The next day was Sunday, and in going to church they missed a call from Hoskins, whom Elmore felt bound to visit the following morning on his way to the library, and inform of his belief that the enemy had quitted Venice, and that the whole affair was probably at an end. He was strengthened in this opinion by Mrs. Elmore's fear that she might have been colder than she supposed; she hoped that she had not hurt the poor young fellow's feelings; and now that he was gone, and safely out of the way, Elmore hoped so too.
On his return from the library, his wife met him with an air of mystery before which his heart sank. "Owen," she said, "Lily has a letter."
"Not bad news from home, Celia!"
"No; a letter which she wishes to show you. It has just come. As I don't wish to influence you, I would rather not be present." Mrs. Elmore slipped out of the room, and Miss Mayhew glided gravely in,holding an open note in her hand, and looking into Elmore's eyes with a certain unfathomable candor, of which she had the secret.
"Here," she said, "is a letter which I think you ought to see at once, Professor Elmore"; and she gave him the note with an air of unconcern, which he afterward recalled without being able to determine whether it was real indifference or only the calm resulting from the transfer of the whole responsibility to him. She stood looking at him while he read:
Miss,In this evening I am just arrived from Venise, 4 hours afterwards I have had the fortune to see you and to speake with you—and to favorite me of your gentil acquaintanceship at rail-away. I never forgeet the moments I have seen you. Your pretty and nice figure had attached my heard so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to see you at Venise. And I was so lukely to speak with you cut too short, and in the possibility to understand all. I wished to go also in this Sonday to Venise, but I am sory that I cannot, beaucause I must feeled now the consequences of the desertation. Pray Miss to agree the assurance of my lov, and perhaps I will be so lukely to receive a notice from you Miss if I can hop a little (hapiness) sympathie. Très humbleE. von Ehrhardt.
Miss,
In this evening I am just arrived from Venise, 4 hours afterwards I have had the fortune to see you and to speake with you—and to favorite me of your gentil acquaintanceship at rail-away. I never forgeet the moments I have seen you. Your pretty and nice figure had attached my heard so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to see you at Venise. And I was so lukely to speak with you cut too short, and in the possibility to understand all. I wished to go also in this Sonday to Venise, but I am sory that I cannot, beaucause I must feeled now the consequences of the desertation. Pray Miss to agree the assurance of my lov, and perhaps I will be so lukely to receive a notice from you Miss if I can hop a little (hapiness) sympathie. Très humble
E. von Ehrhardt.
Elmore was not destitute of the national sense of humor; but he read this letter not only without amusement in its English, but with intense bitterness and renewed alarm. It appeared to him that the willingness of the ladies to put the affair in his hands had not strongly manifested itself till it had quite passed their own control, and had become a most embarrassing difficulty,—when, in fact, it was no longer a merit in them to confide it to him. In the resentment of that moment, his suspicions even accused his wife of desiring, from idle curiosity and sentiment, the accidental meeting which had resulted in this fresh aggression.
"Why did you show me this letter?" he asked harshly.
"Mrs. Elmore told me to do so," Lily answered.
"Didyouwish me to see it?"
"I don't suppose Iwishedyou to see it: I thought you ought to see it."
Elmore felt himself relenting a little. "What do you want done about it?" he asked more gently.
"That is what I wished you to tell me," replied the girl.
"I can't tell you what you wish me to do, but I can tell you this, Miss Mayhew: this man's behavior is totally irregular. He would not think of writing to an Italian or German girl in this way. If he desired to—to—pay attention to her, he would write to her father."
"Yes, that's what Mrs. Elmore said. She said she supposed he must think it was the American way."
"Mrs. Elmore," began her husband; but he arrested himself there, and said, "Very well. I want to know what I am to do. I want your full and explicit authority before I act. We will dismiss the fact of irregularity. We will suppose that it is fit and becoming for a gentleman who has twice met a young lady by accident—or once by accident, and once by his own insistence—to write to her. Do you wish to continue the correspondence?"
"No."
Elmore looked into the eyes which dwelt full upon him, and, though they were clear as the windows of heaven, he hesitated. "I must do what yousay, no matter what you mean, you know?"
"I mean what I say."
"Perhaps," he suggested, "you would prefer to return him this letter with a few lines on your card."
"No. I should like him to know that I have shown it to you. I should think it a liberty for an American to write to me in that way after such a short acquaintance, and I don't see why I should tolerate it from a foreigner, though I suppose their customsaredifferent."
"Then you wish me to write to him?"
"Yes."
"And make an end of the matter, once for all?"
"Yes—"
"Very well, then." Elmore sat down at once, and wrote:—
Sir,—Miss Mayhew has handed me your note of yesterday, and begs me to express her very great surprise that you should have ventured to address her. She desires me also to add that you will consider at an end whatever acquaintance you suppose yourself to have formed with her.Your obedient servant,Owen Elmore.
Sir,—Miss Mayhew has handed me your note of yesterday, and begs me to express her very great surprise that you should have ventured to address her. She desires me also to add that you will consider at an end whatever acquaintance you suppose yourself to have formed with her.
Your obedient servant,
Owen Elmore.
He handed the note to Lily. "Yes, that will do," she said, in a low, steady voice. She drew a deep breath, and, laying the letter softly down, went out of the room into Mrs. Elmore's.
Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax when his wife appeared swiftly upon the scene.
"I want to see what you have written, Owen," she said.
"Don't talk to me, Celia," he replied, thrusting the wax into the candle-light. "You have put this affair entirely in my hands, and Lily approves of what I have written. I am sick of the thing, and I don't want any more talk about it."
"Imustsee it," said Mrs. Elmore, with finality, and possessed herself of the note. She ran it through,and then flung it on the table and dropped into a chair, while the tears started to her eyes. "What a cold, cutting, merciless letter!" she cried.
"I hope he will think so," said Elmore, gathering it up from the table, and sealing it securely in its envelope.
"You're not going tosendit!" exclaimed his wife.
"Yes, I am."
"I didn't suppose you could be so heartless."
"Very well, then, Iwon'tsend it," said Elmore. "I put the affair inyourhands. What are you going to do about it?"
"Nonsense!"
