EUGENE PICKERINGby Henry James

CHAPTER I. 

It was at Homburg, several years ago, before the gaming had beensuppressed. The evening was very warm, and all the world was gathered onthe terrace of the Kursaal and the esplanade below it to listen to theexcellent orchestra; or half the world, rather, for the crowd was equallydense in the gaming-rooms around the tables. Everywhere the crowd wasgreat. The night was perfect, the season was at its height, the openwindows of the Kursaal sent long shafts of unnatural light into the duskywoods, and now and then, in the intervals of the music, one might almosthear the clink of the napoleons and the metallic call of the croupiersrise above the watching silence of the saloons. I had been strollingwith a friend, and we at last prepared to sit down. Chairs, however, were scarce. I had captured one, but it seemed no easy matter to find amate for it. I was on the point of giving up in despair, and proposingan adjournment to the silken ottomans of the Kursaal, when I observed ayoung man lounging back on one of the objects of my quest, with his feetsupported on the rounds of another. This was more than his share ofluxury, and I promptly approached him. He evidently belonged to the racewhich has the credit of knowing best, at home and abroad, how to makeitself comfortable; but something in his appearance suggested that hispresent attitude was the result of inadvertence rather than of egotism. He was staring at the conductor of the orchestra and listening intentlyto the music. His hands were locked round his long legs, and his mouthwas half open, with rather a foolish air. "There are so few chairs, " Isaid, "that I must beg you to surrender this second one. " He started, stared, blushed, pushed the chair away with awkward alacrity, andmurmured something about not having noticed that he had it. 

"What an odd-looking youth!" said my companion, who had watched me, as Iseated myself beside her. 

"Yes, he is odd-looking; but what is odder still is that I have seen himbefore, that his face is familiar to me, and yet that I can't place him. "The orchestra was playing the Prayer from Der Freischutz, but Weber'slovely music only deepened the blank of memory. Who the deuce was he?where, when, how, had I known him? It seemed extraordinary that a faceshould be at once so familiar and so strange. We had our backs turned tohim, so that I could not look at him again. When the music ceased weleft our places, and I went to consign my friend to her mamma on theterrace. In passing, I saw that my young man had departed; I concludedthat he only strikingly resembled some one I knew. But who in the worldwas it he resembled? The ladies went off to their lodgings, which werenear by, and I turned into the gaming-rooms and hovered about the circleat roulette. Gradually I filtered through to the inner edge, near thetable, and, looking round, saw my puzzling friend stationed opposite tome. He was watching the game, with his hands in his pockets; butsingularly enough, now that I observed him at my leisure, the look offamiliarity quite faded from his face. What had made us call hisappearance odd was his great length and leanness of limb, his long, whiteneck, his blue, prominent eyes, and his ingenuous, unconscious absorptionin the scene before him. He was not handsome, certainly, but he lookedpeculiarly amiable and if his overt wonderment savoured a trifle ofrurality, it was an agreeable contrast to the hard, inexpressive masksabout him. He was the verdant offshoot, I said to myself, of someancient, rigid stem; he had been brought up in the quietest of homes, andhe was having his first glimpse of life. I was curious to see whether hewould put anything on the table; he evidently felt the temptation, but heseemed paralysed by chronic embarrassment. He stood gazing at thechinking complexity of losses and gains, shaking his loose gold in hispocket, and every now and then passing his hand nervously over his eyes. 

Most of the spectators were too attentive to the play to have manythoughts for each other; but before long I noticed a lady who evidentlyhad an eye for her neighbours as well as for the table. She was seatedabout half-way between my friend and me, and I presently observed thatshe was trying to catch his eye. Though at Homburg, as people said, "onecould never be sure, " I yet doubted whether this lady were one of thosewhose especial vocation it was to catch a gentleman's eye. She wasyouthful rather than elderly, and pretty rather than plain; indeed, a fewminutes later, when I saw her smile, I thought her wonderfully pretty. She had a charming gray eye and a good deal of yellow hair disposed inpicturesque disorder; and though her features were meagre and hercomplexion faded, she gave one a sense of sentimental, artificialgracefulness. She was dressed in white muslin very much puffed andfilled, but a trifle the worse for wear, relieved here and there by apale blue ribbon. I used to flatter myself on guessing at people'snationality by their faces, and, as a rule, I guessed aright. Thisfaded, crumpled, vaporous beauty, I conceived, was a German--such aGerman, somehow, as I had seen imagined in literature. Was she not afriend of poets, a correspondent of philosophers, a muse, a priestess ofaesthetics--something in the way of a Bettina, a Rahel? My conjectures, however, were speedily merged in wonderment as to what my diffidentfriend was making of her. She caught his eye at last, and raising anungloved hand, covered altogether with blue-gemmed rings--turquoises, sapphires, and lapis--she beckoned him to come to her. The gesture wasexecuted with a sort of practised coolness, and accompanied with anappealing smile. He stared a moment, rather blankly, unable to supposethat the invitation was addressed to him; then, as it was immediatelyrepeated with a good deal of intensity, he blushed to the roots of hishair, wavered awkwardly, and at last made his way to the lady's chair. Bythe time he reached it he was crimson, and wiping his forehead with hispocket-handkerchief. She tilted back, looked up at him with the samesmile, laid two fingers on his sleeve, and said something, interrogatively, to which he replied by a shake of the head. She wasasking him, evidently, if he had ever played, and he was saying no. Oldplayers have a fancy that when luck has turned her back on them they canput her into good-humour again by having their stakes placed by a novice. Our young man's physiognomy had seemed to his new acquaintance to expressthe perfection of inexperience, and, like a practical woman, she haddetermined to make him serve her turn. Unlike most of her neighbours, she had no little pile of gold before her, but she drew from her pocket adouble napoleon, put it into his hand, and bade him place it on a numberof his own choosing. He was evidently filled with a sort of delightfultrouble; he enjoyed the adventure, but he shrank from the hazard. Iwould have staked the coin on its being his companion's last; foralthough she still smiled intently as she watched his hesitation, therewas anything but indifference in her pale, pretty face. Suddenly, indesperation, he reached over and laid the piece on the table. Myattention was diverted at this moment by my having to make way for a ladywith a great many flounces, before me, to give up her chair to a rustlingfriend to whom she had promised it; when I again looked across at thelady in white muslin, she was drawing in a very goodly pile of gold withher little blue-gemmed claw. Good luck and bad, at the Homburg tables, were equally undemonstrative, and this happy adventuress rewarded heryoung friend for the sacrifice of his innocence with a single, rapid, upward smile. He had innocence enough left, however, to look round thetable with a gleeful, conscious laugh, in the midst of which his eyesencountered my own. Then suddenly the familiar look which had vanishedfrom his face flickered up unmistakably; it was the boyish laugh of aboyhood's friend. Stupid fellow that I was, I had been looking at EugenePickering!

Though I lingered on for some time longer he failed to recognise me. Recognition, I think, had kindled a smile in my own face; but, lessfortunate than he, I suppose my smile had ceased to be boyish. Now thatluck had faced about again, his companion played for herself--played andwon, hand over hand. At last she seemed disposed to rest on her gains, and proceeded to bury them in the folds of her muslin. Pickering hadstaked nothing for himself, but as he saw her prepare to withdraw heoffered her a double napoleon and begged her to place it. She shook herhead with great decision, and seemed to bid him put it up again; but he, still blushing a good deal, pressed her with awkward ardour, and she atlast took it from him, looked at him a moment fixedly, and laid it on anumber. A moment later the croupier was raking it in. She gave theyoung man a little nod which seemed to say, "I told you so;" he glancedround the table again and laughed; she left her chair, and he made a wayfor her through the crowd. Before going home I took a turn on theterrace and looked down on the esplanade. The lamps were out, but thewarm starlight vaguely illumined a dozen figures scattered in couples. One of these figures, I thought, was a lady in a white dress. 

I had no intention of letting Pickering go without reminding him of ourold acquaintance. He had been a very singular boy, and I was curious tosee what had become of his singularity. I looked for him the nextmorning at two or three of the hotels, and at last I discovered hiswhereabouts. But he was out, the waiter said; he had gone to walk anhour before. I went my way, confident that I should meet him in theevening. It was the rule with the Homburg world to spend its evenings atthe Kursaal, and Pickering, apparently, had already discovered a goodreason for not being an exception. One of the charms of Homburg is thefact that of a hot day you may walk about for a whole afternoon inunbroken shade. The umbrageous gardens of the Kursaal mingle with thecharming Hardtwald, which in turn melts away into the wooded slopes ofthe Taunus Mountains. To the Hardtwald I bent my steps, and strolled foran hour through mossy glades and the still, perpendicular gloom of thefir-woods. Suddenly, on the grassy margin of a by-path, I came upon ayoung man stretched at his length in the sun-checkered shade, and kickinghis heels towards a patch of blue sky. My step was so noiseless on theturf that, before he saw me, I had time to recognise Pickering again. Helooked as if he had been lounging there for some time; his hair wastossed about as if he had been sleeping; on the grass near him, besidehis hat and stick, lay a sealed letter. When he perceived me he jerkedhimself forward, and I stood looking at him without introducingmyself--purposely, to give him a chance to recognise me. He put on hisglasses, being awkwardly near-sighted, and stared up at me with an air ofgeneral trustfulness, but without a sign of knowing me. So at last Iintroduced myself. Then he jumped up and grasped my hands, and staredand blushed and laughed, and began a dozen random questions, ending witha demand as to how in the world I had known him. 

"Why, you are not changed so utterly, " I said; "and after all, it's butfifteen years since you used to do my Latin exercises for me. "

"Not changed, eh?" he answered, still smiling, and yet speaking with asort of ingenuous dismay. 

Then I remembered that poor Pickering had been, in those Latin days, avictim of juvenile irony. He used to bring a bottle of medicine toschool and take a dose in a glass of water before lunch; and every day attwo o'clock, half an hour before the rest of us were liberated, an oldnurse with bushy eyebrows came and fetched him away in a carriage. Hisextremely fair complexion, his nurse, and his bottle of medicine, whichsuggested a vague analogy with the sleeping-potion in the tragedy, causedhim to be called Juliet. Certainly Romeo's sweetheart hardly sufferedmore; she was not, at least, a standing joke in Verona. Rememberingthese things, I hastened to say to Pickering that I hoped he was stillthe same good fellow who used to do my Latin for me. "We were capitalfriends, you know, " I went on, "then and afterwards. "

"Yes, we were very good friends, " he said, "and that makes it thestranger I shouldn't have known you. For you know, as a boy, I never hadmany friends, nor as a man either. You see, " he added, passing his handover his eyes, "I am rather dazed, rather bewildered at finding myselffor the first time--alone. " And he jerked back his shoulders nervously, and threw up his head, as if to settle himself in an unwonted position. Iwondered whether the old nurse with the bushy eyebrows had remainedattached to his person up to a recent period, and discovered presentlythat, virtually at least, she had. We had the whole summer day beforeus, and we sat down on the grass together and overhauled our oldmemories. It was as if we had stumbled upon an ancient cupboard in somedusky corner, and rummaged out a heap of childish playthings--tinsoldiers and torn story-books, jack-knives and Chinese puzzles. This iswhat we remembered between us. 

