Mal Moulée: A Novel

CHAPTER V.

A YOUNG CYNIC.

RS. MAXON sat on the pleasant veranda of her home, at Elm Hill, with a snowy piece of needlework in her hands.

Mr. Maxon lounged back in a rustic chair, smoking a fragrant cigar. Dolores swung lazily in a hammock near by, a beautiful picture of indolent repose.

From within, floated a rarely musical voice in snatches of song:

She sang the simple words to a light flowing air, with a rippling accompaniment. Then, suddenly striking rich chords of harmony, she broke into a song that might have served well as a passionate response to the other ditty:

"How wonderfully Lena's voice has improved during the last year;" Mrs. Maxon said, with motherly pride, as the song ceased. "And she sings, too, with great feeling; do you not think so, Miss King? She seemed to throw so much intensity into those words just now, as if they came from her very heart."

"She has a remarkably magnetic voice; and one that stirs the best impulses of her listeners," Dolores answered. "I am peculiarly susceptible to different kinds of music. A violin appeals to the artistic and spiritual part of me. A pipe-organ stirs the dramatic and sorrowful side of my nature. A violin lifts up my thoughts towards the Celestial City that awaits me. An organ makes me wonder why this tragic life was ever thrust upon my unwilling soul. Helena's voice affects me in still another way. Whenever I hear her sing, I feel a curious uprising of all my mental powers, of all my moral forces. It seems to me there is nothing I can not do, and be. It is only one voice in a thousand which can affect me in this manner."

"I understand what you mean," Mrs. Maxon replied. "I have heard nearly all our public singers, and among them all Emma Abbott's voice possessed for me more of this peculiar quality, which you rightly term magnetic, than any of her no doubt greater rivals. I think it is derived from the electric temperament of the singer; and it is almost always associated with an unselfish nature. But what ever its cause, it is a great gift."

"Yes, and one which no amount of training or culture can supply if it is denied by nature. But do you know, I feel provoked with Lena, when she wastes the music of her lovely voice on such sentiments as those songs contained?"

"There you go prancing off on your hobby again," laughed Helena, who emerged from the house just in time to hear Dolores's closing sentence. "Can't you let me sometimes indulge in a little sentiment in my music, dear?"

"And what nobler themes for song can you find, Dolores?" Mrs. Maxon asked gently, "than love, faith, and loyalty. They are the foundations of the world and society."

"But it seems so foolishly absurd for two people to swear to love each other forever!" Dolores continued, with a touch of scorn in her voice. "No doubt they often believe it possible, but one or the other is sure to falter; and then a broken oath renders the human weakness of change a sin. I do not believe that two people should pledge themselves to love forever. We cannot compel a sentiment or an emotion to remain with us, after it chooses to depart. We can, of course, compel ourselves to live up to its requirements, through principle, though this would be dreary work, I fancy. Yet it is the situation of half the married couples in the world. Love flies, and takes with him all the real pleasures they found in each other's society. Yet they plod along, in a compulsory sort of fashion, doing their duty—ugh; it is horrible to think of. Society is all wrong."

Mrs. Maxon dropped her work and looked at Dolores with a compassionate glance.

"You must admit that there are many exceptions to your rule, Dolores," she said. "Surely your month in our home ought to convince you that love has abided here through many years."

"Yes, I am very sure of that," Dolores admitted. "But your life is an exceptional one in this respect. You know the old mythological tale of the creation of souls? An angel stands beside a liquid sea, dipping in a long pole. Upon its point he brings up a perfect globule: it contains two souls—affinities. He gently shakes the pole—and one half rolls away: he shakes it again, and away rolls the other in an opposite direction. Day and night, for weeks, months, years, centuries, he plies his task, while the separated globules increase, and multiply, and go rolling about the world seeking their affinities. So innumerable in numbers, and so similar in appearance, it is no wonder if mistakes occur in the selections they make. The only wonder is, that one in a million actually finds its own half. You, madame, are an illustration, that such a miracle is possible, and I congratulate you. But the dreary outlook remains for the majority."

Mr. Maxon removed his cigar and laughed heartily at the young lady's bright response.

"You are incorrigible," he said. "Mrs. Maxon, it is useless to endeavor to worst Miss King in argument. Just wait till Prince Charming appears, however, and see how easily he will convince her that their souls were originally one perfect globule. And she will promise to love, honor, and obey, forever, without a murmur."

"Never!" cried Dolores, springing to her feet. "I will never become the wife of any man—I have solemnly sworn it. I would as soon be sold into slavery. I can imagine no fate more humiliating to a proud woman, than that of a neglected or unloved wife," and she abruptly entered the house.

There came a time when she realized the possibility of a fate more humiliating.

That night, as Mrs. Maxon sat in her room alone, overlooking some linen, Dolores tapped gently at her door.

She came forward in answer to Mrs. Maxon's bidding, her lovely hair flowing over her white garments, her face pale with suppressed emotion.

"Mrs. Maxon, I have brought you my mother's diary to read," she said. "I think it will help you to better understand my ideas on the subject of marriage. No eyes save my uncle's and my own have ever perused its pages. But I want you to see it—that you may understand me more fully." And, placing the little journal in Mrs. Maxon's hand, she glided away.

The following morning Dolores received a letter which brought the most unexpected changes in her life. This was the letter:

Then followed a long list of references, together with the terms for the expedition. The letter was signed Mrs. Sarah Butler.

