had ceased to be an
observer. His position at moments seemed to him an odious one, for he
was firmly resolved that between him and the woman to whom his friend
had proposed there should be nothing in the way of a vulgar
flirtation. Under the circumstances, it savoured both of flirtation
and of vulgarity that they should even fall out with each
othera consummation which appeared to be more or less
definitely impending. Bernard remarked to himself that his own only
reasonable line of conduct would be instantly to leave Baden, but I am
almost ashamed to mention the fact which led him to modify this
decision. It was simply that he was induced to make the reflection
that he had really succeeded in putting Miss Vivian off her guard. How
he had done so he would have found it difficult to explain, inasmuch
as in one way or another, for a week, he had spent several hours in
talk with her. The most effective way of putting her off her guard
would have been to leave her alone, to forswear the privilege of
conversation with her, to pass the days in other society. This course
would have had the drawback of not enabling him to measure the
operation of so ingenious a policy, and Bernard liked, of all the
things in the world, to know when he was successful. He believed, at
all events, that he was successful now, and that the virtue of his
conversation itself had persuaded this keen and brilliant girl that he
was thinking of anything in the world but herself. He flattered
himself that the civil indifference of his manner, the abstract
character of the topics he selected, the irrelevancy of his allusions
and the laxity of his attention, all contributed to this result.

Such a result was certainly a remarkable one, for it is almost
superfluous to intimate that Miss Vivian was, in fact, perpetually in
his thoughts. He made it a point of conscience not to think of her,
but he was thinking of her most when his conscience was most lively.
Bernard had a consciencea conscience which, though a little
irregular in its motions, gave itself in the long run a great deal of
exercise; but nothing could have been more natural than that, curious,
imaginative, audacious as he was, and delighting, as I have said, in
the play of his singularly nimble intelligence, he should have given
himself up to a sort of unconscious experimentation. I will leave
her aloneI will be hanged if I attempt to draw her out! he
said to himself; and meanwhile he was roaming afield and plucking
personal impressions in great fragrant handfuls. All this, as I say,
was natural, given the man and the situation; the only oddity is that
he should have fancied himself able to persuade the person most
interested that he had renounced his advantage.

He remembered her telling him that she cared very much what he
should say of her on Gordon Wright's return, and he felt that this
declaration had a particular significance. After this, of her own
movement, she never spoke of Gordon, and Bernard made up his mind that
she had promised her mother to accept him if he should repeat his
proposal, and that as her heart was not in the matter she preferred to
drop a veil over the prospect. She is going to marry him for his
money, he said, because her mother has brought out the
advantages of the thing.  Mrs. Vivian's persuasive powers have carried
the day, and the girl has made herself believe that it does n't matter
that she does n't love him.  Perhaps it does n'tto her; it 's
hard, in such a case, to put one's self in the woman's point of view.
But I should think it would matter, some day or other, to poor Gordon.
She herself can't help suspecting it may make a difference in his
happiness, and she therefore does n't wish to seem any worse to him
than is necessary. She wants me to speak well of her; if she intends
to deceive him she expects me to back her up.  The wish is doubtless
natural, but for a proud girl it is rather an odd favor to ask. Oh
yes, she 's a proud girl, even though she has been able to arrange it
with her conscience to make a mercenary marriage. To expect me to help
her is perhaps to treat me as a friend; but she ought to
rememberor at least I ought to rememberthat Gordon is an
older friend than she. Inviting me to help her as against my oldest
friendis n't there a grain of impudence in that?

It will be gathered that Bernard's meditations were not on the
whole favorable to this young lady, and it must be affirmed that he
was forcibly struck with an element of cynicism in her conduct. On the
evening of her so-called midnight visit to the Kursaal she had
suddenly sounded a note of sweet submissiveness which re-appeared
again at frequent intervals. She was gentle, accessible, tenderly
gracious, expressive, demonstrative, almost flattering. From his own
personal point of view Bernard had no complaint to make of this
maidenly urbanity, but he kept reminding himself that he was not in
question and that everything must be looked at in the light of
Gordon's requirements.  There was all this time an absurd logical
twist in his view of things.  In the first place he was not to judge
at all; and in the second he was to judge strictly on Gordon's behalf.
This latter clause always served as a justification when the former
had failed to serve as a deterrent.  When Bernard reproached himself
for thinking too much of the girl, he drew comfort from the reflection
that he was not thinking well. To let it gradually filter into one's
mind, through a superficial complexity of more reverent
preconceptions, that she was an extremely clever coquettethis,
surely, was not to think well! Bernard had luminous glimpses of
another situation, in which Angela Vivian's coquetry should meet with
a different appreciation; but just now it was not an item to be
entered on the credit side of Wright's account. Bernard wiped his pen,
mentally speaking, as he made this reflection, and felt like a
grizzled old book-keeper, of incorruptible probity. He saw her, as I
have said, very often; she continued to break her vow of shutting
herself up, and at the end of a fortnight she had reduced it to
imperceptible particles. On four different occasions, presenting
himself at Mrs. Vivian's lodgings, Bernard found Angela there alone.
She made him welcome, receiving him as an American girl, in such
circumstances, is free to receive the most gallant of visitors. She
smiled and talked and gave herself up to charming gayety, so that
there was nothing for Bernard to say but that now at least she was off
her guard with a vengeance. Happily he was on his own! He flattered
himself that he remained so on occasions that were even more
insidiously relaxingwhen, in the evening, she strolled away
with him to parts of the grounds of the Conversation-house, where the
music sank to sweeter softness and the murmur of the tree-tops of the
Black Forest, stirred by the warm night-air, became almost audible; or
when, in the long afternoons, they wandered in the woods apart from
the othersfrom Mrs.  Vivian and the amiable object of her more
avowed solicitude, the object of the sportive adoration of the
irrepressible, the ever-present Lovelock. They were constantly having
parties in the woods at this timedriving over the hills to
points of interest which Bernard had looked out in the guide-book.
Bernard, in such matters, was extremely alert and considerate; he
developed an unexpected talent for arranging excursions, and he had
taken regularly into his service the red-waistcoated proprietor of a
big Teutonic landau, which had a courier's seat behind and was always
at the service of the ladies. The functionary in the red waistcoat was
a capital charioteer; he was constantly proposing new drives, and he
introduced our little party to treasures of romantic scenery.

More than a fortnight had
elapsed, but Gordon Wright had not re-appeared, and Bernard suddenly
decided that he would leave Baden. He found Mrs. Vivian and her
daughter, very opportunely, in the garden of the pleasant, homely
Schloss which forms the residence of the Grand Dukes of Baden during
their visits to the scene of our narrative, and which, perched upon
the hill-side directly above the little town, is surrounded with
charming old shrubberies and terraces. To this garden a portion of the
public is admitted, and Bernard, who liked the place, had been there
more than once. One of the terraces had a high parapet, against which
Angela was leaning, looking across the valley. Mrs.  Vivian was not at
first in sight, but Bernard presently perceived her seated under a
tree with Victor Cousin in her hand. As Bernard approached the young
girl, Angela, who had not seen him, turned round.

Don't move, he said. You were just in the position
in which I painted your portrait at Siena

Don't speak of that, she answered.

I have never understood, said Bernard, why you
insist upon ignoring that charming incident

She resumed for a moment her former position, and stood looking at
the opposite hills.

That 's just how you werein profilewith your
head a little thrown back

It was an odious incident! Angela exclaimed, rapidly
changing her attitude.

Bernard was on the point of making a rejoinder, but he thought of
Gordon Wright and held his tongue. He presently told her that he
intended to leave Baden on the morrow.

They were walking toward her mother. She looked round at him
quickly.

Where are you going?

To Paris, he said, quite at hazard; for he had not in the
least determined where to go.

To Parisin the month of August? And she gave a
little laugh.  What a happy inspiration!

She gave a little laugh, but she said nothing more, and Bernard
gave no further account of his plan. They went and sat down near Mrs.
Vivian for ten minutes, and then they got up again and strolled to
another part of the garden. They had it all to themselves, and it was
filled with things that Bernard likedinequalities of level,
with mossy steps connecting them, rose-trees trained upon old brick
walls, horizontal trellises arranged like Italian pergolas, and here
and there a towering poplar, looking as if it had survived from some
more primitive stage of culture, with its stiff boughs motionless and
its leaves forever trembling. They made almost the whole circuit of
the garden, and then Angela mentioned very quietly that she had heard
that morning from Mr.  Wright, and that he would not return for
another week.

You had better stay, she presently added, as if Gordon's
continued absence were an added reason.

I don't know, said Bernard. It is sometimes
difficult to say what one had better do

I hesitate to bring against him that most inglorious of all
charges, an accusation of sentimental fatuity, of the disposition to
invent obstacles to enjoyment so that he might have the pleasure of
seeing a pretty girl attempt to remove them. But it must be admitted
that if Bernard really thought at present that he had better leave
Baden, the observation I have just quoted was not so much a sign of
this conviction as of the hope that his companion would proceed to
gainsay it. The hope was not disappointed, though I must add that no
sooner had it been gratified than Bernard began to feel ashamed of it.

This certainly is not one of those cases, said Angela.
The thing is surely very simple now

What makes it so simple?

She hesitated a moment.

The fact that I ask you to stay

You ask me? he repeated, softly.

Ah, she exclaimed, one does n't say those things
twice!

She turned away, and they went back to her mother, who gave Bernard
a wonderful little look of half urgent, half remonstrant inquiry. As
they left the garden he walked beside Mrs. Vivian, Angela going in
front of them at a distance. The elder lady began immediately to talk
to him of Gordon Wright.

He 's not coming back for another week, you know, she
said. I am sorry he stays away so long

Ah yes, Bernard answered, it seems very long
indeed

And it had, in fact, seemed to him very long.

I suppose he is always likely to have business, said Mrs.
Vivian.

You may be very sure it is not for his pleasure that he stays
away

I know he is faithful to old friends, said Mrs. Vivian.
I am sure he has not forgotten us

I certainly count upon that, Bernard
exclaimedremembering him as we do!

Mrs. Vivian glanced at him gratefully.

Oh yes, we remember himwe remember him daily, hourly.
At least, I can speak for my daughter and myself. He has been so very
kind to us Bernard said nothing, and she went on. And you
have been so very kind to us, too, Mr. Longueville. I want so much to
thank you

Oh no, don't! said Bernard, frowning. I would rather
you should n't

Of course, Mrs. Vivian added, I know it 's all on
his account; but that makes me wish to thank you all the more. Let me
express my gratitude, in advance, for the rest of the time, till he
comes back.  That 's more responsibility than you bargained for,
she said, with a little nervous laugh.

Yes, it 's more than I bargained for. I am thinking of going
away

Mrs. Vivian almost gave a little jump, and then she paused on the
Baden cobble-stones, looking up at him.

If you must go, Mr. Longuevilledon't sacrifice
yourself!

The exclamation fell upon Bernard's ear with a certain softly
mocking cadence which was sufficient, however, to make this organ
tingle.

Oh, after all, you know, he said, as they walked
onafter all, you know, I am not like WrightI have
no business

He walked with the ladies to the door of their lodging. Angela kept
always in front. She stood there, however, at the little
confectioner's window until the others came up. She let her mother
pass in, and then she said to Bernard, looking at him

Shall I see you again?

Some time, I hope

I meanare you going away?

Bernard looked for a moment at a little pink sugar cheruba
species of Cupid, with a gilded bowwhich figured among the
pastry-cook's enticements. Then he said

I will come and tell you this evening

And in the evening he went to tell her; she had mentioned during
the walk in the garden of the Schloss that they should not go out. As
he approached Mrs. Vivian's door he saw a figure in a light dress
standing in the little balcony. He stopped and looked up, and then the
person in the light dress, leaning her hands on the railing, with her
shoulders a little raised, bent over and looked down at him. It was
very dark, but even through the thick dusk he thought he perceived the
finest brilliancy of Angela Vivian's smile.

I shall not go away, he said, lifting his voice a little.

She made no answer; she only stood looking down at him through the
warm dusk and smiling. He went into the house, and he remained at
Baden-Baden till Gordon came back.

Gordon asked him no questions
for twenty-four hours after his return, then suddenly he began:

Well, have n't you something to say to me?

It was at the hotel, in Gordon's apartment, late in the afternoon.
A heavy thunder-storm had broken over the place an hour before, and
Bernard had been standing at one of his friend's windows, rather idly,
with his hands in his pockets, watching the rain-torrents dance upon
the empty pavements. At last the deluge abated, the clouds began to
breakthere was a promise of a fine evening. Gordon Wright,
while the storm was at its climax, sat down to write letters, and
wrote half a dozen. It was after he had sealed, directed and affixed a
postage-stamp to the last of the series that he addressed to his
companion the question I have just quoted.

Do you mean about Miss Vivian? Bernard asked, without
turning round from the window.

About Miss Vivian, of course Bernard said nothing and
his companion went on. Have you nothing to tell me about Miss
Vivian?

Bernard presently turned round looking at Gordon and smiling a
little.

She 's a delightful creature!

That won't doyou have tried that before, said
Gordon. No, he added in a moment, that won't do
Bernard turned back to the window, and Gordon continued, as he
remained silent. I shall have a right to consider your saying
nothing a proof of an unfavorable judgment. You don't like her!

Bernard faced quickly about again, and for an instant the two men
looked at each other.

Ah, my dear Gordon, Longueville murmured.

Do you like her then? asked Wright, getting up.

No! said Longueville.

That 's just what I wanted to know, and I am much obliged to
you for telling me

I am not obliged to you for asking me. I was in hopes you
would n't

You dislike her very much then? Gordon exclaimed,
gravely.

Won't disliking her, simply, do? said Bernard.

It will do very well. But it will do a little better if you
will tell me why. Give me a reason or two

Well, said Bernard, I tried to make love to her and
she boxed my ears

The devil! cried Gordon.

I mean morally, you know

Gordon stared; he seemed a little puzzled.

You tried to make love to her morally?

She boxed my ears morally, said Bernard, laughing out.

Why did you try to make love to her?

This inquiry was made in a tone so expressive of an unbiassed
truth-seeking habit that Bernard's mirth was not immediately quenched.
Nevertheless, he replied with sufficient gravity

To test her fidelity to you. Could you have expected anything
else?  You told me you were afraid she was a latent coquette. You gave
me a chance, and I tried to ascertain

And you found she was not. Is that what you mean?

She 's as firm as a rock. My dear Gordon, Miss Vivian is as
firm as the firmest of your geological formations

Gordon shook his head with a strange positive persistence.

You are talking nonsense. You are not serious. You are not
telling me the truth. I don't believe that you attempted to make love
to her.  You would n't have played such a game as that. It would n't
have been honorable

Bernard flushed a little; he was irritated.

Oh come, don't make too much of a point of that! Did n't you
tell me before that it was a great opportunity?

An opportunity to be wisenot to be foolish!

Ah, there is only one sort of opportunity, cried Bernard.
You exaggerate the reach of human wisdom

Suppose she had let you make love to her, said Gordon.
That would have been a beautiful result of your experiment

I should have seemed to you a rascal, perhaps, but I should
have saved you from a latent coquette. You would owe some thanks for
that

And now you have n't saved me, said Gordon, with a simple
air of noting a fact.

You assumein spite of what I saythat she is a
coquette!

I assume something because you evidently conceal something. I
want the whole truth

Bernard turned back to the window with increasing irritation.

If he wants the whole truth he shall have it, he said to
himself.

He stood a moment in thought and then he looked at his companion
again.

I think she would marry youbut I don't think she cares
for you

Gordon turned a little pale, but he clapped his hands together.

Very good, he exclaimed. That 's exactly how I want
you to speak

Her mother has taken a great fancy to your fortune and it has
rubbed off on the girl, who has made up her mind that it would be a
pleasant thing to have thirty thousand a year, and that her not caring
for you is an unimportant detail

I seeI see, said Gordon, looking at his friend
with an air of admiration for his frank and lucid way of putting
things.

Now that he had begun to be frank and lucid, Bernard found a charm
in it, and the impulse under which he had spoken urged him almost
violently forward.

The mother and daughter have agreed together to bag you, and
Angela, I am sure, has made a vow to be as nice to you after marriage
as possible. Mrs. Vivian has insisted upon the importance of that;
Mrs.  Vivian is a great moralist

Gordon kept gazing at his friend; he seemed positively fascinated.

Yes, I have noticed that in Mrs. Vivian, he said.

Ah, she 's a very nice woman!

It 's not true, then, said Gordon, that you tried to
make love to Angela?

Bernard hesitated a single instant.

No, it is n't true. I calumniated myself, to save her
reputation.  You insisted on my giving you a reason for my not liking
herI gave you that one

And your real reason

My real reason is that I believe she would do you what I can't
help regarding as an injury

Of course! and Gordon, dropping his interested eyes,
stared for some moments at the carpet. But it is n't true, then,
that you discovered her to be a coquette?

Ah, that 's another matter

You did discover it all the same?

Since you want the whole truthI did!

How did you discover it? Gordon asked, clinging to his
right of interrogation.

Bernard hesitated.

You must remember that I saw a great deal of her

You mean that she encouraged you?

If I had not been a very faithful friend I might have thought
so

Gordon laid his hand appreciatively, gratefully, on Bernard's
shoulder.

And even that did n't make you like her?

Confound it, you make me blush! cried Bernard, blushing a
little in fact. I have said quite enough; excuse me from drawing
the portrait of too insensible a man. It was my point of view; I kept
thinking of you

Gordon, with his hand still on his friend's arm, patted it an
instant in response to this declaration; then he turned away.

I am much obliged to you. That 's my notion of friendship. You
have spoken out like a man

Like a man, yes. Remember that. Not in the least like an
oracle

I prefer an honest man to all the oracles, said Gordon.

An honest man has his impressions! I have given you
minethey pretend to be nothing more. I hope they have n't
offended you

Not in the least

Nor distressed, nor depressed, nor in any way discomposed
you?

For what do you take me? I asked you a favora
service; I imposed it on you. You have done the thing, and my part is
simple gratitude

Thank you for nothing, said Bernard, smiling. You
have asked me a great many questions; there is one that in turn I have
a right to ask you. What do you propose to do in consequence of what I
have told you?

I propose to do nothing

This declaration closed the colloquy, and the young men separated.
Bernard saw Gordon no more that evening; he took for granted he had
gone to Mrs. Vivian's. The burden of Longueville's confidences was a
heavy load to carry there, but Bernard ventured to hope that he would
deposit it at the door. He had given Gordon his impressions, and the
latter might do with them what he chosetoss them out of the
window, or let them grow stale with heedless keeping. So Bernard
meditated, as he wandered about alone for the rest of the evening. It
was useless to look for Mrs. Vivian's little circle, on the terrace of
the Conversation-house, for the storm in the afternoon had made the
place so damp that it was almost forsaken of its frequenters. Bernard
spent the evening in the gaming-rooms, in the thick of the crowd that
pressed about the tables, and by way of a changehe had hitherto
been almost nothing of a gamblerhe laid down a couple of pieces
at roulette. He had played but two or three times, without winning a
penny; but now he had the agreeable sensation of drawing in a small
handful of gold. He continued to play, and he continued to win. His
luck surprised and excited himso much so that after it had
repeated itself half a dozen times he left the place and walked about
for half an hour in the outer darkness. He felt amused and
exhilarated, but the feeling amounted almost to agitation. He,
nevertheless, returned to the tables, where he again found success
awaiting him. Again and again he put his money on a happy number, and
so steady a run of luck began at last to attract attention. The rumor
of it spread through the rooms, and the crowd about the roulette
received a large contingent of spectators. Bernard felt that they were
looking more or less eagerly for a turn of the tide; but he was in the
humor for disappointing them, and he left the place, while his luck
was still running high, with ten thousand francs in his pocket. It was
very late when he returned to the innso late that he forbore to
knock at Gordon's door. But though he betook himself to his own
quarters, he was far from finding, or even seeking, immediate rest.
He knocked about, as he would have said, for half the nightnot
because he was delighted at having won ten thousand francs, but rather
because all of a sudden he found himself disgusted at the manner in
which he had spent the evening. It was extremely characteristic of
Bernard Longueville that his pleasure should suddenly transform itself
into flatness. What he felt was not regret or repentance. He had it
not in the least on his conscience that he had given countenance to
the reprehensible practice of gaming. It was annoyance that he had
passed out of his own controlthat he had obeyed a force which
he was unable to measure at the time. He had been drunk and he was
turning sober. In spite of a great momentary appearance of frankness
and a lively relish of any conjunction of agreeable circumstances
exerting a pressure to which one could respond, Bernard had really
little taste for giving himself up, and he never did so without very
soon wishing to take himself back. He had now given himself to
something that was not himself, and the fact that he had gained ten
thousand francs by it was an insufficient salve to an aching sense of
having ceased to be his own master. He had not been playinghe
had been played with. He had been the sport of a blind, brutal chance,
and he felt humiliated by having been favored by so rudely-operating a
divinity. Good luck and bad luck?  Bernard felt very scornful of the
distinction, save that good luck seemed to him rather the more vulgar.
As the night went on his disgust deepened, and at last the weariness
it brought with it sent him to sleep. He slept very late, and woke up
to a disagreeable consciousness.  At first, before collecting his
thoughts, he could not imagine what he had on his mindwas it
that he had spoken ill of Angela Vivian? It brought him extraordinary
relief to remember that he had gone to bed in extreme ill-humor with
his exploits at roulette. After he had dressed himself and just as he
was leaving his room, a servant brought him a note superscribed in
Gordon's handa note of which the following proved to be the
contents.

Seven o'clock, A.M.

My dear Bernard: Circumstances have determined me to leave
Baden immediately, and I shall take the train that starts an hour
hence. I am told that you came in very late last night, so I won't
disturb you for a painful parting at this unnatural hour. I came to
this decision last evening, and I put up my things; so I have nothing
to do but to take myself off. I shall go to Basel, but after that I
don't know where, and in so comfortless an uncertainty I don't ask you
to follow me. Perhaps I shall go to America; but in any case I shall
see you sooner or later.  Meanwhile, my dear Bernard, be as happy as
your brilliant talents should properly make you, and believe me yours
ever,

G.W.

P.S. It is perhaps as well that I should say that I am leaving
in consequence of something that happened last evening, but
notby any traceable processin consequence of the talk we
had together. I may also add that I am in very good health and
spirits

Bernard lost no time in learning that his friend had in fact
departed by the eight o'clock trainthe morning was now well
advanced; and then, over his breakfast, he gave himself up to
meditative surprise.  What had happened during the eveningwhat
had happened after their conversation in Gordon's room? He had gone to
Mrs. Vivian'swhat had happened there? Bernard found it
difficult to believe that he had gone there simply to notify her that,
having talked it over with an intimate friend, he gave up her
daughter, or to mention to the young lady herself that he had ceased
to desire the honor of her hand. Gordon alluded to some definite
occurrence, yet it was inconceivable that he should have allowed
himself to be determined by Bernard's wordshis diffident and
irresponsible impression. Bernard resented this idea as an injury to
himself, yet it was difficult to imagine what else could have
happened. There was Gordon's word for it, however, that there was no
traceable connection between the circumstances which led to
his sudden departure and the information he had succeeded in
extracting from his friend. What did he mean by a traceable
connection?  Gordon never used words idly, and he meant to make of
this point an intelligible distinction. It was this sense of his usual
accuracy of expression that assisted Bernard in fitting a meaning to
his late companion's letter. He intended to intimate that he had come
back to Baden with his mind made up to relinquish his suit, and that
he had questioned Bernard simply from moral curiosityfor the
sake of intellectual satisfaction. Nothing was altered by the fact
that Bernard had told him a sorry tale; it had not modified his
behaviorthat effect would have been traceable. It had simply
affected his imagination, which was a consequence of the imponderable
sort. This view of the case was supported by Gordon's mention of his
good spirits.  A man always had good spirits when he had acted in
harmony with a conviction. Of course, after renouncing the attempt to
make himself acceptable to Miss Vivian, the only possible thing for
Gordon had been to leave Baden. Bernard, continuing to meditate, at
last convinced himself that there had been no explicit rupture, that
Gordon's last visit had simply been a visit of farewell, that its
character had sufficiently signified his withdrawal, and that he had
now gone away because, after giving the girl up, he wished very
naturally not to meet her again. This was, on Bernard's part, a
sufficiently coherent view of the case; but nevertheless, an hour
afterward, as he strolled along the Lichtenthal Alley, he found
himself stopping suddenly and exclaiming under his
breathHave I done her an injury? Have I affected her
prospects? Later in the day he said to himself half a dozen times
that he had simply warned Gordon against an incongruous union.

Now that gordon was gone, at
any rate, gone for good, and not to return, he felt a sudden and
singular sense of freedom. It was a feeling of unbounded expansion,
quite out of proportion, as he said to himself, to any assignable
cause. Everything suddenly appeared to have become very optional; but
he was quite at a loss what to do with his liberty. It seemed a
harmless use to make of it, in the afternoon, to go and pay another
visit to the ladies who lived at the confectioner's.  Here, however,
he met a reception which introduced a fresh element of perplexity into
the situation that Gordon had left behind him. The door was opened to
him by Mrs. Vivian's maid-servant, a sturdy daughter of the
Schwartzwald, who informed him that the ladieswith much
regretwere unable to receive any one.

They are very busyand they are ill, said the young
woman, by way of explanation.

Bernard was disappointed, and he felt like arguing the case.

Surely, he said, they are not both ill and busy!
When you make excuses, you should make them agree with each
other

The Teutonic soubrette fixed her round blue eyes a minute upon the
patch of blue sky revealed to her by her open door.

I say what I can, lieber Herr. It 's not my fault if I 'm not
so clever as a French mamsell. One of the ladies is busy, the other is
ill.  There you have it

Not quite, said Bernard. You must remember that
there are three of them

Oh, the little onethe little one weeps

Miss Evers weeps! exclaimed Bernard, to whom the vision
of this young lady in tears had never presented itself.

That happens to young ladies when they are unhappy, said
the girl; and with an artless yet significant smile she carried a big
red hand to the left side of a broad bosom.

I am sorry she is unhappy; but which of the other ladies is
ill?

The mother is very busy

And the daughter is ill?

The young woman looked at him an instant, smiling again, and the
light in her little blue eyes indicated confusion, but not perversity.

No, the mamma is ill, she exclaimed, and the
daughter is very busy. They are preparing to leave Baden

To leave Baden? When do they go?

I don't quite know, lieber Herr; but very soon

With this information Bernard turned away. He was rather surprised,
but he reflected that Mrs. Vivian had not proposed to spend her life
on the banks of the Oos, and that people were leaving Baden every day
in the year. In the evening, at the Kursaal, he met Captain Lovelock,
who was wandering about with an air of explosive sadness.

Damn it, they 're goingyes, they 're going, said
the Captain, after the two young men had exchanged a few allusions to
current events.  Fancy their leaving us in that heartless manner!
It 's not the time to run awayit 's the time to keep your
rooms, if you 're so lucky as to have any. The races begin next week
and there 'll be a tremendous crowd. All the grand-ducal people are
coming. Miss Evers wanted awfully to see the Grand Duke, and I
promised her an introduction. I can't make out what Mrs. Vivian is up
to. I bet you a ten-pound note she 's giving chase. Our friend Wright
has come back and gone off again, and Mrs.  Vivian means to strike
camp and follow. She 'll pot him yet; you see if she does n't!

She is running away from you, dangerous man! said
Bernard.