He had made but a short stay at school--not because he was tormented, forhe thought it so fine to be at school at all that he held his tongue athome about the sufferings incurred through the medicine-bottle, butbecause his father thought he was learning bad manners. This he impartedto me in confidence at the time, and I remember how it increased myoppressive awe of Mr. Pickering, who had appeared to me in glimpses as asort of high priest of the proprieties. Mr. Pickering was a widower--afact which seemed to produce in him a sort of preternatural concentrationof parental dignity. He was a majestic man, with a hooked nose, a keendark eye, very large whiskers, and notions of his own as to how a boy--orhis boy, at any rate--should be brought up. First and foremost, he wasto be a "gentleman"; which seemed to mean, chiefly, that he was always towear a muffler and gloves, and be sent to bed, after a supper of breadand milk, at eight o'clock. School-life, on experiment, seemed hostileto these observances, and Eugene was taken home again, to be moulded intourbanity beneath the parental eye. A tutor was provided for him, and asingle select companion was prescribed. The choice, mysteriously, fellon me, born as I was under quite another star; my parents were appealedto, and I was allowed for a few months to have my lessons with Eugene. The tutor, I think, must have been rather a snob, for Eugene was treatedlike a prince, while I got all the questions and the raps with the ruler. And yet I remember never being jealous of my happier comrade, andstriking up, for the time, one of those friendships of childhood. He hada watch and a pony and a great store of picture-books, but my envy ofthese luxuries was tempered by a vague compassion which left me free tobe generous. I could go out to play alone, I could button my jacketmyself, and sit up till I was sleepy. Poor Pickering could never take astep without asking leave, or spend half an hour in the garden without aformal report of it when he came in. My parents, who had no desire tosee me inoculated with importunate virtues, sent me back to school at theend of six months. After that I never saw Eugene. His father went tolive in the country, to protect the lad's morals, and Eugene faded, inreminiscence, into a pale image of the depressing effects of education. Ithink I vaguely supposed that he would melt into thin air, and indeedbegan gradually to doubt of his existence, and to regard him as one ofthe foolish things one ceased to believe in as one grew older. It seemednatural that I should have no more news of him. Our present meeting wasmy first assurance that he had really survived all that muffling andcoddling. 

I observed him now with a good deal of interest, for he was a rarephenomenon--the fruit of a system persistently and uninterruptedlyapplied. He struck me, in a fashion, as certain young monks I had seenin Italy; he had the same candid, unsophisticated cloister face. Hiseducation had been really almost monastic. It had found him evidently avery compliant, yielding subject; his gentle affectionate spirit was notone of those that need to be broken. It had bequeathed him, now that hestood on the threshold of the great world, an extraordinary freshness ofimpression and alertness of desire, and I confess that, as I looked athim and met his transparent blue eye, I trembled for the unwarnedinnocence of such a soul. I became aware, gradually, that the world hadalready wrought a certain work upon him and roused him to a restless, troubled self-consciousness. Everything about him pointed to anexperience from which he had been debarred; his whole organism trembledwith a dawning sense of unsuspected possibilities of feeling. Thisappealing tremor was indeed outwardly visible. He kept shifting himselfabout on the grass, thrusting his hands through his hair, wiping a lightperspiration from his forehead, breaking out to say something and rushingoff to something else. Our sudden meeting had greatly excited him, and Isaw that I was likely to profit by a certain overflow of sentimentalfermentation. I could do so with a good conscience, for all thistrepidation filled me with a great friendliness. 

"It's nearly fifteen years, as you say, " he began, "since you used tocall me 'butter-fingers' for always missing the ball. That's a long timeto give an account of, and yet they have been, for me, such eventless, monotonous years, that I could almost tell their history in ten words. You, I suppose, have had all kinds of adventures and travelled over halfthe world. I remember you had a turn for deeds of daring; I used tothink you a little Captain Cook in roundabouts, for climbing the gardenfence to get the ball when I had let it fly over. I climbed no fencesthen or since. You remember my father, I suppose, and the great care hetook of me? I lost him some five months ago. From those boyish days upto his death we were always together. I don't think that in fifteenyears we spent half a dozen hours apart. We lived in the country, winterand summer, seeing but three or four people. I had a succession oftutors, and a library to browse about in; I assure you I am a tremendousscholar. It was a dull life for a growing boy, and a duller life for ayoung man grown, but I never knew it. I was perfectly happy. " He spokeof his father at some length, and with a respect which I privatelydeclined to emulate. Mr. Pickering had been, to my sense, a frigidegotist, unable to conceive of any larger vocation for his son than tostrive to reproduce so irreproachable a model. "I know I have beenstrangely brought up, " said my friend, "and that the result is somethinggrotesque; but my education, piece by piece, in detail, became one of myfather's personal habits, as it were. He took a fancy to it at firstthrough his intense affection for my mother and the sort of worship hepaid her memory. She died at my birth, and as I grew up, it seems that Ibore an extraordinary likeness to her. Besides, my father had a greatmany theories; he prided himself on his conservative opinions; he thoughtthe usual American _laisser-aller_ in education was a very vulgarpractice, and that children were not to grow up like dusty thorns by thewayside. " "So you see, " Pickering went on, smiling and blushing, and yetwith something of the irony of vain regret, "I am a regular garden plant. I have been watched and watered and pruned, and if there is any virtue intending I ought to take the prize at a flower show. Some three years agomy father's health broke down, and he was kept very much within doors. So, although I was a man grown, I lived altogether at home. If I was outof his sight for a quarter of an hour he sent some one after me. He hadsevere attacks of neuralgia, and he used to sit at his window, basking inthe sun. He kept an opera-glass at hand, and when I was out in thegarden he used to watch me with it. A few days before his death I wastwenty-seven years old, and the most innocent youth, I suppose, on thecontinent. After he died I missed him greatly, " Pickering continued, evidently with no intention of making an epigram. "I stayed at home, ina sort of dull stupor. It seemed as if life offered itself to me for thefirst time, and yet as if I didn't know how to take hold of it. "

He uttered all this with a frank eagerness which increased as he talked, and there was a singular contrast between the meagre experience hedescribed and a certain radiant intelligence which I seemed to perceivein his glance and tone. Evidently he was a clever fellow, and hisnatural faculties were excellent. I imagined he had read a great deal, and recovered, in some degree, in restless intellectual conjecture, thefreedom he was condemned to ignore in practice. Opportunity was nowoffering a meaning to the empty forms with which his imagination wasstored, but it appeared to him dimly, through the veil of his personaldiffidence. 

"I have not sailed round the world, as you suppose, " I said, "but Iconfess I envy you the novelties you are going to behold. Coming toHomburg you have plunged _in medias res_. "

He glanced at me to see if my remark contained an allusion, and hesitateda moment. "Yes, I know it. I came to Bremen in the steamer with a veryfriendly German, who undertook to initiate me into the glories andmysteries of the Fatherland. At this season, he said, I must begin withHomburg. I landed but a fortnight ago, and here I am. " Again hehesitated, as if he were going to add something about the scene at theKursaal but suddenly, nervously, he took up the letter which was lyingbeside him, looked hard at the seal with a troubled frown, and then flungit back on the grass with a sigh. 

"How long do you expect to be in Europe?" I asked. 

"Six months I supposed when I came. But not so long--now!" And he lethis eyes wander to the letter again. 

"And where shall you go--what shall you do?"

"Everywhere, everything, I should have said yesterday. But now it isdifferent. "

I glanced at the letter--interrogatively, and he gravely picked it up andput it into his pocket. We talked for a while longer, but I saw that hehad suddenly become preoccupied; that he was apparently weighing animpulse to break some last barrier of reserve. At last he suddenly laidhis hand on my arm, looked at me a moment appealingly, and cried, "Uponmy word, I should like to tell you everything!"

"Tell me everything, by all means, " I answered, smiling. "I desirenothing better than to lie here in the shade and hear everything. "

"Ah, but the question is, will you understand it? No matter; you thinkme a queer fellow already. It's not easy, either, to tell you what Ifeel--not easy for so queer a fellow as I to tell you in how many ways heis queer!" He got up and walked away a moment, passing his hand over hiseyes, then came back rapidly and flung himself on the grass again. "Isaid just now I always supposed I was happy; it's true; but now that myeyes are open, I see I was only stultified. I was like a poodle-dog thatis led about by a blue ribbon, and scoured and combed and fed on slops. It was not life; life is learning to know one's self, and in that sense Ihave lived more in the past six weeks than in all the years that precededthem. I am filled with this feverish sense of liberation; it keepsrising to my head like the fumes of strong wine. I find I am an active, sentient, intelligent creature, with desires, with passions, withpossible convictions--even with what I never dreamed of, a possible willof my own! I find there is a world to know, a life to lead, men andwomen to form a thousand relations with. It all lies there like a greatsurging sea, where we must plunge and dive and feel the breeze and breastthe waves. I stand shivering here on the brink, staring, longing, wondering, charmed by the smell of the brine and yet afraid of the water. The world beckons and smiles and calls, but a nameless influence from thepast, that I can neither wholly obey nor wholly resist, seems to hold meback. I am full of impulses, but, somehow, I am not full of strength. Life seems inspiring at certain moments, but it seems terrible andunsafe; and I ask myself why I should wantonly measure myself withmerciless forces, when I have learned so well how to stand aside and letthem pass. Why shouldn't I turn my back upon it all and go home to--whatawaits me?--to that sightless, soundless country life, and long daysspent among old books? But if a man _is_ weak, he doesn't want to assentbeforehand to his weakness; he wants to taste whatever sweetness theremay be in paying for the knowledge. So it is that it comes back--thisirresistible impulse to take my plunge--to let myself swing, to go whereliberty leads me. " He paused a moment, fixing me with his excited eyes, and perhaps perceived in my own an irrepressible smile at his perplexity. "'Swing ahead, in Heaven's name, ' you want to say, 'and much good may itdo you. ' I don't know whether you are laughing at my scruples or at whatpossibly strikes you as my depravity. I doubt, " he went on gravely, "whether I have an inclination toward wrong-doing; if I have, I am sure Ishall not prosper in it. I honestly believe I may safely take out alicense to amuse myself. But it isn't that I think of, any more than Idream of, playing with suffering. Pleasure and pain are empty words tome; what I long for is knowledge--some other knowledge than comes to usin formal, colourless, impersonal precept. You would understand all thisbetter if you could breathe for an hour the musty in-door atmosphere inwhich I have always lived. To break a window and let in light and air--Ifeel as if at last I must _act_!"