"On the contrary, I'm perfectly serious. I don't see why you shouldn't manage the business. The gentleman is an acquaintance of yours.Idon't know him." Elmore rose and put his hands in his pockets. "What do you intend to do? Do you like this clandestine sort of thing to go on? I dare say the fellow only wishes to amuse himself by a flirtation with a pretty American. But the question is whether you wish him to do so. I'm willing to lay his conduct to a misunderstanding of our customs, and to suppose that he thinks this is the way Americans do. I take the matter at its best: he speaks to Lily on the train without an introduction; he joins you in yourwalk without invitation; he writes to her without leave, and proposes to get up a correspondence. It is all perfectly right and proper, and will appear so to Lily's friends when they hear of it. But I'm curious to know how you're going to manage the sequel. Do you wish the affair to go on, and how long do you wish it to go on?"
"You know very well that I don't wish it to go on."
"Then you wish it broken off?"
"Of course I do."
"How?"
"I think there is such a thing as acting kindly and considerately. I don't see anything in Captain Ehrhardt's conduct that calls forsavagetreatment," said Mrs. Elmore.
"You would like to have him stopped, but stopped gradually. Well, I don't wish to be savage, either, and I will act upon any suggestion of yours. I want Lily's people to feel that we managed not only wisely but humanely in checking a man who was resolved to force his acquaintance upon her."
Mrs. Elmore thought a long while. Then she said: "Why, of course, Owen, you're right about it. Thereisno other way. There couldn't be any kindness in checking him gradually. But I wish," she added sorrowfully, "that he had not been such acompletegoose; and then we could have done something with him."
"I am obliged to him for the perfection which you regret, my dear. If he had been less complete, he would have been much harder to manage."
"Well," said Mrs. Elmore, rising, "I shall always say that he meant well. But send the letter."
Her husband did not wait for a second bidding. He carried it himself to the general post-office that there might be no mistake and no delay about it; and a man who believed that he had a feeling and tender heart experienced a barbarous joy in the infliction of this pitiless snub. I do not say that it would not have been different if he had trusted at all in the sincerity of Captain Ehrhardt's passion; but he was glad to discredit it. A misgiving to the other effect would have complicated the matter. But now he was perfectly free to disembarrass himself of a trouble which had so seriously threatened his peace. He was responsible to Miss Mayhew's family, and Mrs. Elmore herself could not say, then or afterward, that there was any other way open to him. I will not contend that his motives were wholly unselfish. No doubt a sense of personal annoyance, of offended decorum, of wounded respectability, qualified the zeal for Miss Mayhew's good which prompted him. Hewas still a young and inexperienced man, confronted with a strange perplexity: he did the best he could, and I suppose it was the best that could be done. At any rate, he had no regrets, and he went cheerfully about the work of interesting Miss Mayhew in the monuments and memories of the city.
Since the decisive blow had been struck, the ladies seemed to share his relief. The pursuit of Captain Ehrhardt, while it flattered, might well have alarmed, and the loss of a not unpleasant excitement was made good by a sense of perfect security. Whatever repining Miss Mayhew indulged was secret, or confided solely to Mrs. Elmore. To Elmore himself she appeared in better spirits than at first, or at least in a more equable frame of mind. To be sure, he did not notice very particularly. He took her to the places and told her the things that she ought to be interested in, and he conceived a better opinion of her mind from the quick intelligence with which she entered into his own feelings in regard to them, though he never could see any evidence of the over-study for which she had been taken from school. He made her, like Mrs. Elmore, the partner of his historical researches; he read his notes to both of them now; and when his wife was prevented from accompanying him, he went with Lily alone to visit the scenes of such events ashis researches concerned, and to fill his mind with the local color which he believed would give life and character to his studies of the past. They also went often to the theatre; and, though Lily could not understand the plays, she professed to be entertained, and she had a grateful appreciation of all his efforts in her behalf that amply repaid him. He grew fond of her society; he took a childish pleasure in having people in the streets turn and glance at the handsome girl by his side, of whose beauty and stylishness he became aware through the admiration looked over the shoulders of the Austrians, and openly spoken by the Italian populace. It did not occur to him that she might not enjoy the growth of their acquaintance in equal degree, that she fatigued herself with the appreciation of the memorable and the beautiful, and that she found these long rambles rather dull. He was a man of little conversation; and, unless Mrs. Elmore was of the company, Miss Mayhew pursued his pleasures for the most part in silence. One evening, at the end of the week, his wife asked, "Why do you always take Lily through the Piazza on the side farthest from where the officers sit? Are you afraid of her meeting Captain Ehrhardt?"
"Oh, no! I consider the Ehrhardt business settled.But you know the Italians never walk on the officers' side."
"You are not an Italian. What do you gain by flattering them up? I should think you might suppose a young girl had some curiosity."
"I do; and I do everything I can to gratify her curiosity. I went to San Pietro di Castello to-day, to show her where the Brides of Venice were stolen."
"The oldest and dirtiest part of the city! Whatcouldthe child care for the Brides of Venice? Now be reasonable, Owen!"
"It's a romantic story. I thought girls liked such things,—about getting married."
"And that's the reason you took her yesterday to show her the Bucentaur that the doges wedded the Adriatic in! Well, what was your idea in going with her to the Cemetery of San Michele?"
"I thought she would be interested. I had never been there before myself, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to verify a passage I was at work on. We always show people the cemetery at home."
"That was considerate. And why did you go to Canarregio on Wednesday?"
"I wished her to see the statue of Sior Antonio Rioba; you know it was the Venetian Pasquino in the Revolution of '48—"
"Charming!"
"And the Campo di Giustizia, where the executions used to take place."
"Delightful!"
"And—and—the house of Tintoretto," faltered Elmore.
"Delicious! She cares so much for Tintoretto! And you've been with her to the Jewish burying-ground at the Lido, and the Spanish synagogue in the Ghetto, and the fish-market at the Rialto, and you've shown her the house of Othello and the house of Desdemona, and the prisons in the ducal palace; and three nights you've taken us to the Piazza as soon as the Austrian band stopped playing, and all the interesting promenading was over, and those stuffy old Italians began to come to the caffès. Well, I can tell you that's no way to amuse a young girl. We must do something for her, or she will die. She has come here from a country where girls have always had the best time in the world, and where the times are livelier now than they ever were, with all this excitement of the war going on; and here she is dropped down in the midst of this absolute deadness: no calls, no picnics, no parties, no dances—nothing! We must do something for her."
"Shall we give her a ball?" asked Elmore, looking round the pretty little apartment.
"There's nothing going on among the Italians. But you might get us invited to the German Casino."
"I dare say. But I will not do that."
"Then we could go to the Luogotenenza, to the receptions. Mr. Hoskins could call with us, and they would send us cards."
