Ellice Quentin, and other stories

I.

One hot August forenoon, some years ago, two men met at a certain point of the coast of Normandy, and shook hands with mutual good-will.

The elder of these men had lived in the world about five-and-thirty years; he had had losses, and successes as well; but the latter, happening to have arrived a year or so after he had got tired of waiting for them, found him grown a trifle soured and cynical, and apt to carp at the sunshine which had withheld its warmth from his bones until they had contracted an ineradicable chill. His bitterness was perhaps more of the head than of the heart, but was none the less observable on that account. He was an Englishman by birth, and a born painter also—at least in his own opinion. He had begun his career with the firm persuasion that his genius entitled him not only to hang on the line at the Academy, but to be one of the hangmen. The Royal Academicians did not immediately fall in with his views on either point; and when, after many years, they relented, and gave his picture the place of honour, and intimated their purpose of filling with his name the first vacancy on their august roll, this lofty and unforgiving gentleman made a bow and begged to be excused. He had made his name known without the Academy's help; he had won pecuniary independence in a land where the word of the Academy was not law; and he would now, therefore, with all due respect to the members of that body, see every mother's son of them at the deuce before he would have anything to do with them. Such an ultimatum necessarily finished the episode; the Academy preserved a dignified silence, and the lofty and unforgiving gentleman continued to spend the best part of his time in Paris, exhibiting every year in the Salon, and telling the story of his quarrel with the English potentates to whomsoever cared to hear an amusing anecdote caustically related. He was a lengthy, meagre, harsh-featured personage, this same cynical artist, but he prided himself on the Parisian polish of his manners and his French accent, and he was, in fact, a good deal of a favourite in society.

The man who shook hands with the person above described was in most respects as unlike him as could be imagined. To begin with, he was an American; and, sentimental twaddle to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no nationality so irreconcilable with the English, and so incapable of sympathy with them, as that which styles itself American. But this man, in addition to his Americanism, was full ten years the junior of the other, and nearly the same number of inches shorter. His face was smooth and almost boyish, handsome even to an unusual degree, yet open to one criticism—that of being perfectly in harmony with the figure of its owner. The world has seen many great men under six feet high; but in them the countenance possessed the power or the nobility that more than compensates for defective stature; and, in looking upon it, the beholder quite forgot to be critical as to the greater or less degree of its elevation above the earth's surface. In a word, the face of this young American was the face of a short American—a recommendation, doubtless, from the purely æsthetic standpoint, but otherwise unfortunate. The lively blue eyes lacked depth and sternness; the fine straight nose might well have been a thought longer or higher; the mouth was too little and too academic in its curves; the forehead, though capacious, lacked the fine and expressive modelling which announces a master intellect. For the rest, this young American had a clear, deep colour in his cheeks, such as any woman might have envied, and the only fault of which was that no emotion had power either to diminish or to heighten its intensity; soft dark hair, a small silky moustache, and broad white teeth. The best feature in his face was probably the chin, which betokened a vigorous and persistent will. In figure he was square-shouldered, and rather plump than lean: his hands and feet were small and well shaped. If the enumeration of these merely physical details seems out of proportion with what was specified on that score in the portrait of the Englishman, it should be remembered that the younger man had as yet achieved little in the world beyond this attractive personal appearance. His moral and social history were yet to make. He was the son of a Boston millionaire; he had been educated at Harvard College; he was courted and caressed in Beacon Street drawing-rooms; and he had written quite a number of poems, odes, lyrics, and sonnets, philosophical, commemorational, imaginative, and erotic, which, reversing the natural sequence of states, first led a brilliant butterfly life in newspapers and magazines, and afterwards shut themselves up in the chrysalid of a gilt-edged, cloth-embossed volume, whence they afterwards showed no symptom of emerging.

These two men, such as they are here shadowed forth, found themselves face to face by the water's edge on that sultry August morning, and greeted each other with hearty enough cordiality.

As if to compensate for their physical dissimilarity, they were dressed almost precisely alike. Both had on shoes made of a flat sole of plaited hemp, with stout linen uppers curiously embroidered with red and blue braid, and laced round the ankle after the manner of the ancient sandal. Both wore a kind of straw bonnet, high-crowned and wide brimmed, clewed down on either side the face by a broad ribbon tied under the chin. Neither possessed any other essential article of clothing except a close-fitting tunic or set of tights, with the legs and arms cut off close to the body. Over this was lightly thrown a long mantle of Turkish-towel stuff. The tights were striped horizontally, alternate white and blue for the Englishman, and red and white for the American; and herein lay the sole distinction between their respective costumes. It is true that the American's fitted much the more closely and smoothly of the two; but that is neither here nor there.

In front of these simply-attired friends, and breaking in baby ripples at their feet, stretched in slumbrous calm a pale and turquoise ocean, destitute of any visible horizon. A tender haze which brooded in that region so intermingled sea and air that distant ships seemed to sail in the clouds, and clouds to voyage upon the water.

Behind them rose a mounded beach of purple shingle, uncomfortable to tread upon, but invaluable as a bulwark against the incursion of high tides into the low-lying village beyond. This village snuggled in the valley formed between the two hills which abutted at either extremity of the beach in precipitous cliffs, reflecting their pallid faces in the molten surface of the summer sea.

Between the village and the beach, and surmounting the latter like a fort, extended the casino parade, an embankment of masonry lying parallel with the shore, and backed by the casino itself, long, low, and flat-roofed, all windows and awnings. It contained a card room, billiard room, restaurant and theatre, the last transmutable into a ball room by the simple process of removing the pit seats.

The persons of whom I write were not alone by the water's edge; on the contrary, they had scarcely more than elbow room. On either side of them stood, chattered, and gesticulated a hundred human beings of both sexes and all ages, arrayed more or less on the same general principle already detailed. A hundred others paddled, plunged, and bobbed in the pellucid element in front. Twice as many lounged, fluttered, and ogled in serried groups in the rear—these last resplendent in the latest Parisian fashions for the month of August. Down upon this gay scene of colour, sparkle, and sound glowered the hot, lazy sun, longing for the still nine-hours-distant time when he might cool his own sweltering sides in the luxury of a sea bath.

Beyond the average range of the swimmers sped hither and thither a score of light skiffs or canoes, whose occupants prudently wore their bathing dresses and sat heedfully amidships as they plied their long paddles. Finally, I may mention the diving-board, an infernal machine of a thirty foot plank supported at a third of its length on the axle of a tall pair of wheels, and so rolled into the water, to be rushed up and jumped off of by dashing divers. That diving-board was a daily thorn in the side of the English artist, who was not a dashing diver and who would have greatly preferred to take to the water like a duck—that is quietly and smoothly—but whom a false pride constrained to mount that penitential plank morning after morning, and upset himself off the end of it with an agonised effort—seldom or never successful—to strike the water vertically. What fools sensible people will make of themselves for the sake of being like the fools who are ready-made!