"Act, by all means, now and always, when you have a chance, " I answered. "But don't take things too hard, now or ever. Your long confinementmakes you think the world better worth knowing than you are likely tofind it. A man with as good a head and heart as yours has a very ampleworld within himself, and I am no believer in art for art, nor in what'scalled 'life' for life's sake. Nevertheless, take your plunge, and comeand tell me whether you have found the pearl of wisdom. " He frowned alittle, as if he thought my sympathy a trifle meagre. I shook him by thehand and laughed. "The pearl of wisdom, " I cried, "is love; honest lovein the most convenient concentration of experience! I advise you to fallin love. " He gave me no smile in response, but drew from his pocket theletter of which I have spoken, held it up, and shook it solemnly. "Whatis it?" I asked. 

"It is my sentence!"

"Not of death, I hope!"

"Of marriage. "

"With whom?"

"With a person I don't love. "

This was serious. I stopped smiling, and begged him to explain. 

"It is the singular part of my story, " he said at last. "It will remindyou of an old-fashioned romance. Such as I sit here, talking in thiswild way, and tossing off provocations to destiny, my destiny is settledand sealed. I am engaged, I am given in marriage. It's a bequest of thepast--the past I had no hand in! The marriage was arranged by my father, years ago, when I was a boy. The young girl's father was his particularfriend; he was also a widower, and was bringing up his daughter, on hisside, in the same severe seclusion in which I was spending my days. Tothis day I am unacquainted with the origin of the bond of union betweenour respective progenitors. Mr. Vernor was largely engaged in business, and I imagine that once upon a time he found himself in a financialstrait and was helped through it by my father's coming forward with aheavy loan, on which, in his situation, he could offer no security buthis word. Of this my father was quite capable. He was a man of dogmas, and he was sure to have a rule of life--as clear as if it had beenwritten out in his beautiful copper-plate hand--adapted to the conduct ofa gentleman toward a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. What is more, hewas sure to adhere to it. Mr. Vernor, I believe, got on his feet, paidhis debt, and vowed my father an eternal gratitude. His little daughterwas the apple of his eye, and he pledged himself to bring her up to bethe wife of his benefactor's son. So our fate was fixed, parentally, andwe have been educated for each other. I have not seen my betrothed sinceshe was a very plain-faced little girl in a sticky pinafore, hugging aone-armed doll--of the male sex, I believe--as big as herself. Mr. Vernor is in what is called the Eastern trade, and has been living thesemany years at Smyrna. Isabel has grown up there in a white-walledgarden, in an orange grove, between her father and her governess. She isa good deal my junior; six months ago she was seventeen; when she iseighteen we are to marry. "

He related all this calmly enough, without the accent of complaint, drilyrather and doggedly, as if he were weary of thinking of it. "It's aromance, indeed, for these dull days, " I said, "and I heartilycongratulate you. It's not every young man who finds, on reaching themarrying age, a wife kept in a box of rose-leaves for him. A thousand toone Miss Vernor is charming; I wonder you don't post off to Smyrna. "

"You are joking, " he answered, with a wounded air, "and I am terriblyserious. Let me tell you the rest. I never suspected this superiorconspiracy till something less than a year ago. My father, wishing toprovide against his death, informed me of it very solemnly. I wasneither elated nor depressed; I received it, as I remember, with a sortof emotion which varied only in degree from that with which I could havehailed the announcement that he had ordered me a set of new shirts. Isupposed that was the way that all marriages were made; I had heard oftheir being made in heaven, and what was my father but a divinity? Novelsand poems, indeed, talked about falling in love; but novels and poemswere one thing and life was another. A short time afterwards heintroduced me to a photograph of my predestined, who has a pretty, but anextremely inanimate, face. After this his health failed rapidly. Onenight I was sitting, as I habitually sat for hours, in his dimly-lightedroom, near his bed, to which he had been confined for a week. He had notspoken for some time, and I supposed he was asleep; but happening to lookat him I saw his eyes wide open, and fixed on me strangely. He wassmiling benignantly, intensely, and in a moment he beckoned to me. Then, on my going to him--'I feel that I shall not last long, ' he said; 'but Iam willing to die when I think how comfortably I have arranged yourfuture. ' He was talking of death, and anything but grief at that momentwas doubtless impious and monstrous; but there came into my heart for thefirst time a throbbing sense of being over-governed. I said nothing, andhe thought my silence was all sorrow. 'I shall not live to see youmarried, ' he went on, 'but since the foundation is laid, that littlesignifies; it would be a selfish pleasure, and I have never thought ofmyself but in you. To foresee your future, in its main outline, to knowto a certainty that you will be safely domiciled here, with a wifeapproved by my judgment, cultivating the moral fruit of which I have sownthe seed--this will content me. But, my son, I wish to clear this brightvision from the shadow of a doubt. I believe in your docility; I believeI may trust the salutary force of your respect for my memory. But I mustremember that when I am removed you will stand here alone, face to facewith a hundred nameless temptations to perversity. The fumes ofunrighteous pride may rise into your brain and tempt you, in the interestof a vulgar theory which it will call your independence, to shatter theedifice I have so laboriously constructed. So I must ask you for apromise--the solemn promise you owe my condition. ' And he grasped myhand. 'You will follow the path I have marked; you will be faithful tothe young girl whom an influence as devoted as that which has governedyour own young life has moulded into everything amiable; you will marryIsabel Vernor. ' This was pretty 'steep, ' as we used to say at school. Iwas frightened; I drew away my hand and asked to be trusted without anysuch terrible vow. My reluctance startled my father into a suspicionthat the vulgar theory of independence had already been whispering to me. He sat up in his bed and looked at me with eyes which seemed to foresee alifetime of odious ingratitude. I felt the reproach; I feel it now. Ipromised! And even now I don't regret my promise nor complain of myfather's tenacity. I feel, somehow, as if the seeds of ultimate reposehad been sown in those unsuspecting years--as if after many days I mightgather the mellow fruit. But after many days! I will keep my promise, Iwill obey; but I want to _live_ first!"

"My dear fellow, you are living now. All this passionate consciousnessof your situation is a very ardent life. I wish I could say as much formy own. "

"I want to forget my situation. I want to spend three months withoutthinking of the past or the future, grasping whatever the present offersme. Yesterday I thought I was in a fair way to sail with the tide. Butthis morning comes this memento!" And he held up his letter again. 

"What is it?"

"A letter from Smyrna. "

"I see you have not yet broken the seal. "

"No; nor do I mean to, for the present. It contains bad news. "

"What do you call bad news?"

"News that I am expected in Smyrna in three weeks. News that Mr. Vernordisapproves of my roving about the world. News that his daughter isstanding expectant at the altar. "

"Is not this pure conjecture?"

"Conjecture, possibly, but safe conjecture. As soon as I looked at theletter something smote me at the heart. Look at the device on the seal, and I am sure you will find it's _Tarry not_!" And he flung the letteron the grass. 

"Upon my word, you had better open it, " I said. 

"If I were to open it and read my summons, do you know what I should do?I should march home and ask the Oberkellner how one gets to Smyrna, packmy trunk, take my ticket, and not stop till I arrived. I know I should;it would be the fascination of habit. The only way, therefore, to wanderto my rope's end is to leave the letter unread. "

"In your place, " I said, "curiosity would make me open it. "

He shook his head. "I have no curiosity! For a long time now the ideaof my marriage has ceased to be a novelty, and I have contemplated itmentally in every possible light. I fear nothing from that side, but Ido fear something from conscience. I want my hands tied. Will you do mea favour? Pick up the letter, put it into your pocket, and keep it tillI ask you for it. When I do, you may know that I am at my rope's end. "

I took the letter, smiling. "And how long is your rope to be? TheHomburg season doesn't last for ever. "

"Does it last a month? Let that be my season! A month hence you willgive it back to me. "

"To-morrow if you say so. Meanwhile, let it rest in peace!" And Iconsigned it to the most sacred interstice of my pocket-book. To saythat I was disposed to humour the poor fellow would seem to be sayingthat I thought his request fantastic. It was his situation, by no faultof his own, that was fantastic, and he was only trying to be natural. Hewatched me put away the letter, and when it had disappeared gave a softsigh of relief. The sigh was natural, and yet it set me thinking. Hisgeneral recoil from an immediate responsibility imposed by others mightbe wholesome enough; but if there was an old grievance on one side, wasthere not possibly a new-born delusion on the other? It would be unkindto withhold a reflection that might serve as a warning; so I told him, abruptly, that I had been an undiscovered spectator, the night before, ofhis exploits at roulette. 

He blushed deeply, but he met my eyes with the same clear good-humour. 

"Ah, then, you saw that wonderful lady?"

"Wonderful she was indeed. I saw her afterwards, too, sitting on theterrace in the starlight. I imagine she was not alone. "

"No, indeed, I was with her--for nearly an hour. Then I walked home withher. "

"Ah! And did you go in?"

"No, she said it was too late to ask me; though she remarked that in ageneral way she did not stand upon ceremony. "

"She did herself injustice. When it came to losing your money for you, she made you insist. "

"Ah, you noticed that too?" cried Pickering, still quite unconfused. "Ifelt as if the whole table were staring at me; but her manner was sogracious and reassuring that I supposed she was doing nothing unusual. She confessed, however, afterwards, that she is very eccentric. Theworld began to call her so, she said, before she ever dreamed of it, andat last finding that she had the reputation, in spite of herself, sheresolved to enjoy its privileges. Now, she does what she chooses. "

"In other words, she is a lady with no reputation to lose!"

Pickering seemed puzzled; he smiled a little. "Is not that what you sayof bad women?"

"Of some--of those who are found out. "

"Well, " he said, still smiling, "I have not yet found out MadameBlumenthal. "

"If that's her name, I suppose she's German. "

"Yes; but she speaks English so well that you wouldn't know it. She isvery clever. Her husband is dead. "

I laughed involuntarily at the conjunction of these facts, andPickering's clear glance seemed to question my mirth. "You have been sobluntly frank with me, " I said, "that I too must be frank. Tell me, ifyou can, whether this clever Madame Blumenthal, whose husband is dead, has given a point to your desire for a suspension of communication withSmyrna. "

He seemed to ponder my question, unshrinkingly. "I think not, " he said, at last. "I have had the desire for three months; I have known MadameBlumenthal for less than twenty-four hours. "

"Very true. But when you found this letter of yours on your place atbreakfast, did you seem for a moment to see Madame Blumenthal sittingopposite?"

"Opposite?"