"That would make us simply odious to the Venetians, and our house would be thronged with officers. What I've seen of them doesn't make me particularly anxious for the honor of their further acquaintance."
"Well, I don't ask you to do any of these things," said Mrs. Elmore, who had, in fact, mentioned them with the intention of insisting upon an abated claim. "But I think youmightgo and dine at one of the hotels—at the Danieli—instead of that Italian restaurant; and then Lily could see somebody at the table d'hôte, and not simplyperishof despair."
"I—I didn't suppose it was so bad as that," said Elmore.
"Why, of course, she hasn't said anything,—she's far too well-bred for that; but I can tell from my own feelings how she must suffer. I have you, Owen," she said tenderly, "but Lily hasnobody. She has gone through this Ehrhardt business so well that I think we ought to do all we can to divert her mind."
"Well, now, Celia, you see the difficulty of our position,—the nature of the responsibility we have assumed. How are we possibly, here in Venice, to divert the mind of a young lady fresh from the parties and picnics of Patmos?"
"We can go and dine at the Danieli," replied Mrs. Elmore.
"Very well, let us go, then. But she will learn no Italian there. She will hear nothing but English from the travellers and bad French from the waiters; while at our restaurant—"
"Pshaw!" cried Mrs. Elmore, "what does Lily care for Italian? I'm sureInever want to hear another word of it."
At this desperate admission, Elmore quite gave way; he went to the Danieli the next morning, and arranged to begin dining there that day. There is no denying that Miss Mayhew showed an enthusiasm in prospect of the change that even the sight of the pillar to which Foscarini was hanged head downwards for treason to the Republic had not evoked. She made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly an impression at the table d'hôte when she sat down there. Elmore had found places opposite an elderly lady and quite a young gentleman, of English speech, but of not very English effect otherwise, who bowedto Lily in acknowledgment of some former meeting. The old lady said, "So you've reached Venice at last? I'm very pleased, for your sake," as if at some point of the progress thither she had been privy to anxieties of Lily about arriving at her destination; and, in fact, they had been in the same hotels at Marseilles and Genoa. The young gentleman said nothing, but he looked at Lily throughout the dinner, and seemed to take his eyes from her only when she glanced at him; then he dropped his gaze to his neglected plate and blushed. When they left the table, he made haste to join the Elmores in the reading-room, where he contrived, with creditable skill, to get Lily apart from them for the examination of an illustrated newspaper, at which neither of them looked; they remained chatting and laughing over it in entire irrelevancy till the elderly lady rose and said, "Herbert, Herbert! I am ready to go now," upon which he did not seem at all so, but went submissively.
"Who are those people, Lily?" asked Mrs. Elmore, as they walked towards Florian's for their after-dinner coffee. The Austrian band was playing in the centre of the Piazza, and the tall, blond German officers promenaded back and forth with dark Hungarian women, who looked each like a princess of her race. The lights glittered upon them, and onthe brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the Piazza before the caffès; the scene seemed to shake and waver in the splendor, like something painted.
"Oh, their name is Andersen, or something like that; and they're from Helgoland, or some such place. I saw them first in Paris, but we didn't speak till we got to Marseilles. That's his aunt; they're English subjects, someway; and he's got an appointment in the civil service—I think he called it—in India, and he doesn't want to go; and I told him he ought to go to America. That's what I tell all these Europeans."
"It's the best advice for them," said Mrs. Elmore.
"They don't seem in any great haste to act upon it," laughed Miss Mayhew. "Who was the red-faced young man that seemed to know you, and stared so?"
"That's an English artist who is staying here. He has a curious name,—Rose-Black; and he is the most impudent and pushing man in the world. I wouldn't introduce him, because I saw he was just dying for it."
Miss Mayhew laughed, as she laughed at everything, not because she was amused, but because she was happy; this childlike gayety of heart was great part of her charm.
Elmore had quieted his scruples as a good Venetian by coming inside of the caffè while the band played, instead of sitting outside with the bad patriots; but he put the ladies next the window, and so they were not altogether sacrificed to his sympathy with thedimostrazione.
The next morning Elmore was called from his bed—at no very early hour, it must be owned, but at least before a nine o'clock breakfast—to see a gentleman who was waiting in the parlor. He dressed hurriedly, with a thousand exciting speculations in his mind, and found Mr. Rose-Black looking from the balcony window. "You have a pleasant position here," he said easily, as he turned about to meet Elmore's look of indignant demand. "I've come to ask all about our friends the Andersens."
"I don't know anything about them," answered Elmore. "I never saw them before."
"Aöh!" said the painter. Elmore had not invited him to sit down, but now he dropped into a chair, with the air of asking Elmore to explain himself. "The young lady of your party seemed to know them. How uncommonly pretty all your American young girls are! But I'm told they fade very soon. I should like to make up a picnic party with you all for the Lido."
"Thank you," replied Elmore stiffly. "Miss Mayhew has seen the Lido."
"Aöh!That'sher name. It's a pretty name." He looked through the open door into the dining-room, where the table was set for breakfast, with the usual water-goblet at each plate. "I see you have beer for breakfast. There's nothing so nice, you know. Would you—would you mind giving me a glahs?"
Through an undefined sense of the duties of hospitality, Elmore was surprised by this impudence into sending out to the next caffè for a pitcher of beer. Rose-Black poured himself out one glass and another till he had emptied the pitcher, conversing affably meanwhile with his silent host.
"Whydidn't you turn him out of doors?" demanded Mrs. Elmore, as soon as the painter's departure allowed her to slip from the closed door behind which she had been imprisoned in her room.
"I did everythingbutthat," replied her husband, whom this interview had saddened more than it had angered.
"You sent out for beer for him!"
"I didn't know but it might make him sick. Really, the thing is incredible. I think the man is cracked."
"He is an Englishman, and he thinks he can take any kind of liberty with us because we are Americans."
"That seems to be the prevalent impression among all the European nationalities," said Elmore. "Let's drop him for the present, and try to be more brutal in the future."
Mrs. Elmore, so far from dropping him, turned to Lily, who entered at that moment, and recounted the extraordinary adventure of the morning, which scarcely needed the embellishment of her fancy; it was not really a gallon of beer, but a quart, that Mr. Rose-Black had drunk. She enlarged upon previous aggressions of his, and said finally that they had to thank Mr. Ferris for his acquaintance.
