 CHAPTER VII. Felix Young finished Gortrude's portrait, and he afterwards transferred to Canvas the features of many members of that circle, of which it may be said that he had become, for the time, the pivot and the center. I am afraid it must be confessed that he was a decidedly flattering painter, and that he imparted to his models a romantic grace which seemed easily and cheaply acquired by the payment of a hundred dollars to a young man who made sitting so entertaining. For Felix was paid for his pictures, making, as he did, no secret of the fact that in guiding his steps to the western world affectionate curiosity had gone hand in hand with a desire to better his condition. He took his uncle's portrait quite as if Mr. Wentworth had never averted himself from the experiment, and as he compassed his end only by the exercise of gentle violence, it is but fair to add that he allowed the old man to give him nothing but his time. He passed his arm into Mr. Wentworth's one summer morning. Very few arms indeed had ever passed into Mr. Wentworth's, and led him across the garden and along the road into the studio which he had extemporized in the little house among the apple trees. The grave gentleman felt himself more and more fascinated by his clever nephew, whose fresh, demonstrative youth seemed a compendium of experiences so strangely numerous. It appeared to him that Felix must know a great deal. He would like to learn what he thought about some of those things as regards which his own conversation had always been formal, but his knowledge vague. Felix had a confident, gaily trenchant way of judging human actions which Mr. Wentworth grew little by little to envy. It seemed like criticism made easy. Forming an opinion, say on a person's conduct, was with Mr. Wentworth a good deal like fumbling in a lock with a key chosen at hazard. He seemed to himself to go about the world with a big bunch of these ineffectual instruments at his girdle. His nephew on the other hand, with a single turn of the wrist, opened any door as adroitly as a horse-thief. He felt obliged to keep up the convention that an uncle is always wiser than a nephew, even if he could keep it up no otherwise than by listening in serious silence to Felix's quick, light, constant discourse. But there came a day when he lapsed from consistency and almost asked his nephew's advice. Have you ever entertained the idea of settling in the United States? He asked one morning while Felix brilliantly applied his brush. My dear uncle, said Felix, excuse me if your question makes me smile a little. To begin with I have never entertained an idea. Ideas often entertain me, but I am afraid I have never seriously made a plan. I know what you are going to say, or rather I know what you think, for I don't think you will say it, that this is very frivolous and loose-minded on my part. So it is, but I am made like that. I take things as they come, and somehow there is always some new thing to follow the last. In the second place I should never propose to settle. I can't settle, my dear uncle, I'm not a settler. I know that is what strangers are supposed to do here, they always settle. But I haven't, to answer your question, entertained that idea. You intend to return to Europe and resume your irregular manner of life? Mr. Wentworth inquired. I can't say I intend, but it's very likely I shall go back to Europe. After all I am a European. I feel that, you know. It will depend a good deal upon my sister. She's even more of a European than I. Here you know she's a picture out of her setting. And as for resuming, dear uncle, I really have never given up my irregular manner of life. What for me could be more irregular than this? Then what? Asked Mr. Wentworth with his pale gravity. Well, then everything, living in the midst of you this way, this charming, quiet, serious family life, fraternizing with Charlotte and Gertrude, calling upon twenty young ladies and going out to walk with them, sitting with you in the evening on the piazza and listening to the crickets and going to bed at ten o'clock. Your description is very animated, said Mr. Wentworth, but I see nothing improper in what you describe. Neither do I, dear uncle, it is extremely delightful. I shouldn't like it if it were improper. I assure you I don't like improper things, though I dare say you think I do. Felix went on, painting away. I have never accused you of that. Pray don't, said Felix, because you see at bottom I am a terrible Philistine. A Philistine, repeated Mr. Wentworth. I mean, as one may say, a plain God-fearing man. Mr. Wentworth looked at him reservedly, like a mystified sage, and Felix continued. I trust I shall enjoy a venerable and venerated old age. I mean to live long. I can hardly call that a plan, perhaps, but it's a keen desire, a rosy vision. I shall be a lively, perhaps even a frivolous old man. It is natural, said his uncle, sententiously, that one should desire to prolong an agreeable life. We have perhaps a selfish indisposition to bring our pleasure to a close, but I presume, he added, that you expect to marry. That, too, dear uncle, is a hope, a desire, a vision, said Felix. It occurred to him, for an instant, that this was possibly a preface to the offer of the hand of one of Mr. Wentworth's admirable daughters. But in the name of decent modesty and a proper sense of the hard realities of this world, Felix banished the thought. His uncle was the incarnation of benevolence, certainly, but from that to accepting, much more postulating, the idea of a union between a young lady with a dowry presumptably brilliant and a penniless artist with no prospect of fame, there was a very long way. Felix had lately become conscious of a luxurious preference for the society, if possible unshared with others, of Gertrude Wentworth. But he had relegated this young lady, for the moment, to the coldly brilliant category of unattainable possessions. She was not the first woman for whom he had entertained an unpractical admiration. He had been in love with duchesses and countesses, and he had made, once or twice, a perilously near approach to cynicism in declaring that the disinterestedness of women had been overrated. On the whole, he had tempered audacity with modesty, and that is but fair to him now to say explicitly that he would have been incapable of taking advantage of his present large allowance of familiarity to make love to the younger of his handsome cousins. Felix had grown up among traditions in the light of which such a proceeding looked like a grievous breach of hospitality. I have said that he was always happy, and it may be counted among the present sources of his happiness that he had as regards this matter of his relations with Gertrude a deliciously good conscience. His own deportment seemed to him suffused with the beauty of virtue, a form of beauty that he admired with the same vivacity with which he admired all other forms. I think that if you marry, said Mr. Wentworth presently, it will conduce to your happiness. SICKORISIMO Felix exclaimed, and then, arresting his brush, he looked at his uncle with a smile. There is something I feel tempted to say to you. May I risk it? Mr. Wentworth drew himself up a little. I am very safe. I don't repeat things. But he hoped Felix would not risk too much. Felix was laughing at his answer. It's odd to hear you telling me how to be happy. I don't think you know yourself, dear uncle. Now does that sound brutal? The old man was silent a moment, and then with a dry dignity that suddenly touched his nephew. We may sometimes point out to road we are unable to follow. Ah, don't tell me you have had any sorrows, Felix rejoined. I didn't suppose it, and I didn't mean to allude to them. I simply meant that you all don't amuse yourselves. Amuse ourselves? We are not children. Precisely not. You have reached the proper age. I was saying that the other day to Gertrude, Felix added. I hope it was not indiscreet. If it was, said Mr. Wentworth, with a keener irony than Felix would have thought him capable of, it was but your way of amusing yourself. I am afraid you have never had a trouble. Oh, yes I have, Felix declared with some spirit, before I knew better, but you don't catch me at it again. Mr. Wentworth maintained for a while a silence more expressive than a deep-drawn sigh. You have no children, he said at last. Don't tell me, Felix exclaimed, that your charming young people are a source of grief to you. I don't speak of Charlotte. And then after a pause Mr. Wentworth continued. I don't speak of Gertrude, but I feel considerable anxiety about Clifford. I will tell you another time. The next time he gave Felix a sitting his nephew reminded him that he had taken him into his confidence. How is Clifford today? Felix asked. He has always seemed to me a young man of remarkable discretion. Indeed he is only too discreet. He seems on his guard against me, as if he thought me rather light company. The other day he told his sister, Gertrude repeated it to me, that I was always laughing at him. If I laugh it is simply from the impulse to try and inspire him with confidence. That is the only way I have. Your situation is no laughing matter, said Mr. Wentworth. It is very peculiar, as I suppose you have guessed. Ah, you mean his love affair with his cousin? Mr. Wentworth stared, blushing a little. I mean his absence from college. He has been suspended. We have decided not to speak of it unless we are asked. Suspended? Felix