"Opposite, my dear fellow, or anywhere in the neighbourhood. In a word, does she interest you?"

"Very much!" he cried, joyously. 

"Amen!" I answered, jumping up with a laugh. "And now, if we are to seethe world in a month, there is no time to lose. Let us begin with theHardtwald. "

Pickering rose, and we strolled away into the forest, talking of lighterthings. At last we reached the edge of the wood, sat down on a fallenlog, and looked out across an interval of meadow at the long wooded wavesof the Taunus. What my friend was thinking of I can't say; I wasmeditating on his queer biography, and letting my wonderment wander awayto Smyrna. Suddenly I remembered that he possessed a portrait of theyoung girl who was waiting for him there in a white-walled garden. Iasked him if he had it with him. He said nothing, but gravely took outhis pocket-book and drew forth a small photograph. It represented, asthe poet says, a simple maiden in her flower--a slight young girl, with acertain childish roundness of contour. There was no ease in her posture;she was standing, stiffly and shyly, for her likeness; she wore a short-waisted white dress; her arms hung at her sides and her hands wereclasped in front; her head was bent downward a little, and her dark eyesfixed. But her awkwardness was as pretty as that of some angular seraphin a mediaeval carving, and in her timid gaze there seemed to lurk thequestioning gleam of childhood. "What is this for?" her charming eyesappeared to ask; "why have I been dressed up for this ceremony in a whitefrock and amber beads?"

"Gracious powers!" I said to myself; "what an enchanting thing isinnocence!"

"That portrait was taken a year and a half ago, " said Pickering, as ifwith an effort to be perfectly just. "By this time, I suppose, she looksa little wiser. "

"Not much, I hope, " I said, as I gave it back. "She is very sweet!"

"Yes, poor girl, she is very sweet--no doubt!" And he put the thing awaywithout looking at it. 

We were silent for some moments. At last, abruptly--"My dear fellow, " Isaid, "I should take some satisfaction in seeing you immediately leaveHomburg. "

"Immediately?"

"To-day--as soon as you can get ready. "

He looked at me, surprised, and little by little he blushed. "There issomething I have not told you, " he said; "something that your saying thatMadame Blumenthal has no reputation to lose has made me half afraid totell you. "

"I think I can guess it. Madame Blumenthal has asked you to come andplay her game for her again. "

"Not at all!" cried Pickering, with a smile of triumph. "She says thatshe means to play no more for the present. She has asked me to come andtake tea with her this evening. "

"Ah, then, " I said, very gravely, "of course you can't leave Homburg. "

He answered nothing, but looked askance at me, as if he were expecting meto laugh. "Urge it strongly, " he said in a moment. "Say it's myduty--that I _must_. "

I didn't quite understand him, but, feathering the shaft with a harmlessexpletive, I told him that unless he followed my advice I would neverspeak to him again. 

He got up, stood before me, and struck the ground with his stick. "Good!"he cried; "I wanted an occasion to break a rule--to leap a barrier. Hereit is. I stay!"

I made him a mock bow for his energy. "That's very fine, " I said; "butnow, to put you in a proper mood for Madame Blumenthal's tea, we will goand listen to the band play Schubert under the lindens. " And we walkedback through the woods. 

I went to see Pickering the next day, at his inn, and on knocking, asdirected, at his door, was surprised to hear the sound of a loud voicewithin. My knock remained unnoticed, so I presently introduced myself. Ifound no company, but I discovered my friend walking up and down the roomand apparently declaiming to himself from a little volume bound in whitevellum. He greeted me heartily, threw his book on the table, and saidthat he was taking a German lesson. 

"And who is your teacher?" I asked, glancing at the book. 

He rather avoided meeting my eye, as he answered, after an instant'sdelay, "Madame Blumenthal. "

"Indeed! Has she written a grammar?"

"It's not a grammar; it's a tragedy. " And he handed me the book. 

I opened it, and beheld, in delicate type, with a very large margin, an_Historisches Trauerspiel_ in five acts, entitled "Cleopatra. " Therewere a great many marginal corrections and annotations, apparently fromthe author's hand; the speeches were very long, and there was aninordinate number of soliloquies by the heroine. One of them, Iremember, towards the end of the play, began in this fashion--

"What, after all, is life but sensation, and sensation butdeception?--reality that pales before the light of one's dreams asOctavia's dull beauty fades beside mine? But let me believe in someintenser bliss, and seek it in the arms of death!"

"It seems decidedly passionate, " I said. "Has the tragedy ever beenacted?"

"Never in public; but Madame Blumenthal tells me that she had it playedat her own house in Berlin, and that she herself undertook the part ofthe heroine. "

Pickering's unworldly life had not been of a sort to sharpen hisperception of the ridiculous, but it seemed to me an unmistakable sign ofhis being under the charm, that this information was very soberlyoffered. He was preoccupied, he was irresponsive to my experimentalobservations on vulgar topics--the hot weather, the inn, the advent ofAdelina Patti. At last, uttering his thoughts, he announced that MadameBlumenthal had proved to be an extraordinarily interesting woman. Heseemed to have quite forgotten our long talk in the Hartwaldt, andbetrayed no sense of this being a confession that he had taken his plungeand was floating with the current. He only remembered that I had spokenslightingly of the lady, and he now hinted that it behoved me to amend myopinion. I had received the day before so strong an impression of a sortof spiritual fastidiousness in my friend's nature, that on hearing nowthe striking of a new hour, as it were, in his consciousness, andobserving how the echoes of the past were immediately quenched in itsmusic, I said to myself that it had certainly taken a delicate hand towind up that fine machine. No doubt Madame Blumenthal was a cleverwoman. It is a good German custom at Homburg to spend the hour precedingdinner in listening to the orchestra in the Kurgarten; Mozart andBeethoven, for organisms in which the interfusion of soul and sense ispeculiarly mysterious, are a vigorous stimulus to the appetite. Pickeringand I conformed, as we had done the day before, to the fashion, and whenwe were seated under the trees, he began to expatiate on his friend'smerits. 

"I don't know whether she is eccentric or not, " he said; "to me every oneseems eccentric, and it's not for me, yet a while, to measure people bymy narrow precedents. I never saw a gaming table in my life before, andsupposed that a gambler was of necessity some dusky villain with an evileye. In Germany, says Madame Blumenthal, people play at roulette as theyplay at billiards, and her own venerable mother originally taught her therules of the game. It is a recognised source of subsistence for decentpeople with small means. But I confess Madame Blumenthal might do worsethings than play at roulette, and yet make them harmonious and beautiful. I have never been in the habit of thinking positive beauty the mostexcellent thing in a woman. I have always said to myself that if myheart were ever to be captured it would be by a sort of general grace--asweetness of motion and tone--on which one could count for soothingimpressions, as one counts on a musical instrument that is perfectly intune. Madame Blumenthal has it--this grace that soothes and satisfies;and it seems the more perfect that it keeps order and harmony in acharacter really passionately ardent and active. With her eager natureand her innumerable accomplishments nothing would be easier than that sheshould seem restless and aggressive. You will know her, and I leave youto judge whether she does seem so! She has every gift, and culture hasdone everything for each. What goes on in her mind I of course can'tsay; what reaches the observer--the admirer--is simply a sort of fragrantemanation of intelligence and sympathy. "

"Madame Blumenthal, " I said, smiling, "might be the loveliest woman inthe world, and you the object of her choicest favours, and yet what Ishould most envy you would be, not your peerless friend, but yourbeautiful imagination. "

"That's a polite way of calling me a fool, " said Pickering. "You are asceptic, a cynic, a satirist! I hope I shall be a long time coming tothat. "

"You will make the journey fast if you travel by express trains. Butpray tell me, have you ventured to intimate to Madame Blumenthal yourhigh opinion of her?"

"I don't know what I may have said. She listens even better than shetalks, and I think it possible I may have made her listen to a great dealof nonsense. For after the first few words I exchanged with her I wasconscious of an extraordinary evaporation of all my old diffidence. Ihave, in truth, I suppose, " he added in a moment, "owing to my peculiarcircumstances, a great accumulated fund of unuttered things of all sortsto get rid of. Last evening, sitting there before that charming woman, they came swarming to my lips. Very likely I poured them all out. Ihave a sense of having enshrouded myself in a sort of mist of talk, andof seeing her lovely eyes shining through it opposite to me, like fog-lamps at sea. " And here, if I remember rightly, Pickering broke off intoan ardent parenthesis, and declared that Madame Blumenthal's eyes hadsomething in them that he had never seen in any others. "It was a jumbleof crudities and inanities, " he went on; "they must have seemed to hergreat rubbish; but I felt the wiser and the stronger, somehow, for havingfired off all my guns--they could hurt nobody now if they hit--and Iimagine I might have gone far without finding another woman in whom suchan exhibition would have provoked so little of mere cold amusement. "

"Madame Blumenthal, on the contrary, " I surmised, "entered into yoursituation with warmth. "

"Exactly so--the greatest! She has felt and suffered, and now sheunderstands!"

"She told you, I imagine, that she understood you as if she had made you, and she offered to be your guide, philosopher, and friend. "

"She spoke to me, " Pickering answered, after a pause, "as I had neverbeen spoken to before, and she offered me, formally, all the offices of awoman's friendship. "

"Which you as formally accepted?"

"To you the scene sounds absurd, I suppose, but allow me to say I don'tcare!" Pickering spoke with an air of genial defiance which was the mostinoffensive thing in the world. "I was very much moved; I was, in fact, very much excited. I tried to say something, but I couldn't; I had hadplenty to say before, but now I stammered and bungled, and at last Ibolted out of the room. "

"Meanwhile she had dropped her tragedy into your pocket!"

"Not at all. I had seen it on the table before she came in. Afterwardsshe kindly offered to read German aloud with me, for the accent, two orthree times a week. 'What shall we begin with?' she asked. 'With this!'I said, and held up the book. And she let me take it to look it over. "

I was neither a cynic nor a satirist, but even if I had been, I mighthave been disarmed by Pickering's assurance, before we parted, thatMadame Blumenthal wished to know me and expected him to introduce me. Among the foolish things which, according to his own account, he haduttered, were some generous words in my praise, to which she had civillyreplied. I confess I was curious to see her, but I begged that theintroduction should not be immediate, for I wished to let Pickering workout his destiny alone. For some days I saw little of him, though we metat the Kursaal and strolled occasionally in the park. I watched, inspite of my desire to let him alone, for the signs and portents of theworld's action upon him--of that portion of the world, in especial, ofwhich Madame Blumenthal had constituted herself the agent. He seemedvery happy, and gave me in a dozen ways an impression of increased self-confidence and maturity. His mind was admirably active, and always, after a quarter of an hour's talk with him, I asked myself whatexperience could really do, that innocence had not done, to make itbright and fine. I was struck with his deep enjoyment of the wholespectacle of foreign life--its novelty, its picturesqueness, its lightand shade--and with the infinite freedom with which he felt he could goand come and rove and linger and observe it all. It was an expansion, anawakening, a coming to moral manhood. Each time I met him he spoke alittle less of Madame Blumenthal; but he let me know generally that hesaw her often, and continued to admire her. I was forced to admit tomyself, in spite of preconceptions, that if she were really the rulingstar of this happy season, she must be a very superior woman. Pickeringhad the air of an ingenuous young philosopher sitting at the feet of anaustere muse, and not of a sentimental spendthrift dangling about somesupreme incarnation of levity. 