"Ferris couldn't help himself," said Elmore. "He apologized to me afterward. The man got him into a corner. But he warned us about him as soon he could. And Rose-Black would have made our acquaintance, any way. I believe he's crazy."
"I don't see how that helps the matter."
"It helps to explain it," concluded Elmore, with a sigh. "We can't refer everything to our being American lambs, and his being a ravening European wolf."
"Of course he came round to find out about Lily,"said Mrs. Elmore. "The Andersens were a mere blind."
"Oh, Mrs. Elmore!" cried Lily in deprecation.
The bell jangled. "That is the postman," said Mrs. Elmore.
There was a home-letter for Lily, and one from Lily's sister enclosed to Mrs. Elmore. The ladies rent them open, and lost themselves in the cross-written pages; and neither of them saw the dismay with which Elmore looked at the handwriting of the envelope addressed to him. His wife vaguely knew that he had a letter, and meant to ask him for it as soon as she should have finished her own. When she glanced at him again, he was staring at the smiling face of Miss Mayhew, as she read her letter, with the wild regard of one who sees another in mortal peril, and can do nothing to avert the coming doom, but must dumbly await the catastrophe.
"What is it, Owen?" asked his wife in a low voice.
He started from his trance, and struggled to answer quietly. "I've a letter here which I suppose I'd better show to you first."
They rose and went into the next room, Miss Mayhew following them with a bright, absent look, and then dropping her eyes again to her letter.
Elmore put the note he had received into his wife's hands without a word.
Sir,—My position permitted me to take a woman. I am a soldier, but I am an engineer—operateous, and I can exercise wherever my profession in the civil life. I have seen Miss Mayhew, and I have great sympathie for she. I think I will be lukely with her, if Miss Mayhew would be of the same intention of me.If you believe, Sir, that my open and realy proposition will not offendere Miss Mayhew, pray to handed to her this note. Pray sir to excuse me the liberty to fatigue you, and to go over with silence if you would be of another intention.Your obedient servant,E. von Ehrhardt.
Sir,—My position permitted me to take a woman. I am a soldier, but I am an engineer—operateous, and I can exercise wherever my profession in the civil life. I have seen Miss Mayhew, and I have great sympathie for she. I think I will be lukely with her, if Miss Mayhew would be of the same intention of me.
If you believe, Sir, that my open and realy proposition will not offendere Miss Mayhew, pray to handed to her this note. Pray sir to excuse me the liberty to fatigue you, and to go over with silence if you would be of another intention.
Your obedient servant,
E. von Ehrhardt.
Mrs. Elmore folded the letter carefully up and returned it to her husband. If he had perhaps dreaded some triumphant outburst from her, he ought to have been content with the thoroughly daunted look which she lifted to his, and the silence in which she suffered him to do justice to the writer.
"This is the letter of a gentleman, Celia," he said.
"Yes," she responded faintly.
"It puts another complexion on the affair entirely."
"Yes. Why did he wait a whole week?" she added.
"It is a serious matter with him. He had a rightto take time for thinking it over." Elmore looked at the date of the Peschiera postmark, and then at that of Venice on the back of the envelope. "No, he wrote at once. This has been kept in the Venetian office, and probably read there by the authorities."
His wife did not heed the conjecture. "He began all wrong," she grieved. "Why couldn't he have behaved sensibly?"
"We must look at it from another point of view now," replied Elmore. "He has repaired his error by this letter."
"No, no; he hasn't."
"The question is now what to do about the changed situation. This is an offer of marriage. It comes in the proper way. It's a very sincere and manly letter. The man has counted the whole cost: he's ready to leave the army and go to America, if she says so. He's in love. How can she refuse him?"
"Perhaps she isn't in love with him," said Mrs. Elmore.
"Oh! That's true. I hadn't thought of that. Then it's very simple."
"But I don't know that she isn't," murmured Mrs. Elmore.
"Well, ask her."
"How couldshetell?"
"How could shetell?"
"Yes. Do you suppose a child like that can know her own mind in an instant?"
"I should think she could."
"Well, she couldn't. She liked the excitement,—the romanticality of it; but she doesn't know any more than you or I whether she cares for him. I don't suppose marriage with anybody has ever seriously entered her head yet."
"It will have to do so now," said Elmore firmly. "There's no help for it."
"I think the American plan is much better," pouted Mrs. Elmore. "It's horrid to know that a man's in love with you, and wants to marry you, from the very start. Of course it makes you hate him."
"I dare say the American plan is better in this as in most other things. But we can't discuss abstractions, Celia. We must come down to business. What are we to do?"
"I don't know."
"We must submit the question to her."
"To that innocent, unsuspecting little thing? Never!" cried Mrs. Elmore.
"Then we must decide it, as he seems to expect we may, without reference to her," said her husband.
"No, that won't do. Let me think." Mrs. Elmore thought to so little purpose that she left the word to her husband again.
"You see we must lay the matter before her."
"Couldn't—couldn't we let him come to see us awhile? Couldn't we explain our ways to him, and allow him to pay her attentions without letting her know about this letter?"
"I'm afraid he wouldn't understand,—that we couldn't make it clear to him," said Elmore. "If we invited him to the house he would consider it as an acceptance. He wants a categorical answer, and he has a right to it. It would be no kindness to a man with his ideas to take him on probation. He has behaved honorably, and we're bound to consider him."
"Oh, I don't think he's done anything so very great," said Mrs. Elmore, with that disposition we all have to disparage those who put us in difficulties.
"He's done everything he could do," said Elmore. "Shall I speak to Miss Mayhew?"
"No, you had better let me," sighed his wife. "I suppose we must. But I think it's horrid! Everything could have gone on so nicely if he hadn't been so impatient from the beginning. Of course she won't have him now. She will be scared, and that will be the end of it."
"I think you ought to be just to him, Celia. I can't help feeling for him. He has thrown himself upon our mercy, and he has a claim to right and thoughtful treatment."
"She won't have anything to do with him. You'll see."
"I shall be very glad of that," Elmore began.
"Whyshould you be glad of it?" demanded his wife.
He laughed. "I think I can safely leave his case in your hands. Don't go to the other extreme. If she married a German, he would let her black his boots,—like that general in Munich."
"Who is talking of marriage?" retorted Mrs. Elmore.
"Captain Ehrhardt and I. That's what it comes to; and it can't come to anything else. I like his courage in writing English, and it's wonderful how he hammers his meaning into it. 'Lukely' isn't bad, is it? And 'my position permitted me to take a woman'—I suppose he means that he has money enough to marry on—is delicious. Upon my word, I have a good deal of sympathie for he!"