Do you mean on account of Miss Evers? Well, I admire Miss
EversI don't mind admitting that; but I ain't dangerous,
said Captain Lovelock, with a lustreless eye. How can a fellow be
dangerous when he has n't ten shillings in his pocket? Desperation, do
you call it?  But Miss Evers has n't money, so far as I have heard. I
don't ask you, Lovelock continuedI don't care a damn
whether she has or not.  She 's a devilish charming girl, and I don't
mind telling you I 'm hit.  I stand no chanceI know I stand no
chance. Mrs. Vivian 's down on me, and, by Jove, Mrs. Vivian 's right.
I 'm not the husband to pick out for a young woman of expensive habits
and no expectations. Gordon Wright's the sort of young man that 's
wanted, and, hang me, if Mrs.  Vivian did n't want him so much for her
own daughter, I believe she 'd try and bag him for the little one.
Gad, I believe that to keep me off she would like to cut him in two
and give half to each of them! I 'm afraid of that little woman. She
has got a little voice like a screw-driver. But for all that, if I
could get away from this cursed place, I would keep the girl in
sighthang me if I would n't! I 'd cut the racesdash me
if I would n't! But I 'm in pawn, if you know what that means. I owe a
beastly lot of money at the inn, and that impudent little beggar of a
landlord won't let me out of his sight. The luck 's dead against me at
those filthy tables; I have n't won a farthing in three weeks. I wrote
to my brother the other day, and this morning I got an answer from
hima cursed, canting letter of good advice, remarking that he
had already paid my debts seven times. It does n't happen to be seven;
it 's only six, or six and a half! Does he expect me to spend the rest
of my life at the H&ocirc;tel de Hollande? Perhaps he would like me to
engage as a waiter there and pay it off by serving at the table
d'h&ocirc;te. It would be convenient for him the next time he comes
abroad with his seven daughters and two governesses. I hate the smell
of their beastly table d'h&ocirc;te! You 're sorry I 'm hard up? I 'm
sure I 'm much obliged to you. Can you be of any service? My dear
fellow, if you are bent on throwing your money about the place I 'm
not the man to stop you Bernard's winnings of the previous night
were burning a hole, as the phrase is, in his pocket. Ten thousand
francs had never before seemed to him so heavy a load to carry, and to
lighten the weight of his good luck by lending fifty pounds to a less
fortunate fellow-player was an operation that not only gratified his
good-nature but strongly commended itself to his conscience. His
conscience, however, made its conditions. My dear
Longueville, Lovelock went on, I have always gone in for
family feeling, early associations, and all that sort of thing. That
's what made me confide my difficulties to Dovedale. But, upon my
honor, you remind me of the good Samaritan, or that sort of person;
you are fonder of me than my own brother! I 'll take fifty pounds with
pleasure, thank you, and you shall have them againat the
earliest opportunity. My earliest conveniencewill that do? Damn
it, it is a convenience, is n't it? You make your conditions. My dear
fellow, I accept them in advance. That I 'm not to follow up Miss
Eversis that what you mean? Have you been commissioned by the
family to buy me off? It 's devilish cruel to take advantage of my
poverty! Though I 'm poor, I 'm honest. But I am honest, my dear
Longueville; that 's the point. I 'll give you my word, and I 'll keep
it. I won't go near that girl againI won't think of her till I
've got rid of your fifty pounds. It 's a dreadful encouragement to
extravagance, but that 's your lookout. I 'll stop for their beastly
races and the young lady shall be sacred

Longueville called the next morning at Mrs. Vivian's, and learned
that the three ladies had left Baden by the early train, a couple of
hours before. This fact produced in his mind a variety of
emotionssurprise, annoyance, embarrassment. In spite of his
effort to think it natural they should go, he found something
precipitate and inexplicable in the manner of their going, and he
declared to himself that one of the party, at least, had been unkind
and ungracious in not giving him a chance to say good-bye. He took
refuge by anticipation, as it were, in this reflection, whenever, for
the next three or four days, he foresaw himself stopping short, as he
had done before, and asking himself whether he had done an injury to
Angela Vivian. This was an idle and unpractical question, inasmuch as
the answer was not forthcoming; whereas it was quite simple and
conclusive to say, without the note of interrogation, that she was, in
spite of many attractive points, an abrupt and capricious young woman.
During the three or four days in question, Bernard lingered on at
Baden, uncertain what to do or where to go, feeling as if he had
received a sudden checka sort of spiritual snubwhich
arrested the accumulation of motive. Lovelock, also, whom Bernard saw
every day, appeared to think that destiny had given him a slap in the
face, for he had not enjoyed the satisfaction of a last interview with
Miss Evers.

I thought she might have written me a note, said the
Captain; but it appears she does n't write. Some girls don't
write, you know

Bernard remarked that it was possible Lovelock would still have
news of Miss Blanche; and before he left Baden he learned that she had
addressed her forsaken swain a charming little note from Lausanne,
where the three ladies had paused in their flight from Baden, and
where Mrs. Vivian had decreed that for the present they should remain.

I 'm devilish glad she writes, said Captain Lovelock;
some girls do write, you know

Blanche found Lausanne most horrid after Baden, for whose delights
she languished. The delights of Baden, however, were not obvious just
now to her correspondent, who had taken Bernard's fifty pounds into
the Kursaal and left them there. Bernard, on learning his misfortune,
lent him another fifty, with which he performed a second series of
unsuccessful experiments; and our hero was not at his ease until he
had passed over to his luckless friend the whole amount of his own
winnings, every penny of which found its way through Captain
Lovelock's fingers back into the bank. When this operation was
completed, Bernard left Baden, the Captain gloomily accompanying him
to the station.

I have said that there had come over Bernard a singular sense of
freedom. One of the uses he made of his freedom was to undertake a
long journey. He went to the East and remained absent from Europe for
upward of two yearsa period of his life of which it is not
proposed to offer a complete history. The East is a wonderful region,
and Bernard, investigating the mysteries of Asia, saw a great many
curious and beautiful things. He had moments of keen enjoyment; he
laid up a great store of impressions and even a considerable sum of
knowledge. But, nevertheless, he was not destined to look back upon
this episode with any particular complacency. It was less delightful
than it was supposed to be; it was less successful than it might have
been. By what unnatural element the cup of pleasure was adulterated,
he would have been very much at a loss to say; but it was an
incontestable fact that at times he sipped it as a medicine, rather
than quaffed it as a nectar.  When people congratulated him on his
opportunity of seeing the world, and said they envied him the
privilege of seeing it so well, he felt even more than the usual
degree of irritation produced by an insinuation that fortune thinks so
poorly of us as to give us easy terms. Misplaced sympathy is the least
available of superfluities, and Bernard at this time found himself
thinking that there was a good deal of impertinence in the world. He
would, however, readily have confessed that, in so far as he failed to
enjoy his Oriental wanderings, the fault was his own; though he would
have made mentally the gratifying reflection that never was a fault
less deliberate. If, during the period of which I speak, his natural
gayety had sunk to a minor key, a partial explanation may be found in
the fact that he was deprived of the society of his late companion. It
was an odd circumstance that the two young men had not met since
Gordon's abrupt departure from Baden.  Gordon went to Berlin, and
shortly afterward to America, so that they were on opposite sides of
the globe. Before he returned to his own country, Bernard made by
letter two or three offers to join him in Europe, anywhere that was
agreeable to him. Gordon answered that his movements were very
uncertain, and that he should be sorry to trouble Bernard to follow
him about. He had put him to this inconvenience in making him travel
from Venice to Baden, and one such favor at a time was enough to ask,
even of the most obliging of men. Bernard was, of course, afraid that
what he had told Gordon about Angela Vivian was really the cause of a
state of things which, as between two such good friends, wore a
perceptible resemblance to alienation. Gordon had given her up; but he
bore Bernard a grudge for speaking ill of her, and so long as this
disagreeable impression should last, he preferred not to see him.
Bernard was frank enough to charge the poor fellow with a lingering
rancor, of which he made, indeed, no great crime. But Gordon denied
the allegation, and assured him that, to his own perception, there was
no decline in their intimacy. He only requested, as a favor and as a
tribute to just susceptibilities, that Bernard would allude
no more either to Miss Vivian or to what had happened at Baden.  This
request was easy to comply with, and Bernard, in writing, strictly
conformed to it; but it seemed to him that the act of doing so was in
itself a cooling-off. What would be a better proof of what is called a
tension than an agreement to avoid a natural topic? Bernard
moralized a little over Gordon's just susceptibilities, and
felt that the existence of a perverse resentment in so honest a nature
was a fact gained to his acquaintance with psychological science. It
cannot be said, however, that he suffered this fact to occupy at all
times the foreground of his consciousness. Bernard was like some great
painters; his foregrounds were very happily arranged. He heard nothing
of Mrs.  Vivian and her daughter, beyond a rumor that they had gone to
Italy; and he learned, on apparently good authority, that Blanche
Evers had returned to New York with her mother. He wondered whether
Captain Lovelock was still in pawn at the H&ocirc;tel de Hollande. If
he did not allow himself to wonder too curiously whether he had done a
harm to Gordon, it may be affirmed that he was haunted by the
recurrence of that other question, of which mention has already been
made. Had he done a harm to Angela Vivian, and did she know that he
had done it?  This inquiry by no means made him miserable, and it was
far from awaiting him regularly on his pillow. But it visited him at
intervals, and sometimes in the strangest placessuddenly,
abruptly, in the stillness of an Indian temple, or amid the shrillness
of an Oriental crowd. He became familiar with it at last; he called it
his Jack-in-the-box. Some invisible touch of circumstance would press
the spring, and the little image would pop up, staring him in the face
and grinning an interrogation. Bernard always clapped down the lid,
for he regarded this phenomenon as strikingly inane. But if it was
more frequent than any pang of conscience connected with the
remembrance of Gordon himself, this last sentiment was certainly
lively enough to make it a great relief to hear at last a rumor that
the excellent fellow was about to be married. The rumor reached him at
Athens; it was vague and indirect, and it omitted the name of his
betrothed. But Bernard made the most of it, and took comfort in the
thought that his friend had recovered his spirits and his appetite for
matrimony.

It was not till our hero
reached Paris, on his return from the distant East, that the rumor I
have just mentioned acquired an appreciable consistency. Here, indeed,
it took the shape of authentic information.  Among a number of delayed
letters which had been awaiting him at his banker's he found a
communication from Gordon Wright. During the previous year or two his
correspondence with this trustedand trustingfriend had
not been frequent, and Bernard had received little direct news of him.
Three or four short letters had overtaken him in his
wanderingsletters as cordial, to all appearance, if not as
voluminous, as the punctual missives of an earlier time. Bernard made
a point of satisfying himself that they were as cordial; he weighed
them in the scales of impartial suspicion. It seemed to him on the
whole that there was no relaxation of Gordon's epistolary tone. If he
wrote less often than he used to do, that was a thing that very
commonly happened as men grew older. The closest intimacies, moreover,
had phases and seasons, intermissions and revivals, and even if his
friend had, in fact, averted his countenance from him, this was simply
the accomplishment of a periodical revolution which would bring them
in due order face to face again. Bernard made a point, himself, of
writing tolerably often and writing always in the friendliest tone. He
made it a matter of consciencehe liked to feel that he was
treating Gordon generously, and not demanding an eye for an eye. The
letter he found in Paris was so short that I may give it entire.

My dear Bernard (it ran), I must write to you before I write
to any one else, though unfortunately you are so far away that you
can't be the first to congratulate me. Try and not be the last,
however. I am going to be marriedas soon as possible. You know
the young lady, so you can appreciate the situation. Do you remember
little Blanche Evers, whom we used to see three years ago at
Baden-Baden? Of course you remember her, for I know you used often to
talk with her. You will be rather surprised, perhaps, at my having
selected her as the partner of a life-time; but we manage these
matters according to our lights. I am very much in love with her, and
I hold that an excellent reason. I have been ready any time this year
or two to fall in love with some simple, trusting, child-like nature.
I find this in perfection in this charming young girl. I find her so
natural and fresh. I remember telling you once that I did n't wish to
be fascinatedthat I wanted to estimate scientifically the woman
I should marry. I have altogether got over that, and I don't know how
I ever came to talk such nonsense. I am fascinated now, and I assure
you I like it! The best of it is that I find it does n't in the least
prevent my estimating Blanche. I judge her very fairlyI see
just what she is. She 's simplethat 's what I want; she 's
tenderthat 's what I long for. You will remember how pretty she
is; I need n't remind you of that. She was much younger then, and she
has greatly developed and improved in these two or three years. But
she will always be young and innocentI don't want her to
improve too much. She came back to America with her mother the winter
after we met her at Baden, but I never saw her again till three months
ago. Then I saw her with new eyes, and I wondered I could have been so
blind. But I was n't ready for her till then, and what makes me so
happy now is to know that I have come to my present way of feeling by
experience. That gives me confidenceyou see I am a reasoner
still.  But I am under the charm, for all my reason. We are to be
married in a monthtry and come back to the wedding. Blanche
sends you a message, which I will give you verbatim. `Tell him I am
not such a silly little chatterbox as I used to be at Baden. I am a
great deal wiser; I am almost as clever as Angela Vivian.' She has an
idea you thought Miss Vivian very cleverbut it is not true that
she is equally so. I am very happy; come home and see

Bernard went home, but he was not able to reach the United States
in time for Gordon's wedding, which took place at midsummer. Bernard,
arriving late in the autumn, found his friend a married man of some
months' standing, and was able to judge, according to his invitation,
whether he appeared happy. The first effect of the letter I have just
quoted had been an immense surprise; the second had been a series of
reflections which were quite the negative of surprise; and these
operations of Bernard's mind had finally merged themselves in a simple
sentiment of jollity. He was delighted that Gordon should be married;
he felt jovial about it; he was almost indifferent to the question of
whom he had chosen. Certainly, at first, the choice of Blanche Evers
seemed highly incongruous; it was difficult to imagine a young woman
less shaped to minister to Gordon's strenuous needs than the
light-hearted and empty-headed little flirt whose inconsequent prattle
had remained for Bernard one of the least importunate memories of a
charming time. Blanche Evers was a pretty little goosethe
prettiest of little geese, perhaps, and doubtless the most amiable;
but she was not a companion for a peculiarly serious man, who would
like his wife to share his view of human responsibilities. What a
singular selectionwhat a queer infatuation! Bernard had no
sooner committed himself to this line of criticism than he stopped
short, with the sudden consciousness of error carried almost to the
point of na&iuml;vet; aae. He exclaimed that Blanche Evers was exactly
the sort of girl that men of Gordon Wright's stamp always ended by
falling in love with, and that poor Gordon knew very much better what
he was about in this case than he had done in trying to solve the deep
problem of a comfortable life with Angela Vivian. This was what your
strong, solid, sensible fellows always came to; they paid, in this
particular, a larger tribute to pure fancy than the people who were
supposed habitually to cultivate that muse. Blanche Evers was what the
French call an article of fantasy, and Gordon had taken a pleasure in
finding her deliciously useless. He cultivated utility in other ways,
and it pleased and flattered him to feel that he could afford, morally
speaking, to have a kittenish wife. He had within himself a fund of
common sense to draw upon, so that to espouse a paragon of wisdom
would be but to carry water to the fountain. He could easily make up
for the deficiencies of a wife who was a little silly, and if she
charmed and amused him, he could treat himself to the luxury of these
sensations for themselves.  He was not in the least afraid of being
ruined by it, and if Blanche's birdlike chatter and turns of the head
had made a fool of him, he knew it perfectly well, and simply took his
stand upon his rights. Every man has a right to a little flower-bed,
and life is not all mere kitchen-gardening. Bernard rapidly
extemporized this rough explanation of the surprise his friend had
offered him, and he found it all-sufficient for his immediate needs.
He wrote Blanche a charming note, to which she replied with a great
deal of spirit and grace. Her little letter was very prettily turned,
and Bernard, reading it over two or three times, said to himself that,
to do her justice, she might very well have polished her intellect a
trifle during these two or three years. As she was older, she could
hardly help being wiser. It even occurred to Bernard that she might
have profited by the sort of experience that is known as the
discipline of suffering. What had become of Captain Lovelock and that
tender passion which was apparently none the less genuine for having
been expressed in the slang of a humorous period? Had they been
permanently separated by judicious guardians, and had she been obliged
to obliterate his image from her lightly-beating little heart? Bernard
had felt sure at Baden that, beneath her contemptuous airs and that
impertinent consciousness of the difficulties of conquest by which a
pretty American girl attests her allegiance to a civilization in which
young women occupy the highest placehe had felt sure that
Blanche had a high appreciation of her handsome Englishman, and that
if Lovelock should continue to relish her charms, he might count upon
the advantages of reciprocity. But it occurred to Bernard that Captain
Lovelock had perhaps been faithless; that, at least, the discourtesy
of chance and the inhumanity of an elder brother might have kept him
an eternal prisoner at the H&ocirc;tel de Hollande (where, for all
Bernard knew to the contrary, he had been obliged to work out his
destiny in the arduous character of a polyglot waiter); so that the
poor young girl, casting backward glances along the path of Mrs.
Vivian's retreat, and failing to detect the onward rush of a rescuing
cavalier, had perforce believed herself forsaken, and had been obliged
to summon philosophy to her aid. It was very possible that her
philosophic studies had taught her the art of reflection; and that, as
she would have said herself, she was tremendously toned down. Once, at
Baden, when Gordon Wright happened to take upon himself to remark that
little Miss Evers was bored by her English gallant, Bernard had
ventured to observe, in petto, that Gordon knew nothing about it. But
all this was of no consequence now, and Bernard steered further and
further away from the liability to detect fallacies in his friend.
Gordon had engaged himself to marry, and our critical hero had not a
grain of fault to find with this resolution. It was a capital thing;
it was just what he wanted; it would do him a world of good. Bernard
rejoiced with him sincerely, and regretted extremely that a series of
solemn engagements to pay visits in England should prevent his being
present at the nuptials.

They were well over, as I have said, when he reached New York. The
honeymoon had waned, and the business of married life had begun.
Bernard, at the end, had sailed from England rather abruptly. A friend
who had a remarkably good cabin on one of the steamers was obliged by
a sudden detention to give it up, and on his offering it to
Longueville, the latter availed himself gratefully of this opportunity
of being a little less discomposed than usual by the Atlantic billows.
He therefore embarked at two days' notice, a fortnight earlier than he
had intended and than he had written to Gordon to expect him. Gordon,
of course, had written that he was to seek no hospitality but that
which Blanche was now preparedthey had a charming
houseso graciously to dispense; but Bernard, nevertheless,
leaving the ship early in the morning, had betaken himself to an
hotel. He wished not to anticipate his welcome, and he determined to
report himself to Gordon first and to come back with his luggage later
in the day. After purifying himself of his sea-stains, he left his
hotel and walked up the Fifth Avenue with all a newly-landed voyager's
enjoyment of terrestrial locomotion. It was a charming autumn day;
there was a golden haze in the air; he supposed it was the Indian
summer. The broad sidewalk of the Fifth Avenue was scattered over with
dry leavescrimson and orange and amber.  He tossed them with
his stick as he passed; they rustled and murmured with the motion, and
it reminded him of the way he used to kick them in front of him over
these same pavements in his riotous infancy. It was a pleasure, after
many wanderings, to find himself in his native land again, and Bernard
Longueville, as he went, paid his compliments to his mother-city. The
brightness and gayety of the place seemed a greeting to a returning
son, and he felt a throb of affection for the freshest, the youngest,
the easiest and most good-natured of great capitals. On presenting
himself at Gordon's door, Bernard was told that the master of the
house was not at home; he went in, however, to see the mistress.  She
was in her drawing-room, alone; she had on her bonnet, as if she had
been going out. She gave him a joyous, demonstrative little welcome;
she was evidently very glad to see him. Bernard had thought it
possible she had improved, and she was certainly prettier
than ever. He instantly perceived that she was still a chatterbox; it
remained to be seen whether the quality of her discourse were finer.

Well, Mr. Longueville, she exclaimed, where in the
world did you drop from, and how long did it take you to cross the
Atlantic?  Three days, eh? It could n't have taken you many more, for
it was only the other day that Gordon told me you were not to sail
till the 20th.  You changed your mind, eh? I did n't know you ever
changed your mind.  Gordon never changes his. That 's not a reason,
eh, because you are not a bit like Gordon. Well, I never thought you
were, except that you are a man. Now what are you laughing at? What
should you like me call you?  You are a man, I suppose; you are not a
god. That 's what you would like me to call you, I have no doubt. I
must keep that for Gordon? I shall certainly keep it a good while. I
know a good deal more about gentlemen than I did when I last saw you,
and I assure you I don't think they are a bit god-like. I suppose that
's why you always drop down from the skyyou think it 's more
divine. I remember that 's the way you arrived at Baden when we were
there together; the first thing we knew, you were standing in the
midst of us. Do you remember that evening when you presented yourself?
You came up and touched Gordon on the shoulder, and he gave a little
jump. He will give another little jump when he sees you to-day. He
gives a great many little jumps; I keep him skipping about! I remember
perfectly the way we were sitting that evening at Baden, and the way
you looked at me when you came up. I saw you before GordonI see
a good many things before Gordon. What did you look at me that way
for? I always meant to ask you. I was dying to know

For the simplest reason in the world, said Bernard.
Because you were so pretty

Ah no, it was n't that! I know all about that look. It was
something elseas if you knew something about me. I don't know
what you can have known. There was very little to know about me,
except that I was intensely silly. Really, I was awfully silly that
summer at Badenyou would n't believe how silly I was. But I
don't see how you could have known thatbefore you had spoken to
me. It came out in my conversationit came out awfully. My
mother was a good deal disappointed in Mrs. Vivian's influence; she
had expected so much from it. But it was not poor Mrs. Vivian's fault,
it was some one's else.  Have you ever seen the Vivians again? They
are always in Europe; they have gone to live in Paris. That evening
when you came up and spoke to Gordon, I never thought that three years
afterward I should be married to him, and I don't suppose you did
either. Is that what you meant by looking at me? Perhaps you can tell
the future. I wish you would tell my future!

Oh, I can tell that easily, said Bernard.

What will happen to me?

Nothing particular; it will be a little dullthe perfect
happiness of a charming woman married to the best fellow in the
world

Ah, what a horrid future! cried Blanche, with a little
petulant cry. I want to be happy, but I certainly don't want to
be dull. If you say that again you will make me repent of having
married the best fellow in the world. I mean to be happy, but I
certainly shall not be dull if I can help it

I was wrong to say that, said Bernard, because,
after all, my dear young lady, there must be an excitement in having
so kind a husband as you have got. Gordon's devotion is quite capable
of taking a new formof inventing a new kindnessevery day
in the year

Blanche looked at him an instant, with less than her usual
consciousness of her momentary pose.

My husband is very kind, she said gently.

She had hardly spoken the words when Gordon came in. He stopped a
moment on seeing Bernard, glanced at his wife, blushed, flushed, and
with a loud, frank exclamation of pleasure, grasped his friend by both
hands. It was so long since he had seen Bernard that he seemed a good
deal moved; he stood there smiling, clasping his hands, looking him in
the eyes, unable for some moments to speak. Bernard, on his side, was
greatly pleased; it was delightful to him to look into Gordon's honest
face again and to return his manly grasp. And he looked wellhe
looked happy; to see that was more delightful yet. During these few
instants, while they exchanged a silent pledge of renewed friendship,
Bernard's elastic perception embraced several things besides the
consciousness of his own pleasure. He saw that Gordon looked well and
happy, but that he looked older, too, and more serious, more marked by
life. He looked as if something had happened to himas, in fact,
something had. Bernard saw a latent spark in his friend's eye that
seemed to question his own for an impression of Blancheto
question it eagerly, and yet to deprecate judgment. He saw,
toowith the fact made more vivid by Gordon's standing there
beside her in his manly sincerity and throwing it into
contrastthat Blanche was the same little posturing coquette of
a Blanche whom, at Baden, he would have treated it as a broad joke
that Gordon Wright should dream of marrying. He saw, in a word, that
it was what it had first struck him as beingan incongruous
union. All this was a good deal for Bernard to see in the course of
half a minute, especially through the rather opaque medium of a
feeling of irreflective joy; and his impressions at this moment have a
value only in so far as they were destined to be confirmed by larger
opportunity.

You have come a little sooner than we expected, said
Gordon; but you are all the more welcome

It was rather a risk, Blanche observed. One should
be notified, when one wishes to make a good impression

Ah, my dear lady, said Bernard, you made your
impressionas far as I am concerneda long time ago, and I
doubt whether it would have gained anything to-day by your having
prepared an effect

They were standing before the fire-place, on the great hearth-rug,
and Blanche, while she listened to this speech, was feeling, with
uplifted arm, for a curl that had strayed from her chignon.

She prepares her effects very quickly, said Gordon,
laughing gently. They follow each other very fast!

Blanche kept her hand behind her head, which was bent slightly
forward; her bare arm emerged from her hanging sleeve, and, with her
eyes glancing upward from under her lowered brows, she smiled at her
two spectators. Her husband laid his hand on Bernard's arm.

Is n't she pretty? he cried; and he spoke with a sort of
tender delight in being sure at least of this point.

Tremendously pretty! said Bernard. I told her so
half an hour before you came in

Ah, it was time I should arrive! Gordon exclaimed.

Blanche was manifestly not in the least discomposed by this frank
discussion of her charms, for the air of distinguished esteem adopted
by both of her companions diminished the crudity of their remarks. But
she gave a little pout of irritated modestyit was more becoming
than anything she had done yetand declared that if they wished
to talk her over, they were very welcome; but she should prefer their
waiting till she got out of the room. So she left them, reminding
Bernard that he was to send for his luggage and remain, and promising
to give immediate orders for the preparation of his apartment. Bernard
opened the door for her to pass out; she gave him a charming nod as he
stood there, and he turned back to Gordon with the reflection of her
smile in his face.  Gordon was watching him; Gordon was dying to know
what he thought of her. It was a curious mania of Gordon's, this
wanting to know what one thought of the women he loved; but Bernard
just now felt abundantly able to humor it. He was so pleased at seeing
him tightly married.

She 's a delightful creature, Bernard said, with cordial
vagueness, shaking hands with his friend again.

Gordon glanced at him a moment, and then, coloring a little, looked
straight out of the window; whereupon Bernard remembered that these
were just the terms in which, at Baden, after his companion's absence,
he had attempted to qualify Angela Vivian. Gordon was
conscioushe was conscious of the oddity of his situation.

Of course it surprised you, he said, in a moment, still
looking out of the window.

What, my dear fellow?

My marriage

Well, you know, said Bernard, everything surprises
me. I am of a very conjectural habit of mind. All sorts of ideas come
into my head, and yet when the simplest things happen I am always
rather startled. I live in a reverie, and I am perpetually waked up by
people doing things

Gordon transferred his eyes from the window to Bernard's
faceto his whole person.

You are waked up? But you fall asleep again!

I fall asleep very easily, said Bernard.

Gordon looked at him from head to foot, smiling and shaking his
head.

You are not changed, he said. You have travelled in
unknown lands; you have had, I suppose, all sorts of adventures; but
you are the same man I used to know

I am sorry for that!

You have the same way of representingof
misrepresenting, yourself

Well, if I am not changed, said Bernard, I can ill
afford to lose so valuable an art

Taking you altogether, I am glad you are the same, Gordon
answered, simply; but you must come into my part of the
house

Yes, he was
conscioushe was very conscious; so Bernard reflected during the
two or three first days of his visit to his friend. Gordon knew it
must seem strange to so irreverent a critic that a man who had once
aspired to the hand of so intelligent a girlputting other
things asideas Angela Vivian should, as the Ghost in
Hamlet says, have declined upon a young lady who,
in force of understanding, was so very much Miss Vivian's inferior;
and this knowledge kept him ill at his ease and gave him a certain
pitiable awkwardness. Bernard's sense of the anomaly grew rapidly less
acute; he made various observations which helped it to seem natural.
Blanche was wonderfully pretty; she was very graceful, innocent,
amusing. Since Gordon had determined to marry a little goose, he had
chosen the animal with extreme discernment. It had quite the plumage
of a swan, and it sailed along the stream of life with an
extraordinary lightness of motion. He asked himself indeed at times
whether Blanche were really so silly as she seemed; he doubted whether
any woman could be so silly as Blanche seemed. He had a suspicion at
times that, for ends of her own, she was playing a partthe
suspicion arising from the fact that, as usually happens in such
cases, she over-played it. Her empty chatter, her futility, her
childish coquetry and frivolitysuch light wares could hardly be
the whole substance of any woman's being; there was something beneath
them which Blanche was keeping out of sight. She had a scrap of a mind
somewhere, and even a little particle of a heart. If one looked long
enough one might catch a glimpse of these possessions. But why should
she keep them out of sight, and what were the ends that she proposed
to serve by this uncomfortable perversity? Bernard wondered whether
she were fond of her husband, and he heard it intimated by several
good people in New York who had had some observation of the courtship,
that she had married him for his money. He was very sorry to find that
this was taken for granted, and he determined, on the whole, not to
believe it. He was disgusted with the idea of such a want of
gratitude; for, if Gordon Wright had loved Miss Evers for herself, the
young lady might certainly have discovered the intrinsic value of so
disinterested a suitor. Her mother had the credit of having made the
match. Gordon was known to be looking for a wife; Mrs. Evers had put
her little feather-head of a daughter very much forward, and Gordon
was as easily captivated as a child by the sound of a rattle. Blanche
had an affection for him now, however; Bernard saw no reason to doubt
that, and certainly she would have been a very flimsy creature indeed
if she had not been touched by his inexhaustible kindness. She had
every conceivable indulgence, and if she married him for his money, at
least she had got what she wanted. She led the most agreeable life
conceivable, and she ought to be in high good-humor. It was impossible
to have a prettier house, a prettier carriage, more jewels and laces
for the adornment of a plump little person. It was impossible to go to
more parties, to give better dinners, to have fewer privations or
annoyances. Bernard was so much struck with all this that, advancing
rapidly in the intimacy of his gracious hostess, he ventured to call
her attention to her blessings. She answered that she was perfectly
aware of them, and there was no pretty speech she was not prepared to
make about Gordon.