Dolores passed the letter to Mr. and Mrs. Maxon for their perusal and opinion. "I remember hearing my uncle speak of Mrs. Butler," she said. "Her husband was a miserable drunkard, and wasted all her property in a dissipated career. I should love dearly to go abroad; it has been the dream of my life."

Accordingly, Mr. Maxon dispatched one or two letters of inquiry concerning Mrs. Butler, and received replies corroborating all her statements. And Dolores decided to accept this opportunity for travel under such excellent guardianship.

Since the death of her uncle, the future had seemed to her a shoreless sea—a waste of water with no green island in view. She had not found it possible to make any plans, but had accepted each day as it came, not daring to look beyond. Now she was thankful that another had planned for her. She wrote her acceptance to Mrs. Butler, and in a few days went out from the sweet rest and seclusion of this ideal home—forever.

She wept violently when parting from Helena, and clasped her again and again to the heart that would one day hate her with all the fury of a desperate soul at bay.

CHAPTER VI.

A MOTHER'S VIEW OF "WOMAN'S RIGHTS."

RS. MAXON read the diary and returned it to Dolores the night previous to her departure. But in the hurry and excitement incident to the occasion, she found no suitable opportunity for a long motherly talk with the young lady, as she had hoped. She merely said, as she returned the book:

"I am glad you permitted me to read this, Dolores. It has enabled me to better understand your strange repugnance for marriage. Your mother was an unwilling parent, and your nature is impregnated with the rebellious feelings which filled her heart and brain. I hope you will outgrow them, however, and anchor yourself in a happy home. I could wish for you no greater joy than a married life as congenial and pleasant as my own."

After Dolores's departure, Helena referred to the subject of the diary.

"Dolores told me that you read it, Mamma, and I am really curious to know the contents of that mysterious book. She used to refer to it so often, and one time she would have shown it to me, because she said it contained truths which I ought to know; but I would not read it without your permission. Was Dolores's mother a greatly wronged woman, Mamma? and was her husband so very unkind to her? Dolores seemed to almost loathe his memory, and I fancied he must have been a very cruel man."

Mrs. Maxon took Helena's hand and drew her down on a low ottoman at her side. They were quite alone.

"No, my child," she said, gravely; "Mr. King was not a cruel man, and Mrs. King was not a greatly wronged woman. But their marriage was not a true and holy one, according to my idea of that sacred relation. In the early pages of the diary, written just before and just after the marriage, the young bride speaks constantly of her pride in having made a brilliant alliance. It seems she bettered her condition in a worldly sense, by her marriage, and it was this ambition, rather than a great love, which led to the union. During the first few months, the diary abounds with references to receptions, dinners, balls, where she had been admired and courted. Then begins a series of wild, despairing complaints against Providence and her husband and the world. Bitter, unreasoning denunciations of the marriage tie, and mournful regrets, as weak as useless, for her lost freedom. All this was occasioned by the knowledge that she was to become a mother. Her emotions seemed to culminate in violent anger toward her husband, and resentful wrath at a social system which she said was more brutal than the laws which govern brutes; since they are never compelled to bring undesired offspring into the world, with every instinct crying out against it. Almost insane with the intensity of these emotions, it is no wonder her daughter's mind was impressed with them. Now, my sweet child," continued Mrs. Maxon, drawing Helena closer to her side, "all this is very strange to you, I know, but it is a subject of vast importance to all our sex—to all the world; and I think you are at an age when you ought to understand it fully."

"That is what Dolores said, Mamma," interrupted Helena. "She said I ought to know these things, and she wanted me to read the diary."

"Yes, but I am glad you did not read it," her mother replied. "It would be like looking for a reflection of your own sweet face in a broken mirror. The diary presented important facts for your consideration, to be sure, but it presented them in a diseased and unnatural form. The subject of marriage and maternity, as treated in the diary, would have alarmed and shocked you, while in reality they are as sacred and beautiful as religion. It is of the utmost importance that our girls and women should think upon these subjects, and think of them as natural and holy events, before taking upon themselves the duties of wives and mothers. But it would have been a matter of lasting regret to me if you had gained your first ideas of these momentous questions from the diary. It is by her own mother a girl should be taught to understand these things in all their beauty and solemnity.

"In the case of Mrs. King, her first great error lay in the wrong motive which led to her marriage. It was ambition—not love or respect; and motherhood she regarded as a misfortune. She was evidently a woman of strong feeling, and therefore more capable of influencing the mind of her offspring. The child came into the world with the same intense hatred of the father, and rebellion against marriage, which had filled her mother's heart all these months."

"How very strange!" mused Helena, bewildered.

"Yes, strange, beautiful and terrible in the responsibility it places upon our sex, Helena. We make or mar the character of our offspring, often, by the thoughts we entertain during the prenatal period of their existence. You know I am an advocate for the widest education of woman; for her having all the doors of the professions, and arts, and trades, flung open to her, if she chooses to fit herself to enter them. Yet I am surprised and pained, often, as I see so many of the most interested and zealous workers in this cause, ignoring or misusing the grand and wonderful right and duty, ordained by heaven for woman—the right of moulding the mind, temper, and character of her children. You know, dear, do you not, the world-wide reputation which ancient Greece had in its glory for the beauty of its people?"

"Oh, yes. I learned all about that at school. The Greeks were the handsomest people—the most perfect, physically, I suppose—of any race which ever existed."