repeated. He has been requested by the Harvard authorities to absent himself for six months. Meanwhile he is studying with Mr. Brand. We think Mr. Brand will help him. At least we hope so. What befell him at college? Felix asked. He was too fond of pleasure. Mr. Brand certainly will not teach him any of those secrets. He was too fond of something of which he should not have been fond. I suppose it is considered a pleasure. Felix gave his light laugh. My dear uncle, is there any doubt about its being a pleasure? Say to Sainte-Age, as they say in France. I should have said rather it was a vice of later life, of disappointed old age. Felix glanced at his uncle with his lifted eyebrows, and then, Of what are you speaking? he demanded, smiling. Of the situation in which Clifford was found. Ah, he was found. He was caught. Necessarily, he was caught. He couldn't walk. He staggered. Oh, said Felix. He drinks. I rather suspected that, from something I observed the first day I came here. I quite agree with you that it is a low taste. It's not a vice for a gentleman. He ought to give it up. We hope for a good deal from Mr. Brand's influence. Mr. Wentworth went on. He has talked to him from the first, and he never touches anything himself. I will talk to him. I will talk to him. Felix declared gaily. What will you say to him? asked his uncle with some apprehension. Felix for some moments answered nothing. Do you mean to marry him to his cousin? he asked at last. Marry him, echoed Mr. Wentworth. I shouldn't think his cousin would want to marry him. You have no understanding, then, with Mrs. Acton. Mr. Wentworth stared almost blankly. I have never discussed such subjects with her. I should think it might be time, said Felix. Lizzie Acton is admirably pretty, and if Clifford is dangerous. They are not engaged, said Mr. Wentworth. I have no reason to suppose they are engaged. Par exempla, cried Felix, a clandestine engagement. Trust me, Clifford, as I say as a charming boy, he is incapable of that. Lizzie Acton, then, would not be jealous of another woman. I certainly hope not, said the old man, with a vague sense of jealousy, being an even lower vice than a love of liquor. The best thing for Clifford, then, Felix propounded, is to become interested in some clever, charming woman. And he paused in his painting, and with his elbows on his knees, looked with bright communiciveness at his uncle. You see, I believe greatly in the influence of women. Living with women helps to make a man a gentleman. It is very true Clifford has his sisters, who are so charming, but there should be a different sentiment in play from the fraternal, you know. He has Lizzie Acton, but she perhaps is rather immature. I suspect Lizzie has talked to him, reasoned with him, said Mr. Wentworth. On the impropriety of getting tipsy, on the beauty of temperance, that is, drew a work for a pretty young girl. No, Felix continued, Clifford ought to frequent some agreeable woman who, without ever mentioning such unsavory subjects, would give him a sense of its being very ridiculous to be fuddled. If he could fall in love with her a little, so much the better. The thing would operate as a cure. Well, now, what lady should you suggest? Asked Mr. Wentworth. There is a clever woman under your hand, my sister. Your sister, under my hand, Mr. Wentworth repeated. Say a word to Clifford. Tell him to be bold. He is well disposed already. He has invited her two or three times to drive. But I don't think he comes to see her. Give him a hint to come, to come often. He will sit there of an afternoon and they will talk. It will do him good. Mr. Wentworth meditated. You think she will exercise a helpful influence? She will exercise a civilizing, I may call it a sobering influence. A charming, clever, witty woman always does, especially if she is a little of a coquette. My dear uncle, the society of such women has been half my education. If Clifford is suspended, as you say, from college, let Eugenia be his perceptress. Mr. Wentworth continued thoughtful. You think Eugenia is a coquette? He asked. What pretty woman is not? Felix demanded in turn. But this, for Mr. Wentworth, could at the best have been no answer, for he did not think his niece pretty. With Clifford, the young man pursued, Eugenia will simply be enough of a coquette to be a little ironical. That's what he needs, so you recommend him to be nice with her, you know. The suggestion will come best from you. Do I understand, asked the old man, but I am to suggest to my son to make a profession of affection to Madame Munster. Yes, yes, a profession, cried Felix sympathetically. But as I understand it, Madame Munster is a married woman. Ah, said Felix, smiling. Of course she can't marry him, but she will do what she can. Mr. Wentworth sat for some time with his eyes on the floor. At last he got up. I don't think, he said, that I can undertake to recommend my son any such course. And without meeting Felix's surprised glance he broke off his sitting, which was not resumed for a fortnight. Felix was very fond of the little lake which occupied so many of Mr. Wentworth's numerous acres, and of a remarkable pine grove which lay upon the further side of it, planted upon a steep embankment and haunted by the summer breeze, the murmur of the air and the far-off treetops had a strange distinctness. It was almost articulate. One afternoon the young man came out of his painting room and passed the open door of Eugenia's little salon. Within in the cool dimness he saw his sister, dressed in white, buried in her armchair, and holding to her face an immense bouquet. Opposite to her sat Clifford Wentworth twirling his hat. He had evidently just presented the bouquet to the baroness, whose fine eyes as she glanced at him over the big roses and geraniums wore a conversational smile. Felix, standing on the threshold of the cottage, hesitated for a moment as to whether he should retrace his steps and enter the parlor. Then he went his way and passed into Mr. Wentworth's garden. That civilizing process to which he had suggested that Clifford should be suggested, appeared to have come on of itself. Felix was very sure at least that Mr. Wentworth had not adopted his ingenious device for stimulating the young man's aesthetic consciousness. Doubtless he supposes, he said to himself, after the conversation that has been narrated, that I desire, out of fraternal benevolence, to procure for Eugenia the amusement of a flirtation, or as he probably calls it an intrigue, with the two susceptible Clifford. It must be admitted, and I have noticed it before, that nothing exceeds the license occasionally taken by the imagination of very rigid people. Felix on his own side had, of course, said nothing to Clifford, but he had observed to Eugenia that Mr. Wentworth was much mortified at his son's low taste. We ought to do something to help them, after all their kindness to us, he had added. Encourage Clifford to come and see you, and inspire him with a taste for conversation. That will supplant the other, which only comes from his perility, from his not taking his position in the world, that of a rich young man of ancient stock, seriously enough. Make him a little more serious, even if he makes love to you, it is no great matter. I am to offer myself as a superior form of intoxication, a substitute for a brandy bottle, a, asked the Baroness, truly in this country one comes to strange uses. But she had not positively declined to undertake Clifford's higher education, and Felix, who had not thought of the matter again, being haunted with visions of more personal profit, now reflected that the work of redemption had fairly begun. The idea and prospect had seemed of the happiest, but in operation it made him a trifle uneasy. What if Eugenia? What if Eugenia? he asked himself softly, the question dying away in his sense of Eugenia's undetermined capacity. But before Felix had time either to accept or to reject its admonition, even in this vague form, he saw Robert Acton turn out of Mr. Wentworth's enclosure by a distant gate, and come toward the cottage in the orchard. Acton had evidently walked from his own house along a shady byway and was intending to pay a visit to Madame Munster. Felix watched him a moment, then he turned away. Acton could be left to play the part of Providence and interrupt, if interruption were needed, Clifford's entanglement with Eugenia. Felix passed through the garden toward the house, and toward a poster gate which opened upon a path leading across the fields beside a little wood to the lake. He stopped and looked up at the house. His eyes rested more particularly upon a certain open window on the shady side. Presently Gertrude appeared there, looking out into the summer light. He took off his hat to her and bade her good day. He remarked that he was going to roll across the pond and begged that she would do him the honor to accompany him. She looked at him a moment, then without saying anything, she turned away. But she soon reappeared below in one of those quaint and charming leghorn hats tied with white satin bows that were worn at that period. She also carried a green parasol. She went with him to the edge of the lake, where a couple of boats were always moored. They got into one of them, and Felix, with gentle strokes, propelled it to the opposite shore. The day was the perfection of summer weather, the little lake was the color of sunshine, the splash of the oars was the only sound, and they found