Louisa Pallant / Henry James

I

Never say you know the last words about any human heart! I was once

treated to a revelation which startled and touched me in the nature of a

person with whom I had been acquainted--well, as I supposed--for years,

whose character I had had good reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate and

in regard to whom I flattered myself I had nothing more to learn.

It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, nearly ten years ago,

one beautiful night toward the end of July. I had come to the place that

day from Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly occupied in

waiting for my young nephew, the only son of my sister, who had been

entrusted to my care by a very fond mother for the summer--I was

expected to show him Europe, only the very best of it--and was on his

way from Paris to join me. The excellent band discoursed music not too

abstruse, while the air was filled besides with the murmur of different

languages, the smoke of many cigars, the creak on the gravel of the

gardens of strolling shoes and the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. There

were a hundred people walking about, there were some in clusters at

little tables and many on benches and rows of chairs, watching the

others as if they had paid for the privilege and were rather

disappointed. I was among these last; I sat by myself, smoking my cigar

and thinking of nothing very particular while families and couples

passed and repassed me.

I scarce know how long I had sat when I became aware of a recognition

which made my meditations definite. It was on my own part, and the

object of it was a lady who moved to and fro, unconscious of my

observation, with a young girl at her side. I hadn't seen her for ten

years, and what first struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. Henry

Pallant, but that the girl who was with her was remarkably pretty--or

rather first of all that every one who passed appeared extremely to

admire. This led me also to notice the young lady myself, and her

charming face diverted my attention for some time from that of her

companion. The latter, moreover, though it was night, wore a thin light

veil which made her features vague. The couple slowly walked and walked,

but though they were very quiet and decorous, and also very well

dressed, they seemed to have no friends. Every one observed but no one

addressed them; they appeared even themselves to exchange very few

words. Moreover they bore with marked composure and as if they were

thoroughly used to it the attention they excited. I am afraid it

occurred to me to take for granted that they were of an artful intention

and that if they hadn't been the elder lady would have handed the

younger over a little less to public valuation and not have sought so to

conceal her own face. Perhaps this question came into my mind too easily

just then--in view of my prospective mentorship to my nephew. If I was

to show him only the best of Europe I should have to be very careful

about the people he should meet--especially the ladies--and the

relations he should form. I suspected him of great innocence and was

uneasy about my office. Was I completely relieved and reassured when I

became aware that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that the

girl was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child--Linda grown up

to charming beauty?

The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is

perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a

while--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I was

anxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a great

resort of the English--the London season took up its tale there toward

the first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as that

Louisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that she

"cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and would be

likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there. This

supposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knew

there is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated. You

will see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar I

thought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should have

rushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we had

never really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance that--after the

first soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put us quite right

with each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of her

heartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. I

had forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to have

married a girl who had in her to take back her given word and break a

fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise, as it

pitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then--on

the occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each other in the

eyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the wickedness

of the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure. I

knew by that time what she had given out--that I had driven her off by

my insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, before she

had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-day a

ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it that she knew

perfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, I

believe, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows it

mainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the case if--let

the solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant's

fortunes; the years went by for me in my own country, whereas she led

her life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband's

death--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I heard of her

from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but on each

occasion in a different place. She drifted from country to country, and

if she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it could never

occur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be called, would

have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horribly

worldly" I thought immediately of the object of my early passion. I

imagined she had debts, and when I now at last made up my mind to recall

myself to her it was present to me that she might ask me to lend her

money. More than anything else, however, at this time of day, I was

sorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate as a deterrent.

She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing as we

stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had

dropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she

had been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting down

with her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little,

the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before her.

She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't

imagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and extending

her hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what a delight!"

If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own line

she thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She was

cordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was very

glad to see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that she

gave me neither then nor later any sign of a desire to contract a loan.

She had scant means--that I learned--yet seemed for the moment able to

pay her way. I took the empty chair and we remained in talk for an hour.