"For shame, Owen! It's wicked to make fun of his English."
"My dear, I respect him for writing in English.The whole letter is touchingly brave and fine. Confound him! I wish I had never heard of him. What does he come bothering across my path for?"
"Oh, don't feel that way about it, Owen!" cried his wife. "It's cruel."
"I don't. I wish to treat him in the most generous manner; after all, it isn't his fault. But you must allow, Celia, that it's very annoying and extremely perplexing.Wecan't make up Miss Mayhew's mind for her. Even if we found out that she liked him, it would be only the beginning of our troubles.We'veno right to give her away in marriage, or let her involve her affections here. But be judicious, Celia."
"It's easy enough to say that!"
"I'll be back in an hour," said Elmore. "I'm going to the Square. We mustn't lose time."
As he passed out through the breakfast-room, Lily was sitting by the window with her letter in her lap, and a happy smile on her lips. When he came back she happened to be seated in the same place; she still had a letter in her lap, but she was smiling no longer; her face was turned from him as he entered, and he imagined a wistful droop in that corner of her mouth which showed on her profile.
But she rose very promptly, and with a heightened color said, "I am sorry to trouble you to answer another letter for me, Professor Elmore. I manage my correspondence at home myself, but here it seems to be different."
"It needn't be different here, Lily," said Elmore kindly. "You can answer all the letters you receive in just the way you like. We don't doubt your discretion in the least. We will abide by any decision of yours, on any point that concerns yourself."
"Thank you," replied the girl; "but in this case I think you had better write." She kept slipping Ehrhardt's letter up and down between her thumb and finger against the palm of her left hand, and delayed giving it to him, as if she wished him to say something first.
"I suppose you and Celia have talked the matter over?"
"Yes."
"And I hope you have determined upon the course you are going to take, quite uninfluenced?"
"Oh, quite so."
"I feel bound to tell you," said Elmore, "that this gentleman has now done everything that we could expect of him, and has fully atoned for any error he committed in making your acquaintance."
"Yes, I understand that. Mrs. Elmore thoughthe might have written because he saw he had gone too far, and couldn't think of any other way out of it."
"That occurred to me, too, though I didn't mention it. But we're bound to take the letter on its face, and that's open and honorable. Have you made up your mind?"
"Yes."
"Do you wish for delay? There is no reason for haste."
"There's no reason for delay, either," said the girl. Yet she did not give up the letter, or show any signs of intending to terminate the interview. "If I had had more experience, I should know how to act better; but I must do the best I can, without the experience. I think that even in a case like this we should try to do right, don't you?"
"Yes, above all other cases," said Elmore, with a laugh.
She flushed in recognition of her absurdity. "I mean that we oughtn't to let our feelings carry us away. I saw so many girls carried away by their feelings, when the first regiments went off, that I got a horror of it. I think it's wicked: it deceives both; and then you don't know how to break the engagement afterward."
"You're quite right, Lily," said Elmore, with a rising respect for the girl.
"Professor Elmore, can you believe that, with all the attentions I've had, I've never seriously thought of getting married as the end of it all?" she asked, looking him freely in the eyes.
"I can't understand it,—no man could, I suppose,—but I do believe it. Mrs. Elmore has often told me the same thing."
"And this—letter—it—means marriage."
"That and nothing else. The man who wrote it would consider himself cruelly wronged if you accepted his attentions without the distinct purpose of marrying him."
She drew a deep breath. "I shall have to ask you to write a refusal for me." But still she did not give him the letter.
"Have you made up your mind to that?"
"I can't make up my mind to anything else."
Elmore walked unhappily back and forth across the room. "I have seen something of international marriages since I've been in Europe," he said. "Sometimes they succeed; but generally they're wretched failures. The barriers of different race, language, education, religion,—they're terrible barriers. It's very hard for a man and woman to understand eachother at the best; with these differences added, it's almost a hopeless case."
"Yes; that's what Mrs. Elmore said."
"And suppose you were married to an Austrian officer stationed in Italy. You would havenosociety outside of the garrison. Every other human creature that looked at you would hate you. And if you were ordered to some of those half barbaric principalities,—Moldavia or Wallachia, or into Hungary or Bohemia,—everywhere your husband would be an instrument for the suppression of an alien or disaffected population. What a fate for an American girl!"
"If he were good," said the girl, replying in the abstract, "she needn't care."
"If he were good, you needn't care. No. And he might leave the Austrian service, and go with you to America, as he hints. What could he do there? He might get an appointment in our army, though that's not so easy now; or he might go to Patmos, and live upon your friends till he found something to do in civil life."
Lily began a laugh. "Why, Professor Elmore,Idon't want to marry him! What in the world are you arguing with me for?"
"Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I oughtn't to let these considerations weigh as a feather in thebalance if you are at all—at all—ahem! excuse me!—attached to him. That, of course, outweighs everything else."
"But I'mnot!" cried the girl "HowcouldI be? I've only met him twice. It would be perfectly ridiculous. IknowI'm not. I ought to know that if I know anything."
Years afterward it occurred to Elmore, when he awoke one night, and his mind without any reason flew back to this period in Venice, that she might have been referring the point to him for decision. But now it only seemed to him that she was adding force to her denial; and he observed nothing hysterical in the little laugh she gave.
"Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I'll write now, if you will give me his letter."
She put it behind her. "Professor Elmore," she said, "I am not going to have you think that he ever behaved in the least presumingly. And whatever you think of me, I must tell you that I suppose I talked very freely with him,—just as freely, as I should with an American. I didn't know any better. He was very interesting, and I was homesick, and so glad to see any one who could speak English. I suppose I was a goose; but I felt very far away from all my friends, and I was grateful for hiskindness. Even if he had never written this last letter, I should always have said that he was a true gentleman."
"Well?"
"That is all. I can't have him treated as if he were an adventurer."
"You want him dismissed?"
"Yes."
"A man can't distinguish as to the terms of a dismissal. They're always insolent,—more insolent than ever if you try to make them kindly. I should merely make this as short and sharp as possible."
"Yes," she said breathlessly, as if the idea affected her respiration.
"But I will show it to you, and I won't send it without your approval."
"Thank you. But I shall not want to see it. I'd rather not." She was going out of the room.
"Will you leave me his letter? You can have it again."
She turned red in giving it him. "I forgot. Why, it's written to you, anyway!" she cried, with a laugh, and put the letter on the table.