I know what you want to say, she went on; you want
to say that he spoils me, and I don't see why you should hesitate. You
generally say everything you want, and you need n't be afraid of me.
He does n't spoil me, simply because I am so bad I can't be spoiled;
but that 's of no consequence. I was spoiled ages ago; every one
spoiled meevery one except Mrs. Vivian. I was always fond of
having everything I want, and I generally managed to get it. I always
had lovely clothes; mamma thought that was a kind of a duty. If it was
a duty, I don't suppose it counts as a part of the spoiling. But I was
very much indulged, and I know I have everything now. Gordon is a
perfect husband; I believe if I were to ask him for a present of his
nose, he would cut it off and give it to me. I think I will ask him
for a small piece of it some day; it will rather improve him to have
an inch or two less. I don't say he 's handsome; but he 's just as
good as he can be. Some people say that if you are very fond of a
person you always think them handsome; but I don't agree with that at
all. I am very fond of Gordon, and yet I am not blinded by affection,
as regards his personal appearance. He 's too light for my taste, and
too red. And because you think people handsome, it does n't follow
that you are fond of them. I used to have a friend who was awfully
handsomethe handsomest man I ever sawand I was perfectly
conscious of his defects.  But I 'm not conscious of Gordon's, and I
don't believe he has got any.  He 's so intensely kind; it 's quite
pathetic. One would think he had done me an injury in marrying me, and
that he wanted to make up for it.  If he has done me an injury I have
n't discovered it yet, and I don't believe I ever shall. I certainly
shall not as long as he lets me order all the clothes I want. I have
ordered five dresses this week, and I mean to order two more. When I
told Gordon, what do you think he did?  He simply kissed me. Well, if
that 's not expressive, I don't know what he could have done. He
kisses me about seventeen times a day. I suppose it 's very improper
for a woman to tell any one how often her husband kisses her; but, as
you happen to have seen him do it, I don't suppose you will be
scandalized. I know you are not easily scandalized; I am not afraid of
you. You are scandalized at my getting so many dresses?  Well, I told
you I was spoiledI freely acknowledge it. That 's why I was
afraid to tell Gordonbecause when I was married I had such a
lot of things; I was supposed to have dresses enough to last for a
year.  But Gordon had n't to pay for them, so there was no harm in my
letting him feel that he has a wife. If he thinks I am extravagant, he
can easily stop kissing me. You don't think it would be easy to stop?
It 's very well, then, for those that have never begun!

Bernard had a good deal of conversation with Blanche, of which, so
far as she was concerned, the foregoing remarks may serve as a
specimen.  Gordon was away from home during much of the day; he had a
chemical laboratory in which he was greatly interested, and which he
took Bernard to see; it was fitted up with the latest contrivances for
the pursuit of experimental science, and was the resort of needy young
students, who enjoyed, at Gordon's expense, the opportunity for
pushing their researches. The place did great honor to Gordon's
liberality and to his ingenuity; but Blanche, who had also paid it a
visit, could never speak of it without a pretty little shudder.

Nothing would induce me to go there again, she declared,
and I consider myself very fortunate to have escaped from it with
my life.  It 's filled with all sorts of horrible things, that fizzle
up and go off, or that make you turn some dreadful color if you look
at them. I expect to hear a great clap some day, and half an hour
afterward to see Gordon brought home in several hundred small pieces,
put up in a dozen little bottles. I got a horrid little stain in the
middle of my dress that one of the young menthe young
savantswas so good as to drop there. Did you see the young
savants who work under Gordon's orders? I thought they were too
forlorn; there is n't one of them you would look at. If you can
believe it, there was n't one of them that looked at me; they took no
more notice of me than if I had been the charwoman. They might have
shown me some attention, at least, as the wife of the proprietor. What
is it that Gordon 's calledis n't there some other name? If you
say `proprietor,' it sounds as if he kept an hotel. I certainly don't
want to pass for the wife of an hotel-keeper. What does he call
himself? He must have some name. I hate telling people he 's a
chemist; it sounds just as if he kept a shop. That 's what they call
the druggists in England, and I formed the habit while I was there. It
makes me feel as if he were some dreadful little man, with big green
bottles in the window and `night-bell' painted outside. He does n't
call himself anything? Well, that 's exactly like Gordon! I wonder he
consents to have a name at all. When I was telling some one about the
young men who work under his ordersthe young savantshe
said I must not say thatI must not speak of their working
`under his orders.' I don't know what he would like me to say! Under
his inspiration!

During the hours of Gordon's absence, Bernard had frequent
colloquies with his friend's wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused
him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality,
which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon's future felicity. But
often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor,
because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker
than of yore.  Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a
garrulous wife, he naturally learns to hold his tongue; but sometimes,
at the close of one of Blanche's discursive monologues, on glancing at
her husband just to see how he took it, and seeing him sit perfectly
silent, with a fixed, inexpressive smile, Bernard said to himself that
Gordon found the lesson of listening attended with some
embarrassments. Gordon, as the years went by, was growing a little
inscrutable; but this, too, in certain circumstances, was a usual
tendency. The operations of the mind, with deepening experience,
became more complex, and people were less apt to emit immature
reflections at forty than they had been in their earlier days. Bernard
felt a great kindness in these days for his old friend; he never yet
had seemed to him such a good fellow, nor appealed so strongly to the
benevolence of his disposition. Sometimes, of old, Gordon used to
irritate him; but this danger appeared completely to have passed away.
Bernard prolonged his visit; it gave him pleasure to be able to
testify in this manner to his good will.  Gordon was the kindest of
hosts, and if in conversation, when his wife was present, he gave
precedence to her superior powers, he had at other times a good deal
of pleasant bachelor-talk with his guest. He seemed very happy; he had
plenty of occupation and plenty of practical intentions. The season
went on, and Bernard enjoyed his life. He enjoyed the keen and
brilliant American winter, and he found it very pleasant to be treated
as a distinguished stranger in his own landa situation to which
his long and repeated absences had relegated him.  The hospitality of
New York was profuse; the charm of its daughters extreme; the radiance
of its skies superb. Bernard was the restless and professionless
mortal that we know, wandering in life from one vague experiment to
another, constantly gratified and never satisfied, to whom no
imperious finality had as yet presented itself; and, nevertheless, for
a time he contrived to limit his horizon to the passing hour, and to
make a good many hours pass in the drawing-room of a demonstrative
flirt.

For Mrs. Gordon was a flirt; that had become tolerably obvious.
Bernard had known of old that Blanche Evers was one, and two or three
months' observation of his friend's wife assured him that she did not
judge a certain ethereal coquetry to be inconsistent with the conjugal
character. Blanche flirted, in fact, more or less with all men, but
her opportunity for playing her harmless batteries upon Bernard were
of course exceptionally large. The poor fellow was perpetually under
fire, and it was inevitable that he should reply with some precision
of aim.  It seemed to him all child's play, and it is certain that
when his back was turned to his pretty hostess he never found himself
thinking of her.  He had not the least reason to suppose that she
thought of himexcessive concentration of mind was the last vice
of which he accused her. But before the winter was over, he discovered
that Mrs.  Gordon Wright was being talked about, and that his own name
was, as the newspapers say, mentioned in connection with that of his
friend's wife.  The discovery greatly disgusted him; Bernard
Longueville's chronicler must do him the justice to say that it failed
to yield him an even transient thrill of pleasure. He thought it very
improbable that this vulgar rumor had reached Gordon's ears; but he
neverthelessvery naturallyinstantly made up his mind to
leave the house. He lost no time in saying to Gordon that he had
suddenly determined to go to California, and that he was sure he must
be glad to get rid of him.  Gordon expressed no surprise and no
regret. He simply laid his hand on his shoulder and said, very
quietly, looking at him in the eyes

Very well; the pleasantest things must come to an end

It was not till an hour afterwards that Bernard said to himself
that his friend's manner of receiving the announcement of his
departure had been rather odd. He had neither said a word about his
staying longer nor urged him to come back again, and there had been
(it now seemed to Bernard) an audible undertone of relief in the
single sentence with which he assented to his visitor's withdrawal.
Could it be possible that poor Gordon was jealous of him, that he had
heard this loathsome gossip, or that his own observation had given him
an alarm? He had certainly never betrayed the smallest sense of
injury; but it was to be remembered that even if he were uneasy,
Gordon was quite capable, with his characteristic habit of weighing
everything, his own honor included, in scrupulously adjusted scales,
of denying himself the luxury of active suspicion. He would never have
let a half suspicion make a difference in his conduct, and he would
not have dissimulated; he would simply have resisted belief. His
hospitality had been without a flaw, and if he had really been wishing
Bernard out of his house, he had behaved with admirable self-control.
Bernard, however, followed this train of thought a very short
distance. It was odious to him to believe that he could have appeared
to Gordon, however guiltlessly, to have invaded even in imagination
the mystic line of the marital monopoly; not to say that, moreover, if
one came to that, he really cared about as much for poor little
Blanche as for the weather-cock on the nearest steeple. He simply
hurried his preparations for departure, and he told Blanche that he
should have to bid her farewell on the following day. He had found her
in the drawing-room, waiting for dinner.  She was expecting company to
dine, and Gordon had not yet come down.

She was sitting in the vague glow of the fire-light, in a wonderful
blue dress, with two little blue feet crossed on the rug and pointed
at the hearth. She received Bernard's announcement with small
satisfaction, and expended a great deal of familiar ridicule on his
project of a journey to California. Then, suddenly getting up and
looking at him a moment

I know why you are going, she said.

I am glad to hear my explanations have not been lost

Your explanations are all nonsense. You are going for another
reason.  

Well, said Bernard, if you insist upon it, it 's
because you are too sharp with me

It 's because of me. So much as that is true Bernard
wondered what she was going to sayif she were going to be silly
enough to allude to the most impudent of fictions; then, as she stood
opening and closing her blue fan and smiling at him in the fire-light,
he felt that she was silly enough for anything. It 's because of
all the talkit 's because of Gordon. You need n't be afraid of
Gordon

Afraid of him? I don't know what you mean, said Bernard,
gravely.

Blanche gave a little laugh.

You have discovered that people are talking about
usabout you and me. I must say I wonder you care. I don't care,
and if it 's because of Gordon, you might as well know that he does
n't care. If he does n't care, I don't see why I should; and if I
don't, I don't see why you should!

You pay too much attention to such insipid drivel in even
mentioning it

Well, if I have the credit of saying what I should
n'tto you or to any one elseI don't see why I should n't
have the advantage too.  Gordon does n't carehe does n't care
what I do or say. He does n't care a pin for me!

She spoke in her usual rattling, rambling voice, and brought out
this declaration with a curious absence of resentment.

You talk about advantage, said Bernard. I don't see
what advantage it is to you to say that

I want toI mustI will! That 's the
advantage! This came out with a sudden sharpness of tone; she
spoke more excitedly. He does n't care a button for me, and he
never did! I don't know what he married me for. He cares for something
elsehe thinks of something else. I don't know what it
isI suppose it 's chemistry!

These words gave Bernard a certain shock, but he had his
intelligence sufficiently in hand to contradict them with energy.

You labor under a monstrous delusion, he exclaimed.
Your husband thinks you fascinating

This epithet, pronounced with a fine distinctness, was ringing in
the air when the door opened and Gordon came in. He looked for a
moment from Bernard to his wife, and then, approaching the latter, he
said, softly

Do you know that he leaves us to-morrow?

Bernard left then and went
to California; but when he arrived there he asked himself why he had
come, and was unable to mention any other reason than that he had
announced it. He began to feel restless again, and to drift back to
that chronic chagrin which had accompanied him through his long
journey in the East. He succeeded, however, in keeping these
unreasonable feelings at bay for some time, and he strove to occupy
himself, to take an interest in Californian problems. Bernard,
however, was neither an economist nor a cattle-fancier, and he found
that, as the phrase is, there was not a great deal to take hold of. He
wandered about, admired the climate and the big peaches, thought a
while of going to Japan, and ended by going to Mexico. In this way he
passed several months, and justified, in the eyes of other people at
least, his long journey across the Continent. At last he made it
again, in the opposite sense. He went back to New York, where the
summer had already begun, and here he invented a solution for the
difficulty presented by life to a culpably unoccupied and
ill-regulated man. The solution was not in the least original, and I
am almost ashamed to mention so stale and conventional a device.
Bernard simply hit upon the plan of returning to Europe. Such as it
was, however, he carried it out with an audacity worthy of a better
cause, and was sensibly happier since he had made up his mind to it.
Gordon Wright and his wife were out of town, but Bernard went into the
country, as boldly as you please, to inform them of his little project
and take a long leave of them. He had made his arrangements to sail
immediately, and, as at such short notice it was impossible to find
good quarters on one of the English vessels, he had engaged a berth on
a French steamer, which would convey him to Havre. On going down to
Gordon's house in the country, he was conscious of a good deal of
eagerness to know what had become of that latent irritation of which
Blanche had given him a specimen. Apparently it had quite subsided;
Blanche was wreathed in smiles; she was living in a bower of roses.
Bernard, indeed, had no opportunity for investigating her state of
mind, for he found several people in the house, and Blanche, who had
an exalted standard of the duties of a hostess, was occupied in making
life agreeable to her guests, most of whom were gentlemen. She had in
this way that great remedy for dissatisfaction which Bernard
lackedsomething interesting to do. Bernard felt a good deal of
genuine sadness in taking leave of Gordon, to whom he contrived to
feel even more kindly than in earlier days. He had quite forgotten
that Gordon was jealous of himwhich he was not, as Bernard
said. Certainly, Gordon showed nothing of it now, and nothing could
have been more friendly than their parting. Gordon, also, for a man
who was never boisterous, seemed very contented. He was fond of
exercising hospitality, and he confessed to Bernard that he was just
now in the humor for having his house full of people. Fortune
continued to gratify this generous taste; for just as Bernard was
coming away another guest made his appearance. The new-comer was none
other than the Honourable Augustus Lovelock, who had just arrived in
New York, and who, as he added, had long desired to visit the United
States. Bernard merely witnessed his arrival, and was struck with the
fact that as he presented himselfit seemed quite a
surpriseBlanche really stopped chattering.

I have called it a stale
expedient on Bernard Longueville's part to go to Europe
again, like the most commonplace American; and it is certain that, as
our young man stood and looked out of the window of his inn at Havre,
an hour after his arrival at that sea-port, his adventure did not
strike him as having any great freshness. He had no plans nor
intentions; he had not even any very definite desires. He had felt the
impulse to come back to Europe, and he had obeyed it; but now that he
had arrived, his impulse seemed to have little more to say to him. He
perceived it, indeedmentallyin the attitude of a small
street-boy playing upon his nose with that vulgar gesture which is
supposed to represent the elation of successful fraud. There was a
large blank wall before his window, painted a dirty yellow and much
discolored by the weather; a broad patch of summer sunlight rested
upon it and brought out the full vulgarity of its complexion. Bernard
stared a while at this blank wall, which struck him in some degree as
a symbol of his own present moral prospect. Then suddenly he turned
away, with the declaration that, whatever truth there might be in
symbolism, he, at any rate, had not come to Europe to spend the
precious remnant of his youth in a malodorous Norman sea-port. The
weather was very hot, and neither the hotel nor the town at large
appeared to form an attractive s&eacute;jour for persons of an
irritable nostril. To go to Paris, however, was hardly more attractive
than to remain at Havre, for Bernard had a lively vision of the heated
bitumen and the glaring frontages of the French capital. But if a
Norman town was close and dull, the Norman country was notoriously
fresh and entertaining, and the next morning Bernard got into a
cal&egrave;che, with his luggage, and bade its proprietor drive him
along the coast. Once he had begun to rumble through this charming
landscape, he was in much better humor with his situation; the air was
freshened by a breeze from the sea; the blooming country, without
walls or fences, lay open to the traveller's eye; the grain-fields and
copses were shimmering in the summer wind; the pink-faced cottages
peeped through the ripening orchard-boughs, and the gray towers of the
old churches were silvered by the morning-light of France.

At the end of some three hours, Bernard arrived at a little
watering-place which lay close upon the shore, in the embrace of a
pair of white-armed cliffs. It had a quaint and primitive aspect and a
natural picturesqueness which commended it to Bernard's taste. There
was evidently a great deal of nature about it, and at this moment,
nature, embodied in the clear, gay sunshine, in the blue and quiet
sea, in the daisied grass of the high-shouldered downs, had an air of
inviting the intelligent observer to postpone his difficulties.
Blanquais-les-Galets, as Bernard learned the name of this
unfashionable resort to be, was twenty miles from a railway, and the
place wore an expression of unaffected rusticity. Bernard stopped at
an inn for his noonday breakfast, and then, with his appreciation
quickened by the homely felicity of this repast, determined to go no
further. He engaged a room at the inn, dismissed his vehicle, and gave
himself up to the contemplation of French sea-side manners. These were
chiefly to be observed upon a pebbly strand which lay along the front
of the village and served as the gathering-point of its idler
inhabitants. Bathing in the sea was the chief occupation of these good
people, including, as it did, prolonged spectatorship of the process
and infinite conversation upon its mysteries. The little world of
Blanquais appeared to form a large family party, of highly developed
amphibious habits, which sat gossiping all day upon the warm pebbles,
occasionally dipping into the sea and drying itself in the sun,
without any relaxation of personal intimacy. All this was very amusing
to Bernard, who in the course of the day took a bath with the rest.
The ocean was, after all, very large, and when one took one's plunge
one seemed to have it quite to one's self. When he had dressed himself
again, Bernard stretched himself on the beach, feeling happier than he
had done in a long time, and pulled his hat over his eyes. The feeling
of happiness was an odd one; it had come over him suddenly, without
visible cause; but, such as it was, our hero made the most of it. As
he lay there it seemed to deepen; his immersion and his exercise in
the salt water had given him an agreeable languor. This presently
became a drowsiness which was not less agreeable, and Bernard felt
himself going to sleep. There were sounds in the air above his
headsounds of the crunching and rattling of the loose, smooth
stones as his neighbors moved about on them; of high-pitched French
voices exchanging colloquial cries; of the plash of the bathers in the
distant water, and the short, soft breaking of the waves. But these
things came to his ears more vaguely and remotely, and at last they
faded away. Bernard enjoyed half an hour of that light and easy
slumber which is apt to overtake idle people in recumbent attitudes in
the open air on August afternoons. It brought with it an exquisite
sense of rest, and the rest was not spoiled by the fact that it was
animated by a charming dream. Dreams are vague things, and this one
had the defects of its species; but it was somehow concerned with the
image of a young lady whom Bernard had formerly known, and who had
beautiful eyes, into whichin the dreamhe found himself
looking. He waked up to find himself looking into the crown of his
hat, which had been resting on the bridge of his nose. He removed it,
and half raised himself, resting on his elbow and preparing to taste,
in another position, of a little more of that exquisite rest of which
mention has just been made. The world about him was still amusing and
charming; the chatter of his companions, losing itself in the large
sea-presence, the plash of the divers and swimmers, the deep blue of
the ocean and the silvery white of the cliff, had that striking air of
indifference to the fact that his mind had been absent from them which
we are apt to find in mundane things on emerging from a nap. The same
people were sitting near him on the beachthe same, and yet not
quite the same. He found himself noticing a person whom he had not
noticed beforea young lady, who was seated in a low portable
chair, some dozen yards off, with her eyes bent upon a book. Her head
was in shade; her large parasol made, indeed, an awning for her whole
person, which in this way, in the quiet attitude of perusal, seemed to
abstract itself from the glare and murmur of the beach. The clear
shadow of her umbrellait was lined with bluewas deep
upon her face; but it was not deep enough to prevent Bernard from
recognizing a profile that he knew. He suddenly sat upright, with an
intensely quickened vision. Was he dreaming still, or had he waked? In
a moment he felt that he was acutely awake; he heard her, across the
interval, turn the page of her book. For a single instant, as she did
so, she looked with level brows at the glittering ocean; then,
lowering her eyes, she went on with her reading. In this barely
perceptible movement he saw Angela Vivian; it was wonderful how well
he remembered her. She was evidently reading very seriously; she was
much interested in her book. She was alone; Bernard looked about for
her mother, but Mrs. Vivian was not in sight. By this time Bernard had
become aware that he was agitated; the exquisite rest of a few moments
before had passed away. His agitation struck him as unreasonable; in a
few minutes he made up his mind that it was absurd.  He had done her
an injuryyes; but as she sat there losing herself in a French
novelBernard could see it was a French novelhe could not
make out that she was the worse for it. It had not affected her
appearance; Miss Vivian was still a handsome girl. Bernard hoped she
would not look toward him or recognize him; he wished to look at her
at his ease; to think it over; to make up his mind. The idea of
meeting Angela Vivian again had often come into his thoughts; I may,
indeed, say that it was a tolerably familiar presence there; but the
fact, nevertheless, now presented itself with all the violence of an
accident for which he was totally unprepared. He had often asked
himself what he should say to her, how he should carry himself, and
how he should probably find the young lady; but, with whatever
ingenuity he might at the moment have answered these questions, his
intelligence at present felt decidedly overtaxed. She was a very
pretty girl to whom he had done a wrong; this was the final attitude
into which, with a good deal of preliminary shifting and wavering, she
had settled in his recollection. The wrong was a right, doubtless,
from certain points of view; but from the girl's own it could only
seem an injury to which its having been inflicted by a clever young
man with whom she had been on agreeable terms, necessarily added a
touch of baseness.

In every disadvantage that a woman suffers at the hands of a man,
there is inevitably, in what concerns the man, an element of
cowardice. When I say inevitably, I mean that this is what
the woman sees in it.  This is what Bernard believed that Angela
Vivian saw in the fact that by giving his friend a bad account of her
he had prevented her making an opulent marriage. At first he had said
to himself that, whether he had held his tongue or spoken, she had
already lost her chance; but with time, somehow, this reflection had
lost its weight in the scale.  It conveyed little re-assurance to his
irritated conscienceit had become imponderable and impertinent.
At the moment of which I speak it entirely failed to present itself,
even for form's sake; and as he sat looking at this superior creature
who came back to him out of an episode of his past, he thought of her
simply as an unprotected woman toward whom he had been indelicate. It
is not an agreeable thing for a delicate man like Bernard Longueville
to have to accommodate himself to such an accident, but this is
nevertheless what it seemed needful that he should do. If she bore him
a grudge he must think it natural; if she had vowed him a hatred he
must allow her the comfort of it. He had done the only thing possible,
but that made it no better for her. He had wronged her. The
circumstances mattered nothing, and as he could not make it up to her,
the only reasonable thing was to keep out of her way.  He had stepped
into her path now, and the proper thing was to step out of it. If it
could give her no pleasure to see him again, it could certainly do him
no good to see her. He had seen her by this time pretty wellas
far as mere seeing went, and as yet, apparently, he was none the worse
for that; but his hope that he should himself escape unperceived had
now become acute. It is singular that this hope should not have led
him instantly to turn his back and move away; but the explanation of
his imprudent delay is simply that he wished to see a little more of
Miss Vivian. He was unable to bring himself to the point.  Those
clever things that he might have said to her quite faded away.  The
only good taste was to take himself off, and spare her the trouble of
inventing civilities that she could not feel. And yet he continued to
sit there from moment to moment, arrested, detained, fascinated, by
the accident of her not looking roundof her having let him
watch her so long. She turned another page, and another, and her
reading absorbed her still. He was so near her that he could have
touched her dress with the point of his umbrella. At last she raised
her eyes and rested them a while on the blue horizon, straight in
front of her, but as yet without turning them aside. This, however,
augmented the danger of her doing so, and Bernard, with a good deal of
an effort, rose to his feet.  The effort, doubtless, kept the movement
from being either as light or as swift as it might have been, and it
vaguely attracted his neighbor's attention. She turned her head and
glanced at him, with a glance that evidently expected but to touch him
and pass. It touched him, and it was on the point of passing; then it
suddenly checked itself; she had recognized him. She looked at him,
straight and open-eyed, out of the shadow of her parasol, and Bernard
stood theremotionless nowreceiving her gaze. How long it
lasted need not be narrated. It was probably a matter of a few
seconds, but to Bernard it seemed a little eternity. He met her eyes,
he looked straight into her face; now that she had seen him he could
do nothing else. Bernard's little eternity, however, came to an end;
Miss Vivian dropped her eyes upon her book again. She let them rest
upon it only a moment; then she closed it and slowly rose from her
chair, turning away from Bernard. He still stood looking at
herstupidly, foolishly, helplessly enough, as it seemed to him;
no sign of recognition had been exchanged. Angela Vivian hesitated a
minute; she now had her back turned to him, and he fancied her light,
flexible figure was agitated by her indecision. She looked along the
sunny beach which stretched its shallow curve to where the little bay
ended and the white wall of the cliffs began. She looked down toward
the sea, and up toward the little Casino which was perched on a low
embankment, communicating with the beach at two or three points by a
short flight of steps. Bernard sawor supposed he sawthat
she was asking herself whither she had best turn to avoid him.  He had
not blushed when she looked at himhe had rather turned a little
pale; but he blushed now, for it really seemed odious to have
literally driven the poor girl to bay. Miss Vivian decided to take
refuge in the Casino, and she passed along one of the little pathways
of planks that were laid here and there across the beach, and directed
herself to the nearest flight of steps. Before she had gone two paces
a complete change came over Bernard's feeling; his only wish now was
to speak to herto explainto tell her he would go away.
There was another row of steps at a short distance behind him; he
rapidly ascended them and reached the little terrace of the Casino.
Miss Vivian stood there; she was apparently hesitating again which way
to turn.  Bernard came straight up to her, with a gallant smile and a
greeting.  The comparison is a coarse one, but he felt that he was
taking the bull by the horns. Angela Vivian stood watching him arrive.

You did n't recognize me, he said, and your not
recognizing me made memade me hesitate

For a moment she said nothing, and then

You are more timid than you used to be! she answered.

He could hardly have said what expression he had expected to find
in her face; his apprehension had, perhaps, not painted her
obtrusively pale and haughty, aggressively cold and stern; but it had
figured something different from the look he encountered. Miss Vivian
was simply blushingthat was what Bernard mainly perceived; he
saw that her surprise had been extremecomplete. Her blush was
re-assuring; it contradicted the idea of impatient resentment, and
Bernard took some satisfaction in noting that it was prolonged.

Yes, I am more timid than I used to be, he said.

In spite of her blush, she continued to look at him very directly;
but she had always done thatshe always met one's eye; and
Bernard now instantly found all the beauty that he had ever found
before in her pure, unevasive glance.

I don't know whether I am more brave, she said; but
I must tell the truthI instantly recognized you

You gave no sign!

I supposed I gave a striking onein getting up and going
away

Ah! said Bernard, as I say, I am more timid than I
was, and I did n't venture to interpret that as a sign of
recognition

It was a sign of surprise

Not of pleasure! said Bernard. He felt this to be a
venturesome, and from the point of view of taste perhaps a
reprehensible, remark; but he made it because he was now feeling his
ground, and it seemed better to make it gravely than with assumed
jocosity.