"Yes, that is true, Helena. And now let me tell you the cause of this. In Greece, a woman who was to become a mother was guarded from every annoyance, or pain, or peril; she was regarded by her husband, and by all men, as a divine being, chosen by God as a holy messenger from His very courts. She was surrounded by beautiful paintings, music, literature, and an atmosphere of love and homage. It is no wonder that the Greeks became the most beautiful people in the world. But as time passed, all this changed. Men failed to hold women in such reverence—and then Greece fell; and its glory, and the beauty of its people, became only a thing of the past. There is an old mythological tale that the soul of a man who maltreats a woman at this time goes into an owl's body when he dies, and remains there through three generations. But in our own country, I think women maltreat themselves more frequently. Every wrong impulse, every unkind thought or act that enters into a woman's heart, during this sacred period, should be guarded against and dispelled, with caution and with prayer. To listen to fine music, to look upon lovely objects, to enjoy agreeable surroundings, these things are not always within reach of a woman. But efforts at self-command, and an unselfish forethought for the future of the child, and prayer—the humblest can employ these means to the desired end. Prayer is the key to heaven. It admits us to the sacrament of angels. In God's vast Government he has constantly a deputy of angels who guard each human being. If we appeal to them, they redouble their efforts to help and strengthen us. If we neglect and ignore them, they finally grow disheartened and turn to more willing souls. It is my belief that there are no heights of moral grandeur we can not attain, if we are vigilant in prayer. I want you to remember that many of our criminals, are the results of a mother's attempt to destroy her helpless child. The murderous impulse was imparted to the defenseless little creature, a seed that blossomed into rank crime. Many an unruly and defiant son, who breaks his mother's heart, by his disobedience and rebellion, could lay the cause at his mother's door.

"Never was a child more eagerly longed for than your own sweet self, Helena. My heart overflowed with happiness, all during those months of expectancy. As a consequence, your own nature is full of joy and sunshine, and you have been a comfort and a blessing to me always. Yet I was ignorant of any great responsibility at that time. Not till later in life did I obtain the knowledge, which is of far more value to our young women graduates, than all the horrors of vivisection with which so many of them are familiar.

"And now, good night, my daughter. Remember that these subjects should never be discussed lightly or irreverently; they are holy, and sacred, and beautiful; they are part of religion, for they pertain to the divine mysteries of our existence."

CHAPTER VII.

THE LOVELY CYNIC MEETS HER FATE.

ERCY DURAND looked out of the window of his compartment, as the train paused at Montivilliers, and lazily watched the people on the platform.

"There is nothing new under the sun," he yawned. "The world is monotonously alike, go where you will. There are always the same people hurrying to catch the train, and waiting until they can blockade the car steps before they bid a lingering farewell to friends. Then there are the same irritated and baggage-encumbered travelers waiting behind them, and cursing inwardly, and—upon my soul, what a very pretty girl!"

This irrelevant finale to the idle reverie of the blasé Young American, was caused by the glimpse of a perfect profile, a coil of yellow hair and a gracefully-poised head under a jaunty hat, passing by the window. Percy Durand believed that he had exhausted nearly all his capabilities of enjoyment in this stale world. But his artistic appreciation of the beautiful still remained to him. The study of a handsome face, whether on man, woman, or child, was one of his greatest sources of pleasure.

Craning his neck to obtain another glimpse of the lovely vision, he was suddenly made aware that the door of his compartment had been thrown open, and that two ladies had entered.

One, the very object of his thoughts; the other, a fine-looking middle-aged lady, whose dignified expression suddenly gave place to a smile of recognition, as her eyes fell upon Percy.

"Why, surely this is Mr. Durand—Nora Tracy's Cousin 'Pierre,' is it not?" she said, holding out her hand. "Ah, I see you have forgotten me."

"No, indeed, Mrs. Butler, I have not!" cried Percy, giving the extended hand a thoroughly American "shake"—not the polite touch of kid-covered finger-tips, but the cordial clasp that means so much to Americans meeting in a foreign land. "How could I forget the friend and chaperone of my dear cousin. Only yesterday, in a letter I received, she spoke of you, and said she hoped it might be my good fortune to run across you. It is a pleasure I hardly expected however."

Mrs. Butler, after acknowledging the speech with a few polite words, turned toward her companion.

"Let me introduce you to my protege," she said. "Mr. Durand: Miss King." And Percy looked into eyes as blue, and cold, as the waters of some quiet lake sleeping under a winter moon, and saw a face as faultlessly beautiful as the features of a marble goddess.

There was nothing romantic or unusual, in this very commonplace meeting between two people whose destinies were to be so tragically interwoven. Neither was powerfully impressed by, or drawn toward the other. There was no warning in either heart of the fate to come.

Dolores King,—now in the perfection of her womanhood, matured by the experiences of travel, contact with the world, wide reading, and all the many advantages financial independence gives,—regarded Mr. Percy Durand as a very good-looking typical American, in his late twenties. A little too thin and blond, perhaps, to suit her ideal of masculine beauty, but a man of fine address, and possessed of a wonderfully musical voice.

She felt a trifle more interest in him than she usually felt in the chance acquaintances Mrs. Butler was forever running across, from the fact that Nora Tracy, now Mrs. Phillips, who had been a great favorite and pet with Mrs. Butler, was his cousin.