After a while she made me sit at her other side, next her daughter, whom

she wished to know me--to love me--as one of their oldest friends. "It

goes back, back, back, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant; "and of course

she remembers you as a child." Linda smiled all sweetly and blankly, and

I saw she remembered me not a whit. When her mother threw out that they

had often talked about me she failed to take it up, though she looked

extremely nice. Looking nice was her strong point; she was prettier even

than her mother had been. She was such a little lady that she made me

ashamed of having doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of her

position in the scale of propriety. Her appearance seemed to say that if

she had no acquaintances it was because she didn't want them--because

nobody there struck her as attractive: there wasn't the slightest

difficulty about her choosing her friends. Linda Pallant, young as she

was, and fresh and fair and charming, gentle and sufficiently shy,

looked somehow exclusive--as if the dust of the common world had never

been meant to besprinkle her. She was of thinner consistency than her

mother and clearly not a young woman of professions--except in so far as

she was committed to an interest in you by her bright pure candid smile.

No girl who had such a lovely way of parting her lips could pass for

designing.

As I sat between the pair I felt I had been taken possession of and that

for better or worse my stay at Homburg would be intimately associated

with theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and expressed

unlimited interest in each other's history since our last meeting. I

mightn't judge of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quite

overflowed. She let me see at any rate that her life had been a good

deal what I supposed, though the terms she employed to describe it were

less crude than those of my thought. She confessed they had drifted, she

and her daughter, and were drifting still. Her narrative rambled and

took a wrong turn, a false flight, or two, as I thought Linda noted,

while she sat watching the passers, in a manner that betrayed no

consciousness of their attention, without coming to her mother's aid.

Once or twice Mrs. Pallant made me rather feel a cross-questioner, which

I had had no intention of being. I took it that if the girl never put in

a word it was because she had perfect confidence in her parent's ability

to come out straight. It was suggested to me, I scarcely knew how, that

this confidence between the two ladies went to a great length; that

their union of thought, their system of reciprocal divination, was

remarkable, and that they probably seldom needed to resort to the clumsy

and in some cases dangerous expedient of communicating by sound. I

suppose I made this reflexion not all at once--it was not wholly the

result of that first meeting. I was with them constantly for the next

several days and my impressions had time to clarify.

I do remember, however, that it was on this first evening that Archie's

name came up. She attributed her own stay at Homburg to no refined nor

exalted motive--didn't put it that she was there from force of habit or

because a high medical authority had ordered her to drink the waters;

she frankly admitted the reason of her visit to have been simply that

she didn't know where else to turn. But she appeared to assume that my

behaviour rested on higher grounds and even that it required

explanation, the place being frivolous and modern--devoid of that

interest of antiquity which I had ever made so much of. "Don't you

remember--ever so long ago--that you wouldn't look at anything in Europe

that wasn't a thousand years old? Well, as we advance in life I suppose

we don't think that quite such a charm." And when I mentioned that I had

arrived because the place was as good as another for awaiting my nephew

she exclaimed: "Your nephew--what nephew? He must have come up of late."

I answered that his name was Archie Parker and that he was modern

indeed; he was to attain legal manhood in a few months and was in Europe

for the first time. My last news of him had been from Paris and I was

expecting to hear further from one day to the other. His father was

dead, and though a selfish bachelor, little versed in the care of

children, I was considerably counted on by his mother to see that he

didn't smoke nor flirt too much, nor yet tumble off an Alp.

Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother was my sister

Charlotte, whom she spoke of familiarly, though I knew she had scarce

seen her. Then in a moment it came to her which of the Parkers Charlotte

had married; she remembered the family perfectly from the old New York

days--"that disgustingly rich set." She said it was very nice having the

boy come out that way to my care; to which I replied that it was very

nice for the boy. She pronounced the advantage rather mine--I ought to

have had children; there was something so parental about me and I would

have brought them up so well. She could make an allusion like that--to

all that might have been and had not been--without a gleam of guilt in

her eye; and I foresaw that before I left the place I should have

confided to her that though I detested her and was very glad we had

fallen out, yet our old relations had left me no heart for marrying

another woman. If I had remained so single and so sterile the fault was

nobody's but hers. She asked what I meant to do with my nephew--to which

I replied that it was much more a question of what he would do with me.

She wished to know if he were a nice young man and had brothers and

sisters and any particular profession. I assured her I had really seen

little of him; I believed him to be six feet high and of tolerable

parts. He was an only son, but there was a little sister at home, a

delicate, rather blighted child, demanding all the mother's care.

"So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy,

doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant.

"Greater? I'm sure I don't know."

"Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all the

mother has. So that being in your hands--"

"Oh I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you mean that," I returned.

"Well, WE won't kill him, shall we, Linda?" my friend went on with a

laugh.

"I don't know--perhaps we shall!" smiled the girl.

II

I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which was

enhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices--flowers and photographs

and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old brocade

flung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again at the

Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburg

fashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days this revived

familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quite

achieving it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for me and

the conditions of our life were soothing--the feeling of summer and

shade and music and leisure in the German gardens and woods, where we

strolled and sat and gossiped; to which may be added a vague sociable

sense that among people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly not

irresistible we kept quite to ourselves. We were on the footing of old

friends who still had in regard to each other discoveries to make. We

knew each other's nature but didn't know each other's experience; so

that when Mrs. Pallant related to me what she had been "up to," as I

called it, for so many years, the former knowledge attached a hundred

interpretative footnotes--as if I had been editing an author who

presented difficulties--to the interesting page. There was nothing new

to me in the fact that I didn't esteem her, but there was relief in my

finding that this wasn't necessary at Homburg and that I could like her

in spite of it. She struck me, in the oddest way, as both improved and

degenerate; the two processes, in her nature, might have gone on

together. She was battered and world-worn and, spiritually speaking,

vulgarised; something fresh had rubbed off her--it even included the

vivacity of her early desire to do the best thing for herself--and

something rather stale had rubbed on. At the same time she betrayed a

scepticism, and that was rather becoming, for it had quenched the

eagerness of her prime, the mercenary principle I had so suffered from.

She had grown weary and detached, and since she affected me as more

impressed with the evil of the world than with the good, this was a

gain; in other words her accretion of indifference, if not of cynicism,

showed a softer surface than that of her old ambitions. Furthermore I

had to recognise that her devotion to her daughter was a kind of

religion; she had done the very best possible for Linda.

Linda was curious, Linda was interesting; I've seen girls I liked

better--charming as this one might be--but have never seen one who for

the hour you were with her (the impression passed somehow when she was

out of sight) occupied you so completely. I can best describe the

attention she provoked by saying that she struck you above all things as

a felicitous FINAL product--after the fashion of some plant or some

fruit, some waxen orchid or some perfect peach. She was clearly the

result of a process of calculation, a process patiently educative, a

pressure exerted, and all artfully, so that she should reach a high

point.

This high point had been the star of her mother's heaven--it hung before

her so unquenchably--and had shed the only light (in default of a

better) that was to shine on the poor lady's path. It stood her instead

of every other ideal. The very most and the very best--that was what the

girl had been led on to achieve; I mean of course, since no real miracle

had been wrought, the most and the best she was capable of. She was as

pretty, as graceful, as intelligent, as well-bred, as well-informed, as

well-dressed, as could have been conceived for her; her music, her

singing, her German, her French, her English, her step, her tone, her

glance, her manner, everything in her person and movement, from the

shade and twist of her hair to the way you saw her finger-nails were

pink when she raised her hand, had been carried so far that one found

one's self accepting them as the very measure of young grace. I regarded

her thus as a model, yet it was a part of her perfection that she had

none of the stiffness of a pattern. If she held the observation it was

because you wondered where and when she would break down; but she never

broke down, either in her French accent or in her role of educated

angel.

After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly his greatest resource,

and all the world knows why a party of four is more convenient than a

party of three. My nephew had kept me waiting a week, with a serenity

all his own; but this very coolness was a help to harmony--so long, that

is, as I didn't lose my temper with it. I didn't, for the most part,

because my young man's unperturbed acceptance of the most various forms

of good fortune had more than anything else the effect of amusing me. I

had seen little of him for the last three or four years; I wondered what

his impending majority would have made of him--he didn't at all carry

himself as if the wind of his fortune were rising--and I watched him

with a solicitude that usually ended in a joke. He was a tall fresh-

coloured youth, with a candid circular countenance and a love of

cigarettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed to more

strenuous studies. He was reassuringly natural, in a supercivilised age,

and I soon made up my mind that the formula of his character was in the

clearing of the inward scene by his so preordained lack of imagination.