It may as well be mentioned here, since the truth is sure to crop out sooner or later, that the name of the cynical and Frenchified English artist was Mr. Claude Campbell, and that he was, consequently, no less a personage than myself, who write concerning him. Let this confession put the reader on his guard against whatever exaggerative or prejudicial statements he may fancy he detects in what I have told or have yet to tell. I do not pretend to be an absolutely impartial historian of events in which myself have been an actor. I promise only to set down things as they appeared to me at the time, and leave the reader to draw his own conclusions. Did I make the world, or even organise human society? No; nor am I responsible for the logic of events, which, on the other hand, has often struck me as being a shocking bad system of logic.

As for the red-cheeked American, he was Jefferson Montgomery, Esquire, of Boston, as aforesaid, and he shall speak for himself.

II.

'Hullo, Jeff! Just a year since we parted on Beacon Hill.'

'My dear Campbell,' said Jeff, giving my hand a strong pressure, while his blue eyes beamed and his white teeth flashed, 'this is really very nice. Have you been here long?'

'Maybe a week.'

'A week? Really! how very strange!'

As I do not intend to underline all Mr. Jeff's speeches, I will explain here that he was one of those persons who choose their words with care, and then bestow upon them a certain emphasis—an emphasis of breath—a soft cough, so to say, intended merely to call your attention to the word in question as an unexceptionable word. At first you wondered at the speaker's earnestness; afterwards you begot a nervous oppression of the breathing apparatus, referable to the obscure phenomena of sympathetic affections. For my own part, the kind of conscientious self-complacency of which I considered this idiosyncrasy of my friend to be a symptom tended to arouse in me all my caustic and combative instincts; and, inasmuch as the young poet was fertile in 'notions' and resolute in upholding the same, our conversations were apt to become discussions, and our discussions disputes. Our disputes had never deepened into quarrels—we were too dissimilar for that—though a listener might sometimes have found it difficult to make the distinction. But to resume.

'Why strange?' was my enquiry.

'Why, that we shouldn't have encountered previously.'

'On the contrary, the strangeness is in our meeting at all. I came here to make studies, and you, I suppose, to make conquests. How many so far?'

'Oh, you old cynic! I don't know a soul in the place. It was an accident my being here at all, and I've been doing nothing but admire these lovely cliffs and the poetic scenery.'

'Poetic? That reminds me. Pardon my thoughtlessness, Jeff. You have been wooing the muse, of course?'

'Well, I confess I have been attempting something; it's unfinished as yet, but I hope it is fresh and strong; and I believe it to be original in treatment as well as in idea. It will be my most ambitious effort so far. A pagan maid falls in love with the Spirit of the Ocean, and a poet is in love with her, and between these two loves——'

'She comes to the ground, or into the water. Which is it?'

'You are always so ready to mock, Campbell. But of course it doesn't come from the heart; it's only your badinage. And really, don't you think the conception fine? I should like to read you my description of the pagan maid.'

'Portrait of anybody in particular?'

'Well, between you and me, Campbell, there is a young lady here—I don't know who she is, but she really does seem to be almost the type I need—for my poem, I mean. A noble creature—the true grand pagan style. You would like her; she would charm the artist equally with the poet.'

'So you have been trotting up hill and down dale after a pagan, and call it writing a poem on metaphysical abstractions! Do you never mean to give up this sort of thing, my dear boy?'

'Really, what do you mean?'

'Dangling after women the way you do.'

'What an expression! Every cultivated man feels it his duty to love woman and to frequent her society.'

'But why not choose out a representative woman and frequent the whole sex in her person?'

'Do you advocate marriage, then?' asked the poet, his blue eyes pensively interrogating the horizon.

'I say that, if you must make an ass of yourself at all, you should confine yourself within the narrowest possible limits.'

'Have you ever contemplated matrimony, Campbell?'

'It is the last thing I should contemplate for myself.'

'You have never yearned for a counter-soul?'

'I don't know what you mean, but I venture to say I never have,' I replied. 'But what would be folly in me would be philanthropy in you.'

Jeff heaved a long sigh. 'Let me whisper you a secret. You know my papa made a fortune in the Crimean war. We had a contract to furnish the Russians with briar-wood pipes. Well, Russia is now on the eve of another conflict, and papa has sent me over to arrange the terms of another contract.'

'But what has this to do with your getting married?'

'Why, the person who manages the business on the Russian side is our old friend—the same who concluded the arrangements with papa twenty-five years ago. Our relations have always remained intimate and cordial. And immediately subsequent to the Russian war this commissioner married, and—had—oh!'

The poet's voice died away; his eyes were fixed upon something a little farther along the beach.

'There! there!' he murmured. 'Oh! is she not—divine?'

'Ha! that is your pagan, is it?'

'Going out in a canoe,' continued Jeff.

This young and strikingly handsome girl, of proportions almost statuesque, was not seen by me now for the first time. I had, in fact, noticed her shortly after my arrival in town, and had taken that pleasure in observing her which an artist feels for whatever is thoroughly picturesque. Who she was I knew no more than Jeff, and it was not to be expected that another man's admiration of her should be disagreeable to me; but some men are not any man, and I must admit that the revelation of her identity with the subject of Jeff's rhapsodies affected me unpleasantly. The girl's beauty, patent to me, was not of a type to reveal itself to every careless and uneducated eye. But I will not attempt to defend my feeling. I simply state it.

The young lady took her seat in the canoe and grasped the paddle, and an elderly moustachioed gentleman pushed her off from shore. She was dressed in a rather remarkable bathing suit of black, slashed with scarlet; her round, firm arms were bare from the shoulder, and her legs from the knee; her hair was gathered up in the customary oilskin cap. With two or three vigorous strokes she sent her skiff well out beyond the crowd of bathers.

When I turned again towards Jeff I found he was no longer at my side; he was walking up the diving board, on the end of which he balanced himself a moment and then launched himself head foremost into the water, which closed over him with scarce a ripple. Presently his head appeared some distance beyond the spot at which he had entered, and he began swimming seaward with vigorous strokes. He was directly in the wake of the fair pagan, who, unaware of his pursuit, was paddling leisurely towards the thickening haze on the horizon, herself and her canoe mirrored distinctly on the glassy surface.

'Does he propose to overtake her and make her hear his poetry tête-à-tête in twelve fathoms of water?' I asked myself. 'At any rate, he resembles Byron in his swimming powers. And how neatly the fellow took the water! Let me see if I can't acquit myself as well as a Boston republican.'

With a sudden access of valour I snatched off my peignoir and cast it behind me, and, without stopping to see where it fell, I mounted the fatal plank with deliberate steps, saw the treacherous element smile for a moment beneath me, shut my eyes, and let myself go.

III.

I foresaw, in that instant of time which intervened between my last foot leaving the plank and my head reaching the water, that I was going to make a failure more than usually ignominious. A sounding thwack, taking effect along the entire length of my frame, and a painfully tingling sensation, only partly the result of shame, immediately apprised me that my prophetic instinct had not been at fault. I sank, however, and I was glad to sink; for though I dislike having my head under water, my wounded self-esteem made me dread putting it out again. Much as I have seen and suffered, and callous though I have become to most of the attacks of destiny, upon some points I am still sensitive. In a decent suit of clothes and a dignified attitude I can sustain almost any misfortune; but if my personal appearance be laughable, or my position a false one, my soul has much ado to maintain her constancy.