themselves listening to it. They disembarked and, by a winding path, ascended the pine-crested mound which overlooked the water, whose white expanse glittered between the trees. The place was delightfully cool, and had the added charm that, in the softly sounding pine-bows, you seemed to hear the coolness as well as Felix. Felix and Gertrude sat down on the rust-colored carpet of pine needles and talked of many things. Felix spoke at last in the course of talk of his going away. It was the first time he had alluded to it. "'You are going away,' said Gertrude, looking at him. Some day, when the leaves begin to fall, you know I can't stay forever.' Gertrude transferred her eyes to the outer prospect, and then after a pause she said, "'I shall never see you again.' "'Why not?' asked Felix. We shall probably both survive my departure. But Gertrude only repeated. "'I shall never see you again. I shall never hear of you,' she went on. "'I shall know nothing about you. I knew nothing about you before, and it will be the same again.' "'I knew nothing about you, then, unfortunately,' said Felix, but now I shall write to you.' "'Don't write to me. I shall not answer you,' Gertrude declared. "'I should, of course, burn your letters,' said Felix.' Gertrude looked at him again. "'Burn my letters. You sometimes say strange things.' "'They are not strange in themselves,' the young man answered. "'They are only strange as said to you. You will come to Europe. With whom shall I come?' She asked this question simply. She was very much an earnest. Felix was interested in her earnestness. For some moments he hesitated. "'You can't tell me that,' she pursued. "'You can't say that I shall go with my father and my sister. You don't believe that.' "'I shall keep your letters,' said Felix presently, for all answer. "'I never write. I don't know how to write.' Gertrude for some time said nothing more, and her companion, as he looked at her, wished it had not been disloyal to make love to the daughter of an old gentleman who had offered one hospitality. The afternoon waned, the shadows stretched themselves, and the light grew deeper in the western sky. Two persons appeared on the opposite side of the lake, coming from the house and crossing the meadow. "'It is Charlotte and Mr. Brand,' said Gertrude. "'They are coming over here.' But Charlotte and Mr. Brand only came down to the edge of the water, and stood there looking across. They made no motion to enter the boat that Felix had left at the mooring place. Felix waved his hat to them. It was too far to call. They made no visible response, and they presently turned away and walked along the shore. "'Mr. Brand is not demonstrative,' said Felix. "'He is never demonstrative to me. He sits silent with his chin in his hand, looking at me. Sometimes he looks away. Your father tells me he is so eloquent, and I should like to hear him talk. He looks like such a noble young man, but with me he will never talk, and yet I am so fond of listening to brilliant imagery.' "'He is very eloquent,' said Gertrude. "'But he has no brilliant imagery. I have heard him talk a great deal. I knew that when they saw us they would not come over here.' "'Ah, he is making liqueur,' as they say, to your sister. They desire to be alone.' "'No,' said Gertrude gravely. "'They have no such reason as that for being alone.' "'But why doesn't he make liqueur to Charlotte?' Felix inquired. "'She is so pretty, so gentle, so good.' Gertrude glanced at him, and then she looked at the distantly seen couple they were discussing. Mr. Brand and Charlotte were walking side by side. They might have been a pair of lovers, and yet they might not. "'They think I should not be here,' said Gertrude. "'With me? I thought you didn't have those ideas.' "'You don't understand. There are great many things you don't understand.' "'I understand my stupidity, but why then do not Charlotte and Mr. Brand, who, as an elder sister and a clergyman, are free to walk about together, come over and make me wiser by breaking up the unlawful interview in which I have lured you?' "'That is the last thing they would do,' said Gertrude. Felix stared at her a moment with his lifted eyebrows. "'Je n'ai qu'en pas, Rhian,' he exclaimed. Then his eyes followed for a while the retreating figures of this critical pair. "'You may say what you please,' he declared. It is evident to me that your sister is not indifferent to her clever companion. It is agreeable to her to be walking there with him. I can see that from here.' And in the excitement of observation Felix rose to his feet. Gertrude rose also, but she made no attempt to emulate her companion's discovery. She looked rather in another direction. Felix's words had struck her, but a certain delicacy checked her. She is certainly not indifferent to Mr. Brand. She has the highest opinion of him. "'One can see it, one can see it,' said Felix, in a tone of amused contemplation, with his head on one side. Gertrude turned her back to the opposite shore. It was disagreeable to her to look, but she hoped Felix would say something more. "'Ah, they have wandered away into the wood,' he added. Gertrude turned round again. "'She is not in love with him,' she said. It seemed her duty to say that. "'Then he is in love with her, or if he is not, he ought to be. She is such a perfect little woman of her kind. She reminds me of a pair of old-fashioned silver sugar tongs. You know, I am very fond of sugar. And she is very nice with Mr. Brand. I have noticed that. Very gentle and gracious.' Gertrude reflected a moment. Then she took a great resolution. "'She wants him to marry me,' she said. So of course she is nice. Felix's eyebrows rose higher than ever. "'To marry you?' "'Ah, ah, this is interesting. And you think one must be very nice with a man to induce him to do that?' Gertrude had turned a little pale, but she went on. Mr. Brand wants it himself. Felix folded his arms and stood looking at her. "'I see, I see,' he said quickly. Why did you never tell me this before?' "'It is disagreeable to me to speak of it even now. I wish simply to explain to you about Charlotte.' "'You don't wish to marry Mr. Brand, then?' "'No,' said Gertrude gravely. "'And does your father wish it?' "'Very much.' "'And you don't like him? You've refused him.' "'I don't wish to marry him.' "'Your father and sister think you ought to, eh?' "'It is a long story,' said Gertrude. "'They think there are good reasons. I can't explain it. They think I have obligations and that I have encouraged him.' Felix smiled at her as if she had been telling him an amusing story about someone else. "'I can't tell you how this interests me,' he said. "'Now you don't recognize these reasons, these obligations?' "'I am not sure. It is not easy.' And she picked up her parasol and turned away as if to descend the slope. "'Tell me this,' Felix went on, going with her. "'Are you likely to give in to let them persuade you?' Gertrude looked at him with a serious face that she had constantly worn and opposition to his almost eager smile. "'I shall never marry Mr. Brand,' she said. "'I see,' Felix rejoined. And they solely descended the hill together, saying nothing till they reached the margin of the pond. "'It is your own affair,' he then resumed. "'But do you know I'm not altogether glad? If that were settled that you were to marry Mr. Brand, I should take a certain comfort in the arrangement. I should feel more free. I have no right to make love to you myself, eh?' And he paused, lightly pressing his argument upon her. "'None whatever,' replied Gertrude quickly, too quickly. Your father would never hear of it. I haven't a penny. Mr. Brand, of course, has property of his own, eh?' "'I believe he has some property, but that has nothing to do with it.' "'With you, of course not, but with your father and sister it must have. So as I say, if this were settled I should feel more at liberty.' "'More at liberty?' Gertrude repeated. "'Please, unfasten the boat.' Felix untwisted the rope and stood holding it. "'I should be able to say things to you that I can't give myself the pleasure of saying now,' he went on. "'I could tell you how much I admire you without seeming to pretend to that which I have no right to pretend to. I should make violent love to you,' he added, laughing. "'If I thought you were so placed as not to be offended by it.' "'You mean if I were engaged to another man?' "'That is strange reasoning,' Gertrude exclaimed. "'In that case you would not take me seriously.' "'I take everyone seriously,' said Gertrude. And without his help she stepped lightly into the boat. Felix took up the oars and sent it forward. "'Ah, this is what you have been thinking about. It seemed to me you had something on your mind. I wish very much,' he added, that you would tell me some of these so-called reasons, these obligations. "'They are not real reasons, good reasons,' said Gertrude, looking at the pink and yellow gleams in the water. "'I can understand that. Because a handsome girl has had a spark of coca-tree. That is no reason.' "'If you mean me, it's not that. I have not done that.' "'It is something that troubles you at any rate,' said Felix. "'Not so much as it used to,' Gertrude rejoined. He looked at her, smiling always. "'That is not saying much, eh?' But she only rested her eyes very gravely on the lighted water. She seemed to him to be trying to hide the signs of the trouble of which she had just told him. Felix felt at all times much the same