Percy Durand admired the exquisite beauty of Miss King's face, the graceful dignity of her bearing, and quietly analyzed her after his usual custom, while he chatted with Mrs. Butler.

"A cold and reserved nature," he thought, "devoid of woman's usual vanity, proud to the verge of haughtiness, not susceptible to ordinary flattery; and she has never loved. When she does—God pity the man!"

Percy Durand was in the habit of regarding women, as students of the floral world regard flowers, and he botanized them in like manner. Many years ago, he had idealized the sex; but one woman's perfidy, together with the vanity and selfishness of many others, had served to disillusion him. Too finely fibered to ever become a bitter cynic, he was simply an amused skeptic on the subject of woman's superiority or moral worth. He had sought the world over for the ideal woman—that mythical personage of his early dreams. But he had found so much envy, jealousy, and selfishness marring the sex in general, he had discovered such unsightly blemishes on some of the most seemingly spotless natures, that he abandoned the search as hopeless.

"Not a marrying man," his friends said, when speaking of him. Handsome, eligible, and the junior member of a wealthy New York importing house, he was a desirable conquest for anxious damsels. But Percy Durand seemed either too heartless, or too selfish, to assume the rôle of Benedict.

"My cousin, Mrs. Phillips, will be anxious to know particulars concerning you, Mrs. Butler," he said, as they chatted together. "Are you chaperoning your usual bevy of young ladies this year?"

"Miss King has been my only charge for nearly four years," Mrs. Butler answered, smiling. "Five years ago, she joined a party of twenty young ladies under my charge. After a few months, she decided to remain abroad, and easily persuaded me to assume the position of companion and chaperone. We have led a delightful, bohemian sort of existence together. A year in Paris; winters in Rome, Genoa, Florence; summers in Northern Europe—in fact, journeying or lingering wherever my young friend's impulses led her. Just now we are en route for the Paris Exposition."

"And I also," said Percy, "with half the world. I hope you have engaged rooms. I fancy there will be a great rush, and much discomfort."

"Miss King had her usual apartments reserved for her. She left them all furnished when we went to Genoa. I hope if Nora—Mrs. Phillips I should say—comes abroad, she will come directly to us. We could make her very comfortable, could we not, Dolores?"

"Certainly," answered Dolores. "And I should be pleased to meet her. Mrs. Butler makes me almost jealous by her frequent references to your cousin, Mr. Durand."

"You are very kind; but Mrs. Phillips is not coming abroad this year. She is kept at home by her two children. She is the happiest wife and mother I ever saw. To a man of my skeptical ideas on the subject of marriage, the occasional sight of true domestic happiness, is all that saves me from absolute cynicism. Whenever I am tempted to doubt the existence of that congenial mating of two souls, of which we read so much, and see so little, I think of my cousin, and realize that it does exist, at least in one instance."

Just at this juncture, Miss King, who had begun to be absorbed in a book, leaving the two friends to chat, lifted her eyes with a slight amused smile in their depths.

"Pardon me," she said, "but how long has your cousin been married?"

"Four years." Percy answered.

"Ah! I fancied so. You see, she has hardly yet passed beyond the experimental period," laughed Dolores. "You know the serpent did not enter Paradise until sometime after it was created. But he always comes in one shape or another, and the Eden is always destroyed. It never lasts."

"Now you have touched upon Miss King's hobby, you see," Mrs. Butler said, in response to Percy's surprised look. "She is the most absolute cynic on the subject of love and marriage which the world contains, Mr. Durand. However, I live in hopes of her reformation. You know when unbelievers are converted, they make most devout worshipers."

"I shall never be converted from my settled convictions on this subject," Miss King replied, good naturedly. "There are people who are only fitted for a life of perfect freedom. I am one of them."

"And I, Miss King, am another!" added Percy. "A more confirmed bachelor never lived. Marriage seems to me a pitiful bondage, always for one, often for both. And a happy union is merely a fortunate accident. Whenever I hear the ringing of marriage bells, I think with Byron, that

A smile that warmed her features like a burst of sunlight illumined Miss King's lovely face.

"I am sure we should agree famously on this subject, at least, Mr. Durand," she said. "It is seldom I meet a gentleman whose ideas accord so perfectly with my own."

"You are two foolish children," interposed Mrs. Butler, "and your ideas are quite too extreme. Marriage is not the wretched bondage you describe it. Some one has said very truthfully, 'If nothing is perfect in this world, marriage is perhaps the best thing amid much evil. If a fickle husband goes, he returns: but the lover—once gone he never returns.' I am sure, Mr. Durand, that you would make some woman an excellent husband."

Percy shook his head. "That is because you do not know me," he replied. "Whatever my nature was originally, my experiences in the world have left me incapable of unselfish devotion, or absorbing love."

"Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Butler, "I will not hear you so malign yourself. Any man who was so kind as you were to your cousin, must have a heart."

"Perhaps I had, once upon a time. But there is such a thing as frittering away one's best emotions. Certainly, now, I cannot imagine a woman so good, so beautiful, or so endowed with graces, that I should wish to make her my wife. If I did, I know her goodness would be a reproach to me, her beauty would pall upon me, and her constancy would irritate me. And yet, the absence of any of these qualities would displease me. So you see I am better off single. I think my cousin considers me a good sort of relative! I am sure I am faithful in my friendships: but the requisites of a desirable husband, I do not possess. Besides, begging the pardon of both my lady listeners, I must say, while I have so little faith in myself, I have even less in womankind. I do not care to risk my future in the hands of an unreliable woman."

