Skip to main content

Full text of "A Fearful Responsibility, and Other Stories"

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 

to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 

at |http: //books .google .com/I 




ym g rROPIRTY Of ^yy 



' 8' 7 



ARTES SCIENTIA VERITAS 




lu ^ 



'J'f 



iSoobBi bp William TDtwx |)otoIb. 



VENETIAN LIFE. New Ifoltday Ediiion, With so foll-poge 

illustrations in color by Edmund H. Garrett. 

Thb Samb. lamo. 

In Riverside Aiding Series. % vols. x6mo. 
ITALIAN JOURNEYS. Holiday EdUion, With illustratiaoa by 

JOSBPH PbNNBLL. 

Thb Samb. lamo. 
TUSCAN CITIES. Library EdUion, 

Thb Samb. lamo. 
THEIR WEDDING JOURNEY. Holiday BdUum, lUustnted. 

Thb Samb. Illustrated. lamOi 

Thb Samb. i8mo. 
A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. Illustrated. 

Thb Samb. i8 mo. 
SUBURBAN SKETCHES. Illustrated. 
A FOREGONE CONCLUSION. 
THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK. 
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. 
THE MINISTER'S CHARGE. 
INDIAN SUMMER. 
THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
A MODERN INSTANCE. 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 
DR. BREEN'S PRACTICE. 

A SEA CHANGE ; or, Lovb's Stowaway. A Lyxicated Faroe. 
THE SLEEPING CAR, and Othbr Farcbs. 
THREE VILLAGES. 
POEMS. New Revised Edition. 
A COUNTERFEIT PRESENTMENT. A Comedy. 
OUT OF THE QUESTION. A Comedy. 
CHOICE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. Edited, and with Critical and 

Biographical Essa^, by Mr. Howblls. 8 vols. 
THE ELEVATOR: THE SLEEPING CAR: THE PARLOR CAR: 

THE REGISTER: AN INDIAN GIVER, a Comedy: THE 

SMOKING CAR, a Farce: BRIDE ROSES, a Scene: ROOM 45, 

a Farce. 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and Nbw York 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY 



AND OTHER STORIES 



WILLIAM D. HOWELLS 



BOSTON AND NEW VOBK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



TS 

X0X5 

.F5 



Copyright, 1881, 
Br W. D. HowEUA 



Ab rigUt ratrvtA 



UndergraduM 
Ubraix 



CONTENTS. 

Paob 

A Fearful Besponsibility 1 

At the Sign of the Savage 165 

ToNELLi's Mabbiage 209 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 



Etxby loyal American who went abroad dining 
the first years of our great war felt bound to make 
himself some excuse for turning his back on his 
country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen 
Elmore sailed, no one else seemed to think that he 
needed excuse. All his friends said it was the best 
thing for him to do ; that he could have leisure and 
quiet over there, and would be able to go on with 
his work. 

At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narra- 
tive, I am obliged to confess that the work of which 
Elmore's friends spoke was a projected history of 
Venice. So many literary Americans have projected 
such a work that it may now fairly be regarded as a 
national enterprise. Elmore was too obscure to have 
been announced in the usual way by the newspapers 
as having this design ; but it was well known in his 



4 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

town that he was collecting materials when his pro- 
fessorship in the small inland college with which he 
was connected lapsed through the enlistment of nearly 
all the students. The president became colonel of the 
college regiment ; and in parting with Elmore^ while 
their boys waited on the campus without^ he had 
said, " Now, Elmore, you must go on with your his- 
tory of Venice. Go to Venice and collect your mate- 
rials on the spot. We're coining through this all 
right Mr. Seward puts it at sixty days, but I '11 give 
them six months to lay down their arms, and we shall 
want you back at the end of the year. Don't you 
have any compunctions about going. I know how 
you feel ; but it is perfectly right for you to keep out 
of it. Good-by." They wrung each other's hands for 
the last time, — the president fell at Fort Donelson ; 
but now Elmore followed him to the door, and when 
he appeared there one of the bojrish captains shouted, 
" Three cheers for Professor Elmore ! " and the presi- 
dent called for the tiger, and led it, whirling his cap 
round his head. 

Elmore went back to his study, sick at heart It 
grieved and vexed him that even these had not 
thought that he should go to the war, and that his 
inward struggle on that point had been idle so far as 
others were concerned. He had been quite earnest 



A FEAJirUL RESPONSIBILITT. 5 

in the matter; he had once ahnost volunteered as 
a private soldier: he had consulted his doctor, who 
sternly discouraged him. He would have been truly 
glad of any accident that forced him into the ranks ; 
but, as he used afterward to say, it was not his idea 
of soldiership to enlist for the hospital At the dish 
tance of five hundred miles from the scene of hostili- 
ties, it wEis absurd to enter the Home Guard ; and, 
after all, there were, even at first, some selfish people 
who went into the army, and some unselfish people 
who kept out of it. Elmore's bronchitis was a dis- 
order which active service would undoubtedly have 
aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to be 
of use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. 
Failing such an appointment, he submitted to expa- 
triation as he best could ; and in Italy he fought for 
our cause against the English, whom he found every- 
where all but in arms against us. 

He sailed, in fine, with a very fair conscienca " I 
should be perfectly at ease," he said to his wife, as 
the steamer dropped smoothly down to Sandy Hook, 
'' if I were sure that I was not glad to be getting 
away." 

"You are nwt glad," she answered. 

" I don *t know, I don 't know," he said, with the 
weak persistence of a man willing thaJb his wife should 



6 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITY. 

persuade him against his convictions ; " I wish that I 
felt certain of it" 

"You are too sick to go to the war; nobody ex- 
pected you to go." 

" I know that, and I can 't say that I like it As 
for being too sick, perhaps it's the part of a man 
to go if he dies on the way to the field. It would 
encourage the others/' he added, smiling faintly. 

She ignored the tint from Voltaire in replying: 
^Nonsense! It would do no good at alL At any 
rate, it 's too late now." 

" Yes, it 's too late now." 

The sea-sickness which shortly followed formed a 
diversion from his accusing thoughts. Each day of the 
voyage removed them further, and with the preoccu- 
pations of his first days in Europe, his travel to Italy, 
and his preparations for a long sojourn in Venice, 
they had softened to a pensive sense of self-sacrifice, 
which took a warmer or a cooler tinge according as 
the news from home was good or bad. 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 



IL 



He lost no time in going to work in the Marcian 
library, and he early applied to the Austrian authori- 
ties for leave to have transcripts made in the archives. 
The permission was negotiated by the American con- 
sul (then a young painter of the name of Ferris), who 
reported a mechanical facility on the part of the au- 
thorities, — as if, he said, they were used to obliging 
American historians of Venice. The foreign tyranny 
which cast a pathetic glamour over the romantic city 
had certainly not appeared to grudge such pubUcity 
as Elmore wished to give her heroic memories, though 
it was then at its most repressive period, and formed 
a check upon the whole life of the place. The tears 
were hardly yet dry in the despairing eyes thut had 
seen the French fleet sail away from the Lido, after 
Solferino, without firing a shot in behalf of Venice; 
but Lombardy, the Duchies, the Sicilies, had all 
passed to Sardinia, and the Pope alone represented 



8 A FSABFUL BESPONSIBILmr. 

the old order of native despotism in Italy. At Venice 
the Germans seemed tranquilly awaiting the change 
which should destroy their system with the rest ; and 
in the meantime there had occurred one of those 
impressive pauses, as notable in the lives of nations 
as of men, when, after the occurrence of great events, 
the forces of action and endurance seem to be gather- 
ing themselves against the stress of the future. The 
quiet was almost consciously a truce and not a peace ; 
and this local calm had drawn into it certain elem^its 
that picturesquely and sentimentally heightened the 
charm of the placa It was a refuge for many exiled 
potentates and pretenders ; the gondolier pointed out 
on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Cham^ 
bord, the Duchess of Parma, and the Infante of Spain ; 
and one met these fallen princes in the squares and 
streets^ bowing with distinct courtesy to any that 
chose to salute them. Every evening the Piazza San 
Marco was filled with the white coats of the Austrian 
officers, promenading to the exquisite military music 
which has ceased there forever; the patrol clanked 
through the footways at all hours of the night, and 
the lagoon heard the cry of the sentinel from fort to 
fort, and from gunboat to gunboat. Through all this 
the demonstration of the patriots went on, silent, 
ceaseless, implacable, annulling every alien efTort at 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 9 

gayety, depopulating the theatres^ and desolating the 
ancient holidays. 

There was something very fine in this, as a spectacle, 
Elmore said to his young wife, and he had to admire 
the austere self-denial of a people who would not sufPei 
their tyrants to see them happy; but they secretly 
owned to each other that it was fatiguing. Soon 
after coming to Venice they heul made some acquain- 
tance among the Italians through Mr. Ferris, and had 
early learned that the condition of knowing Vene- 
tians was not to know Austrians. It was easy and 
natural for them to submit, theoretically. As Ameri- 
cans, they must respond to any impulse for freedom, 
and certainly they could have no sympathy with such 
a system as that of Austria. By whatever was sacred 
in our own war upon slavery, they were bound to ab- 
hor oppression in every form. But it was hard 
to make the application of their hatred to the 
amiable-looking people whom they saw everywhere 
around them in the quality of tyrants, especially 
when their Venetian friends confessed that per- 
sonally they liked the Austrians. Besides, if the 
whole truth must be told, they found that their 
friendship with the Italians was not always of the 
most penetrating sort, though it had a superficial 
intensity that for a whUe gave the efPect of lasting 



10 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 

cordiality. The Elmores were not quite able to 
decide whether the paose of feeling at which they 
arrived was through their own defect or not Much 
was to be laid to the difference of race, religion, 
and education; but something, they feared, to the 
personal vapidity of acquaintances whose meridi- 
onal liveliness made them yawn, and in whose so- 
ciety they did not always find compensation for the 
sacrifices they made for it 

"But it is right," said Elmora "It would be a 
sort of treason to associate with the Austrians. We 
owe it to the Venetians to let them see that our feel- 
ings are with them." 

" Yes," said his wife pensively. 

"And it is better for us, as Americans abroad, 
during this war, to be retired." 

" Well, we are retired," said Mra Elmore. 

" Yes, there is no doubt of that," he returned. 

They laughed, and made what they could of chance 
American acquaintances at the caffis. Elmore had 
his history to occupy him, and doubtless he could 
not understand how heavy the time hung upon his 
wife's hands. They went often to the theatre, and 
every evening they went to the Piazza, and ate an 
ice at Florian's. This was certainly amusement: 
and routine was so pleasant to his scholarly tempera* 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBIUTT. 11 

ment that he enjoyed merely that He made a point 
of admitting his wife as much as possible into his 
intellectual life; he read her his notes as fast as 
he made them, and he consulted her upon the 
management of his theme, which, as his research 
extended, he found so vast that he was forced to 
decide upon a much lighter treatment than he had 
at first intended He had resolved upon a history 
which should be presented in a series of biograph- 
ical studies, and he was so much interested in this 
conclusion, and so charmed with the advantages of 
the form as they developed themselves, that he be- 
gan to lose the sense of social dulness, and ceased 
to imagine it in his wife. 

A sort of indolence of the sensibilities, in fact, 
enabled him to endure ennui that made her frantic, 
and he was often deeply bored without knowing it 
at the time, or without a reasoned suffering. He 
suffered as a chUd suffers, simply, almost ignorant- 
ly: it was upon reflection that his nerves began 
to quiver with reti'oactive anguish. He was also able 
to idealize the situation when his wife no longer even 
wished to do so. His fancy cast a poetry about these 
Venetian friends, whose conversation displayed the 
occasional sparkle of Ollendorff-English on a dark 
ground of lagoon-Italian, and whose vivid smiling 



12 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBIUTr. 

and gesticulation she wearied herself in hospitable 
efforts to outdo. To his eyes their historic past 
clothed them with its interest, and the long patience 
of their hope and hatred under foreign rule enno- 
bled them, while to hers they were too often only 
tiresome visitors, whose powers of silence and of 
eloquence were alike to be dreaded It did not con- 
sole her as it did her husband to reflect that they 
probably bored the Italians as much in their turn. 
When a young man, very sympathetic for literature 
and the Americans, spent an evening, as it seemed to 
her, in crying nothing but " Per Bacco ! " she owned 
that she liked better his oppressor, who once came by 
chance, in the figure of a young lieutenant, and who 
unbuckled his wife, as he called his sword, and, put- 
ting her in a comer, sat up on a chair in the middle 
of the room and sang like a bird, and then told 
ghost-stories. The songs were out of Heine, and 
they reminded her of her girlish enthusiasm for 
German. Elmore was troubled at the lieutenant's 
visit, and feared it would cost them all their Ital- 
ian friends; but she said boldly that she did not 
care; and she never even tried to believe that the 
life they saw in Venice was comparable to that of 
their little college town at home, with its teas and 
picnics, and simple, easy social gayeties. There she 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBIUTY. 13 

had been a power in her way ; she had entertained, 
and had helped to make some matches : but the Ve- 
netians ate nothing, and as for young people, they 
never saw each other but by stealth, and their 
matches were made by their parents on a money- 
basis. She could not adapt herself to this foreign 
life; it puzzled her, and her husband's conformity 
seemed to estrange them, as far as it went. It took 
away her spirit, and she grew listless and dulL Even 
the history began to lose its interest in her eyes ; she 
doubted if the annals of such a people as she saw 
about her could ever be popular. 

There were other things to make them melancholy 
in their exile. The war at home was going badly, 
where it was going at alL The letters now never spoke 
of any term to it ; they expressed rather the dogged 
patience of the time when it seemed as if there could 
be no end, and indicated that the country had settled 
into shape about it, and was pushing forward its other 
affairs as if the war did not exist Mrs. Elmore felt 
that the America which she had left had ceased to 
be. The letters were almost less a pleasure than a 
pain, but she always tore them open, and read them 
with eager unhappiness. There were miserable in- 
tervals of days and even weeks when no letters came, 
and when the Beuter telegrams in the Gazette of 



14 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

Venice dribbled their vitriolic news of Northern dis- 
aster through a few words or lines^ and Galignani's 
long columns were filled with the hostile exultation 
and prophecy of the London press. 



▲ FEABFUL BESP0N8IBILITY. 15 



m. 



Thet had passed eighteen months of this sort of 
life in Venice when one day a letter dropped into it 
which sent a thousand ripples over its stagnant sur- 
face. Mrs. Elmore read it first to herself, with gasps 
and cries of pleasure and astonishment, which did 
not divert her husband from the perusal of some 
notes he had made the day before, and had brought to 
the breckkfast-table with the intention of amusing her. 
When she flattened it out over his notes, and exacted 
his attention, he turned an unwilling and lack-lustre 
eye upon it; then he looked up at her. 

" Did you expect she would come ? *' he asked, in 
m-masked dismay. 

" I don't suppose they had any idea of it at first 
When Sue wrote me that Lily had been studying too 
hard, and had to be taken out of school, I said that I 
wished she could come over and pay us a visit. But 
I don't believe they dreamed of letting her — Sue 
says so — till the Mortons' coming seemed too good a 



IG A FEABFUL RKSPONSIBILnT. 

chance to be lost. I am so glad of it, Owen ! You 
know how much they have always done for me ; and 
here is a chance now to pay a little of it back." 

" What in the world shall we do with her ? " he 
asked 

" Do ? Everything ! Why, Owen," she uiged, with 
pathetic recognition of his coldness, ''she is Susy 
Stevens's own sister ! " 

" Oh, yes — yes," he admitted. 

" And it was Susy who brought us together ! " 

" Why, of course." 

" And ought n't you to be glad of the oppor- 
tunity ? " 

" I am glad — very glad." 

" It will be a relief to you instead of a cara She 's 
such a bright, intelligent girl that we can both sym- 
pathize with your work, and you won't have to go 
round with me all the time, and I can matronize her 
myself." 

" I see, I see," Elmore replied, with scarcely abated 
seriousness. '' Perhaps, if she is coming here for her 
health, she won't need much matronizing." 

"Oh, pshaw! She'll be well enough for tficU ! 
She 's overdone a little at school. I shall take good 
care of her, I can tell you ; and I shall make her 
have a real good tima It 's quite flattering of Susy 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 17 

to trust her to us, so far away, and I shall write and 
tell her we both think so " 

" Yes/' said Elmore, *' it 's a fearful responsibility." 

There are instances of the persistence of husbands 
in certain moods or points of view on which even 
wheedling has no effect The wise woman perceives 
that in these cases she must trust entirely to the 
softeniug influences of time, and as much as possible 
she changes the subject; or if this is impossible she 
may hope something from presenting a stiU worse 
aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the 
letter from the table : '' If she sailed the 3d in the 
City of Timbuctoo, she will be at Queenstown on 
the 12th or 13th, and we shall have a letter from 
her by Wednesday saying when she will be at 
Genoa. That 's as far as the Mortons can bring her^ 
and there *s where we must meet her." 

« Meet her in Genoa ! How ? " 

" By going there for her," replied Mrs. Elmore, as if 
this were the simplest thing in the world. ** I have 
never seen Genoa." 

Elmore now tacitly abandoned himself to his fate. 
His wife continued : '* I need n't take anything. 
Merely run on, and right back." 

" When must we go ? " he asked. 

" I don't know yet ; but we shall have a letter to- 

2 



18 A FEA£FTJL RESPONSIBIUTT. 

moiTow. Don*t worry on my account, Owen. Her 
coming won't be a bit of care to me. It will give me 
something to do and to think about, and it will be a 
pleasure all the time to know that it 's for Susy 
Stevens. And I shall like the companionship.'' 

Elmore looked at his wife in surprise, for it had 
not occurred to him before that with his company she 
could desire any other companionship. He desired 
none but hers, and when he was about his work he 
often thought of her. He supposed that at these 
moments she thought of him, and found society, as 
he did, in such thoughts. But he was not a jealous 
or exacting man, and he said nothing. His treatment 
of the approaching visit from Susy Stevens's sister 
had not been enthusiastic, but a spark had kindled 
his imagination, and it burned warmer and brighter as 
the days went by. He found a charm in the thought 
of having this fresh young life here in his charge, and 
of teaching the girl to live into the great and beauti- 
ful history of the city : there was still much of the 
school-master in him, and he intended to make her 
sojourn an education to her ; and as a literary man he 
hoped for novel effects from her mind upon material 
which he was above all trying to set in a new light 
before himself. 

When the time had arrived for them to go and 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBIUTY. 19 

meet Miss Mayhew at Genoa, he was more than re« 
conciled to the necessity. But at the last moment, 
Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What 
these attacks were I find myself unable to specify, 
but as every lady has an old attack of some kind, 
I may safely leave their precise nature to conjec- 
ture. It is enough that they were of a nervous 
character, that they were accompanied with headache, 
and that they prostrated her for several days. During 
their continuance she required the active sympathy 
and constant presence of her husband, whose devo- 
tion was then exemplary, and brought up long arrears 
of indebtedness in that way. 

'* Well, what shall we do ? " he asked, as he sank 
into a chair beside the lounge on which Mrs. Elmore 
lay, her eyes closed, and a slice of lemon placed 
on each of her throbbing temples with the effect of a 
new sort of blinders. " Shall I go alone for her ? ** 

She gave his hand the kind of convulsive clutch 
that signified, " Impossible for you to leave ma" 

He reflected. " The Mortons will be pushing on 
to Leghorn, and somebody mmt meet her. How 
would it do for Mr. Hoskins to go ? '* 

Mrs. Elmore responded with a clutch tantamount 
to "Horrors! How could you think of such a 
thing ? " 



20 A FEARFUL RESP0NSIBILIT7. 

"Well, then," he said, "the only thing we can do 
is to send a valet de place for her. We can send old 
GazzL He's the incarnation of respectability; five 
francs a day and his expenses will buy all the virtues 
of him. She '11 come as safely with him as with me." 

Mrs. Elmore had applied a vividly thoughtful 
pressure to her husband's hand ; she now released it 
in token of assent, and he rosa 

" But don't be gone long," she whispered. 

On his way to the caffi^ which Gazzi frequented, 
Elmore fell in with the consul. 

By this time a change had taken place in the 
consular offica Mr. Ferris, some months before, had 
suddenly thrown up his charge and gone home ; and 
after the customary interval of ship-chandler, the 
California sculptor, Hoskins, had arrived out, with 
his commission in his pocket, and had set up his 
allegorical figure of The Pacific Slope in the room 
where Ferris had painted his too metaphysical con- 
ception of A Venetian Priest Mrs. Elmore had never 
liked Ferris ; she thought him cynical and opinion- 
ated, and she believed that he had not behaved quite 
well towards a young American lady, — a Miss Ver- 
vain, who had stayed awhile in Venice with her mother. 
She was glad to have him go ; but she could not ad- 
mire Mr. Hoskins, who, however good-hearted, was 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 21 

too hopelessly Western. He had had part of one 
foot shot away in the nine months' service, and 
walked with a limp that did him honor ; and he knew 
as much of a consul's business as any of the authors 
or artists with whom it is the tradition to fill that 
office at Venice. Besides he was at least a fellow- 
American, and Elmore could not forbear telling him 
the trouble he was in : a young girl coming from their 
town in America as far as Grenoa with friends, and 
expecting to be met there by the Elmores, with 
whom she was to pass some months ; Mrs. Elmore 
utterly prostrated by one of her old attacks, and he 
unable to leave her, or to take her with him to Genoa ; 
the friends with whom Miss Mayhew travelled unable 
to bring her to Venice ; she, of course, unable to come 
alone. The case deepened and darkened in Elmore's 
view as he unfolded it 

"Why," cried the consul sympathetically, "if I 
could leave my post I 'd go ! " 

"Oh, thank you!" cried Elmore eagerly, remember- 
ing his wifa " I could n't think of letting you." 

" Look here ! " said the consul, taking an official 
letter, with the seal broken, from his pocket. " This 
is the first time I could n't have left my post with- 
out distinct advantage to the pubUc interests, since 
I've been here. But with this letter from Turin, 



22 A PEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

telling me to be on the lookout for the Alabama, 1 
couldn't go to Genoa even to meet a young lady. 
The Austrians have never recognized the rebels as 
belligerents : if she enters the port of Venice, all I 've 
got to do is to require the deposit of her papers with 
me, and then I should like to see her get out again. 
I shovM like to capture her. Of course, I don't mean 
Miss Mayhew," said the consul, recognizing the 
double sense in which his language could be taken. 

" It would be a great thing for you," said Elmore, 
— " a greed thing." 

" Yes, it would set me up in my own eyes, and 
stop that infernal clatter inside about going over and 
taking a hand again." 

"Yes," Elmore assented, with a twinge of the 
old shame. *' I did n't know you had it too." 

"If I could capture the Alabama, I could afford 
to let the other fellows fight it out" 

" I congratulate you, with all my heart," said El- 
more sadly, and he walked in silence beside the 
consul. 

" Well," said the latter, with a laugh at Elmore's 
pensive rapture, " I 'm as much obliged to you as if 
I had captured her. I '11 go up to the Piazza with 
you, and see Grazzi." 

The affair was easily arranged ; Gazzi was made 



A TKARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 23 

to feel by the consul's intervention that the shield of 
American sovereignty had been extended over the 
young girl whom he was to escort from Genoa, and 
two days later he arrived with her. Mrs. Elmore's 
attack now was passing off, and she was well enough 
to receive Miss Mayhew half-recumbent on the sofa 
where she had been prone till her arrival It was 
pretty to see her fond greeting of the girl, and her 
joy in her presence as they sat down for the first long 
talk ; and Elmore realized, even in his dreamy with- 
drawal, how much the bright, active spirit of his wife 
had suffered merely in the restriction of her English. 
Now it was not only EngUsh they spoke, but that 
American variety of the language of which I hope 
we shall grow less and less ashamed ; and not only 
this, but their parlance was characterized by local 
turns and accents, which all came welcomely back 
to Mrs. Elmore, together with those still more inti- 
mate inflections which belonged to her own parti- 
cular circle of friends in the little town of Patmos, 
N. Y. Lily Mayhew was of course not of her own set, 
being five or six years younger; but women, more 
easily than men, ignore the disparities of age between 
themselves and their juniors ; and in Susy Stevens's 
absence it seemed a sort of tribute to her to establish 
her sister in the affection which Mrs. Elmore had so 



24 ▲ RABFUL RESFONSIBILmr. 

long cheiishecL Their friendship had been of sach 
a thoroughly trusted sort on botli sides that Mrs. 
Stevens (the memorably brilliant Sue Mayhew in her 
girlish days) had felt perfectly &ee to act upon Mrs. 
Elmore's invitation to let lily come out to her; and 
here the child was, as much at home as if she had 
just walked into Mrs. Elmore's parlor out of her 
sister^s house in Patmos. 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 25 



IV. 



They briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss 
Mayhew*s voyage, and her journey to Genoa, and 
came as quickly as they could to all those things 
which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the 
town and its people. " Is it much changed ? I sup- 
pose it is," she sighed. "The war changes every- 
thing." 

"Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss 
Mayhew. " But Patmos is gay, — perfectly delightful. 
We 've got one of the camps there now ; and mch 
times as the girls have with the officers ! We have 
lots of fun getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops 
on the parade-ground at the camp, and going out to 
see the prisoners, — you never saw such a place." 

" The prisoners ? " murmured Mrs. Elmore. 

" Why, yes ! " cried Lily, with a gay laugh. " Did n't 
you know that we had a prison-camp too ? Some of 
the Southerners look real nice. I pitied them," she 
added, with unabated gayety. 



26 ▲ FEARFUL RESPONSIBIUTT. 

" Your sister wrote to me/' said Mrs. Elmope ; *' but 
I could n't realize it, I suppose, and so I foigot it." 

"Yes," pursued lily, "and Frank Halsey 's in 
command. You would never know by the way he 
walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he can't 
dance, though, poor fellow. He's pale, and he's 
perfectly fascinating. So's Dick Burton, with his 
empty sleeve ; he 's one of the recruiting officers, and 
there 's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't 
think how funny it is. Professor Elmore, to see the 
old college buildings used for barracks. Dick says 
it 's much livelier than it was when he was a student 
there.'* 

" I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the pro- 
fessor. " Does he find plenty of volunteers ? " 

• Well, you know,*' the young girl explained, " that 
the old style of volunteering is all over." 

"No, I did n't know it" 

" Yes. It 's the bounties now that they rely upon, 
and they do say that it will come to the draft very 
soon, now. Some of the young men have gone to 
Canada. But everybody despises them. Oh, Mrs. 
£lmoi*e, I should think you 'd be so glad to have the 
professor off here, and honorably out of the way ! " 

" I 'm (dishonorably out of the way ; I can never 
foigive myself for not going to the war," said Elmora 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 27 

"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody 
feels that way about it now ! As Dick Burton says, 
we 've come down to business. I tell you, when you 
see arms and legs off in every direction, and women 
going about in black, you don't feel that it 's such a 
romantic thing any more. There are mighty few en- 
gagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets 
off ; no presentation of revolvers in the town hall ; and 
some of the widows have got married again ; and that 
I don't think is right. But what can they do, poor 
things ? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs, 
Elmore ? " 

" Tom Friar's widow ! Is Tom Friar dead f " 

" Why, of course ! One of the first I think it was 
Ball's Bluff. Well, she *8 married. But she mar- 
ried his cousin, and as Dick Burton says, that is n 't 
so bad. Is n't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing all her 
boys, — all five of them ? It does seem to bear too 
hard on some families. And then, when you see 
every one of those six Armstrongs going through 
without a scratch!" 

"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at 
a standstill The streets must look rather dreary." 

" Business at a standstill ! " exclaimed lily. " What 
has Sue been writing you all this time ? Why, there 
never was such prosperity in Patmos before ! Every- 



28 ▲ FEABFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

body is making money^ and people that you would n't 
hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and in- 
viting the old college families. Tou ought to see the 
residences and business blocks going up all over the 
place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now. 
You remember Greorge Fenton, Mrs. Elmore ? " 

« Mr. Haskell's clerk ? " 

"Yes. Well, he 's made a fortune out of an 
army contract; and he 's going to marry — the 
engagement came out just before I left — Bella 
Steams." 

At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright, — the 
only posture in which the fact could be imagined, 
"lily!" 

" Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in Amer- 
ica," triumphed the young girL She now put her 
hand to her mouth and hid a yawn. 

" You *re sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. " Well, you 
know the way to your room. You 11 find everything 
ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You shall 
commence being at home at once." 

" Yes, I am sleepy," assented Lily ; and she promptly 
said her good-nights and vanished ; though a keener 
eye than Elmore's might have seen that her prompt- 
ness had a color — '■ or say light — of hesitation in it. 

But he only walked up and down the room» after 



A FEABFUL RESPOKSIBILITT. 29 

she was gone, in unheedfnl distress. '* Gay times in 
America ! Grood heavens I Is the child utterly heart- 
less, Celia, or is she merely obtuse ? " 

'' She certainly is n't at all like Sue/' sighed Mra 
Elmore, who had not had time to formulate Lily's de- 
fence. '* But she 's excited now, and a little off her 
balance. She '11 be different to-morrow. Besides, 
all America seems changed, and the people with it. 
We should n't have noticed it if we had stayed there, 
but we feel it after this absence." 

*' I never realized it before, as I did from her babble ! 
The letters have told us the same thing, but they 
were like the histories of other times. Camps, pris- 
oners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden 
gains, social upheavals, — it is the old, hideous 
story of war come true of our day and country. It *8 
terrible ! " 

" She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. 
'* I don't know exactly what we shaU do with her. 
Of course, she can't expect the attentions she 's been 
used to in Patmos, with those young men." 