Great surprises are to me never pleasures, Angela
answered; I am not fond of shocks of any kind. The pleasure is
another matter. I have not yet got over my surprise

If I had known you were here, I would have written to you
beforehand, said Bernard, laughing.

Miss Vivian, beneath her expanded parasol, gave a little shrug of
her shoulders.

Even that would have been a surprise

You mean a shock, eh? Did you suppose I was dead?

Now, at last, she lowered her eyes, and her blush slowly died away.

I knew nothing about it

Of course you could n't know, and we are all mortal. It was
natural that you should n't expectsimply on turning your
headto find me lying on the pebbles at Blanquais-les-Galets.
You were a great surprise to me, as well; but I differ from
youI like surprises

It is rather refreshing to hear that one is a surprise,
said the girl.

Especially when in that capacity one is liked! Bernard
exclaimed.

I don't say thatbecause such sensations pass away. I am
now beginning to get over mine

The light mockery of her tone struck him as the echo of an
unforgotten air. He looked at her a moment, and then he said

You are not changed; I find you quite the same

I am sorry for that! And she turned away.

What are you doing? he asked. Where are you
going?

She looked about her, without answering, up and down the little
terrace.  The Casino at Blanquais was a much more modest place of
reunion than the Conversation-house at Baden-Baden. It was a small,
low structure of brightly painted wood, containing but three or four
rooms, and furnished all along its front with a narrow covered
gallery, which offered a delusive shelter from the rougher moods of
the fine, fresh weather. It was somewhat rude and shabbythe
subscription for the season was lowbut it had a simple
picturesqueness. Its little terrace was a very convenient place for a
stroll, and the great view of the ocean and of the marble-white crags
that formed the broad gate-way of the shallow bay, was a sufficient
compensation for the absence of luxuries. There were a few people
sitting in the gallery, and a few others scattered upon the terrace;
but the pleasure-seekers of Blanquais were, for the most part,
immersed in the salt water or disseminated on the grassy downs.

I am looking for my mother, said Angela Vivian.

I hope your mother is well

Very well, thank you

May I help you to look for her? Bernard asked.

Her eyes paused in their quest, and rested a moment upon her
companion.

She is not here, she said presently. She has gone
home

What do you call home? Bernard demanded.

The sort of place that we always call home; a bad little house
that we have taken for a month

Will you let me come and see it?

It 's nothing to see

Bernard hesitated a moment.

Is that a refusal?

I should never think of giving it so fine a name

There would be nothing fine in forbidding me your door. Don't
think that! said Bernard, with rather a forced laugh.

It was difficult to know what the girl thought; but she said, in a
moment

We shall be very happy to see you. I am going home

May I walk with you so far? asked Bernard.

It is not far; it 's only three minutes And Angela moved
slowly to the gate of the Casino.

Bernard walked beside her, and
for some moments nothing was said between them. As the silence
continued, he became aware of it, and it vexed him that she should
leave certain things unsaid. She had asked him no
questionneither whence he had come, nor how long he would stay,
nor what had happened to him since they parted. He wished to see
whether this was intention or accident. He was already complaining to
himself that she expressed no interest in him, and he was perfectly
aware that this was a ridiculous feeling. He had come to speak to her
in order to tell her that he was going away, and yet, at the end of
five minutes, he had asked leave to come and see her. This sudden
gyration of mind was grotesque, and Bernard knew it; but,
nevertheless, he had an immense expectation that, if he should give
her time, she would manifest some curiosity as to his own situation.
He tried to give her time; he held his tongue; but she continued to
say nothing. They passed along a sort of winding lane, where two or
three fishermen's cottages, with old brown nets suspended on the walls
and drying in the sun, stood open to the road, on the other side of
which was a patch of salt-looking grass, browsed by a donkey that was
not fastidious.

It 's so long since we parted, and we have so much to say to
each other! Bernard exclaimed at last, and he accompanied this
declaration with a laugh much more spontaneous than the one he had
given a few moments before.

It might have gratified him, however, to observe that his companion
appeared to see no ground for joking in the idea that they should have
a good deal to say to each other.

Yes, it 's a long time since we spent those pleasant weeks at
Baden, she rejoined. Have you been there again?

This was a question, and though it was a very simple one, Bernard
was charmed with it.

I would n't go back for the world! he said. And
you?

Would I go back? Oh yes; I thought it so agreeable

With this he was less pleased; he had expected the traces of
resentment, and he was actually disappointed at not finding them. But
here was the little house of which his companion had spoken, and it
seemed, indeed, a rather bad one. That is, it was one of those
diminutive structures which are known at French watering-places as
chalets, and, with an exiguity of furniture, are let for the
season to families that pride themselves upon their powers of
contraction.  This one was a very humble specimen of its class, though
it was doubtless a not inadequate abode for two quiet and frugal
women. It had a few inches of garden, and there were flowers in pots
in the open windows, where some extremely fresh white curtains were
gently fluttering in the breath of the neighboring ocean. The little
door stood wide open.

This is where we live, said Angela; and she stopped and
laid her hand upon the little garden-gate.

It 's very fair, said Bernard. I think it 's better
than the pastry-cook's at Baden

They stood there, and she looked over the gate at the geraniums.
She did not ask him to come in; but, on the other hand, keeping the
gate closed, she made no movement to leave him. The Casino was now
quite out of sight, and the whole place was perfectly still. Suddenly,
turning her eyes upon Bernard with a certain strange
inconsequence

I have not seen you here before, she observed.

He gave a little laugh.

I suppose it 's because I only arrived this morning. I think
that if I had been here you would have noticed me

You arrived this morning?

Three or four hours ago. So, if the remark were not in
questionable taste, I should say we had not lost time

You may say what you please, said Angela, simply.
Where did you come from?

Interrogation, now it had come, was most satisfactory, and Bernard
was glad to believe that there was an element of the unexpected in his
answer.

From California

You came straight from California to this place?

I arrived at Havre only yesterday

And why did you come here?

It would be graceful of me to be able to answer`Because
I knew you were here.' But unfortunately I did not know it. It was a
mere chance; or rather, I feel like saying it was an inspiration

Angela looked at the geraniums again.

It was very singular, she said. We might have been
in so many places besides this one. And you might have come to so many
places besides this one

It is all the more singular, that one of the last persons I
saw in America was your charming friend Blanche, who married Gordon
Wright.  She did n't tell me you were here

She had no reason to know it, said the girl. She is
not my friendas you are her husband's friend

Ah no, I don't suppose that. But she might have heard from
you

She does n't hear from us. My mother used to write to her for
a while after she left Europe, but she has given it up She
paused a moment, and then she addedBlanche is too
silly!

Bernard noted this, wondering how it bore upon his theory of a
spiteful element in his companion. Of course Blanche was silly; but,
equally of course, this young lady's perception of it was quickened by
Blanche's having married a rich man whom she herself might have
married.

Gordon does n't think so, Bernard said.

Angela looked at him a moment.

I am very glad to hear it, she rejoined, gently.

Yes, it is very fortunate

Is he well? the girl asked. Is he happy?

He has all the air of it

I am very glad to hear it, she repeated. And then she
moved the latch of the gate and passed in. At the same moment her
mother appeared in the open door-way. Mrs. Vivian had apparently been
summoned by the sound of her daughter's colloquy with an unrecognized
voice, and when she saw Bernard she gave a sharp little cry of
surprise. Then she stood gazing at him.

Since the dispersion of the little party at Baden-Baden he had not
devoted much meditation to this conscientious gentlewoman who had been
so tenderly anxious to establish her daughter properly in life; but
there had been in his mind a tacit assumption that if Angela deemed
that he had played her a trick Mrs. Vivian's view of his conduct was
not more charitable. He felt that he must have seemed to her very
unkind, and that in so far as a well-regulated conscience permitted
the exercise of unpractical passions, she honored him with a superior
detestation. The instant he beheld her on her threshold this
conviction rose to the surface of his consciousness and made him feel
that now, at least, his hour had come.

It is Mr. Longueville, whom we met at Baden, said Angela
to her mother, gravely.

Mrs. Vivian began to smile, and stepped down quickly toward the
gate.

Ah, Mr. Longueville, she murmured, it 's so
longit 's so pleasantit 's so strange

And suddenly she stopped, still smiling. Her smile had an odd
intensity; she was trembling a little, and Bernard, who was prepared
for hissing scorn, perceived with a deep, an almost violent, surprise,
a touching agitation, an eager friendliness.

Yes, it 's very long, he said; it 's very pleasant.
I have only just arrived; I met Miss Vivian

And you are not coming in? asked Angela's mother, very
graciously.

Your daughter has not asked me! said Bernard.

Ah, my dearest, murmured Mrs. Vivian, looking at the
girl.

Her daughter returned her glance, and then the elder lady paused
again, and simply began to smile at Bernard, who recognized in her
glance that queer little intimationshy and cautious, yet
perfectly discernibleof a desire to have a private
understanding with what he felt that she mentally termed his better
nature, which he had more than once perceived at Baden-Baden.

Ah no, she has not asked me, Bernard repeated, laughing
gently.

Then Angela turned her eyes upon him, and the expression of those
fine organs was strikingly agreeable. It had, moreover, the merit of
being easily interpreted; it said very plainly, Please don't
insist, but leave me alone And it said it not at all
sharplyvery gently and pleadingly. Bernard found himself
understanding it so well that he literally blushed with intelligence.

Don't you come to the Casino in the evening, as you used to
come to the Kursaal? he asked.

Mrs. Vivian looked again at her daughter, who had passed into the
door-way of the cottage; then she said

We will go this evening

I shall look for you eagerly, Bernard rejoined. Auf
wiedersehen, as we used to say at Baden!

Mrs. Vivian waved him a response over the gate, her daughter gave
him a glance from the threshold, and he took his way back to his inn.

He awaited the evening with great impatience; he fancied he had
made a discovery, and he wished to confirm it. The discovery was that
his idea that she bore him a grudge, that she was conscious of an
injury, that he was associated in her mind with a wrong, had all been
a morbid illusion. She had forgiven, she had forgotten, she did n't
care, she had possibly never cared! This, at least, was his theory
now, and he longed for a little more light upon it. His old sense of
her being a complex and intricate girl had, in that quarter of an hour
of talk with her, again become lively, so that he was not absolutely
sure his apprehensions had been vain. But, with his quick vision of
things, he had got the impression, at any rate, that she had no vulgar
resentment of any slight he might have put upon her, or any
disadvantage he might have caused her. Her feeling about such a matter
would be large and original. Bernard desired to see more of that, and
in the evening, in fact, it seemed to him that he did so.

The terrace of the Casino was far from offering the brilliant
spectacle of the promenade in front of the gaming-rooms at Baden. It
had neither the liberal illumination, the distinguished frequenters,
nor the superior music which formed the attraction of that celebrated
spot; but it had a modest animation of its own, in which the starlight
on the open sea took the place of clustered lamps, and the mighty
resonance of the waves performed the function of an orchestra. Mrs.
Vivian made her appearance with her daughter, and Bernard, as he used
to do at Baden, chose a corner to place some chairs for them. The
crowd was small, for most of the visitors had compressed themselves
into one of the rooms, where a shrill operetta was being performed by
a strolling troupe. Mrs.  Vivian's visit was a short one; she remained
at the Casino less than half an hour. But Bernard had some talk with
Angela. He sat beside herher mother was on the other side,
talking with an old French lady whose acquaintance she had made on the
beach. Between Bernard and Angela several things were said. When his
friends went away Bernard walked home with them. He bade them
good-night at the door of their chalet, and then slowly strolled back
to the Casino. The terrace was nearly empty; every one had gone to
listen to the operetta, the sound of whose contemporary gayety came
through the open, hot-looking windows in little thin quavers and
catches. The ocean was rumbling just beneath; it made a ruder but
richer music. Bernard stood looking at it a moment; then he went down
the steps to the beach. The tide was rather low; he walked slowly down
to the line of the breaking waves. The sea looked huge and black and
simple; everything was vague in the unassisted darkness. Bernard stood
there some time; there was nothing but the sound and the sharp, fresh
smell. Suddenly he put his hand to his heart; it was beating very
fast. An immense conviction had come over himabruptly, then and
thereand for a moment he held his breath. It was like a word
spoken in the darknesshe held his breath to listen.  He was in
love with Angela Vivian, and his love was a throbbing passion! He sat
down on the stones where he stoodit filled him with a kind of
awe.

It filled him with a kind of
awe, and the feeling was by no means agreeable. It was not a feeling
to which even a man of Bernard Longueville's easy power of extracting
the savour from a sensation could rapidly habituate himself, and for
the rest of that night it was far from making of our hero the happy
man that a lover just coming to self-consciousness is supposed to be.
It was wrongit was dishonorableit was
impossibleand yet it was; it was, as nothing in his own
personal experience had ever been. He seemed hitherto to have been
living by proxy, in a vision, in reflectionto have been an
echo, a shadow, a futile attempt; but this at last was life itself,
this was a fact, this was reality. For these things one lived; these
were the things that people had died for. Love had been a fable before
thisdoubtless a very pretty one; and passion had been a
literary phraseemployed obviously with considerable effect. But
now he stood in a personal relation to these familiar ideas, which
gave them a very much keener import; they had laid their hand upon him
in the darkness, he felt it upon his shoulder, and he knew by its
pressure that it was the hand of destiny. What made this sensation a
shock was the element that was mixed with it; the fact that it came
not simply and singly, but with an attendant shadow in which it
immediately merged and lost itself. It was forbidden fruithe
knew it the instant he had touched it. He felt that he had pledged
himself not to do just this thing which was gleaming before him so
divinelynot to widen the crevice, not to open the door that
would flood him with light. Friendship and honor were at stake; they
stood at his left hand, as his new-born passion stood already at his
right; they claimed him as well, and their grasp had a pressure which
might become acutely painful. The soul is a still more tender organism
than the body, and it shrinks from the prospect of being subjected to
violence. Violencespiritual violencewas what our
luxurious hero feared; and it is not too much to say that as he
lingered there by the sea, late into the night, while the gurgitation
of the waves grew deeper to his ear, the prospect came to have an
element of positive terror. The two faces of his situation stood
confronting each other; it was a rigid, brutal opposition, and Bernard
held his breath for a while with the wonder of what would come of it.
He sat a long time upon the beach; the night grew very cold, but he
had no sense of it. Then he went away and passed before the Casino
again, and wandered through the village. The Casino was shrouded in
darkness and silence, and there was nothing in the streets of the
little town but the salt smell of the sea, a vague aroma of fish and
the distant sound of the breakers. Little by little, Bernard lost the
feeling of having been startled, and began to perceive that he could
reason about his trouble. Trouble it was, though this seems an odd
name for the consciousness of a bright enchantment; and the first
thing that reason, definitely consulted, told him about the matter was
that he had been in love with Angela Vivian any time these three
years. This sapient faculty supplied him with further information;
only two or three of the items of which, however, it is necessary to
reproduce. He had been a great foolan incredible foolnot
to have discovered before this what was the matter with him! Bernard's
sense of his own shrewdnessalways tolerably acutehad
never received such a bruise as this present perception that a great
many things had been taking place in his clever mind without his
clever mind suspecting them. But it little mattered, his reason went
on to declare, what he had suspected or what he might now feel about
it; his present business was to leave Blanquais-les-Galets at sunrise
the next morning and never rest his eyes upon Angela Vivian again.
This was his duty; it had the merit of being perfectly plain and
definite, easily apprehended, and unattended, as far as he could
discover, with the smallest material difficulties.  Not only this,
reason continued to remark; but the moral difficulties were equally
inconsiderable. He had never breathed a word of his passion to Miss
Vivianquite the contrary; he had never committed himself nor
given her the smallest reason to suspect his hidden flame; and he was
therefore perfectly free to turn his back upon herhe could
never incur the reproach of trifling with her affections. Bernard was
in that state of mind when it is the greatest of blessings to be saved
the distress of choiceto see a straight path before you and to
feel that you have only to follow it. Upon the straight path I have
indicated, he fixed his eyes very hard; of course he would take his
departure at the earliest possible hour on the morrow. There was a
streak of morning in the eastern sky by the time he knocked for
re-admittance at the door of the inn, which was opened to him by a
mysterious old woman in a nightcap and meagre accessories, whose
identity he failed to ascertain; and he laid himself down to
resthe was very tiredwith his attention fastened, as I
say, on the ideaon the very imageof departure.

On waking up the next morning, rather late, he found, however, that
it had attached itself to a very different object. His vision was
filled with the brightness of the delightful fact itself, which seemed
to impregnate the sweet morning air and to flutter in the light, fresh
breeze that came through his open window from the sea. He saw a great
patch of the sea between a couple of red-tiled roofs; it was bluer
than any sea had ever been before. He had not slept longonly
three or four hours; but he had quite slept off his dread. The shadow
had dropped away and nothing was left but the beauty of his love,
which seemed to shine in the freshness of the early day. He felt
absurdly happyas if he had discovered El Dorado; quite apart
from consequenceshe was not thinking of consequences, which of
course were another affairthe feeling was intrinsically the
finest one he had ever had, andas a mere feelinghe had
not done with it yet. The consideration of consequences could easily
be deferred, and there would, meanwhile, be no injury to any one in
his extracting, very quietly, a little subjective joy from the state
of his heart. He would let the flower bloom for a day before plucking
it up by the roots. Upon this latter course he was perfectly resolved,
and in view of such an heroic resolution the subjective interlude
appeared no more than his just privilege. The project of leaving
Blanquais-les-Galets at nine o'clock in the morning dropped lightly
from his mind, making no noise as it fell; but another took its place,
which had an air of being still more excellent and which consisted of
starting off on a long walk and absenting himself for the day. Bernard
grasped his stick and wandered away; he climbed the great shoulder of
the further cliff and found himself on the level downs. Here there was
apparently no obstacle whatever to his walking as far as his fancy
should carry him. The summer was still in a splendid mood, and the hot
and quiet dayit was a Sundayseemed to constitute a deep,
silent smile on the face of nature. The sea glistened on one side, and
the crops ripened on the other; the larks, losing themselves in the
dense sunshine, made it ring here and there in undiscoverable spots;
this was the only sound save when Bernard, pausing now and then in his
walk, found himself hearing far below him, at the base of the cliff,
the drawling murmur of a wave.  He walked a great many miles and
passed through half a dozen of those rude fishing-hamlets, lodged in
some sloping hollow of the cliffs, so many of which, of late years,
all along the Norman coast, have adorned themselves with a couple of
hotels and a row of bathing-machines. He walked so far that the
shadows had begun to lengthen before he bethought himself of stopping;
the afternoon had come on and had already begun to wane. The grassy
downs still stretched before him, shaded here and there with shallow
but windless dells. He looked for the softest place and then flung
himself down on the grass; he lay there for a long time, thinking of
many things. He had determined to give himself up to a day's
happiness; it was happiness of a very harmless kindthe
satisfaction of thought, the bliss of mere consciousness; but such as
it was it did not elude him nor turn bitter in his heart, and the long
summer day closed upon him before his spirit, hovering in perpetual
circles round the idea of what might be, had begun to rest its wing.
When he rose to his feet again it was too late to return to Blanquais
in the same way that he had come; the evening was at hand, the light
was already fading, and the walk he had taken was one which even if he
had not felt very tired, he would have thought it imprudent to attempt
to repeat in the darkness. He made his way to the nearest village,
where he was able to hire a rustic carriole, in which primitive
conveyance, gaining the high-road, he jogged and jostled through the
hours of the evening slowly back to his starting-point. It wanted an
hour of midnight by the time he reached his inn, and there was nothing
left for him but to go to bed.

He went in the unshaken faith that he should leave Blanquais early
on the morrow. But early on the morrow it occurred to him that it
would be simply grotesque to go off without taking leave of Mrs.
Vivian and her daughter, and offering them some explanation of his
intention. He had given them to understand that, so delighted was he
to find them there, he would remain at Blanquais at least as long as
they. He must have seemed to them wanting in civility, to spend a
whole bright Sunday without apparently troubling his head about them,
and if the unlucky fact of his being in love with the girl were a
reason for doing his duty, it was at least not a reason for being
rude. He had not yet come to thatto accepting rudeness as an
incident of virtue; it had always been his theory that virtue had the
best manners in the world, and he flattered himself at any rate that
he could guard his integrity without making himself ridiculous. So, at
what he thought a proper hour, in the course of the morning, he
retraced his steps along the little lane through which, two days ago,
Angela Vivian had shown him the way to her mother's door. At this
humble portal he knocked; the windows of the little chalet were open,
and the white curtains, behind the flower-pots, were fluttering as he
had seen them before. The door was opened by a neat young woman, who
informed him very promptly that Madame and Mademoiselle had left
Blanquais a couple of hours earlier.  They had gone to
Parisyes, very suddenly, taking with them but little luggage,
and they had left hershe had the honor of being the femme de
chambre of ces damesto put up their remaining possessions and
follow as soon as possible. On Bernard's expressing surprise and
saying that he had supposed them to be fixed at the sea-side for the
rest of the season, the femme de chambre, who seemed a very
intelligent person, begged to remind him that the season was drawing
to a close, that Madame had taken the chalet but for five weeks, only
ten days of which period were yet to expire, that ces dames, as
Monsieur perhaps knew, were great travellers, who had been half over
the world and thought nothing of breaking camp at an hour's notice,
and that, in fine, Madame might very well have received a telegram
summoning her to another part of the country.

And where have the ladies gone? asked Bernard.

For the moment, to Paris

And in Paris where have they gone?

Dame, chez ellesto their house, said the femme de
chambre, who appeared to think that Bernard asked too many questions.

But Bernard persisted.

Where is their house?

The waiting-maid looked at him from head to foot.

If Monsieur wishes to write, many of Madame's letters come to
her banker, she said, inscrutably.

And who is her banker?

He lives in the Rue de Provence

Very goodI will find him out, said our hero,
turning away.

The discriminating reader who has been so good as to interest
himself in this little narrative will perhaps at this point exclaim
with a pardonable consciousness of shrewdness: Of course he went
the next day to the Rue de Provence! Of course, yes; only as it
happens Bernard did nothing of the kind. He did one of the most
singular things he ever did in his lifea thing that puzzled him
even at the time, and with regard to which he often afterward wondered
whence he had drawn the ability for so remarkable a feathe
simply spent a fortnight at Blanquais-les-Galets. It was a very quiet
fortnight; he spoke to no one, he formed no relations, he was company
to himself. It may be added that he had never found his own company
half so good. He struck himself as a reasonable, delicate fellow, who
looked at things in such a way as to make him refrainrefrain
successfully, that was the pointfrom concerning himself
practically about Angela Vivian. His saying that he would find out the
banker in the Rue de Provence had been for the benefit of the femme de
chambre, whom he thought rather impertinent; he had really no
intention whatever of entering that classic thoroughfare.  He took
long walks, rambled on the beach, along the base of the cliffs and
among the brown sea-caves, and he thought a good deal of certain
incidents which have figured at an earlier stage of this narrative. He
had forbidden himself the future, as an object of contemplation, and
it was therefore a matter of necessity that his imagination should
take refuge among the warm and familiar episodes of the past. He
wondered why Mrs. Vivian should have left the place so suddenly, and
was of course struck with the analogy between this incident and her
abrupt departure from Baden. It annoyed him, it troubled him, but it
by no means rekindled the alarm he had felt on first perceiving the
injured Angela on the beach. That alarm had been quenched by Angela's
manner during the hour that followed and during their short talk in
the evening. This evening was to be forever memorable, for it had
brought with it the revelation which still, at moments, suddenly made
Bernard tremble; but it had also brought him the assurance that Angela
cared as little as possible for anything that a chance acquaintance
might have said about her. It is all the more singular, therefore,
that one evening, after he had been at Blanquais a fortnight, a train
of thought should suddenly have been set in motion in his mind. It was
kindled by no outward occurrence, but by some wandering spark of fancy
or of memory, and the immediate effect of it was to startle our hero
very much as he had been startled on the evening I have described. The
circumstances were the same; he had wandered down to the beach alone,
very late, and he stood looking at the duskily-tumbling sea. Suddenly
the same voice that had spoken before murmured another phrase in the
darkness, and it rang upon his ear for the rest of the night. It
startled him, as I have said, at first; then, the next morning, it led
him to take his departure for Paris. During the journey it lingered in
his ear; he sat in the corner of the railway-carriage with his eyes
closed, abstracted, on purpose to prolong the reverberation. If it
were not true it was at least, as the Italians have it, ben trovato,
and it was wonderful how well it bore thinking of. It bears telling
less well; but I can at least give a hint of it. The theory that
Angela hated him had evaporated in her presence, and another of a very
different sort had sprung into being. It fitted a great many of the
facts, it explained a great many contradictions, anomalies, mysteries,
and it accounted for Miss Vivian's insisting upon her mother's leaving
Blanquais at a few hours' notice, even better than the theory of her
resentment could have done. At any rate, it obliterated Bernard's
scruples very effectually, and led him on his arrival in Paris to
repair instantly to the Rue de Provence. This street contains more
than one banker, but there is one with whom Bernard deemed Mrs. Vivian
most likely to have dealings. He found he had reckoned rightly, and he
had no difficulty in procuring her address. Having done so, however,
he by no means went immediately to see her; he waited a couple of
daysperhaps to give those obliterated scruples I have spoken of
a chance to revive. They kept very quiet, and it must be confessed
that Bernard took no great pains to recall them to life. After he had
been in Paris three days, he knocked at Mrs. Vivian's door.

It was opened by the little
waiting-maid whom he had seen at Blanquais, and who looked at him very
hard before she answered his inquiry.

You see I have found Mrs. Vivian's dwelling, though you would
n't give me the address, Bernard said to her, smiling.

Monsieur has put some time to it! the young woman
answered dryly.  And she informed him that Madame was at home, though
Mademoiselle, for whom he had not asked, was not.

Mrs. Vivian occupied a diminutive apartment at the summit of one of
the tall white houses which ornament the neighborhood of the Arc de
Triomphe. The early days of September had arrived, but Paris was still
a city of absentees. The weather was warm and charming, and a certain
savour of early autumn in the air was in accord with the somewhat
melancholy aspect of the empty streets and closed shutters of this
honorable quarter, where the end of the monumental vistas seemed to be
curtained with a hazy emanation from the Seine. It was late in the
afternoon when Bernard was ushered into Mrs. Vivian's little
high-nestling drawing-room, and a patch of sunset tints, faintly red,
rested softly upon the gilded wall. Bernard had seen these ladies only
in borrowed and provisional abodes; but here was a place where they
were really living and which was stamped with their tastes, their
habits, their charm. The little salon was very elegant; it contained a
multitude of pretty things, and it appeared to Bernard to be arranged
in perfection. The long windowsthe ceiling being low, they were
really very shortopened upon one of those solid balconies,
occupying the width of the apartment, which are often in Paris a
compensation for living up five flights of stairs, and this balcony
was filled with flowers and cushions. Bernard stepped out upon it to
await the coming of Mrs. Vivian, and, as she was not quick to appear,
he had time to see that his friends enjoyed a magnificent view. They
looked up at the triumphal Arch, which presented itself at a
picturesque angle, and near the green tree-tops of the Champs
Elys&eacute;es, beyond which they caught a broad gleam of the Seine
and a glimpse, blue in the distance, of the great towers of Notre
Dame. The whole vast city lay before them and beneath them, with its
ordered brilliancy and its mingled aspect of compression and
expansion; and yet the huge Parisian murmur died away before it
reached Mrs. Vivian's sky-parlor, which seemed to Bernard the
brightest and quietest little habitation he had ever known.

His hostess came rustling in at last; she seemed agitated; she
knocked over with the skirt of her dress a little gilded chair which
was reflected in the polished parquet as in a sheet of looking-glass.
Mrs.  Vivian had a fixed smileshe hardly knew what to say.

I found your address at the banker's, said Bernard.
Your maid, at Blanquais, refused to give it to me

Mrs. Vivian gave him a little lookthere was always more or
less of it in her facewhich seemed equivalent to an entreaty
that her interlocutor should spare her.