CHAPTER II. 

Madame Blumenthal seemed, for the time, to have abjured the Kursaal, andI never caught a glimpse of her. Her young friend, apparently, was aninteresting study, and the studious mind prefers seclusion. 

She reappeared, however, at last, one evening at the opera, where from mychair I perceived her in a box, looking extremely pretty. Adelina Pattiwas singing, and after the rising of the curtain I was occupied with thestage; but on looking round when it fell for the _entr'acte_, I saw thatthe authoress of "Cleopatra" had been joined by her young admirer. Hewas sitting a little behind her, leaning forward, looking over hershoulder and listening, while she, slowly moving her fan to and fro andletting her eye wander over the house, was apparently talking of thisperson and that. No doubt she was saying sharp things; but Pickering wasnot laughing; his eyes were following her covert indications; his mouthwas half open, as it always was when he was interested; he lookedintensely serious. I was glad that, having her back to him, she wasunable to see how he looked. It seemed the proper moment to presentmyself and make her my bow; but just as I was about to leave my place agentleman, whom in a moment I perceived to be an old acquaintance, cameto occupy the next chair. Recognition and mutual greetings followed, andI was forced to postpone my visit to Madame Blumenthal. I was not sorry, for it very soon occurred to me that Niedermeyer would be just the man togive me a fair prose version of Pickering's lyric tributes to his friend. He was an Austrian by birth, and had formerly lived about Europe a greatdeal in a series of small diplomatic posts. England especially he hadoften visited, and he spoke the language almost without accent. I hadonce spent three rainy days with him in the house of an English friend inthe country. He was a sharp observer, and a good deal of a gossip; heknew a little something about every one, and about some peopleeverything. His knowledge on social matters generally had the quality ofall German science; it was copious, minute, exhaustive. 

"Do tell me, " I said, as we stood looking round the house, "who and whatis the lady in white, with the young man sitting behind her. "

"Who?" he answered, dropping his glass. "Madame Blumenthal! What! Itwould take long to say. Be introduced; it's easily done; you will findher charming. Then, after a week, you will tell me what she is. "

"Perhaps I should not. My friend there has known her a week, and I don'tthink he is yet able to give a coherent account of her. "

He raised his glass again, and after looking a while, "I am afraid yourfriend is a little--what do you call it?--a little 'soft. ' Poor fellow!he's not the first. I have never known this lady that she has not hadsome eligible youth hovering about in some such attitude as that, undergoing the softening process. She looks wonderfully well, from here. It's extraordinary how those women last!"

"You don't mean, I take it, when you talk about 'those women, ' thatMadame Blumenthal is not embalmed, for duration, in a certain infusion ofrespectability?"

"Yes and no. The atmosphere that surrounds her is entirely of her ownmaking. There is no reason in her antecedents that people should droptheir voice when they speak of her. But some women are never at theirease till they have given some damnable twist or other to their positionbefore the world. The attitude of upright virtue is unbecoming, likesitting too straight in a fauteuil. Don't ask me for opinions, however;content yourself with a few facts and with an anecdote. MadameBlumenthal is Prussian, and very well born. I remember her mother, anold Westphalian Grafin, with principles marshalled out like Frederick theGreat's grenadiers. She was poor, however, and her principles were aninsufficient dowry for Anastasia, who was married very young to a viciousJew, twice her own age. He was supposed to have money, but I am afraidhe had less than was nominated in the bond, or else that his pretty youngwife spent it very fast. She has been a widow these six or eight years, and has lived, I imagine, in rather a hand-to-mouth fashion. I supposeshe is some six or eight and thirty years of age. In winter one hears ofher in Berlin, giving little suppers to the artistic rabble there; insummer one often sees her across the green table at Ems and Wiesbaden. She's very clever, and her cleverness has spoiled her. A year after hermarriage she published a novel, with her views on matrimony, in theGeorge Sand manner--beating the drum to Madame Sand's trumpet. No doubtshe was very unhappy; Blumenthal was an old beast. Since then she haspublished a lot of literature--novels and poems and pamphlets on everyconceivable theme, from the conversion of Lola Montez to the Hegelianphilosophy. Her talk is much better than her writing. Her_conjugophobia_--I can't call it by any other name--made people thinklightly of her at a time when her rebellion against marriage was probablyonly theoretic. She had a taste for spinning fine phrases, she drove hershuttle, and when she came to the end of her yarn she found that societyhad turned its back. She tossed her head, declared that at last shecould breathe the sacred air of freedom, and formally announced that shehad embraced an 'intellectual' life. This meant unlimited _camaraderie_with scribblers and daubers, Hegelian philosophers and Hungarianpianists. But she has been admired also by a great many really clevermen; there was a time, in fact, when she turned a head as well set on itsshoulders as this one!" And Niedermeyer tapped his forehead. "She has agreat charm, and, literally, I know no harm of her. Yet for all that, Iam not going to speak to her; I am not going near her box. I am going toleave her to say, if she does me the honour to observe the omission, thatI too have gone over to the Philistines. It's not that; it is that thereis something sinister about the woman. I am too old for it to frightenme, but I am good-natured enough for it to pain me. Her quarrel withsociety has brought her no happiness, and her outward charm is only themask of a dangerous discontent. Her imagination is lodged where herheart should be! So long as you amuse it, well and good; she's radiant. But the moment you let it flag, she is capable of dropping you without apang. If you land on your feet you are so much the wiser, simply; butthere have been two or three, I believe, who have almost broken theirnecks in the fall. "

"You are reversing your promise, " I said, "and giving me an opinion, butnot an anecdote. "

"This is my anecdote. A year ago a friend of mine made her acquaintancein Berlin, and though he was no longer a young man, and had never beenwhat is called a susceptible one, he took a great fancy to MadameBlumenthal. He's a major in the Prussian artillery--grizzled, grave, atrifle severe, a man every way firm in the faith of his fathers. It's aproof of Anastasia's charm that such a man should have got into the habitof going to see her every day of his life. But the major was in love, ornext door to it! Every day that he called he found her scribbling awayat a little ormolu table on a lot of half-sheets of note-paper. She usedto bid him sit down and hold his tongue for a quarter of an hour, tillshe had finished her chapter; she was writing a novel, and it waspromised to a publisher. Clorinda, she confided to him, was the name ofthe injured heroine. The major, I imagine, had never read a work offiction in his life, but he knew by hearsay that Madame Blumenthal'sliterature, when put forth in pink covers, was subversive of severalrespectable institutions. Besides, he didn't believe in women knowinghow to write at all, and it irritated him to see this inky goddesscorrecting proof-sheets under his nose--irritated him the more that, as Isay, he was in love with her and that he ventured to believe she had akindness for his years and his honours. And yet she was not such a womanas he could easily ask to marry him. The result of all this was that hefell into the way of railing at her intellectual pursuits and saying heshould like to run his sword through her pile of papers. A woman wasclever enough when she could guess her husband's wishes, and learnedenough when she could read him the newspapers. At last, one day, MadameBlumenthal flung down her pen and announced in triumph that she hadfinished her novel. Clorinda had expired in the arms of--some one elsethan her husband. The major, by way of congratulating her, declared thather novel was immoral rubbish, and that her love of vicious paradoxes wasonly a peculiarly depraved form of coquetry. He added, however, that heloved her in spite of her follies, and that if she would formally abjurethem he would as formally offer her his hand. They say that women liketo be snubbed by military men. I don't know, I'm sure; I don't know howmuch pleasure, on this occasion, was mingled with Anastasia's wrath. Buther wrath was very quiet, and the major assured me it made her lookuncommonly pretty. 'I have told you before, ' she says, 'that I writefrom an inner need. I write to unburden my heart, to satisfy myconscience. You call my poor efforts coquetry, vanity, the desire toproduce a sensation. I can prove to you that it is the quiet labouritself I care for, and not the world's more or less flattering attentionto it!' And seizing the history of Clorinda she thrust it into the fire. The major stands staring, and the first thing he knows she is sweepinghim a great curtsey and bidding him farewell for ever. Left alone andrecovering his wits, he fishes out Clorinda from the embers, and thenproceeds to thump vigorously at the lady's door. But it never opened, and from that day to the day three months ago when he told me the tale, he had not beheld her again. "

"By Jove, it's a striking story, " I said. "But the question is, whatdoes it prove?"

"Several things. First (what I was careful not to tell my friend), thatMadame Blumenthal cared for him a trifle more than he supposed; second, that he cares for her more than ever; third, that the performance was amaster-stroke, and that her allowing him to force an interview upon heragain is only a question of time. "

"And last?" I asked. 

"This is another anecdote. The other day, Unter den Linden, I saw on abookseller's counter a little pink-covered romance--'Sophronia, ' byMadame Blumenthal. Glancing through it, I observed an extraordinaryabuse of asterisks; every two or three pages the narrative was adornedwith a portentous blank, crossed with a row of stars. "

"Well, but poor Clorinda?" I objected, as Niedermeyer paused. 

"Sophronia, my dear fellow, is simply Clorinda renamed by the baptism offire. The fair author came back, of course, and found Clorinda tumbledupon the floor, a good deal scorched, but, on the whole, more frightenedthan hurt. She picks her up, brushes her off, and sends her to theprinter. Wherever the flames had burnt a hole she swings aconstellation! But if the major is prepared to drop a penitent tear overthe ashes of Clorinda, I shall not whisper to him that the urn is empty. "

Even Adelina Patti's singing, for the next half-hour, but half availed todivert me from my quickened curiosity to behold Madame Blumenthal face toface. As soon as the curtain had fallen again I repaired to her box andwas ushered in by Pickering with zealous hospitality. His glowing smileseemed to say to me, "Ay, look for yourself, and adore!" Nothing couldhave been more gracious than the lady's greeting, and I found, somewhatto my surprise, that her prettiness lost nothing on a nearer view. Hereyes indeed were the finest I have ever seen--the softest, the deepest, the most intensely responsive. In spite of something faded and jaded inher physiognomy, her movements, her smile, and the tone of her voice, especially when she laughed, had an almost girlish frankness andspontaneity. She looked at you very hard with her radiant gray eyes, andshe indulged while she talked in a superabundance of restless, ratheraffected little gestures, as if to make you take her meaning in a certainvery particular and superfine sense. I wondered whether after a whilethis might not fatigue one's attention; then meeting her charming eyes, Isaid, Not for a long time. She was very clever, and, as Pickering hadsaid, she spoke English admirably. I told her, as I took my seat besideher, of the fine things I had heard about her from my friend, and shelistened, letting me go on some time, and exaggerate a little, with herfine eyes fixed full upon me. "Really?" she suddenly said, turning shortround upon Pickering, who stood behind us, and looking at him in the sameway. "Is that the way you talk about me?"