Elmore stopped, and stared at his wife. "What 
do you mean, Celia ? " 

" We don't go into society at all, and she does n't 
speak Italian. How shall we amuse her ? " 

" Well, upon my word, I don't know that we 're 



30 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 

obliged to provide her amusement ! Let her amuse 
herself. Let her take up some branch of study, or 
of — of — research, and get something besides *fun' 
into her head, if possible." He spoke boldly, but his 
wife's question had unnerved him, for he had a soft 
heart, and liked people about him to be happy. " We 
can show her the objects of interest And there are 
the theatres/' he added. 

" Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Elmore. " We can 
both go about with her. I will just peep in at her 
now, and see if she has everything she wants." She 
rose from her sofa and went to Lily's room, whence 
she did not return for nearly three quarters of an 
hour. By this time Elmore had got out his notes, 
and, in their transcription and classification, had 
fiedlen into forgetfulness of his troubles. His wife 
closed the door behind her, and said in a low voice, 
little above a whisper, as she sank very quietly into 
a chair, " Well, it has all come out, Owen." 

'^ What has all come out ? " he asked, looking up 
stupidly. 

" I knew that she had something on her mind, by 
the way she acted. And you saw her give me that 
look as she went out ? " 

"No — no, I didn't What look was it? She 
looked sleepy." 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBUJTT. 31 

"She looked terribly, terribly excited, and aa it 
she would like to say something to me. That was 
the reason I said I would let her go to her room 
alone." 

*'0h!" 

" Of course she would have felt awfully if I had 
gone straight off with her. So I waited. It may 
never come to anything in the world, and I don*t 
suppose it will ; but it 's quite enough to account for 
everything you saw in her." 

"I didn't see anything in her, — that was the 
difficulty. But \Ehat is it — what is it, Celia ? You 
know how I hate these delays." 

"Why, I 'm not sure that I need teU you, Owen; 
and yet I suppose I had better. It will be safer," 
said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the last, 
enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its 
effect upon her husband. " I suppose you will think 
your troubles are beginning pretty early," she sug- 
gested. 

« Is it a trouble ? " 

"Well, I don't know that it is. If it comes to 
the very worst, I dare say that every one would n't 
call it a trouble." 

Elmore threw himseK back in his chair in an atti 
tude of endurance. • What would the worst be ? '' 



32 A FEABFUL SESPONSIBILrnr. 

'^ Why, it's no use even to discoiss that^ for it b 
perfectly absnrd to suppose that it could ever come 
to that Bat the case/' added Mis. Elmore^ perceiv- 
ing that further delay was only farther suffering foi- 
her husband, and that any fact would now prob- 
ably fall Seut short of lus apprehensions, '' is simply 
this, and I don't know that it amounts to anything ; 
but at Peschiera, just before the tram started, she 
looked out of the window, and saw a splendid officei 
walking up and down and smoking ; and before she 
could draw back he must have seen her, for he 
threw away his cigar instantly, and^got into the same 
compartment. He talked awhile in German with an 
old gentleman who was there, and then he spoke in. 
Italian with Grazzi ; and afterwards, when he heard 
her speaking English with Gazzi, he joined in. 1. 
don't know how he came to join in at first, and she 
doesn't, either; but it seems that he knew some 
English, and he began speaking. He was very taU 
and handsome and distinguished-looking, and a perfect 
gentleman in his manners; and she says that she 
saw Oazzi looking rather queer, but he didn't say 
anything, and so she kept on talking. She told him 
at once that she was an American, and that she wan 
coming here to stay with friends ; and, as he was 
very carious about America, she told him all she 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 33 

could tMnk of. It did her good to talk about home^ 
for she had been feeUng a little blue at being so far 
away from everybody. Now, / don't see any harm 
in it ; do you, Owen ? " 

"It isn't according to the custom here; but we 
need n't care for that. Of course it was imprudent" 

" Of course," Mrs. Elmore admitted. " The ofl&cer 
was very polite; and when he found that she was 
from America, it turned out that he was a great 
sympathizer with the North, and that he had a 
brother in our army. Don't you think that was 
nice ? " 

*' Probably some mere soldier of fortune, with no 
heart in the cause/' said Elmore. 

" And very Ukely he has no brother there, as I told 
lily. He told her he was coming to Padua; but 
when they reached Padua, he came right on to Venice* 
That shows you could n't place any dependence upon 
what he said. He said he expected to be put under 
arrest for it ; but he did n't care, — he was coming. 
Do you believe they'll put him under arrest?" 

" I don 't know — I don 't know," said Elmore, in a 
voice of grief and apprehension, which might well 
have seemed anxiety for the oflScer's liberty. 

** I told her it was one of his jokes. He was very 
funny, and kept her laughing the whole way, with 

8 



34 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILmr. 

his broken English and his witty little remarka 
She says he 's just dying to go to America. Who do 
you suppose it can be, Owen ? " 

"How should I know? We've no acquaintance 
among the Austrians/' groaned Elmore. 

'' That 's what I told Lily. She 's no idea of the 
state of things here^ and she was quite horrified. 
But she says he was a perfect gentleman in every- 
thing. He belongs to the engineer corps, — that's 
one of the highest branches of the service, he told 
her, — and he gave her his card." 

" Gave her his card ! ** 

Mrs. Elmore had it in the hand which she had 
been keeping in her pockety and she now suddenly 
produced it ; and Elmore read the name and address 
of Ernst von Ehrhardt, Captain of the Boyal-Imperial 
Engineers, Peschiera. " She says she knows he wanted 
hers, but she did n't offer to give it to him ; cmd he 
did n't ask her where she was going, or anything." 

" He knew that he could get her address from Gtazzi 
for ten soldi as soon as her back was turned," said 
Elmore cynically. « What then ? " 

" Why, he said — and this is the only really bold 
thing he did do — that he must see her again, and 
that he should stay over a day in Venice in hopes of 
meeting her at the theatre or somewhere." 



A FEARFX7L BESPONSIBILITT. 35 

" It 's a piece of high-handed impudence ! ** cried 
Elmore. "Now, Celia, you see what these people 
are ! Do you wonder that the Italians hate them ? " 

" You 've often said they only hate their system." 

"The Austrians are part of their system. He 
thinks he can take any liberty with us because he is 
an Austrian officer I lily must not stir out of the 
house to-morrow." 

" She will be too tired to do so/' said Mrs. Elmore. 

''And if he molests us further, I will appeal to the 
consul" Elmore began to walk up and down the 
room again. 

"Well, I don't know whether you could call it 
mdestiTig, exactly," suggested Mrs. Elmore. 

" What do you mean, Celia ? Do you suppose that 
she — she — encouraged this officer ? " 

"Owen! It was all in the simplicity and in** 
nocence of her heart!" 

" Well, then, that she wishes to see him again ? " 

"Certainly not! But that's no reason why we 
should be rude about it" 

" Rude about it ? How ? Is simply avoiding him 
rudeness ? Is proposing to protect ourselves from 
his impertinence rudeness ? " 

" No. And if you can 't see the matter for yourself, 
Owen, I don 't know how any one is to make you." 



36 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

" Why, Celia, one would think that you approved 
of this man's behavior, — that you wished her to 
meet him again! You understand what the conse- 
quences would be if we received this officer. You 
know how all the Venetians would drop us, and we 
should have no acquaintances here outside of the 
army." 

" Who has asked you to receive him, Owen ? And 
as for the Italians dropping us, that does n 't frighten 
me. But what could he do if he did meet her again ? 
She need n 't look at him. She says he is very intel- 
ligent, and that he has I'ead a great many English 
books, though he does n 't speak it very well, and that 
he knows more about the war than she does. But of 
course she won't go out to-morrow. All that I hate 
is that we should seem to be frightened into staying 
at home." 

" She need n 't stay in on his account. You said 
3he would be too tired to go out" 

" I see by the scattering way you talk, Owen, that 
your mind is n't on the subject, and that you're 
anxious to get back to your work, I won't keep 
you." 

" Celia, Celia ! Be fair, now ! " cried Elmore. " You 
know very well that I 'm only too deeply interested 
'.n this matter, and that I 'm not likely to get back to 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 37 

my work to-night, at least What is it you wish mo 
to do?" 

Mrs. Elmore considered a while. "I don't wish 
VDu to do anything," she returned placably. "Of 
course, you 're perfectly right in not choosing to let 
an acquaintance begun in that way go any further. 
We should n 't at home, and we sha 'n 't here. But I 
don't wish you to think that Lily has been impru- 
dent^ under the circumstances. She does n 't know 
that it was anything out of the way, but she happened 
to do the best that any one could. Of course, it 
was very exciting and very romantic ; girls like such 
things, and there's no reason they should n't. We 
must manage," added Mrs. Elmore, " so that she shall 
see that we appreciate her conduct, and trust in her 
entirely. I would n't do anything to wound her 
pride or self-confidence. I would rather send her 
out alone to-morrow." 

" Of course," said Elmore. 

" And if I were with her when she met him, 1 
ioelieve I should leave it entirely to her how to 
Dehave." 

" Well," said Elmore, " you 're not likely to be put 
to the test. Hell hardly force his way into the 
nouse, and she is n't going out." 
. " No," said Mrs. Elmore. She added, after a silence, 



38 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBIUTT. 

" I 'm trying to think w}iether I 've ever seen him in 
Venice ; he 's here often. But there are so many tall 
officers with fiair complexions and English beards. I 
should like to know how he looks ! She said he was 
very aristocratic-looking." 

"Yes, it's a fine type," said Elmore. "They're 
all nobles, I believe." 

"But after all, they're no better looking than 
our boys, who come up out of nothing." 

" Ours are Americans," said Elmora 

" And they are the best husbands, as I told lily." 

Elmore looked at his wife, as she turned dreamily 
to leave the room; but since the conversation had 
taken this impersonal turn he would not say any- 
thing to change its complexion. A conjecture vague- 
ly taking shape in his mind resolved itself to nothing 
again, and ^eft him with only the ache of something 
unascei*tained. 



▲ FEARFUL BESPONSIfilLITY. 39 



V. 



In the morning Lily came to breakfast as bloom, 
ing as a rose. The sense of her simple, fresh, whole- 
some loveliness might have pierced even the indiffer- 
ence of a man to whom there was but one pretty 
woman in the world, and who had lived since their 
marriage as if his wife had absorbed her whole sex 
nto herself : this deep, unconscious constancy was a 
aoble trait in him, but it is not so rare in men as 
women would have us believe. For Elmore, Miss 
Mayhew merely pervaded the place in her finer 
way, as the flowers on the table did, as the sweet 
outter, the new eggs, and the morning's French 
jread did ; he looked at her with a perfectly serene 
'.gnorance of her piquant face, her beautiful eyes 
and abundant hair, and her trim, straight figure. 
But his wife exulted in every particular of her 
3harm, and was as generously glad of it as if it were 
her own ; as women are when they are sure that the 
charm of others has no designs. The ladies twit* 



40 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 

uered and laughed together, and as he was a man 
without small talk, he soon dropped out of the con- 
versation into a reverie, from which he foimd himself 
presently extracted by a question from his wife. 

"We had better go in a gondola, hadn't we, 
Owen?" She seemed to be, as she put this, trying 
to look something into him. He, on his part, tried 
his best to make out her meaning, but failed. 

He simply asked, " Where ? Are you going out ? " 

''Yes. Lily has some shopping she m^itst do. I 
think we can get it at Pazienti's in San Polo.** 

Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. 
It seemed to him a sudden advance from the position 
she had taken the night before in regard to Miss 
Mayhew's not going out ; but he could not understand 
bis wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he 
opposed her going. He decided that she wished him 
for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he said, 
*' I think you 'd better walk, if lily is n't too tired." 

" Oh, /' m not tired at all ! " she cried. 

" I can go with you, in that direction, on my way 
to the library," he added. 

" Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, 
discontinuing her look, and leaving her husband 
with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed respon* 
sibility. 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 41 

** She can step into the Fran a moment, and see 
fihose tombs," he saii " I think it will amuse her." 

lily broke into a laugh. " Is that the way you 
amuse yourselves in Venice ? " she asked ; and Mrs. 
Elmore hastened to reassure her. 

" That 's the way Mr. Elmore amuses himself. You 
know his history makes every bit of the past fascin- 
ating to him." 

"Oh, yes, that history! Everybody is looking out 
for that," said Lily. 

" Is it possible," said' Elmore, with a pensive sar- 
casm in which an agreeable sense of flattery lurked^ 
"that people still remember me and my history ?" 

" Yes, indeed ! " cried Miss Mayhew. " Prank Halsey 
was talking about it the night before I left. He couldn't 
seem to understand why I should be coming to you at 
Venice, because he said it was a history of Florence 
Vou were writing. It isn't, is it ? You must be get- 
ting pretty near the end of it. Professor Elmore.' ' 

" I 'm getting pretty near the beginning," said 
Elmore sadly. 

"It must be hard writing histories; they're so aw- 
fully hard to read," said lily innocently. " Does it in- 
terest you ? " she asked, with unaffected compassion. 

" Yes," he said, " far more than it will ever interest 
anybody else." 



42 A FEARFUL BESPONBIBILmr. 

"Oh, I don't believe that I" she cried sweetly, 
seizing the occasion to get in a little compliment. 

Mrs. Elmore sat silent, while things were thus 
going against Miss Mayhew, and perhaps she was 
then meditating the stroke by which she restored the 
balance to her own favor as soon as she saw her hus- 
band alone after breakfast " Well, Owen," she said, 
^'you've done it now." 

" Done what ? " he demanded. 

'^ Oh, nothing, perhaps ! " she answered, while she 
got on her things for the walk with unusual gayety ; 
and, with the consciousness of unknown guilt de- 
pressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, 
subdued, distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, 
as he forgot everything but his history. His wife 
hated to see him so miserable, and whispered at the 
shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, 
Owen ! I did n't mean anything." 

" By what ? " 

" Oh, if you 've forgotten, never mind ! " she cried ; 
and she and Miss Mayhew disappeared within. 

It was two hours later when he next saw them, 
after he had turned over the book he wished to see, 
and had found the passage which would enable him 
to go on with his work for the rest of the day at 
home. He was fitting his key into the house-door 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 42 

when he happened to look up the little street toward 
the bridge that led into it, and there, defined against 
the sky on the level of the bridge, he saw Mrs. 
Elmore and Miss Mayhew receiving the adieux of a 
distinguished-looking man in the Austrian uniform. 
The officer had brought his heels together in the con- 
ventional manner, and with his cap in his right 
hand, while his left rested on the hilt of his sword^ 
and pressed it down, he was bowing from the hips. 
Once, twice, and he was gone. 

The ladies came down the eeUle with rapid stepcj 
and flushed faces, and Elmore let them in. His 
wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, " I want 
to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now ! " she 
added, when they were alone in their own room and 
she had shut the door, " what do you say nowt'^ 

"What do / say now, CeUa?" retorted Elmore, 
with just indignation. " It seems to me that it is foi 
you to say something — or nothing." 

" Why, you brought it on us." 

Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not 
speak, for this passed all force of language. 

" Did n't you see me looking at you when I spoke 
of going out in a gondola, at breakfast ? " 

« Yes." 

" What did you suppose I meant ? " 



44 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

« I did n't know." 

" When I was trying to make ^ou understand thafa 
if we took a gondola we could go and come without 
being seen! lily had to do her shopping. But il 
you chose to run off on some interpretition of your 
own, was / to blame, I should like to know ? Nc, 
indeed ! You won't get me to admit it, Owen." 

Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, 
miserable sibillation between his set teeth. 

" Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never 
saw in my life!" cried Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing 
the subject in her own mind, and leaving her husband 
to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her 
words were strong, but she did not really look af- 
fronted ; and it is hard to tell what sort of liberty it 
is that aiironts a woman. It seems to depend a great 
deal upon the person who takes the liberty. 

" That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore 
quietly. 

"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful 
candor, " it was." Seeing that he rema7.ned unaffected 
by her display of this virtue, she added, " Don't you 
think lie was very handsome ? " 

" I could n't judge, at such a distance." 

" Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want 
you to think he was disrespectful at all. He was n't. 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIfilUTT. 45 

He was everything that was delicate and deferen- 
tial" 

" Did you ask him to walk home with you ? " 
Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some momenta 
Then she drew a long breath, and said firmly : " If you 
won't interrupt me with gratuitous insults, Owen, I 
will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will 
be ready to do mejvstice, I ask nothing mora" She 
waited for his contrition, but proceeded without it, in 
a somewhat meeker strain : ** lily could n't get her 
things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria 
for them. Then of course the nearest way home was 
through St Mark's Square. I made lily go on the 
Morian side, so as to avoid the officers who were sit- 
ting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square 
and past San Mo'is^, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had 
never thought of how the officers frequented the 
Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most magnificent 
creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid 
officer ! ' when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a 
sort of stop, and bowed very low, and she whispered, 
* It 's my officer.' I did n't dream of his joining us, 
and I don't think he did, at first ; but after he took a 
second look at Lily, it really seemed as if he could n't 
help it. He asked if he might join us, and I did n't 
say anjrthing." 



46 A FEABFUL RESPOKSIBILITr. 

" Did n't say anjrthing !" 

"JVb/ How could I refuse, in so many words? 
And I was frightened and confused, any way. He 
asked if we were going to the music in the Giardini 
Pubblici ; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not 
going into society in Venice, but was merely here tor 
her health. That 's all there is of it. Now do you 
blame me, Owen ? " 

"No." 

'* Do you blame her ? " 

" No." 

" Well, I don't see how he was to blame." 

" The transaction was a little irregular, but it wad 
highly creditable to all parties concerned." 

Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. 
Indignation and censure she would have known how 
to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did not 
know what might not be coming. "lily scarcely 
spoke to him," she pursued, ** and I was very cold, i 
spoke to him in German." 

" Is German a particularly repellent tongue ?" 

" No. But I was determined he should get no hoM 
upon us. He was very polite and very respectful, as 
I said, but I did n't give him an atom of encourage- 
ment ; I saw that he was dying to be asked to caQ, 
but I parted from him very stiffly." 



A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILTTY. 47 

« Is it possible ? " 

** Owen, what is there so wrong about it all ? He 's 
clearly fascinated with her ; and as the matter stood, 
he had no hope of seeing her or speaking with her 
except on the street. Perhaps he did n't know it was 
wrong, — or did n*t realize it." 

" I dare say " 

"What else could the poor fellow have done? 
There he was 1 He had stayed over a day, and laid 
himself open to arrest, on the bare chance — one in a 
hundred — of seeing lily ; and when he did see her, 
what was he to do ? " 

" Obviously, to join her and walk home with her." 

" You are too bad, Owen I Suppose it had been one 
of our own poor boys ? He looked like an American." 

" He did n't behave like one. One of * our own 
poor boys,' as you call them, would have been as far 
as possible from thrusting himself upon you. He 
would have had too much reverence for you, too much 
self-respect, too much pride." 

" What has pride to do with such things, my dear ? 
I think he acted very naturally. He acted upon im- 
pulse. I 'm sure you *re always crying out against 
the restraints and convdntionaUties between young 
people, over here ; and now, when a European does do 
a simple, unaffected thing — " 



48 A FEARFUL RESP0NSIBILIT7. 

Elmore made a gesture of impatienca '' This fellow 
has presumed upon your being Americans - on ycur 
ignorance of the customs here — to take a liberty 
that he would not have dreamed of taking with Ital- 
ian or German ladies. He has shown himself no 
gentleman." 

"Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. 
That 's what I thought when lily first told me about 
his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very much 
prejudiced against him ; but when I saw him to-day, 
I must say that I felt that I had been wrong. He %8 
a gentleman ; but — he is desperate." 

" Oh, indeed ! " 

** Yes/' said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under 
her husband's sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen,** she 
pleaded, " can't you see anything romantic in it ?" 

" I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it I 
see it from his standpoint as an adventure, to be 
bragged of emd laughed over at the mess-table and 
the cafi%. I *m going to put a stop to it" 

Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewil- 
dered. "Well, Owen," she said, **I put the aflTair 
entirely in your hands." 

Elmore never could decide upon just what theory 
his wife had acted; h3 had to rest upon the fact; 
already known to him, of her perfect truth and con- 



A FEARFUL teSPONSIBILITY. 49 

scientiousness, and his perception that even in a good 
woman the passion for manoeuvring and intrigue may 
approach the point at which men commit forgery. He 
now saw her quelled and submissive ; but he was by 
no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, 
or that she voluntarily acquiesced. 

''All that I ask is that you won't do anything that 
you 'U regret afterward. And as for putting a stop 
to it, I fancy it 's put a stop to already. He 's going 
back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that 11 probably 
be the last of him." 

** Very well/' said Elmore, " if that is the last ot 
him. I ask notWng better. I certainly have no wiab 
to take any steps in the matter." 

But he went out of the house very unhappy and 
greatly perplexed. He thought at first of going to 
the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was prob- 
ably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiai 
to that hostelry, and of inquiring him out, and re- 
questing him to discontinue his attentions ; but this 
course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than 
comported with his present mood, and he turned 
aside to seek advice of his consul. He found Mi. 
Hoskins in the best humor for backing his quarrel. 
He had just received a second dispatch from Turin 

stating that the rumor of the approaching visit c: 

4 



60 ▲ FEABFUL BE8P0NSIBILITT. 

the Alabama was unfounded ; and he was thus left 
with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands 
which he was glad to contribute to the defence ol 
Mr. Elmore's family from the pursuit of this Aus- 
trian officer. 

*' This is a very simple afiTair, Mr. Elmore," — he usu- 
ally said ** Elmore,^ but in his haughty frame of mind, 
he naturally threw something more of state into their 
intercourse, — "a very simple affair, fortunately. All 
that I have to do is to call on the military governor, 
and state the facts of the case, and this fellow will 
get his orders quietly and definitively. This war has 
sapped our influence in Europe, — there 's no doubt of 
it ; but I think it's a pity if an American family liv* 
ing in this city can't be safe from molestation ; and 
if it can't, I want to know the reason why." 

This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and 
he thanked the consul. At the same time he felt his 
own resentment moderated, and he said, ** I 'm willing 
to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon." 

'' Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, ** if he clears 
out, that's the end of it I'll look in to-morrow, 
and see how you 're getting along." 

"Don't — don't give them the impression that 
I've — profited by your kindness," suggested Elmore 
at parting. 



A FEABFUL BESP0NSIBILIT7. 51 

"You haven't yet I only hope you may have 
the chance." 

" Thank you ; I don't think I do." 

Ehnore took a long walk, and returned home tran- 
quillized and clarified as to the situation. Since it 
could be terminated without difficulty and without 
Acandal in the way Hoskins had explained, he was 
not unwilling to see a certain poetry in it. He could 
not repress a degree of sympathy with the bold young 
fellow who had overstepped the conventional pro- 
prieties in the ardor of a* romantic impulse, and 
he could see how this very boldness, while it had a 
terror, would have a charm for a young girL There 
was no necessity, except for the purpose of holding 
Mrs. Elmore in check, to look at it in an ugly light. 
Perhaps the officer had inferred from Lily's innocent 
frankness of manner that this sort of approach was 
permissible with Americans, and was not amusing 
•limself with the adventure, but was in love in earnest. 
Elmore could allow himself this view of a case which 
he had so completely in his own hands ; and he was 
sensible of a sort of pleasure in the novel respon- 
sibility thrown upon him. Few men at his age were 
called upon to stand in the place of a parent to a 
young girl, to intervene in her afiairs, and to decide 
who was and who was not a proper person to pretend 
to her acquaintanca 



12 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILrrT. 

Feeling so secure in his right, he rebelled against 
the restraint he had proposed to himself, and at dinner 
ne invited the ladies to go to the opera with hiuL 
He chose to show himself in public with them, and 
to check any impression that they were without due 
f rotectioa As usual, the pit was full of officers, 
and between the acts they all rose, as usual, and faced 
lUe boxes, which they perused through their lorgnettes 
till the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs. 
Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his no- 
tice, instructed him, by a slow turning of her head, 
that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After that he 
undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation 
from his sense of bravado, he enjoyed the kst acts 
of the opera more than the first. Miss Mayhew 
showed no disappointment; and she bore herself 
with 80 much gra«e and dignity, and yet so evidently 
impressed every one with her beauty, that he was 
oroud of having her in charge. He began himself 
^o see that she was pretty. 



A FEABFUL BESPONSIBUJTY. 53 



VL 



The next day was Sunday, and in going to church 
they missed a call from Hoskins, whom Ehnore 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 
nad not hurt the poor young fellow's feelings ; and 
now that he was gone, and safely out of the way, 
ILmore hoped so too. 

On his return from the library, his wife met him 
with an air of mystery before which his heart sank. 
'* Jwen," she said, " Lily has a letter." 

" Not bad news from home, Celia ! ** 

'^ No ; a letter which she wishes to show you. It 
has just coma 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, 



54 A RABTUL RESPOHsmiLrnr. 

holding an open note in her hand, and looking into 
Elmore's eyes with a certain nn&thomahle candor, of 
which she had the secret 

" Here," she said, " is a letter which I think yon 
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 re- 
sulting from the transfer of the whole responsibility 
to him. She stood looking at him while he read: 

Miss, 

In this eyeniDg I am jiut arriyed from Yenise, 4 homs 
afterwards I have bad the fortane to see you and to speake 
with you — and to f ayorite me of your gentil acquaintance- 
ship at rail-away. I never forgeet the moments I have seen 
you. Tour pretty and nice figure had attached my heard 
so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to see you at Yenise. 
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 Yenise, but I am sory that I cannot, beaucause I 
most 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. Tr^ humble 

£. 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 bitter- 



A FEARITJL RESPONSIBILITY. 55 

ness 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 Ins 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. 

"Did you wish me to see it ?" 

"I don't suppose I wished you 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 Grerman girl in this way. If he 
desired to — to — pay attention to her, he would 
write to her father." 



56 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

** Yes, that 's what Mrs. Elmore said. She said she 
supposed he must think it was the American way.*' 

" Mrs. Eknore/' 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 au- 
thority before I act We will dismiss the fact of 
irregularity. We will suppose that it is fit and be- 
coming 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 you my, no 
matter what you mean, you know ? " 

" I mean what I say." 

*' Perhaps," he suggested, " you would prefer to re- 
turn 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 ac- 
quaintance, and I don't see why I should tolerate it 
from a foreigner, though I suppose their customs 
are different" 

" Then you wish me to write to him ? " 



A VEABFUL BESPOKSIBILITT. 57 

*" 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 yester- 
day, and hegs me to express her very great smprise that you 
snoold have ventured to address her. She desires me also 
to add that you will consider at an end whatever acquain- 
l^anoe yoa suppose yourself to have formed with her. 

Your obedient servant, 

Owen Elmore. 

He handed the note to Lily. " Yes, that will do," 
she stdd, in a low, steady voice. She drew a deep 
breath, and, laying the letter softly down, went out of 
tne room into Mrs. Elmore's. 

Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax 
when his wife appeared swiftly upon the scena 

" 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" 

" I must see it," said Mrs. Elmore, with finality, 
and possessed herself of the note. She ran it through, 



88 A FEAJtFOL SESPOVSIBILITT. 

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 1 " 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 to sevid it I " exclaimed his wife. 

« Yes, I am." 

'' I did n 't suppose you could be so heartless." 

"Very well, then, I vnni't send it," said Elmora 
" I put the affair in your hands. What are you going 
to do about it ? " 

" Nonsense ! " 

** On the contrary, I 'm perfectly serious. I don 't 
see why you should n 't manage the business. The 
gentleman is an acquaintance of yours. I don't know 
him." Elmore rose and put his hands in his pockets. 
" What do you intend to do ? Do you like this clan- 
destine 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 your 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 59 

walk 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 mcuiage 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 Ehr- 
hardt's conduct that calls for savage treatment^'' 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. There 
is no other way. There could n't be any kindness in 
checking him gradually. But I wish," she added sor^ 



60 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

rowfully, " that lie had not been such a complete goose 
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 inflic- 
tion of this pitiless snub. I do not say that it wouid 
not have been different if he had trusted at all in 
the sincerity of Captain Ehrhardt*s passion ; but ne 
wad 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 de- 
corum, of wounded respectability, qualified the zeal 
for Miss Mayhew's good which prompted him. He 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 61 

was 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 repin- 
ing Miss Mayhew indulged was secret, or confided 
solely to Mrs. Elmore. To Elmore himself she ap- 
peared 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 Lis 
wife was prevented from accompanying him, he went 
with lily alone to visit the scenes of such events >\3 



62 A FEARFUL BESP0NSIBILIT7. 

his 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 hav- 
ing people in the streets turn and glance at the 
handsome girl by his side, of whose beauty and styl- 
ishness he became aware through the admiration 
looked over the shoulders of the Austrians, and 
openly spoken by the Italian populaca 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 memo- 
rable 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 silenca One evening, at the end 
of the week, his wife asked, "Why do you alwayc 
take lily through the Piazza on the side farthest 
from where the officers sit? Are you afraid of h :r 
meeting Captain Ehrhardt ? " 

*' Oh^ no I I consider the Ehrhardt business settled 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 63 

But you know the Italians never walk on the officers' 
Bide." 

"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 ! What 
cavld the 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 I 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 
Bioba; you know it was the Venetian Pasquino in 
the Kevolution of '48 — " 



64 A FEABFUL BESFOKSIBILnT. 

"Channingr 

** And the Campo di Ginstdzia^ where the execations 
used to take place." 

"Delightful!" 

"And — and — the house of Tintoretto^" fiJtered 
Elmore. 

"Delicious! She cares so much for Tintoretto! 
And youVe been with her to the Jewish buiying- 
ground at the Lido, and the Spanish synagogue in the 
Ghetto, and the fish-market at the Bialto, and you've 
shown her the house of Othello and the house of Des- 
demona, 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 inter- 
esting promenading was over, and those stufiy old 
Italians began to come to the cafi^s. 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 wear going on; and here she is 
dropped down in the midst of this absolute dead- 
ness: no calls, no picnics, no parties, no dances — ■ 
nothing I We must do something for her." 