Maids are so strange, she murmured; especially the
French!

It pleased Bernard for the moment not to spare her, though he felt
a sort of delight of kindness for her.

Your going off from Blanquais so suddenly, without leaving me
any explanation, any clue, any message of any sortmade me feel
at first as if you did n't wish that I should look you up. It reminded
me of the way you left Badendo you remember?three years
ago

Baden was so charmingbut one could n't stay
forever, said Mrs.  Vivian.

I had a sort of theory one could. Our life was so pleasant
that it seemed a shame to break the spell, and if no one had moved I
am sure we might be sitting there now

Mrs. Vivian stared, still with her little fixed smile.

I think we should have had bad weather

Very likely, said Bernard, laughing. Nature would
have grown jealous of our good-humorof our tranquil happiness.
And after all, here we are together againthat is, some of us.
But I have only my own audacity to thank for it. I was quite free to
believe that you were not at all pleased to see me re-appearand
it is only because I am not easy to discourageam indeed
probably a rather impudent fellowthat I have ventured to come
here to-day

I am very glad to see you re-appear, Mr. Longueville,
Mrs.  Vivian declared with the accent of veracity.

It was your daughter's idea, then, running away from
Blanquais?

Mrs. Vivian lowered her eyes.

We were obliged to go to Fontainebleau. We have but just come
back.  I thought of writing to you, she softly added.

Ah, what pleasure that would have given me!

I mean, to tell you where we were, and that we should have
been so happy to see you

I thank you for the intention. I suppose your daughter would
n't let you carry it out

Angela is so peculiar, Mrs. Vivian said, simply.

You told me that the first time I saw you

Yes, at Siena, said Mrs. Vivian.

I am glad to hear you speak frankly of that place!

Perhaps it 's better, Mrs. Vivian murmured. She got up
and went to the window; then stepping upon the balcony, she looked
down a moment into the street. She will come back in a
moment, she said, coming into the room again. She has gone
to see a friend who lives just beside us. We don't mind about Siena
now, she added, softly.

Bernard understood herunderstood this to be a retraction of
the request she had made of him at Baden.

Dear little woman, he said to himself, she wants to
marry her daughter stillonly now she wants to marry her to
me!

He wished to show her that he understood her, and he was on the
point of seizing her hand, to do he did n't know whatto hold
it, to press it, to kiss itwhen he heard the sharp twang of the
bell at the door of the little apartment.

Mrs. Vivian fluttered away.

It 's Angela, she cried, and she stood there waiting and
listening, smiling at Bernard, with her handkerchief pressed to her
lips.

In a moment the girl came into the drawing-room, but on seeing
Bernard she stopped, with her hand on the door-knob. Her mother went
to her and kissed her.

It 's Mr. Longueville, dearesthe has found us out

Found us out? repeated Angela, with a little laugh.
What a singular expression!

She was blushing as she had blushed when she first saw him at
Blanquais.  She seemed to Bernard now to have a great and peculiar
brightnesssomething she had never had before.

I certainly have been looking for you, he said. I
was greatly disappointed when I found you had taken flight from
Blanquais

Taken flight? She repeated his words as she had repeated
her mother's. That is also a strange way of speaking!

I don't care what I say, said Bernard, so long as I
make you understand that I have wanted very much to see you again, and
that I have wondered every day whether I might venture

I don't know why you should n't venture! she interrupted,
giving her little laugh again. We are not so terrible, are we,
mamma?that is, when once you have climbed our five flights of
stairs

I came up very fast, said Bernard, and I find your
apartment magnificent

Mr. Longueville must come again, must he not, dear? asked
mamma.

I shall come very often, with your leave, Bernard
declared.

It will be immensely kind, said Angela, looking away.

I am not sure that you will think it that

I don't know what you are trying to prove, said Angela;
first that we ran away from you, and then that we are not nice to
our visitors

Oh no, not that! Bernard exclaimed; for I assure you
I shall not care how cold you are with me

She walked away toward another door, which was masked with a
curtain that she lifted.

I am glad to hear that, for it gives me courage to say that I
am very tired, and that I beg you will excuse me

She glanced at him a moment over her shoulder; then she passed out,
dropping the curtain.

Bernard stood there face to face with Mrs. Vivian, whose eyes
seemed to plead with him more than ever. In his own there was an
excited smile.

Please don't mind that, she murmured. I know it 's
true that she is tired

Mind it, dear lady? cried the young man. I delight
in it. It 's just what I like

Ah, she 's very peculiar! sighed Mrs. Vivian.

She is strangeyes. But I think I understand her a
little

You must come back to-morrow, then

I hope to have many to-morrows! cried Bernard as he took
his departure.

And he had them in fact. He
called the next day at the same hour, and he found the mother and the
daughter together in their pretty salon.  Angela was very gentle and
gracious; he suspected Mrs. Vivian had given her a tender little
lecture upon the manner in which she had received him the day before.
After he had been there five minutes, Mrs. Vivian took a decanter of
water that was standing upon a table and went out on the balcony to
irrigate her flowers. Bernard watched her a while from his place in
the room; then she moved along the balcony and out of sight. Some ten
minutes elapsed without her re-appearing, and then Bernard stepped to
the threshold of the window and looked for her. She was not there, and
as he came and took his seat near Angela again, he announced, rather
formally, that Mrs. Vivian had passed back into one of the other
windows.

Angela was silent a momentthen she said

Should you like me to call her?

She was very peculiarthat was very true; yet Bernard held to
his declaration of the day before that he now understood her a little.

No, I don't desire it, he said. I wish to see you
alone; I have something particular to say to you

She turned her face toward him, and there was something in its
expression that showed him that he looked to her more serious than he
had ever looked. He sat down again; for some moments he hesitated to
go on.

You frighten me, she said laughing; and in spite of her
laugh this was obviously true.

I assure you my state of mind is anything but formidable. I am
afraid of you, on the contrary; I am humble and apologetic

I am sorry for that, said Angela. I particularly
dislike receiving apologies, even when I know what they are for. What
yours are for, I can't imagine

You don't dislike meyou don't hate me? Bernard
suddenly broke out.

You don't ask me that humbly. Excuse me therefore if I say I
have other, and more practical, things to do

You despise me, said Bernard.

That is not humble either, for you seem to insist upon
it

It would be after all a way of thinking of me, and I have a
reason for wishing you to do that

I remember very well that you used to have a reason for
everything.  It was not always a good one

This one is excellent, said Bernard, gravely. I have
been in love with you for three years

She got up slowly, turning away.

Is that what you wished to say to me?

She went toward the open window, and he followed her.

I hope it does n't offend you. I don't say it lightlyit
's not a piece of gallantry. It 's the very truth of my being. I did
n't know it till latelystrange as that may seem. I loved you
long before I knew itbefore I ventured or presumed to know it.
I was thinking of you when I seemed to myself to be thinking of other
things. It is very strangethere are things in it I don't
understand. I travelled over the world, I tried to interest, to divert
myself; but at bottom it was a perfect failure. To see you
againthat was what I wanted. When I saw you last month at
Blanquais I knew it; then everything became clear. It was the answer
to the riddle. I wished to read it very clearlyI wished to be
sure; therefore I did n't follow you immediately. I questioned my
heartI cross-questioned it. It has borne the examination, and
now I am sure. I am very sure. I love you as my lifeI beg you
to listen to me!

She had listenedshe had listened intently, looking straight
out of the window and without moving.

You have seen very little of me, she said, presently,
turning her illuminated eye on him.

I have seen enough, Bernard added, smiling. You must
remember that at Baden I saw a good deal of you

Yes, but that did n't make you like me. I don't
understand

Bernard stood there a moment, frowning, with his eyes lowered.

I can imagine that. But I think I can explain

Don't explain now, said Angela. You have said
enough; explain some other time And she went out on the balcony.

Bernard, of course, in a moment was beside her, and, disregarding
her injunction, he began to explain.

I thought I disliked youbut I have come to the
conclusion it was just the contrary. In reality I was in love with
you. I had been so from the first time I saw youwhen I made
that sketch of you at Siena

That in itself needs an explanation. I was not at all nice
thenI was very rude, very perverse. I was horrid!

Ah, you admit it! cried Bernard, with a sort of quick
elation.

She had been pale, but she suddenly blushed.

Your own conduct was singular, as I remember it. It was not
exactly agreeable

Perhaps not; but at least it was meant to be. I did n't know
how to please you then, and I am far from supposing that I have
learned now.  But I entreat you to give me a chance

She was silent a while; her eyes wandered over the great prospect
of Paris.

Do you know how you can please me now? she said, at last.
By leaving me alone

Bernard looked at her a moment, then came straight back into the
drawing-room and took his hat.

You see I avail myself of the first chance. But I shall come
back to-morrow

I am greatly obliged to you for what you have said. Such a
speech as that deserves to be listened to with consideration. You may
come back to-morrow, Angela added.

On the morrow, when he came back, she received him alone.

How did you know, at Baden, that I did n't like you? he
asked, as soon as she would allow him.

She smiled, very gently.

You assured me yesterday that you did like me

I mean that I supposed I did n't. How did you know that?

I can only say that I observed

You must have observed very closely, for, superficially, I
rather had the air of admiring you, said Bernard.

It was very superficial

You don't mean that; for, after all, that is just what my
admiration, my interest in you, were not. They were deep, they were
latent. They were not superficialthey were subterranean

You are contradicting yourself, and I am perfectly
consistent, said Angela. Your sentiments were so well hidden
that I supposed I displeased you

I remember that at Baden, you used to contradict
yourself, Bernard answered.

You have a terrible memory!

Don't call it terrible, for it sees everything now in a
charming lightin the light of this understanding that we have
at last arrived at, which seems to shine backwardto shine full
on those Baden days

Have we at last arrived at an understanding? she asked,
with a grave directness which Bernard thought the most beautiful thing
he had ever seen.

It only depends upon you, he declared; and then he broke
out again into a protestation of passionate tenderness. Don't put
me off this time, he cried. You have had time to think about
it; you have had time to get over the surprise, the shock. I love you,
and I offer you everything that belongs to me in this world As
she looked at him with her dark, clear eyes, weighing this precious
vow and yet not committing herselfAh, you don't forgive
me! he murmured.

She gazed at him with the same solemn brightness.

What have I to forgive you?

This question seemed to him enchanting. He reached forward and took
her hands, and if Mrs. Vivian had come in she would have seen him
kneeling at her daughter's feet.

But Mrs. Vivian remained in seclusion, and Bernard saw her only the
next time he came.

I am very happy, because I think my daughter is happy,
she said.

And what do you think of me?

I think you are very clever. You must promise me to be very
good to her

I am clever enough to promise that

I think you are good enough to keep it, said Mrs. Vivian.
She looked as happy as she said, and her happiness gave her a
communicative, confidential tendency. It is very strange how
things come abouthow the wheel turns round, she went on.
I suppose there is no harm in my telling you that I believe she
always cared for you

Why did n't you tell me before? said Bernard, with almost
filial reproachfulness.

How could I? I don't go about the world offering my daughter
to peopleespecially to indifferent people

At Baden you did n't think I was indifferent. You were afraid
of my not being indifferent enough

Mrs. Vivian colored.

Ah, at Baden I was a little too anxious!

Too anxious I should n't speak to your daughter! said
Bernard, laughing.

At Baden, Mrs. Vivian went on, I had views. But I
have n't any nowI have given them up

That makes your acceptance of me very flattering! Bernard
exclaimed, laughing still more gaily.

I have something better, said Mrs. Vivian, laying her
finger-tips on his arm. I have confidence

Bernard did his best to encourage this gracious sentiment, and it
seemed to him that there was something yet to be done to implant it
more firmly in Angela's breast.

I have a confession to make to you, he said to her one
day. I wish you would listen to it

Is it something very horrible? Angela asked.

Something very horrible indeed. I once did you an injury

An injury? she repeated, in a tone which seemed to reduce
the offence to contemptible proportions by simple vagueness of mind
about it.

I don't know what to call it, said Bernard. A poor
servicean ill-turn

Angela gave a shrug, or rather an imitation of a shrug; for she was
not a shrugging person.

I never knew it

I misrepresented you to Gordon Wright, Bernard went on.

Why do you speak to me of him? she asked rather sadly.

Does it displease you?

She hesitated a little.

Yes, it displeases me. If your confession has anything to do
with him, I would rather not hear it

Bernard returned to the subject another timehe had plenty of
opportunities. He spent a portion of every day in the company of these
dear women; and these days were the happiest of his life. The autumn
weather was warm and soothing, the quartier was still deserted, and
the uproar of the great city, which seemed a hundred miles away,
reached them through the dense October air with a softened and muffled
sound.  The evenings, however, were growing cool, and before long they
lighted the first fire of the season in Mrs. Vivian's heavily draped
little chimney-piece. On this occasion Bernard sat there with Angela,
watching the bright crackle of the wood and feeling that the charm of
winter nights had begun. These two young persons were alone together
in the gathering dusk; it was the hour before dinner, before the lamp
had been lighted.

I insist upon making you my confession, said Bernard.
I shall be very unhappy until you let me do it

Unhappy? You are the happiest of men

I lie upon roses, if you will; but this memory, this remorse,
is a folded rose-leaf. I was completely mistaken about you at Baden; I
thought all manner of evil of youor at least I said it

Men are dull creatures, said Angela.

I think they are. So much so that, as I look back upon that
time, there are some things I don't understand even now

I don't see why you should look back. People in our position
are supposed to look forward

You don't like those Baden days yourself, said Bernard.
You don't like to think of them

What a wonderful discovery!

Bernard looked at her a moment in the brightening fire-light.

What part was it you tried to play there?

Angela shook her head.

Men are dull creatures

I have already granted that, and I am eating humble pie in
asking for an explanation

What did you say of me? Angela asked, after a silence.

I said you were a coquette. Remember that I am simply
historical

She got up and stood in front of the fire, having her hand on the
chimney-piece and looking down at the blaze. For some moments she
remained there. Bernard could not see her face.

I said you were a dangerous woman to marry, he went on
deliberately. I said it because I thought it. I gave Gordon an
opinion about youit was a very unfavorable one. I could n't
make you outI thought you were playing a double part. I
believed that you were ready to marry him, and yet I sawI
thought I saw and Bernard paused again.

What did you see? and Angela turned toward him.

That you were encouraging meplaying with me

And you did n't like that?

I liked it immenselyfor myself! But did n't like it for
Gordon; and I must do myself the justice to say that I thought more of
him than of myself

You were an excellent friend, said Angela, simply.

I believe I was. And I am so still, Bernard added.

She shook her head sadly.

Poor Mr. Wright!

He is a dear good fellow, said Bernard.

Thoroughly good, and dear, doubtless to his wife, the
affectionate Blanche

You don't like himyou don't like her, said
Bernard.

Those are two very different matters. I am very sorry for Mr.
Wright.  

You need n't be that. He is doing very well

So you have already informed me. But I am sorry for him, all
the same

That does n't answer my question, Bernard exclaimed, with
a certain irritation. What part were you playing?

What part do you think?

Have n't I told you I gave it up, long ago?

Angela stood with her back to the fire, looking at him; her hands
were locked behind her.

Did it ever strike you that my position at Baden was a
charming one?knowing that I had been handed over to you to be
put under the microscopelike an insect with a pin stuck through
it!

How in the world did you know it? I thought we were
particularly careful

How can a woman help knowing such a thing? She guesses
itshe discovers it by instinct; especially if she be a proud
woman

Ah, said Bernard, if pride is a source of
information, you must be a prodigy of knowledge!

I don't know that you are particularly humble! the girl
retorted.  The meekest and most submissive of her sex would not
have consented to have such a bargain as that made about
hersuch a trick played upon her!

My dearest Angela, it was no bargainno trick!
Bernard interposed.

It was a clumsy trickit was a bad bargain! she
declared. At any rate I hated itI hated the idea of your
pretending to pass judgment upon me; of your having come to Baden for
the purpose. It was as if Mr. Wright had been buying a horse and you
had undertaken to put me through my paces!

I undertook nothingI declined to undertake

You certainly made a study of meand I was determined
you should get your lesson wrong. I determined to embarrass, to
mislead, to defeat you. Or rather, I did n't determine; I simply
obeyed a natural impulse of self-defencethe impulse to evade
the fierce light of criticism. I wished to put you in the wrong

You did it all very well. You put me admirably in the
wrong

The only justification for my doing it at all was my doing it
well, said Angela.

You were justified then! You must have hated me fiercely

She turned her back to him and stood looking at the fire again.

Yes, there are some things that I did that can be accounted
for only by an intense aversion

She said this so naturally that in spite of a certain theory that
was touched upon a few pages back, Bernard was a good deal bewildered.
He rose from the sofa where he had been lounging and went and stood
beside her a moment. Then he passed his arm round her waist and
murmured an almost timorous

Really?

I don't know what you are trying to make me say! she
answered.

He looked down at her for a moment as he held her close to him.

I don't see, after all, why I should wish to make you say it.
It would only make my remorse more acute

She was musing, with her eyes on the fire, and for a moment she
made no answer; then, as if her attention were returning

Are you still talking about your remorse? she asked.

You see I put it very strongly

That I was a horrid creature?

That you were not a woman to marry

Ah, my poor Bernard, said Angela, I can't attempt to
prove to you that you are not inconsistent!

The month of September drew to a close, and she consented to fix a
day for their wedding. The last of October was the moment selected,
and the selection was almost all that was wanting to Bernard's
happiness. I say almost, for there was a solitary spot in
his consciousness which felt numb and deadunpervaded by the joy
with which the rest of his spirit seemed to thrill and tingle. The
removal of this hard grain in the sweet savour of life was needed to
complete his felicity. Bernard felt that he had made the necessary
excision when, at the end of the month, he wrote to Gordon Wright of
his engagement. He had been putting off the performance of this duty
from day to dayit seemed so hard to accomplish it gracefully.
He did it at the end very briefly; it struck him that this was the
best way. Three days after he had sent his letter there arrived one
from Gordon himself, informing Bernard that he had suddenly determined
to bring Blanche to Europe. She was not well, and they would lose no
time. They were to sail within a week after his writing. The letter
contained a postscriptCaptain Lovelock comes with us

Bernard prepared for
Gordon's arrival in Paris, which, according to his letter, would take
place in a few days. He was not intending to stop in England; Blanche
desired to proceed immediately to the French capital, to confer with
her man-milliner, after which it was probable that they would go to
Italy or to the East for the winter. I have given her a choice of
Rome or the Nile, said Gordon, but she tells me she does n't
care a fig where we go

I say that Bernard prepared to receive his friends, and I mean that
he prepared morallyor even intellectually. Materially speaking,
he could simply hold himself in readiness to engage an apartment at a
hotel and to go to meet them at the station. He expected to hear from
Gordon as soon as this interesting trio should reach England, but the
first notification he received came from a Parisian hotel. It came to
him in the shape of a very short note, in the morning, shortly before
lunch, and was to the effect that his friends had alighted in the Rue
de la Paix the night before.

We were tired, and I have slept late, said Gordon;
otherwise you should have heard from me earlier. Come to lunch,
if possible. I want extremely to see you

Bernard, of course, made a point of going to lunch. In as short a
time as possible he found himself in Gordon's sitting-room at the
H&ocirc;tel Middlesex. The table was laid for the midday repast, and a
gentleman stood with his back to the door, looking out of the window.
As Bernard came in, this gentleman turned and exhibited the ambrosial
beard, the symmetrical shape, the monocular appendage, of Captain
Lovelock.

The Captain screwed his glass into his eye, and greeted Bernard in
his usual fashionthat is, as if he had parted with him
overnight.

Oh, good morning! Beastly morning, is n't it? I suppose you
are come to luncheonI have come to luncheon. It ought to be on
table, you knowit 's nearly two o'clock. But I dare say you
have noticed foreigners are never punctualit 's only English
servants that are punctual. And they don't understand luncheon, you
knowthey can't make out our eating at this sort of hour. You
know they always dine so beastly early. Do you remember the sort of
time they used to dine at Baden?half-past five, half-past six;
some unearthly hour of that kind.  That 's the sort of time you dine
in America. I found they 'd invite a man at half-past six. That 's
what I call being in a hurry for your food. You know they always
accuse the Americans of making a rush for their victuals. I am bound
to say that in New York, and that sort of place, the victuals were
very good when you got them. I hope you don't mind my saying anything
about America? You know the Americans are so deucedly
thin-skinnedthey always bristle up if you say anything against
their institutions. The English don't care a rap what you
saythey 've got a different sort of temper, you know. With the
Americans I 'm deuced carefulI never breathe a word about
anything.  While I was over there I went in for being complimentary. I
laid it on thick, and I found they would take all I could give them. I
did n't see much of their institutions, after all; I went in for
seeing the people.  Some of the people were charmingupon my
soul, I was surprised at some of the people. I dare say you know some
of the people I saw; they were as nice people as you would see
anywhere. There were always a lot of people about Mrs. Wright, you
know; they told me they were all the best people. You know she is
always late for everything. She always comes in after every one is
therelooking so devilish pretty, pulling on her gloves. She
wears the longest gloves I ever saw in my life. Upon my word, if they
don't come, I think I will ring the bell and ask the waiter what 's
the matter. Would n't you ring the bell? It 's a great mistake, their
trying to carry out their ideas of lunching. That 's Wright's
character, you know; he 's always trying to carry out some idea. When
I am abroad, I go in for the foreign breakfast myself. You may depend
upon it they had better give up trying to do this sort of thing at
this hour

Captain Lovelock was more disposed to conversation than Bernard had
known him before. His discourse of old had been languid and
fragmentary, and our hero had never heard him pursue a train of ideas
through so many involutions. To Bernard's observant eye, indeed, the
Captain was an altered man. His manner betrayed a certain restless
desire to be agreeable, to anticipate judgmenta disposition to
smile, and be civil, and entertain his auditor, a tendency to move
about and look out of the window and at the clock. He struck Bernard
as a trifle nervousas less solidly planted on his feet than
when he lounged along the Baden gravel-walks by the side of his usual
companiona lady for whom, apparently, his admiration was still
considerable. Bernard was curious to see whether he would ring the
bell to inquire into the delay attending the service of lunch; but
before this sentiment, rather idle under the circumstances, was
gratified, Blanche passed into the room from a neighboring apartment.
To Bernard's perception Blanche, at least, was always Blanche; she was
a person in whom it would not have occurred to him to expect any
puzzling variation, and the tone of her little, soft, thin voice
instantly rang in his ear like an echo of yesterday's talk. He had
already remarked to himself that after however long an interval one
might see Blanche, she re-appeared with an air of familiarity. This
was in some sense, indeed, a proof of the agreeable impression she
made, and she looked exceedingly pretty as she now suddenly stopped on
seeing our two gentlemen, and gave a little cry of surprise.

Ah! I did n't know you were here. They never told me. Have you
been waiting a long time? How d' ye do? You must think we are
polite She held out her hand to Bernard, smiling very
graciously. At Captain Lovelock she barely glanced. I hope you
are very well, she went on to Longueville; but I need n't
ask that. You 're as blooming as a rose. What in the world has
happened to you? You look so brilliantso fresh. Can you say
that to a manthat he looks fresh? Or can you only say that
about butter and eggs?

It depends upon the man, said Captain Lovelock. You
can't say that a man 's fresh who spends his time in running about
after you!

Ah, are you here? cried Blanche with another little cry
of surprise. I did n't notice youI thought you were the
waiter. This is what he calls running about after me, she added,
to Bernard; coming to breakfast without being asked. How queerly
they have arranged the table! she went on, gazing with her little
elevated eyebrows at this piece of furniture. I always thought
that in Paris, if they could n't do anything else, they could arrange
a table. I don't like that at allthose horrid little dishes on
each side! Don't you think those things ought to be off the table, Mr.
Longueville? I don't like to see a lot of things I 'm not eating. And
I told them to have some flowerspray, where are the flowers? Do
they call those things flowers? They look as if they had come out of
the landlady's bonnet! Mr.  Longueville, do look at those
objects

They are not like methey are not very fresh,
laughed Bernard.

It 's no great matterwe have not got to eat them,
growled Captain Lovelock.

I should think you would expect towith the luncheon you
usually make! rejoined Blanche. Since you are here, though I
did n't ask you, you might as well make yourself useful. Will you be
so good as to ring the bell? If Gordon expects that we are going to
wait another quarter of an hour for him he exaggerates the patience of
a long-suffering wife. If you are very curious to know what he is
about, he is writing letters, by way of a change. He writes about
eighty a day; his correspondents must be strong people! It 's a lucky
thing for me that I am married to Gordon; if I were not he might write
to meto me, to whom it 's a misery to have to answer even an
invitation to dinner! To begin with, I don't know how to spell. If
Captain Lovelock ever boasts that he has had letters from me, you may
know it 's an invention. He has never had anything but
telegramsthree telegramsthat I sent him in America about
a pair of slippers that he had left at our house and that I did n't
know what to do with. Captain Lovelock's slippers are no trifle to
have on one's handson one's feet, I suppose I ought to say. For
telegrams the spelling does n't matter; the people at the office
correct itor if they don't you can put it off on them. I never
see anything nowadays but Gordon's back, she went on, as they
took their places at tablehis noble broad back, as he sits
writing his letters. That 's my principal view of my husband. I think
that now we are in Paris I ought to have a portrait of it by one of
the great artists. It would be such a characteristic pose.  I have
quite forgotten his face and I don't think I should know it

Gordon's face, however, presented itself just at this moment; he
came in quickly, with his countenance flushed with the pleasure of
meeting his old friend again. He had the sun-scorched look of a
traveller who has just crossed the Atlantic, and he smiled at Bernard
with his honest eyes.

Don't think me a great brute for not being here to receive
you, he said, as he clasped his hand. I was writing an
important letter and I put it to myself in this way: `If I interrupt
my letter I shall have to come back and finish it; whereas if I finish
it now, I can have all the rest of the day to spend with him.' So I
stuck to it to the end, and now we can be inseparable

You may be sure Gordon reasoned it out, said Blanche,
while her husband offered his hand in silence to Captain Lovelock.

Gordon's reasoning is as fine as other people's feeling!
declared Bernard, who was conscious of a desire to say something very
pleasant to Gordon, and who did not at all approve of Blanche's little
ironical tone about her husband.

And Bernard's compliments are better than either, said
Gordon, laughing and taking his seat at table.

I have been paying him compliments, Blanche went on.
I have been telling him he looks so brilliant, so
bloomingas if something had happened to him, as if he had
inherited a fortune. He must have been doing something very wicked,
and he ought to tell us all about it, to amuse us. I am sure you are a
dreadful Parisian, Mr. Longueville.  Remember that we are three dull,
virtuous people, exceedingly bored with each other's society, and
wanting to hear something strange and exciting. If it 's a little
improper, that won't spoil it

You certainly are looking uncommonly well, said Gordon,
still smiling, across the table, at his friend. I see what
Blanche means

My dear Gordon, that 's a great event, his wife
interposed.

It 's a good deal to pretend, certainly, he went on,
smiling always, with his red face and his blue eyes. But this is
no great credit to me, because Bernard's superb condition would strike
any one.  You look as if you were going to marry the Lord Mayor's
daughter!

If Bernard was blooming, his bloom at this juncture must have
deepened, and in so doing indeed have contributed an even brighter
tint to his expression of salubrious happiness. It was one of the rare
occasions of his life when he was at a loss for a verbal expedient.

It 's a great match, he nevertheless murmured, jestingly.
You must excuse my inflated appearance

It has absorbed you so much that you have had no time to write
to me, said Gordon. I expected to hear from you after you
arrived

I wrote to you a fortnight agojust before receiving
your own letter. You left New York before my letter reached it

Ah, it will have crossed us, said Gordon. But now
that we have your society I don't care. Your letters, of course, are
delightful, but that is still better

In spite of this sympathetic statement Bernard cannot be said to
have enjoyed his lunch; he was thinking of something else that lay
before him and that was not agreeable. He was like a man who has an
acrobatic feat to performa wide ditch to leap, a high pole to
climband who has a presentiment of fractures and bruises.
Fortunately he was not obliged to talk much, as Mrs. Gordon displayed
even more than her usual vivacity, rendering her companions the
graceful service of lifting the burden of conversation from their
shoulders.