Need was, however, that I should emerge at last, and up I bobbed accordingly. I swam about moodily and unsociably during my customary fifteen minutes; and such was the dejection of my spirits that the water seemed colder than usual, and as I waded my way up a steep incline of the shingle on my way out, there was a tendency to convulsive shudderings in the muscles of my lower jaw. Chilled, humiliated, and conscious that I cut a ridiculous figure before a fashionable and merciless world, I only wished to seize my peignoir, wrap it round me, and vanish from the view and memory of mankind. Some men are cowed by one thing, some by another; and, once cowed, a man is no better than a whipped schoolboy, and feels far less respectable.

I hastened, then, to hide my discomfiture in my peignoir; but at that moment the certainty flashed upon me that I knew not where my peignoir was. I had omitted to note the place where I had laid it down: all places on a shingle beach are alike, especially when that beach is crowded to the water's edge.

I was standing face to face with the crowd, dressed in the curtailment of costume already described, which, hanging in dripping folds about my meagre form, rendered grotesque that which by nature was ungainly merely. For the first time in my life I regretted my six feet of stature; at five feet I should have felt less defenceless as well as appeared less conspicuous. There I stood before the world, shivering, lost, and helpless.

What was I to do? It was a pressing question, for every moment rendered the situation not only physically but morally more intolerable.

Should I return to the water, whence I came?

Too late! Not only would I catch my death—a minor evil—but the world by this time knew that I had started to come out, and by detecting the cowardice of my retreat would render it cowardice thrown away.

Should I steal the first peignoir that came to hand and fly? Hundreds were scattered about. It was but reaching forth my hand.

No, I could not steal: not because I was too honest—far from it; a cowed man is beyond the reach of scruples—but because I lacked the courage to be a thief. I feared detection, and knew I lacked the effrontery to brazen out the robbery.

Should I pretend I never had a peignoir, and stalk insouciantly through the crowd and up to the beach as I was?

Impossible. I had not the spirits for such a tour de force in the first place, and in the second I had not the figure for it. Moreover, the mairie had issued edicts against bathers promenading without peignoirs, and the thought of being arrested by a squad of gendarmes and marched in my present condition to a lock up was not to be contemplated.

I must, therefore, either stand where I was until my peignoir came to me or institute a deliberate search after my peignoir. To search, perhaps for hours, amidst a wilderness of spotless hostile skirts and immaculate shrinking pantaloons for a peignoir scarcely distinguishable from any other peignoir, and which, too, might have already been appropriated by some person more heedless (or more self-possessed) than myself! Decidedly there are times in a man's life when he is forced to avow that Providence has omitted to endow human beings with the only boon really worth their having—the power, namely, of instant and unobtrusive self-annihilation.

My search began. I went to a peignoir and examined it; it was not mine. With shaking limbs I blundered towards another a few yards off; it was not mine. At this juncture I heard, and affected not to hear, a titter of laughter. With my heart full of murder and suicide I pounced upon a peignoir quite near at hand. It was the same I had examined first. My brain began to reel.

'Monsieur!' said a gentle voice near me. 'Pardon, Monsieur!'

Could such words be addressed to me? As I tottered on the shifting pebbles, throwing dazed glances here and there, I became aware that a lady, middle-aged and of noble demeanour, was standing beside me with a folded peignoir in her hands.

'Pardon, but did Monsieur chance to be searching for anything?' she asked in French.

'My peignoir——'

'I have perceived that Monsieur dropped this upon entering the water: it shall be his perhaps?' and with a smile too truly polite even to seem compassionate this angel of mature years placed my own identical peignoir in my arms.

I clutched it as Macbeth clutched the phantom dagger; only more fortunate than the thane, I felt it in my grasp. Some part of my senses returned to me.

'Madame,' I stuttered as well as my chattering teeth would let me, 'you come from doing me the greatest favour woman can confer upon man. I shall never forget it. I thank you, madame, from the depths of my soul, and I salute you with the most distinguished gratitude and respect.'

The doer of this noble action bowed and smiled graciously, and I, with my peignoir about me, stalked boldly through the crowd to my toilet cabin. The distance was not great, but such was the glow of gratitude in my heart that by the time I arrived there I was not only warm but almost dry. Nor did the effect of this kindness stop at my skin; my immortal part, as Jeff might have called it, was sweetened and exalted; never, that I could remember, had I been succoured so opportunely or in such poignant need. Be that lady who she might she was worthy of all homage, and if it would have done her any good I believe that, confirmed bachelor though I was, I would have offered her my hand and heart as soon as I had finished my toilet.

But I trusted to my good genius to find me some better way of requiting her favour. It is sad to reflect how few ways there are of obliging our fellow-creatures. People would do more for one another but for the difficulty of finding something at once practical and practicable to do.

The first thing that attracted my notice, when I issued from my cabin and returned to the beach, was that the haze, which all the morning had lain along the horizon, had now thickened greatly and advanced upon the shore. Nothing was visible at twenty paces, and the fog, shone through by the sun, drifted softly over the bustling crowd, which was already beginning to stream homewards.

It was a pretty spectacle, but one likely to be regarded with different feelings by an Englishman safe on dry land and an American lost in twelve fathoms of water. Jeff had not come back to shore, and being out of sight of land, it necessarily followed that he was lost. The danger was graver than might at first sight have appeared, for the swimmer had had time to get fully a mile out to sea, and at that distance there were strong currents which might sweep him away altogether. I scanned the white blank before me with anxious eyes, but it revealed nothing. Poor Jeff!

I began to experience that uncomfortable sensation occasioned by knowing a friend to be in peril, and feeling the necessity of doing something to rescue him. More grievous but more convenient is it when the inevitable occurs at once, and saves us the annoyance of suspense. I could have sorrowed heartily and sincerely over the poor poet's drowned body laid out upon the shingle, but there was no satisfaction in taking measures to ascertain whether or not the corpse were an accomplished fact—to postpone, in other words, the luxury of grief for the anguish of action.

A group of sailors were collected round a boat at the water's edge, which they seemed to be on the point of launching. A lady was haranguing them earnestly. As I approached I recognised her as the heroine of my late adventure with the peignoir. She was saying—

'It was in that direction that I last saw her. She is already, perhaps, a kilomètre distant. There is no time to lose, mind you. Behold me distracted.'

Here was my opportunity; I could kill both my birds with one stone. I stepped forward with raised hat, and placed myself at the disposal of feminine distress. Having respectfully recalled myself to her recollection, I begged to be honoured with the distinction of being permitted to promote the alleviation of the anxiety under which she appeared to be labouring.

She thanked me with ardour, but to inconvenience me would desolate her.

Having received at her hands a favour beyond estimation, I should expire of chagrin in the case of being refused the privilege of testifying in some degree the depth and liveliness of my recognition.