impulse to dissipate visible melancholy that a good housewife feels to brush away dust. There was something he wished to brush away now. Suddenly he stopped rowing and poised his oars. "'Why should Mr. Brand have addressed himself to you and not to your sister?' he asked. "'I am sure she would listen to him.' Gertrude, in her family, was thought capable of a good deal of levity, but her levity had never gone so far as this. It moved her greatly, however, to hear Felix say that he was sure of something, so that raising her eyes toward him she tried intently for some moments to conjure up this wonderful image of a love affair between her own sister and her own suitor. We know that Gertrude had an imaginative mind, so that it is not impossible that this effort should have been partially successful. But she only murmured. "'Ah, Felix. Ah, Felix.' "'Why shouldn't they marry? Try and make them marry,' cried Felix. "'Try and make them. Turn the tables on them. Then they will leave you alone. I will help you as far as I can.' Gertrude's heart began to beat. She was greatly excited. She had never had anything so interesting proposed to her before. Felix had begun to row again, and he now sent the boat home with long strokes. "'I believe she does care for him,' said Gertrude, after they had disembarked. "'Of course she does, and we will marry them off. It will make them happy. It will make everyone happy. We shall have a wedding, and I will write an epithelameum.' "'It seems as if it would make me happy,' said Gertrude. "'To get rid of Mr. Brande, to recover your liberty?' Gertrude walked on. "'To see my sister married to so good a man.' Felix gave his light laugh. "'You always put things on those grounds. You will never say anything for yourself. You are all so afraid here of being selfish. I don't think you know how,' he went on. "'Let me show you. It will make me happy for myself and for just the reverse of what I told you a while ago. After that, when I make love to you, you will have to think I mean it.' "'I shall never think you mean anything,' said Gertrude. "'You are too fantastic.' "'Ah!' cried Felix. "'That's a license to say everything.' "'Gertrude, I adore you.' End of Chapter 7. CHAPTER VIII. OF THE EUROPEANS. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. THE EUROPEANS by Henry James. CHAPTER VIII. Charlotte and Mr. Brande had not returned when they reached the house, but the Baroness had come to tea and Robert Acton also, who now regularly asked for a place at this generous for-past, or made his appearance later in the evening. Clifford Wentworth, with his juvenile growl, remarked upon it. "'You were always coming to tea nowadays, Robert,' he said. "'I should think you had drunk enough tea in China.' "'Since when is Mr. Acton more frequent?' asked the Baroness. "'Since you came,' said Clifford, it seems as if you were a kind of attraction. "'I suppose I am a curiosity,' said the Baroness. "'Give me time, and I will make you a salon.' "'It would fall to pieces after you go,' exclaimed Acton. "'Don't talk about her going in that familiar way,' Clifford said. "'It makes me feel gloomy.' Mr. Wentworth glanced at his son, and taking note of these words, wondered if Felix had been teaching him, according to the program he had sketched out, to make love to the wife of a German prince. Charlotte came in late with Mr. Brand, but Gertrude, to whom at least Felix had taught something, looked in vain in her face for the traces of a guilty passion. Mr. Brand sat down by Gertrude, and she presently asked him why they had not crossed the pond to join Felix and herself. "'It is cruel of you to ask me that,' he answered very softly. "'He had a large morsel of cake before him, but he fingered it without eating it.' "'I sometimes think you are growing cruel,' he added. Gertrude said nothing. She was afraid to speak. There was a kind of rage in her heart. She felt as if she could easily persuade herself that she was persecuted. She said to herself that it was quite right that she should not allow him to make her believe she was wrong. She thought of what Felix had said to her. She wished indeed Mr. Brand would marry Charlotte. She looked away from him and spoke no more. Mr. Brand ended by eating his cake, while Felix sat opposite, describing to Mr. Wentworth the students' duels at Heidelberg. After tea they all dispersed themselves as usual, upon the piazza and in the garden, and Mr. Brand drew near to Gertrude again. "'I didn't come to you this afternoon because you were not alone,' he began, "'because you were with a newer friend.' "'Felix, he is an old friend by this time.' Mr. Brand looked at the ground for some moments. "'I thought I was prepared to hear you speak in that way,' he resumed. "'But I find it very painful.' "'I don't see what else I can say,' said Gertrude. Mr. Brand walked beside her for a while in silence, Gertrude wished he would go away. He is certainly very accomplished, but I think I ought to advise you.' "'To advise me?' "'I think I know your nature.' "'I think you don't,' said Gertrude, with a soft laugh. "'You make yourself out worse than you are, to please him,' Mr. Brand said gently. "'Worse? To please him?' "'What do you mean?' asked Gertrude, stopping. Mr. Brand stopped also, and with the same soft straight forwardness. "'He doesn't care for the things you care for, the great questions of life.' Gertrude, with her eyes on his, shook her head. "'I don't care for the great questions of life. They are much beyond me.' "'There was a time when you didn't say that,' said Mr. Brand. "'Oh,' rejoined Gertrude, "'I think you made me talk a great deal of nonsense. "'And it depends,' she added, upon what you call the great questions of life. "'There are some things I care for.' "'Are they the things you talk about with your cousin?' "'You should not say things to me against my cousin, Mr. Brand,' said Gertrude. "'That is dishonorable.' "'He listened to this respectfully.' Then he answered, with a little vibration of the voice. "'I should be very sorry to do anything dishonorable. But I don't see why it is dishonorable to say that your cousin is frivolous. "'Go and say it to himself.' "'I think he would admit it,' said Mr. Brand. "'That is the tone he would take. He would not be ashamed of it.' "'Then I am not ashamed of it,' Gertrude declared. "'That is probably what I like him for. I am frivolous myself.' "'You are trying, as I said just now, to lower yourself.' "'I am trying for once to be natural,' cried Gertrude passionately. "'I have been pretending all my life. I have been dishonest. It is you that have made me so.' Mr. Brand stood gazing at her and she went on. "'Why shouldn't I be frivolous if I want? One has a right to be frivolous if it's one's nature. No, I don't care for the great questions. I care for pleasure, for amusement. Perhaps I am fond of wicked things. It is very possible.' Mr. Brand remained staring. He was even a little pale as if he had been frightened. "'I don't think you know what you are saying,' he exclaimed. "'Perhaps not. Perhaps I am talking nonsense. But it is only with you that I talk nonsense. I never do so with my cousin.' "'I will speak to you again when you are less excited,' said Mr. Brand. "'I am always excited when you speak to me. I must tell you that, even if it prevents you altogether in future. Your speaking to me irritates me. With my cousin it is very different. That seems quiet and natural.' He looked at her, and then he looked away, with a kind of helpless distress at the dusky garden and the faint summer stars, after which suddenly turning back. "'Gertrude, Gertrude,' he softly groaned, "'am I really losing you?' She was touched, she was pained. But it had already occurred to her that she might do something better than say so. It would not have alleviated her companions' distress to perceive just then, whence she had sympathetically borrowed this ingenuity. "'I am not sorry for you,' Gertrude said. For in paying so much attention to me you are following a shadow, you are wasting something precious. There is something else you might have that you don't look at, something better than I am. That is a reality.' And then with intention she looked at him and tried to smile a little. She thought this smile of hers very strange, but she turned away and left him. She wandered about alone in the garden, wondering what Mr. Brand would make of her words, which it had been a singular pleasure for her to utter. Shortly after, passing in front of the house, she saw at a distance two persons standing near the garden gate. It was Mr. Brand going away, and bidding good night to Charlotte, who had walked down with him from the house. Brand saw that the parting was prolonged. Then she turned her back upon it. She had not gone very far, however, when she heard her sister slowly following her. She neither turned round nor waited for her. She knew what Charlotte was going to say. Charlotte, who at last overtook her, in fact presently began. She had passed her arm into Gertrude's. "'Will you listen to me, dear, if I say something very particular?' "'I know what you're going to say,' said Gertrude. Mr. Brand feels very badly. "'Oh, Gertrude, how can you treat him so?' Charlotte demanded. And as her sister made no answer, she added. After all, he is done for you. "'What has he done for me?' "'I wonder you can ask, Gertrude. He has helped you so. You told me so yourself a great many times. You told me that he helped you to struggle with