"A man of your experience and judgment would not be apt to make that error," Mrs. Butler replied. "And women are proverbially faithful by nature, you know—even clinging to the men who maltreat them."

"Judgment and experience are not of the slightest use in selecting a wife or husband," responded Percy. "First, because it is only in the daily intimacies of constant companionship that we can learn another's peculiarities; and secondly—in the case of the woman, at least—the maiden and wife are two distinct beings. I have seen the most amiable and charming girl develope into a veritable Xantippe of a wife. Then, as for the proverbial faithfulness of woman—it is the poet's idea of the sex, I know, but it is not verified in reality. Women are quite as faulty as men, and even more easily assailed by temptation. But they are more discreet, and make a greater show of good qualities than we do. Men boast of their infidelities, women conceal them."

"Rouen!" shouted the guard, flinging open the door of the compartment.

"Impossible!" cried Percy, springing up—"and I am obliged to stop here! This is altogether too bad. But I hope you will kindly send your address to me at the Grand Hotel, where I shall register next week. I shall be glad to be of any service to you I can, during my few weeks in Paris."

And with that inimitable grace of the polished New Yorker, Percy bowed himself from the presence of the ladies.

And the first chapter was written in a romance which was to end in a tragedy.

CHAPTER VIII.

SWEET DANGER.

Y DEAR," said Mrs. Butler, one morning at the breakfast table, ten days later, as she looked up from her letters to the vision of blonde loveliness opposite, "here is a note from Mr. Durand—the American gentleman we met, you remember. He is in Paris, and wishes to call."

"That is pleasant news," Dolores answered, smiling, "and I hope you will forward our united permission and compliments by return mail."

"Really, Dolores, you quite astonish me!" ejaculated Mrs. Butler. "When were you ever known to be so amiably disposed toward any gentleman before? What spell has Mr. Durand exercised over you, I wonder?"

"The spell of sincerity and good sense!" responded Dolores, as she sipped her coffee. "Two virtues so rare in mankind that it is no wonder if they left an indelible impression upon me. Mr. Durand is, almost without exception, the only gentleman I have met since my uncle died who did not feel it his duty to express, in words or manner, a disbelief in the sincerity of my views concerning marriage. You very well know, Mrs. Butler, how discouraging have been my attempts at friendship with the opposite sex, owing to this fact."

"Owing to your own charms, rather," Mrs. Butler corrected, "and to your hatred for the sex. Men are not easily satisfied with the cold indifference which you term friendship of a woman as fair as yourself."

"But I am not cold or indifferent to those who treat my opinions with respect," Dolores insisted. "And I am not a man-hater. I would like the companionship of men right well. I enjoy their society more than I enjoy the society of most women. They have broader views; they get outside of themselves far more than women do; they dwell less in their own emotions; and are, consequently, more interesting. But the selfishness, conceit and sensuality of men render them impossible friends for unprotected women."

"You must not include all men in that sweeping sarcasm, Dolores. There are exceptions."

"Possibly. I hope Mr. Durand is one. I speak of men as I have found them. You remember Clarence Walker, and how positive I was that I had found a loyal friend in him? And you know the result."

"Yes; he became madly in love with you. I do not see how either of those three condemnatory terms apply to him, however."

"But I do. Since he knew from the outset my firm resolve to never marry, he ought not to have allowed himself to think of me as a possible wife. But in his masculine conceit he really believed he could overcome the principles of a lifetime. Each man considers himself the Prince Charming, who holds the key to the enchanted palace of a woman's heart. Positively, the vanity of the sterner sex is colossal in its magnitude. Then, you know, there was Count D'Estey, with his really charming sister and picturesque mother. You remember my experience with him?"

"Certainly. He imagined you to be much wealthier than you are, my dear; and your fortune and your beauty were great temptations. It is no wonder he made an effort to win you. Foreign counts are born to be supported by American heiresses."

"And he ruined three delightful friendships by the futile effort. Yet that was the selfishness of the man's nature. Last of all, you know the result of my acquaintance with General Veddars?"

"Pardon me; but I do not. I only know that you returned from their country seat unexpectedly, joined me in London, and never referred to the subject of your acquaintance with the family again. I confess that I have often wondered what occurred to break up the intimacy which seemed so pleasant at one time."

"Well, then, I will tell you what happened," answered Dolores, with fine scorn in her face and voice. "Because I was outspoken and frank upon the subject of marriage, because I repeatedly declared that I should never be the wife of any man, General Veddars, it seems, imagined I was utterly lacking in mental and moral balance. At all events, he forgot himself—forgot that he was old enough to be my father, and that his wife was my devoted friend; and he embarrassed me with his attentions. Is it any wonder that I left his house, angry, shocked, and with a greater contempt for men and husbands than ever?"

Mrs. Butler shook her head. "There is no object in life more disgusting," she said, "than a man who carries the fires of an unlicensed youth into old age. I confess you have good cause to feel disappointed in your masculine friends. Let us hope that Mr. Durand will prove a success. One thing is certain—he comes of an excellent family; and he bears the best of reputations among men, and while he is not a ladies' man, he is very popular with our sex."

Dolores laughed lightly.