Madame hereupon vouchsafed to inform me that Mademoiselle her daughter had paddled away with herself into the fog, and there was fear that she be lost in unknown oceans.

I had divined as much as this, but I was careful not to say so; nor did I open my mouth on the subject of Jeff. It was sufficient for me to perceive that Jeff and the young lady in the case were probably not far apart, and that to find one would be to find both. Meanwhile I would not deprive Madame of the gratification of believing that I was acting in her interests only. So, entreating her to be tranquil and to expect my return with her daughter in less than a quarter of an hour, I clambered into the boat with all possible dignity and despatch and bade my men shove off. Madame observed my departure with eyes that were genuinely moist.

It was a tolerably mild piece of heroism. Had I been ten years younger I might have wished that the waves had been running mountains high, but at thirty-five—the age of sense and of feeling combined—I was better pleased with the conditions as they were. I was not in love with anybody, and wished only to combine courtesy and good breeding with the fulfilment of a private duty. It had gratified me to observe, in my brief conversation with Madame, her appreciation of the altered aspect of one whom she had first known as an idiot and a scarecrow: not to mention his fluency in speaking the language of the most polished people in the world. I admired, too, the kindly ingenuity with which Fate had brought me acquainted with the mamma of the beautiful pagan, and under circumstances so promising.

But it is unsafe to call Fate good-humoured: it spoils her temper. Our boat was barely afloat when an event occurred which rendered our proposed voyage unnecessary. Somehow or other, without noise and without premonition, the fog rolled swiftly back to the horizon whence it came; and there was Mademoiselle not more than a hundred yards from shore. She was paddling in with admirable coolness and indifference; and close behind her I was happy to see the black head and rosy visage of the poet, who was swimming on his back with every appearance of ease and comfort.

IV.

I hastened to get on shore again and offer to Madame my congratulations. She replied that her obligations to Monsieur were none the less. His courtesy, his chivalry, had been such as one never sees paralleled.

Monsieur, covered with confusion at consideration so undeserved, changes the subject by calling the attention of Madame to the charming picture made by Mademoiselle in approaching the beach. Had he had his sketch-book with him, he would have been tempted to make a little drawing of Mademoiselle.

Ah! Monsieur was, then, an artist? Madame, and Mademoiselle likewise, were all given to artists. They had made purchase of several pictures during their residence in Paris.

Monsieur will venture to call himself an artist, and will, furthermore, have the assurance to make Madame acquainted with his name—M. Claude Campbell, at the service of Madame.

But truly! and did Monsieur Campbell happen to know this Campbell,—he, the great Campbell, he who painted this picture divine which exhibited itself at the last Salon, and was entitled the 'Ruined Rampart'?

Monsieur, even in blushing and being overwhelmed, assures Madame that he is that same fortunate Campbell whose unworthy effort Madame comes from qualifying with such generosity.

Great God! Monsieur is he, then, indeed that sublime, that adored man of genius? What happy chance! What charming rencontre! But in this case Madame hopes that the name of the Countess Semaroff will be to Monsieur not altogether unfamiliar?

Oh! Heaven! Is it possible that Monsieur is so happy as to kiss the hand of the noble lady who deigned to constitute herself the purchaser of the above-mentioned 'Ruined Rampart'? Monsieur is of a verity transported.

The Countess Semaroff observes that Mademoiselle—the Countess Almara in effect—will partake of her mamma's enchantment in meeting Monsieur Campbell, of whose genius she is an ardent admirer.

Our rude and artless talk was suspended at this point by the disembarkation of the Countess Almara. Apprehending that the simplicity of her costume might render my immediate presentation undesirable, I exchanged a cordial au revoir with the Countess Semaroff and discreetly withdrew. The beautiful pagan, after exchanging a few sentences with her mother, the latter speaking earnestly and the former laughingly, proceeded to take her turn upon the diving-board, and acquitted herself in a manner truly admirable. She dove like a plummet, and her white feet flashed beneath the surface as succinctly as a mermaid's tail. Up she came again, fresh and dripping, within a few yards of my returned prodigal, the Boston poet; but no signal of recognition that I could detect passed between them. To suppose that the ardent and romantic Jefferson had failed to improve the occasion of being isolated from the world under such peculiar circumstances with the subject of his late rhapsodies seemed to me, however, highly improbable. But the young Countess had doubtless played discretion under the watchful maternal eye; and Jeff, perhaps, intended to conceal his escapade from my friendly inquisition. I was resolved nevertheless to penetrate his reticence, and promised myself the pleasure of listening to an entertaining story over our déjeuner. As to my own accidental introduction to the Countess mother, and the unexpected tie between us, I judged it advisable to forbear mentioning it just at present.

The poet reached his depth and waded ashore. I stepped forward to meet him, raising my cap.

'Captain Webb, I presume?'

'Oh—but, Campbell!' exclaimed he with an ineffable look, 'was she not heavenly?'

'Postpone your ecstasies; you'll be a rheumatic cripple for life as it is. Do you know you've been in an hour?'

'It doesn't seem ten minutes—and yet I have lived a lifetime too!'

'You have water on the brain. Do you know where your peignoir is?'

Somewhat to my mortification, he did know, and, as he threw it over his shoulders, remarked placidly, 'But really I'm not in the least cold. Men of my age have hearts, Campbell, and a heart on fire keeps the blood warm under all circumstances.'

'It takes a Bostonian to have a heart warranted to burn under water for an hour.'

'And then,' he continued without heeding me, 'did not a goddess keep the flame alive with her ambrosial breath?'

'Decidedly he must have had an adventure,' thought I. 'But despatch your toilet, young man, and then you shall déjeuner with me, and we'll have chablis and cigarettes.'

'I shall be most happy, indeed. I won't be a moment dressing,' said the poet beamingly; and he dodged into his cabin.

'Pathetic little youth!' thought I as I paced the parade to and fro. 'Good fellow at bottom, but so soft!—the sort of creature that men trample on and women make game of. He has that most offensive of qualities—inoffensiveness. But, luckily for his peace of mind, he idolises himself, and is too slow-witted to comprehend the contempt of other people. After all, his self-conceit has as much justification as anybody's. He sees a pretty face when he looks in the glass, writes pretty verses with conscientious rhymes, utters pretty sentiments, and uses pretty phrases. How is he to know that the world reads all this prettiness without the r? But Providence, in emptying his skull, has mercifully filled his pockets. With ten thousand pounds a year he can buy something. What he can't buy is the ability to win for a wife such a woman as this young countess. Is he in love with her? He thinks so, no doubt, and means to make himself poetically miserable about her. His type of men are for ever losing their hearts miles above the reach of their heads. He has been getting off some inane namby-pambyism to her this morning, disgusting or amusing her as the case may be, and has come off serene in the conviction of having made a delightful impression. And now—confound him!—he will be for prosecuting the acquaintance and expecting me to back him up. What shall I do? It would be friendly to dissuade him from having anything more to say to them; but he's obstinate and won't be dissuaded. Well, the spectacle of such a wooing can't fail to be entertaining, and, since I can't prevent it, why shouldn't I enjoy it? To augment excitement I might give Mademoiselle Almara a quiet hint to tip him an occasional dose of encouragement. Poor Jeff! Ah! here he comes! Now let us watch him expand under the influence of chablis.'