I suppose you were surprised to see us rushing out here so
suddenly, she observed in the course of the repast. We had
said nothing about it when you last saw us, and I believe we are
supposed to tell you everything, ain't we? I certainly have told you a
great many things, and there are some of them I hope you have n't
repeated. I have no doubt you have told them all over Paris, but I
don't care what you tell in ParisParis is n't so easily
shocked. Captain Lovelock does n't repeat what I tell him; I set him
up as a model of discretion. I have told him some pretty bad things,
and he has liked them so much he has kept them all to himself. I say
my bad things to Captain Lovelock, and my good things to other people;
he does n't know the difference and he is perfectly content

Other people as well often don't know the difference,
said Gordon, gravely. You ought always to tell us which are
which

Blanche gave her husband a little impertinent stare.

When I am not appreciated, she said, with an attempt at
superior dryness, I am too proud to point it out. I don't know
whether you know that I 'm proud, she went on, turning to Gordon
and glancing at Captain Lovelock; it 's a good thing to know. I
suppose Gordon will say that I ought to be too proud to point that
out; but what are you to do when no one has any imagination? You have
a grain or two, Mr.  Longueville; but Captain Lovelock has n't a
speck. As for Gordon, je n'en parle pas! But even you, Mr.
Longueville, would never imagine that I am an interesting
invalidthat we are travelling for my delicate health. The
doctors have n't given me up, but I have given them up. I know I don't
look as if I were out of health; but that 's because I always try to
look my best. My appearance proves nothingabsolutely nothing.
Do you think my appearance proves anything, Captain Lovelock?

Captain Lovelock scrutinized Blanche's appearance with a fixed and
solemn eye; and then he replied

It proves you are very lovely

Blanche kissed her finger-tips to him in return for this
compliment.

You only need to give Captain Lovelock a chance, she
rattled on, and he is as clever as any one. That 's what I like
to do to my friendsI like to make chances for them. Captain
Lovelock is like my dear little blue terrier that I left at home. If I
hold out a stick he will jump over it. He won't jump without the
stick; but as soon as I produce it he knows what he has to do. He
looks at it a moment and then he gives his little hop. He knows he
will have a lump of sugar, and Captain Lovelock expects one as well.
Dear Captain Lovelock, shall I ring for a lump? Would n't it be
touching? Gar;alcon, un morceau de sucre pour Monsieur le Capitaine!
But what I give Monsieur le Capitaine is moral sugar! I usually
administer it in private, and he shall have a good big morsel when you
go away

Gordon got up, turning to Bernard and looking at his watch.

Let us go away, in that case, he said, smiling, and
leave Captain Lovelock to receive his reward. We will go and take a
walk; we will go up the Champs Elys&eacute;es. Good morning, Monsieur
le Capitaine

Neither Blanche nor the Captain offered any opposition to this
proposal, and Bernard took leave of his hostess and joined Gordon, who
had already passed into the antechamber.

Gordon took his arm and they
gained the street; they strolled in the direction of the Champs
Elys&eacute;es.

For a little exercise and a good deal of talk, it 's the
pleasantest place, said Gordon. I have a good deal to say; I
have a good deal to ask you

Bernard felt the familiar pressure of his friend's hand, as it
rested on his arm, and it seemed to him never to have lain there with
so heavy a weight. It held him fastit held him to account; it
seemed a physical symbol of responsibility. Bernard was not re-assured
by hearing that Gordon had a great deal to say, and he expected a
sudden explosion of bitterness on the subject of Blanche's
irremediable triviality. The afternoon was a lovely onethe day
was a perfect example of the mellowest mood of autumn. The air was
warm and filled with a golden haze, which seemed to hang about the
bare Parisian trees, as if with a tender impulse to drape their
nakedness. A fine day in Paris brings out a wonderfully bright and
appreciative multitude of strollers and loungers, and the liberal
spaces of the Champs Elys&eacute;es were on this occasion filled with
those placid votaries of inexpensive entertainment who abound in the
French capital. The benches and chairs on the edge of the great avenue
exhibited a dense fraternity of gazers, and up and down the broad walk
passed the slow-moving and easily pleased pedestrians. Gordon, in
spite of his announcement that he had a good deal to say, confined
himself at first to superficial allusions, and Bernard after a while
had the satisfaction of perceiving that he was not likely, for the
moment, to strike the note of conjugal discord.  He appeared, indeed,
to feel no desire to speak of Blanche in any manner whatever. He fell
into the humor of the hour and the scene, looked at the crowd, talked
about trifles. He remarked that Paris was a wonderful place after all,
and that a little glimpse of the Parisian picture was a capital thing
as a change; said he was very glad they had come, and that for his
part he was willing to stay three months.

And what have you been doing with yourself? he asked.
How have you been occupied, and what are you meaning to do?

Bernard said nothing for a moment, and Gordon presently glanced at
his face to see why he was silent. Bernard, looking askance, met his
companion's eyes, and then, resting his own upon them, he stopped
short.  His heart was beating; it was a question of saying to Gordon
outright, I have been occupied in becoming engaged to Angela
Vivian But he could n't say it, and yet he must say something.
He tried to invent something; but he could think of nothing, and still
Gordon was looking at him.

I am so glad to see you! he exclaimed, for want of
something better; and he blushedhe felt foolish, he felt
falseas he said it.

My dear Bernard! Gordon murmured gratefully, as they
walked on.  It 's very good of you to say that; I am very glad we
are together again. I want to say something, he added, in a
moment; I hope you won't mind it Bernard gave a
little laugh at his companion's scruples, and Gordon continued.
To tell the truth, it has sometimes seemed to me that we were not
so good friends as we used to bethat something had come between
usI don't know what, I don't know why. I don't know what to
call it but a sort of lowering of the temperature. I don't know
whether you have felt it, or whether it has been simply a fancy of
mine. Whatever it may have been, it 's all over, is n't it? We are too
old friendstoo good friendsnot to stick together. Of
course, the rubs of life may occasionally loosen the cohesion; but it
is very good to feel that, with a little direct contact, it may easily
be re-established. Is n't that so? But we should n't reason about
these things; one feels them, and that 's enough

Gordon spoke in his clear, cheerful voice, and Bernard listened
intently. It seemed to him there was an undertone of pain and effort
in his companion's speech; it was that of an unhappy man trying to be
wise and make the best of things.

Ah, the rubs of lifethe rubs of life! Bernard
repeated vaguely.

We must n't mind them, said Gordon, with a conscientious
laugh.  We must toughen our hides; or, at the worst, we must
plaster up our bruises. But why should we choose this particular place
and hour for talking of the pains of life? he went on. Are
we not in the midst of its pleasures? I mean, henceforth, to cultivate
its pleasures.  What are yours, just now, Bernard? Is n't it supposed
that in Paris one must amuse one's self? How have you been amusing
yourself?

I have been leading a very quiet life, said Bernard.

I notice that 's what people always say when they have been
particularly dissipated. What have you done? Whom have you seen that
one knows?

Bernard was silent a moment.

I have seen some old friends of yours, he said at last.
I have seen Mrs. Vivian and her daughter

Ah! Gordon made this exclamation, and then stopped short.
Bernard looked at him, but Gordon was looking away; his eyes had
caught some one in the crowd. Bernard followed the direction they had
taken, and then Gordon went on: Talk of the devilexcuse
the adage! Are not those the ladies in question?

Mrs. Vivian and her daughter were, in fact, seated among a great
many other quiet people, in a couple of hired chairs, at the edge of
the great avenue. They were turned toward our two friends, and when
Bernard distinguished them, in the well-dressed multitude, they were
looking straight at Gordon Wright.

They see you! said Bernard.

You say that as if I wished to run away, Gordon answered.
I don't want to run away; on the contrary, I want to speak to
them

That 's easily done, said Bernard, and they advanced to
the two ladies.

Mrs. Vivian and her daughter rose from their chairs as they came;
they had evidently rapidly exchanged observations, and had decided
that it would facilitate their interview with Gordon Wright to receive
him standing. He made his way to them through the crowd, blushing
deeply, as he always did when excited; then he stood there
bare-headed, shaking hands with each of them, with a fixed smile, and
with nothing, apparently, to say. Bernard watched Angela's face; she
was giving his companion a beautiful smile. Mrs. Vivian was delicately
cordial.

I was sure it was you, said Gordon at last. We were
just talking of you

Did Mr. Longueville deny it was we? asked Mrs. Vivian,
archly; after we had supposed that we had made an impression on
him!

I knew you were in Pariswe were in the act of talking
of you, Gordon went on. I am very glad to see you

Bernard had shaken hands with Angela, looking at her intently; and
in her eyes, as his own met them, it seemed to him that there was a
gleam of mockery. At whom was she mocking at Gordon, or at
himself? Bernard was uncomfortable enough not to care to be mocked;
but he felt even more sorry that Gordon should be.

We also knew you were comingMr. Longueville had told
us, said Mrs. Vivian; and we have been expecting the
pleasure of seeing Blanche. Dear little Blanche!

Dear little Blanche will immediately come and see you,
Gordon replied.

Immediately, we hope, said Mrs. Vivian. We shall be
so very glad Bernard perceived that she wished to say something
soothing and sympathetic to poor Gordon; having it, as he supposed, on
her conscience that, after having once encouraged him to regard
himself as indispensable (in the capacity of son-in-law) to her
happiness, she should now present to him the spectacle of a felicity
which had established itself without his aid. We were so very
much interested in your marriage, she went on. We thought it
soso delightful

Gordon fixed his eyes on the ground for a moment.

I owe it partly to you, he answered. You had done so
much for Blanche. You had so cultivated her mind and polished her
manners that her attractions were doubled, and I fell an easy victim
to them

He uttered these words with an exaggerated solemnity, the result of
which was to produce, for a moment, an almost embarrassing silence.
Bernard was rapidly becoming more and more impatient of his own
embarrassment, and now he exclaimed, in a loud and jovial voice

Blanche makes victims by the dozen! I was a victim last
winter; we are all victims!

Dear little Blanche! Mrs. Vivian murmured again.

Angela had said nothing; she had simply stood there, making no
attempt to address herself to Gordon, and yet with no affectation of
reserve or of indifference. Now she seemed to feel the impulse to
speak to him.

When Blanche comes to see us, you must be sure to come with
her, she said, with a friendly smile.

Gordon looked at her, but he said nothing.

We were so sorry to hear she is out of health, Angela
went on.

Still Gordon was silent, with his eyes fixed on her expressive and
charming face.

It is not serious, he murmured at last.

She used to be so wellso bright, said Angela, who
also appeared to have the desire to say something kind and
comfortable.

Gordon made no response to this; he only looked at her.

I hope you are well, Miss Vivian, he broke out at last.

Very well, thank you

Do you live in Paris?

We have pitched our tent here for the present

Do you like it?

I find it no worse than other places

Gordon appeared to desire to talk with her; but he could think of
nothing to say. Talking with her was a pretext for looking at her; and
Bernard, who thought she had never been so handsome as at that
particular moment, smiling at her troubled ex-lover, could easily
conceive that his friend should desire to prolong this privilege.

Have you been sitting here long? Gordon asked, thinking
of something at last.

Half an hour. We came out to walk, and my mother felt tired.
It is time we should turn homeward, Angela added.

Yes, I am tired, my daughter. We must take a voiture, if Mr.
Longueville will be so good as to find us one, said Mrs. Vivian.

Bernard, professing great alacrity, looked about him; but he still
lingered near his companions. Gordon had thought of something else.
Have you been to Baden again? Bernard heard him ask. But at
this moment Bernard espied at a distance an empty hackney-carriage
crawling up the avenue, and he was obliged to go and signal to it.
When he came back, followed by the vehicle, the two ladies,
accompanied by Gordon, had come to the edge of the pavement. They
shook hands with Gordon before getting into the cab, and Mrs. Vivian
exclaimed

Be sure you give our love to your dear wife!

Then the two ladies settled themselves and smiled their adieux, and
the little victoria rumbled away at an easy pace, while Bernard stood
with Gordon, looking after it. They watched it a moment, and then
Gordon turned to his companion. He looked at Bernard for some moments
intently, with a singular expression.

It is strange for me to see her! he said, presently.

I hope it is not altogether disagreeable, Bernard
answered smiling.

She is delightfully handsome, Gordon went on.

She is a beautiful woman

And the strange thing is that she strikes me now so
differently, Gordon continued. I used to think her so
mysteriousso ambiguous.  She seems to be now so simple

Ah, said Bernard, laughing, that's an
improvement!

So simple and so good! Gordon exclaimed.

Bernard laid his hand on his companion's shoulder, shaking his head
slowly.

You must not think too much about that, he said.

So simpleso goodso charming! Gordon
repeated.

Ah, my dear Gordon! Bernard murmured.

But still Gordon continued.

So intelligent, so reasonable, so sensible

Have you discovered all that in two minutes' talk?

Yes, in two minutes' talk. I should n't hesitate about her
now!

It 's better you should n't say that, said Bernard.

Why should n't I say it? It seems to me it 's my duty to say
it

Noyour duty lies elsewhere, said Bernard.
There are two reasons. One is that you have married another
woman

What difference does that make? cried Gordon.

Bernard made no attempt to answer this inquiry; he simply went
on

The other isthe other is

But here he paused.

What is the other? Gordon asked.

That I am engaged to marry Miss Vivian

And with this Bernard took his hand off Gordon's shoulder.

Gordon stood staring.

To marry Miss Vivian?

Now that Bernard had heard himself say it, audibly, distinctly,
loudly, the spell of his apprehension seemed broken, and he went on
bravely.

We are to be married very shortly. It has all come about
within a few weeks. It will seem to you very strangeperhaps you
won't like it.  That 's why I have hesitated to tell you

Gordon turned pale; it was the first time Bernard had ever seen him
do so; evidently he did not like it. He stood staring and frowning.

Why, I thoughtI thought, he began at
lastI thought that you disliked her!

I supposed so, too, said Bernard. But I have got
over that

Gordon turned away, looking up the great avenue into the crowd.
Then turning back, he said

I am very much surprised

And you are not pleased!

Gordon fixed his eyes on the ground a moment.

I congratulate you on your engagement, he said at last,
looking up with a face that seemed to Bernard hard and unnatural.

It is very good of you to say that, but of course you can't
like it!  I was sure you would n't like it. But what could I do? I
fell in love with her, and I could n't run away simply to spare you a
surprise. My dear Gordon, Bernard added, you will get used
to it

Very likely, said Gordon, dryly. But you must give
me time

As long as you like!

Gordon stood for a moment again staring down at the ground.

Very well, then, I will take my time, he said.
Good-bye!

And he turned away, as if to walk off alone.

Where are you going? asked Bernard, stopping him.

I don't knowto the hotel, anywhere. To try to get used
to what you have told me

Don't try too hard; it will come of itself, said Bernard.

We shall see!

And Gordon turned away again.

Do you prefer to go alone?

Very muchif you will excuse me!

I have asked you to excuse a greater want of ceremony!
said Bernard, smiling.

I have not done so yet! Gordon rejoined; and marching
off, he mingled with the crowd.

Bernard watched him till he lost sight of him, and then, dropping
into the first empty chair that he saw, he sat and reflected that his
friend liked it quite as little as he had feared.

Bernard sat thinking for a
long time; at first with a good deal of mortificationat last
with a good deal of bitterness. He felt angry at last; but he was not
angry with himself. He was displeased with poor Gordon, and with
Gordon's displeasure. He was uncomfortable, and he was vexed at his
discomfort. It formed, it seemed to him, no natural part of his
situation; he had had no glimpse of it in the book of fate where he
registered on a fair blank page his betrothal to a charming girl.
That Gordon should be surprised, and even a little shocked and
annoyedthis was his right and his privilege; Bernard had been
prepared for that, and had determined to make the best of it. But it
must not go too far; there were limits to the morsel of humble pie
that he was disposed to swallow. Something in Gordon's air and figure,
as he went off in a huff, looking vicious and dangerousyes,
that was positively his lookleft a sinister impression on
Bernard's mind, and, after a while, made him glad to take refuge in
being angry. One would like to know what Gordon expected, par exemple!
Did he expect Bernard to give up Angela simply to save him a shock; or
to back out of his engagement by way of an ideal reparation? No, it
was too absurd, and, if Gordon had a wife of his own, why in the name
of justice should not Bernard have one?

Being angry was a relief, but it was not exactly a solution, and
Bernard, at last, leaving his place, where for an hour or two he had
been absolutely unconscious of everything that went on around him,
wandered about for some time in deep restlessness and irritation. At
one moment he thought of going back to Gordon's hotel, to see him, to
explain. But then he became aware that he was too angry for
thatto say nothing of Gordon's being too angry also; and,
moreover, that there was nothing to explain. He was to marry Angela
Vivian; that was a very simple factit needed no explanation.
Was it so wonderful, so inconceivable, an incident so unlikely to
happen? He went, as he always did on Sunday, to dine with Mrs. Vivian,
and it seemed to him that he perceived in the two ladies some symptoms
of a discomposure which had the same origin as his own. Bernard, on
this occasion, at dinner, failed to make himself particularly
agreeable; he ate fastas if he had no idea what he was eating,
and talked little; every now and then his eyes rested for some time
upon Angela, with a strange, eagerly excited expression, as if he were
looking her over and trying to make up his mind about her afresh. This
young lady bore his inscrutable scrutiny with a deal of superficial
composure; but she was also silent, and she returned his gaze, from
time to time, with an air of unusual anxiety. She was thinking, of
course, of Gordon, Bernard said to himself; and a woman's first
meeting, in after years, with an ex-lover must always make a certain
impression upon her. Gordon, however, had never been a lover, and if
Bernard noted Angela's gravity it was not because he felt jealous.
She is simply sorry for him, he said to himself; and by the
time he had finished his dinner it began to come back to him that he
was sorry, too. Mrs. Vivian was probably sorry as well, for she had a
slightly confused and preoccupied looka look from which, even
in the midst of his chagrin, Bernard extracted some entertainment. It
was Mrs. Vivian's intermittent conscience that had been reminded of
one of its lapses; her meeting with Gordon Wright had recalled the
least exemplary episode of her lifethe time when she whispered
mercenary counsel in the ear of a daughter who sat, grave and pale,
looking at her with eyes that wondered. Mrs. Vivian blushed a little
now, when she met Bernard's eyes; and to remind herself that she was
after all a virtuous woman, talked as much as possible about superior
and harmless thingsthe beauty of the autumn weather, the
pleasure of seeing French papas walking about on Sunday with their
progeny in their hands, the peculiarities of the pulpit-oratory of the
country as exemplified in the discourse of a Protestant pasteur whom
she had been to hear in the morning.

When they rose from table and went back into her little
drawing-room, she left her daughter alone for awhile with Bernard. The
two were standing together before the fire; Bernard watched Mrs.
Vivian close the door softly behind her. Then, looking for a moment at
his companion

He is furious! he announced at last.

Furious? said Angela. Do you mean Mr. Wright?

The amiable, reasonable Gordon. He takes it very hard

Do you mean about me? asked Angela.

It 's not with you he 's furious, of course; it is with me. He
won't let me off easily

Angela looked for a moment at the fire.

I am very sorry for him, she said, at last.

It seems to me I am the one to be pitied, said Bernard;
and I don't see what compassion you, of all people in the world,
owe him

Angela again rested her eyes on the fire; then presently, looking
up

He liked me very much, she remarked.

All the more shame to him! cried Bernard.

What do you mean? asked the girl, with her beautiful
stare.

If he liked you, why did he give you up?

He did n't give me up

What do you mean, please? asked Bernard, staring back at
her.

I sent him awayI refused him, said Angela.

Yes; but you thought better of it, and your mother had
persuaded you that if he should ask you again, you had better accept
him. Then it was that he backed outin consequence of what I
said to him on his return from England

She shook her head slowly, with a strange smile.

My poor Bernard, you are talking very wildly. He did ask me
again

That night? cried Bernard.

The night he came back from Englandthe last time I saw
him, until to-day

After I had denounced you? our puzzled hero exclaimed,
frowning portentously.

I am sorry to let you know the small effect of your
words!

Bernard folded his hands togetheralmost devoutlyand
stood gazing at her with a long, inarticulate murmur of satisfaction.

Ah! then, I did n't injure youI did n't deprive you of
a chance?

Oh, sir, the intention on your part was the same! Angela
exclaimed.

Then all my uneasiness, all my remorse, were wasted? he
went on.

But she kept the same tone, and its tender archness only gave a
greater sweetness to his sense of relief.

It was a very small penance for you to pay

You dismissed him definitely, and that was why he
vanished? asked Bernard, wondering still.

He gave me another `chance,' as you elegantly express it, and
I declined to take advantage of it

Ah, well, now, cried Bernard, I am sorry for
him!

I was very kindvery respectful, said Angela.
I thanked him from the bottom of my heart; I begged his pardon
very humbly for the wrongif wrong it wasthat I was doing
him. I did n't in the least require of him that he should leave Baden
at seven o'clock the next morning. I had no idea that he would do so,
and that was the reason that I insisted to my mother that we ourselves
should go away. When we went I knew nothing about his having gone, and
I supposed he was still there. I did n't wish to meet him again

Angela gave this information slowly, softly, with pauses between
the sentences, as if she were recalling the circumstances with a
certain effort; and meanwhile Bernard, with his transfigured face and
his eyes fixed upon her lips, was moving excitedly about the room.

Well, he can't accuse me, then! he broke out again.
If what I said had no more effect upon him than that, I certainly
did him no wrong

I think you are rather vexed he did n't believe you, said
Angela.

I confess I don't understand it. He had all the air of it. He
certainly had not the air of a man who was going to rush off and give
you the last proof of his confidence

It was not a proof of confidence, said Angela. It
had nothing to do with me. It was as between himself and you; it was a
proof of independence. He did believe you, more or less, and what you
said fell in with his own impressionsstrange impressions that
they were, poor man! At the same time, as I say, he liked me, too; it
was out of his liking me that all his trouble came! He caught himself
in the act of listening to you too credulouslyand that seemed
to him unmanly and dishonorable. The sensation brought with it a
reaction, and to prove to himself that in such a matter he could be
influenced by nobody, he marched away, an hour after he had talked
with you, and, in the teeth of his perfect mistrust, confirmed by your
account of my irregularitiesheaven forgive you
both!again asked me to be his wife.  But he hoped I would
refuse!

Ah, cried Bernard, the recreant! He
deservedhe deserved

That I should accept him? Angela asked, smiling still.

Bernard was so much affected by this revelation, it seemed to him
to make such a difference in his own responsibility and to lift such a
weight off his conscience, that he broke out again into the liveliest
ejaculations of relief.

Oh, I don't care for anything, now, and I can do what I
please!  Gordon may hate me, and I shall be sorry for him; but it 's
not my fault, and I owe him no reparation. No, no; I am free!

It 's only I who am not, I suppose, said Angela, and
the reparation must come from me! If he is unhappy, I must take the
responsibility

Ah yes, of course, said Bernard, kissing her.

But why should he be unhappy? asked Angela. If I
refused him, it was what he wanted

He is hard to please, Bernard rejoined. He has got a
wife of his own

If Blanche does n't please him, he is certainly
difficult; and Angela mused a little. But you told me the
other day that they were getting on so well

Yes, I believe I told you, Bernard answered, musing a
little too.

You are not attending to what I say

No, I am thinking of something elseI am thinking of
what it was that made you refuse him that way, at the last, after you
had let your mother hope And Bernard stood there, smiling at
her.

Don't think any more; you will not find out, the girl
declared, turning away.

Ah, it was cruel of you to let me think I was wrong all these
years, he went on; and, at the time, since you meant to
refuse him, you might have been more frank with me

I thought my fault had been that I was too frank

I was densely stupid, and you might have made me understand
better

Ah, said Angela, you ask a great deal of a
girl!

Why have you let me go on so long thinking that my deluded
words had had an effect upon Gordonfeeling that I had done you
a brutal wrong?  It was real to me, the wrongand I have told
you of the pangs and the shame which, for so many months, it has cost
me! Why have you never undeceived me until to-day, and then only by
accident?

At this question Angela blushed a little; then she answered,
smiling

It was my vengeance

Bernard shook his head.

That won't doyou don't mean it. You never
caredyou were too proud to care; and when I spoke to you about
my fault, you did n't even know what I meant. You might have told me,
therefore, that my remorse was idle, that what I said to Gordon had
not been of the smallest consequence, and that the rupture had come
from yourself

For some time Angela said nothing, then at last she gave him one of
the deeply serious looks with which her face was occasionally
ornamented.

If you want really to know, thencan't you see that your
remorse seemed to me connected in a certain way with your affection; a
sort of guarantee of it? You thought you had injured some one or
other, and that seemed to be mixed up with your loving me, and
therefore I let it alone

Ah, said Bernard, my remorse is all gone, and yet I
think I love you about as much as ever! So you see how wrong you were
not to tell me

The wrong to you I don't care about. It is very true I might
have told you for Mr. Wright's sake. It would perhaps have made him
look better. But as you never attacked him for deserting me, it seemed
needless for me to defend him

I confess, said Bernard, I am quite at sea about
Gordon's look in the matter. Is he looking better nowor is he
looking worse?  You put it very well just now; I was attending to you,
though you said I was not. If he hoped you would refuse him, with whom
is his quarrel at present? And why was he so cool to me for months
after we parted at Baden? If that was his state of mind, why should he
accuse me of inconsistency?

There is something in it, after all, that a woman can
understand. I don't know whether a man can. He hoped I would refuse
him, and yet when I had done so he was vexed. After a while his
vexation subsided, and he married poor Blanche; but, on learning
to-day that I had accepted you, it flickered up again. I suppose that
was natural enough; but it won't be serious

What will not be serious, my dear? asked Mrs. Vivian, who
had come back to the drawing-room, and who, apparently, could not hear
that the attribute in question was wanting in any direction, without
some alarm.

Shall I tell mamma, Bernard? said Angela.

Ah, my dear child, I hope it 's nothing that threatens your
mutual happiness, mamma murmured, with gentle earnestness.

Does it threaten our mutual happiness, Bernard? the girl
went on, smiling.

Let Mrs. Vivian decide whether we ought to let it make us
miserable, said Bernard. Dear Mrs. Vivian, you are a
casuist, and this is a nice case

Is it anything about poor Mr. Wright? the elder lady
inquired.

Why do you say `poor' Mr. Wright? asked Bernard.

Because I am sadly afraid he is not happy with Blanche

How did you discover thatwithout seeing them
together?

Well, perhaps you will think me very fanciful, said Mrs.
Vivian; but it was by the way he looked at Angela. He has such an
expressive face

He looked at me very kindly, mamma, Angela observed.

He regularly stared, my daughter. In any one else I should
have said it was rude. But his situation is so peculiar; and one could
see that he admired you still And Mrs. Vivian gave a little soft
sigh.

Ah! she is thinking of the thirty thousand a year,
Bernard said to himself.

I am sure I hope he admires me still, the girl cried,
laughing.  There is no great harm in that

He was comparing you with Blancheand he was struck with
the contrast

It could n't have been in my favor. If it 's a question of
being looked at, Blanche bears it better than I

Poor little Blanche! murmured Mrs. Vivian, sweetly.

Why did you tell me he was so happy with her? Angela
asked, turning to Bernard, abruptly.

Bernard gazed at her a moment, with his eyebrows raised.

I never saw any one ask such sudden questions! he
exclaimed.

You can answer me at your leisure, she rejoined, turning
away.

It was because I adored you

You would n't say that at your leisure, said the girl.

Mrs. Vivian stood watching them.

You, who are so happy together, you ought to think kindly of
others who are less fortunate

That is very true, Mrs. Vivian; and I have never thought of
any one so kindly as I have of Gordon for the last year

Angela turned round again.

Is Blanche so very bad, then?

You will see for yourself!

Ah, no, said Mrs. Vivian, she is not bad; she is
only very light. I am so glad she is to be near us again. I think a
great deal can be done by association. We must help her, Angela. I
think we helped her before

It is also very true that she is light, Mrs. Vivian,
Bernard observed, and if you could make her a little heavier, I
should be tremendously grateful

Bernard's prospective mother-in-law looked at him a little.