"The fact that his family is excellent, does not necessarily speak well for him," she said. "Many a low rascal on earth boasts of his noble ancestors under ground. And that he bears the best of reputations among men, is no proof that he may not be the worst companion possible for a woman. I am relieved to hear you say that he is not a ladies' man. That term always suggests to me a frivolous nature, something even more intolerable in a man than a woman. But really, ma chère, we are devoting more time to the discussion of this stranger, than is profitable. If we are to see the World's Fair in detail, as we have determined, allons à l'Exhibition."

A few hours later, as the two ladies sauntered under the gorgeous Oriental canopies known as the "India House," they came face to face with the very subject of their morning dissertation—Mr. Percy Durand.

They exchanged cordial greetings, and it seemed to Mrs. Butler that a tint as delicate as the first faint hue of dawn, colored the creamy pallor of Dolores's cheek.

"I wonder what it means?" she asked herself. "Marriage no doubt, that final Nirvana which covers so many theorists with oblivion. Heaven speed the wooing!"

At the same time Percy was thinking, "How delightful to meet a lovely and companionable girl who is entirely free to receive your polite attentions, and whom you positively know expects and desires nothing more from you. It gives a fellow such a comfortable sensation."

In view of the fact that Mr. Durand had, several times in his life, been obliged to flee from designing Mammas, and too willing maidens, we can forgive his somewhat egotistical soliloquy.

Dolores felt an agreeable sense of being perfectly at ease in the presence of Mr. Durand, and rendered herself unusually charming. Percy sauntered by the ladies while they visited various departments, and they finally lunched together. Both he and Dolores were gifted with refined wit, and ready powers of repartee, and Mrs. Butler was an appreciative listener to their gay sallies and bright criticisms.

"Positively I feel as if I had known both of you ladies all my life!" Percy said, as the day wore on. "It would require months, or years, in our own land to arrive at this pleasant feeling of comradeship. There is nothing like a rencontre in a foreign country, to break the ice of reserve."

"Quite true," Mrs. Butler responded. "We enjoy each other's society better here, too, I think, because we all indulge the vein of Bohemianism which exists in us, and which we carefully hide from view at home. For instance: I met a party of staid and respectable men and matrons from Boston the other day. They had just paid a visit to the Mabille. 'A very wicked place,' they said; 'yet everybody seems to go, so we went.' These same people would no sooner visit a concert garden in America than they would deliberately walk into Purgatory."

"I could relate similar experiences," was Percy's laughing rejoinder. "When I first came abroad I was accompanied by a very devout young man. He had often taken me to task for my Club habits. 'A fashionable club is the ante-room to a gambler's hell,' he said; and so far as I knew, he lived up to the rigorous code of morals he preached to others. What was my amazement to find his curiosity fairly unsatiable in regard to the wicked side of Parisian life.

"Beautiful parks, fine operas, and grand cathedrals and works of art, were all neglected by him, until he had explored, to his satisfaction, all the gaming-houses and variety theatres in the city of Paris. It was very amusing."

When Percy made his adieux to the ladies it was with the understanding that he should dine with them at their temporary home, on the Avenue Josephine, the following afternoon, and escort them to the theatre in the evening.

"Never before, Dolores," said Mrs. Butler, after Percy had taken his departure, "did I see you so charming as you have been to-day. Mr. Durand will be a phenomenal sort of man if he remains impervious to your charms, my dear. But then I have heard that some affair in his early life quite wrecked his heart. And so, I suppose, he has nothing but friendship to give any woman, now."

If Mrs. Butler's secret wish was to rouse the woman's desire (latent in almost every feminine heart), to strive for that which is supposed to be unattainable, it signally failed. Her remark simply gave Dolores an added sense of freedom and rest in Mr. Durand's society. "Love is like measles," she reasoned—"not liable to occur the second time."

Meanwhile Percy was saying to himself:

"She is one of the most beautiful of her sex. She pleases the eye, and entertains the mind, without touching the heart.

"Yet, it is a dangerous situation for any man to assume—this rôle of intimate friend to a lovely woman, which seems suddenly to have fallen to me. It would be wisdom on my part, and save no end of trouble, probably, if I took refuge in flight at once."

Yet what man ever fled from such sweet danger?

CHAPTER IX.

JOURNALISTIC DISCUSSIONS.

ERCY did not "fly" for another month, and during that time seldom a day passed that he did not spend a portion of it with Mrs. Butler and Dolores.

To the artistic rooms on the Avenue Josephine, where he was made to feel so perfectly at home, he sometimes brought a friend, and often found a bevy of bright people when he arrived.

Dolores had formed a choice circle of acquaintances among the artists, musicians, and scholars, during her prolonged sojourn abroad.

It seemed to Percy that he had never in his entire life before, met so many charming people as he encountered under Dolores's roof in that one month. There was as great a difference between the conventional society to which he had been accustomed, and the interesting clique which graced Dolores's parlors, as there is between a hotel bill of fare, and the mênu prepared for the palate of an epicure. One, monotonous insipid and flavorless; the other, spiced, appetizing and varied.

Among the score of people whom Dolores gathered together under her roof, there was a Mr. Elliott, a young English artist, a clever, cultured fellow, though something of a cockney; Monsieur Thoré, a famed historian and legislator; Madame Volkenburg, a middle-aged widow of a German professor, a lady of vast experience and wide culture, whose conversation overflowed with interesting reminiscences; and Homer Orton, an American journalist, genius and wit.