" Shall we give her a ball ? " asked Elmore, look- 
ing round the pretty little apartment. 



A FEARFUL RE6P0NSIBILITT. 65 

"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 Vene- 
tians, and our house would be thronged with officers. 
What I 've seen of them does n't make me particularly 
anxious for the honor of their further cu^uaintance." 

" 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 you migM go and dine at one of the , 
hotels — at the Danieli — instead of that Italian res- 
taurant; and then Lily could see somebody at the 
table d'hdte, and not simply perish of despair." 

"I — I did n'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 has nobody. 
She has gone through this Ehrhardt business so well 
that I think we ought to do all we can to divert her 
mind." 

5 



66 A FEABFUL RESPOKSIBILnY. 

"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 wait- 
ers; while at our restaurant — " 

** Pshaw ! " cried Mrs. Elmore, " what does lily care 
for Italian ? I 'm sure / never 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 pil- 
lar to which Foscarini was hanged head downwards 
for treason to the Bepublic had not evoked. She 
made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly 
an impression at the table d' hdte 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 bowed 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 67 

to 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 anxie- 
ties 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, " Her- 
bert, 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-din- 
ner cofiee. The Austrian band was playing in the 
centre of the Piazza, and the tall, blond German 
officers promenaded back and forth with dark Hun- 
garian women, who looked each like a princess of 
her raca The lights glittered upon them, and on 



68 A FEARFUL RE8P0NSIBILIT7. 

the brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the 
Piazza before the cafi%s ; 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 placa 
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 does n't want to go ; and I told him he ought 
to go to America. That's what I tell all these Eu- 
ropeans." 

*' 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, — Bose-Black; and he is 
the most impudent and pushing man in the world. 
I would n't introduce him, because I saw he was just 
dying for it" 

Miss Mayhew laughed, as she laughed at every- 
thing, not because she was amused, but because she 
was happy ; this childlike gayety of heart was great 
pait of her charm. 



▲ FEABFUL RESPOKSIBIUTT. 69 

Elmore had quieted his scraples as a good Ve- 
netian by coming inside of the cafi& 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 ajtogether sacrificed to his 
sympathy with the dima^raaiane. 



70 ▲ FEABFUL BESPOKSIBILnT. 



VIL 



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. Bose-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 Andersons." 

"I don't know anything about them," answered 
Elmore. "I never saw them before." 

'' Aoh I " 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 I But I 'm told they fade very soon. 
I should like to make up a picnic party with you 
all for the lido.' 



99 



A FKARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 71 

" Thank you," replied Elmore Stiffly. ** Miss May- 
hew has seen the lido." 

" Aoh ! Thfit 's her name. It 's a pretty nama" 
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 hos- 
pitality, Elmore was surprised by this impudence into 
sending out to the next caffd for a pitcher of beer. 
Kose-Black poured himself out one glass and another 
tlQ he had emptied the pitcher, conversing affably 
meanwhile with his silent host 

" Whtf did n't you turn him out of doors ? " de- 
manded Mrs. Elmore, as soon as the painter's depart- 
ure allowed her to slip from the closed door behind 
which she had been imprisoned in her room. 

" I did everything but that," 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." 



72 A VEABFDL bESPONSIBIUTT. 

"He is an Englishman, and he thinks he ean 
take any kind of liberty with us becaose 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. 
Bose-Black had drunk. She enlarged upon previous 
aggressions of his, and said finally that they had to 
thank Mr. Ferris for his acquaintance. 

" Ferris could n't help himself/' said Elmore. " He 
apologized to me afterward. The man got him into 
a comer. But he warned us about him as soon he 
could. And Bose-Black would have made our ac- 
quaintance, 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 sigL "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/' 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBIUTY. 73 

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 smil- 
ing 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 an^ 
swer 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. 



74 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

Elmore put the note he had received into his wife's 
hands without a word. 

Sib, — 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, 

£. VON Ehrhabdt. 

Mrs. Ebnore folded the letter carefully up and re- 
turned 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 en- 
tirely." 

"Yes. Why did he wait a whole week?" she 
added. 

'' It is a serious matter with him. He had a right 



A FEARFT7L RESPONSIBILITY. 75 

to 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 has n'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. 
Elmora 

"Oh I That's true. I hadn't thought of that. 
Then it 's very simple." 

" But I don't know that she is n't," murmured Mrs, 
Elmore. 

«WeU,askher." 

•^ How could sAe tell ? " 



76 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 

" How could she tdl r 

'' Yes. Do you suppose a child like tbat can know 
her own mind in an instant ? '* 

" I should think she could." 

" Well, she could n't. She liked the excitement, — 
the romanticality of it ; but she does n't know any 
more than you or I whether she cares for him. I 
don't suppose marriage with anybody has ever seri- 
ously 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 abstrac- 
tions, 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 hus- 
band. 



A FEAEFUL EESPONSIBILITY. 77 

" No, that won't do. Let me think" Mra Elmore 
thought to so little purpose that she left the word 
to her husband again. 

" You see we must lay the matter before her." 

" Could n't — could n't we let him come to see us 
awhile ? Could n'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 would n't understand, — that we 
could n't make it clear to him," said Elmora " 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 ! Every- 
thing 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." 



78 A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILTTT. 

"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 '11 
sea" 

'* I shall be very glad of that," Elmore began. 

" Why should 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 Qerman, he would let her black his 
boots, — like that general in Municli." 

" Who is talking of ' marriage ? " retorted Mrs. 
Elmore. 

*' Captain Ehrhardt and I. That 's what it comes 
to; ahd it can't come to anything else. I like his 
courage in writing English, and it 's \^onderful 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. 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 79 

The whole letter is touchingly brave and fine. Con- 
found 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 I ** cried 
his wife. " It 's cruel" 

'' I don't. I wish to treat him in the most generous 
manner ; after all, it is n't his fault But you must 
allow, Celia, that it 's very annoying and extremely 
perplexing. We can'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 *ve 
no right to give her away in marriage, or let her in- 
volve her affections here. But be judicious, Celia." 

** It 's easy enough to say that ! " 

" I '11 be back in an hour," said Elmore. " I 'm 
going to the Square. We must n'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 profila 

But she rose very promptly, and with a heightened 
color said, " I am sorry to trouble you to answer an- 



80 A FEARFUL BE8P0NSIBILIT7. 

other letter for me. Professor Elmore. I manage my 
correspondence at home myself, but here it seems to 
be different." 

^ It need n't be different here, lily,** said Elmore 
kindly. ''You can answer all the letters you re- 
ceive in just the way you lika 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 writa" She kept slipping Ehr- 
hardt'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 some- 
thing 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 Ehnore, " that this 
gentleman has now done everything that we could 
expect of him, and has fully atoned for any enor he 
committed in making your acquaintance." 

"Yes, I understand that Mrs. Elmore thought 



A FEARFUL RESFONSIBILmT. 81 

he 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 did n'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 ought n'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 engage- 
ment afterward." 



82 A FEABFUL SESPONBIBILnT. 

"You're quite rights Lily/' said Ehnore, with a 
rising respect for the girL 

" Professor Ehnore, 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 sup- 
pose, — 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 ac- 
cepted his attentions vdthout 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. '* Some- 
times they succeed ; but generally they 're wretched 
failures. The barriers of different race, language, edu- 
cation, religion, — they're terrible barriers. It's 
very hard for a man and woman to understand each 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 83 

other 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. Tou would have no society 
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 Wallachiay or into Hungary or Bohe- 
mia^ — everywhere your husband would be an instru- 
ment 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 need n't care." 

" If he were good, you need n'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, / 
don't want to marry him! What in the world are you 
arguing with me for ? " 

** Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I ought n't 
to let these considerations weigh as a feather in the 



84 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

balance if you are at all — at all — ahem ! excuse me ! 
— attached to him. That, of course, outweighs every- 
thing else." 

" But I *m not ! " cried the girl " How amid I be ? 
IVe only met him twice. It would be perfectly 
ridiculous. I hiow I '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 hyster- 
ical in the little laugh she gave. 

" Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I '11 
write now, if you will give me his letter." 

She put it behind her. Trofessor Elmore," she 
said, ''I am not going to have you think that he 
ever behaved in the least presumingly. And what- 
ever 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 did n'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 his 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 85 

kindness. Even if he had never written this last 
letter, I should always have said that he was a true 
gentleman." 

" WeU ? " 

" 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 afiTected 
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, 
\t '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 that 



86 A FEARFUL RESP0N8IBILITT. 

about the form of the refusal / will read what you 
say. I intend that it shall be made kindly." 

" Very welL I 'U copy a letter of yours, or write 
from your dictation." 

" No ; you write it, and I 'U 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 did n't seem to be so before." 

*' Why, the situation was n'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 had n'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 
does n't care for him I " 

" Yes," said Elmore sadly, *' I should like very much 
to have her prove it" 

" Well, you won't get her to. What makes you 
tliink she does?" 

*" I don't Do you ? " 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 87 

" N-0," 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 does n't ? " 

" I don't. Who hinted such a thing ? But I don't 
want you to enjoy doing it." 

" Enjoy it ? 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^ 
X '11 let it go. I 'II 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 
Xou to pass it over in silence if you don't consent." 

" Does he ?" asked Elmore. " I had n't noticed that" 

" Perhaps you 'd better read some of your letters, 
Owen, before you answer them!" 

" Eeally, 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. 



88 A FEAJtFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 

''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 '* 

" I suppose I may have time to think ? " she re- 
torted. 

"Yes, if you will tell me what you djo think ; but 
that I mii/d know. It 's a thing too vital in its con- 
sequences for me to act without your full concur- 
rence. 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 1 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 ? " 



A FEARFUL RESP0NSIBILIT7. 89 

"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 
itasldid?" 

'' I had nothing to do with it I thought you were 
acting conscientiously. I '11 say that much." 

" You *ve got to say more. You have got to say 
you approved of it ; for you know you did." 

"Oh — approved o{ it 1 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 is n'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 they migfU be very happy. I 
shall always say that" 



90 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

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 I " she cried. 
*' Owen, this mtid be 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 feel- 
ing 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 El- 
more 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. 



A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILTTT. ^ 91 



VIIL 

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'hfite of the Danieli, going to and fro with the 
ladies, and efficiently protecting them from the depre- 
dations 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 Eng- 
lishman 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 on 



92 A FEAKFUL BESPONBIBILITT. 

the 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 Uked. 
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 deli- 
cacies 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 ofierings simply, 
as he took everything in life, and interpreted them as 
an expression, however odd, of Mr. Andersen's sym- 
pathy 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 to 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 93 

exhibit the tokens of Mr. Andersen's kind remem- 
brance, and was mystified by the young man's con- 
fusion, 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 Bose-Black's 
pictures, which he had just seen. They were based 
upon an endeavor to trace the moral principles be- 
lieved by Mr. Buskin 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 showing 



94 A FEABFUL BESP0NSIBILIT7. 

it 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 say- 
ing that he was to set off for India in the mornings 
and he went away very melancholy. 

" Well, I don't know," said Hoskins, thoughtfally 
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 lus head and laughed indecently. His behavior 
nettled Elmore, and it sent Mrs. Elmore prematurely 
out of the room; for, not content with his ex- 
plosions 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 with- 
drawal he stopped, and presently said good-night 
rather soberly. 

Then she returned. ''Owen," she asked sadly, 



A FEABFUIi RESFONSIBILITT. 95 

''did you really think these flowers and that turtle 
were for you ? " 

" Why, yes," he answered. 

" Well, I don't know whether I would n't almost 
rather it had been a joke. I believe that I would 
rather despise your heart than your head. Why 
should Mr. Andersen bring y<M flowers 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 suf- 
fering. 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 Elmora 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 could n'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 straight- 



96 A FEABFUL SESPOKSIBILmr. 

forward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care 
that has been thrown upon me. It 's more than I 
can bear. No, I 'm not fit for it ! '* he cried at last ; 
and his wife, seeing him so crashed, now said some- 
thing to console him. 

"I know you're not I see it more and mora 
But I know that you will do the best you can, and 
that you will always act from a good motive. Only 
(fo try 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 tempta- 
tion, 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 h.er 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, hdps you to realize it." 

" It helps you to realize it," assented Elmore, deeply 
oppressed by the tragic parallel 



A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILnT. 97 

''He's just beginning to feel it about now/' said 
Hoskins, with strange mng froid. " I reckon it *s a 
good deal like being shot I did n'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-reUef representing a female fig- 
ure advancing from the left comer 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 
Ehnore. " What do you call it ? " 

"Well, I haven't settled yet. I have thought 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 1 " 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 ; and 

T 



98 A FEAHFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

when 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 
modem sculptura 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 secu- 
rity 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 hu- 
man happiness or misery were increased by it on 
the whole. 



A FEABFUL BESPOKSIBILITy. 99 



IX, 



In the respite which followed the dismissal of 
Andersen, the English painter, Bose-Black, visited 
the Elmores as often as the servant, who had orders 
in his case to say that they were impediti, failed of 
her duty. They could not always escape him at the 
cafil^, 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 Southronsl 
(as the London press then called them), and he ex- 
pressed the current belief of his compatriots, that we 
were going to the dogs. 

" What do you i-eally 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. 



100 A FEARFUL RESPOKBIBILmr. 

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 ami- 
able 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 suc- 
cessful 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 hu- 
manity, and savage rudeness upon Bose-Black. It 
was all one to Eose-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 al- 
together. His intimacy was superior to the accidents 
of their moods, and their slights and snubs were 



A FEAJRFUL KESPONSIBILITY. 101 

accepted 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 Bose-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 Bose-Black, in more 
than usually offensive patronage, lolled back upon 
the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, " About flir- 
tations, now, in America, — tell me something about 
flirtations. . We Ve heard so much about your Ameri- 
can flirtations. We only have them with married 
ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. El- 
more would think of one." 

" I don't know what you mean," said lily, " I don't 
know anything about flirtations." 

This seemed to amuse Bose-Black as an uncom- 
monly 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 than 



102 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILmr. 

Elmore could have imagined of her stature ; but al- 
most any woman can be awful in emergencies. ** I 
should begin by bidding you good-evening," she an- 
swered, 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 ar- 
rested for the deed. He gazed with fascination upon 
Bose-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 Bose-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 afifair 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 is n't pleasant, I find." 



A F£ABFUL RESPOKSIBILITT. 103 

" I don't undewtand you, Owen. How can you 
care so much for this impudent wretch's little snub, 
and yet be so indifTerent 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 al- 
most 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 ex- 
pectation, 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 aU its dis« 
comfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he 
did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a 
hold upon Elmore's imagination which deepened be- 
cause 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 misconcep- 
tion of hers should turn them into self-accusal or 
uige hiiTi to some attempt at the reparation towards 



104 A FEABFUL SESP0NSIBILIT7. 

which he wavered. He leally could have done no- 
thing 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 conse- 
quences 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 excited 



A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 105 

all Venice at that time — an Austrian officer hope- 
lessly 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 Hosldns, "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 fetct, I don't know but he sufifered more than 
the average American citizen. I think we have a great 
deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We re- 
spect 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 time 



106 A FBABfUL RSSF0KSIBILI1T. 

he gets a chance to speak with a pietty 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 feelings are apt 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 adven- 
ture ; but when she could n'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 inconsist- 
ently 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 re^ 
signed." 

'* Oh, lie 'U get along," answered Hoskins, with the 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITy. 107 

indifference 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. 

The time passed very quietly now, and if it had 
not been for Hoskins, the ladies must have found it 
dull. He had nothing to do, except as he made him- 
self occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed 
on them the leisure which Elmore could not find. They 
went everywhere with him, and saw the city to ad- 
vantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to ordinary 
curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he 
showed a pleasure in using such little privileges as 
his position gave him for their amusement. He went 
upon errands for them ; he was like a brother, with 



108 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

something more than a brother's pliability ; he came 
half the time to breakfast with them, and was always 
welcome to aU. He had the gift of extracting com- 
fort from the darkest news about the war ; he was a 
prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in 
many hours of despondency they willingly submitted 
to the authority of his greater experience^ and took 
heart again. 

^'I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins/' 
said Elmore, on one of those occasions when the con- 
sul was turning defeat into victory. " There 's a 
streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in 
your taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, 
80 far as the judgment of the world goes, our fortunes 
are at the lowest ebb just now — " 

"Oh, the world is wrong!" interrupted the con- 
sul. "Those London papers are all in the pay of 
the rebels." 

"I mean that we have no sort of sympathy in 
Europe ; and yet here you are, embodying in your con- 
ception of ' Westward ' the arrogant faith of the days 
when our destiny seemed universal union and univer- 
sal dominion. There is something sublime to me in 
your treatment of such a work at such a time. I 
think an Italian, for instance, if his country were in- 
volved in a life and death struggle like this of ourSi 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 109 

would have expressed something of the anxiety and 
apprehension of the time in it ; but this conception 
of yours is as serenely undisturbed by the facts of the 
Mrar as if secession had taken place in another planet. 
There is something Greek in that repose of feeling, 
triumphant over circumstance. It is like the calm 
beauty which makes you forget the anguish of the 
Laocoon." 

"Is that so, Professor?** said Hoskins, blushing 
modestly, as an artist often must in these days of cre- 
ative criticism. He seemed to reflect awhile before 
ha added, " Well, I reckon you *re partly right. If we 
vrer did go to smash, it would take us a whole gener- 
ation to find it out. We have all been raised to put 
80 much dependence on Uncle Sam, that if the old 
gentldtnan really did pass in his checks we should 
only think he was lying low for a new deal I never 
happened to think it out before, but I 'm pretty sure 
it's so.** 

" Your work would n't be worth half so much to 
me if you had * thought it out,* '* said Elmore. " It 's 
the unconsciousness of the faith that makes its chief 
value, as I said before; and there is another thing 
about it that interests and pleases me still more.'* 

** What 's that ? " asked the sculptor. 
X "The instinctive way in which you have given the 



110 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

figare an entirely American quality. There was 
something very familiar to me in it, the first time 
you showed it, but I Ve only just been able to formu- 
late my impression : I see now that while the spirit 
of your conception is Greek, you have given it, as you 
ought, the purest American expression. Your * West- 
ward ' is no Hellenic goddess : she is a vivid and self- 
reliant American girL" 

At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and 
seemed not to know where to look. Mrs. Elmore had 
the effect of escaping through the door into her own 
room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. 
Hoskins followed each in turn with a queer glance, 
and sat a moment in silence. Then he said, ** Well, I 
reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly, 
without offering to take leave of the ladiea 

As soon as he was gone, lily came in from the bal- 
cony, and whipped into Mrs. Elmore's room, from 
which she flashed again in swift retreat to her own, 
and was seen no more ; and then Mrs. Elmore came 
back, with a flushed face, to where her husband sat 
mystified. 

" My dear," he said gravely, " I 'm afraid you Ve 
hurt Mr. Hoskins's feelings." 

" Do you think so ? " she asked ; and then she 
burst into a wild cry of laughter. " O, Owen, Owen! 
you will kill me yet ! " 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. Ill 

"Eeally," he replied with dignity, "I don't see 
any occasion in what I said for this extraordinary 
behavior." 

*' Of course you don't, and that 's just what makes 
the fun of it So you found something familiar in 
Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did you ? " she 
asked. '' And you did n't notice anything particular 
in it?" 

*' Particular, particular ? " he demanded, beginning 
to lose his patience at this. 

" Oh," she exclaimed, " could n't you see that it was 
lily, all over again ? " 

Elmore laughed in turn. '• Why> so it is ; so it is ! 
That accounts for everything that puzzled me. I 
don't wonder my maunderings amused you. It was 
ridiculous, to be sure I When in the world did she 
give him the sittings, and how did you manage to 
keep it from me so well ? " 

" Owen ! " cried his wife, with terrible severity. 
*' You don't think that lily would let him put her 
into it?" 

" Why, I supposed — I did n't know — I don't see 
how he could have done it unless — " 

"He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. 
Elmore. " We saw it all along, but he never * let 
on,' as he would say, about it, and we never meant to 
say anything, of course." 



112 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILnT. 

'^Theiiy" replied Elmore, delighted with the fact^ 
^it has been a purely unconscious piece of cere- 
bration." 

'' Cerebration I " exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more 
scorn than she knew how to express. '*I should 
think as much ! " 

" Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique 
of a man who does not care to be quite trampled 
under foot ^' I don't see that the theoiy is so very 
unphilosophicaL" 

" Oh, not at aUl" mocked his wifa " It 's philosophy 
ical to the last degree. Be as philosophical as you 
please, Owen ; I shall love you still the sama" She 
came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm 
round his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the 
head. Then she released him, and left him with an- 
other burst of derisioa 






A FEARFUL BESP0NSIBILIT7. 113 



X. 



After this Elmore had such an uncomfortable feel- 
ing that he hated to see Hoskins again^ and he was 
relieved when the sculptor failed to make his usual 
call, the next evening. He had not been at dinner 
either, and he di^ not reappear for several days. 
Then he merely said that he had been spending the 
time at Chioggia, with a French painter who was 
making some studies down there, and they all took 
up the old routine of their friendly life without em- 
barrassment. 

At first it seemed to Elmore that Idly was a little shy 
of Hoskins, and he thought that she resented his using 
her charm in his art ; but before the evening wore 
away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long 
talk about home, and she took her place at the piano 
and played some of the war-songs that had b^un to 
supersede the old negro melodies. Then she wan- 
dered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted 
over the keys, and ended with "* Stop dat knockinV 

8 



I 99 



114 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 

in which Hoskiiis joined with his powerful bass in 
the recitative " Let me in/' and Ehnore himself had 
half a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as 
she struck the keys with a final crash, but lingered, 
as his fashion was when he had something to pro- 
pose : if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be 
liked, he brought it in as if he had only happened to 
remember it He now drew out a large, square, ceremo- 
nious4ooking envelope, at which he glanced as if, after 
all, he was rather surprised to see it, and said, " Oh, 
by the by, Mrs. Elmore, I wish you 'd tell me what to 
do about this thing. Here 's something that *s come 
to me in my official capacity, but it is n't exactly con- 
sular business, — if it was I don't believe I should 
ask any lady for instructions, — and I don't know ex- 
actly what to do. It 's so long since I corresponded 
with a princess that I don't even know how to an- 
swer her letter." 

The ladies perhaps feared a hoax of some sort, and 
would not ask to see the letter; and then Hoskins 
recognized his failure to play upon their curiosity 
with a laugh, and gave the letter to Mrs. Elmora 
It was an invitation to a mask ball, of which all 
Venice had begun to speak. A great Bussian lady, 
who had come to spend the winter in the Lagoons, 
and had taken a whole floor at one of the hotels, had 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 115 

sent out her cards, apparently to all the available 
people in the city, for the event which was to take 
place a fortnight later. In the mean time, a thrill of 
preparation was felt in various quarters, and the ordi- 
nary course of life was interrupted in a way that gave 
some idea of the old times, when Venice was the 
capital of pleasure, and everything yielded there to 
the great business of amusement Mrs. Elmore had 
found it impossible to get a pair of fine shoes finished 
until after the ball ; a dress which Lily had ordered 
could not be made ; their laundress had given notice 
that for the present all fluting and quilling was out 
of the question; one already heard that the chief 
Venetian perruquier and his assistants were engaged 
for every moment of the forty-eight hours before the 
ball, and that whoever had him now must sit up with 
her hair dressed for two nights at least. Mrs. Elmore 
had a fanatical faith in these stories; and while 
agreeing with her husband, as a matter of principle, 
that mask balls were wrong, and that it was in bad 
taste for a foreigner to insult the sorrow of Venice by 
a festivity of the sort at such a time, she had secretly 
indulged longings which the sight of Hoskins's invi- 
tation rendered almost insupportable. Her longings 
were not for herself, but for lily : if she could pro- 
vide Lily with the experience of a masquerade in 



116 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILTTT. 

Venice, she could overpay all the kindnesses that the 
Mayhews had ever done her. It was an ambition 
neither ignoble nor ungenerous, and it was with a 
really heroic effort that she silenced it in passing the 
invitation to her husband, and simply saying to 
Hoskins, " Of course you will go." 

" I don't know about that," he answered. " That 's 
the point I want some advice on. You see this docu- 
ment calls for a lady to fill out the bill" 

" Oh," returned Mrs. Elmore, " you will find some 
Americans at the hotels. Tou can take them." 

'* Well, now, I was thinking, Mrs. Elmore, that I 
should like to take you." 

" Take me ! " she echoed tremulously. " What an 
idea ! I 'm too old to go to mask balls." 

" You don't look it," suggested Hoskins. 

" Oh, I could n't go," she sighed. " But it 's very, 
very kind." 

Hoskins dropped his head, and gave the low chuckle 
with which he confessed any little bit of humbug. 
** Well, you or Miss lily." 

lily had retired to the other side of the room as 
soon as the parley about the invitation began. With- 
out asking or seeing, she knew what was in the note, 
and now she felt it right to make a feint of not know- 
ing what Mrs. Elmore meant when she asked, *' What 
do you say, lily ? " 



A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 117 

When the question was duly explained to her, she 
answered languidly, "I don't know. Do you think 
I'd better?" 

" I might as well make a clean breast of it, first as 
last," said Hoskins. '' I thought perhaps Mrs. Elmore 
might refuse, she 's so stiff about some things," — here 
he gave that chuckle of his, — ''and so I came pre- 
pared for contingencies. It occurred to me that it 
mightn't be quite the thing, and so I went round to 
the Spanish consul and asked him how he thought 
it would do for me to matronize a young lady if I 
could get one, and he said he did n't think it would 
do at alL" Hoskins let this adverse decision sink 
into the breasts of his listeners before he added : " But 
he said that he was going with his wife, and that if 
we would come along she could matronize us both. 
I don't know how it would work," he concluded im- 
partially. 

They all looked at Elmore, who stood holding the 
princess's missive in his hand, and darkly forecasting 
the chances of consent and denial At the first sug- 
gestion of the matter, a reckless hope that this ball 
might bring Ehrhardt above their horizon again 
sprang up in his heart, and became a desperate fear 
when the whole responsibility of action was, as usual, 
left with him. He stood, feeling that Hoskins had 
used him very ill 



118 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILTIT. 

" I suppose," began Mrs. Elmore very thoughtfully, 
'' that this will be something quite in the style of the 
old masquerades under the Bepublic" 

''Begular Bidotto business, the Spanish consul 
says." answered Hoskins. 

" It might be very useful to you, Owen," she re- 
sumed, '' in an historical way, if Lily were to go and 
take notes of everjrthing ; so that when you came to 
that period you could describe its corruptions intelli- 
gently." 

Elmore laughed. "I never thought of that, my 
dear," he said, returning the invitation to Hoskins. 
'' Your historical sense has been awakened late, but it 
promises to be very active. lily had better go, by 
all means, and I shall depend upon her coming home 
with very full notes upon her dance-list" 

They laughed at the professor's sarcasm, and Hos- 
kins, having undertaken to see that the last claims of 
etiquette were satisfied by getting an invitation sent 
to Miss Mayhew through the Spanish consul, went 
off, and left the ladies to the discussion of ways and 
means. Mrs. Elmore said that of course it was now 
too late to hope to get anything done, and then set 
herself to devise the character that lily would have 
appeared in if there had been time to get her ready, 
or if all the work-people had not been so busy that it 



A. FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITT. 119 

waa merely frantic to think of anything. She first 
patriotically considered her aa Columbia, with the 
customary drapery of stars and stripes and the cap of 
liberty. But while holding that she would have 
looked very pretty in the dress, Mrs. Elmore decided 
that it would have been too hackneyed ; and besides, 
everybody would have known instantly who it was. 

"Why not have had her go in the character of 
Mr. Hoskins's * Westward ' ? " suggested Elmore, with 
lazy irony. 

"The very thing!" cried his wife. "Owen, you 
deserve great credit for thinking of that ; no one else 
would have done it! No one will dream what it 
means, and it will be great fun, letting them make 
it out. We must keep it a dead secret from Mr. 
Hoskins, and let her surprise him with it when he 
comes for her that evening. It will be a very pretty 
way of returning his compliment, and it will be a 
sort of delicate acknowledgement of his kindness in 
asking her, and in so many other ways. Yes, you Ve 
hit it exactly, Owen ; she shall go as * Westward.* " 

"Go?" echoed Elmore, who had with difficulty 
realized the rapid change of tense. " I thought you 
said you could n't get her ready." 

" We must manage somehow," replied Mrs. Elmore. 
And somehow a shoemaker for the sandals, a seam- 



120 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

stress for the delicate flowing draperies, a hair-dresser 
for the adjustment of the young girl's rebellious abun- 
dance of hair beneath the star-lit fillet, were actually 
found, — with the help of Hoskins, as usual, though 
he was not suffered to know anything of the character 
to whose make-up lie contributed. The perruquier, a 
personage of lordly address naturally, and of a dignity 
heightened by the demand in which he found him- 
self came early in the morning, and was received 
by Elmore with a self-possession that ill-comported 
with the Bolemnity of the occasion. " Sit down," said 
Elmore easily, pushing him a chair. " The ladies 'will 
be here presently." 

" But I have no time to sit down, signore ! " replied 
the artist, with an imperious bow, "and the ladies 
must be here instantly." 