He blushed to his eyes, and I repented. She suddenly began to laugh; itwas then I observed how sweet her voice was in laughter. We talked afterthis of various matters, and in a little while I complimented her on herexcellent English, and asked if she had learnt it in England. 

"Heaven forbid!" she cried. "I have never been there and wish never togo. I should never get on with the--" I wondered what she was going tosay; the fogs, the smoke, or whist with sixpenny stakes?--"I should neverget on, " she said, "with the aristocracy! I am a fierce democrat--I amnot ashamed of it. I hold opinions which would make my ancestors turn intheir graves. I was born in the lap of feudalism. I am a daughter ofthe crusaders. But I am a revolutionist! I have a passion forfreedom--my idea of happiness is to die on a great barricade! It's toyour great country I should like to go. I should like to see thewonderful spectacle of a great people free to do everything it chooses, and yet never doing anything wrong!"

I replied, modestly, that, after all, both our freedom and our goodconduct had their limits, and she turned quickly about and shook her fanwith a dramatic gesture at Pickering. "No matter, no matter!" she cried;"I should like to see the country which produced that wonderful youngman. I think of it as a sort of Arcadia--a land of the golden age. He'sso delightfully innocent! In this stupid old Germany, if a young man isinnocent he's a fool; he has no brains; he's not a bit interesting. ButMr. Pickering says the freshest things, and after I have laughed fiveminutes at their freshness it suddenly occurs to me that they are verywise, and I think them over for a week. " "True!" she went on, nodding athim. "I call them inspired solecisms, and I treasure them up. Rememberthat when I next laugh at you!"

Glancing at Pickering, I was prompted to believe that he was in a stateof beatific exaltation which weighed Madame Blumenthal's smiles andfrowns in an equal balance. They were equally hers; they were linksalike in the golden chain. He looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, "Did you ever hear such wit? Did you ever see such grace?" It seemed tome that he was but vaguely conscious of the meaning of her words; hergestures, her voice and glance, made an absorbing harmony. There issomething painful in the spectacle of absolute enthralment, even to anexcellent cause. I gave no response to Pickering's challenge, but madesome remark upon the charm of Adelina Patti's singing. MadameBlumenthal, as became a "revolutionist, " was obliged to confess that shecould see no charm in it; it was meagre, it was trivial, it lacked soul. "You must know that in music, too, " she said, "I think for myself!" Andshe began with a great many flourishes of her fan to explain what it wasshe thought. Remarkable things, doubtless; but I cannot answer for it, for in the midst of the explanation the curtain rose again. "You can'tbe a great artist without a great passion!" Madame Blumenthal wasaffirming. Before I had time to assent Madame Patti's voice rosewheeling like a skylark, and rained down its silver notes. "Ah, give methat art, " I whispered, "and I will leave you your passion!" And Ideparted for my own place in the orchestra. I wondered afterwardswhether the speech had seemed rude, and inferred that it had not onreceiving a friendly nod from the lady, in the lobby, as the theatre wasemptying itself. She was on Pickering's arm, and he was taking her toher carriage. Distances are short in Homburg, but the night was rainy, and Madame Blumenthal exhibited a very pretty satin-shod foot as a reasonwhy, though but a penniless widow, she should not walk home. Pickeringleft us together a moment while he went to hail the vehicle, and mycompanion seized the opportunity, as she said, to beg me to be so verykind as to come and see her. It was for a particular reason! It wasreason enough for me, of course, I answered, that she had given me leave. She looked at me a moment with that extraordinary gaze of hers whichseemed so absolutely audacious in its candour, and rejoined that I paidmore compliments than our young friend there, but that she was sure I wasnot half so sincere. "But it's about him I want to talk, " she said. "Iwant to ask you many things; I want you to tell me all about him. Heinterests me; but you see my sympathies are so intense, my imagination isso lively, that I don't trust my own impressions. They have misled memore than once!" And she gave a little tragic shudder. 

I promised to come and compare notes with her, and we bade her farewellat her carriage door. Pickering and I remained a while, walking up anddown the long glazed gallery of the Kursaal. I had not taken many stepsbefore I became aware that I was beside a man in the very extremity oflove. "Isn't she wonderful?" he asked, with an implicit confidence in mysympathy which it cost me some ingenuity to elude. If he were really inlove, well and good! For although, now that I had seen her, I stoodready to confess to large possibilities of fascination on MadameBlumenthal's part, and even to certain possibilities of sincerity ofwhich my appreciation was vague, yet it seemed to me less ominous that heshould be simply smitten than that his admiration should pique itself onbeing discriminating. It was on his fundamental simplicity that Icounted for a happy termination of his experiment, and the former ofthese alternatives seemed to me the simpler. I resolved to hold mytongue and let him run his course. He had a great deal to say about hishappiness, about the days passing like hours, the hours like minutes, andabout Madame Blumenthal being a "revelation. " "She was nothingto-night, " he said; "nothing to what she sometimes is in the way ofbrilliancy--in the way of repartee. If you could only hear her when shetells her adventures!"

"Adventures?" I inquired. "Has she had adventures?"

"Of the most wonderful sort!" cried Pickering, with rapture. "She hasn'tvegetated, like me! She has lived in the tumult of life. When I listento her reminiscences, it's like hearing the opening tumult of one ofBeethoven's symphonies as it loses itself in a triumphant harmony ofbeauty and faith!"

I could only lift my eyebrows, but I desired to know before we separatedwhat he had done with that troublesome conscience of his. "I suppose youknow, my dear fellow, " I said, "that you are simply in love. That's whatthey happen to call your state of mind. "

He replied with a brightening eye, as if he were delighted to hear it--"SoMadame Blumenthal told me only this morning!" And seeing, I suppose, that I was slightly puzzled, "I went to drive with her, " he continued;"we drove to Konigstein, to see the old castle. We scrambled up into theheart of the ruin and sat for an hour in one of the crumbling old courts. Something in the solemn stillness of the place unloosed my tongue; andwhile she sat on an ivied stone, on the edge of the plunging wall, Istood there and made a speech. She listened to me, looking at me, breaking off little bits of stone and letting them drop down into thevalley. At last she got up and nodded at me two or three times silently, with a smile, as if she were applauding me for a solo on the violin. 'Youare in love, ' she said. 'It's a perfect case!' And for some time shesaid nothing more. But before we left the place she told me that sheowed me an answer to my speech. She thanked me heartily, but she wasafraid that if she took me at my word she would be taking advantage of myinexperience. I had known few women; I was too easily pleased; I thoughther better than she really was. She had great faults; I must know herlonger and find them out; I must compare her with other women--womenyounger, simpler, more innocent, more ignorant; and then if I still didher the honour to think well of her, she would listen to me again. Itold her that I was not afraid of preferring any woman in the world toher, and then she repeated, 'Happy man, happy man! you are in love, youare in love!'"

I called upon Madame Blumenthal a couple of days later, in some agitationof thought. It has been proved that there are, here and there, in theworld, such people as sincere impostors; certain characters who cultivatefictitious emotions in perfect good faith. Even if this clever ladyenjoyed poor Pickering's bedazzlement, it was conceivable that, takingvanity and charity together, she should care more for his welfare thanfor her own entertainment; and her offer to abide by the result ofhazardous comparison with other women was a finer stroke than herreputation had led me to expect. She received me in a shabby littlesitting-room littered with uncut books and newspapers, many of which Isaw at a glance were French. One side of it was occupied by an openpiano, surmounted by a jar full of white roses. They perfumed the air;they seemed to me to exhale the pure aroma of Pickering's devotion. Buried in an arm-chair, the object of this devotion was reading the_Revue des Deux Mondes_. The purpose of my visit was not to admireMadame Blumenthal on my own account, but to ascertain how far I mightsafely leave her to work her will upon my friend. She had impugned mysincerity the evening of the opera, and I was careful on this occasion toabstain from compliments, and not to place her on her guard against mypenetration. It is needless to narrate our interview in detail; indeed, to tell the perfect truth, I was punished for my rash attempt to surpriseher by a temporary eclipse of my own perspicacity. She sat there soquestioning, so perceptive, so genial, so generous, and so pretty withal, that I was quite ready at the end of half an hour to subscribe to themost comprehensive of Pickering's rhapsodies. She was certainly awonderful woman. I have never liked to linger, in memory, on that half-hour. The result of it was to prove that there were many more things inthe composition of a woman who, as Niedermeyer said, had lodged herimagination in the place of her heart than were dreamt of in myphilosophy. Yet, as I sat there stroking my hat and balancing theaccount between nature and art in my affable hostess, I felt like a verycompetent philosopher. She had said she wished me to tell her everythingabout our friend, and she questioned me as to his family, his fortune, his antecedents, and his character. All this was natural in a woman whohad received a passionate declaration of love, and it was expressed withan air of charmed solicitude, a radiant confidence that there was reallyno mistake about his being a most distinguished young man, and that if Ichose to be explicit, I might deepen her conviction to disinterestedecstasy, which might have almost provoked me to invent a good opinion, ifI had not had one ready made. I told her that she really knew Pickeringbetter than I did, and that until we met at Homburg I had not seen himsince he was a boy. 

"But he talks to you freely, " she answered; "I know you are hisconfidant. He has told me certainly a great many things, but I alwaysfeel as if he were keeping something back; as if he were holdingsomething behind him, and showing me only one hand at once. He seemsoften to be hovering on the edge of a secret. I have had severalfriendships in my life--thank Heaven! but I have had none more dear to methan this one. Yet in the midst of it I have the painful sense of myfriend being half afraid of me; of his thinking me terrible, strange, perhaps a trifle out of my wits. Poor me! If he only knew what a plaingood soul I am, and how I only want to know him and befriend him!"