Nowhere else, in no other class or profession, can be found so much talent, and so much wit, as exists among our American journalists, however they bury the former, and misdirect the latter gift.

With a better understanding of "noblesse oblige," with a little more delicacy refining their wit, with a great deal more reverence for the sacredness of homes and personalities, to what heights might not these peerless minds elevate American journalism?

"Do you know," said Mr. Elliott, one evening in Percy's presence, addressing the journalist, "do you know, Mr. Orton, you have greatly surprised me?"

"Quite likely," responded Homer Orton, soberly gazing at his English friend. "We Americans have always been surprising you Englishmen ever since—but never mind dates. I should really like to know in what especial manner I have surprised you, Mr. Elliott?"

"Well, in fact—now I beg you will not be offended, but in the fact that you are such a deuced fine fellow, you know. I had quite another impression of American newspaper men. I fancied you would not be admitted to such society as this—that you were all fellows who would sacrifice your best friends for an item, you know—"

"So we would—that is, most of us," Homer interrupted, gravely. "I am a rare and beautiful exception."

"And I thought you were hardly the sort of person a lady like Miss King would want in her home, you know," the Englishman continued. "But I find you really a delightful fellow, you know, and quite a gentleman."

"Sir," said Homer, rising with his hand upon his heart, "language fails me before a compliment like this. It is a new and trying position for me to hear such words spoken of myself, and I hope you will excuse me while I walk to another part of the room and unobserved wipe away a tear of gratitude."

Then, suddenly dropping his tone of levity, the young man continued:

"But, seriously speaking, you are justified in your opinion of us as a class, Mr. Elliott, and it is to be regretted. As Mr. Durand will testify, our American eagle flaps his wings often with too much freedom."

Percy, when appealed to, was glad to express his opinion upon a subject to which he had recently given much thought.

"It is a question," he said, "which must before many years be decided—just where the freedom of the press should end and where the rights of individuals should begin. It seems to me that even our so-called best newspapers take unnecessary and unlicensed liberties in these days."

"But the public appetite demands such a varied and highly-spiced diet that we are obliged to gratify it in every legitimate manner possible. If we do not, our rival sheet will," explained Homer Orton.

"That is all very well when you keep to legitimate means. But I call the invasion of homes, and the cruel, and often untruthful, assertions concerning the private life, of unoffending individuals, illegitimate means of feeding a depraved appetite. The average newspaper humorist, who utterly disregards the truth, in his anxiety to concoct a taking item, I do not consider a necessary feature of high journalism—do you? If he only succeeds in raising a laugh, he considers his object in life attained. He reminds me of the tribe of the Damaras, who are described as so utterly heartless that they roar with laughter on beholding one of their number torn to pieces by a wild beast."

"Still it is not so much heartlessness, as insensibility and thoughtlessness, and a desire to be bright and witty, which causes a good many of these things to be written," Homer responded.

"I heard that very excuse, advanced only the other day," Percy replied, "and I heard this response made which is quite apropos now. It has been observed by thoughtful naturalists that often when a lion or a bull kills a man, the poor beast really has no malice in his heart, and does not mean any harm. He only intended to play with his accidental comrade of the moment. But then a lion has only claws and a bull only horns with which to make their humor felt, and so they are fatally misunderstood. It would seem to me, then, that the chief of a large newspaper ought to consider himself as responsible for those accidents as the keeper of a menagerie."

"But often the chief of a first-class newspaper has no idea of the really scurrilous items which creep into his paper," explained Homer. "Like the chief cook in a large hotel, he cannot taste of every dish prepared by his subordinates, and no managing editor could survive the strain, you know, of looking over his humorist's column every day. Our madhouses would overflow, if such a method of journalism were inaugurated."

"Still, it is a lax system which permits such errors (if we can call them errors) to occur," Percy insisted, "and if guests were constantly being poisoned or rendered ill through the criminal carelessness of the hotel cook, I fancy he would be called to account for not knowing what dishes his subordinates prepared. A newspaper should be the friend and companion of the people, and a welcome guest in every home. Instead, it is too often a treacherous spy, a maligner and falsifier. Almost every day we read statements concerning people, which are absolutely without foundation, and which result in no end of mischief and trouble."

"You no doubt refer to people in public life—politicians, authors, actors, and the like—do you not?" asked Homer. "I know they are considered targets for the shots of our humorists all over the country, but then you must remember that if a man gives his name voluntarily to the world, and forces his work or his personality upon the public, that he cannot expect both the benefits of fame and the seclusion of private life. It is unreasonable. He has in a measure given himself over to the public, and he must take the consequences. And, really, the fact that the busy newspapers of the present day give time and space to discussion or comments upon any individual ought to be considered highly complimentary."

"That depends entirely upon the nature of the comments," answered Percy. "Nor do I refer entirely to public people. Our wealthy men, and their wives and daughters, are subjected to the same coarse comments. Their personal defects are ridiculed, and the pitiless and ghastly electric light of publicity is turned on their most sacred joys or sorrows. Items devoid of truth and wit, appear every day concerning people who have committed no offense greater than to succeed in some special calling. They are copied, enlarged upon, and believed by a majority of the masses. It is a degenerate system of journalism which permits it. It is high time some manly journalist began a crusade against it."

"I agree with you, perfectly," Homer Orton answered. "I would like to have the leading newspapers of the country band together to protect the people from insult and petty libels in their columns: and I would like to see the Imaginary Interviewer done away with by every respectable journal."