If he was serene this was still further simplifying. After that I had

time to meditate on the line that divides the serene from the inane, the

simple from the silly. He wasn't clever; the fonder theory quite defied

our cultivation, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice; but on the

other hand it struck me his want of wit might be a good defensive

weapon. It wasn't the sort of density that would let him in, but the

sort that would keep him out. By which I don't mean that he had

shortsighted suspicions, but that on the contrary imagination would

never be needed to save him, since she would never put him in danger. He

was in short a well-grown well-washed muscular young American, whose

extreme salubrity might have made him pass for conceited. If he looked

pleased with himself it was only because he was pleased with life--as

well he might be, with the fortune that awaited the stroke of his

twenty-first year--and his big healthy independent person was an

inevitable part of that. I am bound to add that he was accommodating--

for which I was grateful. His habits were active, but he didn't insist

on my adopting them and he made numerous and generous sacrifices for my

society. When I say he made them for mine I must duly remember that mine

and that of Mrs. Pallant and Linda were now very much the same thing. He

was willing to sit and smoke for hours under the trees or, adapting his

long legs to the pace of his three companions, stroll through the nearer

woods of the charming little hill-range of the Taunus to those rustic

Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk under a trellis. Mrs. Pallant

took a great interest in him; she made him, with his easy uncle, a

subject of discourse; she pronounced him a delightful specimen, as a

young gentleman of his period and country. She even asked me the sort of

"figure" his fortune might really amount to, and professed a rage of

envy when I told her what I supposed it to be. While we were so occupied

Archie, on his side, couldn't do less than converse with Linda, nor to

tell the truth did he betray the least inclination for any different

exercise. They strolled away together while their elders rested; two or

three times, in the evening, when the ballroom of the Kursaal was

lighted and dance-music played, they whirled over the smooth floor in a

waltz that stirred my memory. Whether it had the same effect on Mrs.

Pallant's I know not: she held her peace. We had on certain occasions

our moments, almost our half-hours, of unembarrassed silence while our

young companions disported themselves. But if at other times her

enquiries and comments were numerous on this article of my ingenuous

charge, that might very well have passed for a courteous recognition of

the frequent admiration I expressed for Linda--an admiration that drew

from her, I noticed, but scant direct response. I was struck thus with

her reserve when I spoke of her daughter--my remarks produced so little

of a maternal flutter. Her detachment, her air of having no fatuous

illusions and not being blinded by prejudice, seemed to me at times to

savour of affectation. Either she answered me with a vague and impatient

sigh and changed the subject, or else she said before doing so: "Oh yes,

yes, she's a very brilliant creature. She ought to be: God knows what

I've done for her!" The reader will have noted my fondness, in all

cases, for the explanations of things; as an example of which I had my

theory here that she was disappointed in the girl. Where then had her

special calculation failed? As she couldn't possibly have wished her

prettier or more pleasing, the pang must have been for her not having

made a successful use of her gifts. Had she expected her to "land" a

prince the day after leaving the schoolroom? There was after all plenty

of time for this, with Linda but two-and-twenty. It didn't occur to me

to wonder if the source of her mother's tepidity was that the young lady

had not turned out so nice a nature as she had hoped, because in the

first place Linda struck me as perfectly innocent, and because in the

second I wasn't paid, in the French phrase, for supposing Louisa Pallant

much concerned on that score. The last hypothesis I should have invoked

was that of private despair at bad moral symptoms. And in relation to

Linda's nature I had before me the daily spectacle of her manner with my

nephew. It was as charming as it could be without betrayal of a desire

to lead him on. She was as familiar as a cousin, but as a distant one--a

cousin who had been brought up to observe degrees. She was so much

cleverer than Archie that she couldn't help laughing at him, but she

didn't laugh enough to exclude variety, being well aware, no doubt, that

a woman's cleverness most shines in contrast with a man's stupidity when

she pretends to take that stupidity for her law. Linda Pallant moreover

was not a chatterbox; as she knew the value of many things she knew the

value of intervals. There were a good many in the conversation of these

young persons; my nephew's own speech, to say nothing of his thought,

abounding in comfortable lapses; so that I sometimes wondered how their

association was kept at that pitch of continuity of which it gave the

impression. It was friendly enough, evidently, when Archie sat near her

--near enough for low murmurs, had such risen to his lips--and watched

her with interested eyes and with freedom not to try too hard to make

himself agreeable. She had always something in hand--a flower in her

tapestry to finish, the leaves of a magazine to cut, a button to sew on

her glove (she carried a little work-bag in her pocket and was a person

of the daintiest habits), a pencil to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbook

which she rested on her knee. When we were indoors--mainly then at her

mother's modest rooms--she had always the resource of her piano, of

which she was of course a perfect mistress.