Mrs. Elmore always said that if she had not heard 
this conversation, and hurried in at once, the perruquier 
would have left them at that point But she con- 
trived to appease him by the manifestation of an in- 
telligent sympathy ; she made Lily leave her breakfast 
untasted, and submit her beautiful head to the touch 
of this man, with whom it was but a head of hair and 
nothing more; and in an honr the work was done. 
The artist whisked away the cloth which covered her 
shoulders, and crying, " Behold ! " bowed splendidly 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 121 

to the spectators, and without waiting for criticism or 
suggestion, took his napoleon and went his way. All 
that day the work of his skill was sacredly guarded, 
and the custodian of the treasure went about with her 
head on her shoulders, as if it had been temporarily 
placed in her keeping, and were something she was 
not at all used to taking care of. More than once 
Mrs. Elmore had to warn her against sinister accidents. 
" Remember, Lily," she said, " that if anything did 
happen, nothing could be done to save you ! " In spite 
of himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the 
depths of his wonted studies he found himself pur- ^ 
sued and harassed by vague apprehensions, which 
upon analysis proved to be fears for Miss Lily's 
hair. It was a ^jreat moment when the robe came 
home — rather late — from the dressmaker's, and was 
put on over Lily's head ; but from this thrilling rite 
Elmore was of course excluded, and only knew of it 
afterwards by hearsay. He did not see her till she 
came out just before Hoskins arrived to fetch her 
away, when she appeared radiantly perfect in her 
dress, and in the air with which she meant to carry 
it off. At Mrs. Elmore's direction she paraded daz- 
zlingly up and down the room a number of times, 
bending over to see how her dress hung, as she 
walked. Mrs. Elmore, with her head on one side, scru- 



122 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILmr. 

timzed her in every detail, and Elmore regarded her 
young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as 
her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh^ 
which made the others laugh, recalled him to himself, 
as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. He was re- 
ceived in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from 
one to the other with his queer, knowing smile, and 
took in the whole affair without a word. 

" Is n't it a pretty idea ? " . said Mrs. Elmora 
" Studied from an antique bas-relief, or just the same 
as an antique, — full of the anguish and the repose 
of the Laocoon." 

* Mrs. Elmore," said the sculptor, " you *re too many 
for me. I reckon the procession had better start be- 
fore I make a fool of myself. Well ! " This was all 
Hoskins could say ; but it sufiBiced. The ladies de- 
clared afterwards that if he had added a word more, 
it would have spoiled it. They had expected him to 
go to the ball in the character of a miner perhaps, or 
tin that of a trapper of the great plains ; but he had 
chosen to appear more naturally as a courtier of the 
time of Louis XIV. "When you go in for a dis- 
guise/' he explained, '' you can't make it too complete ; 
and I consider that this Ump of mine adds the last 
touch." 

''It's no use to sit up for thcuu/' Mrs. Elmore 



A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 123 

said^ when she and her husband had come in from 
calling good wishes and last instructions' after them 
from the balcony, as their gondola pushed away. 
"We sha'n't see anything more of them till morn- 
ing. Now this/' she added, " is something like the 
gayety that people at home are always fancying in 
Europe. Why, I can remember when I used to im- 
agine that American tourists figured brilliantly in 
scUom and conversaaioni, and spent their time in mask- 
ing and throwing confetti in carnival, and going to 
balls and opera. I did n't know what American tour- 
ists were, then, and how dismally they moped about 
in hotels and galleries and churches. And I did n't 
know how stupid Europe was socially, — how per- 
fectly dead and buried it was, especially for young 
people. It would be fun if things happened so that 
Lily never found it outl I don't think two offers 
already, — or three, if you count Eose-Black, — are 
very bad for a?iy girl ; and now this ball, coming right 
on top of it, where she will see hundreds of hand- 
some ofiBicersl Well, she'll never miss Patmos, at 
this rate, will she ? " 

" Perhaps she had better never have left Patmos," 
suggested Elmore gravely. 

" I don't know what you mean, Owen," said his 
wife, as if hurt. 



't*.' 



124 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILmr. 

** I mean that it 's a great pity she should give her- 
self up to the same frivolous amusements here that 
she had there. The only good that Europe can do 
American girls who travel here is to keep them in 
total exile from what they call a good time, — from 
parties and attentions and flirtations; to force them, 
through the hard discipline of social deprivation, to 
take some interest in the things that make for civil- 
ization, — in history, in art, in humanity." 

"Now, there I differ with you, Owen. I think 
American girls are the nicest girls in the world, just 
as they are. And I don't see any harm in the things 
you think are so awfuL You Ve lived so long here 
among your manuscripts that you 've forgotten there 
is any such time as the present If you are getting 
so Europeanized, I think the sooner we go home the 
better." 

"/ getting Europeanized!'* began Elmore indig- 
nantly. 

" Yes, Europeanized ! And I don't want you to be 
so severe with lily, Owen. The child stands in terror 
of you now ; and if you keep on in this way, she can't 
draw a natural breath in the house." 

There is always something flattering, at first, to a 
gentle and peaceable man in tht^ notion of bein^^ 
terrible to any one ; Elmore melted at these words. 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 125 

and at the fear that he might have been, in some 
way that he could not think of, really harsh. 

" I should be very sorry to distress her," he began. 

"Well, you haven't distressed her yet," his wife 
relented. " Only you must be careful not to. She 
was going to be very circumspect, Owen, on your 
account, for she really appreciates the interest you 
take in her, and I think she sees that it won't do to 
be at all free with strangers over here. This ball will 
be a great education for Lily, — a great education. I 'm 
going to commence a letter to Sue about her costume, 
and all that, and leave it open to finish up when 
lily gets home." 

When she went to bed, she did not sleep till after 
the time when the girl ought to have come ; and when 
she awoke to a late breakfast, Lily had still not re- 
turned. By eleven o'clock she and Elmore had passed 
the stage of accusing themselves, and then of accusing 
each other, for allowing Lily to go in the way they 
had ; and had come to the question of what they had 
better do, and whether it was practicable to send to 
the Spanish consulate and ask what had become of 
her. They had resigned themselves to waiting for 
one half-hour longer, when they heard her voice at 
the water-gate, gayly forbidding Hoskins to come up ; 
and running out upon the balcony, Mrs. Elmore had 



126 A F£ABFUL BESPONSIBILITir. 

a glimpse of the courtier, very tawdry by daylight, 
re-entering his gondola, and had only time to turn 
about when Lily burst laughing into the roouL 

*'0h, don't look at me. Professor Elmore!" she 
cried. "I'm literally danced to rags!" 

Her dress and hair were splashed with drippings 
from the wax candles ; she was wildly decorated with 
favors from the German, and one of these had been 
used to pin up a rent which the spur of a hussar had 
made in her robe; her hair had escaped from its 
fastenings during the night, and in putting it back 
she had broken the star in her fillet ; it was now kept 
in place by a bit of black-and-yellow cord which an 
ofELcer had lent her. *' He said he should claim it of 
me the first time we met," she exclaimed excitedly. 
" Why, Professor Elmore," she implored with a laugh, 
"don't look at me so.'" 

Grief and indignation were in his heart " You 
look like the spectre of last night," he said with 
dreamy severity, and as if he saw her merely as a 
vision. 

" Why, that 's the way I fed I " she answered ; and 
with a reproachful "Owen!" his wife followed her 
flight to her room. 



AFEAEPUL EESPONSIBILITy. 127 



XI. 

Elmore went out for a long walk, from which he 
letumed disconsolate at dinner. He was one of 
those people, common enough in our Puritan civiliza- 
tion, who would rather forego any pleasure than incur 
the reaction which must follow with all the keenness 
of remorse; and he always mechanically pitied (for 
the operation was not a rational one) such unhappy 
persons as he saw enjoying themselves. But he had 
not meant to add bitterness to the anguish which lily 
would necessarily feel in retrospect of the night's 
gayety ; he had not known that he waa recognizing, by 
those unsparing words of his, the nervous misgivings 
in the girl's heart. He scarcely dared ask, as he sat 
down at table with Mrs. Elmore alone, whether lily 
were asleep. 

** Asleep ? " she echoed, in a low tone of mystery. 
"I hope so." 

" Celia, Celia ! " he cried in despair. '* What shall 
I do ? I feel terribly at what I said to her." 



128 A FEABFUL RESPONSIBILnT. 

'* Sb I At what you said to her ? Oh yes ! Yes, 
that was cruel. But there is so much else, poor 
child, that I had forgotten that." 

He let his plate of soup stand untasted. " Why — 
why," he faltered, " did n't she enjoy herself ? " And 
a historian of Venice, whose mind should have been 
wholly engaged in philosophizing the republic's diffi- 
cult past, hung abjectly upon the question whether a 
young girl had or had not had a good time at a balL 

"Yes. Oh, yes! She enjoyed herself — if that's 
all you require," replied his wife. '* Of course she 
wouldn't have stayed so late if she hadn't enjoyed 
herself." 

^ No," he said in a tone which he tried to make 
leading; but his wife refused to be led by indirect 
methods. She ate her soup, but in a manner to cany 
increasing bitterness to Elmore with every spoonfuL 

" Come, Celia I " he cried at last, " tell me what has 
happened. You know how wretched this makes me. 
Tell me it, whatever it is. Of course, I must know 
it in the end. Are there any new complications ? " 

" No new complications," said his wife, as if resent- 
ing the word. " But you make such a bugbear of the 
least little matter that there 's no encouragement to 
tell you anything." 

" Excuse me," he retorted, " I have n't made a bug- 
bear of this." 



A FEABFUL RESPOKSIBILITT. 129 

''You haven't had the opportunity." This was 
BO grossly unjust that Elmore merely shrugged his 
shoulders and remained silent When it finally ap- 
peared that he was not going to ask anything more, 
his wife added : " If you could listen, like any one 
else, and not interrupt with remarks that distort all 
one's ideas" — Then, as he persisted in his silence, 
she relented stiU further. " Why, of course, as you 
say, you wiU have to know it in the end. But I can 
tell you, to begin with, Owen, that it *s nothing you 
can do anything about, or take hold of in any way. 
Whatever it is, it's done and over; so it needn't 
distress you at alL" 

"Ah, I've known some things done and over that 
distressed me a great deal," he suggested. 

"The princess wasn't so very young, after all," 
said Mrs. Elmore, &s if this had been the point in 
dispute, " but very fat and jolly, and very kind She 
was n't in costume ; but there was a young countess 
with her, helping receive, who appeared as Night, — 
black tulle, you know, with silver stars. The prin- 
cess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily, — the Eus- 
sians always Juive sympathized with us in the war, — 
and aU the time she was n't dancing, the princess kept 
her by her, holding her hand and patting it The 
officers — hundreds of them, in their white uniforms 

8 



130 A F2ARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

and those maguificent hussar dresses — were very 
obsequious to the princess, and lily had only too 
many partners. She says you can't imagine how 
splendid the scene was, with all those different cos- 
tumes, and the rooms a perfect blaze of waxlights ; 
the windows were battened, so that yoi i coulu n't tell 
when it came daylight, and she haan't any idea 
how the time was passing. They were not all in 
masks ; and there did n't seem to be any regular hour 
for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper 
was, but she thinks it must have been towards morn- 
ing. She says Mr. Hoskins got on capitally, and 
everybody seemed to like him, he was so jolly and 
good-natured ; and when they found out that he had 
been wounded in the war, they made quite a belle of 
him, as he called it The princess made a point of 
introducing all the officers to lily that came up after 
they immasked. They paid her the greatest atten- 
tion, and you can easily see that she was the pret^ 
tiest girl there." 

" I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, 
with magnanimous pride in the loveliness that had 
made him so much trouble. " Well ? " 

'' Well* they could n't any of them get the hang, as 
Mr. Hoskins said, of the character she came in, for a 
good while ; but when they did, they thought it was 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 131 

the best idea there : and it was all your idea, Owen/' 
said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride 
that he knew she must now be approaching the diffi- 
cult passage of her narration. ** It was so perfectly 
new and unconventionaL She got on very well 
speaking Italian with the officers, for she knew as 
much of it as they did." 

Here Mrs. Elmore paused, and glanced hesitatingly 
at her husband. "They only made one little mis- 
take ; but that was at the beginning, and they soon 
got over it." Elmore suffered, but he did not ask 
what it W6ts, and his wife went on with smooth cau- 
tion. " lily thought it was just as it is at home, and 
she mustn't dance with any one unless they had 
been introduced. So after the first dance with the 
Spanish consul, as her escort, a young officer came 
up and asked her; and she refused, for she thought it 
was a great piece of presumption. Afterwards the 
princess told her she could dance with any one, intro- 
duced or not, and so she did ; and pretty soon she saw 
this first officer looking at her very angrily, and going 
about speaking to others and glancing toward her. 
She felt badly about it, when she saw how it was ; 
and she got Mr. HosMns to go and speak to him. 
Mr. Hoskins asked him if he spoke English, and the 
officer said No ; and it seems that he did n't know 



132 A FEABFUL RBSPONSIBILnT. 

Italian either, and Mr. Hoskins tried him in Spanish, 
— he picked up a little in New Mexico, — but the 
ofELcer did n't understand it ; and all at once it oc- 
curred to Mr. Hoskins to say, ' Parlez-vous Fran^ais ? ' 
and says the officer instantly, * Oui, monsieur."* 

'' Of course the man knew French. He ought to 
have tried him with that in the beginning. What 
did Hoskins say then ? " asked Elmore impatiently. 

^ He did n't say anything : that was all the French 
he knew." 

Elmore broke into a cry of laughter, and laughed 
on and on with the wild excess of a sad man when 
once he impacks his heart in that way. His wife did 
not, perhaps, feel the absurdity as keenly as he, but 
she gladly laughed with him, for it smoothed her way 
to have him in this humor. " Mr. Hoskins just took 
him by the arm, and said, * Here ! you come along 
with me,' and led him up to the princess, where lily 
was sitting ; and when the princess had explained to 
him, Idly rose, and mustered up enough French to 
say, ' Je vous prie, monsieur, de danser avec moi,' and 
after that they were the greatest friends." 

" That was very pretty in her ; it was sovereignly 
gracious," said Elmore. 

** Oh, if an American girl is left to manage for her- 
self she can always manage ! " cried Mrs. Elmore. 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 133 

" Well, and what else ? " asked her husband. 

" Oh, / don't know that it amounts to anything/* 
said Mrs. Elmore ; but she did not delay further. 

It appeared from what she went on to say that 
in the German, which began not long after mid- 
night, there was a figure fancifully called the sym- 
phony, in which musical toys were distributed among 
the dancers in pairs ; the possessor of a small pandean 
pipe, or tin horn, went about sounding it, till he tound 
some lady similarly equipped, when he demanded her 
in the dance. In this way a tall mask, to whom a 
penny trumpet had fallen, was stalking to and fro 
among the waltzers, blowing the silly plajrthing with 
a disgusted air, when Lily, all unconscious of him, 
where she sat with her hand in that of her faithful 
princess, breathed a responsive note. The mask was 
instantly at her side, and she was whirling away in 
the waltz. She tried to make him out, but she had 
already danced with so many people that she was 
unable to decide whether she had seen this mask be- 
fore. He was not disguised except by the little visor 
of black silk, coming down to the point of his nose ; 
his blond whiskers escaped at either side, and his 
blond moustache swept beneath, like the whiskers 
and moustaches of fifty other officers present, and he 
did not speak. This was a permissible caprice of his. 



134 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

but if she were resolved to make him speak, this also 
was a permissible caprice. She made a whole turn 
of the room in studying up the Italian sentence with 
which she assailed him: ^'Perdoni, Maschera; ma 
cosa ha detto ? Non ho ben inteso." 

** Speak English, Mask/' came the reply. " I did 
not say anything." It came certainly with a German 
accent, and with a foreigner's deliberation; but it 
came at once, and clearly. 

The English astonished her, and somehow it daunt- 
ed her, for the mask spoke very gravely ; but she 
would not let him imagine that he had put her down, 
and she rejoined laughingly, " Oh, I knew that you 
hadn't spoken, but I thought I would make you." 

" You think you can make one do what you will ? " 
asked the mask. 

" Oh, no. I don't think I could make you tell me 
who you are, though I should like to make you." 

" And why should you wish to know me ? If you 
met me in Piazza, you would not recognize my 
salutation." 

" How do you know that ? " demanded lily. *' I 
don't know what you mean." 

" Oh, it is understood yet already," answered the 
mask. "Your compatriot, with whom you live, 
wishes to be well seen by the Italians, and he would 
not let you bow to an Austrian." 



A VEABFUL BESPONSIBILITY. 135 

"That is not so," exclaimed lily indignantly. 
" Professor Elmore would n 't be so mean ; and if he 
would, / should n't/* She was frightened, but she 
felt her spirit rising, too. "You seem to know so 
well who I am : do you think it is fair for you to 
keep me in ignorance ? " 

*'I cannot remain masked without your leave. 
Shall I unmask ? Do you insist ? " 

*' Oh, no," she replied. ** You will have to unmask 
at supper, and then I shall see you. I 'm not im- 
patient I prefer to keep you for a mystery." 

" You will be a mystery to me even when you un- 
mask," replied the mask gravely. 

lily was ill at ease, and she gave a little, unsuc- 
cessful laugh. " You seem to take the mystery very 
coolly," she said in default of anything else. 

" I have studied the American manner," replied the 
mask. "In America they take everything coolly: 
life and death, love and hate — all things." 

" How do you know that ? You have never been 
in America." 

" That is not necessary, if the Americans come 
here to show us." 

" They are not true Americans, if they show you 
that," cried the girL 

" No ? " 



136 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILnT. 

" But I see that you are only amusing yourself.'' 

•• And have you never amused yourself with me ? " 

" How could I," she demanded, " if I never saw 
you before ? " 

" But are you sure of that ? " She did not answer, 
for in this masquerade banter she had somehow been 
growing unhappy. " Shall I prove to you that you 
have seen me before ? You dare not let me unmask." 

*' Oh, I can wait till supper. I shall know then 
that I have never seen you before. I forbid you to 
unmask till supper I Will you obey?" she cried 
anxiously. 

''I have obeyed in harder things," replied the 
mask. 

She refused to recognize anything but meaningless 
badinage in his words. " Oh, 6ts a soldier, yes ! — 
you must be used to obeying orders." He did not 
reply, and she added, releasing her hand and slipping 
it into his arm, '* I am tired now ; will you take me 
back to the princess ? " 

He led her silently to her place, and left her with 
a profound bow. 

" Now," said the princess, " they shall give you a 
little time to breathe. I will not let them make you 
dance every minute. They are indiscreet. You shall 
not take any of their musical instruments, and so 
you can fairly escape till supper." 



A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 137 

" Thank you," said Lily absently, " that will be 
the best way '' ; and she sat languidly watching the 
dancers. A young naval ofiGlcer who spoke English 
ran across the floor to her. 

"Come," he cried, "I shall have twenty duels on 
my hands if I let you rest here, when there are so 
many who wish to dance with you." He threw a 
pipe into her lap, and at the same moment a pipe 
sounded from the other side of the room. 

"This is a conspiracy!" exclaimed the girL "I 
will not have it I I am not going to dance any more." 
She put the pipe back into his hands ; he placed it 
to his lips, and sounded it several times, and then 
dropped it into her lap again with a laugh, and van- 
ished in the crowd. 

'* That little fellow is a rogue," said the princess. 
** But he is not so bad as some of them. Monsieur," 
she cried in French to the fair-whiskered, tall mask 
who had already presented himself before lily, " I 
will not permit it, if it is for a trick. You must un- 
mask. I will dispense mademoiselle from dancing 
with you." 

The mask did not reply, but turned his eyes upon 
Lily with an appeal which the holes of the visor 
seemed to intensify " It is a promise," she said to 
the princess, rising in a sort of fascination. " I have 
forbidden him to unmask before supper." 



138 A FEASFUL BESPONSIBIIJTr. 

''Oh, very well^" answered the princess, ''if that is 
the case. But make him bring you back soon: it 
is almost tima" 

"Did you hear, Mask?" asked the girl, as they 
waltzed away. " I will only make two turns of the 
room with you." 

"Perdoni?" 

''This is too bad ! " she exclaimed. ** I will not be 
trifled with in this way. Either speak English, or 
unmask at once.'' 

The mask again answered in Italian, with a re- 
peated apology for not understanding. "You under- 
stand very well," retorted lily, now really indignant^ 
" and you know that this passes a jest" 

*^ Can you speak (German ? " asked the mask in that 
tongue. 

" Yes, a little, but I do not choose to speak it If 
you have anything to say to me you can say it in 
English." 

" I cannot understand English," replied the mask, 
still in German, and now Lily thought the voice 
seemed changed ; but she clung to her belief that it 
was some hoax played at her expense, and she con- 
tinued her efforts to make him answer her in English. 
The two turns round the room had stretched to half 
a dozen in this futile task, but she felt herself power- 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 139 

« 

less to leave the mask, who for his part betrayed 
signs of embarrassment^ as if he had undertaken a ruse 
of which he repented. A confused movement in the 
crowd and a sudden cessation of the music recalled 
her to herself, and she now took her partner's arm 
and hurried with him toward the place where she had 
left the princess. But the princess had already gone 
into the supper-room, and she had no other recourse 
than to follow with the stranger. 

As they entered the supper-room she removed her 
little visor, and she felt, rather than saw, the mask 
put up his hand and lift away his own : he turned 
his head, and looked down upon her with the face of 
a man she had never seen befora 

'' Ah, you are there ! " she heard the princess's voice 
calling to her from one of the tables. '' How tired 
you look ! Here — here ! I will make you drink this 
glass of wine." 

The oflScer who brought her the wine gave her his 
arm and led her to the princess, and the late mask 
mixed with the two-score other tall blond ofELcers. 

The night which stretched so far into the day 
ended at last, and she followed Hoskins down to their 
gondola. He entered the boat first, to give her his hand 
in stepping from the riva ; at the same moment she 
involuntarily turned at the closing of the door behind 



140 A FEAEFUL BESPONSIBUITT. 

her, and found at her side the tall blond mask, or one 
of the masks, if there were two who had danced with 
her. He caught her hand suddenly to his lips, and 
kissed it. 

" Adieu — forgive 1 " he murmured in English, and 
then vanished indoors again. 

" Owen," said Mrs. Elmore dramatically at the end of 
her narration, '* who do you think it could have been ? " 

" I have no doubt as to who it was, Celia," replied 
Elmore, with a heat evidently quite unexpected to his 
wife, " and if lily has not been seriously annoyed by 
the matter, I am glad that it has happened. I have 
had my regrets — my doubts — whether I did not 
dismiss that man's pretensions too curtly, too un- 
kindly. But I am convinced now that we did ex- 
actly right, and that she was wise never to bestow 
another thought upon him. A man capable of con- 
triving a petty persecution of this sort — of pursuing 
a young girl who had rejected him in this shameless 
fashion, — is no gentleman." 

" It W€bs a persecution," said Mrs. Elmore, with a 
dazed air, as if this view of the case had not oc- 
curred to her. 

" A miserable, unworthy persecution I " repeated 
her husband. 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBIUTT. 141 

" Yes." 

" And we are well rid of him. He has relieved me 
by this last perfonnance, immensely ; and I trust that 
if LUy had any secret Ungering regrets, he has given 
her a final lesson. Though I must say, in justice to 
her, poor girl, she did n't seem to need it" 

Mrs. Elmore listened with a strange abeyance ; she 
looked beaten and bewildered, while he vehemently 
uttered these words. She could not meet his eyes, 
with her consciousness of having her intended ro- 
mance thrown back upon her hands ; and he seemed 
in nowise eager to meet hers, for whatever conscious- 
ness of his own. " Well, it is n't certain that he was 
the one, after all," she said. 



142 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILrnr. 



Long after the ball lily seemed to Elmore's eye 
not to have recovered her former tone. He thought 
she went about languidly^ and that she was fitfol 
and dreamy^ breaking from moods of unwonted ab- 
straction in bursts of gayety as unnatural She did 
not talk much of the ball ; he could not be sure that 
she ever recurred to it of her own motioa Hoskins 
continued to come a great deal to the house, and she 
often talked with him for a whole evening ; Elmore 
fancied she was very serious in these talks. 

He wondered if lily avoided him, or whether this 
was only an illusion of his ; but in any case, he was 
glad that the girl seemed to find so much comfort in 
Hoskins's company, and when it occurred to him he 
always said something to encourage his visits. His 
wife was singularly quiescent at this time, as if, having 
accomplished all she wished in Lily's presence at the 
princess's ball, she was willing to rest for a while from 
further social endeavor. life was falling into the dull 



A FEAEFUL EESPONSIBIUTY. 143 

routine again, and after the past shocks his nerves 
were gratefully clothing themselves in the old habits 
of tranquillity once more, when one day a letter came 
from the overseers of Patmos University, oflfering him 
the presidency of that institution on condition of his 
early return. The board had in view certain changes, 
intended to bring the university abreast with the 
times, which they hoped would meet his approval 

Among these was a modification of the name, 
which was hereafter to be Patmos University and 
Military Institute. The board not only believed that 
popular feeling demanded the introduction of mili- 
tary drill into the college, but they felt that a college 
which had been closed at the beginning of the Be- 
bellion, through the dedication of its president and 
nearly all its students to the war, could in no way so 
gracefully recognize this proud fact of its history as 
by hereafter making war one of the arts which it 
taught. The board explained that of course Mr. El- 
more would not be expected to take charge of this 
branch of instruction at once. A competent military 
assistant would be provided, and continued under 
him as long as he should deem his services essential 
The letter closed with a cordial expression of the de- 
sire of Elmore's old friends to have him once more 
in their midst, at the close of labors which they were 



144 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBIUTT. 

sure would do credit to the good old university and 
to the whole city of Patmoa 

Ehnore read this letter at breakfast, and silently 
handed it to his wife : they were alone, for lily, as 
now often happened, had not yet risen. " Well ? " he 
said, when she had read it in her turn. She gave it 
back to him with a look in her dimmed eyes which 
he could not mistaka " I see there is no doubt of 
your feeling, Celia,*' he added. 

** I don't wish to urge you," she replied, " but yes, I 
should like to go back. Yes, I am homesick. I have 
been afraid of it before, but this chance of returning 
makes it certain." 

" And you see nothing ridiculous in my taking the 
presidency of a military institute ? " 

"They say expressly that they don't expect you 
to give instruction in that branch." 

" No, not immediately, it seems," he said, with his 
pensive irony. " And the history ? " 

" Have n't you almost got notes enough ? " 

Elmore laughed sadly. "I have been here two 
years. It would take me twenty years to write such 
a history of Venice as I ought not to be ashamed to 
write ; it would take me five years to scamp it as I 
thought of doing. Oh,. I dare say I had better go 
back. I have neither the time nor the money to 



A FEAKFUL BESPONSIBIUTir. 145 

give to a work I never was fit for, — of whose mag- 
nitude even I was unable to conceive." 

''Don't say that I" cried his wife, with the old 
sympathy. " You will write it yet^ I know you wiH 
I would rather spend all my days in this — watery 
mausoleum than have you talk so, Owen ! " 

" Thank you, my dear ; but the work won't be lost 
even if I give it up at this point I can do some- 
thing with my material, I suppose. And you know 
that if I did n't wi&k to give lip my project I could n't. 
It's a sign of my unfitness for it that I'm able to 
abandon it The man who is bom to write the his- 
tory of Venice will have no volition in the matter : 
he cannot leave it, and he will not die till he has fin- 
ished it" He feebly crushed a bit of bread in his 
fingers as he ended with this burst of feeling, and 
he shook his head in sad negation to his wife's tender 
protest, — *' Oh, you will come back some day to fin- 
ish it!" 

''No one ever comes back to finish a history of 
Venice," he said. 

" Oh, yes, you will," she returned. " But you need 
the rest from this kind of work, now, just as you 
needed rest from your college work before. You 
need a change of standpoint, — and the American 
standpoint will be the very thing for you." 

10 



146 ▲ FEABFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 

** Perhaps so, perhaps so/' he admitted. " At any 
rate, this is a handsome offer, and most kindly made, 
Celia. It's a great compliment I didn't suppose 
they valued me so much." 

** Of course they valued you, and they will be very 
glad to get you. I call it merely letting the historic 
material ripen in your mind, or else I shouldn't let 
you accept And I shall be glad to go home, Owen, 
on Lily's account The child is getting no good here : 
she 's drooping." 

« Drooping?" 

" Yes. Don't you see how she mopes about ? " 

** I 'm afraid — that — I have — noticed." 

He was going to ask why she was drooping ; but 
he could not He said, recurring to the letter of the 
overseers, " So Patmos is a city." 

" Of course it ia by this time," said his wife, ^ with 
all that prosperity ! " 

Now that they were determined to go, their little 
preparations for return were soon made ; and a week 
after Elmore had written to accept the offer of the 
overseers, they were ready to follow his letter home. 
Their decision was a blow to Hoskins under which 
he visibly suffered; and they did not realize till 
then in what fond and affectionate friendship he held 
them. He now frankly spent his whole time with 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 147 

them; he disconsolately helped them pack, and he 
did all that a consul can do to secure free entiy for 
some objects of Venice that they wished to get in 
without payment of duties at New York. 

He said a dozen times, '' I don 't know what I will 
do when you 're gone" ; and toward the last he alarmed 
them for his own interests by beginning to say, " Well, 
I don't see but what I will have to go along.** 

The last night but one lily felt it her duty to talk 
to him very seriously about his future and what he 
owed to it She told him that he must stay in Italy 
till he could bring home something that would honor 
the great, precious, suflfering . country for which he 
had fought so nobly, and which they all loved. She 
made the tears come into her eyes as she spoke, and 
when she said that she should always be proud to 
be associated with one of his works, Hoskins's voice 
was quite husky in replying : " Is that the way you 
feel about it ? " He went away promising to remain 
at least till he finished his bas-relief of Westward, 
and his figure of the Pacific Slope; and the next 
morning he sent around by a facchino a note to 
lily. 