The unsuspecting poet took my arm, and we set out for my lodgings.

'How charming the Old World is,' he remarked presently.

'You are an American, and everything here delights you by contrast.'

'But I'm patriotic—very. I'm a descendant of the Puritans, and my forefathers fought on Bunker Hill.'

'Yes, you Yankees are always bringing up the men of '76, whom, were you to meet them on Beacon Street to-day, you would cut dead. Since you have really contrived to civilise yourselves a little in the last century, why do you insist upon falling back on the reputations of a parcel of tagrag farmers who were shot ages before you were born? If I were a Yankee I'd keep mum about them.'

'Ah, you may talk, but at least you know America is the greatest country on earth,' rejoined my friend with unruffled good-humour. 'I'm sure you were delighted with your visit last year.'

'I confess to some scenery; beyond that one sees in the States only things which he thanks Heaven he hasn't got at home. America makes Europeans grateful and contented.'

'I defy you to put your finger on one feature of civilisation here that does not exist in a superior form in the States. There now!'

'To begin with, then, why did you take the trouble to come over here to get a wife, if there are more desirable wives to be had in Boston?'

'How did you know that?'

'How? Have I heard anything from you this morning except about pagan goddesses?'

'Oh, you mean her? Yes; oh, yes!'

'Good heavens! does the man mean to insinuate that he has any other woman in this hemisphere in his eye?'

'Why, to tell you the truth, my father sent me over here just for that very purpose—that and the pipes.'

'What and the pipes?'

'To meet the young lady I am going to marry.'

'And is your beautiful pagan the young lady you are to marry, pray?'

'Ah! I just wish she was!' said Jeff very ruefully.

'This is becoming interesting, my young friend. But here's my house: we'll have our breakfast, and then a consultation over our wine. Come in.'

V.

I repressed my curiosity during the meal, but when we had settled down to our second bottle and the cigarettes I fixed my eyes on my companion and said—

'Well?'

'Did you see that dive?' asked he.

'Hers?'

'Hers of course. Everything I say or do means her, now and for ever, one and inseparable!' cried Jeff, upon whom the wine was evidently beginning to work.

'But what about the other young lady——?'

'Sink the other young lady, sir! I never have seen her, and I never want to.'

'Well, then, about the pagan. Did the fog reveal your souls to one another?'

'Now, Campbell, I wish you would please not chaff,' said Jeff seriously. 'I don't like a man to be always cynical. Is there really nothing sacred to you anywhere? We Bostonians are not brought up so; and this is a sacred subject to me.'

'Not more so than to me, my dear fellow. You shan't have cause to complain of me again.'

'I accept your apology,' said Jeff with dignity. 'Your health.'

We emptied our glasses.

'Who was that handsome middle-aged lady you were talking with?' Jeff asked.

The question rather took me aback. 'You are more the traditional Yankee than I had imagined; you pretend to tell a story and only ask a question. As for that lady, I never saw her before in my life. I should fancy her a Pole or an Austrian. But do get on with your story.'

'There is no real story with a beginning, middle, and end. Real life doesn't arrange itself in that way.'

'There is always a middle, at any rate.'

'I will plunge in medias res, then. Did you observe her paddling out?'

'To be sure I did.'

'And did you divine her object?'

'Well, as to that——'

'My dear Campbell, don't you see that it was a case of fugit inter salices? She paddled out in order that I might pursue her.'

'Oh! How did you find out that?'

'By intuition,' cried the poet enthusiastically. 'We are in such complete sympathy, she and I, that I feel what she feels. A motion of the shoulder, a turn of the neck, a flirt of the paddle, all bear a secret meaning to my eye. Why, for a quarter of an hour after starting out this morning, I could see nothing but her back; and you know there isn't ordinarily much—conversation in a person's back.'

'I believe you are right, Jeff.'

'But in this case,' he continued warmly, 'I saw through her back all that was going on in her mind.'

'Poetic insight. I have heard of it before, but never knew it to act so powerfully as it does with you.'

'Yes; and, in proof that I'm not mistaken, she did just what I knew she would do beforehand.'

'And what was that?'

'How good this chablis is! The first thing she did was to paddle straight out to sea. She did that to try my faith.'

'Did she succeed?'

'A poet's faith can move mountains,' said Jeff, a little inconsequently. 'Had I been as others—had I been less terribly in earnest—I should have got discouraged or offended and given up the chase. But that is not the Puritan style. I kept right on, and at last I forced her to alter her tactics.'

'And all this through the back of her head? Wonderful!'

'Well, so she altered her tactics, and—what do you think?'

'I haven't a glimmering.'

'She stopped—short,' said Jeff, leaning across the table with his blue eyes wide open and speaking in an impressive undertone; 'and there she sat perfectly still, with her back still turned towards me.'

'So that you might continue to read her thoughts?'

'Campbell, I trust you are not scoffing?'

'My dear fellow——'

'You are my friend, but there are some things——'

'Nothing injures friendship so much as unjust suspicions, Jeff,' I said, with a solemnity almost equalling his own. He softened at once.

'Forgive me, old fellow; I was hasty. The blood of Bunker Hill, you know. Well, and so I gained upon her—and here's her health, Campbell.'

'Bumpers!' said I; and again we set down our glasses empty. I began to feel a little warmed up myself.

'At last I was within ten yards of her. Just then I ran into one of those horrid blue jelly-fish, and it startled me so that I made a splash, and she——'

'Turned round?' I suggested, for he had paused agitatedly.

'Any other woman would have turned round: she did not. She started perceptibly, dipped her paddle on the right side of the canoe, and shot diagonally towards the left. For a moment I saw her in profile.'

'Well, didn't she tip you a wink? I beg your pardon, Jeff, upon my word. I mean, did she not, at the moment of the profile, bend upon you a smile or a glance of encouragement?'

'What encouragement did I need? Besides, the time for encouragement had not yet come; I was still at the period of probation.'

'Her tacking, then, was a fresh trial of your constancy?'

'Not of my constancy—that was already confirmed—but of another quality, my self-respect. Respect, Campbell, is ever the basis of true love. This was a most critical juncture in our acquaintance. Had I slavishly followed her tack I should have lost more ground morally than I gained materially. No, I did not tack; I kept straight on, and, as she had paused again, I was soon beyond her. It was at that supreme moment that we found ourselves enveloped in the fog—alone together, between sea and heaven!'

'Jeff, this is becoming exciting.'

'I kept on. By-and-by, however, I stopped. I could now barely detect the outlines of her canoe through the pallid film of mist; but anon the outlines grew distincter—she was approaching!

'Jeff, this is poetry.'

'A verse I composed at the time. Do you like it?'

'Can you ask? But this suspense is wearing me out. Do, pray, come to the point.'

'What point, dear Campbell?'