These pursuits supported her, they helped her to an assurance under such

narrow inspection--I ended by rebuking Archie for it; I told him he

stared the poor girl out of countenance--and she sought further relief

in smiling all over the place. When my young man's eyes shone at her

those of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to the trees and

clouds and other surrounding objects, including her mother and me.

Sometimes she broke into a sudden embarrassed happy pointless laugh.

When she wandered off with him she looked back at us in a manner that

promised it wasn't for long and that she was with us still in spirit. If

I liked her I had therefore my good reason: it was many a day since a

pretty girl had had the air of taking me so much into account. Sometimes

when they were so far away as not to disturb us she read aloud a little

to Mr. Archie. I don't know where she got her books--I never provided

them, and certainly he didn't. He was no reader and I fear he often

dozed.

III

I remember the first time--it was at the end of about ten days of this--

that Mrs. Pallant remarked to me: "My dear friend, you're quite AMAZING!

You behave for all the world as if you were perfectly ready to accept

certain consequences." She nodded in the direction of our young

companions, but I nevertheless put her at the pains of saying what

consequences she meant. "What consequences? Why the very same

consequences that ensued when you and I first became acquainted."

I hesitated, but then, looking her in the eyes, said: "Do you mean she'd

throw him over?"

"You're not kind, you're not generous," she replied with a quick colour.

"I'm giving you a warning."

"You mean that my boy may fall in love with your girl?"

"Certainly. It looks even as if the harm might be already done."

"Then your warning comes too late," I significantly smiled. "But why do

you call it a harm?"

"Haven't you any sense of the rigour of your office?" she asked. "Is

that what his mother has sent him out to you for: that you shall find

him the first wife you can pick up, that you shall let him put his head

into the noose the day after his arrival?"

"Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind! I know moreover that

his mother doesn't want him to marry young. She holds it the worst of

mistakes, she feels that at that age a man never really chooses. He

doesn't choose till he has lived a while, till he has looked about and

compared."

"And what do you think then yourself?"

"I should like to say I regard the fact of falling in love, at whatever

age, as in itself an act of selection. But my being as I am at this time

of day would contradict me too much."

"Well then, you're too primitive. You ought to leave this place tomorrow."

"So as not to see Archie fall--?"

"You ought to fish him out now--from where he HAS fallen--and take him

straight away."

I wondered a little. "Do you think he's in very far?"

"If I were his mother I know what I should think. I can put myself in

her place--I'm not narrow-minded. I know perfectly well how she must

regard such a question."

"And don't you know," I returned, "that in America that's not thought

important--the way the mother regards it?"

Mrs. Pallant had a pause--as if I mystified or vexed her. "Well, we're

not in America. We happen to be here."

"No; my poor sister's up to her neck in New York."

"I'm almost capable of writing to her to come out," said Mrs. Pallant.

"You ARE warning me," I cried, "but I hardly know of what! It seems to

me my responsibility would begin only at the moment your daughter

herself should seem in danger."

"Oh you needn't mind that--I'll take care of Linda."

But I went on. "If you think she's in danger already I'll carry him off

to-morrow."

"It would be the best thing you could do."

"I don't know--I should be very sorry to act on a false alarm. I'm very

well here; I like the place and the life and your society. Besides, it

doesn't strike me that--on her side--there's any real symptom."

She looked at me with an air I had never seen in her face, and if I had

puzzled her she repaid me in kind. "You're very annoying. You don't

deserve what I'd fain do for you."

What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took up

the subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we should assume

that a girl like Linda--brilliant enough to make one of the greatest--

would fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. Might I enquire if her

mother had won a confession from her, if she had stammered out her

secret? Mrs. Pallant made me, on this, the point that they had no need

to tell each other such things--they hadn't lived together twenty years

in such intimacy for nothing. To which I returned that I had guessed as

much, but that there might be an exception for a great occasion like the

present. If Linda had shown nothing it was a sign that for HER the

occasion wasn't great; and I mentioned that Archie had spoken to me of

the young lady only to remark casually and rather patronisingly, after

his first encounter with her, that she was a regular little flower. (The

little flower was nearly three years older than himself.) Apart from

this he hadn't alluded to her and had taken up no allusion of mine. Mrs.