your peculiarities. You told me that he had taught you how to govern your temper.' "'For a moment,' Gertrude said, nothing. Then.' "'Was my temper very bad?' she asked. "'I am not accusing you, Gertrude,' said Charlotte. "'What are you doing, then?' Her sister demanded, with a short laugh. "'I am pleading for Mr. Brand, reminding you of all you owe him.' "'I have given it all back,' said Gertrude, still with her little laugh. He can take back the virtue he imparted. I want to be wicked again.' Her sister made her stop in the path and fixed upon her in the darkness a sweet reproachful gaze. "'If you talk this way I shall almost believe it. Think of all we owe, Mr. Brand. Think of how he has always expected something of you. Think how much he has been to us. Think of his beautiful influence upon Clifford.' "'He is very good,' said Gertrude, looking at her sister. I know he is very good, but he shouldn't speak against Felix.' "'Felix is good,' Charlotte answered, softly but promptly. "'Felix is very wonderful. Only he is so different. Mr. Brand is much nearer to us. I should never think of going to Felix with a trouble, with a question. Mr. Brand is much more to us, Gertrude.' "'He is very, very good,' Gertrude repeated. "'He is more to you, yes, much more. Charlotte,' she added suddenly. "'You are in love with him.' "'Oh, Gertrude,' cried poor Charlotte, and her sister saw her blushing in the darkness. Gertrude put her arm round her. "'I wish he would marry you,' she went on. Charlotte shook herself free. "'You must not say such things,' she exclaimed, beneath her breath. "'You like him more than you say, and he likes you more than he knows.' "'This is very cruel of you,' Charlotte went worth murmur. But if it was cruel, Gertrude continued pitiless. "'Not if it's true,' she answered. "'I wish he would marry you.' "'Please don't say that.' "'I mean to tell him so,' said Gertrude. "'Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude,' her sister almost moaned. "'Yes, if he speaks to me again about myself. I will say, why don't you marry Charlotte? She's a thousand times better than I.' "'You are wicked. You are changed,' cried her sister. "'If you don't like it, you can prevent it,' said Gertrude. "'You can prevent it by keeping him from speaking to me.' And with this she walked away, very conscious of what she had done, measuring it and finding a certain joy and a quick and sense of freedom in it.' Mr. Wentworth was rather wide of the mark and suspecting that Clifford had begun to pay unscrupulous compliments to his brilliant cousin. For the young man had really more scruples than he received credit for in his family. He had a certain transparent shame-facedness, which was in itself a proof that he was not at his ease in dissipation. His collegiate peccadillos had aroused a domestic murmur as disagreeable to the young man as the creaking of his boots would have been to a housebreaker. Only as the housebreaker would have simplified matters by removing his chasseurs, it had seemed to Clifford that the shortest cut to comfortable relations with people, relations which should make him cease to think that when they spoke to him they meant something improving, was to renounce all ambition toward a nefarious development. And, in fact, Clifford's ambition took the most commendable form. He thought of himself in the future as the well-known and much-liked Mr. Wentworth of Boston, who should, in the natural course of prosperity, have married his pretty cousin, Lizzie Acton, should live in a wide-fronted house in view of the common, and should drive behind a light wagon over the damp autumn roads a pair of beautifully-matched, sorrel horses. Clifford's vision of the coming years was very simple. Its most definite features were this element of familiar matrimony and the duplication of his resources for trotting. He had not yet asked his cousin to marry him, but he meant to do so as soon as he had taken his degree. Lizzie was serenely conscious of his intention, and she had made up her mind that he would improve. Her brother, who was very fond of this light-quick, competent little Lizzie, saw on his side no reason to interpose. It seemed to him a graceful social law that Clifford and his sister should become engaged. He himself was not engaged, but everyone else, fortunately, was not such a fool as he. He was fond of Clifford as well, and had his own way, of which it must be confessed he was a little ashamed, of looking at those aberrations which had led to the young man's compulsory retirement from the neighboring seat of learning. Acton had seen the world, as he said to himself. He had been to China and had knocked about among men. He had learned the essential difference between a nice young fellow and a mean young fellow, and was satisfied that there was no harm in Clifford. He believed, although it must be added that he had not quite the courage to declare it, and the doctrine of wild oats, and thought it a useful preventive of superfluous fears. If Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte and Mr. Brand would only apply it in Clifford's case, they would be happier, and Acton thought it a pity they should not be happier. They took the boy's misdemeanors too much to heart. They talked to him too solemnly. They frightened and bewildered him. Of course there was the great standard of morality, which forbade that a man should get tipsy, play at billiards for money, or cultivate his sensual consciousness. But what fear was there that poor Clifford was going to run a tilt at any great standard? It had, however, never occurred to Acton to dedicate the barrenness monster to the redemption of a refractory collegian. The instrument here would have seemed to him quite too complex for the operation. Felix, on the other hand, had spoken in obedience to the belief that the more charming a woman is, the more numerous, literally, are her definite social uses. Eugenia herself, as we know, had plenty of leisure to enumerate her uses. As I have had the honor of intimating, she had come four thousand miles to seek her fortune, and it is not to be supposed that after this great effort she could neglect any apparent aid to advancement. It is my misfortune then in attempting to describe in a short compass the deportment of this remarkable woman I am obliged to express things rather brutally. I feel this to be the case, for instance, when I say that she had primarily detected such an aid to advancement in the person of Robert Acton, but that she had afterwards remembered that a prudent archer has always a second bowstring. Eugenia was a woman of finely mingled motive, and her intentions were never sensibly gross. She had a sort of aesthetic ideal for Clifford, which seemed to her a disinterested reason for taking him in hand. It was very well for a fresh-colored young gentleman to be ingenuous, but Clifford really was crude. With such a pretty face he ought to have prettier manners. She would teach him that, with a beautiful name, the expectation of a large property, and as they said in Europe, a social position, an only son should know how to carry himself. Once Clifford had begun to come and see her by himself and for himself, he came very often. He hardly knew why he should come. He saw her almost every evening at his father's house. He had nothing particular to say to her. She was not a young girl, and fellows of his age called only upon young girls. He exaggerated her age. She seemed to him an old woman. It was happy that the baroness, with all her intelligence, was incapable of guessing this. But gradually it struck Clifford that visiting old women might be, if not a natural, at least as they say of some articles of diet, an acquired taste. The baroness was certainly a very amusing old woman. She talked to him as no lady, and indeed no gentleman, had ever talked to him before. You should go to Europe and make the tour, she said to him one afternoon. Of course on leaving college you will go. I don't want to go, Clifford declared. I know some fellows who have been to Europe. They say you can have better fun here. That depends. It depends upon your idea of fun. Your friends probably were not introduced. Introduced? Clifford demanded. They had no opportunity of going into society. They formed no relations. This was one of a certain number of words that the baroness often pronounced in the French manner. They went to a ball in Paris. I know that, said Clifford. Ah, there are balls and balls, especially in Paris. No, you must go, you know. It is not a thing from which you can dispense yourself. You need it. Oh, I'm very well, said Clifford. I'm not sick. I don't mean for your help, my poor child. I mean for your manners. I haven't got any manners, growled Clifford. Precisely. You don't mind my assenting to that, eh? Asked the baroness with a smile. You must go to Europe and get a few. You can get them better there. It is a pity you might not have come while I was living in Germany. I would have introduced you. I had a charming little circle. You would perhaps have been rather young, but the younger one begins, I think, the better. Now at any rate you have no time to lose, and when I return you must immediately come to me. All this to Clifford's apprehension was a great mixture. His beginning young, Eugenia's return to Europe, his being introduced to her charming little circle. What was he to begin, and what was her little circle? His ideas about her marriage had a good deal of vagueness. But