The two doors opened and closed: one excluded Lily, and the other admitted Mrs. Elmore.
"Owen, I approve of all you said, except thatabout the form of the refusal. I will read what you say. I intend that itshallbe made kindly."
"Very well. I'll copy a letter of yours, or write from your dictation."
"No; you write it, and I'll criticise it."
"Oh, you talk as if I were eager to write the letter! Can't you imagine it's being a very painful thing to me?" he demanded.
"It didn't seem to be so before."
"Why, the situation wasn't the same before he wrote this letter!"
"I don't see how. He was as much in earnest then as he is now, and you had no pity for him."
"Oh, my goodness!" cried Elmore desperately. "Don't you see the difference? He hadn't given any proof before"—
"Oh, proof, proof! You men are always wanting proof! What better proof could he have given than the way he followed her about? Proof, indeed! I suppose you'd like to have Lily prove that she doesn't care for him!"
"Yes," said Elmore sadly, "I should like very much to have her prove it."
"Well, you won't get her to. What makes you think she does?"
"I don't. Do you?"
"N-o," answered Mrs. Elmore reluctantly.
"Celia, Celia, you will drive me mad if you go on in this way! The girl has told me, over and over, that she wishes him dismissed. Why do you think she doesn't?"
"I don't. Who hinted such a thing? But I don't want you toenjoydoing it."
"Enjoyit? So you think I enjoy it! What do you suppose I'm made of? Perhaps you think I enjoyed catechizing the child about her feelings toward him? Perhaps you think I enjoy the whole confounded affair? Well, I give it up. I will let it go. If I can't have your full and hearty support, I'll let it go. I'll do nothing about it."
He threw Ehrhardt's letter on the table, and went and sat down by the window. His wife took the letter up and read it over. "Why, you see he asks you to pass it over in silence if you don't consent."
"Does he?" asked Elmore. "I hadn't noticed that."
"Perhaps you'd better read some of your letters, Owen, before you answer them!"
"Really, I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the letter was written to me at all. I thought it was to Lily, and she had got to thinking so too. Well, then, I won't do anything about it." He drew a breath of relief.
"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "he asked that so as to leave himself some hope if he should happen to meet her again."
"And we don't wish him to have any hope."
Mrs. Elmore was silent.
"Celia," cried her husband indignantly, "I can't have you playing fast and loose with me in this matter!"
"I suppose I may have time to think?" she retorted.
"Yes, if you will tell me what youdothink; but that Imustknow. It's a thing too vital in its consequences for me to act without your full concurrence. I won't take another step in it till I know just how far you have gone with me. If I may judge of what this man's influence upon Lily would be by the fact that he has brought us to the verge of the only real quarrel we've ever had"—
"Who's quarrelling, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore meekly. "I'm not."
"Well, well! we won't dispute about that. I want to know whether you thought with me that it was improper for him to address her in the car?"
"Yes."
"And still more improper for him to join you in the street?"
"Yes. But he was very gentlemanly."
"No matter about that. You were just as much annoyed as I was by his letter to her?"
"I don't know about annoyed. It scared me."
"Very well. And you approved of my answering it as I did?"
"I had nothing to do with it. I thought you were acting conscientiously. I'll say that much."
"You've got to say more. You have got to say you approved of it; for you know you did."
"Oh—approvedof it? Yes!"
"That's all I want. Now I agree with you that if we pass this letter in silence, it will leave him with some hope. You agree with me that in a marriage between an American girl and an Austrian officer the chances would be ninety-nine to a hundred against her happiness at the best."
"There are a great many unhappy marriages at home," said Mrs. Elmore impartially.
"That isn't the point, Celia, and you know it. The point is whether you believe the chances are for or against her in such a marriage. Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Agree with me?"
"Yes; but I say theymightbeveryhappy. I shall always say that."
Elmore flung up his hands in despair. "Well, then, say what shall be done now."
This was perhaps just what Mrs. Elmore did not choose to say. She was silent a long time,—so long that Elmore said, "But there's really no haste about it," and took some notes of his history out of a drawer, and began to look them over, with his back turned to her.
"I never knew anything so heartless!" she cried. "Owen, thismustbe attended to at once! I can't have it hanging over me any longer. It will make me sick."
He turned abruptly round, and, seating himself at the table, wrote a note, which he pushed across to her. It acknowledged the receipt of Captain von Ehrhardt's letter, and expressed Miss Mayhew's feeling that there was nothing in it to change her wish that the acquaintance should cease. In after years, the terms of this note did not always appear to Elmore wisely chosen or humanely considered; but he stood at bay, and he struck mercilessly. In spite of the explicit concurrence of both Miss Mayhew and his wife, he felt as if they were throwing wholly upon him a responsibility whose fearfulness he did not then realize. Even in his wife's "Send it!" he was aware of a subtile reservation on her part.
Mrs. Elmore and Lily again rose buoyantly from the conclusive event, but he succumbed to it. For the delicate and fastidious invalid, keeping his health evenly from day to day upon the condition of a free and peaceful mind, the strain had been too much. He had a bad night, and the next day a gastric trouble declared itself which kept him in bed half the week, and left him very weak and tremulous. His friends did not forget him during this time. Hoskins came regularly to see him, and supplied his place at the table d'hôte of the Danieli, going to and fro with the ladies, and efficiently protecting them from the depredations of the Austrian soldiery. From Mr. Rose-Black he could not protect them; and both the ladies amused Elmore with a dramatization of how the Englishman had boldly outwitted them, and trampled all their finessing under foot, by simply walking up to them in the reading-room, and saying, "This is Miss Mayhew, I suppose," and putting himself at once onthe footing of an old family friend. They read to Elmore, and they put his papers in order, so that he did not know where to find anything when he got well; but they always came home from the hotel with some lively gossip, and this he liked. They professed to recognize an anxiety on the part of Mr. Andersen's aunt that his mind should not be diverted from the civil service in India by thoughts of young American ladies; but she sent some delicacies to Elmore, and one day she even came to call with her nephew, in extreme reluctance and anxiety as they pretended to him.