I don't know whether you are laughing at meI always
think you are.  But I shall not give up Blanche for that. I never give
up any one that I have once tried to help. Blanche will come back to
me

Mrs. Vivian had hardly spoken when the sharp little vibration of
her door-bell was heard in the hall. Bernard stood for a moment
looking at the door of the drawing-room.

It is poor Gordon come to make a scene! he announced.

Is that what you meanthat he opposed your
marriage? asked Mrs.  Vivian, with a frightened air.

I don't know what he proposes to do with Blanche, said
Bernard, laughing.

There were voices in the hall. Angela had been listening.

You say she will come back to you, mamma, she exclaimed.
Here she is arrived!

At the same moment the door
was thrown open, and Mrs. Gordon appeared on the threshold with a
gentleman behind her. Blanche stood an instant looking into the
lighted room and hesitatingflushed a little, smiling, extremely
pretty.

May I come in? she said, and may I bring in Captain
Lovelock?

The two ladies, of course, fluttering toward her with every
demonstration of hospitality, drew her into the room, while Bernard
proceeded to greet the Captain, who advanced with a certain awkward
and bashful majesty, almost sweeping with his great stature Mrs.
Vivian's humble ceiling. There was a tender exchange of embraces
between Blanche and her friends, and the charming visitor, losing no
time, began to chatter with her usual volubility. Mrs. Vivian and
Angela made her companion graciously welcome; but Blanche begged they
would n't mind himshe had only brought him as a watch-dog.

His place is on the rug, she said. Captain Lovelock,
go and lie down on the rug

Upon my soul, there is nothing else but rugs in these French
places! the Captain rejoined, looking round Mrs. Vivian's salon.
Which rug do you mean?

Mrs. Vivian had remarked to Blanche that it was very kind of her to
come first, and Blanche declared that she could not have laid her head
on her pillow before she had seen her dear Mrs. Vivian.

Do you suppose I would wait because I am married? she
inquired, with a keen little smile in her charming eyes. I am not
so much married as that, I can tell you! Do you think I look much as
if I were married, with no one to bring me here to-night but Captain
Lovelock?

I am sure Captain Lovelock is a very gallant escort, said
Mrs.  Vivian.

Oh, he was not afraidthat is, he was not afraid of the
journey, though it lay all through those dreadful wild Champs
Elys&eacute;es. But when we arrived, he was afraid to come into
come up here. Captain Lovelock is so modest, you knowin spite
of all the success he had in America. He will tell you about the
success he had in America; it quite makes up for the defeat of the
British army in the Revolution. They were defeated in the Revolution,
the British, were n't they? I always told him so, but he insists they
were not. `How do we come to be free, then?' I always ask him; `I
suppose you admit that we are free.' Then he becomes personal and says
that I am free enough, certainly. But it 's the general fact I mean; I
wish you would tell him about the general fact. I think he would
believe you, because he knows you know a great deal about history and
all that. I don't mean this evening, but some time when it is
convenient. He did n't want to come inhe wanted to stay in the
carriage and smoke a cigar; he thought you would n't like it, his
coming with me the first time. But I told him he need n't mind that,
for I would certainly explain. I would be very careful to let you know
that I brought him only as a substitute. A substitute for whom? A
substitute for my husband, of course. My dear Mrs. Vivian, of course I
ought to bring you some pretty message from Gordonthat he is
dying to come and see you, only that he had nineteen letters to write
and that he could n't possibly stir from his fireside. I suppose a
good wife ought to invent excuses for her husbandought to throw
herself into the breach; is n't that what they call it? But I am
afraid I am not a good wife. Do you think I am a good wife, Mr.
Longueville? You once stayed three months with us, and you had a
chance to see. I don't ask you that seriously, because you never tell
the truth. I always do; so I will say I am not a good wife. And then
the breach is too big, and I am too little. Oh, I am too little, Mrs.
Vivian; I know I am too little. I am the smallest woman living; Gordon
can scarcely see me with a microscope, and I believe he has the most
powerful one in America. He is going to get another here; that is one
of the things he came abroad for; perhaps it will do better. I do tell
the truth, don't I, Mrs.  Vivian? I have that merit, if I have n't any
other. You once told me so at Baden; you said you could say one thing
for me, at any ratethat I did n't tell fibs. You were very nice
to me at Baden, Blanche went on, with her little intent smile,
laying her hand in that of her hostess. You see, I have never
forgotten it. So, to keep up my reputation, I must tell the truth
about Gordon. He simply said he would n't comevoil&agrave;! He
gave no reason and he did n't send you any pretty message. He simply
declined, and he went out somewhere else. So you see he is n't writing
letters. I don't know where he can have gone; perhaps he has gone to
the theatre. I know it is n't proper to go to the theatre on Sunday
evening; but they say charity begins at home, and as Gordon's does n't
begin at home, perhaps it does n't begin anywhere.  I told him that if
he would n't come with me I would come alone, and he said I might do
as I chosethat he was not in a humor for making visits. I
wanted to come to you very much; I had been thinking about it all day;
and I am so fond of a visit like this in the evening, without being
invited. Then I thought perhaps you had a salondoes n't every
one in Paris have a salon? I tried to have a salon in New York, only
Gordon said it would n't do. He said it was n't in our manners. Is
this a salon to-night, Mrs. Vivian? Oh, do say it is; I should like so
much to see Captain Lovelock in a salon! By good fortune he happened
to have been dining with us; so I told him he must bring me here. I
told you I would explain, Captain Lovelock, she added, and I
hope you think I have made it clear

The Captain had turned very red during this wandering discourse. He
sat pulling his beard and shifting the position which, with his
stalwart person, he had taken up on a little gilded chaira
piece of furniture which every now and then gave a delicate creak.

I always understand you well enough till you begin to
explain, he rejoined, with a candid, even if embarrassed, laugh.
Then, by Jove, I 'm quite in the woods. You see such a lot more
in things than most people. Does n't she, Miss Vivian?

Blanche has a fine imagination, said Angela, smiling
frankly at the charming visitor.

When Blanche was fairly adrift upon the current of her articulate
reflections, it was the habit of her companionsindeed, it was a
sort of tacit agreement among themsimply to make a circle and
admire. They sat about and looked at heryawning, perhaps, a
little at times, but on the whole very well entertained, and often
exchanging a smiling commentary with each other. She looked at them,
smiled at them each, in succession. Every one had his turn, and this
always helped to give Blanche an audience. Incoherent and aimless as
much of her talk was, she never looked prettier than in the attitude
of improvisationor rather, I should say, than in the hundred
attitudes which she assumed at such a time. Perpetually moving, she
was yet constantly graceful, and while she twisted her body and turned
her head, with charming hands that never ceased to gesticulate, and
little, conscious, brilliant eyes that looked everywhere at
onceeyes that seemed to chatter even faster than her
lipsshe made you forget the nonsense she poured forth, or think
of it only as a part of her personal picturesqueness. The thing was a
regular performance; the practice of unlimited chatter had made her
perfect. She rested upon her audience and held it together, and the
sight of half a dozen pairs of amused and fascinated faces led her
from one piece of folly to another. On this occasion, her audience was
far from failing her, for they were all greatly interested. Captain
Lovelock's interest, as we know, was chronic, and our three other
friends were much occupied with a matter with which Blanche was
intimately connected. Bernard, as he listened to her, smiling
mechanically, was not encouraged. He remembered what Mrs. Vivian had
said shortly before she came in, and it was not pleasant to him to
think that Gordon had been occupied half the day in contrasting the
finest girl in the world with this magnified butterfly. The contrast
was sufficiently striking as Angela sat there near her, very still,
bending her handsome head a little, with her hands crossed in her lap,
and on her lips a kind but inscrutable smile. Mrs. Vivian was on the
sofa next to Blanche, one of whose hands, when it was not otherwise
occupied, she occasionally took into her own.

Dear little Blanche! she softly murmured, at intervals.

These few remarks represent a longer pause than Mrs. Gordon often
suffered to occur. She continued to deliver herself upon a hundred
topics, and it hardly matters where we take her up.

I have n't the least idea what we are going to do. I have
nothing to say about it whatever. Gordon tells me every day I must
decide, and then I ask Captain Lovelock what he thinks; because, you
see, he always thinks a great deal. Captain Lovelock says he does n't
care a figthat he will go wherever I go. So you see that does
n't carry us very far. I want to settle on some place where Captain
Lovelock won't go, but he won't help me at all. I think it will look
better for him not to follow us; don't you think it will look better,
Mrs. Vivian? Not that I care in the least where we goor whether
Captain Lovelock follows us, either. I don't take any interest in
anything, Mrs. Vivian; don't you think that is very sad? Gordon may go
anywhere he likesto St.  Petersburg, or to Bombay

You might go to a worse place than Bombay, said Captain
Lovelock, speaking with the authority of an Anglo-Indian rich in
reminiscences.

Blanche gave him a little stare.

Ah well, that 's knocked on the head! From the way you speak
of it, I think you would come after us; and the more I think of that,
the more I see it would n't do. But we have got to go to some southern
place, because I am very unwell. I have n't the least idea what 's the
matter with me, and neither has any one else; but that does n't make
any difference. It 's settled that I am out of health. One might as
well be out of it as in it, for all the advantage it is. If you are
out of health, at any rate you can come abroad. It was Gordon's
discoveryhe 's always making discoveries. You see it 's because
I 'm so silly; he can always put it down to my being an invalid. What
I should like to do, Mrs. Vivian, would be to spend the winter with
youjust sitting on the sofa beside you and holding your hand.
It would be rather tiresome for you; but I really think it would be
better for me than anything else. I have never forgotten how kind you
were to me before my marriagethat summer at Baden. You were
everything to meyou and Captain Lovelock. I am sure I should be
happy if I never went out of this lovely room. You have got it so
beautifully arrangedI mean to do my own room just like it when
I go home. And you have got such lovely clothes. You never used to say
anything about it, but you and Angela always had better clothes than
I. Are you always so quiet and seriousnever talking about
chiffonsalways reading some wonderful book? I wish you would
let me come and stay with you. If you only ask me, Gordon would be too
delighted. He would n't have to trouble about me any more. He could go
and live over in the Latin Quarterthat 's the desire of his
heartand think of nothing but old bottles. I know it is n't
very good manners to beg for an invitation, Blanche went on,
smiling with a gentler radiance; but when it 's a question of
one's health. One wants to keep one's self alivedoes n't one?
One wants to keep one's self going. It would be so good for me, Mrs.
Vivian; it would really be very good for me!

She had turned round more and more to her hostess as she talked;
and at last she had given both her hands to Mrs. Vivian, and sat
looking at her with a singular mixture of earnestness and jocosity. It
was hard to know whether Blanche were expressing a real desire or a
momentary caprice, and whether this abrupt little petition were to be
taken seriously, or treated merely as a dramatic pose in a series of
more or less effective attitudes. Her smile had become almost a
grimace, she was flushed, she showed her pretty teeth; but there was a
little passionate quiver in her voice.

My dear child, said Mrs. Vivian, we should be
delighted to have you pay us a visit, and we should be so happy if we
could do you any good. But I am afraid you would very soon get tired
of us, and I ought to tell you, frankly, that our little home is to
beabroken up.  You know there is to be aa
change, the good lady continued, with a hesitation which
apparently came from a sense of walking on uncertain ground, while she
glanced with a smile at Bernard and Angela.

Blanche sat there with her little excited, yet innocenttoo
innocentstare; her eyes followed Mrs. Vivian's. They met
Bernard's for an instant, and for some reason, at this moment, Bernard
flushed.

He rose quickly and walked away to the window where he stood
looking out into the darkness. The devilthe devil! he
murmured to himself; she does n't even know we are to be
marriedGordon has n't been able to trust himself to tell
her! And this fact seemed pregnant with evidence as to Gordon's
state of mind; it did not appear to simplify the situation. After a
moment, while Bernard stood there with his back turnedhe felt
rather awkward and foolishhe heard Blanche begin with her
little surprised voice.

Ah, you are going away? You are going to travel? But that 's
charming; we can travel together. You are not going to travel? What
then are you going to do? You are going back to America? Ah, but you
must n't do that, as soon as I come abroad; that 's not nice or
friendly, Mrs. Vivian, to your poor little old Blanche. You are not
going back to America? Ah, then, I give it up! What 's the great
mystery? Is it something about Angela? There was always a mystery
about Angela. I hope you won't mind my saying it, my dear; but I was
always afraid of you. My husbandhe admires you so much, you
knowhas often tried to explain you to me; but I have never
understood. What are you going to do now? Are you going into a
convent? Are you going to beA-a-h!

And, suddenly, quickly, interrupting herself, Mrs. Gordon gave a
long, wondering cry. Bernard heard her spring to her feet, and the two
other ladies rise from their seats. Captain Lovelock got up as well;
Bernard heard him knock over his little gilded chair. There was a
pause, during which Blanche went through a little mute exhibition of
amazement and pleasure. Bernard turned round, to receive half a dozen
quick questions.

What are you hiding away for? What are you blushing for? I
never saw you do anything like that before! Why do you look so
strange, and what are you making me say? Angela, is it trueis
there something like that? Without waiting for the answer to this
last question, Blanche threw herself upon Mrs. Vivian. My own
Mrs. Vivian, she cried, is she married?

My dear Blanche, said Bernard, coming forward, has
not Gordon told you? Angela and I are not married, but we hope to be
before long.  Gordon only knew it this morning; we ourselves have only
known it a short time. There is no mystery about it, and we only want
your congratulations

Well, I must say you have been very quiet about it! cried
Blanche. When I was engaged, I wrote you all a letter

By Jove, she wrote to me! observed Captain Lovelock.

Angela went to her and kissed her.

Your husband does n't seem to have explained me very
successfully!

Mrs. Gordon held Bernard's intended for a moment at arm's length,
with both her hands, looking at her with eyes of real excitement and
wonder.  Then she folded her in a prolonged, an exaggerated, embrace.

Why did n't he tell mewhy did n't he tell me? she
presently began. He has had all day to tell me, and it was very
cruel of him to let me come here without knowing it. Could anything be
more absurdmore awkward? You don't think it 's
awkwardyou don't mind it?  Ah well, you are very good! But I
like it, AngelaI like it extremely, immensely. I think it 's
delightful, and I wonder it never occurred to me. Has it been going on
long? Ah, of course, it has been going on! Did n't it begin at Baden,
and did n't I see it there? Do you mind my alluding to that? At Baden
we were all so mixed up that one could n't tell who was attentive to
whom! But Bernard has been very faithful, my dear; I can assure you of
that. When he was in America he would n't look at another woman. I
know something about that! He stayed three months in my house and he
never spoke to me. Now I know why, Mr.  Bernard; but you might have
told me at the time. The reason was certainly good enough. I always
want to know why, you know. Why Gordon never told me, for instance;
that 's what I want to know!

Blanche refused to sit down again; she declared that she was so
agitated by this charming news that she could not be quiet, and that
she must presently take her departure. Meanwhile she congratulated
each of her friends half a dozen times; she kissed Mrs. Vivian again,
she almost kissed Bernard; she inquired about details; she longed to
hear all about Angela's things Of course they would stop
for the wedding; but meantime she must be very discreet; she must not
intrude too much. Captain Lovelock addressed to Angela a few
fragmentary, but well-intentioned sentences, pulling his beard and
fixing his eyes on the door-knoban implement which presently
turned in his manly fist, as he opened the door for his companion to
withdraw. Blanche went away in a flutter of ejaculations and
protestations which left our three friends in Mrs. Vivian's little
drawing-room standing looking at each other as the door closed behind
her.

It certainly would have been better taste in him to tell
her, said Bernard, frowning, and not let other people see
how little communication there is between them. It has mortified
her

Poor Mr. Wright had his reasons, Mrs. Vivian suggested,
and then she ventured to explain: He still cares for Angela, and
it was painful to him to talk about her marrying some one else

This had been Bernard's own reflection, and it was no more
agreeable as Mrs. Vivian presented it; though Angela herself seemed
indifferent to itseemed, indeed, not to hear it, as if she were
thinking of something else.

We must simply marry as soon as possible; to-morrow, if
necessary, said Bernard, with some causticity. That 's the
best thing we can do for every one. When once Angela is married,
Gordon will stop thinking of her. He will never permit his imagination
to hover about a married woman; I am very sure of that. He does n't
approve of that sort of thing, and he has the same law for himself as
for other people

It does n't matter, said Angela, simply.

How do you mean, my daughter, it does n't matter?

I don't feel obliged to feel so sorry for him now

Now? Pray, what has happened? I am more sorry than ever, since
I have heard poor Blanche's dreadful tone about him

The girl was silent a moment; then she shook her head, lightly.

Her toneher tone? Dearest mother, don't you see? She is
intensely in love with him!

This observation struck
Bernard as extremely ingenious and worthy of his mistress's fine
intelligence; he greeted it with enthusiasm, and thought of it for the
next twelve hours. The more he thought of it the more felicitous it
seemed to him, and he went to Mrs. Vivian's the next day almost for
the express purpose of saying to Angela that, decidedly, she was
right. He was admitted by his old friend, the little femme de chambre,
who had long since bestowed upon him, definitively, her confidence;
and as in the ante-chamber he heard the voice of a gentleman raised
and talking with some emphasis, come to him from the salon, he paused
a moment, looking at her with an interrogative eye.

Yes, said Mrs. Vivian's attendant, I must tell
Monsieur frankly that another gentleman is there. Moreover, what does
it matter?  Monsieur would perceive it for himself!

Has he been here long? asked Bernard.

A quarter of an hour. It probably does n't seem long to the
gentleman!

Is he alone with Mademoiselle?

He asked for Mademoiselle only. I introduced him into the
salon, and Mademoiselle, after conversing a little while with Madame,
consented to receive him. They have been alone together, as I have
told Monsieur, since about three o'clock. Madame is in her own
apartment. The position of Monsieur, added this discriminating
woman, certainly justifies him in entering the salon

Bernard was quite of this opinion, and in a moment more he had
crossed the threshold of the little drawing-room and closed the door
behind him.

Angela sat there on a sofa, leaning back with her hands clasped in
her lap and her eyes fixed upon Gordon Wright, who stood squarely
before her, as if he had been making her a resolute speech. Her face
wore a look of distress, almost of alarm; she kept her place, but her
eyes gave Bernard a mute welcome. Gordon turned and looked at him
slowly from head to foot. Bernard remembered, with a good deal of
vividness, the last look his friend had given him in the Champs
Elys&eacute;es the day before; and he saw with some satisfaction that
this was not exactly a repetition of that expression of cold horror.
It was a question, however, whether the horror were changed for the
better. Poor Gordon looked intensely sad and grievously wronged. The
keen resentment had faded from his face, but an immense reproach was
therea heavy, helpless, appealing reproach. Bernard saw that he
had not a scene of violence to dreadand yet, when he perceived
what was coming, he would almost have preferred violence. Gordon did
not offer him his hand, and before Bernard had had time to say
anything, began to speak again, as if he were going on with what he
had been saying to Angela.

You have done me a great wrongyou have done me a cruel
wrong! I have been telling it to Miss Vivian; I came on purpose to
tell her. I can't really tell her; I can't tell her the details; it 's
too painful!  But you know what I mean! I could n't stand it any
longer. I thought of going awaybut I could n't do that. I must
come and say what I feel. I can't bear it now

This outbreak of a passionate sense of injury in a man habitually
so undemonstrative, so little disposed to call attention to himself,
had in it something at once of the touching and the terrible. Bernard,
for an instant, felt almost bewildered; he asked himself whether he
had not, after all, been a monster of duplicity. He was guilty of the
weakness of taking refuge in what is called, I believe, in legal
phrase, a side-issue.

Don't say all this before Angela! he exclaimed, with a
kind of artificial energy. You know she is not in the least at
fault, and that it can only give her pain. The thing is between
ourselves

Angela was sitting there, looking up at both the men. I like
to hear it, she said.

You have a singular taste! Bernard declared.

I know it 's between ourselves, cried Gordon, and
that Miss Vivian is not at fault. She is only too lovely, too wise,
too good! It is you and I that are at faulthorribly at fault!
You see I admit it, and you don't. I never dreamed that I should live
to say such things as this to you; but I never dreamed you would do
what you have done! It 's horrible, most horrible, that such a
difference as this should come between two men who believed
themselvesor whom I believed, at leastthe best friends
in the world. For it is a differenceit 's a great gulf, and
nothing will ever fill it up. I must say so; I can't help it. You know
I don't express myself easily; so, if I break out this way, you may
know what I feel. I know it is a pain to Miss Vivian, and I beg her to
forgive me. She has so much to forgive that she can forgive that, too.
I can't pretend to accept it; I can't sit down and let it pass. And
then, it is n't only my feelings; it 's the right; it 's the justice.
I must say to her that you have no right to marry her; and beg of her
to listen to me and let you go

My dear Gordon, are you crazy? Bernard demanded, with an
energy which, this time at least, was sufficiently real.

Very likely I am crazy. I am crazy with disappointment and the
bitterness of what I have lost. Add to that the wretchedness of what I
have found!

Ah, don't say that, Mr. Wright, Angela begged.

He stood for an instant looking at her, but not heeding her words.
Will you listen to me again? Will you forget the wrong I did
you?my stupidity and folly and unworthiness? Will you blot out
the past and let me begin again. I see you as clearly now as the light
of that window. Will you give me another chance?

Angela turned away her eyes and covered her face with her hands.
You do pain me! she murmured.

You go too far, said Bernard. To what position does
your extraordinary proposal relegate your wife?

Gordon turned his pleading eyes on his old friend without a ray of
concession; but for a moment he hesitated. Don't speak to me of
my wife. I have no wife

Ah, poor girl! said Angela, springing up from the sofa.

I am perfectly serious, Gordon went on, addressing
himself again to her. No, after all, I am not crazy; I see only
too clearlyI see what should be; when people see that, you call
them crazy. Bernard has no righthe must give you up. If you
really care for him, you should help him. He is in a very false
position; you should n't wish to see him in such a position. I can't
explain to youif it were even for my own sake. But Bernard must
have told you; it is not possible that he has not told you?

I have told Angela everything, Gordon, said Bernard.

I don't know what you mean by your having done me a
wrong! the girl exclaimed.

If he has told you, thenI may say it! In listening to
him, in believing him

But you did n't believe me, Bernard exclaimed, since
you immediately went and offered yourself to Miss Vivian!

I believed you all the same! When did I ever not believe
you?

The last words I ever heard from Mr. Wright were words of the
deepest kindness, said Angela.

She spoke with such a serious, tender grace, that Gordon seemed
stirred to his depths again.

Ah, give me another chance! he moaned.

The poor girl could not help her tone, and it was in the same tone
that she continued

If you think so well of me, try and be reasonable

Gordon looked at her, slowly shaking his head.

Reasonablereasonable? Yes, you have a right to say
that, for you are full of reason. But so am I. What I ask is within
reasonable limits.  

Granting your happiness were lost, said
BernardI say that only for the argumentis that a
ground for your wishing to deprive me of mine?

It is not yoursit is mine, that you have taken! You put
me off my guard, and then you took it! Yours is elsewhere, and you are
welcome to it!

Ah, murmured Bernard, giving him a long look and turning
away, it is well for you that I am willing still to regard you as
my best friend!

Gordon went on, more passionately, to Angela.

He put me off my guardI can't call it anything else. I
know I gave him a great chanceI encouraged him, urged him,
tempted him. But when once he had spoken, he should have stood to it.
He should n't have had two opinionsone for me, and one for
himself! He put me off my guard.  It was because I still resisted him
that I went to you again, that last time. But I was still afraid of
you, and in my heart I believed him. As I say, I always believed him;
it was his great influence upon me. He is the cleverest, the most
intelligent, the most brilliant of men. I don't think that a grain
less than I ever thought it, he continued, turning again to
Bernard. I think it only the more, and I don't wonder that you
find a woman to believe it. But what have you done but deceive me? It
was just my belief in your intelligence that reassured me. When Miss
Vivian refused me a second time, and I left Baden, it was at first
with a sort of relief. But there came back a better feelinga
feeling faint compared to this feeling of to-day, but strong enough to
make me uneasy and to fill me with regret. To quench my regret, I kept
thinking of what you had said, and it kept me quiet. Your word had
such weight with me!

How many times more would you have wished to be refused, and
how many refusals would have been required to give me my liberty?
asked Bernard.

That question means nothing, because you never knew that I had
again offered myself to Miss Vivian

No; you told me very little, considering all that you made me
tell you

I told you beforehand that I should do exactly as I
chose

You should have allowed me the same liberty!

Liberty! cried Gordon. Had n't you liberty to range
the whole world over? Could n't he have found a thousand other
women?

It is not for me to think so, said Angela, smiling a
little.

Gordon looked at her a moment.

Ah, you cared for him from the first! he cried.

I had seen him before I ever saw you, said the girl.

Bernard suppressed an exclamation. There seemed to flash through
these words a sort of retrospective confession which told him
something that she had never directly told him. She blushed as soon as
she had spoken, and Bernard found a beauty in this of which the
brightness blinded him to the awkward aspect of the fact she had just
presented to Gordon. At this fact Gordon stood staring; then at last
he apprehended itlargely.

Ah, then, it had been a plot between you! he cried out.

Bernard and Angela exchanged a glance of pity.

We had met for five minutes, and had exchanged a few words
before I came to Baden. It was in Italyat Siena. It was a
simple accident that I never told you, Bernard explained.

I wished that nothing should be said about it, said
Angela.

Ah, you loved him! Gordon exclaimed.

Angela turned awayshe went to the window. Bernard followed
her for three seconds with his eyes; then he went on

If it were so, I had no reason to suppose it. You have accused
me of deceiving you, but I deceived only myself. You say I put you off
your guard, but you should rather say you put me on mine. It was,
thanks to that, that I fell into the most senseless, the most brutal
of delusions.  The delusion passed awayit had contained the
germ of better things.  I saw my error, and I bitterly repented of it;
and on the day you were married I felt free

Ah, yes, I have no doubt you waited for that! cried
Gordon.  It may interest you to know that my marriage is a
miserable failure

I am sorry to hear itbut I can't help it

You have seen it with your own eyes. You know all about it,
and I need n't tell you

My dear Mr. Wright, said Angela, pleadingly, turning
round, in Heaven's name, don't say that!

Why should n't I say it? I came here on purpose to say it. I
came here with an intentionwith a plan. You know what Blanche
isyou need n't pretend, for kindness to me, that you don't. You
know what a precious, what an inestimable wife she must make
mehow devoted, how sympathetic she must be, and what a
household blessing at every hour of the day. Bernard can tell you all
about ushe has seen us in the sanctity of our home Gordon
gave a bitter laugh and went on, with the same strange, serious air of
explaining his plan. She despises me, she hates me, she cares no
more for me than for the button on her gloveby which I mean
that she does n't care a hundredth part as much.  You may say that it
serves me right, and that I have got what I deserve.  I married her
because she was silly. I wanted a silly wife; I had an idea you were
too wise. Oh, yes, that 's what I thought of you! Blanche knew why I
picked her out, and undertook to supply the article required.  Heaven
forgive her! She has certainly kept her engagement. But you can
imagine how it must have made her like meknowing why I picked
her out! She has disappointed me all the same. I thought she had a
heart; but that was a mistake. It does n't matter, though, because
everything is over between us

What do you mean, everything is over? Bernard demanded.

Everything will be over in a few weeks. Then I can speak to
Miss Vivian seriously

Ah! I am glad to hear this is not serious, said Bernard.

Miss Vivian, wait a few weeks, Gordon went on. Give
me another chance then. Then it will be perfectly right; I shall be
free

You speak as if you were going to put an end to your
wife!

She is rapidly putting an end to herself. She means to leave
me

Poor, unhappy man, do you know what you are saying?
Angela murmured.