"What is the Imaginary Interviewer, pray?" queried the Englishman.

"He is a reporter, who, if he is refused admittance by any person he wishes to interview, deliberately invents an interview; describes the personality and manufactures the conversation to suit his own taste. No one was ever more misused in this respect than your own Oscar Wilde, unless it was Mrs. Langtry. The most astounding postures and inane remarks were attributed to them by people who never saw them. It is not, however, our first-class journals which have permitted this."

"Would you not recommend the abolishing of the interviewer entirely?" suggested Percy.

"Certainly not," Homer responded. "The newspaper interviewer is a benefit to the press, to the country, and to all public people who have a name and a reputation to make. That is, when he is a truthful gentleman, and does not abuse the hospitality of those who admit him to their homes."

"The school-girl who sends for the autograph of a public man pays him a graceful compliment, and he should write it for her without a murmur."

"Just in the same way, the whole public offers a quiet ovation to the man of reputation when an interviewer presents his card. The newspaper would never ask for an interview to publish, unless the masses of its readers desired it. And the interviewer should be met courteously, and the public man should realize that this sort of thing is the duty he pays on fame. If he has positively nothing of interest to say to the interviewer, or is too busily engaged to be interrupted, he should tell the caller so in a respectful and polite manner. Many a public man is badly treated by the reporter in print, because he treated the reporter badly in his house."

"But what have you to say of the interviewer who is well treated, and then repays the hospitality he has received by an article bristling with ridicule and untruthful misrepresentations of the personality or conversation of his entertainer? I have known this to occur."

"I do not believe it occurs very often," Homer answered. "When it does, there is usually personal malice at the bottom of it, or a catering to the lowest order of scurrilous journalism. It is a great pity that the victims in such cases have no dignified redress. A thorough caning ought to be considered consistent with the situation. But, I think, as a rule, respectable newspaper men endeavor to do the right thing by those who have treated them with courtesy in this matter. The trouble is, journals are not careful enough in the representatives they send on these commissions. It requires a great deal of delicate tact to write acceptably of a man's home-life and personality during his life-time. No thoughtless boy, or sensation-seeking reporter, should be commissioned with such a task. I positively know a New York journalist, who possesses a bright mind and wonderful command of language beside an easy and elegant deportment, who considers it fair play to gain information through private letters or confidential conversations with his friends, and then to use such knowledge for press purposes. He boasts of his skill in this respect."

"Impossible!" cried Percy, indignantly.

"Quite too possible," Homer replied. "His devotion to journalism, and his desire to feed the public appetite, has destroyed every particle of moral principle the fellow ever possessed. Of course, such a man reflects discredit upon the whole profession. That he is an exception to the rule, I know, but that he is retained at all upon a respectable journal, is to be regretted."

"There is still another feature of American journalism to be more regretted and blushed for, I think," said Percy. "That is, the attitude of our so called humorists and paragraphers toward public women. No where else in the world do women occupy so exalted and honored a position as they occupy in America. No other women in the world have accomplished so much in various public callings. Yet no where else are they subjected to such insults as they receive from the newspapers throughout the United States, from the prima donna to the President's wife, sister, or daughter."

"Are you not a little extreme in that statement, Mr. Durand?" asked Homer Orton. "You must recollect that the royal family are discussed very freely in print, and ladies who have become famous ought to consider themselves members of the royal family of Genius, and take newspaper criticisms as a natural consequence."

"It is not newspaper criticisms to which I refer," answered Percy. "Of course, half the success of an actress, a singer, an author or a painter depends upon public criticism, and often it happens that the severer the criticisms the greater the success. But it is the loose familiarity and the coarse jests of the item-seeker of which I speak. Only last week I saw a wretched little item, intended to be humorous, but actually brutal, going the rounds of the press, concerning the advanced years of a famous opera singer, a woman who has reflected credit on our nation by her brilliant and stainless career."

"I saw the item to which you refer," Mr. Elliott said, "and I wondered if it was consistent with the National boast that Americans are the kindest and most thoughtful men in the world toward ladies. It seemed to me an uncalled-for and ungentlemanly incivility toward a noble lady."

"I often wonder," continued Percy, "if the fellows who perpetrate those things stop and consider that the public women, whose names they use so freely, are somebody's sisters, wives, or mothers, and that, in nine cases out of ten, they lead a public life, or first entered a public career, to earn a living. If the newspaper men of the country ever do take this view of the matter, I should think their first impulse would be to shield and protect and help every self-supporting woman in the land. At all events, I should think every sensible journalist would realize that, while it is the province of the newspaper to furnish able criticism on the voice of the singer, the book of the author, the speech of the orator, it is not its province to indulge in poor puns, or insulting comments on the age, the personal defects, or the domestic life of the singer, author or speaker. These things should be tabooed by respectable journals, just as they are tabooed in respectable society. Our journalists should be as careful, in their references to the private matters of individuals in print, as they are in conversation in their parlors, where scandalous or impertinent references to the absent would be considered 'bad form.' Really, I do not understand how any of us who read the daily papers dare boast of American chivalry."

"The chivalry of the average man," said Dolores, who approached the group just at this moment, "consists in protecting a woman against every man save himself. And now, gentlemen, we are to have a recitation from Madame Volkenburg. Will you join us and listen?"