they were in so far definite as that he felt it to be a matter not to be freely mentioned. He sat and looked all round the room. He supposed she was alluding in some way to her marriage. Oh, I don't want to go to Germany, he said. It seemed to him the most convenient thing to say. She looked at him a while, smiling with her lips, but not with her eyes. You have scruples, she asked. Scruples, said Clifford. You young people here are very singular. One doesn't know where to expect you. When you are not extremely improper you are so terribly proper. I dare say you think that, owing to my irregular marriage, I live with loose people. You were never more mistaken. I have been all the more particular. Oh, no, said Clifford, honestly distressed. I never thought such a thing as that. Are you very sure? I am convinced that your father does, and your sisters. They say to each other that here I am on my good behavior, but that over there, married by the left hand, I associate with light women. Oh, no, cried Clifford energetically. They don't say such things as that to each other. If they think them they had better say them, the Baroness rejoined. Then they can be contradicted. Please contradict that whenever you hear it, and don't be afraid of coming to see me on account of the company I keep. I have the honor of knowing more distinguished men, my poor child, than you are likely to see in a lifetime. I see very few women, but those are women of rank. So, my dear young Puritan, you needn't be afraid. I am not in the least one of those who think that the society of women who have lost their place in the very mound is necessary to form a young man. I have never taken that tone. I have kept my place myself, and I think we are a much better school than the others. Trust me, Clifford, and I will prove that to you. And Baroness continued, while she made the agreeable reflection that she could not at least be accused of perverting her young kinsmen. So if you ever follow on thieves, don't go about saying I sent you to them. Clifford thought it so comical that he should know, in spite of her figurative language, what she meant, and that she should mean what he knew that he could hardly help laughing a little, although he tried hard. Oh, no! Oh, no! He murmured. Laugh out! Laugh out if I amuse you, cried the Baroness. I am here for that. And Clifford thought her a very amusing person, indeed. But remember, she said on this occasion, that you are coming, next year, to pay me a visit over there. About a week afterwards she said to him point blank. Are you seriously making love to your little cousin? Seriously making love. These words, on Madame Munster's lips, had to Clifford sense a portentious and embarrassing sound. He hesitated about assenting, lest he should commit himself to more than he understood. Well, I shouldn't say it if I was, he exclaimed. Why wouldn't you say it? The Baroness demanded. Those things ought to be known. I don't care whether it is known or not, Clifford rejoined. But I don't want people looking at me. A young man of your importance ought to learn to bear observation, to carry himself as if you were quite indifferent to it. I won't say exactly unconscious, the Baroness explained. No, he must seem to know he is observed, and to think it natural he should be. But he must appear perfectly used to it. Now you haven't that, Clifford. You haven't that at all. You must have that, you know. Don't tell me you are not a young man of importance, Eugenia added. Don't say anything so flat as that. Oh, no, you don't catch me saying that, cried Clifford. Yes, you must come to Germany, Madame Munster continued. I will show you how people can be talked about, and yet not seem to know it. You will be talked about, of course, with me. You will be said you are my lover. I will show you how little one may mind that. How little I shall mind it. Clifford sat staring, blushing, and laughing. I shall mind it a good deal, he declared. Ah, not too much, you know. That would be uncivil. But I give you leave to mind it a little, especially if you have a passion for Miss Acton. Foyant, as regards that you either have or you have not, it is very simple to say it. I don't see why you want to know, said Clifford. You ought to want me to know. If one is arranging a marriage, one tells one's friends. Oh, I'm not arranging anything, said Clifford. You don't intend to marry your cousin? Well, I expect I shall do as I choose. The Baroness leaned her head upon the back of her chair and closed her eyes as if she were tired, then opening them again. Your cousin is very charming, she said. She is the prettiest girl in this place, Clifford rejoined. In this place is saying little. She would be charming anywhere. I'm afraid you are entangled. Oh, no, I'm not entangled. Are you engaged at your age, that is the same thing? Clifford looked at the Baroness with some audacity. Will you tell no one? If it's as sacred as that, no. Well then, we are not, said Clifford. That's the great secret that you are not, A, asked the Baroness with a quick laugh. I am very glad to hear it. You are altogether too young. A young man in your position must choose and compare. He must see the world first. Depend upon it, she added. You should not settle that matter before you have come abroad and paid me that visit. There are several things I should like to call your attention to first. Well, I am rather afraid of that visit, said Clifford. It seems to me it will be rather like going to school again. The Baroness looked at him a moment. My dear child, she said, there is no agreeable man who is not at some moment been to school to a clever woman, probably a little older than himself, and you must be thankful when you get your instructions, Gratis. With me you would get it, Gratis. The next day Clifford told Lizzie Acton that the Baroness thought her the most charming girl she had ever seen. Lizzie shook her head. No, she doesn't, she said. Do you think everything she says, asked Clifford, is to be taken the opposite way? I think that is, said Lizzie. Clifford was going to remark that in this case the Baroness must desire greatly to bring about a marriage between Mr. Clifford Wentworth and Ms. Elizabeth Acton, but he resolved on the whole to suppress this observation. CHAPTER IX It seemed to Robert Acton, after Eugenia had come to his house, that something had passed between them which made them a good deal more intimate. It was hard to say exactly what, except her telling him that she had taken her resolution with regard to the Prince Adolf. For Madame Munster's visit had made no difference in their relations. He came to see her very often, but he had come to see her very often before. It was agreeable to him to find himself in her little drawing room, but this was not a new discovery. There was a change, however, in this sense, that if the Baroness had been a great deal in Acton's thoughts before, she was now never out of them. From the first she had been personally fascinating, but the fascination now had become intellectual as well. He was constantly pondering her words and motions. They were as interesting as the factors in an algebraic problem. This is saying a good deal, for Acton was extremely fond of mathematics. He asked himself whether it could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not. Hoped it not so much for his own sake as for that of the amateury passion itself. If this was love, love had been overrated. Love was a poetic impulse, and his own state of feeling with regard to the Baroness was largely characterized by that imminently prosaic sentiment, curiosity. It was true, as Acton with his quietly cogitative habit observed to himself, that curiosity, pushed to a given point, might become a romantic passion, and he certainly thought enough about this charming woman to make him restless and even a little melancholy. It puzzled and vexed him at times to feel that he was not more ardent. He was not in the least bent upon remaining of Actchler. In his younger years he had been, or he had tried to be, of the opinion that it would be a good deal jollier not to marry, and he had flattered himself that his single condition was something of a citadel. It was a citadel at all events of which he had long since leveled the outworks. He had removed the guns from the ramparts. He had lowered the drawbridge across the moat. The drawbridge had swayed lightly under Madame Munster's step. Why should he not cause it to be raised again, so that she might be kept prisoner? He had an idea that she would become, in time at least, and on learning the conveniences of the place for making a lady comfortable. A tolerably patient captive. But the drawbridge was never raised, and Acton's brilliant visitor was as free to depart as she had been to come. It was part of his curiosity to know why the deuce so susceptible a man was not in love with so charming a woman. If her various graces were, as I have said, the factors in an algebraic problem, the answer to this question was the indispensable unknown quantity. The pursuit of the unknown quantity was extremely absorbing. For the present it taxed all Acton's faculties. Toward the middle of August he was obliged to leave home for some days. An old friend, with whom he had been associated in China, had begged him to come to Newport, where he lay extremely ill. His friend got better, and at the end of a week Acton was released. I used the word released, advisedly. For in spite of his attachment