She ran it through in the presence of the Elmores, 
before whom she received it, and then, with a cry 
of " I think Mr. Hoskins is too lad ! " she threw it 



148 A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITT. 

into Mrs. Elmore's lap, and, catching her handkerchief 
to her eyes, she broke into tears and went out of the 
room. The note read : — 

Dear Miss Lilt, — Your kind interest in me gives me 
courage to say something that will very likely make me 
hateful to you forevermore. But I have got to say it, and 
you have got to know it; and it 's all the worse for me if you 
have never suspected it. I want to give my whole life to 
you, wherever and however you will have it. With you by 
my side, I feel as if I could really do something that yon 
would not be ashamed of in sculpture, and I believe that I 
could make you happy. I suppose I believe this because I 
love you very dearly, and I know the chances are that yon 
will not think this is reason enough. But I would take 
one chance in a million, and be only too glad of it. I hope it 
will not worry you to read this: as I said before, I had to tell 
you. Perhaps it won't be altogether a surprise. I might go 
on, but I suppose that until I hear from you I had better give 
you as little of my eloquence as possible. 

Clat Hoskins. 

" Well, upon my word," said Elmore, to whom his 
wife had transferred the letter, *^ this is very indeli- 
cate of Hoskins ! I must say, I expected something 
better of him.*' He looked at the note with a face of 
disgust. 

"I don't know why you had a right to expect 
anything better of him, as you call it^" retorted his 
wife. " It 's perfectly natural." 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 149 

" Natural 1 " cried Elmora " To put this upon us at 
the last moment, when he knows how much trouble 
I've " 

lily re-entered the room as precipitately as she had 
left it, and saved him from betraying himself as to 
the extent of his confidences to Hoskins. '' Professor 
Elmore," she said, bending her reddened eyes upon 
him, "I want you to answer this letter for me ; and I 
don't want you to write as you — I mean, don't 
make it so cutting — so — so — Why, I like Mr. 
Hoskins! He's been so kind! And if you said 
anything to wound his feelings — " 

'^ I shall not do that, you may be sure ; because, for 
one reason, I shall say nothing at all to him," replied 
Elmore. 

" You won 't write to him ? " she gasped. 

"No." 

" Why, what shall I do-o-o-o ? " demanded Lily, 
prolonging the syllable in a burst of grief and as- 
tonishment 

** I don't know," answered Elmore. 

"Owen," cried his wife, interfering for the first 
time, in response to the look of appeal that lily 
turned upon her, *' you must write ! " • 

" Celia," he retorted boldly, "I won H write. I have 
a genuine regard for Hoskins ; I respect him, and I 



150 A VEABFUL BESPONSIBILnT. 

am very grateful to him for all his kindness to yoo. 
He has been like a brother to you botL" 

"Why, of course," interrupted Lily, "I never 
thought of him as anything but a brother." 

** And though I must say I think it would have 
been more thoughtful and — and — more considerate 
in him not to do this — " 

** We did everything we could to fight him off from 
it," interrupted Mrs. Elmore, " both of us. We saw 
that it was coming, and we tried to stop it But 
nothing would help. Perhaps, as he says, he did 
have to do it." 

" I did n't dream of his — havingany such — idea," 
said Elmore. " I felt so perfectly safe in his coming; 
I trusted everything to him." 

** I suppose you thought his wanting to come was 
all unconscious cerebration," said his wife disdain- 
fully. " Well, now you see it was n V 

" Yes ; but it's too late now to help it ; and though 
I think he ought to have spared us this, if he thought 
there was no hope for him, still I can't bring myself 
to inflict pain upon him, and the long and the short of 
it is, I won '^." 

" But how is he to be answered ? " 

** I don 't know. You can answer him." 

** I could never do it in the world I " 



A FEABFUL RESPONSIBIMTir. 151 

" I own it 's difficult/' said Elmore coldly. 

" Oh, / wiU answer him — I will answer him," 
cried Lily, "rather than have any trouble about it 
Here, — here," she said, reaching blindly for pen and 
paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, " give 
me the ink, quick. Oh, dear! What shall I say? 
What date is it ? — the 25th ? And it does n't mat- 
ter about the day of the week. * Dear Mr. Hoskins — 
Dear Mr. Hoskins — Dear Mr. Hosk ' — Ought you 
to put Clay Hoskins, Esq., at the top or the bottom 
— or not at all, when you ' ve said Dear Mr. Hoskins ? 
Esquire seems so cold, anyway, and I won 't put it I 
* Dear Mr. Hoskins ' — Professor Elmore 1 " she im- 
plored reproachfully, " tell me what to say 1 " 

" That would be equivalent to writing the letter,** 
he began. 

" Well, write it^ then," she said, throwing down the 
pen. " I don 't ask you to dictate it Write it, — 
write anything, — just in pencil, you know; that 
won *t commit you to anything ; they say a thing in 
pencil is n 't legal, — and I '11 copy it out in the first 
person." 

" Owen," said his wife, " you shall not refuse I It *s 
inhuman, it 's inhospitable, when lily wants you to, 
so ! Why, I never heard of such a thing ! " 

Elmore desperately caught up the sheet of paper on 



152 A FBABFUL BBSFONSIBILCIX 

which Ulj had written ''Dear Mr. Hoskiiis/' and 
groaning out ''Well, well!" he added,— 

I have your letter. Ccnne to the station to-monow and 
say good-by to her whom yoa will yet live to thank for re- 
maining only Yoor friend, 

Elizabeth Mathew. 

"There! theie^that will do beautifnlly — beauti- 
fdlly I Oh, thank 70a, Professor Elmore, ever and 
ever so much ! That will save his feelings, and do 
everything," said Lily, sitting down again to copy it ; 
while Mrs. Elmore, looking over her shoulder, min- 
gled her hysterical 'excitement with the girl's, and 
helped her out by sealing the note when it was fin- 
ished and directed. 

It accomplished at least one purpose intended It 
kept Hoskins away till the final moment, and it 
brought him to the station for their adieux just be- 
fore their train started. A consciousness of the ab- 
surdity of his part gave his face a humorously rueful 
cast But he came pluckily to the mark. He marched 
straight up to the girL " It 's all right. Miss lily," he 
said, and offered her his hand, which she had a strong 
impulse to ciy over. Then he turned to Mrs. Elmore, 
and while he held her hand in his right, he placed his 
left affectionately on Elmore's shoulder, and, looking 
at lily, he said, "You ought to get Miss lily to help 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 153 

you out with your hiatoiy, Professor ; she has a very 
good style, — quite a literary style, I should have 
said, if I hadn't known it was hers. I don't like 
her subjects, though." They broke into a forlorn 
laugh together; he wrung their hands once more, 
without a word, and, without looking back, limped 
out of the waiting-room and out of their lives. 

They did not know that this was really the last of 
Hoskms, — one never knows that any parting is the 
last, — and in their inability to conceive of a serious 
passion in him, they quickly consoled themselves for 
what he might suflfer. They knew how kindly, how 
tenderly even, they felt towards him, and by that 
juggle with the emotions which we all practise at 
times, they found comfort for him in the £eict 
Another interest, another figure, began to occupy the 
morbid fancy of Elmore, and as they approached 
Peschiera his expectation became intense. There 
was no reason why it should exist ; it would be by 
the thousandth chance, even if Ehrhardt were still 
there, that they should meet him at the railroad 
station, and there were a thousand chances that he 
was no longer in Peschiera. He could see that his 
wife and lily were restive too : as the train drew into 
the station they nodded to each other, and pointed 
out of the window, as if to identify the spot where 



154 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILmr. 

Lily had first noticed him ; they laughed nervously, 
and it seemed to Elmoie that he could not endure 
their laughter. 

During that long wait which the train used to 
make in the old Austrian times at Peschiera, while 
the police authorities vis&l the passports of those 
about to cross the frontier, Elmore continued perpet- 
ually alert. He was aware that he should not know 
Ehrhardt if he met him ; but he should know that he 
was present from the looks of lily and Mrs. Elmore, 
and he watched them. They dined well in waiting, 
while he impatiently trifled with the food, and ate 
next to nothing ; and they calmly returned to their 
places in the train, to which he i^mounted after a 
last despairing glance around the platform in a pas- 
sion of disappointment. The old longing not to be 
left so wholly to the effect of what he had done 
possessed him to the exclusion of all other sensations, 
and as the train moved away from the station he fell 
back against the cushions of the carriage, sick that he 
should never even have looked on the face of the man 
in whose destiny he had played so fatal a part 



A FEARFUL BESPONSIBILITY. 165 



XIII. 

In America^ life soon settled into form about the 
daily duties of Elmore's place, and the daily pleasures 
and cares which his wife assumed as a leader in 
Patmos society. Their sojourn abroad conferred its 
distinction ; the day came when they regarded it as a 
brilliant episode, and it was only by fitful glimpses 
that they recognized its essential dulness. After 
they had been home a year or two, Elmore published 
his Story of Venice in the lives of her Heroes, 
which fell into a ready oblivion ; he paid all the ex- 
penses of the book, and was puzzled that, in spite of 
this, the final settlement should still bring him in debt 
to his publishers. He did not understand, but he sub- 
mitted ; and he accepted the failure of Ms book very 
meekly. If he could have chosen, he would have 
preferred that the Saturday Review, which alone 
noticed it in London with three lines of exquisite 
slight, should have passed it in silence. But after 



15C A FSASFTL USfOVSIBILm. 

all, he felt that the book desenred no better fiita He 
fllwajTB spoke of it as nnphilosophized and incom- 
plete, without anj jost claim to being. 

IHj had letomed to her sister^s household, but 
though she came home in tho heydaj of her young 
h&asty, she Culed somehow to take up the stoiy of 
her life jost where she had left it in Patmos. On the 
wajr home she had refused an offer in London, and 
shortly after her anival in America she received a 
letter fiom a yoong gentleman whom she had casu- 
ally seen in Geneva^ and who had found exile insup- 
portable since parting with her, and was ready to 
return to his native land at her bidding ; but she said 
nothing of these proposals till long afterwards to 
Professor Elmore, who, she said, had suffered enough 
fiom her offers. She went to all the parties and 
picnics, and had abundant opportunities of flirtation 
and marriage; but she neither flirted nor married. 
She seemed to have greatly sobered ; and the sound 
sense which she had always shown became more 
and more qualified with a thoughtful sweetness. At 
first, the relation between her and the Elmores lost 
something of its intimacy ; but when, after several 
years, her health gave way, a familiarity, even kinder 
than before, grew up. She used to like to come to 
them, and talk and laugh fondly over their old Vene- 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 157 

tian days. But often she sat pensive and absent, in 
the midst of these memories, and looked at Elmore 
with a regard which he found hard to bear : a gentle, 
unconscious wonder it seemed, in which he imagined 
a shade of tender reproach. 

When she recovered her health, after a journey 
to the West one winter, they saw that, by some 
subtile and indefinable difference, she was no longer 
a young girL Perhaps it was because they had not 
met her for half a year. But perhaps it was age, — 
she was now thirty. However it was, Elmore recog- 
nized with a pang that the first youth at least had 
gone out of her voice and eyes. She only returned to 
arrange for a long sojourn in the West. She liked the 
climate and the people, she said; and she seemed 
well and happy. She had planned starting a Kinder- 
garten school in Omaha with another young lady ; 
she said that she wanted something to do. '* She 
will end by marrying one of those Western widowers," 
said Mrs. Elmore. 

''I wonder she didn't take poor old Hoskins," 
mused Elmore aloud. 

" No, you don't, dear," said his wife, who had not 
grown less direct in dealing with him. " You know 
it would have been ridiculous; besides, she never 
cared anything for him, — she could n't. You might 






158 A FEABFUL BESPONSIBILmr. 

as well wonder why she did n't take Captain Ehrhaidt 
after you dismissed him." 

**I dismissed him ? " 
You wrote to him, did n't you ? " 
Celia," cried Eknore, ^ this I eafmot bear. Did 
I take a single step in that business without her 
request and your full approval ? Did n't you both 
ask me to write?" 

** Yes, I suppose we did." 

« Suppose ? " 

" Well, we did, — if you want me to say it And 
I'm not accusing you of anything. I know you 
acted for the best But you can see yourself, can't 
you, that it was rather sudden to have it end so 
quickly — " 

She did not finish her sentence, or he did not hear 
the close in the miserable absence into which he 
lapsed. "Celia," he asked at last, "do you think 
she — she had any feeling about him ?" 

"Oh," cried his wife restively, "how should / 
know ? " 

"I didn't suppose you knew," he pleaded. "I 
asked if you thought so." 

"What would be the use of thinking anything 
about it ? The matter can't be helped now. If you 
inferred from anything she said to you — " 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 159 

"She told me repeatedly, in answer to questions 
as explicit as I could make them, that she wished 
him dismissed." 

" Well, then, very likely she did." 

" Very likely, Celia?" 

" Yes. At any rate, it 's too late now." 

" Yes, it 's too late now." He was silent again, and 
he began to walk the floor, after his old habit, with- 
out speaking. He was always mute when he was in 
pain, and he startled her with the anguish in which 
he now broke forth. " I give it up ! I give it up ! 
Celia, Celia, I'm afraid I did wrong I Yes, I'm 
afraid that I spoiled two lives. I ventured to lay 
my sacrilegious hands upon two hearts that a divine 
force was drawing together, and put them asunder. 
It was a lamentable blunder, — it was a crime!" 

"Why, Owen, how strangely you talk! How 
could you have done any differently under the cir- 
cumstances ? " 

" Oh, I could have done very differently. I might 
have seen him, and talked with him brotherly, face to 
face. He was a fearless and generous soul ! And I 
was meanly scared for my wretched little decorums, 
for my responsibility to her friends, and I gave him 
no chance." 

" We would n't let you give him any," interrupted 
his wife. 



160 A TBASrUL SESPOHSmiLITT. 

''Don't try to deceive yourself, don't tiy to de- 
ceive me, Gelia! I know well enongh that you 
would have been glad to have me show mercy ; and 

4 

I would not even show him the poor grace of passing 
bis offer in silence, if I must refuse it I could n't 
spare him even so much as that ! " 

''We decided — we both decided — that it would 
be better to cut off all hope at onoe»" uiged his 
wif& 

** Ah, it was I who decided that — decided eveiy- 
thing. Leave me to deal honestly with myself at 
last, Gelia ! I have tried long enough to believe that 
it was not I who did it ! " The pent-up doubt of 
years, the long-silenced self-accusal, burst forth in 
his words. '* Oh, I have suffered for it ! I thought 
he must come back, somehow, as long as we stayed in 
Venice. When we left Peschiera without a glimpse 
of him — I wonder I outlived it But even if I had 
seen him there^ what use would it have been? 
Would I have tried to repair the wrong done ? 
What did I do but impute unmanly and impudent 
motives to him when he seized his chance to see her 
once more at that masquerade — " 

'' No, no, Owen ! He was not the ona lily was 
satisfied of that long ago. It was nothing but a 
chance, a coinddenoe. Perhaps it was some one he 
had told about the affair— " 



A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 161 

" No matter ! no matter ! If I thought it was he, 
my blame is the same. And she, poor girl, — in my 
lying compassion for him, I used to accuse her of 
cold-heartedness, of indifference ! I wonder she did 
not abhor the sight of me. How has she ever toler- 
ated the presence, the friendship, of a man who did 
her this irreparable wrong ? Yes, it has spoiled her 
Ufe, and it was my work. No, no, Celia ! you and 
she had nothing to do with it, except as I forced your 
consent — it was my work; and, however I have tried 
openly and secretly to shirk it, I must bear this fear- 
ful responsibility." 

He dropped into a chair, and hid his face in his 
hands, while his wife soothed him with loving ex- 
cuses for what he had done, with tender protests 
against the exaggerations of his remorse. She said 
that he had done the only thing he could do; that 
lily wished it, and that she never had blamed him. 
* Why, I don't believe she would ever have married 
Captain Ehrhardt, anyhow. She was full of that 
silly fancy of hers about Dick Burton, all the time, 
— ^you know how she used always to be talking about 
him ; and when she came home and found she had 
outgrown him, she had to refuse him, and I suppose 
it's that that's made her rather melancholy." She 
explained that Major Burton had become extremely 

u 



162 A FEABFUL BESFOKSIBILnT. 

fat, that his moustache was too big and black, and 
his laugh too loud ; theie was nothing left of him, in 
fact, but his empty sleeve, and lily was too consci- 
entious to many him merely for that 

In fact, Elmore's regret did reflect a monstrous 
and distorted image of his conduct. He had really 
acted the part of a prudent and conscientious man ; 
he was perfectly justifiable at every step : but in the 
retrospect those steps which we can perfectly justify 
sometimes seem to have cost so terribly that we look 
back even upon our sinful stumblings with better 
heart. Heaven knows how such things will be at the 
last day ; but at that moment there was no wrong, no 
folly of his youth, of which Elmore did not think with 
more comfort than of this passage in which he had 
been so wise and right 

Of course the time came when he saw it all diffeiv 
ently again ; when his wife persuaded him that he had 
done the best that any one could do with the respon- 
sibilities that ought never to have been laid on a man 
of his temperament and habits ; when he even came 
to see that lily's feeling was a matter of pure con- 
jecture with him, and that so far as he knew she had 
never cared anything for Ehrhardt Yet he was glad 
to have her away ; he did not like to talk of her with 
his wife ; he did not think of her if he could help it 



A FEARFUL RESPONSIBIIJIT. 163 

They heard from time to time through her sister 
that her little enterprise in Omaha was prospering^ 
and that she was very contented out West ; at last 
they heard directly from her that she was going to 
be married. Till then, Elmore had been dumbly tor- 
mented in his sombre moods with the solution of a 
problem at which his imagination vainly toiled, — 
the problem of how some day she and Ehrhardt 
should meet again and retrieve the error of the past 
for him. He contrived this encounter in a thou« 
sand different ways by a thousand different chances ; 
what he so passionately and sorrowfully longed for 
accomplished itself continually in his dreams, but 
only in his dreams. 

In due course lily married, and from all they could 
understand, very happily. Her husband was a clergy- 
man, and she took particular interest in his parochial 
work, which her good heart and clear head especially 
qualified her to share with him. To connect her fate 
any longer with that of Ehrhardt was now not only 
absurd, it was improper ; yet Elmore sometimes found 
his fancy forgetfully at work as before. He could not 
at once realize that the tragedy of this romance, such 
as it was, remained to him alone, except perhaps as 
Ehrhardt shared it With him, indeed, Elmore still 
sought to fret his remorse and keep it poignant, and 



164 A FEARFUL BESP0NSIBILIT7. 

his final failure to do so made him ashamed But 
vhat lasting sorrow can one have from the disap- 
pointment of a man whom one has never seen ? If 
lily could console herself, it seemed prohaUe that 
Ehrhardt too had ''got along." 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 



\ 



AT THE SIGN OP THE SAVAGR 

As they bowled along in the deliberate German 
express train through the Black Forest, Colonel Ken- 
ton said he had only two things against the region : 
it was not black, and it was not a forest. He had all 
his life heard of the Black Forest, and he hoped he 
knew what it was. The inhabitants burned char- 
coal, high up the mountains, and carved toys in the 
winter when shut in by the heavy snows ; they had 
Easter eggs all the year round, with overshot mill- 
wheels in the valleys, and cherry-trees all about, 
always full of blossoms or ripe fruit, just as you liked 
to think. They were very poor people, but very de- 
vout, and lived in little villages on a friendly inti- 
macy with their cattle. The young women of these 
hamlets had each a long braid of yellow hair down 
her back, blue eyes, and a white bodice with a cat's- 
cradle lacing behind ; the men had bell-crowned hats 
and spindle-legs : they buttoned the breath out of 



I 



I 



168 AT THE SIGN OF THE BAYAOS. 

their bodies with round pewter buttons on tight^ 
short crimson waistcoats. 

" Now, here," said the colonel, breathing on the 
window of the car and rubbing a little space dear of 
the fix>st, " I see nothing of the sort Either I have 
been imposed upon by what I have heard of the 
Black Forest^ or this is not the Black Forest I 'm 
inclined to believe that there is no Black Forest, and 
never was. There isn't," he added, looking again, 
so as not to speak hastily, ^ a charcoal-burner, or an 
Easter egg, or a cherry blossom, or a yellow braid, or 
a red waistcoat, to enliven the whole desolate land- 
scape. What are we to think of it, Bessie ? " 

Mrs. Kenton, who sat opposite, huddled in speech- 
less comfort under her wraps and rugs, and was just 
trying to decide in her own mind whether it was more 
delicious to let her feet, now that they were thorough- 
ly warm, rest upon the carpet-covered cylinder of hot 
water, or hover just a hair^s breadth above it without 
touching it, answered a little impatiently that she did 
not know. In ordinary circumstances she would not 
have been so short with the colonel's nonsense. She 
thought that was the way all men talked when they 
got well acquainted with you ; and, as coming from a 
sex incapable of seriousness, she could have excused 
it if it had not interrupted her in her solution of so 



AT THS SIGN OF THE SAYAOB. 169 

nice a problem. Colonel Kenton, however, did not 
mind. He at once possessed himself of much more 
than his share of the cylinder, extorting a cry of in- 
dignation from his wife, who now saw herself reduced 
from a fastidious choice of luxuries to a mere vulgar 
strife for the necessaries of life, — a thing any woman 
abhors. 

" Well; well," said the colonel, " keep your old hot- 
water bottle. If there was any other way of warming 
my feet, I would n't touch it It makes me sick to 
use it ; I feel as if the doctor was going to order me 
some boneset tea. Give me a good red-hot patent car- 
heater, that smells enough of burning iron to make 
your head ache in a minute, and sets your car on fire 
as soon as it rolls over the embankment That's 
what / call comfort A hot-water bottle shoved 
under your feet — I should suppose I tvas a woman, 
and a feeble one at that 1 11 tell you what / think 
about this Black Forest business, Bessie : I think it 'a 
part of a system of deception that runs through the 
whole German character. I have heard the Germans 
praised for their sincerity and honesty, but I tell you 
they have got to work hard to convince me of it, from 
this out. I am on my guard. I am not going to be 
taken in any more." 

It became the colonel's pleasure to develop and ex- 



170 AT THE 8I0X OF THE 8AVA0B. 

emplify this idea at all points of their progress through 
Germany. They were going to Italy, and as Mrs. 
Kenton had had enough of the sea in coming to 
Europe, they were going to Italy by the only all-rail 
route then existing, — from Paris to Vienna, and so 
down through the Simmering to Trieste and Venice. 
Wherever they stopped, whatever they did before 
reaching Vienna, Colonel Kenton chose to preserve 
his guarded attitude. "Ah, they pretend this is 
Stuttgart, do they?" he said on arriving at the 
Suabian capital * A likely story ! They pretended 
that was the Black Forest, you know, Bessie." At 
Munich, ** And this is Munich ! " he sneered, when- 
ever the conversation flagged during their sojourn. 
"It's outrageous, the way they let these swindling 
little towns palm themselves off upon the traveller for 
cities he 's heard of. This place will be calling itself 
Berlin, next." When his wife, guide-book in hand, 
was struggling to heat her admiration at some cold 
history of Kaulbach, and in her failure clinging fondly 
to the fact that Kaulbach had painted it, "Kaul- 
bach ! " the colonel would exclaim, and half close his 
eyes and slowly nod his head and smile. "What 
guide-book is that you Ve got, Bessie ? " looking cu- 
riously at the volume he knew so well. " Oh ! — 
Baedeker ! And are you going to let a Black Forest 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 171 

Dutchman like Baedeker persuade you that this daub 
is by Kaulbach ? Come ! That 's a little too much I " 
He rejected the birthplaces of famous persons one 
and all ; they could not drive through a street or into 
a park, whose claims to be this or that street or park 
he did not boldly dispute ; and he visited a pitiless 
incredulity upon the dishes of the table dJhdte, con- 
cerning which he always answered his wife's ques- 
tions : " Oh, he says it 's beef," or veal, or fowl, as the 
case might be ; and though he never failed to relish 
his own dinner, strange fears began to affect the appe- 
tite of Mrs. Eenton. It happened that he never did 
come out with these sneers before other travellers, but 
his wife was always expecting him to do so, and 
afterwards portrayed herself as ready to scream, the 
whole time. She W8U3 not a nervous person, and re- 
garding the colonel's jokes as part of the matrimonial 
contract, she usually bore them, as I have hinted, 
with severe composure ; accepting them all, good, bad, 
and indifferent, as something in the nature of man 
which she should understand better after they had 
been married longer. The present journey was maile 
just after the close of the war ; they had seen very 
little of each other while he was in the army, and it 
had something of the fresh interest of a bridal tour. 
But they sojourned only a day or two in the places 



172 AT THE SIQK OF THE SAVAQE. 

between Strasbuig and Vienna ; it was veiy cold and 
very unpleasant getting about, and they instinctively 
felt what every wise traveller knows, that it is foUy to 
be lingering in Germany when you can get into Italy; 
and so they hurried on. 

It was nine o'clock one night' when they reached 
Salzburg ; and when their baggage had been visited 
and their passports examined, they had still half an 
hour to wait before the train went on. They profited 
by the delay to consider what hotel they should stop 
at in Vienna, and they advised with their Bradshaw 
on the point. This railway guide gave in its laconic 
fashion several hotels, and specified the Kaiserin Elis- 
abeth as one at which there was a table d'hote, briefly 
explaining that at most hotels in Vienna there was 
none. 

"That settles it," said Mrs. Kenton. "We will go 
to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, of course. I 'm sure I 
never want the bother of ordering dinner in English, 
let alone German, which never was meant for human 
beings to speak." 

" It 's a language you can't tell the truth in," said 
the colonel thoughtfully. "You can't call an open 
country an open country ; you have to call it a Black 
Forest" Mrs. Kenton sighed patiently. " But I don't 
know about this Kaiserin Elisabeth business. How 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 173 

do we know that 's the real name of the hotel ? How 
can we be sure that it isn't an alias, an assumed 
name, trumped up for the occasion ? I tell you^ 
Bessie, we can't be too cautious as long as we 're in 
this fatherland of lies. What guide-book is this ? 
Baedeker ? Oh ! Bradshaw. Well, that 's some com- 
fort. Bradshaw's an Englishman, at least. If it had 
been Baedeker" — 

"Oh, Edward, Edward!" Mrs. Kenton burst out 
" Will you never give that up ? Here you Ve been 
harping on it for the last four days, and wonying my 
life out with it. I think it's unkind. It 's perfectly 
bewildering me. I don't know where or what I am, 
any more." Some tears of vexation started to her 
eyes, at which Colonel Eenton put the shaggy arm 
of his overcoat round her, and gave her an honest 
hug. 

" Well," he said, " I give it up, from this out 
Though I shall always say that it was a joke that 
wore well. And I can tell you, Bessie, that it 's no 
small sacrifice to give up a joke that you Ve just got 
into prime working order, so that you can use it on 
almost anything that comes up. But that 's a thing 
that you can never understand. Let it all pass. 
We'll go to the Eaiserin Elisabeth, and submit to 
any sort of imposition they've a mind to practise 



174 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

upon US. I shall not breathe freely, I suppose, till 
we get into Italy, where people meau what they say. 
Haw, haw, haw I" laughed the colonel, "honest lago's 
the man Fm after." 

The doors of the waiting-room were thrown open, 
and cries of " Erste ELlasse ! Zweite Klasse ! Dritte 
Klasse ! " summoned the variously assorted passengers 
to carriages of their several degrees. The coiouel 
lifted his little wife into a non*smoking first-class 
carriage, and established her against the cushioned 
barrier dividing the two seats, so that her feet could 
just reach the hot-water bottle, as he called it, and 
tucked her in and built her up so with wraps that 
she was a prodigy of comfort ; and then folding about 
him the long fur-lined coat which she had bought 
him at Munich (in spite of his many protests that 
the fur was artificial), he sat down on the seat op- 
posite, and proudly enjoyed the perfect content that 
beamed from Mrs. Kenton*s face, looking so small 
from her heap of luxurious coverings. 

**Well, Bessie, this would be very pleasant — if 
you could believe in it," he said, as the train smoothly 
rolled out of the station. " But of course it can't be 
genuine. There must be some dodge about it. I 've 
no doubt you'll begin to feel perfectly horrid, the 
fij^t thing you know." 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 175 

Mrs. Kenton let him go on, as he did at some 
length, and began to drowse, while he amused himself 
with a gross parody of things she had said during the 
past four days. In those years while their wedded 
bliss was yet practically new, Colonel Kenton found 
his wife ai\ inexhaustible source of mental refresh- 
ment He prized beyond measure the feminine in- 
adequacy and excess of her sayings; he had stored 
away such a variety of these that he was able to talk 
her personal parlance for an hour together ; indeed, 
he had learned the trick of inventing phrases so much 
in her manner that Mrs. Kenton never felt quite safe 
in disowning any monstrous thing attributed to her. 
Her drowse now became a little nap, and presently a 
delicious doze, in which she drifted far away from ac- 
tual circumstance into a realm where she seemed to 
exist as a mere airy thought of her physical self; sud- 
denly she lost this thought, and slept through all 
steps at stations and all changes of the hot-water 
cylinder, to renew which the guard, faithful to 
Colonel Kenton's bribe, alone opened the door. 

"Wake up, Bessie I" she heard her husband saying. 
" We 're at Vienna." 

It seemed very improbable, but she did not dispute 
it. '* What time is it ? " she asked, as she suffered 
herself to be lifted from the carriage into the keen air 
of the winter night 



176 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

" Three o'clock," said the colonel, hurrying her ii;to 
the waiting-room, where she sat, still somewhat re- 
mote from herself but getting nearer and nearer, 
while he went off about the baggage. " Now, then ! " 
he cried cheerfully when he returned ; and he led his 
wife out and put her into a jumrt. The driver bent 
from his perch and arrested the colonel, as he was 
getting in after Mrs. Eenton, with words in them- 
selves unintelligible, but so probably in demand for 
neglected instructions that the colonel said, ''Oh! 
Eaiserin Elisabeth ! " and again bowed his head to- 
wards the fiacre door, when the driver addressed fur- 
ther speech to him, so diffuse and so presumably 
unnecessary that Colonel Kenton merely repeated, 
with rising impatience, " Kaiserin Elisabeth, — Kai- 
serin Elisabeth, I tell you ! " and getting in shut the 
fiacre door after him. 