'Hang it! the point of contact.'

'Sir, I fail to understand you,' said the majestic Jeff.

'Gammon! Who understands better than a poet the dramatic necessity of a point of contact? Here are your characters lost—I mean, here are your poet and your pagan maid lost in your fog, and staying eye to eye. Beyond reach of outside help, you are all in all to each other. "Bonjour, Countess." "Bonjour, Monsieur." "We appear to be lost." "I fear you are fatigued," she says. "The delight of conversing with the Countess Almara would suffice to restore me, were that the case." "Perhaps, if you were to rest your hand on the gunwale," she continues. "You overwhelm me," murmur you. "Nay, I would keep you from being overwhelmed," she smiles. "You are my guiding star!" you exclaim. "If I only knew whither to guide you. And mamma will be so anxious," she sighs. "Knows the Countess Semaroff that we are together?" you enquire. Just at this instant another of those horrid blue jelly-fish comes along, causing you to give another splash and sink. She screams, stretches out her hand to save you; you catch it, press it impulsively to your lips.... Well, there's your point of contact. Now go ahead.'

The close and serious attention which Jeff had given to this sally of mine had stimulated me to make it as absurd as possible, and may be that last glass of chablis had something to do with my sprightliness. But in proportion as I warmed Jeff seemed to cool; he leaned his cheek upon his hand, and directed a profound gaze into the bottom of his empty wine-glass. At length he muttered these singular words—

'How curiously things come out!'

'But what happened after you kissed her hand?'

'I didn't kiss it,' sighed the poet.

'Not after accepting the support of her canoe?'

'I didn't accept it; she didn't offer it.'

'Nor speak about it at all?'

'She said nothing; I said nothing; neither of us said anything.'

'Then why, in the name of stupefaction, did you take the trouble to get lost in the fog with her? Better have stayed on shore.'

'Had I known the Countess Semaroff was there, perhaps I should,' said Jeff, looking up.

I coloured in spite of myself. I, a man of five-and-thirty, had been carried away to reveal to this boy the secret of my acquaintance with these ladies. I should now have no excuse to offer for not introducing him. Verily that chablis cut both ways. I hastened to revert to our original topic.

'So there was no point of contact after all?'

'Not what you would call such, O you English materialist,' said the poet eloquently. 'But our points of view are so incompatible. Is not the soul more than the body? and, if so, is not a look of the eyes more than a touch of the hand? Our spirits met, Campbell, though our earthly frames held aloof.'

'But would your spirits have met any less had your earthly frames behaved in a more materialistic and intelligible way?'

Jeff shook his head dreamily.

'You are of those who know not how to enjoy the rose upon its stalk. You must needs cull it and insert it in your boutonnière. You are not sensitive enough to apprehend the rarest delight of the grande passion—that of regarding the beloved object in her intact state ere the pure sphere of her personality has been invaded by materialistic approach.'

'Well, Jeff, it's evident you know more about women than I do. But, admitting what you say, I still maintain (provided your intentions with the Countess are really serious) that you are not taking the nearest way to a matrimonial issue. The flesh is sluggish, but it has its compensations.'

The inspired Bostonian took his cigarette between two fingers and waved it in an illustrative manner as he said—

'Suppose, dear Campbell, you were starting on a journey through a delicious tract of country—a winding valley, say—and suppose, before setting out, you climbed a hill commanding this valley, and took a bird's-eye view of your proposed route. Would you enjoy that journey more or less for having anticipated it spiritually by that glance?'

'Ha! methinks I conceive you. Your psychological business is merely a sort of barmecide feast, designed to whet the palate for solid viands to follow. Having brought the transcendental part of your love-making to a happy issue, you now propose to pursue the game upon a practical basis?'

Jeff blew a serene cloud and regarded me with a complacent smile.

'Yes, I mean to marry her now,' said he.

'And leave the other without even a bird's-eye view?'

'By-the-by, I must tell you about that. You know I was saying this morning that the Russian commissioner, our friend, had married. Well, he had a daughter, and this daughter and I were by our respective papas destined for each other.'

'I see—a union of policy, like those of the royal families of Europe.'

'To me the idea of utilising the sacred covenant of marriage in the interest of mere business always seemed horrible and revolting. I told my father so.'

'And he, I'll venture to say, told you you were a sentimental young idiot.'

'If that had been all——' said Jeff, wagging his head significantly.

'Well, what was there more?'

'Only this. After I had protested one day, with all the eloquence I could muster, against the cold-blooded inhumanity of binding down two fresh young souls, who had never seen each other, to such a contract, he replied (you remember his dogmatic, high-handed way), "Either you marry her or you live on three hundred pounds per annum."'

'In that case,' said I, not without a secret feeling of relief, 'you certainly won't marry the pagan maid?'

'Why not?'

'Because, to go no further, you won't get her to take you at three hundred pounds per annum. You don't know what living on such an income means. I do; and I can tell you that, even without a wife and children, it's no joke.'

'But, dear Campbell, you seem to forget that I love her.'

'Take the advice of a man who has seen more of the world than you have, and forget it yourself. I am talking seriously now, Jeff, and for your good. You do not love this Countess Almara, and, to be frank with you, it is not possible that she ever should care for you. You have a strong will; use it on the side of common sense and—filial piety. Where were you to meet your intended?'

'Paris was the rendezvous appointed, but——'

'Pack up your traps and be off to Paris this very afternoon.'

'But it wasn't for a week yet that——'

'Never mind. Get away from here; that's the main point. Don't remain within reach of temptation.'

'Campbell, this is not temptation; it's a foregone conclusion. I am going to marry the Countess Almara. Our meeting here was fated. I shall not go to Paris.'

'But I tell you the Countess Almara won't have you.'

Jeff was silent awhile. Presently he looked up and said—

'How do you know she won't?'

'Well—never mind,' I thought it prudent to reply.

There was another silence. Suddenly Jeff said, 'Campbell, if I went to Paris would you go with me?'

This turn embarrassed me again. It would not exactly suit my convenience to go to Paris that afternoon. There were some things I wanted to—attend to. I wondered whether my young friend was becoming suspicious.

'Could I be of any service to you there?' I enquired.

'After all I don't know that you could,' said he after a moment's reflection. 'Besides, thanking you all the same for your advice, dear Campbell, I've made up my mind to stay here. I can never love, much less marry, any other woman than the Countess Almara.'

There was a certain element of nobility in the placid obstinacy of the young fellow, who was committing the amazing folly of resigning ten thousand a year for the sake of a girl to whom he had never spoken, and until the last two or three days never seen, that touched me a little and made me resolve not to let him ruin himself without another effort to save him.

'Jeff, you are an ass,' I said bluntly. 'Your brain has been addled with the pursuit of what you are pleased to imagine poetry, until you have grown to believe that a man can live on love and lyrics instead of on beefsteak and bullion. You say you can never love any but the Countess Almara; I say it is, at all events, your duty to try. Go to Paris, and at least make the acquaintance of the young lady your father has selected for you. If you find her unlovable, at all events that will be some satisfaction.'