Perfectly. I came here to say it. She means to leave me, and I
mean to offer her every facility. She is dying to take a lover, and
she has got an excellent one waiting for her. Bernard knows whom I
mean; I don't know whether you do. She was ready to take one three
months after our marriage. It is really very good of her to have
waited all this time; but I don't think she can go more than a week or
two longer. She is recommended a southern climate, and I am pretty
sure that in the course of another ten days I may count upon their
starting together for the shores of the Mediterranean. The shores of
the Mediterranean, you know, are lovely, and I hope they will do her a
world of good. As soon as they have left Paris I will let you know;
and then you will of course admit that, virtually, I am free

I don't understand you

I suppose you are aware, said Gordon, that we have
the advantage of being natives of a country in which marriages may be
legally dissolved

Angela stared; then, softly

Are you speaking of a divorce?

I believe that is what they call it, Gordon answered,
gazing back at her with his densely clouded blue eyes. The
lawyers do it for you; and if she goes away with Lovelock, nothing
will be more simple than for me to have it arranged

Angela stared, I say; and Bernard was staring, too. Then the
latter, turning away, broke out into a tremendous, irrepressible
laugh.

Gordon looked at him a moment; then he said to Angela, with a
deeper tremor in his voice

He was my dearest friend

I never felt more devoted to you than at this moment!
Bernard declared, smiling still.

Gordon had fixed his sombre eyes upon the girl again.

Do you understand me now?

Angela looked back at him for some instants.

Yes, she murmured at last.

And will you wait, and give me another chance?

Yes, she said, in the same tone.

Bernard uttered a quick exclamation, but Angela checked him with a
glance, and Gordon looked from one of them to the other.

Can I trust you? Gordon asked.

I will make you happy, said Angela.

Bernard wondered what under the sun she meant; but he thought he
might safely add

I will abide by her choice

Gordon actually began to smile.

It won't be long, I think; two or three weeks

Angela made no answer to this; she fixed her eyes on the floor.

I shall see Blanche as often as possible, she presently
said.

By all means! The more you see her the better you will
understand me.  

I understand you very well now. But you have shaken me very
much, and you must leave me. I shall see you alsooften

Gordon took up his hat and stick; he saw that Bernard did not do
the same.

And Bernard? he exclaimed.

I shall ask him to leave Paris, said Angela.

Will you go?

I will do what Angela requests, said Bernard.

You have heard what she requests; it 's for you to come
now

Ah, you must at least allow me to take leave! cried
Bernard.

Gordon went to the door, and when he had opened it he stood for a
while, holding it and looking at his companions. Then

I assure you she won't be long! he said to Angela, and
rapidly passed out.

The others stood silent till they heard the outer door of the
apartment close behind him.

And now please to elucidate! said Bernard, folding his
arms.

Angela gave no answer for some moments; then she turned upon him a
smile which appeared incongruous, but which her words presently helped
to explain.

He is intensely in love with his wife!

This statement was very
effective, but it might well have seemed at first to do more credit to
her satiric powers than to her faculty of observation. This was the
light in which it presented itself to Bernard; but, little by little,
as she amplified the text, he grew to think well of it, and at last he
was quite ready to place it, as a triumph of sagacity, on a level with
that other discovery which she had made the evening before and with
regard to which his especial errand to-day had been to congratulate
her afresh. It brought him, however, less satisfaction than it
appeared to bring to his clever companion; for, as he observed
plausibly enough, Gordon was quite out of his head, and, this being
the case, of what importance was the secret of his heart?

The secret of his heart and the condition of his head are one
and the same thing, said Angela. He is turned upside down by
the wretchedly false position that he has got into with his wife. She
has treated him badly, but he has treated her wrongly. They are in
love with each other, and yet they both do nothing but hide it. He is
not in the least in love with poor menot to-day any more than
he was three years ago. He thinks he is, because he is full of sorrow
and bitterness, and because the news of our engagement has given him a
shock. But that 's only a pretexta chance to pour out the grief
and pain which have been accumulating in his heart under a sense of
his estrangement from Blanche. He is too proud to attribute his
feelings to that cause, even to himself; but he wanted to cry out and
say he was hurt, to demand justice for a wrong; and the revelation of
the state of things between you and mewhich of course strikes
him as incongruous; we must allow largely for thatcame to him
as a sudden opportunity.  No, no, the girl went on, with a
generous ardor in her face, following further the train of her
argument, which she appeared to find extremely attractive, I know
what you are going to say and I deny it.  I am not fanciful, or
sophistical, or irrational, and I know perfectly what I am about. Men
are so stupid; it 's only women that have real discernment. Leave me
alone, and I shall do something. Blanche is silly, yes, very silly;
but she is not so bad as her husband accused her of being, in those
dreadful words which he will live to repent of.  She is wise enough to
care for him, greatly, at bottom, and to feel her little heart filled
with rage and shame that he does n't appear to care for her. If he
would take her a little more seriouslyit 's an immense pity he
married her because she was silly!she would be flattered by it,
and she would try and deserve it. No, no, no! she does n't, in
reality, care a straw for Captain Lovelock, I assure you, I promise
you she does n't. A woman can tell. She is in danger, possibly, and if
her present situation, as regards her husband, lasts, she might do
something as horrid as he said. But she would do it out of
spitenot out of affection for the Captain, who must be got
immediately out of the way. She only keeps him to torment her husband
and make Gordon come back to her. She would drop him forever
to-morrow Angela paused a moment, reflecting, with a kindled
eye. And she shall!

Bernard looked incredulous.

How will that be, Miss Solomon?

You shall see when you come back

When I come back? Pray, where am I going?

You will leave Paris for a fortnightas I promised our
poor friend

Bernard gave an irate laugh.

My dear girl, you are ridiculous! Your promising it was almost
as childish as his asking it

To play with a child you must be childish. Just see the effect
of this abominable passion of love, which you have been crying up to
me so! By its operation Gordon Wright, the most sensible man of our
acquaintance, is reduced to the level of infancy! If you will only go
away, I will manage him

You certainly manage me! Pray, where shall I go?

Wherever you choose. I will write to you every day

That will be an inducement, said Bernard. You know I
have never received a letter from you

I write the most delightful ones! Angela exclaimed; and
she succeeded in making him promise to start that night for London.

She had just done so when Mrs. Vivian presented herself, and the
good lady was not a little astonished at being informed of his
intention.

You surely are not going to give up my daughter to oblige Mr.
Wright? she observed.

Upon my word, I feel as if I were! said Bernard.

I will explain it, dear mamma, said Angela. It is
very interesting. Mr. Wright has made a most fearful scene; the state
of things between him and Blanche is dreadful

Mrs. Vivian opened her clear eyes.

You really speak as if you liked it!

She does like itshe told Gordon so, said Bernard.
I don't know what she is up to! Gordon has taken leave of his
wits; he wishes to put away his wife

To put her away?

To repudiate her, as the historians say!

To repudiate little Blanche! murmured Mrs. Vivian, as if
she were struck with the incongruity of the operation.

I mean to keep them together, said Angela, with a firm
decision.

Her mother looked at her with admiration.

My dear daughter, I will assist you

The two ladies had such an air of mysterious competence to the task
they had undertaken that it seemed to Bernard that nothing was left to
him but to retire into temporary exile. He accordingly betook himself
to London, where he had social resources which would, perhaps, make
exile endurable. He found himself, however, little disposed to avail
himself of these resources, and he treated himself to no pleasures but
those of memory and expectation. He ached with a sense of his absence
from Mrs. Vivian's deeply familiar sky-parlor, which seemed to him for
the time the most sacred spot on earthif on earth it could be
calledand he consigned to those generous postal receptacles
which ornament with their brilliant hue the London street-corners, an
inordinate number of the most voluminous epistles that had ever been
dropped into them. He took long walks, alone, and thought all the way
of Angela, to whom, it seemed to him, that the character of
ministering angel was extremely becoming. She was faithful to her
promise of writing to him every day, and she was an angel who
wieldedso at least Bernard thought, and he was particular about
lettersa very ingenious pen. Of course she had only one
topicthe success of her operations with regard to Gordon.
Mamma has undertaken Blanche, she wrote, and I am
devoting myself to Mr. W. It is really very interesting She told
Bernard all about it in detail, and he also found it interesting;
doubly so, indeed, for it must be confessed that the charming figure
of the mistress of his affections attempting to heal a great social
breach with her light and delicate hands, divided his attention pretty
equally with the distracted, the distorted, the almost ludicrous,
image of his old friend.

Angela wrote that Gordon had come back to see her the day after his
first visit, and had seemed greatly troubled on learning that Bernard
had taken himself off. It was because you insisted on it, of
course, he said; it was not from feeling the justice of it
himself I told him, said Angela, in her letter,
that I had made a point of it, but that we certainly ought to
give you a little credit for it. But I could n't insist upon this, for
fear of sounding a wrong note and exciting afresh what I suppose he
would be pleased to term his jealousy. He asked me where you had gone,
and when I told him`Ah, how he must hate me!' he exclaimed.
`There you are quite wrong,' I answered.  `He feels as kindly to you
asas I do.' He looked as if he by no means believed this; but,
indeed, he looks as if he believed nothing at all. He is quite upset
and demoralized. He stayed half an hour and paid me his
visittrying hard to `please' me again! Poor man, he is in a
charming state to please the fair sex! But if he does n't please me,
he interests me more and more; I make bold to say that to you. You
would have said it would be very awkward; but, strangely enough, I
found it very easy. I suppose it is because I am so interested. Very
likely it was awkward for him, poor fellow, for I can certify that he
was not a whit happier at the end of his half-hour, in spite of the
privilege he had enjoyed. He said nothing more about you, and we
talked of Paris and New York, of Baden and Rome. Imagine the
situation! I shall make no resistance whatever to it; I shall simply
let him perceive that conversing with me on these topics does not make
him feel a bit more comfortable, and that he must look elsewhere for a
remedy. I said not a word about Blanche

She spoke of Blanche, however, the next time. He came again
this afternoon, she said in her second letter, and he wore
exactly the same face as yesterdaynamely, a very unhappy one.
If I were not entirely too wise to believe his account of himself, I
might suppose that he was unhappy because Blanche shows symptoms of
not taking flight.  She has been with us a great dealshe has no
idea what is going onand I can't honestly say that she chatters
any less than usual.  But she is greatly interested in certain shops
that she is buying out, and especially in her visits to her tailor.
Mamma has proposed to herin view of your absenceto come
and stay with us, and she does n't seem afraid of the idea. I told her
husband to-day that we had asked her, and that we hoped he had no
objection. `None whatever; but she won't come.' `On the contrary, she
says she will.' `She will pretend to, up to the last minute; and then
she will find a pretext for backing out.' `Decidedly, you think very
ill of her,' I said. `She hates me,' he answered, looking at me
strangely. `You say that of every one,' I said. `Yesterday you said it
of Bernard.' `Ah, for him there would be more reason!' he exclaimed.
`I won't attempt to answer for Bernard,' I went on, `but I will answer
for Blanche. Your idea of her hating you is a miserable delusion. She
cares for you more than for any one in the world. You only
misunderstand each other, and with a little good will on both sides
you can easily get out of your tangle.' But he would n't listen to me;
he stopped me short. I saw I should excite him if I insisted; so I
dropped the subject. But it is not for long; he shall listen to
me

Later she wrote that Blanche had in fact backed out, and
would not come to stay with them, having given as an excuse that she
was perpetually trying on dresses, and that at Mrs. Vivian's she
should be at an inconvenient distance from the temple of these sacred
rites, and the high priest who conducted the worship. But we see
her every day, said Angela, and mamma is constantly with
her. She likes mamma better than me. Mamma listens to her a great deal
and talks to her a littleI can't do either when we are alone. I
don't know what she saysI mean what mamma says; what Blanche
says I know as well as if I heard it. We see nothing of Captain
Lovelock, and mamma tells me she has not spoken of him for two days.
She thinks this is a better symptom, but I am not so sure. Poor Mr.
Wright treats it as a great triumph that Blanche should behave as he
foretold. He is welcome to the comfort he can get out of this, for he
certainly gets none from anything else. The society of your
correspondent is not that balm to his spirit which he appeared to
expect, and this in spite of the fact that I have been as gentle and
kind with him as I know how to be. He is very silenthe
sometimes sits for ten minutes without speaking; I assure you it is
n't amusing. Sometimes he looks at me as if he were going to break out
with that crazy idea to which he treated me the other day. But he says
nothing, and then I see that he is not thinking of mehe is
simply thinking of Blanche. The more he thinks of her the better

My dear Bernard, she began on another occasion, I
hope you are not dying of ennui, etc. Over here things are going
so-so. He asked me yesterday to go with him to the Louvre, and we
walked about among the pictures for half an hour. Mamma thinks it a
very strange sort of thing for me to be doing, and though she
delights, of all things, in a good cause, she is not sure that this
cause is good enough to justify the means. I admit that the means are
very singular, and, as far as the Louvre is concerned, they were not
successful. We sat and looked for a quarter of an hour at the great
Venus who has lost her arms, and he said never a word. I think he does
n't know what to say. Before we separated he asked me if I heard from
you. `Oh, yes,' I said, `every day.' `And does he speak of me?'
`Never!' I answered; and I think he looked disappointed Bernard
had, in fact, in writing to Angela, scarcely mentioned his name.
He had not been here for two days, she continued, at the end
of a week; but last evening, very latetoo late for a
visitorhe came in. Mamma had left the drawing-room, and I was
sitting alone; I immediately saw that we had reached a crisis. I
thought at first he was going to tell me that Blanche had carried out
his prediction; but I presently saw that this was not where the shoe
pinched; and, besides, I knew that mamma was watching her too closely.
`How can I have ever been such a dull-souled idiot?' he broke out, as
soon as he had got into the room. `I like to hear you say that,' I
said, `because it does n't seem to me that you have been at all wise.'
`You are cleverness, kindness, tact, in the most perfect form!' he
went on. As a veracious historian I am bound to tell you that he paid
me a bushel of compliments, and thanked me in the most flattering
terms for my having let him bore me so for a week. `You have not bored
me,' I said; `you have interested me.' `Yes,' he cried, `as a curious
case of monomania. It 's a part of your kindness to say that; but I
know I have bored you to death; and the end of it all is that you
despise me. You can't help despising me; I despise myself. I used to
think that I was a man, but I have given that up; I am a poor
creature! I used to think I could take things quietly and bear them
bravely. But I can't! If it were not for very shame I could sit here
and cry to you.' `Don't mind me,' I said; `you know it is a part of
our agreement that I was not to be critical.' `Our agreement?' he
repeated, vaguely. `I see you have forgotten it,' I answered; `but it
does n't in the least matter; it is not of that I wish to talk to you.
All the more that it has n't done you a particle of good. I have been
extremely nice with you for a week; but you are just as unhappy now as
you were at the beginning. Indeed, I think you are rather worse.'
`Heaven forgive me, Miss Vivian, I believe I am!' he cried. `Heaven
will easily forgive you; you are on the wrong road. To catch up with
your happiness, which has been running away from you, you must take
another; you must travel in the same direction as Blanche; you must
not separate yourself from your wife.' At the sound of Blanche's name
he jumped up and took his usual tone; he knew all about his wife, and
needed no information. But I made him sit down again, and I made him
listen to me. I made him listen for half an hour, and at the end of
the time he was interested. He had all the appearance of it; he sat
gazing at me, and at last the tears came into his eyes. I believe I
had a moment of eloquence. I don't know what I said, nor how I said
it, to what point it would bear examination, nor how, if you had been
there, it would seem to you, as a disinterested critic, to hang
together; but I know that after a while there were tears in my own
eyes. I begged him not to give up Blanche; I assured him that she is
not so foolish as she seems; that she is a very delicate little
creature to handle, and that, in reality, whatever she does, she is
thinking only of him. He had been all goodness and kindness to her, I
knew that; but he had not, from the first, been able to conceal from
her that he regarded her chiefly as a pretty kitten.  She wished to be
more than that, and she took refuge in flirting, simply to excite his
jealousy and make him feel strongly about her. He has felt strongly,
and he was feeling strongly now; he was feeling
passionatelythat was my whole contention. But he had perhaps
never made it plain to those rather near-sighted little mental eyes of
hers, and he had let her suppose something that could n't fail to
rankle in her mind and torment it. `You have let her suppose,' I said,
`that you were thinking of me, and the poor girl has been jealous of
me. I know it, but from nothing she herself has said. She has said
nothing; she has been too proud and too considerate. If you don't
think that 's to her honor, I do. She has had a chance every day for a
week, but she has treated me without a grain of spite. I have
appreciated it, I have understood it, and it has touched me very much.
It ought to touch you, Mr. Wright. When she heard I was engaged to Mr.
Longueville, it gave her an immense relief. And yet, at the same
moment you were protesting, and denouncing, and saying those horrible
things about her! I know how she appearsshe likes admiration.
But the admiration in the world which she would most delight in just
now would be yours. She plays with Captain Lovelock as a child does
with a wooden harlequin, she pulls a string and he throws up his arms
and legs. She has about as much intention of eloping with him as a
little girl might have of eloping with a pasteboard Jim Crow. If you
were to have a frank explanation with her, Blanche would very soon
throw Jim Crow out of the window. I very humbly entreat you to cease
thinking of me. I don't know what wrong you have ever done me, or what
kindness I have ever done you, that you should feel obliged to trouble
your head about me. You see all I amI tell you now. I am
nothing in the least remarkable. As for your thinking ill of me at
Baden, I never knew it nor cared about it. If it had been so, you see
how I should have got over it. Dear Mr. Wright, we might be such good
friends, if you would only believe me. She 's so pretty, so charming,
so universally admired. You said just now you had bored me, but it 's
nothingin spite of all the compliments you have paid
meto the way I have bored you. If she could only know
itthat I have bored you! Let her see for half an hour that I am
out of your mindthe rest will take care of itself. She might so
easily have made a quarrel with me. The way she has behaved to me is
one of the prettiest things I have ever seen, and you shall see the
way I shall always behave to her! Don't think it necessary to say out
of politeness that I have not bored you; it is not in the least
necessary. You know perfectly well that you are disappointed in the
charm of my society.  And I have done my best, too. I can honestly
affirm that!' For some time he said nothing, and then he remarked that
I was very clever, but he did n't see a word of sense in what I said.
`It only proves,' I said, `that the merit of my conversation is
smaller than you had taken it into your head to fancy. But I have done
you good, all the same.  Don't contradict me; you don't know yet; and
it 's too late for us to argue about it. You will tell me to-morrow.'


Some three evenings after he
received this last report of the progress of affairs in Paris,
Bernard, upon whom the burden of exile sat none the more lightly as
the days went on, turned out of the Strand into one of the theatres.
He had been gloomily pushing his way through the various London
densitiesthe November fog, the nocturnal darkness, the jostling
crowd. He was too restless to do anything but walk, and he had been
saying to himself, for the thousandth time, that if he had been guilty
of a misdemeanor in succumbing to the attractions of the admirable
girl who showed to such advantage in letters of twelve pages, his
fault was richly expiated by these days of impatience and bereavement.
He gave little heed to the play; his thoughts were elsewhere, and,
while they rambled, his eyes wandered round the house.  Suddenly, on
the other side of it, he beheld Captain Lovelock, seated squarely in
his orchestra-stall, but, if Bernard was not mistaken, paying as
little attention to the stage as he himself had done. The Captain's
eyes, it is true, were fixed upon the scene; his head was bent a
little, his magnificent beard rippled over the expanse of his
shirt-front. But Bernard was not slow to see that his gaze was heavy
and opaque, and that, though he was staring at the actresses, their
charms were lost upon him. He saw that, like himself, poor Lovelock
had matter for reflection in his manly breast, and he concluded that
Blanche's ponderous swain was also suffering from a sense of
disjunction. Lovelock sat in the same posture all the evening, and
that his imagination had not projected itself into the play was proved
by the fact that during the entractes he gazed with the same dull
fixedness at the curtain. Bernard forebore to interrupt him; we know
that he was not at this moment socially inclined, and he judged that
the Captain was as little so, inasmuch as causes even more imperious
than those which had operated in his own case must have been at the
bottom of his sudden appearance in London. On leaving the theatre,
however, Bernard found himself detained with the crowd in the
vestibule near the door, which, wide open to the street, was a scene
of agitation and confusion. It had come on to rain, and the raw
dampness mingled itself with the dusky uproar of the Strand. At last,
among the press of people, as he was passing out, our hero became
aware that he had been brought into contact with Lovelock, who was
walking just beside him. At the same moment Lovelock noticed
himlooked at him for an instant, and then looked away. But he
looked back again the next instant, and the two men then uttered that
inarticulate and inexpressive exclamation which passes for a sign of
greeting among gentlemen of the Anglo-Saxon race, in their moments of
more acute self-consciousness.

Oh, are you here? said Bernard. I thought you were
in Paris

No; I ain't in Paris, Lovelock answered with some
dryness.  Tired of the beastly hole!

Oh, I see, said Bernard. Excuse me while I put up my
umbrella.  

He put up his umbrella, and from under it, the next moment, he saw
the Captain waving two fingers at him out of the front of a hansom.
When he returned to his hotel he found on his table a letter
superscribed in Gordon Wright's hand. This communication ran as
follows:

I believe you are making a fool of me. In Heaven's name, come
back to Paris! G. W

Bernard hardly knew whether to regard these few words as a further
declaration of war, or as an overture to peace; but he lost no time in
complying with the summons they conveyed. He started for Paris the
next morning, and in the evening, after he had removed the dust of his
journey and swallowed a hasty dinner, he rang at Mrs. Vivian's door.
This lady and her daughter gave him a welcome whichI will not
say satisfied him, but which, at least, did something toward soothing
the still unhealed wounds of separation.

And what is the news of Gordon? he presently asked.

We have not seen him in three days, said Angela.

He is cured, dear Bernard; he must be. Angela has been
wonderful, Mrs. Vivian declared.

You should have seen mamma with Blanche, her daughter
said, smiling. It was most remarkable

Mrs. Vivian smiled, too, very gently.

Dear little Blanche! Captain Lovelock has gone to London

Yes, he thinks it a beastly hole. Ah, no, Bernard added,
I have got it wrong

But it little mattered. Late that night, on his return to his own
rooms, Bernard sat gazing at his fire. He had not begun to undress; he
was thinking of a good many things. He was in the midst of his
reflections when there came a rap at his door, which the next moment
was flung open. Gordon Wright stood there, looking at himwith a
gaze which Bernard returned for a moment before bidding him to come
in.  Gordon came in and came up to him; then he held out his hand.
Bernard took it with great satisfaction; his last feeling had been
that he was very weary of this ridiculous quarrel, and it was an
extreme relief to find it was over.

It was very good of you to go to London, said Gordon,
looking at him with all the old serious honesty of his eyes.

I have always tried to do what I could to oblige you,
Bernard answered, smiling.

You must have cursed me over there, Gordon went on.

I did, a little. As you were cursing me here, it was
permissible

That 's over now, said Gordon. I came to welcome you
back. It seemed to me I could n't lay my head on my pillow without
speaking to you

I am glad to get back, Bernard admitted, smiling still.
I can't deny that. And I find you as I believed I should
Then he added, seriouslyI knew Angela would keep us good
friends

For a moment Gordon said nothing. Then, at last

Yes, for that purpose it did n't matter which of us should
marry her.  If it had been I, he added, she would have made
you accept it

Ah, I don't know! Bernard exclaimed.

I am sure of it, said Gordon earnestlyalmost
argumentatively.  She 's an extraordinary woman

Keeping you good friends with methat 's a great thing.
But it 's nothing to her keeping you good friends with your wife

Gordon looked at Bernard for an instant; then he fixed his eyes for
some time on the fire.

Yes, that is the greatest of all things. A man should value
his wife.  He should believe in her. He has taken her, and he should
keep herespecially when there is a great deal of good in her. I
was a great fool the other day, he went on. I don't remember
what I said. It was very weak

It seemed to me feeble, said Bernard. But it is
quite within a man's rights to be a fool once in a while, and you had
never abused of the license

Well, I have done it for a lifetimefor a lifetime
And Gordon took up his hat. He looked into the crown of it for a
moment, and then he fixed his eyes on Bernard's again. But there
is one thing I hope you won't mind my saying. I have come back to my
old impression of Miss Vivian

Your old impression?

And Miss Vivian's accepted lover frowned a little.

I mean that she 's not simple. She 's very strange

Bernard's frown cleared away in a sudden, almost eager smile.

Say at once that you dislike her! That will do capitally

Gordon shook his head, and he, too, almost smiled a little.

It 's not true. She 's very wonderful. And if I did dislike
her, I should struggle with it. It would never do for me to dislike
your wife!

After he had gone, when the night was half over, Bernard, lying
awake a while, gave a laugh in the still darkness, as this last
sentence came back to him.

On the morrow he saw Blanche, for he went to see Gordon. The
latter, at first, was not at home; but he had a quarter of an hour's
talk with his wife, whose powers of conversation were apparently not
in the smallest degree affected by anything that had occurred.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to London, she said.
Did you go to buy Angela a set of diamonds in Bond Street? You
did n't buy anythingyou did n't go into a shop? Then pray what
did you go for?  Excuse my curiosityit seems to me it 's rather
flattering. I never know anything unless I am told. I have n't any
powers of observation. I noticed you wentoh, yes, I observed
that very much; and I thought it very strange, under the
circumstances. Your most intimate friend arrived in Paris, and you
choose the next day to make a little tour! I don't like to see you
treat my husband so; he would never have done it to you. And if you
did n't stay for Gordon, you might have staid for Angela. I never
heard of anything so monstrous as a gentleman rushing away from the
object of his affection, for no particular purpose that any one could
discover, the day after she has accepted him. It was not the day
after? Well, it was too soon, at any rate. Angela could n't in the
least tell me what you had gone for; she said it was for a `change.'
That was a charming reason! But she was very much ashamed of
youand so was I; and at last we all sent Captain Lovelock after
you to bring you back. You came back without him? Ah, so much the
better; I suppose he is still looking for you, and, as he is n't very
clever, that will occupy him for some time. We want to occupy him; we
don't approve of his being so idle. However, for my own part, I am
very glad you were away. I was a great deal at Mrs. Vivian's, and I
should n't have felt nearly so much at liberty to go if I had known I
should always find you there making love to Mademoiselle. It would n't
have seemed to me discreet,I know what you are going to
saythat it 's the first time you ever heard of my wishing to
avoid an indiscretion. It 's a taste I have taken up lately,for
the same reason you went to London, for a `change.'  Here Blanche
paused for an appreciable moment; and then she addedWell,
I must say, I have never seen anything so lovely as Mrs. Vivian's
influence. I hope mamma won't be disappointed in it this time

When Bernard next saw the other two ladies, he said to them that he
was surprised at the way in which clever women incurred moral
responsibilities.

We like them, said Mrs. Vivian. We delight in
them!

Well, said Bernard, I would n't for the world have
it on my conscience to have reconciled poor Gordon to Mrs.
Blanche

You are not to say a word against Blanche, Angela
declared.  She 's a little miracle

It will be all right, dear Bernard, Mrs. Vivian added,
with soft authority.

I have taken a great fancy to her, the younger lady went
on.

Bernard gave a little laugh.

Gordon is right in his ultimate opinion. You are very
strange!

You may abuse me as much as you please; but I will never hear
a word against Mrs. Gordon

And she never would in future; though it is not recorded that
Bernard availed himself in any special degree of the license offered
him in conjunction with this warning.

Blanche's health within a few days had, according to her own
account, taken a marvellous turn for the better; but her husband
appeared still to think it proper that they should spend the winter
beneath a brilliant sun, and he presently informed his friends that
they had at last settled it between them that a voyage up the Nile
must be, for a thoroughly united couple, a very agreeable pastime. To
perform this expedition advantageously they must repair to Cairo
without delay, and for this reason he was sure that Bernard and Angela
would easily understand their not making a point of waiting for the
wedding. These happy people quite understood it. Their nuptials were
to be celebrated with extreme simplicity. If, however, Gordon was not
able to be present, he, in conjunction with his wife, bought for
Angela, as a bridal gift, a necklace of the most beautiful pearls the
Rue de la Paix could furnish; and on his arrival at Cairo, while he
waited for his dragoman to give the signal for starting, he found
time, in spite of the exactions of that large correspondence which has
been more than once mentioned in the course of our narrative, to write
Bernard the longest letter he had ever addressed to him. The letter
reached Bernard in the middle of his honeymoon.