The driver remained a moment in mumbled solilo- 
quy ; then he smacked his whip and drove rapidly 
away. They were aware of nothing outside but the 
starlit winter morning in unknown streets, tiU they 
plunged at last under an archway and drew up at a 
sort of lodge door, from which issued an example of 
the universal gold-cap-banded continental hotel pyr- 
tier, so like all others in Europe that it seemed idle 
for him to be leading an individual existence. He 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 177 

took the coloners passport and summoned a waiter, 
who went bowing before them up a staircase more or 
less grandiose, and led them to a pleasant chamber, 
whither he sent directly a woman servant. She bade 
them a hearty good morning in her tongue, and, 
kneeling down before the tall porcelain stove, kindled 
from her apronful of blocks and sticks a fire that soon 
penetrated the travellers with a rich comfort It was 
of course too early yet to think of breakfast, but it 
was fortunately not too late to think of sleep. They 
were both very tired, and it was almost noon when 
they woka The colonel had the fire rekindled, and 
he ordered breakfast to be served them in their room. 
" Beefsteak and cofifee — here I " he said, pointing to 
the table ; and as he made Mrs. Kenton snug near the 
stove he expatiated in her own terms upon the per- 
fect loveliness of the whole afiair, and the touch of 
nature that made coffee and beefsteak the same in 
every language. It seemed that the Kaiserin Elisa- 
beth knew how to serve such a breakfast in faultless 
taste; and they sat long over it, in that sense of 
sovereign satisfaction which beefsteak and coffee in 
your own room can best give. At last the colonel 
rose briskly and announced the order of the day. 
They were to go here, they were to stop there ; they 
were to see this, they were to do that 

12 



178 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

*' Nothing of the Idnd,** said Mrs. Kentoa * I am 
not going out at all to-day. It 's too cold ; and if we 
are to push on to Trieste to-morrow, I shall need the 
whole day to get a little rested. Besides, I have 
some jobs of mending to do that can't be pat off any 
longer." 

The colonel listened with an air of joyous admira- 
tion. ^ Bessie," said he, '* this is inspiration. / don't 
want to see their old town; and I shall ask nothing 
better than to spend the day with you here at our 
own fireside. You can sew, and I — I 'U read to you, 
Bessie!" This was a little too gross; even Mrs. 
Kenton laughed at this, the act of reading being so 
abhorrent to Colonel Kenton's active temperament 
that he was notorious for his avoidance of all litera- 
ture except newspapers. In about ten minutes, passed 
in an agreeable idealization of his purpose, which 
came in that time to include the perusal of all the 
books on Italy he had picked up on their journey, 
the colonel said he would go down and ask the por- 
tier if they had the New York papers. 

When he returned, somewhat disconsolate, to say 
they had not, and had apparently never heard of the 
Herald or Tribune, his wife smiled subtly : " Then I 
suppose you 11 have to go to the consul's for theuL" 

^ Why, Bessie, it is n't a thing I should have sug« 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 179 

gested ; I can't bear the thoughts of leaving you here 
alone ; but as you say ! No, I '11 tell you : I *11 not go 
for the New York papers, but I will just step round 
and call upon the representative of the country — 
pay my respects to him, you know — if you vrish it. 
But I'd far rather spend the time here with you, 
Bessie, in our cosy little boudoir ; I would, indeed." 

Mrs. Eenton now laughed outright, and — it was a 
tremendous sarcasm for her — asked him if he were 
not afraid the example of the Black Forest was be- 
coming infectious. 

^ Oh, come now, Bessie ; no joking," pleaded the 
colonel, in mock distress. " I '11 tell you what, my 
dear, the head waiter here speaks English like a — 
an Ollendorff; and if you get to feeling a little lone- 
some while I'm out, you can jiist ring and order 
something from him, you know. It will cheer you 
up to hear the sound of your native tongue in a 
foreign land. But, pshaw I / sha 'nt be gone a 
minute ! " 

By this time the colonel had got on his overcoat 
and gloves, ^nd had his hat in one hand, and was 
leaning over his wife, resting the other hand on the 
back of the chair in which she sat warming the toes 
of her slippers at the draft of the stove. She popped 
him a cheery little kiss on his mustache, and gave 



180 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

him a small push : " Stay as long as you like, Ned. I 
shall not be in the least lonesome. I shall do my 
mending, and then I shall take a nap, and by that 
time it will be dinner. You needn't come back 
before dinner. What hour is the table d'hdte ? " 

" Oh !" cried the colonel guiltily. « The fact is, I 
was n't going to tell you, I thought it would vex you 
so much : there is no table d'hote here and never was. 
Bradshaw has been depraved by the moral atmos- 
phere of (rermany. I 'd as soon trust Baedeker after 
this." 

" Well, never mind," said Mrs. Kenton. *' We can 
tell them to bring us what they like for dinner, and 
we can have it whenever ive like." 

^ Bessie ! " exclaimed the colonel, " I have not 
done justice to you, and I supposed I had. I knew 
how bright and beautiful you were, but I didnH 
think you were so amiabla I didn't, indeed. This 
is a real surprise," he said, getting out at the door. 
He opened it to add that he would be back in an 
hour, and then he went his way, with the light heart 
of a husband who has a day to himself with his wife's 
full approval 

At the consulate a still greater surprise awaited 
Colonel Kentoa This was the consul himself, who 
proved to be an old companion-in-arms, and into 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 181 

whose awful presence the colonel was ushered by a 
Ha'usmeister in a cocked hat and a gold-braided uni- 
form finer than that of all the American major- 
generals put together. The friends both shouted 
" Hollo ! " and " You don't say so ! " and threw back 
their heads and laughed. 

" Why, did n't you know I was here ? " demanded 
the consul when the hard work of greeting was over. 
" I thought everybody knew that." 

" Oh, I knew you were rusting out in some of these 
Dutch towns, but I never supposed it was Vienna. 
But that does n't make any difference, so long as you 
are here." At this they smacked each other on the 
knees, and laughed again. That carried them by a 
very rough point in their astonishment, and they now 
composed themselves to the pleasure of telling each 
other how they happened to be then and there, with 
glances at their personal history when they were 
making it together in the field. 

" Well, now, what are you going to do the rest of 
the day ? " asked the consul at last, with a look at his 
watcL "As I understand it, you're going to spend 
it with me, somehow. The question is, how would 
you like to spend it ? " 

" This is a handsome offer, Davis ; but I don't see 
how I 'm to manage exactly," replied the colonel, for 



182 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

the first time distinctly recalling the memory of Mra 
Kenton. *' My wife would n't know what had become 
of me, you know." 

"Oh, yes, she would," retorted the consul, with a 
bachelor^s ignorant ease of mind on a point of that 
kind. " We 'U go round and take her with us." 

The colonel gravely shook his head. ** She would n't 
go, old fellow. She 's in for a day's rest and odd jobs. 
I '11 tell you what, I '11 just drop round and let her 
know I 've found you, and then come back again. 
You Tl dine with us, won't you ? " Colonel Kenton 
had not always found old comradeship a bond between 
Mrs. Kenton and his friends, but he believed he 
could safely chance it with Davis, whom she had 
always rather liked, — with such small regard as a 
lady's devotion to her husband leaves her for his 
friends. 

"Oh, I'll dine with you fast enough," said his 
friend. "But why don't you send a note to Mrs. 
Kenton to say that we 'U be round together, and save 
yourself the bother ? Did you come here alone ? " 

" Bless your heart, no 1 I forgot him. The poor 
devil 's out there, cooling his heels on your stairs all 
this time. I came with a complete guide to Vienna. 
Can't you let him in out of the weather a minute ? " 

" We 'U have him in^ so that he can take your note 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 183 

back ; but he does n't expeot to be decently treated : 
they don't, here. You just sit down and write it/' 
said the consul, pushing the colonel into his own 
chair before his desk ; and when the colonel had 
superscribed his note, he called in the Lohndimer, ^ 
patient, hat in hand, — and, " Where are you stop- 
ping ? " he asked the colonel 

" Oh, I forgot that. At the Kaiserin Elisabeth. 
I'll just write it" — 

" Never mind ; we '11 tell him where to take it 
See here," added the consul in a serviceable Viennese 
German of his own construction. " Take this to the 
Kaiserin Elisabeth, quick ; " and as the man looked up 
in a dull surprise, "Do you hear? The Kaiserin 
Elisabeth!" 

" I don't know what it is about that hotel," said 
the colonel, when the man had meekly bowed him- 
self away, with a hat that swept the ground in honor 
of a handsome drink-money ; '' but the mention of it 
always seems to awaken some sort of reluctance in 
the minds of the lower classes. Our driver wanted to 
enter into conversation with me about it this morn- 
ing at three o'clock, and I had to be pretty short with 
him. If you don't know the language, it is n't so 
difficult to be short in German as I 've heard. And 
another curious thing is that Bradshaw says the 



184 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

Kaiserin Elisabeth has a table d'hdte, and the head- 
waiter says she has n% and never did have.'* 

" Oh, you can't trust anybody in Europe," said the 
consul sententiously. *' I 'd leave Bradshaw and the 
waiter to fight it out among themselves. We '11 get 
back in time to order a dinner; it's always better, 
and then we can dine alone, and have a good time." 

*' They could n't keep us from having a good time 
at a table d'hSte, even. But I don't mind." 

By this time they had got on their hats and coats 
and sallied forth. They first went to a cafiS and had 
some of that famous Viennese coffee ; and then they 
went to the imperial and municipal arsenals, and 
viewed those collections of historical bricabrac, in- 
cluding the head of the unhappy Turkish general 
who was strangled by his sovereign because he failed 
to take Vienna in 1683. This from familiarity had 
no longer any effect upon the consul, but it gave 
Colonel Kenton prolonged pause, " I should have pre- 
ferred a subordinate position in the sultan's army, I be- 
lieve," he said. " Why, Davis, what a museum we 
could have had out of the Army of the Potomac alone, 
if Lincoln had been as particular as that sultan ! " 

From the arsenals they went to visit the parade- 
ground of the garrison, and came in time to see a 
manoeuvre of the troops, at which they looked with 



AT THE SIGN OF TH£ BAYAGE. 185 

the frank respect and reserved superiority with which 
our veterans seem to regard the military of Europe. 
Then they walked about and noted the principal 
monuments of the city, and strolled along the prom- 
enades and looked at the handsome officers and the 
beautiful women. Colonel Kenton admired the life 
and the gay movement everywhere; since leaving 
Paris he had seen nothing so much like New York. 
But he did not like their shovelling up the snow into 
carts everywhere and dumping all that fine sleighing 
into the Danube. "By the way," said his friend, 
''let's go over into Leopoldstadt, and see if we can't 
scare up a sleigh for a little turn in the suburbs." 
" It 's getting late, is n't it ? " asked the colonel 
" Not so late as it looks. You know we have n't 
the high American sun, here." 

Colonel Kenton was having such a good time that 
he felt no trouble about his wife, sitting over her 
mending in the Kaiserin Elisabeth ; and he yielded 
joyfully, thinking how much she would like to hear 
about the suburbs of Vienna: a husband will go 
through almost any pleasure in order to give his wife 
an entertaining account of it afterwa,rds ; besides, a 
bachelor companionship is confusing : it makes many 
things appear right and feasible which are perhaps 
not so. It was not till their driver, who had turned 



186 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

out of the beaten tn^^k into a wayside drift to make 
room for another vehicle, attempted to regain the road 
by too abrupt a movement, and the shafts of then* 
sledge responded with a loud crick-crack, that Colonel 
Kenton perceived the error into which he had suffered 
himself to be led. At three miles' distance from the 
city, and with the winter twilight beginning to fall, he 
felt the pang of a sudden remorse. It grew sorer with 
every homeward step and with each successive fail- 
ure to secure a conveyance for their return. In fine, 
they trudged back to Leopoldstadt, where an absurd 
series of discomfitures awaited them in their attempts 
to get a fiacre over into the main city. They visited 
all the stands known to the consul, and then they 
were obliged to walk. But they were not tired, and 
they made their distance so quickly that Colonel 
Kenton's spirits rose again. He was able for the 
first time to smile at their misadventure, and some 
misgivings as to how Mrs. Kenton might stand af- 
fected towards a guest under the circumstances 
yielded to the thought of how he should make her 
laugh at them both. " Good old Davis ! " mused the 
colonel, and affectionately linked his arm through that 
of his friend ; and they stamped through the brilliantly 
lighted streets gay with uniforms and the picturesque 
costumes with which the Levant at Vienna encoun- 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 187 

ters the London and Paris fashions. Suddenly the 
consul arrested their movement. " Did n't you say 
you were stopping at the Kaiserin Elisat)eth ? *' 

"Why, yes; certainly." 

"Well, it's just around the comer, here." The 
consul turned him about, and in another minute they 
walked under an archway into a court-yard, and were 
met by the portier at the door of his room with an 
inquiring obeisanca 

Colonel Kenton started. The cap and the cap- 
band were the same, and it was to all intents and 
purposes the same portier who had bowed him away 
in the morning; but the face was different. On 
noting this fact Colonel Kenton observed so general 
a change in the appointments and even architecture 
of the place that, " Old fellow," he said to the consul, 
'' you 've made a little mistake ; this is n't the Kaiserin 
Elisabeth." 

The consul referred the matter to the portier. Per- 
fectly; that was the Kaiserin Elisabeth. "Well, 
then," said the colonel, " tell him to have us shown 
to my room." The portier discovered a certain em- 
barrassment when the colonel's pleasure was made 
known to him, and ventured something in reply 
which made the consul smila 

" Look here, Kenton," he said, " you 've made a 



188 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAYAOR 

little mistake, this tima You 'le not stopping at the 
Kaiserin Elisabeth I " 

" Oh, pshaw I Come now ! Don't bring the con- 
sular dignity so low as to enter into a practical joke 
with a hotel porter. It won't do. We got into 
Vienna this morning at three, and drove straight to 
the Kaiserin ElisabetL We had a room and fire, 
and breakfast about noon. Tell him who I am, and 
what I say." 

The consul did so, the portier slowly and respect- 
fully shaking his head at every point. When it came 
to the name, he turned to his books, and shook his 
head yet more impressively. Then he took down a 
letter, spelled its address, and handed it to the 
colonel ; it was his own note to Mrs. Kenton. That 
quite crushed him. He looked at it in a dull, me- 
chanical way, and nodded his head with compressed 
lips. Then he scanned the portier, and glanced round 
once more at the bedevilled architecture. "Well," 
said he, at last, '' there 's a mistake somewhere. Un- 
less there are two Ejiiserin Elisabeths — Davis, ask 
him if there are two Kaiserin Elisabeths." 

The consul compassionately put the question, re- 
ceived with something like grief by the portier. Im- 
possible ! 

" Then I 'm not stopping at either of them," con- 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 189 

tinued the colonel " So far, so good, — if you want 
to call it good. The question is now, if I'm not 
stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth," he demanded, 
with sudden heat, and raising his voice, ''how the 
devil did I get there ? " 

The consul at this broke into a fit of laughter so 
violent that the portier retired a pace or two from 
these maniacs, and took up a safe position within his 
doorway. " You did n*t — you did n't — get there 1 " 
shrieked the consul ** That *s what made the whole 
troubla You — you meant well, but you got some- 
where else." He took out his handkerchief and 
wiped the tears from his eye& 

The colonel did not laugh ; he had no real pleasure 
in the joke. On the contrary, he treated it as a 
serious business. " Very well," said he, " it wiU be 
proved next that I never told that driver to take me 
to the Eaiserin Elisabeth, as it appears that I never 
got. there and am not stopping there. Will you be 
good enough to tell me," he asked, with polished sar- 
casm, " where I am stopping, and why, and how ? ' 

'' I wish with all my heart I could," gasped his 
friend, catching his breath, " but I can't, and the only 
way is to go round to the principal hotels till we hit 
the right one. It won't take long. Come ! " He 
passed his arm through that of the colonel, and made 



190 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

an explanation to the portier, as if accounting for the 
vagaries of some harmless eccentric he had in chaige. 
Then he pulled his friend gently away, who yielded 
after a survey of the portier and the court-yard with 
a frown in which an indignant sense of injury quite 
eclipsed his fonner bewilderment. He had still this 
defiant air when they came to the next hotel, and 
used the portier with so much severity on finding 
that he was not stopping there, either, that the consul 
was obliged to protest : " If you behave in that way, 
Kenton, I won't go with you. The man 's perfectly 
innocent of your stopping at the wrong place ; and 
some of these hotel people know me, and I won't 
stand your bullying them. And I tell you what: 
you 've got to let me have my laugh out, too. You 
know the thing 's perfectly ridiculous, and there 's no 
use putting any other face on it" The consul did 
not wait for leave to have his laugh out, but had it 
out in a series of furious gusts. At last the colonel 
himself joined him ruefully. 

" Of course," said he, " I know I 'm an ass, and I 
would n't mind it on my own account / would as 
soon roam round after that hotel the rest of the niofht 
as not, but I can't help feeling anxious about my 
wife. I 'm afraid she 'U be getting very uneasy at 
my being gone so long. She *s all alone, there, 
wherever it is, and — " 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 191 

^ Well, but she *s got your note. She *11 under- 
stand — " 

" What a fool you are, Davis ! There '« my note 1 " 
cried the colonel, opening his fist and showing a very 
small wad of paper in his palm. " She 'd have got 
my note if she 'd been at the Eaiserin Elisabeth ; but 
she 's no more there than I am." 

" Oh ! " said his friend, sobered at this. " To be 
sure! Well?" 

" Well, it 's no use trying to tell a man like you ; 
but I suppose that she 's simply distracted by this 
tima You don't know what a woman is, and how 
she can suffer about a little matter when she gives 
her mind to it." 

"Oh!" said the consul again, very contritely. 
** I 'm very sorry I laughed ; but " — here he looked 
into the colonel's gloomy face with a countenance 
contorted with agony — " this only makes it the more 
ridiculous, you know ; " and he reeled away, drunk 
with the mirth which filled him from head to foot. 
But he repented again, and with a superhuman effort 
so far subdued his transports as merely to quake in- 
ternally, and tremble all over, as he led the way to 
the next hotel, arm in arm with the bewildered and 
embittered colonel He encouraged the latter with 
much genuine sympathy, and observed a proper 



192 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

decorum in his interviews with one portier after 
another, formulating the colonel's story very neatly, 
and explaining at the close that this American Herr, 
who had arrived at Vienna before daylight and di- 
rected his driver to take him to the Kaiserin Elisa- 
beth, and had left his hotel at one o'clock in the 
belief that it was the Kaiserin Elisabeth, felt now 
an added eagerness to know what his hotel really was 
from the circumstance that his wife was there quite 
alone and in probable distress at his long absence. 
At first Colonel Kenton took a lively interest in this 
statement of his case, and prompted the consul with 
various remarks and sub-statements ; he was grateful 
for the compassion generally shown him by the por- 
tiers, emd he strove with himself to give some account 
of the exterior and locality of his mysterious hotel 
But the fact was that he had not so much as looked 
behind him when he quitted it, and knew nothing 
about its appearance ; and gradually the reiteration of 
the points of his misadventure to one portier after 
another began to be as " a tale of little meaning, 
though the words are strong/' His personation of an 
American Herr in great trouble of mind was an 
entire failure, except as illustrating the national 
apathy of countenance when under the influence of 
strong emotion. He ceased to take part in the con- 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 193 

fiul's efforts in his behalf; the whole abominable 
affair seemed as far beyond his forecast or endeavor 
as some result of malign enchantment, and there 
was no such thing as carrying off the tragedy with 
self-respect Distressing as it was, there could be no 
question but it was entirely ridiculous ; he hung his 
head with shame before the portiers at being a party 
to it ; he no longer felt like resenting Davis's amuse- 
ment ; he only wondered that he could keep his face 
in relating the idiotic mischance. Each successive 
failure to discover his lodging confirmed him in his 
humiliation and despair. Very likely there was a 
way out of the difficulty, but he did not know it. 
He became at last almost an indifferent spectator of 
the consul's perseverance. He began to look back 
with incredulity at the period of his life passed be- 
fore entering the fatal fiacre that morning. He 
received the final portier's rejection with something 
Uke a personal derision. 

" That 's the last place I can think of," said the 
consul, wiping his brow as they emerged from the 
court-yard, for he had grown very warm with walking 
so much. 

'• Oh, all right," said the colonel languidly. 

" But we won't give it up. Let 's go in here and 
get some coffee, and think it over a bit" They were 

18 



194 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

near one of the principal caS6s, which was fall of 
people smoking, and drinking the Viennese melange 
out of tumblers. 

''By all means," assented Colonel Kenton with 
inconsequent courtliness, ''think it over. It's all 
that's left us." 

Matters did not look so dark, quite, after a tumbler 
of coffee with milk, but they did not continue to 
brighten so much as they ought with the cigars. 
" Now let us go through the facts of the case," said 
the consul, and the colonel wearily reproduced his 
original narrative with every possible circumstance. 
" But you know all about it," he concluded. " I don't 
see any end of it I don't see but I 'm to spend the 
rest of my life in hunting up a hotel that professes 
to be the Kaiserin Elisabeth, and is n't. I never 
knew anything like it." 

" It certainly has the charm of novelty," gloomily 
assented the consul: it must be owned that his gloom 
was a respectful feint " I have heard of men run- 
ning away from their hotels, but I never did hear 
of a hotel running away from a man before now. 
Yes — hold on ! I have, too. Aladdin's palace — 
and with Mrs. Aladdin in it, at that ! It 's a parallel 
case." Here he abandoned himself as usual, while 
Colonel Kenton viewed his mirth with a dreary grin. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 195 

When he at last caught his breath, "I beg your 
pardon, I do, indeed," the consul implored. " I know 
just how you feel, but of course it 's coming out 
right. We 've been to all the hotels I know of, but 
there must be others. We *11 get some more names 
and start at once ; and if the genie has dropped your 
hotel anywhere this side of Africa we shall find it 
If the worst comes to the worst, you can stay at my 
house to-night and start new to-m — Oh, I forgot I 
— Mrs. Kenton 1 Eeally, the whole thing is such an 
amusing muddle that I can't seem to get over it** 
He looked at Kenton with tears in his eyes, but con* 
tained himself and decorously summoned a waiter, 
who brought him whatever corresponds to a city di * 
rectory in Vienna. " There I *' he said, when he had 
copied into his note-book a number of addresses, '' I 
don't think your hotel will escape us this time ; " and 
discharging his account he led the way to the door, 
Colonel Kenton listlessly following. 

The wretched husband was now suffering all the 
anguish of a just remorse, and the heartlessness of 
his behavior in going off upon his own pleasure the 
whole afternoon and leaving his wife alone in a 
strange hotel to pass the time as she might was no 
less a poignant reproach, because it seemed so incon- 
ceivable in connection with what he had always 



196 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

taken to be the kindness and unselfishness of his 
character. We all know the sensation ; and I know 
none, on the whole, so disagreeable, so little flat- 
tering, so persistent when once it has established 
itself in the ill-doer's consciousness. To find out 
that you are not so good or generous or magnan- 
imous as you thought is, next to having other 
people find it out, probably the unfriendliest dis- 
covery that can be made. But I suppose it has 
its uses. Colonel Kenton now saw the unhandsome- 
ness of his leaving his wife at all, and he beheld in 
its true light his shabbiness in not going back to tell 
her he had found his old friend and was to bring him 
to dinner. The Lohndiener would of course have 
taken him straight to his hotel, and he would have 
been spared this shameful exposure, which, he knew 
well enough, Davis would never forget, but would 
tell all his life with an ever-increasing garniture of 
fiction. He cursed his weakness in allowing himself 
to dawdle about those arsenals and that parade- 
ground, and to be so far misguided by a hardened 
bachelor as to admire certain yellow-haired German 
and black-haired Hungarian women on the prom- 
enade ; when he came to think of going out in that 
sledge, it was with anathema maranatha. He groaned 
in spirit, but he owned that he was rightly punished, 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGK 197 

though it seemed hard that his wife should be 
punished too. And then he went on miserably to 
figure first her slight surprise at his being gone so 
long ; then her vague uneasiness and her conjectures ; 
then her dawning apprehensions and her helpless- 
ness ; her probable sending to the consulate to find 
out what had become of him ; her dismay at learning 
nothing of him there; her waiting and waiting in 
wild dismay as the moments and hours went by ; her 
frenzied running to the door at every step and her 
despair when it proved not his. He had seen her 
suffering from less causes. And where was she? 
In what low, shabby tavern had he left her ? He 
choked with rage and grief, and could haifdly speak 
to the gentleman, a naturalized fellow-citizen of 
Vienna, to whom he found the consul introducing 
him. 

" I wonder if you can't help us," said the consul 
" My friend here is the victim of a curious annoy- 
ance ; " and he stated the case in language so sympa- 
thetic and decorous as to restore some small shreds of 
the colonel's self-respect. 

" Ah," said their new acquaintance, who was mer- 
cifully not a man of humor, or too polite to seem 
so, "that's another trick of those scamps of fiacre- 
drivers. He took you purposely to the wrong hotel, 



198 AT THE SIGN OF THE 8ATAGIL 

and was probably feed by the landlord for bringing 
you. Bat why should you make yourselves so much 
trouble ? Tou know Colonel Kenton's landlord had 
to send his name to the police as soon as he came, 
and you can get his address there at once." 

** Grood-by I ^ said the consul yery hastQy, with a 
crestfallen air. ** Come along, Kenton." 

^ What did he send my name to the police for 7" 
demanded the colonel, in the open air. 

'^Oh, it's a form. They do it with all travel- 
lers. It 's merely to secure the imperial government 
against your machinations." 

''And do you mean to say you ought to have 
knoMm," cried the colonel, halting him, ''that you 
could have found out where I was from the police at 
once, before we had walked all over this moral vine- 
yard, and wasted half a precious lifetime ? " 

** Kenton," contritely admitted the other, " I never 
happened to think of it." 

" Well, Davis, you 're a pretty consul ! " That was 
all the colonel said, and though his friend was voluble 
in self-exculpation and condemnation, he did not 
answer him a word till they arrived at the police 
office. A few brief questions and replies between 
the commissary and the consul solved the long mys- 
tery, and Colonel Kenton had once more a hotel over 



AT THE SIGN OF THE 8AVA6E. 199 

his head. The commissary certified to the respecta- 
bility of the place, but invited the colonel to prose- 
cute the driver of the fiacre in behalf of the general 
public, — which seemed 90 right a thing that the 
colonel entered into it with zeaJ, and then suddenly 
relinquished it, remembering that he had not the 
rogue's number, that he had not so much as looked at 
him, and that he knew no more what manner of man 
he was than his own image in a glass. Under the 
circumstances, the commissary admitted that it was 
impossible, and as to bringing the landlord to justice, 
nothing could be proved against him. 

*' Will you ask him," said the colonel, " the outside 
price of a first-class assault and battery in Vienna ? '' 

The consul put as much of this idea into German 
as the language would contain, which was enough to 
make the commissary laugh and shake his head 
wamingly. 

'* It would n't do, he says, Kenton ; it is n't the 
custom of the country." 

" Very well, then, I don't see why we should 
occupy his time." He gave his hand to the com- 
missary, whom he would have liked to embrace, and 
then hurried forth again with the consul ^ There is 
one little thing that worries me still," he sedd. " I 
suppose Mrs. Kenton is simply crazy by this time." 



200 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

" Is she of a very — nervous — disposition ?" fal- 
tered the consul 

" Nervous ? Well, if you could witness the ex- 
pression of her emotions in regard to mice, you 
would n't ask that question, Davis." 

At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a 
moment. Then he ventured : " I' ve heard — or read, 
I don't know which — that women have more real 
fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of 
moral support in an actual emeigency that they 
wouldn't find in — mica" 

" Pshaw 1 " answered the coloneL " You wait till 
you see Mrs. Kenton" 

^Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, 
and stopping short '* I 've been thinking that per- 
haps — I — I had better dine with you some other 
day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely 
domestic that a third person, you know — " 

"Come along!" cried the coloneL "I want you 
to help me out of this scrape. I 'm going to leave 
that hotel as soon as I can put my things together, 
and you 've got to browbeat the landlord for me 
while I go up and reassure my wife long enough to 
get her out of that den of thieves. What did you 
say the scoundrelly name was ? " 

" The Gasthof zum Wilden Manne." 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 201 

'^ And what does Wildun Manny mean ? '* 

^'The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I 
suppose, — the Wild Man." 

** Well, I don't know whether it was named after 
me or not ; but if I 'd found that sign anywhere for 
the last four or five hours, I should have known it for 
home. There has n't been any wilder man in Vienna 
since the town was laid out, I reckon ; and I don't 
believe there ever was a wilder woman anywhere 
than Mrs. Kenton is at this instant" 

Arrived at the Sign of the Savage, Colonel Ken- 
ton left his friend below with the portier, and 
mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to 
his room FUnging open the door, he beheld 
his wife dressed in one of her best silks, before 
the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching her 
back hair with her hand and twitching the bow 
at her throat into perfect place. She smiled at 
him in the glass, and said, ''Where's Captain 
Davis ? " 

" Captain Davis ? " gasped the colonel, dry-tongued 
with anxiety and fatigue. '^ Oh ! He 's down thera 
He 11 be up directly." 