to his Chinese comrade, he had been but a half-hearted visitor. He felt as if he had been called away from the theatre during the progress of a remarkably interesting drama. The curtain was up all this time, and he was losing the fourth act. That fourth act, which would have been so essential to adjust appreciation of the fifth. In other words, he was thinking about the baroness, who's seen at this distance, seemed a truly brilliant figure. He saw at Newport a great many pretty women, who certainly were figures as brilliant as beautiful light-dresses could make them. But though they talked a great deal, and the baroness's strong point was perhaps also her conversation, Madame Munster appeared to lose nothing by the comparison. He wished she had come to Newport, too. Would it not be possible to make up, as they said, a party for visiting the famous watering-place and invite Eugenia to join it? It was true that the complete satisfaction would be to spend a fortnight at Newport with Eugenia alone. It would be a great pleasure to see her in society carry everything before her, as he was sure she would do. When Acton caught himself thinking these thoughts, he began to walk up and down, with his hands in his pockets, frowning a little and looking at the floor. What did it prove, for it certainly proved something, this lively disposition to be off somewhere with Madame Munster away from all the rest of them? Such a vision certainly seemed a refined implication of matrimony after the baroness should have formally got rid of her informal husband. At any rate, Acton, with his characteristic discretion, forebore to give expression to whatever else it might imply, and the narrator of these incidents is not obliged to be more definite. He returned home rapidly, and arriving in the afternoon, lost as little time as possible in joining the familiar circle at Mr. Wentworth's. On reaching the house, however, he found the piazzas empty. The doors and windows were open, and their emptiness was made clear by the shafts of lamp-light from the parlours. Entering the house, he found Mr. Wentworth sitting alone in one of these apartments, engaged in the perusal of the North American review. After they had exchanged greetings, and his cousin had made discreet inquiry about his journey, Acton asked what had become of Mr. Wentworth's companions. They are scattered about, amusing themselves as usual, said the old man. I saw Charlotte a short time since seated with Mr. Brand upon the piazza. They were conversing with their customary animation. I suppose they have joined her sister, who for the hundredth time was joined the honors of the garden to her foreign cousin. I suppose you mean Felix, said Acton. And on Mr. Wentworth's assenting, he said. And the others? Your sister has not come this evening. You must have seen her at home, said Mr. Wentworth. Yes, I proposed to her to come. She declined. The I suppose was expecting a visitor, said the old man, with a kind of solemn slinus. If she was expecting Clifford he had not turned up. Mr. Wentworth at this intelligence closed the North American review, and remarked that he had understood Clifford to say that he was going to see his cousin. Privately he reflected that if Lizzie Acton had had no news of his son, Clifford must have gone to Boston for the evening. An unnatural course of a summer night, especially when accompanied with disingenuous representations. He must remember that he has two cousins, said Acton, laughing. And then coming to the point. If Lizzie is not here, he added, neither apparently is the baroness. Mr. Wentworth stared a moment and remembered that queer proposition of Felix's. For a moment he did not know whether it was not to be wished that Clifford, after all, might have gone to Boston. The baroness has not honored us tonight, he said. She has not come over for three days. Is she ill? Acton asked. No, I have been to see her. What is the matter with her? Well, said Mr. Wentworth, I infer she is tired of us. Acton pretended to sit down, but he was restless. He found it impossible to talk with Mr. Wentworth. At the end of ten minutes he took up his hat and said that he thought he would go off. It was very late, it was ten o'clock. His quiet-faced kinsman looked at him a moment. Are you going home? He asked. Acton hesitated and then answered that he had proposed to go over and take a look at the baroness. Well, you are honest at least, said Mr. Wentworth sadly. So are you if you come to that, cried Acton, laughing. Why shouldn't I be honest? The old man opened to the North American again and read a few lines. If we have ever had any virtue among us, we had better keep hold of it now, he said. He was not quoting. We have a baroness among us, said Acton. That's what we must keep hold of. He was too impatient to see Madame Munster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden. The long window of her parlor was open and he could see the white curtains with the lamp light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame Munster again. He became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza and approaching the open window tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the baroness within. She was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain. Then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling. She seemed serious. May entre donk! She said at last. Acton passed in across the window sill. He wondered for an instant what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. Better late than never, she said, it is very kind of you to come at this hour. I have just returned from my journey, said Acton. Ah, very kind, very kind. She repeated, looking about her where to sit. I went first to the other house. Acton continued. I expected to find you there. She had sunk into her usual chair. But she got up again and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick. She was looking at her, conscious that there was, in fact, a great charm in seeing her again. I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down, she said. It is too late to begin a visit. It's too early to end one, Acton declared. And we didn't mind the beginning. She looked at him again and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair while he took a place near her. We're in the middle, then, she asked. Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house. Not yesterday nor the day before, eh? I don't know how many days it is. You are tired of it, said Acton. She leaned back in her chair. Her arms were folded. That is a terrible accusation. But I have not the courage to defend myself. I am not attacking you, said Acton. I expected something of this kind. It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey. Not at all, Acton declared. I would much rather have been here with you. Now you are attacking me, said the Baroness. You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity. I confess I never get tired of people I like. Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind. Something has happened to you since I went away, said Acton, changing his place. You're going away. That is what has happened to me. Do you mean to say that you have missed me? He asked. If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest, and my compliments are worthless. Acton was silent for some moments. You have broken down, he said at last. Madame Munster left her chair and began to move about. Only for a moment I shall pull myself together again. You had better not take it too hard. If you were bored, you didn't be afraid to say so, to me at least. You shouldn't say such things as that, the Baroness answered. You should encourage me. I admire your patience, that is encouraging. You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering, and what have I had to suffer? Oh, not hunger, not unkindness certainly, said Acton, laughing. Nevertheless we all admire your patience. You all detest me, cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence turning her back toward him. You make it hard, said Acton, getting up, for a man to say something tender to you. This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her, an unwanted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way. She had mingled in its plain provincial talk. She had shared its meager and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along hitherto he had been on his guard with her. He had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light to malt in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "'We don't detest you,' he went on. "'I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself. I don't know anything about the others. Very likely you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so.' Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room. Now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "'What can be the motive?' she asked. "'Of a man like you, an honest man, a galante homme, and saying so base a thing as that.' "'Does it sound very base?' asked Acton candidly. "'I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course I don't mean it, literally.' The baroness stood looking at him. "'How do you mean it?' she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "'You know that document that you were to send to Germany,' he said. "'You called it your renunciation. Did you ever send it?' Madame Munster's eyes expanded. She looked very grave. "'What a singular answer to my question.' "'Oh, it isn't an answer,' said Acton. I have wished to ask you many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question on my part seems abrupt now, but it would be abrupt at any time.' The baroness was silent a moment, and then. "'I think I have told you too much,' she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force. He had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make. Perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "'I wish you would ask something of me,' he presently said. "'Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you.' The baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan in which she held with both hands to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "'You are very strange tonight,' she said with a little laugh. "'I will do anything in the world,' he rejoined, standing in front of her. "'Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know.' "'With you, do you mean?' "'I should be delighted to take you.' "'You alone?' Acton looked at her smiling, and yet with a serious air. "'Well, yes, we might go alone,' he said. "'If you were not what you are,' she answered, "'I should feel insulted.' "'How do you mean what I am?' "'If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life, if you were not a queer Bostonian.' "'If the gentleman you have been used to have taught you to expect insults,' said Acton, "'I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara.' "'If you wish to amuse me,' the baroness declared, "'you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually.' He sat down opposite to her. She still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "'Have you sent that document to Germany?' Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame Munster seemed, however, have to break it. "'I will tell you at Niagara,' she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened, the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. God went worth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The baroness rose quickly, and Acton more slowly did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting. He was looking at Eugenia. "'Ah, you were here,' exclaimed Acton. "'He was in Felix's studio,' said Madame Munster. He wanted to see his sketches. Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing. He only fanned himself with his hat. "'You chose a bad moment,' said Acton. You hadn't much light.' "'I hadn't any,' said Clifford, laughing. "'Your candle went out?' Eugenia asked. "'You should have come back here and lighted it again.' Clifford looked at her a moment. "'So I have. Come back. But I have left the candle.' Eugenia turned away. "'You were very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home.' "'Well,' said Clifford. "'Good night.' "'Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?' Acton asked. "'How do you do?' said Clifford. "'I thought—I thought you were—' And he paused, looking at the baroness again. You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was this morning.' "'Good night, clever child,' said Madame Munster over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her, not at all like a clever child, and then with one of his little facetious growls took his departure. "'What is the matter with him?' asked Acton when he was gone. He seemed rather in a muddle. Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "'The matter—' The matter,' she answered. "'But you don't say such things here.' "'If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that.' "'He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return he's in love with me.' It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister, but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "'I don't wonder at his passion, but I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paintbrushes.' Eugenia was silent a little. He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment. Invented it? For what purpose?' He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight, passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him,' added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprised than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "'I hope you don't encourage him,' he said. He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie.' "'To your sister?' "'You know they are decidedly intimate,' said Acton.' "'Ah!' cried Eugenia, smiling. Has she—has she—' "'I don't know,' Acton interrupted. What she has—but I always suppose that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her.' "'Ah! Par exemple!' the baroness went on. The little monster—the next time he becomes sentimental I will tell him that he ought to be ashamed of himself.' Acton was silent a moment. "'You had better say nothing about it.' "'I had told him as much already on general grounds,' said the baroness. But in this country you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say that they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her. But it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess—your sister has no governess?—well, then, who is never away from her mama—a young couple in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond the exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife. The baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility, which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye, a note of irony, as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother and her voice. If Madame Munster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified. She began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and glancing at it declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. I have not been here an hour, he said, and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in. Oh, at the other house! cried Eugenia. They are terrible people. I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman. I have rigid rules, and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours, especially clever men like you. So good night. Decidedly the Baroness was incisive, and though Acton bade her good night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame Munster's account of Clifford's disaffection, but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. I wished very much you would answer me a question, Acton said. What were you doing last night at Madame Munster's? Clifford began to laugh and to blush. By no means like a young man with a romantic secret. What did she tell you? He asked. That is exactly what I don't want to say. Well, I want to tell you the same, said Clifford, and unless I know it perhaps I can't. They had stopped in a garden path. Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you. You appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her. Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. Oh, come! he growled. You don't mean that. And that when, for common civility's sake, you came occasionally to the house, you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio under pretext of looking at his sketches. Oh, come! growled Clifford again. Did you ever know me to tell an untruth? Yes, lots of them, said Clifford, seeing an opening out of the discussion for his sarcastic powers. Well, he presently added, I thought you were my father. You knew someone was there? We heard you coming in. Acton meditated. You had been with the baroness then. I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father. And on that, asked Acton, you ran away. She told me to go, to go out by the studio. Acton meditated more intensely. If there had been a chair at hand, he would have sat down. Why should she wish you not to meet your father? Well, said Clifford, father doesn't like to see me there. Acton looked a scant at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. As he said so, he asked, to the baroness. Well, I hope not, said Clifford. He hasn't said so, in so many words, to me, but I know it worries him, and I want to stop worrying him. The baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too. To stop coming to see her. I don't know about that, but to stop worrying, father. Eugenia knows everything, Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. Ah, said Acton interrogatively, Eugenia knows everything. She knew it was not father coming in. Then why did you go? Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. Well I was afraid it was, and besides she told me to go at any rate. Did she think it was I, Acton asked. She didn't say so. Again Robert Acton reflected. But you didn't go, he presently said. You came back. I couldn't get out of the studio, Clifford rejoined. The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then suddenly I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she? Clifford added, and the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. Beautifully said Acton, especially, he continued, when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed. Oh, cried Clifford with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed a felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions. Eugenia doesn't care for anything. And hesitated a moment. Thank you for telling me this, he said at last. And then laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder he added. Tell me one thing more. Are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness? No, sir, said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. End of Chapter 9