The next afternoon the young man called alone, and Elmore, who was now on foot, received him in the parlor, before the ladies came in. Mr. Andersen had a bunch of flowers in one hand, and a small wooden box containing a little turtle on a salad-leaf in the other; the poor animals are sold in the Piazza at Venice for souvenirs of the city, and people often carry them away. Elmore took the offerings simply, as he took everything in life, and interpreted them as an expression, however odd, of Mr. Andersen's sympathy with his recent sufferings, of which he gave him some account; but he practised a decent self-denial, here, and they were already talking of the weather when the ladies appeared. He hastened toexhibit the tokens of Mr. Andersen's kind remembrance, and was mystified by the young man's confusion, and the impatient, almost contemptuous, air with which his wife listened to him. Hoskins came in at that moment to ask about Elmore's health, and showed the hostile civility to Andersen which young men use toward each other in the presence of ladies; and then, seeing that the latter had secured the place at Miss Mayhew's side on the sofa, he limped to the easy chair near Mrs. Elmore, and fell into talk with her about Rose-Black's pictures, which he had just seen. They were based upon an endeavor to trace the moral principles believed by Mr. Ruskin to underlie Venetian art, and they were very queer, so Hoskins said; he roughly sketched an idea of some of them on a block he took from his pocket.
Mr. Andersen and Lily went out upon one of the high-railed balconies that overhung the canal, and stood there, with their backs to the others. She seemed to be listening, with averted face, while he, with his cheek leaning upon one hand and his elbow resting on the balcony rail, kept a pensive attitude after they had apparently ceased to speak. Something in their pose struck the sculptor's fancy, and he made a hasty sketch of them, and was showingit to the Elmores when Lily suddenly descended into the room again, and, saying something about its being quite dark, went out, and left Mr. Andersen to make his adieux to the others. He startled them by saying that he was to set off for India in the morning, and he went away very melancholy.
"Well, I don't know," said Hoskins, thoughtfully retouching his sketch, "that I should feel very lively about going out to India myself."
"He seems to be a very affectionate young fellow," observed Elmore, "and I've no doubt he will feel the separation from his friends. But I really don't know why he should have brought me a bouquet, and a small turtle in a box, on the eve of his departure."
"What?" cried Hoskins, with a rude guffaw; and when Elmore had showed his gifts, Hoskins threw back his head and laughed indecently. His behavior nettled Elmore, and it sent Mrs. Elmore prematurely out of the room; for, not content with his explosions of laughter, he continued for some time to amuse himself by touching up with the point of his pencil the tail of the turtle which he had turned out of its box upon the table. At Mrs. Elmore's withdrawal he stopped, and presently said good-night rather soberly.
Then she returned. "Owen," she asked sadly,"did you really think these flowers and that turtle were for you?"
"Why, yes," he answered.
"Well, I don't know whether I wouldn't almost rather it had been a joke. I believe that I would rather despise your heart than your head. Why should Mr. Andersen bringyouflowers and a turtle?"
"Upon my word, I don't know."
"They were for Lily! And your mistake has added another pang to the poor young fellow's suffering. She has just refused him," she said; and as Elmore continued to glare blankly at her, she added: "She was refusing him there on the balcony while that disgusting Mr. Hoskins was sketching them; and he had his hand up, that way, because he was crying."
"This is horrible, Celia!" cried Elmore. The scent of the flowers lying on the table seemed to choke him; the turtle clawing about on the smooth surface looked demoniacal. "Why——"
"Now, don't ask me why she refused him, Owen. Of course she couldn't care for a boy like that. But he can't realize it, and it's just as miserable for him as if he were a thousand years old."
Elmore hung his head. "It was all a mistake. But how should I know any better? I am a straightforward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care that has been thrown upon me. It's more than I can bear. No, I'mnotfit for it!" he cried at last; and his wife, seeing him so crushed, now said something to console him.
"I know you're not. I see it more and more. But I know that you will do the best you can, and that you will always act from a good motive. Onlydotry to be more on your guard."
"I will—I will," he answered humbly.
He had a temptation, the next time he visited Hoskins, to tell him the awful secret, and to see how the situation of that night, with this lurid light upon it, affected him: it could do poor Andersen, now on his way to India, no harm. He yielded to his temptation, at the same time that he confessed his own blunder about the flowers.
Hoskins whistled. "I tell you what," he said, after a long pause, "there are some things in history that I never could realize,—like Mary, Queen of Scots, for instance, putting on her best things, and stepping down into the front parlor of that castle to have her head off. But a thing like this, happening on your own balcony,helpsyou to realize it."
"It helps you to realize it," assented Elmore, deeply oppressed by the tragic parallel.
"He's just beginning to feel it about now," said Hoskins, with strangesang froid. "I reckon it's a good deal like being shot. I didn't fully appreciate my little hit under a couple of days. Then I began to find out that something had happened. Look here," he added, "I want to show you something;" and he pulled the wet cloth off a breadth of clay which he had set up on a board stayed against the wall. It was a bas-relief representing a female figure advancing from the left corner over a stretch of prairie towards a bulk of forest on the right; bison, bear, and antelope fled before her; a lifted hand shielded her eyes; a star lit the fillet that bound her hair.
"That's the best thing you've done, Hoskins," said Elmore. "What do you call it?"
"Well, I haven't settled yet. Ihavethought of 'Westward the Star of Empire,' but that's rather long; and I've thought of 'American Enterprise.' I ain't in any hurry to name it. You like it, do you?"
"I like it immensely!" cried Elmore. "You must let me bring the ladies to see it."
"Well, not just yet," said the sculptor, in some confusion. "I want to get it a little further along first."
They stood looking together at the figure; andwhen Elmore went away he puzzled himself about something in it,—he could not tell exactly what. He thought he had seen that face and figure before, but this is what often occurs to the connoisseur of modern sculpture. His mind heavily reverted to Lily and her suitors. Take her in one way, especially in her subordination to himself, the girl was as simply a child as any in the world,—good-hearted, tender, and sweet, and, as he could see, without tendency to flirtation. Take her in another way, confront her with a young and marriageable man, and Elmore greatly feared that she unconsciously set all her beauty and grace at work to charm him; another life seemed to inform her, and irradiate from her, apart from which she existed simple and childlike still. In the security of his own deposited affections, it appeared to him cruelly absurd that a passion which any other pretty girl might, and some other pretty girl in time must, have kindled, should cling, when once awakened, so inalienably to the pretty girl who had, in a million chances, chanced to awaken it. He wondered how much of this constancy was natural, and how much merely attributive and traditional, and whether human happiness or misery were increased by it on the whole.
In the respite which followed the dismissal of Andersen, the English painter, Rose-Black, visited the Elmores as often as the servant, who had orders in his case to say that they wereimpediti, failed of her duty. They could not always escape him at the caffè, and they would have left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances, instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem; he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of his compatriots, that we were going to the dogs.