She turned and came forward to him : '' How do 
you like it ? " Then she advanced near enough to 
encounter the moustache : ^' Why, how heated and 
tired you look I " 



202 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

* Yes, yes, — we 've been walking. I— I'm rather 
late, ain't I, Bessie ? " 

" About an hour. I ordered dinner at six, and it 's 
nearly seven now." The colonel started ; he had not 
dared to look at his watch, and he had supposed it 
must be about ten o'clock ; it seemed years since his 
search for the hotel had begun. But he said nothing ; 
he felt that in some mysterious and unmerited man- 
ner Heaven was having mercy upon him, and he 
accepted the grace in the sneaking way we all accept 
mercy. "I knew you'd stay longer than you ex- 
pected, when you found it was Davis." 

^How did you know it was Davis?" asked the 
colonel, blindly feeling his way. 

Mrs. Kenton picked up her Almanach de Gotha. 
'^It has all the consular and diplomatic corps in 
it." 

'' I won't laugh at it any more," said the colonel, 
humbly. " Were n't you — uneasy, Bessie ? " 

** No. I mended away, here, and fussed round the 
whole afternoon, putting the trunks to rights ; and 
I got out this dress and ran a bit of lace into the 
collar ; and then I ordered dinner, for I knew you 'd 
bring the captain ; and I took a nap, and by that it 
was nearly dinner-time." 

" Oh 1 " said the colonel 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 203 

" Yes ; and the bead-waiter was as polite as peas ; 
they've all been very attentive. I shall certainly 
recommend everybody to the Kaiserin Elisabeth." 

" Yes/' assented the wretched man. '' I reckon it 's 
about the best hotel in Vienna." 

" Well, now, go and get Captain Davis. You can 
bring him right in here ; we 're only travellers. Why, 
what makes you act so queerly ? Has anything hap- 
pened ? " Mrs. Kenton was surprised to find herself 
gathered into her husband's arms and embraced 
with a rapture for which she could see no par- 
ticular reason. 

'' Bessie," said her husband, " I told you this morn- 
ing that you were amiable as well as bright and 
beautiful ; I now wish to add that you are sensibla 
I 'm awfully ashamed of being gone so long. But the 
fact is we had a little accident Our sleigh broke 
down out in the country, and we had to walk back." 

" Oh, you poor old fellow I No wonder you look 
tired." 

He accepted the bahn of her compassion like a 
candid and innocent man : " Yes, it was pretty rough. 
But I did n't mind it, except on your account I 
thought the delay would make you uneasy." With 
that he went out to the head of the stairs and called, 
" Davis 1 " 



204 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 

^ Yes ! " responded the consul ; and he ascended the 
stairs in such trepidation that he tripped and fell part 
of the way up. 

« Have you been saying anything to that man 
about my going away ? " 

* No, I *ve simply been blowing him up on the 
fiacre driver's account. He swears they are innocent 
of collusion. But of course they 're not." 

'* Well, all right Mrs. Eenton is waiting fcr us 
to go to dinner. And look here/' whispered the 
colonel, " don't you open your mouth, except to put 
something into it, till I give you the cue." 

The dinner was charming, and had suffered little 
or nothing from the delay. Mrs. Kenton was in rap- 
tures with it, and after a thimbleful of the good Hun- 
garian wine had attimed her tongue, she began to sing 
the praises of the Eaiserin Elisabeth. 

" The K — " began the consul, who had hitherto 
guarded himself very well But the colonel arrested 
him at that letter with a terrible look. He returned 
the look with a glance of intelligence, and resumed : 
" The Kaiserin Elisabeth has the best cook in Vi- 
enna." 

" And everybody about has such nice, honest faces," 
said Mrs. Kenton. " I 'm sure I could n't have felt 
anxious if you had n't come till midnight : I knew J 
was perfectly secure here." 



AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 205 

* Quite right, quite right," said the consuL " All 
classes of the Viennese are so faithful Now, I dare 
say you could have trusted that driver of yours, who 
brought you here before daylight this morning, with 
untold gold. No stranger need fear any of the tricks 
ordinarily practised upon travellers in Vienna. They 
are a truthful, honest, virtuous population, — like all 
the Germans in fact" 

" There, Ned I What do you say to that, with your 
Black Forest nonsense ? " triumphed Mrs. Kenton. 

Colonel Kenton laughed sheepishly : " Well, I take 
it all back, Bessie. I was n't quite satisfied with the 
appearance of the Black Forest country when I came 
to it," he explained to the consul, " and Mrs. Kentx)n 
and I had our little joke about the fraudulent nature 
of the Germans." 

" On/r little joke ! " retorted his wife. ** I wish we 
were going to stay longer in Vienna. They say you 
have to make bargains for everything in Italy, and 
here I suppose I could shop just as at home." 

** Precisely," said the consul; the Viennese shop- 
keepers being the most notorious Jews in Europe. 

" Oh, we can't stop longer than till the morning," 
remarked the coloneL "I shall be sorry to leave 
Vienna and the Kaiserin Elizabeth, but we must 

go" 



206 AT THE SIGN OF THB SAVAGB. 

''Better hang on awhile; jon won't find many 
hotels like it, Kenton/' observed his Mend. 

" No, I suppose not," sighed the colonel ; " but I 'U 
get the address of their correspondent in Venice and 
stop there." 

Thus these craven spirits combined to delude and 
deceive the helpless woman of whom half an hour 
before they had stood in such abject terror. If they 
had found her in hysterics they would have pitied 
and respected her ; but her good sense, her amiability, 
and noble self-control subjected her to their shameless 
mockery. 

Colonel Kenton followed the consul downstairs 
when he went away, and pretended to justify himself. 
" I 'U teU her one of these days," he said, " but there 's 
no use distressing her now." 

" I did n't understand you at first," said the other. 
" But I see now it was the only way." 

" Yes ; saves, needless sufiering. I say, Davis, this 
is about an even thing between us ? A United States 
consul ought to be of some use to his fellow-citizens 
abroad ; and if he allows them to walk their legs off 
hunting up a hotel which he could have found at the 
first police-station if he had happened to think of 
it, he won't be very anxious to tell the joke, I 
suppose ? " 



AT THE SIGN OP THE SAVAGE. 207 

" I don't propose to write home to the papers about 
it." 

"All right" So, in the court-yard of the Wild 
Man, they parted. 

Long after that Mrs. Kenton continued to re- 
commend people to the Kaiserin Elisabeth. Even 
when the truth was made known to her she did 
not see much to laugh at. ** I 'm sure I was always 
very glad the colonel did n't tell me at once/' she 
said, " for if I had known what I had been through, I 
certainly shovld have gone distracted.'' 



TONELEJ'S MARRIAGE. 



TONELLI'S MARRIAGR 

There was no richer man in Venice than Tom- 
maso Tonelli, who had enough on his florin a day; 
and none younger than he, who owned himself forty- 
seven years old. He led the cheerfullest life in the 
world, and was quite a monster of content; bvt 
when I come to sum up his pleasures, I fear that I 
shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very 
insipid and monotonous existence. I doubt if even 
a summary of his duties could be made attractive to 
the conscientious imagination of hard-working peo- 
ple; for Tonelli's labors were not killing, nor, for 
that matter, were those of any Venetian that I ever 
knew. He had a stated employment in the office of 
the notary Cenarotti ; and he passed there so much 
of every working day as lies between nine and five 
o'clock, writing upon deeds and conveyances and peti- 
tions and other legal instruments fo^: the notary, who 
sat in an adjoining room, secluded from nearly every- 
thing in this world but snuff. He called Tonelli by 
the sound of a little bell ; and, when he turned to take 



212 TONELU'S BCARRIAGE. 

a paper from his safe, he seemed to be abstracting 
some secret from long-lapsed centuries, which he 
restored again, and locked back among the dead ages 
when his clerk replaced the document in his hands. 
These hands were very soft and pale, and their ownet 
was a colorless old man, whose silvery hair fell down 
a face nearly as white ; but, as he has almost nothing 
to do with the present affair, I shall merely say that, 
having been compromised in the last revolution, he 
had been obliged to live ever since in perfect retire- 
ment, and that he seemed to have been blanched in 
this social darkness as a plant is blanched by growth 
in a cellar. His enemies said that he was naturally 
a timid man, but they could not deny that he had 
seen things to make the brave afraid, or that he had 
now every reason &om the police to be secret and 
cautious in his life. He could hardly be called com- 
pany for Tonelli, who must have found the day in- 
tolerably long but for the visit which the notary's 
pretty granddaughter contrived to pay every morning 
in the cheerless mezzd. She commonly appeared on 
some errand from her mother, but her chief business 
seemed to be to share with Tonelli the modest feast 
of rumor and hearsay which he loved to furnish forth 
for her, and ftpm which doubtless she carried back 
some fragments of gossip to the family apartmenta 



TONELLfS BCARRIAOK 213 

Tonelli called her, with that mingled archness and 
tenderness of the Venetians, his Paronsina ; and, as 
he had seen her grow up from the smallest possible 
of Little Mistresses, there was no shyness between 
them, and they were fully privileged to each other's 
society by her mother. When she flitted away again, 
Tonelli was left to a stillness broken only by the soft 
breathing of the old man in the next room, and by 
the shrill discourse of his own loquacious pen, so that 
he was commonly glad enough when it came five 
o'clock. At this hour he put on his black coat, that 
shone with constant use, and his faithful silk hat, 
worn down to the pasteboard with assiduous brush- 
ing, and caught up a veiy jaunty cane in his hand. 
Then, saluting the notary, he took his way to the 
little restaurant, where it was his custom to dine, and 
had his tripe soup and his risotto, or dish of fried 
liver, in the austere silence imposed by the presence 
of a few poor Austrian captains and lieutenants. It 
was not that the Italians feared to be overheard by 
these enemies ; but it was good dimostrazione to be 
silent before the oppressor, and not let him know 
that they even enjoyed their dinners well enough, 
under his government, to chat sociably over them. 
To tell the truth, this duty was an irksome one to To- 
nelli, who liked far better to dine, as he sometimes 



214 TONELU'S ICABBUGE. 

did, at a cook-shop, where he met the folk of the peo- 
ple (^fente del popolo), as he called them ; and where, 
though himself a person of civil condition, he dis- 
coursed freely with the other guests, and ate of their 
humble but relishing fara He was known among 
them as Sior Tommaso ; and thej paid him a hom- 
age, which they enjoyed equally with him, as a per- 
son not only learned in the law, but a poet of gift 
enough to write wedding and funeral verses, and a 
veteran who had fought for the dead Bepublic of 
Forty-eight They honored him as a most travelled 
gentleman, who had been in the Tyrol, and who could 
have spoken Grerman, if he had not despised that 
tongue as the language of the ugly Croats, like one 
bom to it Who, for example, spoke Venetian more 
el^antly than Sior Tommaso ? or Tuscan, when he 
chose ? and yet he was poor, — a man of that genius ! 
Patience! When Graribaldi came, we should see! 
The facchini and gondoliers, who had been wagging 
their tongues all day at the church comers and fer- 
ries, were never tired of talking of this gifted friend 
of theirs, when, having ended some impressive dis- 
course or some dramatic story, he left them with a 
sudden adieu, and walked quickly away toward the 
Eiva degli Schiavoni 
Here, whether he had dined at the cook-shop, or at 



TONELLI'S MABRUOE. 215 

his more genteel and gloomy restaurant of the Bronze 
Horses, it was his custom to lounge an hour or two 
over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the 
manycaffes^and to watch all the world as it passed to 
and fro on the quay. Tonelli was gray, he did not 
disown it ; but he always maintained that his heart 
was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great 
difference in persons as to age, which told in his 
favor. So he loved to sit there, and look at the 
ladies; and he amused himself by inventing a pet 
name for eveiy face he saw, which he used to teach 
to certain friends of his, when they joined him over 
his coffee. These friends were all young enough to 
be his sons, and wise enough to be his fathers ; but 
they were always glad to be with him, for he had so 
cheeiy a wit and so good a heart that neither his 
years nor his follies could make any one sad. His 
kind face beamed with smiles, when Pennellini, chief 
amQng the youngsters in his etffections, appeared on 
the top of the nearest bridge, and thence descended 
directly towards his little table. Then it was that he 
drew out the straw which ran through the centre of 
his long Virginia, and lighted the pleasant weed, and 
gave himself up to the delight of making aloud those 
comments on the ladies which he had hitherto stifled 
in his breast Sometimes he would feign himself too 



216 TOKELLfS HABBIA6E. 

deeply taken with a passing beauty to remain qtdet, 
and would make his friend follow with him in chase 
of her to the Public Gkirdens. But he was a fickle 
lover, and wanted presently to get back to his cafi%, 
where, at decent intervals of days or weeks, he would 
indulge himself in discovering a spy in some harm- 
less stranger, who, in going out, looked curiously at 
the scar Tonelli's cheek had brought from the battle 
of Vicenza in 1848. 

" Something of a spy, no ? " he asked at these 
times of the waiter, who, flattered by the penetration * 
of a frequenter of his caff&, and the implication that 
it was thought seditious enough to be watched by the 
police, assumed a pensive importance, and answered^ 
** Something of a spy, certainly." 

Upon this Tonelli was commonly encouraged to 
proceed: "Did I ever tell you how I once sent 
one of those ugly muzzles out of a caff<& ? I knew 
him as soon as I saw him, — I am never mistaken 
in a spy, — and I went with my newspaper, and sat 
down close at his side. Then I whispered to him 
across the sheet, * We are two.' * Eh ? ' says he. ' It 
is a very small cafife, and there is no need of more 
than one,' and then I stared at him and frowned. 
He looks at me fixedly a moment, then gathers up 
his hat and gloves, and takes his pestilency o£f." 



TONELLI'S MARRUGE. 217 

The waiter, who had heard this story, man and 
boy, a hundred times, made a quite successful show 
of enjoying it, as he walked away with Tonelli's fee 
of half a cent in his pocket. Tonelli then had left 
from his day's salary enough to pay for the ice which 
he ate at ten o'clock, but which he would sometimes 
forego, in order to give the money in charity, though 
more commonly he indulged himself, and put off the 
beggar with, "Another time, my dear. I have no 
leisure now to discuss those matters with thee." 

On holidays this routine of Tonelli's life was va- 
ried. In the forenoon he went to mass at St Mark's, 
to see the beauty and fashion of the city ; and then 
he took a walk with his four or five young friends, or 
went with them to play at bowls, or even made an 
excursion to the main land, where they hired a car- 
riage, and all those Venetians got into it, like so 
many seamen, and drove the horse with as little 
mercy as if he had been a sail-boat. At seven 
o'clock Tonelli dined with the notary, next whom he 
sat at table, and for whom his quaint pleasantries 
had a zest that inspired the Paronsina and her 
mother to shout them into his dull ears, that he 
might lose none of them. He laughed a kind of faded 
laugh at them, and, rubbing his pale hands together, 
showed by his act that he did not think his best 



218 TONSLU'S MABBIAGS. 

wine too good for his kindly guest. The signora 
feigned to take the same delight shown by her 
father and daughter in Tonelli's drolleries; but I 
doubt if she had a great sense of his humor, or» in- 
deed, cared anything for it save as she perceived that 
it gave pleasure to those she loved. Otherwise, how- 
ever, she had a sincere r^ard for him, for he was 
most useful and devoted to her in her quality of 
widowed mother ; and if she could not feel wit, she 
could feel gratitude, which is perhaps the rarer gift, 
if not the more respectable. 

The little Mistress was dependent upon him for 
nearly all the pleasures and for the only excitements 
of her lifa As a young girl she was at best a sort 
of caged bird, who had to be guarded against the 
youth of the other sex as if they, on their part, were 
so many marauding and ravening cats. During most 
days of the year the Paronsina's parrot had almost as 
much freedom as she. He could leave his gilded 
prison when he chose, and -promenade the notary's 
house as far down as the marble well in the sunless 
court, and the Paronsina could do little more. The 
signora would as soon have thought of letting the 
parrot walk across their campo alone as her daughter, 
though the local dangers, either to bird or beauty, 
could not have been yery great. The green-grocer 



TONELLfS liARBUQE. 219 

of that sequestered campo was an old woman, the 
apothecary was gray, and his shop was haunted by 
none but superannuated physicians ; the baker, the 
butcher, the waiters at the caffl^ were all profession- 
ally, and, as purveyors to her family, out of the ques- 
tion ; the sacristan, who sometimes appeared at the 
perruquier's to get a coal from under the curUng- 
tongs to kindle his censer, had but one eye, which he 
kept single to the service of the Church, and his per- 
quisite of candle-drippings; and I hazard little in 
saying that the Paronsina might have danced a polka 
around Campo San Giuseppe without jeopardy so far 
as concerned the handsome wood-carver, for his wife 
always sat in the shop beside him. Nevertheless, a 
custom is not idly handed down by mother to daugh- 
ter from the dawn of Christianity to the middle of 
the nineteenth century; and I cannot deny that 
the local perruquier, though stricken in years, was 
still so far kept fresh by the immortal youth of the 
wax heads in his window as to have something beau- 
ish about him ; or that, just at the moment the Paron- 
sina chanced to go into the campo alone, a leane from 
Florian's might not have been passing through it, 
when he would certainly have looked boldly at her, 
perhaps spoken to her, and possibly pounced at once 
upon her fluttering heart So by day the Paronsina 



220 TONELLl'S MABBUGS. 

rarely went out, and she never emeiged unattended 
from the silence and shadow of her grandfather^s 
house. 

If I were here telling a story of the Paronsina^ or 
indeed any story at all, I might suffer myself to en- 
large somewhat upon the daily order of her secluded 
life, and show how the seclusion of other Venetian 
girls was the widest liberty as compared with hers ; 
but I have no right to play with the reader's patience 
in a performance that can promise no excitement of 
incident, no charm of invention. Let him figure to 
himself, if he will, the ancient and half-ruined palace 
in which the notary dwelt, with a gallery running 
along one side of its inner court, the slender pillars 
supporting upon the corroded sculpture of their capi- 
tals a clinging vine, that dappled the floor with pal- 
pitant light and shadow in the afternoon sun. The 
gate, whose exquisite Saracenic arch grew into a 
carven flame, was surmounted by the armorial bear- 
ings of a family that died of its sins against the 
Serenest Bepublic long ago ; the marble cistern which 
stood in the middle of the court had still a ducal 
rose upon either of its four sides ; and little lions of 
stone perched upon the posts at the head of the mar- 
ble stairway climbing to the gallery, their fierce 
aspects worn smooth and amiable by the contact of 



TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 221 

hands that for many ages had mouldered in tombs. 
Toward the canal the palace windows had been im- 
memorially bricked up for some reason or caprice, 
and no morning sunlight, save .such as shone from 
the bright eyes ef the Paronsina^ ever looked into the 
dim halls. It was a fit abode for such a man as the 
notary, exiled in the heart of his native city, and it 
was not unfriendly in its influences to a quiet vege- 
tation like the signora's ; but to the Paronsina it was 
sad as Venice itself, where, in some moods, I have 
wondered that any sort of youth could have the cour- 
age to exist. Nevertheless, the Paronsina had con- 
trived to grow up here a child of the gayest and 
archest spirit, and to lead a life of due content, till 
after her return home from the comparative freedom 
and society of Madame Prateux's school, where she 
spent three years in learning all polite accomplish- 
ments, and whence she came, with brilliant hopes and 
romances ready imagined, for any possible exigency 
of the future. She adored all the modem Italian 
poets, and read their verse with that stately and 
rhythmical fulness of voice which often made it sub- 
lime and always pleasing. She was a relentless pa- 
triot, an Italianissima of the vividest green, white, 
and red ; and she could interpret the historical novels 
of her countrymen in their subtilest application to 



222 TONELU'S MARBIAGS. 

the modem enemies of Italy. Bat all the Paron- 
sina's gifts and accomplishments were to poor pur- 
pose, if they brought no young men a-wooing under 
her balcony ; and it was to no effect that her fervid 
fancy peopled the palace's empty halls with stately 
and gallant company out of Marco Visconti, Nicol6 de' 
Lapiy Margherita Pusterla, and the other romances, 
since she could not hope to receive any practica- 
ble offer of marriage from the heroes thus assembled. 
Her grandfather invited no guests of more substan- 
tial presence to his house. In fact, the police watched 
him too narrowly to permit him to receive society, 
even had he been so minded, and for kindred reasons 
his family paid few visits in the city. To leave Ven- 
ice, except for the autumnal villeggicUura was almost 
out of the question; repeated applications at the 
Luogotenenza won the two ladies but a tardy and 
scanty grace; and the use of the passport allowing 
them to spend a few weeks in Florence was attended 
with so much vexation, in coming and going upon 
the imperial confines, and when they returned 
home they were subject to so great fear of perqui- 
sition from the police, that it was after all rather 
a mortification than a pleasure that the government 
had given them. The signora received her few ac- 
quaintances once a week; but the Paronsina found 



TONELLfS MARRIAGE. 223 

the old ladies tedious over their cups of coffee or 
tumblers of lemonade, and declared that her mam- 
ma's reception days were a martjnrdom, — actually a 
martyrdom, to her. She was full of life and the 
beautiful and tender longing of youth ; she had a 
warm heart and a sprightly wit ; but she led an exis- 
tence scarce livelier than a ghost's, and she was so poor 
in friends and resources that she shuddered to think 
what must become of her if Tonelli should die. It 
was not possible, thanks to God! that he should 
marry. 

The signora herself seldom cared to go out, for the 
reason that it was too cold in winter and too hot in 
summer. In the one season she clung all day to her 
wadded arm-chair, with her scaidino in her lap ; and 
in the other season she found it a sufficient diversion 
to sit in the great hall of the palace, and be fanned 
by the salt breeze that came from the Adriatic 
through the vine-garlanded gallery. But besides 
this habitual inclemency of the weather, which for- 
bade out-door exercise nearly the whole year, it was 
a displeasure to walk in Venice on account of the 
stairways of the bridges ; and the signora much pre- 
ferred to wait till they went to the country in the 
autumn, when she always rode to take the air. The 
exceptions to her custom were formed by those after- 



224 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 

dinner promenades which she sometimes made on 
holidays, in summer. Then she put on her richest 
black, and the Paronsina dressed herself in her best, 
and they both went to walk on the Molo, before the 
pillars of the lion and the saint, under the escort of 
TonellL 

It often happened that, at the hour of their arrival 
on the Molo, the moon was coming up over the low 
bank of the lido in the east, and all that prospect of 
ship-bordered quay, island, and lagoon, which, at its 
worst, is everything that heart can wish, was then at 
its best, and far beyond words to paint On the right 
stretched the long Giudecca, with the domes and 
towers of its PaUadian church, and the swelling foli- 
age of its gardens, and its line of warehouses — 
painted pink, as if even Business, grateful to be tol- 
erated amid such lovely scenes, had striven to adorn 
herself. In front lay San Giorgio, picturesque with 
its church and pathetic with its political prisons; 
and, farther away to the east again, the gloomy mass 
of the madhouse at San Servolo, and then the slen- 
der campanili of the Armenian convent rose over the 
gleaming and tremulous water. Tonelli took in the 
beauty of the scene with no more consciousness than 
a bird ; but the Paronsina had learnt from her ro- 
mantic poets and novelists to be complimentary to 



TONELLl'S MABRIA6E. 225 

prospects, and her heait gurgled out in rapturous 
praises of this. The unwonted freedom exhilarated 
her ; there was intoxication in the encounter of faces 
on the promenade, in the dazzle and glimmer of the 
lights, and even in the music of the Austrian band 
playing in the Piazza, as it came purified to her 
patriotic ear by the distanca There were none but 
Italians upon the Molo, and one might walk there 
without so much as touching an officer with the hem 
of one's garment ; and, a little later, when the band 
ceased playing, she should go with the other Italians 
and possess the Piazza for one blessed hour. In the 
mean time, the Paronsina had a sharp little tongue ; 
and, after she had flattered the landscape, and had, 
from her true heart, once for all, saluted the prome- 
naders as brothers and sisters in Italy, she did not 
mind making fun of their peculiarities of dress and 
person. She was signally sarcastic upon such ladies 
as Tonelli chanced to admire, and often so stung him 
with her jests that he was glad when Pennellini ap- 
peared, as he always did exactly at nine o'clock, and 
joined the ladies in their promenade, asking and an- 
swering all those questions of ceremony which form 
Venetian greeting. He was a youth of the most 
methodical exactness in his whole life, and could no 
more have arrived on the Molo a moment before or 

15 



226 TONELU'S IfABBUGE. 

after nine than the bronze giants on the clock-towei 
coald have hastened or lingered in striking the hour. 
Nature, which had made him thus punctual and pre- 
cise, gave him also good looks, and a most amiable 
kindness of heart. The Paronsina cared nothing at 
all for him in his quality of handsome young fellow; 
but she prized him as an acquaintance whom she 
might salute, and be saluted by, in a city where her 
grandfather's isolation kept her strange to nearly all 
the faces she saw. Sometimes her evenings on the 
Molo wasted away without the exchange of a word 
save with Tonelli, for her mother seldom talked; 
and then it was quite possible her teasing was greater 
than his patience, and that he grew taciturn under 
her tongue. At such times she hailed Pennellini's 
appearance with a double delight; for, if he never 
joined in her attacks upon Tonelli's favorites, he 
always enjoyed them, and politely applauded them. 
If his friend reproached him for this treason, he 
made him every amend in answering, ''She is jeal- 
ous, Tonelli," — a wily compliment, which had the 
most intense effect in coming from lips ordinarily so 
sincere as his. 

The signora was weary of the promenade long 
before the Austrian music ceased in the Piazza, and 
was very glad when it came time for them to leave 



TOKELLl'S MABBIAGE. 227 

the Molo, and go and sit down to an ice at the Caff(^ 
Florian. This was the supreme hour to the Paron- 
sina, the one heavenly excess of her restrained and 
eventless life. All about her were scattered tranquil 
Italian idlers, listening to the music of the strolling 
minstrels who had succeeded the military band ; on 
either hand sat her friends, and she had thus the 
image of that tender devotion without which a jroung 
girl is said not to be perfectly happy ; while the veiy 
heart of adventure seemed to bound in her exchange 
of glances with a handsome foreigner at a neighbor- 
ing table. On the other side of the Piazza a few of- 
ficers still lingered at the CafG^ Quadri ; and at the 
Specchi sundry groups of citizens in their dark dress 
contrasted well with these white uniforms ; but, for 
the most part, the moon and gas-jets shone upon the 
broad, empty space of the Piazza, whose loneliness 
the presence of a few belated promenaders only 
served to render conspicuous. As the giants ham- 
mered eleven upon the great bell, the Austrian 
sentinel, under the Ducal Palace, uttered a long, 
reverberating cry; and soon after a patrol of sol- 
diers clanked across the Piazza, and passed with 
echoing feet through the arcade into the narrow and 
devious streets beyond. The young girl found it 
hard to rend herself from the dreamy pleasure of the 



228 TONELU'S MARRIAGE. 

scene, or' even to torn from the fine impersonal pain 
which the presence of the Austrians in the spectacle 
inflicted. All gave an impression something like that 
of the theatre, with the advantage that here one's self 
was part of the pantomime ; and in those days, when 
nearly everything but the puppet-shows was forbid- 
den to patriots, it was altogether the greatest enjoy- 
ment possible to the Paronsina. The pensive charm 
of the place imbued all the little company so deeply 
that they scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly 
homeward through the deserted Merceria When 
they reached the Gampo San Salvatore, on many a 
lovely summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to 
waken a nightingale whose cage hung from a lofty 
balcony there; for suddenly, at their coming, the 
bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched 
them all, and suffused the tender heart of the Paron- 
sina with an inexpressible pathos. 

Alas! she had so often returned thus from the 
Piazza, and no stealthy footstep had followed hers 
homeward with love's persistence and diffidence! 
She was young, she knew, and she thought not 
quite dull or hideous; but her spirit was as sole 
in that melancholy city as if there were no youth 
but tiers in the world. And a little later than thia^ 
when she had her first affair, it did not originate in 



TONELLI'S MAKRUGE. 229 

the Piazza, nor at all respond to her expectations 
in a love-affair. In fact, it was altogether a business 
affair, and was managed chiefly by Tonelli, who hav- 
ing met a young doctor, laurelled the year before at 
Padua, had heard him express so pungent a curiosity 
to know what the Paronsina would have to her 
dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love 
with her. So with the consent of the signora he had 
arranged a correspondence between the young people ; 
and all went on well at first, — the letters from both 
passing through his hands. . But his office was any- 
thing but a sinecure, for while the Doctor was on his 
part of a cold temperament, and disposed to r^ard 
the affair merely as a proper way of providing . for 
the natural affections, the Paronsina cared nothing for 
him personally, and only viewed him favorably as 
abstract matrimony, — as the means of escaping from 
the bondage of her girlhood and the sad seclusion of 
her life into the world outside her grandfather's 
house. So presently the correspondence fell almost 
wholly upon Tonelli, who worked up to the point of 
betrothal with an expense of finesse and sentiment 
that would have made his fortune in diplomacy or 
poetry. What should he say now ? that stupid young 
Doctor would cry in a desperation, when Tonelli deli- 
cately reminded him that it was time to answer the 



230 TOKELU'S MABRU6K 

Faionsiiia's last note. Say this, that, and the other, 
Tonelli would answer, giving him the heads of a 
proper letter, which the Doctor took down on square 
bits of paper, neatly fashioned for writing prescrip- 
tions. " And for God's sake, caro dottore, put a little 
warmth into it I" The poor Doctor would try, but it 
must always end in Tonelli's suggesting and almost 
dictating every sentence ; and then the letter, being 
carried to the Paronsina made her laugh : " This is 
very pretty, my poor Tonelli, but it was never my 
onoratissimo dottore who thought of these tender com- 
pliments. Ah ! that allusion to my mouth and eyes 
could only have come from the heart of a great poet. 
It is yours, Tonelli, don't deny it." And Tonelli, 
taken in his weak point of literature, could make but 
a feeble pretence of disclaiming the child of his fancy, 
while the Paronsina, being in this reckless humor, 
more than once responded to the Doctor in such 
fashion that in the end the inspiration of her altered 
and amended letter was Tonelli's. Even after the 
betrothal, the lovemaking languished, and the Doctor 
was indecently patient of the late day fixed for the 
marriage by the notary. In fact, the Doctor was very 
busy; and, as his practice grew, the dower of the 
Paronsina dwindled in his fancy, till one day he 
treated the whole question of their marriage with 



TONELLl'S MABRIAQK 231 

« 

such coldness and uncertainty in his talk with To- 
nelli, that the latter saw whither his thoughts were 
drifting, and went home with an indignant heart to 
the Paronsina, who joyfully sat down and wrote her 
first sincere letter to the Doctor, dismissing him. 