'Thank you very much, Campbell, but I can't, really.'

'You persist in running your head against a wall?'

Jeff smiled mildly and said nothing.

'All right; liberavi animam meam. I wash my hands of you. One thing: I can't take the responsibility of giving you an introduction.'

'You know them both, then?'

'Well, I have not been presented to the young lady yet, but——'

'I shall be happy to present you when I know her myself,' said Jeff forgivingly; 'and when we are married I trust you and I will be better friends than ever.'

'Oh! fathomless self-conceit and fatuity of Bostonian youth!' I muttered to myself as I lit a final cigarette and preceded the poet to the door. 'Poor Jeff! upon my soul I am sorry for him!'

And when we parted outside I shook his hand with a feeling not far removed from respect mingling with my impatience, and I watched him walk away with the kindly hope that the Providence which presides over children and fools might keep a beneficent eye upon the poor little poet.

VI.

I was in rather an ill-humour that afternoon. After a short turn about the town I returned to my atelier and tried to paint; but colour had lost its harmony for me, and composition its meaning. I took up Balzac's Deux Frères, and plunged into the details of the miseries of Agatha, the villainy of Philip, and the genius of Joseph; but the appalling truth of the picture depressed and irritated me. I stretched myself on the lounge and gave way to moody reverie. I pictured to myself a man five-and-thirty years of age, who had had his romance and got cured of it a dozen summers ago, who piqued himself on his sceptical and unimpassive temperament, who had fallen into confirmed bachelorhood, who was prolific of cynical and pro-Malthusian doctrines to erotic young fellows under thirty, and whose eminence in the world of art was due to the unalloyed devotion of both heart and brain which he had hitherto lavished upon it. I asked myself what was the fitting punishment for such a man's apostasy from his principles.

'Such a man,' I answered myself, 'is not fit to be trusted abroad. I condemn him to pack up his traps and go home, and I give him two hours to complete his preparations for starting.'

The clock—the tall Norman clock with its round face of embossed brass and its huge slow-swinging pendulum—struck half-past three. I got up and rung the bell. Presently a withered old lady appeared, in a black gown, white cap and apron, neat blue stockings, and low shoes.

'Madame Enault,' I said, 'I shall leave you this afternoon. That a porter be here at five o'clock to take my baggage to the diligence; and, if you please, that we make up our little accounts.'

Madame Enault was crushed. She was sent to grass! Monsieur going to leave that very day even?

'Perfectly.'

Monsieur had perhaps encountered something to miscontent him? Madame Enault would do anything in her power to render things more satisfactory to Monsieur.

'Madame misconstrues me. It is that affairs demand my departure.'

'Monsieur will he pardon Madame Enault?'

'But without doubt.'

'Monsieur will, then, recollect that, in coming here, he was so good as to engage the rooms for six weeks, whereas only one week has elapsed....'

'You are completely in reason, Madame, and you will be paid for the whole six weeks precisely as if I had remained.'

Madame drops a curtsey and will instantly apprise a porter of Monsieur's intentions.

I now proceeded to pack my trunks and painting gear, and then, it being a little after four, I sallied forth for a farewell stroll on the parade.

It was a magnificent afternoon. A fresh cool breeze had replaced the lazy calm of the morning. The horizon line and the profile of the cliffs were defined sharp and clear. Great white castellated clouds sailed across the blue, and rhythmic waves came tumbling in frothy profusion along the beach. The whole scene was like a shout of joy, and it had never spoken so feelingly to me as now that I was saying good-bye to it.

As I turned away after a long look seaward, I met the Countess Semaroff and her daughter face to face.

I bowed. Madame smiled and gave me her hand, and before withdrawing it she looked at her daughter and said—

'My very dear, this is Monsieur Campbell. Ah, Monsieur, it has been a dream of my daughter to meet you.'

'I trust Mademoiselle will not find in me an illustration of the proverb, "Songe mensonge,"' I said, clumsily enough.

Mademoiselle smiled slightly, as courtesy required, but all the while her eyes rested upon me searchingly and doubtfully, as though to satisfy herself whether I were to be believed in or distrusted, whether she might expect to find in the artist the complement and justification of his works. No kind of look, perhaps, is so difficult to sustain with composure as this. The most redoubtable artist is conscious that the inspiration of his best efforts comes from a source superior to himself, in comparison with which the average level of his thoughts and motives makes but a sorry show. The merciless and undisguised inquisition of an ardent and unsophisticated young woman is thus apt to become not a little trying, especially when the inquisitrix is furnished with such a pair of eyes as nature had endowed the Countess Almara withal.

Indeed, strange and striking in other respects as was the beauty of the young Countess, it was her eyes that individualised her and rendered her a paragon among women. Large and perfectly black they were—so black that it was a wonder to see them so full of light. The iris was of breadth so unusual that, like a black sun between two clouds, its upper and lower rims were infringed upon by the imperial eyelids. The human eye, as every portrait painter knows, has in itself but a narrow range of expression: it is the setting that imports. Now, the Countess Almara's upper eyelid was falconlike—straight above the pupil, and falling away thence towards the cheek in a long sweeping curve—a bold, lavish eyelid, indicative of keen intelligence and a noble temper. In singular contrast with this was the lower lid, most sensitively and changefully fashioned, responsive to every shifting emotion, sad, mirthful, wistful, pleasurable, tender; this it was that betrayed the woman, as the other announced the countess. Like the shimmer of light upon water, the delicate nerves in this region were never at rest; here, as upon a photographic plate, was legible the impress of each word or unuttered thought. Thus it might be affirmed of the Countess Almara that she had two eyes where other women have but one; and certainly she was able to do four times more execution with her pair than most daughters of Eve can accomplish.

There was a fine unconventionality in the cast of her features which was in itself an element of life. The low and broad forehead terminated in far-reaching and strongly defined eyebrows. The nose, long and finely chiselled, especially about the nostrils, descended from between the eyes in a line which, towards the end, had just enough of an upward tendency to redeem it from classic tameness. Tameness, in fact, is the word most expressive of everything that the young Countess was not. Her mouth was generous; the upper lip, short and slender, lay like a coral snake upon the full and voluptuously moulded lip below; thence curved forth the chin, clean cut and mettlesome, which she habitually carried high, and to which she communicated movements of fascinating wilfulness. Her profile, as a whole, was therefore of the concave rather than the convex order, and possessed a charmingly wild, barbaric quality, by no means inconsistent with a thorough refinement.

Of her grand figure I have already spoken. Her bearing was elastic and vigorous, yet pervaded always by the subtle and inevitable dignity of a high-bred lady. A kind of scarlet barret-cap surmounted the heavy black coil of her hair; and she wore a close-fitting dress of black serge, with a scarlet bow fluttering at the throat and a scarlet belt around the waist. It was a costume simple to severity, but in which she looked diabolically handsome. Her only ornaments on this occasion were two broad hoops of gold in her ears, and, on her left hand, an antique ring with an enormous ruby in it. Such a ruby not one lady in a thousand would dare to put on; it must have come to her, I thought, from the tomb of some early royal ancestress. It harmonised well with what I took to be the essential character of the Countess Almara.