"What do you really make of him, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore, after an evening that, in its improbable discomfort, had passed quite like a nightmare.
"Well, I've been thinking a good deal about him.I have been wondering if, in his phenomenal way, he is not a final expression of the national genius,—the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the tacit denial of the rights of any people who are at English mercy; the assumption that the courtesies and decencies of life are for use exclusively towards Englishmen."
This was in that embittered old war-time: we have since learned how forbearing and generous and amiable Englishmen are; how they never take advantage of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or fail in consideration for those they imagine their superiors; how you have but to show yourself successful in order to win their respect, and even affection.
But for the present Mrs. Elmore replied to her husband's perverted ideas, "Yes, it must be so," and she supported him in the ineffectual experiment of deferential politeness, Christian charity, broad humanity, and savage rudeness upon Rose-Black. It was all one to Rose-Black.
He took an air of serious protection towards Mrs. Elmore, and often gave her advice, while he practised an easy gallantry with Lily, and ignored Elmore altogether. His intimacy was superior to the accidents of their moods, and their slights and snubs wereaccepted apparently as interesting expressions of a civilization about which he was insatiably curious, especially as regarded the relations of young people. There was no mistaking the fact that Rose-Black in his way had fallen under the spell which Elmore had learned to dread; but there was nothing to be done, and he helplessly waited. He saw what must come; and one evening it came, when Rose-Black, in more than usually offensive patronage, lolled back upon the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, "About flirtations, now, in America,—tell me something about flirtations. We've heard so much about your American flirtations. We only have them with married ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. Elmore would think of one."
"I don't know what you mean," said Lily. "I don't know anything about flirtations."
This seemed to amuse Rose-Black as an uncommonly fine piece of American humor, which was then just beginning to make its way with the English. "Oh, but come, now, you don't expect me to believe that, you know. If you won't tell me, suppose you show me what an American flirtation is like. Suppose we get up a flirtation. How should you begin?"
The girl rose with a more imposing air thanElmore could have imagined of her stature; but almost any woman can be awful in emergencies. "I should begin by bidding you good-evening," she answered, and swept out of the room.
Elmore felt as if he had been left alone with a man mortally hurt in combat, and were likely to be arrested for the deed. He gazed with fascination upon Rose-Black, and wondered to see him stir, and at last rise, and with some incoherent words to them, get himself away. He dared not lift his gaze to the man's eyes, lest he should see there some reflection of the pain that filled his own. He would have gone after him, and tried to say something in condolence, but he was quite helpless to move; and as he sat still, gazing at the door through which Rose-Black disappeared, Mrs. Elmore said quietly:—
"Well, really, I think that ought to be the last of him. You see, she's quite able to take care of herself when she knows her ground. You can't say that she has thrown the brunt of this affair upon you, Owen."
"I am not so sure of that," sighed Elmore. "I think I suffer less when I do it than when I see it. It's horrible."
"He deserved it, every bit," returned his wife.
"Oh, I dare say," Elmore granted. "But the sight even of justice isn't pleasant, I find."
"I don't understand you, Owen. How can you care so much for this impudent wretch's little snub, and yet be so indifferent about refusing Captain Ehrhardt?"
"I'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know that I did right, but I don't know that I could do right under the same circumstances again."
In fact there were times when Elmore found almost insupportable the absolute conclusion to which that business had come. It is hard to believe that anything has come to an end in this world. For a time, death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied expectation, as if somehow the interrupted life must go on, and there is no change we make or suffer which is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo to which he had been so inexorably relegated, he might only have restored the original situation in all its discomfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a hold upon Elmore's imagination which deepened because he could not discuss the matter frankly with his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what was passing in his thoughts, lest some misconception of hers should turn them into self-accusal or urge him to some attempt at the reparation towardswhich he wavered. He really could have done nothing that would not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see these letters again, but he dared not ask for them; and indeed it would have been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them perfectly well. Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was characteristic of him, in that safety from consequences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her rejected suitor, whose pain he luxuriously fancied in all its different stages and degrees. His indolent pity even developed into a sort of self-righteous abhorrence of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within himself, and could work no sort of harm. If he never ventured to hint these feelings to his wife, he was still further from confessing them to Lily; but once he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well-guarded generality relating to the different kinds of sensibility developed by the European and American civilization. A recent suicide for love which excitedall Venice at that time—an Austrian officer hopelessly attached to an Italian girl had shot himself—had suggested their talk, and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind.
"Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer. They don't look at women as respectfully as we do, and they mix up so much cabbage with their romance that you don't know exactly how to take them; and yet here you find this fellow suffering just as much as a white man because the girl's folks won't let her have him. In fact, I don't know but he suffered more than the average American citizen. I think we have a great deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We respect women more than any other people, and I think we show them more true politeness; we let 'em have their way more, and get their finger into the pie right along, and it's right we should: but we don't make fools of ourselves about them, as a general rule. We know they're awfully nice, and they know we know it; and it's a perfectly understood thing all round. We've been used to each other all our lives, and they're just as sensible as we are. They like a fellow, when they do like him, about as well as any of 'em; but they know he's a man and a brother after all, and he's got ever so much human nature in him. Well, now, I reckon one of these Dutch chaps, the first timehe gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl, thinks he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl feels just so about him. Why, it's natural they should,—they've never had any chance to know any better, and your feelingsareapt to get the upper hand of you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One of 'em goes off and shoots himself, and the other one feels as if she was never going to get over it. Well, now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little business of hers: one of these girls over here would have had her head completely turned by that adventure; but when she couldn't see her way exactly clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands by what you do, as calm as a clock."
"It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I knew," said Elmore.
"Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, "and she sees that as well as you or I do, and she stands by you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's got a cool head."
In his soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsistently wished that her heart were not equally cool; but he only said, "Yes, she is a good and sensible girl. I hope the—the—other one is equally resigned."
"Oh,he'll get along," answered Hoskins, with theindifference of one man for the sufferings of another in such matters. We are able to offer a brother very little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those unhappy affairs of the heart which move women to a pretty compassion for a disappointed sister. A man in love is in no wise interesting to us for that reason; and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that he will have better luck next time. It is only here and there that a sentimentalist like Elmore stops to pity him; and it is not certain that even he would have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not been the means of his disappointment. As it was, he came away, feeling that doubtless Ehrhardt had "got along," and resolved at least to spend no more unavailing regrets upon him.