Pallant informed me again--for which I was prepared--that I was quite

too primitive; after which she said: "We needn't discuss the case if you

don't wish to, but I happen to know--how I obtained my knowledge isn't

important--that the moment Mr. Parker should propose to my daughter

she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a detail worth mentioning to you."

I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him.

I'll look into the matter tonight."

"Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finer

view. "Remove him quickly--that's the only thing."

I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too

summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds;

and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to change

my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with my

middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So I

temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as a son-in-

law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman."

"My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with an

assurance that struck me.

The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly!

But it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU."

I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when she

spoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw.

We've been here a month--it will have served our purpose."

"Mercy on us, that will be a bore!" I protested; and for the rest of the

evening, till we separated--our conversation had taken place after

dinner at the Kursaal--she said little, preserving a subdued and almost

injured air. This somehow didn't appeal to me, since it was absurd that

Louisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put me in the wrong. If

ever a woman had been in the wrong herself--! I had even no need to go

into that. Archie and I, at all events, usually attended the ladies back

to their own door--they lived in a street of minor accommodation at a

certain distance from the Rooms--where we parted for the night late, on

the big cobblestones, in the little sleeping German town, under the

closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy interiors, our cheerful

English partings resounded. On this occasion indeed they rather

languished; the question that had come up for me with Mrs. Pallant

appeared--and by no intention of mine--to have brushed the young couple

with its chill. Archie and Linda too struck me as conscious and dumb.

As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew I passed my hand into his

arm and put to him, by no roundabout approach, the question of whether

he were in serious peril of love.

"I don't know, I don't know--really, uncle, I don't know!" was, however,

all the satisfaction I could extract from the youth, who hadn't the

smallest vein of introspection. He mightn't know, but before we reached

the inn--we had a few more words on the subject--it seemed to me that

_I_ did. His mind wasn't formed to accommodate at one time many subjects

of thought, but Linda Pallant certainly constituted for the moment its

principal furniture. She pervaded his consciousness, she solicited his

curiosity, she associated herself, in a manner as yet informal and

undefined, with his future. I could see that she held, that she beguiled

him as no one had ever done. I didn't betray to him, however, that

perception, and I spent my night a prey to the consciousness that, after

all, it had been none of my business to provide him with the sense of

being captivated. To put him in relation with a young enchantress was

the last thing his mother had expected of me or that I had expected of

myself. Moreover it was quite my opinion that he himself was too young

to be a judge of enchantresses. Mrs. Pallant was right and I had given

high proof of levity in regarding her, with her beautiful daughter, as a

"resource." There were other resources--one of which WOULD be most

decidedly to clear out. What did I know after all about the girl except

that I rejoiced to have escaped from marrying her mother? That mother,

it was true, was a singular person, and it was strange her conscience

should have begun to fidget in advance of my own. It was strange she

should so soon have felt Archie's peril, and even stranger that she

should have then wished to "save" him. The ways of women were infinitely

subtle, and it was no novelty to me that one never knew where they would

turn up. As I haven't hesitated in this report to expose the irritable

side of my own nature I shall confess that I even wondered if my old

friend's solicitude hadn't been a deeper artifice. Wasn't it possibly a

plan of her own for making sure of my young man--though I didn't quite

see the logic of it? If she regarded him, which she might in view of his

large fortune, as a great catch, mightn't she have arranged this little

comedy, in their personal interest, with the girl?

That possibility at any rate only made it a happier thought that I

should win my companion to some curiosity about other places. There were

many of course much more worth his attention than Homburg. In the course

of the morning--it was after our early luncheon--I walked round to Mrs.

Pallant's to let her know I was ready to take action; but even while I

went I again felt the unlikelihood of the part attributed by my fears

and by the mother's own, so far as they had been roused, to Linda.