These words were full of a plaintive magnanimity which made mistrust seemcruel. How much better I might play providence over Pickering'sexperiments with life if I could engage the fine instincts of thischarming woman on the providential side! Pickering's secret was, ofcourse, his engagement to Miss Vernor; it was natural enough that heshould have been unable to bring himself to talk of it to MadameBlumenthal. The simple sweetness of this young girl's face had not fadedfrom my memory; I could not rid myself of the suspicion that in goingfurther Pickering might fare much worse. Madame Blumenthal's professionsseemed a virtual promise to agree with me, and, after some hesitation, Isaid that my friend had, in fact, a substantial secret, and that perhapsI might do him a good turn by putting her in possession of it. In as fewwords as possible I told her that Pickering stood pledged by filial pietyto marry a young lady at Smyrna. She listened intently to my story; whenI had finished it there was a faint flush of excitement in each of hercheeks. She broke out into a dozen exclamations of admiration andcompassion. "What a wonderful tale--what a romantic situation! Nowonder poor Mr. Pickering seemed restless and unsatisfied; no wonder hewished to put off the day of submission. And the poor little girl atSmyrna, waiting there for the young Western prince like the heroine of anEastern tale! She would give the world to see her photograph; did Ithink Mr. Pickering would show it to her? But never fear; she would asknothing indiscreet! Yes, it was a marvellous story, and if she hadinvented it herself, people would have said it was absurdly improbable. "She left her seat and took several turns about the room, smiling toherself, and uttering little German cries of wonderment. Suddenly shestopped before the piano and broke into a little laugh; the next momentshe buried her face in the great bouquet of roses. It was time I shouldgo, but I was indisposed to leave her without obtaining some definiteassurance that, as far as pity was concerned, she pitied the young girlat Smyrna more than the young man at Homburg. 

"Of course you know what I wished in telling you this, " I said, rising. "She is evidently a charming creature, and the best thing he can do is tomarry her. I wished to interest you in that view of it. "

She had taken one of the roses from the vase and was arranging it in thefront of her dress. Suddenly, looking up, "Leave it to me, leave it tome!" she cried. "I am interested!" And with her little blue-gemmed handshe tapped her forehead. "I am deeply interested!"

And with this I had to content myself. But more than once the next day Irepented of my zeal, and wondered whether a providence with a white rosein her bosom might not turn out a trifle too human. In the evening, atthe Kursaal, I looked for Pickering, but he was not visible, and Ireflected that my revelation had not as yet, at any rate, seemed toMadame Blumenthal a reason for prescribing a cooling-term to his passion. Very late, as I was turning away, I saw him arrive--with no smallsatisfaction, for I had determined to let him know immediately in whatway I had attempted to serve him. But he straightway passed his armthrough my own and led me off towards the gardens. I saw that he was tooexcited to allow me to speak first. 

"I have burnt my ships!" he cried, when we were out of earshot of thecrowd. "I have told her everything. I have insisted that it's simpletorture for me to wait with this idle view of loving her less. It's wellenough for her to ask it, but I feel strong enough now to override herreluctance. I have cast off the millstone from round my neck. I carefor nothing, I know nothing, but that I love her with every pulse of mybeing--and that everything else has been a hideous dream, from which shemay wake me into blissful morning with a single word!"

I held him off at arm's-length and looked at him gravely. "You have toldher, you mean, of your engagement to Miss Vernor?"

"The whole story! I have given it up--I have thrown it to the winds. Ihave broken utterly with the past. It may rise in its grave and give meits curse, but it can't frighten me now. I have a right to be happy, Ihave a right to be free, I have a right not to bury myself alive. It wasnot _I_ who promised--I was not born then. I myself, my soul, my mind, my option--all this is but a month old! Ah, " he went on, "if you knewthe difference it makes--this having chosen and broken and spoken! I amtwice the man I was yesterday! Yesterday I was afraid of her; there wasa kind of mocking mystery of knowledge and cleverness about her, whichoppressed me in the midst of my love. But now I am afraid of nothing butof being too happy!"

I stood silent, to let him spend his eloquence. But he paused a moment, and took off his hat and fanned himself. "Let me perfectly understand, "I said at last. "You have asked Madame Blumenthal to be your wife?"

"The wife of my intelligent choice!"

"And does she consent?"

"She asks three days to decide. "

"Call it four! She has known your secret since this morning. I am boundto let you know I told her. "

"So much the better!" cried Pickering, without apparent resentment orsurprise. "It's not a brilliant offer for such a woman, and in spite ofwhat I have at stake, I feel that it would be brutal to press her. "

"What does she say to your breaking your promise?" I asked in a moment. 

Pickering was too much in love for false shame. "She tells me that sheloves me too much to find courage to condemn me. She agrees with me thatI have a right to be happy. I ask no exemption from the common law. WhatI claim is simply freedom to try to be!"

Of course I was puzzled; it was not in that fashion that I had expectedMadame Blumenthal to make use of my information. But the matter now wasquite out of my hands, and all I could do was to bid my companion notwork himself into a fever over either fortune. 

The next day I had a visit from Niedermeyer, on whom, after our talk atthe opera, I had left a card. We gossiped a while, and at last he saidsuddenly, "By the way, I have a sequel to the history of Clorinda. Themajor is at Homburg!"

"Indeed!" said I. "Since when?"

"These three days. "

"And what is he doing?"

"He seems, " said Niedermeyer, with a laugh, "to be chiefly occupied insending flowers to Madame Blumenthal. That is, I went with him themorning of his arrival to choose a nosegay, and nothing would suit himbut a small haystack of white roses. I hope it was received. "

"I can assure you it was, " I cried. "I saw the lady fairly nestling herhead in it. But I advise the major not to build upon that. He has arival. "

"Do you mean the soft young man of the other night?"

"Pickering is soft, if you will, but his softness seems to have servedhim. He has offered her everything, and she has not yet refused it. " Ihad handed my visitor a cigar, and he was puffing it in silence. At lasthe abruptly asked if I had been introduced to Madame Blumenthal, and, onmy affirmative, inquired what I thought of her. "I will not tell you, " Isaid, "or you'll call _me_ soft. "

He knocked away his ashes, eyeing me askance. "I have noticed yourfriend about, " he said, "and even if you had not told me, I should haveknown he was in love. After he has left his adored, his face wears forthe rest of the day the expression with which he has risen from her feet, and more than once I have felt like touching his elbow, as you would thatof a man who has inadvertently come into a drawing-room in his overshoes. You say he has offered our friend everything; but, my dear fellow, he hasnot everything to offer her. He evidently is as amiable as the morning, but the lady has no taste for daylight. "

"I assure you Pickering is a very interesting fellow, " I said. 

"Ah, there it is! Has he not some story or other? Isn't he an orphan, or a natural child, or consumptive, or contingent heir to great estates?She will read his little story to the end, and close the book verytenderly and smooth down the cover; and then, when he least expects it, she will toss it into the dusty limbo of her other romances. She willlet him dangle, but she will let him drop!"

"Upon my word, " I cried, with heat, "if she does, she will be a veryunprincipled little creature!"

Niedermeyer shrugged his shoulders. "I never said she was a saint!"

Shrewd as I felt Niedermeyer to be, I was not prepared to take his simpleword for this event, and in the evening I received a communication whichfortified my doubts. It was a note from Pickering, and it ran asfollows:--

 "My Dear Friend--I have every hope of being happy, but I am to go to Wiesbaden to learn my fate. Madame Blumenthal goes thither this afternoon to spend a few days, and she allows me to accompany her. Give me your good wishes; you shall hear of the result. E. P. "

One of the diversions of Homburg for new-comers is to dine in rotation atthe different tables d'hote. It so happened that, a couple of dayslater, Niedermeyer took pot-luck at my hotel, and secured a seat besidemy own. As we took our places I found a letter on my plate, and, as itwas postmarked Wiesbaden, I lost no time in opening it. It contained butthree lines--

 "I am happy--I am accepted--an hour ago. I can hardly believe it's your poor friend E. P. "

I placed the note before Niedermeyer; not exactly in triumph, but withthe alacrity of all felicitous confutation. He looked at it much longerthan was needful to read it, stroking down his beard gravely, and I feltit was not so easy to confute a pupil of the school of Metternich. Atlast, folding the note and handing it back, "Has your friend mentionedMadame Blumenthal's errand at Wiesbaden?" he asked. 

"You look very wise. I give it up!" said I. 

"She is gone there to make the major follow her. He went by the nexttrain. "

"And has the major, on his side, dropped you a line?"

"He is not a letter-writer. "

"Well, " said I, pocketing my letter, "with this document in my hand I ambound to reserve my judgment. We will have a bottle of Johannisberg, anddrink to the triumph of virtue. "

For a whole week more I heard nothing from Pickering--somewhat to mysurprise, and, as the days went by, not a little to my discomposure. Ihad expected that his bliss would continue to overflow in briefbulletins, and his silence was possibly an indication that it had beenclouded. At last I wrote to his hotel at Wiesbaden, but received noanswer; whereupon, as my next resource, I repaired to his former lodgingat Homburg, where I thought it possible he had left property which hewould sooner or later send for. There I learned that he had indeed justtelegraphed from Cologne for his luggage. To Cologne I immediatelydespatched a line of inquiry as to his prosperity and the cause of hissilence. The next day I received three words in answer--a simpleuncommented request that I would come to him. I lost no time, andreached him in the course of a few hours. It was dark when I arrived, and the city was sheeted in a cold autumnal rain. Pickering hadstumbled, with an indifference which was itself a symptom of distress, ona certain musty old Mainzerhof, and I found him sitting over asmouldering fire in a vast dingy chamber which looked as if it had growngray with watching the _ennui_ of ten generations of travellers. Lookingat him, as he rose on my entrance, I saw that he was in extremetribulation. He was pale and haggard; his face was five years older. Now, at least, in all conscience, he had tasted of the cup of life! Iwas anxious to know what had turned it so suddenly to bitterness; but Ispared him all importunate curiosity, and let him take his time. Iaccepted tacitly his tacit confession of distress, and we made for awhile a feeble effort to discuss the picturesqueness of Cologne. At lasthe rose and stood a long time looking into the fire, while I slowly pacedthe length of the dusky room. 