" It is finished/' she said, '* and I am glad. After 
all, perhaps, I don't want to be any freer than I am ; 
and while I have you, Tonelli, I don't want a younger 
lover. Younger ? Diana I You are in the flower of 
youth, and I believe you will never wither. Did 
that rogue of a Doctor, then, really give you the elixir 
of youth for writing him those letters ? Tell me, 
Tonelli, as a true friend, how long have you been 
forty-seven ? Ever since your fiftieth birthday ? 
Listen ! I have been more afraid of losing you than 
my sweetest Doctor. I thought you would be so 
much in love with lovemaking that you would go 
break-neck and court some one in earnest on your 
own account ! " 

Thus the Paronsina made a jest of the loss she had 
sustained ; but it was not pleasant to her, except as it 
dissolved a tie which love had done nothing to form. 
Her life seemed colder and vaguer after it, and the 
hour very far away when the handsome officers of her 
king (all good Venetians in those days called Victor 
Emanuel ''our king") should come to drive out the 



232 TOKELU'S MABRIAGE. 

Austrians, and marry their victims. She scarcely en- 
joyed the prodigious privilege, offered her at this time 
ill consideration of her bereavement, of going to the 
comedy, under Tonelli's protection and along with 
Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora after- 
wards had real qualms of patriotism concerning the 
breach of public duty involved in this distraction of 
her daughter. She hoped that no one had recoguzed 
her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warn- 
ing from the Venetian Committee. ** Thou knowest/' 
she said to the Paronsina, '' that they have eveft ad- 
monished the old Conte Tradonico, who Iovas the 
comedy better than his soul, and who used to go 
every evening. Thy aunt told me, and that the old 
rogue, when people ask him why he does n't g(> to the 
play, answers, * My mistress won't let me.* Put fie ! 
I am saying what young girls ought not to hear." 

After the affair with the Doctor, I say, life -efused 
to return exactly to its old expression, and I suppose 
that, if what presently happened was ever to bnppen, 
it could not have occurred at a more appropriate time 
for a disaster, or at a time when its victims weTe less 
able to bear it I do not know whether I hpve yet 
sufficiently indicated the fact, but the truth is both 
the Paronsina and her mother had from long us<) come 
to regard Tonelli as a kind of property of i^^ra. 



TONELU'S MARBIAGE. 233 

which had no right in any way to alienate itself. 
They would have felt an attempt of this sort to be 
not only very absurd, but very wicked, in view of 
their affection for him and dependence upon him; 
and while the Paronsina thanked God that he would 
never marry, she had a deep conviction that he ought 
not to marry, even if he desired. It was at the 
same time perfectly natural, nay, filial, that she should 
herself be ready to desert this old friend, whom she 
felt so strictly bound to be faithful to her loneliness. 
As matters fell out, she had herseK primarily to 
blame for Tonelli's loss ; for, in that interval of disgust 
and ennui following the Doctor's dismissal, she had 
suffered him to seek his own pleasure on holiday 
evenings ; and he had thus wandered alone to the 
Piazza, and so, one night, had seen a lady eating an 
ice there, and fallen in love without more ado than 
another man should drink a lemonade. 

This facility came of habit, for Tonelli had now 
been falling in love every other day for some forty 
yeai's ; and in that time had broken the hearts of in- 
numerable women of all nations and classes. The 
prettiest water-carriers in his neighborhood were 
in love with him, as their mothers had been before 
them, and ladies of noble condition were believed 
to cherish passions for him. Especially, gay and 



234 TOKELU'S MABRIAQE. 

beautiful foreigners, as they sat at Florian's, were 
taken with hopeless love of him ; and he could teU 
stories of veiy romantic adventure in which he 
figured as hero, though nearly always with moral 
efTect For example, there was the countess from the 
mainland, — she merited the sad distinction of being 
chief among those who had vainly loved him, if you 
could believe the poet who both inspired and sang 
her passion. When she took a palace in Venice, he 
had been summoned to her on the pretended business 
of a secretary ; but when she presented herself with 
those idle accounts of her factor and tenants on the 
mainland, her household expenses and her corre- 
spondence with her advocate, Tonelli perceived at 
once that it was upon a whoUy different affair that 
she had desired to see him. She was a rich widow of 
forty, of a beauty supernaturally preserved and very 
great. " This is no place for thee, Tonelli mine," the 
secretary had said to himself, after a week had passed, 
and he had understood all the waywardness of that 
unhappy lady's intentions. " Thou art not too old, but 
thou art too wise, for these follies, though no saint " ; 
and so had gathered up his personal effects, and 
secretly quitted the palace. But such was the count- 
ess's fury at his escape that she never paid him his 
week's salaiy ; nor did she manifest the least gratitude 



TONELU'S MARRIAGE. 235 

that Tonelli, out of regard for her son, a very honest 
young man, refused in any way to identify her, but, 
to all except his closest friends, pretended that he 
had passed those terrible eight days on a visit to the 
country village where he was bom. It showed Pen- 
nellini's ignorance of life that he should laugh at this 
history ; and I prefer to treat it seriously, and to use 
it in explaining the precipitation with which Tonelli's 
latest inamorata returned his love. 

Though, indeed, why shoidd a lady of thirty, and 
from an obscure country town, hesitate to be en- 
amored of any eligible suitor who presented himself 
in Venice ? It is not my duty to enter upon a detail 
or summary of Carlotta's character or condition, or to 
do more than indicate that, while she did not greatly 
excel in youth, good looks, or worldly gear, she had 
yet a little property, and was of that soft prettiness 
which is often more effective than downright beauty. 
There was, indeed, something very charming about 
her ; and, if she was a blonde, I have no reason to 
think she was as fickle as the Venetian proverb 
paints that complexion of woman ; or that she had 
not every quality which would have excused any one 
but Tonelli for thinking of marrying her. 

After their first mute interview in the Piazza, the 
two lost no time in making each other's acquaintance ; 



236 TOHELLfS MAKRTAflK, 

bat thon^ the affiiir was vigoioiialy conducted, no 
one coold say that it was not perfectly in order. 
Tonelli on the following day^ which chanced to be 
Sunday, repaired to St Mark's at the hour of the 
fashionable mass, where he gazed steadfiastly at the 
lady during her orisons, and whence, at a discreet dis- 
tance, he followed her home to the house of the 
friends whom she was visiting. Somewhat to his 
discomfiture at first, these proved to be old acquain- 
tances of his ; and when he came at night to walk up 
and down under their balconies, as bound in true love 
to do, they made nothing of asking him indoors, and 
presenting him to his lady. But the pair were not to 
be entirely balked of their romance, and they still 
arranged stolen interviews at church, where one 
furtively whispered word had the value of whole 
hours of unrestricted converse under the roof of their 
friends. They quite refused to take advantage of 
their anomalously easy relations, beyond inquiry on 
his part as to the amount of the lady's dower, and on 
hers as to the permanence of Tonelli's employment 
He in due form had Pennellini to his confidant, and 
Carlotta unbosomed herself to her hostess ; and the 
affair was thus conducted with such secrecy that not 
more than two thirds of Tonelli's acquaintance knew 
anything about it when their engagement was an- 
nounced. 



TOKELLI*S MARBUOE. 237 

There were now no circumstances to prevent their 
early union, yet the happy conclusion was one to 
which Tonelli urged himself after many secret and 
bitter displeasures of spirit. I am persuaded that 
his love for Carlotta must have been most ardent and 
sincere, for there was everything in his history and 
reason against marriage. He could not disown that 
he had hitherto led a joyous and careless life, or that 
he was exactly fitted for the modest delights, the dis- 
creet variety, of his present state, — for his daily 
routine at the notary's, his dinner at the Bronze 
Horses or the cook-shop, his hour at the cafiE%, his 
walks and excursions, for his holiday banquet with 
the Cenarotti, and his formal promenade with the 
ladies of that family upon the Molo. He had a good 
employment, with a salary that held him above want, 
and afforded him the small luxuries already named ; 
and he had fixed habits of work and of relaxation, 
which made both a blessing. He had his chosen 
circle of intimate equals, who regarded him for his 
good-heartedness and wit and foibles ; and his little 
following of humble admirers, who looked upon him 
as a gifted man in disgrace with fortune. His friend- 
ships were as old as they were secure and cordial ; he 
was established in the kindliness of all who knew 
aim ; and he was flattered by the dependence of the 



238 tonelli'b mabbiage. 

Paronsina and her mother, even when it was trouble- 
some to him. He had his past of sentiment and war, 
his present of story-telling and romance. He was 
quite independent : his sins, if he had any, began and 
ended in himself, for none was united to him so closely 
as to be hurt by them ; and he was far too imprudent 
a man to be taken for an example by any one. He 
came and went as he listed, he did this or that with- 
out question. With no heart chosen yet bom the 
world of woman's love, he was still a young man, with 
hopes and affections as pUable as a boy's. He had, 
in a word, that reputation of good-fellow which in 
Venice gives a man the title of biwn diavoto, but on 
which he does not anywhere turn his back with im- 
punity, either from his own consciousness or from 
public opinion. There never was such a thing in the 
world as both good devil and good husband ; and even 
with his betrothal Tonelli felt that his old, careless, 
merry life of the hour ended, and that he had tacitly 
recognized a future while he was yet unable to cut 
the past If one has for twenty years made a jest of 
women, however amiably and insincerely, one does 
not propose to marry a woman without making a jest 
of one's self. The avenging remembrance of elderly 
people whose late matrimony had furnished food for 
Tonelli's wit now rose up to torment him, and in his 



TONELLI'S liABBUGE. 239 

morbid fancy the merriment he had caused was echoed 
back in his own derision. 

It shocked him to find how quickly his secret took 
wing, and it annoyed him that all his acquaintances 
were so prompt to felicitate him. He imagined a 
latent mockery in their speeches^ and he took them 
with an argumentative solemnity. He reasoned sepa- 
rately with his friends ; to all who spoke to him of 
his marriage he presented elaborate proofs that it was 
the wisest thing he could possibly do, and tried to 
give the affair a cold air of prudence. *' You see, I 
am getting old; that is to say, I am tired of this 
bachelor life in which I have no one to take care of 
me, if I fidl sick, and to watch that the doctors do 
not put me to death. My pay is very little, but, 
with Carlotta's dower well invested, we shall both 
together live better than either of us lives alone. She 
is a careful woman, and will keep me neat and com- 
fortable. She is not so young as some women I had 
thought to marry, — no, but so much the better ; no- 
body will think her half so charming as I do, and at 
my time of life that is a great point gained. She is 
good, and has an admirable disposition. She is not 
spoiled by Venice, but as innocent as a dove. 0, 1 
shall find myself very well with her ! " 

This was the speech which with slight modification 



240 TONELU'b MABBIAGEL 

Tonelli made over and over again to all his friends 
but PennellinL To him he unmasked, and said 
boldly that at last he was really in love ; and being 
gently discouraged in what seemed his foUy, and in- 
credulously laughed at, he grew angry, and gave such 
proofs of his sincerity that Pennellini was convinced, 
and owned to himself, '* This madman is actually en- 
amored, — enamored like a cat! Patience! What 
will ever those Cenarotti say ?" 

In a little while poor Tonelli lost the philosophic 
mind with which he had at first received the congrat- 
ulations of his friends, and, fix)m reasoning with 
them, feU to resenting their good wishes. Very little 
things irritated him, and pleasantries which he had 
taken in excellent part, time out of mind, now raised 
his anger. His barber had for many years been in 
the habit of saying, as he applied the stick of fixature 
to Tonelli's mustache, and gave it a jaunty upward 
curl, " Now we will bestow that little dash of youth- 
fulness " ; and it both amazed and hurt him to have 
Tonelli respond with a fierce " Tsit I " and say that 
this jest was proper in its antiquity to the times of 
Bomulus rather than our own period, and so go out of 
the shop without that " Adieu, old fellow," which he 
had never failed to give in twenty years. "Cap- 
peri ! " said the barber, when he emerged from a pro- 



TONELLl'S MABRIAGE. 241 

found revery into which this outbreak had plunged 
him, and in which he had remained holding the nose 
of his next customer, and tweaking it to and fro in 
the violence of his emotions, regardless of those 
mumbled maledictions which the lather would not 
permit the victim to articulate. ** If Tonelli is so sav- 
age in his betrothal, we must wait for his marriage to 
tame him. I am sorry. He was always such a good 
deviL" 

But if many things annoyed Tonelli, there were 
some that deeply wounded him, and chiefly the fact 
that his betrothal seemed to have fixed an impassable 
gulf of years between him and all those young men 
whose company he loved so well He had really a 
boy's heart, and he had consorted with them be- 
cause he felt himself nearer their age than his own. 
Hitherto they had in no wise found his presence a 
restraint They had always laughed, and told their 
loves, and spoken their young men's thoughts, and 
made their young men's jokes, without fear or shame, 
before the merry-hearted sage, who never offered good 
advice, if indeed he ever dreamed that there was a 
wiser philosophy than theirs. It had been as if he 
were the youngest among them ; but now, in spite of 
all that he or they could do, he seemed suddenly and 
irretrievably aged. They looked at him strangely, as if 

16 



242 iDKELLfS MABBIAGE. 

for the first time they saw that his mustache n-as gray, 
that his brow was not smooth like theirs, that there 
were crow's-feet at the comers of his kindly eyes. 
They could not phrase the vague feeling that haunted 
their hearts, or they would have said that Tonelli, in 
offering to marry, had voluntarily turned his back upon 
his youth ; that love, which would only have brought 
a richer bloom to their age, had breathed away for- 
ever the autumnal blossom of his. 

Something of this made itself felt in Tondli's own 
consciousness, whenever he met them, and he soon 
grew to avoid these comrades of his youth. It was 
therefore after a purely accidental encounter with one 
of them, and as he was passing into the Caitpo Sant' 
Angelo, head down, and supporting himself with an 
inexplicable sense of infirmity upon the cans he wai 
wont so jauntily to flourish, that he heard himself ad- 
dressed with, " I say, master ! " He looked up, and 
beheld the fat madman who patrols that campo, and 
who has the license of his affliction to utter insolences 
to whomsoever he will, leaning against the door of a 
tobacconist's shop, with his arms folded, and a lazy, 
mischievous smile loitering down on his greasy face. 
As he caught Tonelli's eye he nodded, " Eh 1 I have 
heard, master"; while the idlers of that neighbor- 
hood, who relished and repeated hia incoherent 



TOKELLI'S MARRIAGE. 243 

pleasantries like the mots of some great diner-out, 
gathered near with expectant grins. Had Tonelli 
been altogether himself, as in other days, he would 
have been far too wise to answer, '* What hast thou 
heard, poor animal ? " 

''That you are going to take a mate when most 
birds think of flying away," said the madman. '' Be- 
cause it has been summer a long time with you, mas- 
ter, you think it will never be winter. Look out : 
the wolf does n't eat the season." 

The poor fool in these words seemed to utter a 
public voice of disapprobation and derision ; and as 
the pitiless bystanders, who had many a time laughed 
with Tonelli, now laughed at him, joining in the ap- 
plause which the madman himself led off, the miser- 
able good devil walked away with a shiver, as if the 
weather had actually turned cold. It was not till he 
found himself in Carlotta's presence that the long 
summer appeared to return to him. Indeed, in her 
tenderness and his real love for her he won back all 
his youth again; and he found it of a truer and 
sweeter quality than he had known even when hia 
years were few, while the gay old-bachelor life he 
had long led seemed to him a period of miserable 
loneliness and decrepitude. Mirrored in her fond 
eyes, he saw himself alert and handsome ; and, since 



244 TONELLfS MARRIAOK 

for the time being thej were to each other all the 
world, we may be sure there was nothing in the world 
then to vex or shame ToneUL The promises of the 
future, too, seemed not improbable of fulfilment, for 
they were not extravagant promises. These people's 
castle in the air was a house furnished from Car- 
lotta's modest portion, and situated in a quarter of 
the city not too far from the Piazza, and convenient 
to a decent cafi&, from which they could order a 
lemonade or a cup of cofTee for visitors. Tonelli's 
stipend was to pay the housekeeping, as well as the 
minute wage of a servant-girl from the country ; and 
it was believed that they could save enough from 
that, and a little of Carlotta's money at interest, to 
go sometimes to the MaUbran theatre or the Marion- 
ette, or even make an excursion to the mainland 
upon a holiday; but if they could not, it was cer- 
tainly better Italianism to stay at home ; and at least 
they could always walk to the Public Gardens. At 
one time, religious differences threatened to cloud this 
blissful vision of the future ; but it was finally agreed 
that Carlotta should go to mass and confession as 
often as she liked, and should not tease Tonelli about 
his soul ; while he, on his part, was not to speak ill 
of the pope except as a temporal prince, or of any of 
the priesthood except of the Jesuits when in com- 



TONELLI'S MABRUGE. 245 

pany, in order to show that marriage had not made 
him a codino. For the like reason, no change was to 
be made in his custom of praising Graribaldi and revil- 
ing the accursed Germans upon all safe occasions. 

As Tonelli had nothing in the world but his salary 
and his slender wardrobe, Carlotta eagerly accepted 
the idea of a loss of family property during the revo- 
lution. Of Tonelli's scar she was as proud as Tonelli 
himself 

When she came to speak of the acquaintance of all 
those young men, it seemed again like a breath from 
the north to her betrothed ; and he answered, with a 
sigh, that this was an affair that had already finished 
itself. ''I have long thought them too boyish for 
me," he said, ''and I shall keep none of them but 
PenneUini, who is even older than I, — who, I be- 
lieve, was never bom, but created middle-aged out of 
the dust of the earth, like Adam. He is not a good 
devil, but he has every good quality." 

While he thus praised his friend, ToneUi was medi- 
tating a service, which when he asked it of Pennellini, 
had almost the effect to destroy their ancient amity. 
This was no less than the composition of those 
wedding-verses, without which, printed and exposed 
to view in all the shop-windows, no one in Venice 
feels himself adequately and truly married. Pennel- 



246 TONELLfS MABBIA6E. 

lini had never willingly made a verse in his life ; and 
It was long before he understood Tonelli, when he 
urged the delicate request. Then in vain he pro- 
tested, recalcitrated. It was all an offence to To- 
nelli's morbid soul, already irritated by his friend's 
obtuseness, and eager to turn even the reluctance of 
nature into insult He took his refusal for a sign 
that he, too, deserted him ; and must be called back, 
after bidding Pennellini adieu, to hear the only 
condition on which the accursed sonnet would be 
furnished, namely, that it should not be signed Pen- 
nellini, but An Affectionate Friend. Never was sonnet 
cost poet so great anguish as this : Pennellini went at 
it conscientiously as if it were a problem in math- 
ematics; he refreshed his prosody, he turned over 
Carrer, he toiled a whole night, and in due time 
appeared as Tonelli's affectionate friend in all the 
butchers' and bakers' windows. But it had been too 
much to ask of him, and for a while he felt the shock 
of Tonelli's unreason and excess so much that there 
was a decided coolness between them. 

This important particular arranged, Uttle remained 
for Tonelli to do but to come to that open under- 
standing with the Paronsina and her mother which 
he bad long dreaded and avoided. He could not con- 
ceal from himself that his marriage was a kind of de- 



TOKELU'S MABBUGB. 247 

sertion of the two dear friends so dependent upon 
liis singleness, and he considered the case of the 
Paronsina with a real remorse. If his meditated act 
sometimes appeared to him a gross inconsistency and 
a satire upon all his former life, he had still consoled 
himself with the truth of his passion, and had found 
love its own apology and comfort ; but in its relation 
to these lonely women, his love itself had no fairer 
aspect than that of treason, and he shrank from own- 
ing it before them with a sense of guilt. Some wild 
dreams of reconciling his future with his past occa- 
sionally haunted him ; but in his saner moments, he 
perceived their folly. Carlotta, he knew, was good 
and patient, but she was nevertheless a woman, and 
she would never consent that he should be to the 
Cenarotti all that he had been; these ladies also 
were very kind and reasonable, but they too were 
women, and incapable of accepting a less perfect de- 
votion. Indeed, was not his proposed marriage too 
much like taking her only son from the signora and 
giving the Paronsina a stepmother? It was worse, 
and so the ladies of the notary's family viewed it, 
cherishing a resentment that grew with Tonelli's de- 
lay to deal frankly with them; while Carlotta, on 
her part, was wounded that these old friends should 
ignore his future wife so utterly. On both sides 
evil was stored up. 



248 TONELU'S MABRIA6S. 

When Tonelli would still make a show of fidelity 
to the Paronsina and her mother, they accepted his 
awkward advances, the latter with a cold visage, the 
former with a sarcastic face and tongue. He had 
managed particularly ill with the Paronsina, who, 
having no romance of her own, would possibly have 
come to enjoy the autumnal poetry of his love if he 
had permitted. But when she first approached him 
on the subject of those rumors she had heard, and 
treated them with a natural derision, as involving the 
most absurd and preposterous ideas, he, instead of 
suffering her jests, and then turning her interest to 
his favor, resented them, and closed his heart and 
its secret against her. What could she do, thereafter, 
but feign to avoid the subject, and adroitly touch it 
with constant, invisible stings ? Alas ! it did not 
need that she should ever speak to Tonelli with the 
wicked intent she did ; at this time he would have 
taken ill whatever most innocent thing she said. 
When friends are to be estranged, they do not require 
a cause. They have but to doubt one another, and 
no forced forbearance or kindness between them can 
do aught but confirm their alienation. This is on the 
whole fortunate, for in this manner neither feels to 
blame for the broken friendship, and each can declare 
with perfect truth that he did all he could to main- 



TONELLf S MABRIAGE. 249 

tain it. Tonelli said to himself, ''If the Paronsina 
had treated the affair properly at first ! " and the Pa- 
ronsina thought^ " If he had told me frankly about it 
to begin with ! " Both had a latent heartache over 
their trouble, and both a sense of loss the more bitter 
because it was of loss still unacknowledged. 

As the day fixed for Tonelli's wedding drew near, 
the rumor of it came to the Cenarotti from all their 
acquaintance. But when people spoke to them of it, 
as of something they must be fully and particularly 
informed of, the signora answered coldly, ** It seems 
that we have not merited Tonelli's confidence " ; and 
the Paronsina received the gossip with an air of 
clearly affected surprise, and a ^'DaweroT* that at 
least discomfited the tale-bearers. 

The consciousness of the unworthy part he was 
acting toward these ladies had come at last to poison 
the pleasure of Tonelli's wooing, even in Carlotta's 
presence ; yet I suppose he would still have let his 
wedding-day come and go, and been married beyond 
hope of atonement, so loath was he to inflict upon 
himself and them the pain of an explanation, if one 
day, within a week of that time, the notary had not 
bade his clerk dine with him on the morrow. It was 
a holiday, and as Carlotta was at home, making ready 
for the marriage, Tonelli consented to take his place 



250 TOKELLfS MARBIAGE. 

at the table fiom v^ldcli he had been a long time 
absent. But it turned out such a frigid and melan- 
choly banquet as never was known befora The old 
notary, to whom all things came dimly, finally missed 
the accustomed warmth of Tonelli's fun, and said, 
with a little shiver, " Why, what aih you, Tonelli I 
You are as moody as a man in lova" 

The notary had been told several times of Tonelli's 
afiair, but it was his characteristic not to remember 
any gossip later than that of * Forty-eight. 

The Paronsina burst into a laugh full of the cruelty 
and insult of a woman's long-smothered sense of in- 
jury. " Caro nonno," she screamed into her grand- 
father's dull ear, ''he is really in despair how to 
support his happiness. He is shy, even of his old 
friends, — he has had so little experience. It is the 
first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la 
gioventA, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally 
loosed, the Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, 
that hurt more from their purpose than their pointy 
and gave no one greater pain than herself. 

Tonelli sat sad and perfectly mute under the inflic- 
tion, but he said in his heart, " I have merited worse.** 

At first the signora remained quite aghast; but 
when she collected herself, she called out peremp- 
torily, " Madamigella, you push the affair a little 

beyond. Cease ! " 



TOKELU'S MABBIAGE. 251 

The Paronsina, having said all she desired, ceased, 
panting. 

The old notary, for whose slow sense all but her 
first words had been too quick, though all had been 
spoken at him, said dryly, turning to Tonelli, "I im- 
agine that my deafness is not always a misfortune." 

It was by an inexplicable, but hardly less inevita- 
ble, violence to the inclinations of each that, after 
this miserable dinner, the signora, the Paronsina, and 
Tonelli should go forth together for their wonted 
promenade on the Molo. Use, which is the second, 
is also very often the stronger nature, and so these 
parted Mends made a last show of union and har- 
mony. In nothing had their amity been more fc^ 
tally broken than in this careful homage to its forms ; 
and now, as they walked up and down in the moon- 
light, they were of the saddest kind of apparitions, — 
not mere disembodied spirits, which, however, are 
bad enough, but disanimated bodies, which are far 
worse, and of which people are not more afraid only 
because they go about in society so commonly. As 
on many and many another night of summers past, 
the moon came up and stood over the lido, striking 
far across the glittering lagoon, and everywhere win- 
ning the flattered eye to the dark masses of shadow 
upon the water ; to the trees of the Gardens, to the 



252 TONELU'S MABRIAGS. 

trees and towers and domes of the cloistered and 
templed isle& Scene of pensive and incomparable 
loveliness I giving even to the stranger, in some &int 
and most unequal fashion, a sense of the awful mean- 
ing of exile to the Venetian, who in all other lands 
iu the world is doubly an alien, from their unuttera- 
ble unlikeness to his sole and beautiful city. The 
prospect had that pathetic unreality to the Mends 
which natural things always assume to people play- 
ing a part, and I imagine that they saw it not more 
substantial than it appears to the exile in his dreams. 
In their promenade they met again and again the 
unknown, wonted faces; they even encountered some 
acquaintances, whom they greeted, and with whom 
they chatted for a while ; and when at nine the 
bronze giants beat the hour upon their bell, — with 
as remote effect as if they were giants of the times 
before the flood, — they were aware of Pennellini, 
promptly appearing like an exact and methodical 
spectra 

But to-night the Paronsina, who had made the 
scene no compliments, did not insist as usual upon 
the ice at Florian's; and Pennellini took his formal 
leave of the friends under the arch of the Clock 
Tower, and they walked silently homeward through 
the echoing Merceria. 



' TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 253 

At the notary's gate Tonelli would have said good* 
night, but the signora made him enter with them, 
and then abruptly left him standing with the Paron- 
sina in the gallery, while she was heard hurrying away 
to her own apartment. She reappeared, extending 
toward Tonelli both hands, upon which glittered and 
glittered manifold skeins of the delicate chain of 
Venice. 

She had a very stately and impressive bearing, as 
she stood there in the moonlight, and addressed him 
with a collected voice. " Tonelli," she said, " I think 
you have treated your oldest and best friends very 
cruelly. Was it not enough that you should take 
yourself from us, but you must also forbid our hearts 
to follow you even in sympathy and good wishes ? I 
had almost thought to say adieu forever to-night; 
but," she continued, with a breaking utterance, and 
passing tenderly to the familiar form of address, '' I 
cannot part so with thee. Thou hast been too like a 
son to me, too like a brother to my poor Clarice. 
Maybe thou no longer lovest us, yet I think thou 
wilt not disdain this gift for thy wifa Take it, To- 
nelli, if not for our sake, perhaps then for the sake 
of sorrows that in times past we have shared together 
in this unhappy Venice." 

Here the signora ended perforce the speech, which 



264 TONBLLfB HABBUGOL 

had been long for her, and the Paronsina bnrst into 
a passion of weeping, — not more at her manuna's 
words than out of self-pity and from the national 
sensibility. 

Tonelli took the chain, and reverently kissed it 
and the hands that gave it. He had a helpless sense 
of the injustice the signora's words cuid the Paron- 
sina's tears did him; he knew that they put him 
with feminine excess farther in the wrong than even 
his own weakness had ; but he tried to express noth- 
ing of thisy --r it was but part of the miserable maze 
in which his life was involved. With what courage 
he might he owned his error, but protested his £Gdth- 
ful Mendship, and poured out all his troubles, — his 
love for Carlotta, his regret for them, his shame and 
remorse for himself. They forgave him, and there 
was everything in their words and wiU to restore 
their old friendship, and keep it ; and when the gate 
with a loud clang closed upon Tonelli, going firom 
them, they all felt that it had irrevocably perished. 

I do not say that there was not always a decent 
and affectionate bearing on the part of the Paronsina 
and her mother towards Tonelli and his wife; I 
acknowledge that it was but too careful and faultless 
a tenderness, ever conscious of its own fragility. Far 
more natural was the satisfaction they took in the 



TONELLfS MABBIAGE. 255 

delayed fruitfulness of Tonelli's marriage, and then 
in the fact that his child was a girl, and not a boy. 
It was but human that they should doubt his happi- 
ness, and that the signora should always say, when 
hard pressed with questions upon the matter : " Yes, 
Tonelli is married ; but if it were to do again, I think 
be would do it to-morrow rather than to-day.*' 



THE ENDi