Certainly if she was such a girl as these fears represented her she

would fly at higher game. It was with an eye to high game, Mrs. Pallant

had frankly admitted to me, that she had been trained, and such an

education, to say nothing of such a performer, justified a hope of

greater returns. A young American, the fruit of scant "modelling," who

could give her nothing but pocket-money, was a very moderate prize, and

if she had been prepared to marry for ambition--there was no such

hardness in her face or tone, but then there never is--her mark would be

inevitably a "personage" quelconque. I was received at my friend's

lodging with the announcement that she had left Homburg with her

daughter half an hour before. The good woman who had entertained the

pair professed to know nothing of their movements beyond the fact that

they had gone to Frankfort, where, however, it was her belief that they

didn't intend to remain. They were evidently travelling beyond. Sudden,

their decision to move? Oh yes, the matter of a moment. They must have

spent the night in packing, they had so many things and such pretty

ones; and their poor maid, all the morning, had scarce had time to

swallow her coffee. But they clearly were ladies accustomed to come and

go. It didn't matter--with such rooms as hers she never wanted: there

was a new family coming in at three.

IV

This piece of strategy left me staring and made me, I must confess,

quite furious. My only consolation was that Archie, when I told him,

looked as blank as myself, and that the trick touched him more nearly,

for I was not now in love with Louisa. We agreed that we required an

explanation and we pretended to expect one the next day in the shape of

a letter satisfactory even to the point of being apologetic. When I say

"we" pretended I mean that I did, for my suspicion that he knew what had

been on foot--through an arrangement with Linda--lasted only a moment.

If his resentment was less than my own his surprise was equally great. I

had been willing to bolt, but I felt slighted by the ease with which

Mrs. Pallant had shown she could part with us. Archie professed no sense

of a grievance, because in the first place he was shy about it and

because in the second it was evidently not definite to him that he had

been encouraged--equipped as he was, I think, with no very particular

idea of what constituted encouragement. He was fresh from the wonderful

country in which there may between the ingenuous young be so little

question of "intentions." He was but dimly conscious of his own and

could by no means have told me whether he had been challenged or been

jilted. I didn't want to exasperate him, but when at the end of three

days more we were still without news of our late companions I observed

that it was very simple:--they must have been just hiding from us; they

thought us dangerous; they wished to avoid entanglements. They had found

us too attentive and wished not to raise false hopes. He appeared to

accept this explanation and even had the air--so at least I inferred

from his asking me no questions--of judging the matter might be delicate

for myself. The poor youth was altogether much mystified, and I smiled

at the image in his mind of Mrs. Pallant fleeing from his uncle's

importunities. We decided to leave Homburg, but if we didn't pursue our

fugitives it wasn't simply that we were ignorant of where they were. I

could have found that out with a little trouble, but I was deterred by

the reflexion that this would be Louisa's reasoning. She was a dreadful

humbug and her departure had been a provocation--I fear it was in that

stupid conviction that I made out a little independent itinerary with

Archie. I even believed we should learn where they were quite soon

enough, and that our patience--even my young man's--would be longer than

theirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of triumph when three

weeks later--we happened to be at Interlaken--he reported to me that he

had received a note from Miss Pallant. The form of this confidence was

his enquiring if there were particular reasons why we should longer

delay our projected visit to the Italian lakes. Mightn't the fear of the

hot weather, which was moreover at that season our native temperature,

cease to operate, the middle of September having arrived? I answered

that we would start on the morrow if he liked, and then, pleased

apparently that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his little

secret. He showed me his letter, which was a graceful natural document--

it covered with a few flowing strokes but a single page of note-paper--

not at all compromising to the young lady. If, however, it was almost

the apology I had looked for--save that this should have come from the

mother--it was not ostensibly in the least an invitation. It mentioned

casually--the mention was mainly in the words at the head of her paper--

that they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno; but it consisted mainly

of the expression of a regret that they had had so abruptly to leave

Homburg. Linda failed to say under what necessity they had found

themselves; she only hoped we hadn't judged them too harshly and would

accept "this hasty line" as a substitute for the omitted good-bye. She

also hoped our days were passing pleasantly and with the same lovely

weather that prevailed south of the Alps; and she remained very

sincerely and with the kindest remembrances--!