Here, however, has been more than enough of personal description, which is never so futile as when it attempts to catch the secret of a lovely woman's charm. As an artist I have dwelt upon details which to the ordinary eye would have combined for the production of a single effect more or less acutely pleasurable. I looked at her with the instinctive longing which an artist feels to interpret beauty upon canvas; and the critical admiration of my glance met and partly disconcerted the critical inquiry of her own.

'I have much happiness in speaking to Monsieur Campbell,' she said after a moment in a deep fresh voice. 'To me it is not as if I were speaking to a stranger.'

We walked on slowly, the young Countess between her mother and me. I felt a childish desire to utter something brilliant and profound; and, knowing by experience that such a wish is always fatal to the deed, I took refuge in the intensity of commonplace.

'Mademoiselle finds this place enjoyable?'

'After the city, truly, yes.'

'Paris is indeed hot in this month.'

'It is from St. Petersburg that we come here.'

'Mademoiselle the Countess is, then, a Russian?'

Here the elder lady interposed with a smile, 'Not altogether Russian, monsieur. For my part, I am a Circassian. My father was attached to the Court of the Czar after the conquest of our poor country. I was married among our conquerors—what will you? For Almara, she may be called the Reconciliation, is it not?'

'If all quarrels could find such reconciliation——' I began.

The Countess Semaroff laughed good-naturedly. 'There, you are spirituel; one sees you have lived much in Paris,' she was kind enough to say.

'But it is not in the salons of Paris that you have found the power to conceive your pictures. I refer not to the execution—the technique—all that which labour and experience may acquire; but it is the thought, look you, the life that is in your work; and this can be found not in any city, not in any society, but only in the man himself who feels, who sees.'

It was the young Countess who spoke thus, and with an energy of tone and expression that caused those nerves of self-approbation which are situated somewhere in the back part of a man's throat to thrill pleasantly. I had not expected to find in so young a woman an appreciation at once so earnest and intelligent.

'You have studied art yourself?' I said to her.

'Behold, my very dear, you will permit that I sit on the bench and read my letter while you and Monsieur Campbell have your little debate. When you are fatigued you shall rejoin me. Go, then.' And with this the good Countess established herself upon a seat sheltered from the breeze, but which we would pass and repass at every turn of our promenade. Our conversation continued.

'I do not name myself student; I am a lover,' said the Countess Almara. 'My life has not been a school; it has been a passion. I cannot talk learnedly, as do many; I know not the names of things; but I know what reaches my heart: that I understand and never forget.'

'It is, then, that your heart has taught you more than the heads of many students teach them.'

'I should like to believe that,' she exclaimed with animation. 'I like not to be told, "You must believe this; you must say that." I would believe and say because I cannot help it. Figure to yourself that my life has not been altogether after the convenances. A child, I lived in a grand château beside a lake; beyond the lake was a mountain, and on all sides a forest. I had a gun, I hunted, and I swam and rowed upon the lake, and I had my horses and my dogs. To sew, to play with dolls, look you, I cared not for it. I am not as the French, not even as the Russians; like my mother, I am Circassian; yes, I am more Circassian than she instead of less.'

'I believe it well. But later you left this château—you travelled?'

'I have been to many places and seen much society, and I have learned to behave comme il faut and to speak the French. But it is only a little comedy that I act; I feel that within me remains always the little girl of the lake and forest, but dressed differently, and with a face that does not tell the truth, as then. I can look happy when I am sad, and grave when I wish to laugh.'

'But you are happier than you were before?'

'Oh, for example, behold a question of difficulty,' said the Countess, shrugging her shoulders. 'One is never happy as in childhood; but, in fine, one finds a way to be happy. To love what is beautiful is happiness, but then it is a happiness full of all that is most sad.'

'It is not often that one has discovered that truth at your age, mademoiselle.'

'But it is true, is it not? For beauty dies; or if not beauty, then the eye, the soul, that has enjoyed it. Why was it ever shown to us? It only makes us long for what never comes, for what can never be.'

This gloomy philosophy, uttered by one who should have seen as yet only the sunshine of life, roused me to attempt what, for me, was the anomaly of vindicating the more hopeful view. Some platitude I brought forth about the soul finding in another world the fulfilment of unsatisfied aspirations, and I asked her whether she doubted immortality.

We were leaning on the broad wooden railing of the promenade, looking seaward. The Countess was turning her ring absently on her forefinger.

'There ought to be immortality,' said she, 'to recompense us, not for what we have suffered in the world, but for what we have enjoyed!'

'Yes, you could not have hit upon a stronger argument,' returned I after a moment's thought.

'Is it strong enough?'

'Strong enough certainly to justify hope.'

'Ah, my God, one hopes without any justification at all. You conceive, monsieur, I am not of those who believe all we are told of the holy Greek Church. To believe, and after all to be deceived! I could not bear it. I have not found anyone so wise as to make all doubts seem foolish. But I have found many things that tell me, "Destiny mocks you." Yes,' she added, turning towards me with a kind of fierceness in her look, 'yes, destiny mocks me.'

'This girl has sustained some terrible injustice in her life,' I thought to myself. 'It glows in her words like the fire in her ruby.'

After a pause she spoke again.

'Figure to yourself, monsieur, a life that feels itself strong and capable of all enjoyments and aspirations; and this life, in the midst of its joy and freedom, one day meets its destiny, which says, "You are a slave: your aspirations are ashes; your joy shall make you weep; you shall become all that you despise. If you struggle to be free, you shall but dig your dungeon deeper. So it shall be to the end; but I do not forbid you to hope." Well, is not that mockery?'

'Destiny has not that power over us. I who speak to you have suffered, mademoiselle, but I have not found that suffering degrades. It chills, perhaps.'

'Ah, you speak of men. I am a woman; it is another thing that! But behold me who discourse thus to you, who see me for the first time—who think me mad.'

'Oh, Countess!...'

'Do you know why I say to you these things, which I have said before to no one—to no one, Monsieur Campbell? It is because they grew in my mind as I looked at your picture—your picture, that is now mine as well. Many hours have I looked at it, and I said, "The man who has conceived that he has known what are the secrets of life. If I meet him I will tell him these secrets of mine; he is worthy to hear them. He can interpret mysteries." But your interpretation is profound, monsieur; not everyone can read it.'

'If I could always paint for such as you, Countess, I might some day realise my ideal.'

She stood meditatively, her hands hanging folded and her eyes dreaming.

'When I saw that picture,' she said at length, 'I felt that it was the picture of my soul. There she sits within her rampart, which was once whole and sound. But now there is a breach, and that breach will never be built up again—never, never. Once the enemy has entered; and though for years and years she may watch and guard, yet at some hour, some moment even, her eyes will droop and her hand waver.... Then he springs and clutches her, and it is ended. See him where he lurks there outside among the bushes. He waits; he is sure. And she—regard that terror in her eyes. Monsieur, it is a sublime thing to be a great painter.'