"Well!" he said, as I came back; "I wanted knowledge, and I certainlyknow something I didn't a month ago. " And herewith, calmly andsuccinctly enough, as if dismay had worn itself out, he related thehistory of the foregoing days. He touched lightly on details; heevidently never was to gush as freely again as he had done during theprosperity of his suit. He had been accepted one evening, as explicitlyas his imagination could desire, and had gone forth in his rapture androamed about till nearly morning in the gardens of theConversation-house, taking the stars and the perfumes of the summer nightinto his confidence. "It is worth it all, almost, " he said, "to havebeen wound up for an hour to that celestial pitch. No man, I am sure, can ever know it but once. " The next morning he had repaired to MadameBlumenthal's lodging and had been met, to his amazement, by a nakedrefusal to see him. He had strode about for a couple of hours--inanother mood--and then had returned to the charge. The servant handedhim a three-cornered note; it contained these words: "Leave me alone to-day; I will give you ten minutes to-morrow evening. " Of the next thirty-six hours he could give no coherent account, but at the appointed timeMadame Blumenthal had received him. Almost before she spoke there hadcome to him a sense of the depth of his folly in supposing he knew her. "One has heard all one's days, " he said, "of people removing the mask;it's one of the stock phrases of romance. Well, there she stood with hermask in her hand. Her face, " he went on gravely, after a pause--"herface was horrible!" . . . "I give you ten minutes, " she had said, pointing to the clock. "Make your scene, tear your hair, brandish yourdagger!" And she had sat down and folded her arms. "It's not a joke, "she cried, "it's dead earnest; let us have it over. You aredismissed--have you nothing to say?" He had stammered some franticdemand for an explanation; and she had risen and come near him, lookingat him from head to feet, very pale, and evidently more excited than shewished him to see. "I have done with you!" she said, with a smile; "youought to have done with me! It has all been delightful, but there areexcellent reasons why it should come to an end. " "You have been playing apart, then, " he had gasped out; "you never cared for me?" "Yes; till Iknew you; till I saw how far you would go. But now the story's finished;we have reached the _denoument_. We will close the book and be goodfriends. " "To see how far I would go?" he had repeated. "You led me on, meaning all the while to do _this_!" "I led you on, if you will. Ireceived your visits, in season and out! Sometimes they were veryentertaining; sometimes they bored me fearfully. But you were such avery curious case of--what shall I call it?--of sincerity, that Idetermined to take good and bad together. I wanted to make you commityourself unmistakably. I should have preferred not to bring you to thisplace; but that too was necessary. Of course I can't marry you; I can dobetter. So can you, for that matter; thank your fate for it. You havethought wonders of me for a month, but your good-humour wouldn't last. Iam too old and too wise; you are too young and too foolish. It seems tome that I have been very good to you; I have entertained you to the topof your bent, and, except perhaps that I am a little brusque just now, you have nothing to complain of. I would have let you down more gentlyif I could have taken another month to it; but circumstances have forcedmy hand. Abuse me, curse me, if you like. I will make every allowance!"Pickering listened to all this intently enough to perceive that, as if bysome sudden natural cataclysm, the ground had broken away at his feet, and that he must recoil. He turned away in dumb amazement. "I don'tknow how I seemed to be taking it, " he said, "but she seemed really todesire--I don't know why--something in the way of reproach andvituperation. But I couldn't, in that way, have uttered a syllable. Iwas sickened; I wanted to get away into the air--to shake her off andcome to my senses. 'Have you nothing, nothing, nothing to say?' shecried, as if she were disappointed, while I stood with my hand on thedoor. 'Haven't I treated you to talk enough?' I believed I answered. 'You will write to me then, when you get home?' 'I think not, ' said I. 'Six months hence, I fancy, you will come and see me!' 'Never!' said I. 'That's a confession of stupidity, ' she answered. 'It means that, evenon reflection, you will never understand the philosophy of my conduct. 'The word 'philosophy' seemed so strange that I verily believe I smiled. 'I have given you all that you gave me, ' she went on. 'Your passion wasan affair of the head. ' 'I only wish you had told me sooner that youconsidered it so!' I exclaimed. And I went my way. The next day I camedown the Rhine. I sat all day on the boat, not knowing where I wasgoing, where to get off. I was in a kind of ague of terror; it seemed tome I had seen something infernal. At last I saw the cathedral towershere looming over the city. They seemed to say something to me, and whenthe boat stopped, I came ashore. I have been here a week. I have notslept at night--and yet it has been a week of rest!"

It seemed to me that he was in a fair way to recover, and that his ownphilosophy, if left to take its time, was adequate to the occasion. Afterhis story was once told I referred to his grievance but once--thatevening, later, as we were about to separate for the night. "Suffer meto say that there was some truth in _her_ account of your relations, " Isaid. "You were using her intellectually, and all the while, withoutyour knowing it, she was using you. It was diamond cut diamond. Herneeds were the more superficial, and she got tired of the game first. " Hefrowned and turned uneasily away, but without contradicting me. I waiteda few moments, to see if he would remember, before we parted, that he hada claim to make upon me. But he seemed to have forgotten it. 

The next day we strolled about the picturesque old city, and of course, before long, went into the cathedral. Pickering said little; he seemedintent upon his own thoughts. He sat down beside a pillar near a chapel, in front of a gorgeous window, and, leaving him to his meditations, Iwandered through the church. When I came back I saw he had something tosay. But before he had spoken I laid my hand on his shoulder and lookedat him with a significant smile. He slowly bent his head and dropped hiseyes, with a mixture of assent and humility. I drew forth from where ithad lain untouched for a month the letter he had given me to keep, placedit silently on his knee, and left him to deal with it alone. 

Half an hour later I returned to the same place, but he had gone, and oneof the sacristans, hovering about and seeing me looking for Pickering, said he thought he had left the church. I found him in his gloomychamber at the inn, pacing slowly up and down. I should doubtless havebeen at a loss to say just what effect I expected the letter from Smyrnato produce; but his actual aspect surprised me. He was flushed, excited, a trifle irritated. 

"Evidently, " I said, "you have read your letter. "

"It is proper I should tell you what is in it, " he answered. "When Igave it to you a month ago, I did my friends injustice. "

"You called it a 'summons, ' I remember. "

"I was a great fool! It's a release!"

"From your engagement?"

"From everything! The letter, of course, is from Mr. Vernor. He desiresto let me know at the earliest moment that his daughter, informed for thefirst time a week before of what had been expected of her, positivelyrefuses to be bound by the contract or to assent to my being bound. Shehad been given a week to reflect, and had spent it in inconsolable tears. She had resisted every form of persuasion! from compulsion, writes Mr. Vernor, he naturally shrinks. The young lady considers the arrangement'horrible. ' After accepting her duties cut and dried all her life, shepretends at last to have a taste of her own. I confess I am surprised; Ihad been given to believe that she was stupidly submissive, and wouldremain so to the end of the chapter. Not a bit of it. She has insistedon my being formally dismissed, and her father intimates that in case ofnon-compliance she threatens him with an attack of brain fever. Mr. Vernor condoles with me handsomely, and lets me know that the younglady's attitude has been a great shock to his nerves. He adds that hewill not aggravate such regret as I may do him the honour to entertain, by any allusions to his daughter's charms and to the magnitude of myloss, and he concludes with the hope that, for the comfort of allconcerned, I may already have amused my fancy with other 'views. ' Hereminds me in a postscript that, in spite of this painful occurrence, theson of his most valued friend will always be a welcome visitor at hishouse. I am free, he observes; I have my life before me; he recommendsan extensive course of travel. Should my wanderings lead me to the East, he hopes that no false embarrassment will deter me from presenting myselfat Smyrna. He can promise me at least a friendly reception. It's a verypolite letter. "

Polite as the letter was, Pickering seemed to find no great exhilarationin having this famous burden so handsomely lifted from his spirit. Hebegan to brood over his liberation in a manner which you might havedeemed proper to a renewed sense of bondage. "Bad news, " he had calledhis letter originally; and yet, now that its contents proved to be inflat contradiction to his foreboding, there was no impulsive voice toreverse the formula and declare the news was good. The wings of impulsein the poor fellow had of late been terribly clipped. It was an obviousreflection, of course, that if he had not been so stiffly certain of thematter a month before, and had gone through the form of breaking Mr. Vernor's seal, he might have escaped the purgatory of Madame Blumenthal'ssub-acid blandishments. But I left him to moralise in private; I had nodesire, as the phrase is, to rub it in. My thoughts, moreover, werefollowing another train; I was saying to myself that if to those gentlegraces of which her young visage had offered to my fancy the bloomingpromise, Miss Vernor added in this striking measure the capacity formagnanimous action, the amendment to my friend's career had been lesshappy than the rough draught. Presently, turning about, I saw himlooking at the young lady's photograph. "Of course, now, " he said, "Ihave no right to keep it!" And before I could ask for another glimpse ofit, he had thrust it into the fire. 

"I am sorry to be saying it just now, " I observed after a while, "but Ishouldn't wonder if Miss Vernor were a charming creature. "

"Go and find out, " he answered, gloomily. "The coast is clear. My partis to forget her, " he presently added. "It ought not to be hard. Butdon't you think, " he went on suddenly, "that for a poor fellow who askednothing of fortune but leave to sit down in a quiet corner, it has beenrather a cruel pushing about?"

Cruel indeed, I declared, and he certainly had the right to demand aclean page on the book of fate and a fresh start. Mr. Vernor's advicewas sound; he should amuse himself with a long journey. If it would beany comfort to him, I would go with him on his way. Pickering assentedwithout enthusiasm; he had the embarrassed look of a man who, having goneto some cost to make a good appearance in a drawing-room, should find thedoor suddenly slammed in his face. We started on our journey, however, and little by little his enthusiasm returned. He was too capable ofenjoying fine things to remain permanently irresponsive, and after afortnight spent among pictures and monuments and antiquities, I felt thatI was seeing him for the first time in his best and healthiest mood. Hehad had a fever, and then he had had a chill; the pendulum had swungright and left in a manner rather trying to the machine; but now, atlast, it was working back to an even, natural beat. He recovered in ameasure the generous eloquence with which he had fanned his flame atHomburg, and talked about things with something of the same passionatefreshness. One day when I was laid up at the inn at Bruges with a lamefoot, he came home and treated me to a rhapsody about a certainmeek-faced virgin of Hans Memling, which seemed to me sounder sense thanhis compliments to Madame Blumenthal. He had his dull days and hissombre moods--hours of irresistible retrospect; but I let them come andgo without remonstrance, because I fancied they always left him a triflemore alert and resolute. One evening, however, he sat hanging his headin so doleful a fashion that I took the bull by the horns and told him hehad by this time surely paid his debt to penitence, and that he owed itto himself to banish that woman for ever from his thoughts. 

He looked up, staring; and then with a deep blush--"That woman?" he said. "I was not thinking of Madame Blumenthal!"

After this I gave another construction to his melancholy. Taking himwith his hopes and fears, at the end of six weeks of active observationand keen sensation, Pickering was as fine a fellow as need be. We madeour way down to Italy and spent a fortnight at Venice. There somethinghappened which I had been confidently expecting; I had said to myselfthat it was merely a question of time. We had passed the day atTorcello, and came floating back in the glow of the sunset, with measuredoar-strokes. "I am well on the way, " Pickering said; "I think I willgo!"

We had not spoken for an hour, and I naturally asked him, Where? Hisanswer was delayed by our getting into the Piazzetta. I stepped ashorefirst and then turned to help him. As he took my hand he met my eyes, consciously, and it came. "To Smyrna!"

A couple of days later he started. I had risked the conjecture that MissVernor was a charming creature, and six months afterwards he wrote methat I was right.