The note contained no message from her mother, and it was open to me to

suppose, as I should prefer, either that Mrs. Pallant hadn't known she

was writing or that they wished to make us think she hadn't known. The

letter might pass as a common civility of the girl's to a person with

whom she had been on easy terms. It was, however, for something more

than this that my nephew took it; so at least I gathered from the

touching candour of his determination to go to Baveno. I judged it idle

to drag him another way; he had money in his own pocket and was quite

capable of giving me the slip. Yet--such are the sweet incongruities of

youth--when I asked him to what tune he had been thinking of Linda since

they left us in the lurch he replied: "Oh I haven't been thinking at

all! Why should I?" This fib was accompanied by an exorbitant blush.

Since he was to obey his young woman's signal I must equally make out

where it would take him, and one splendid morning we started over the

Simplon in a post-chaise.

I represented to him successfully that it would be in much better taste

for us to alight at Stresa, which as every one knows is a resort of

tourists, also on the shore of the major lake, at about a mile's

distance from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we should have to

inhabit the same hotel as our friends, and this might be awkward in view

of a strained relation with them. Nothing would be easier than to go and

come between the two points, especially by the water, which would give

Archie a chance for unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at the

vision of a pair of oars; he pretended to take my plea for discretion

very seriously, and I could see that he had at once begun to calculate

opportunities for navigation with Linda. Our post-chaise--I had insisted

on easy stages and we were three days on the way--deposited us at

Stresa toward the middle of the afternoon, and it was within an

amazingly short time that I found myself in a small boat with my nephew,

who pulled us over to Baveno with vigorous strokes. I remember the

sweetness of the whole impression. I had had it before, but to my

companion it was new, and he thought it as pretty as the opera: the

enchanting beauty of the place and, hour, the stillness of the air and

water, with the romantic fantastic Borromean Islands set as great jewels

in a crystal globe. We disembarked at the steps by the garden-foot of

the hotel, and somehow it seemed a perfectly natural part of the lovely

situation that I should immediately become conscious of Mrs. Pallant and

her daughter seated on the terrace and quietly watching us. They had the

air of expectation, which I think we had counted on. I hadn't even asked

Archie if he had answered Linda's note; this was between themselves and

in the way of supervision I had done enough in coming with him.

There is no doubt our present address, all round, lacked a little the

easiest grace--or at least Louisa's and mine did. I felt too much the

appeal of her exhibition to notice closely the style of encounter of the

young people. I couldn't get it out of my head, as I have sufficiently

indicated, that Mrs. Pallant was playing a game, and I'm afraid she saw

in my face that this suspicion had been the motive of my journey. I had

come there to find her out. The knowledge of my purpose couldn't help

her to make me very welcome, and that's why I speak of our meeting

constrainedly. We observed none the less all the forms, and the

admirable scene left us plenty to talk about. I made no reference before

Linda to the retreat from Homburg. This young woman looked even prettier

than she had done on the eve of that manoeuvre and gave no sign of an

awkward consciousness. She again so struck me as a charming clever girl

that I was freshly puzzled to know why we should get--or should have

got--into a tangle about her. People had to want to complicate a

situation to do it on so simple a pretext as that Linda was in every way

beautiful. This was the clear fact: so why shouldn't the presumptions be

in favour of every result of it? One of the effects of that cause, on

the spot, was that at the end of a very short time Archie proposed to

her to take a turn with him in his boat, which awaited us at the foot of

the steps. She looked at her mother with a smiling "May I, mamma?" and

Mrs. Pallant answered "Certainly, darling, if you're not afraid." At

this--I scarcely knew why--I sought the relief of laughter: it must have

affected me as comic that the girl's general competence should suffer

the imputation of that particular flaw. She gave me a quick slightly

sharp look as she turned away with my nephew; it appeared to challenge

me a little--"Pray what's the matter with YOU?" It was the first

expression of the kind I had ever seen in her face. Mrs. Pallant's

attention, on the other hand, rather strayed from me; after we had been

left there together she sat silent, not heeding me, looking at the lake

and mountains--at the snowy crests crowned with the flush of evening.

She seemed not even to follow our young companions as they got into

their boat and pushed off. For some minutes I respected her mood; I

walked slowly up and down the terrace and lighted a cigar, as she had

always permitted me to do at Homburg. I found in her, it was true,

rather a new air of weariness; her fine cold well-bred face was pale; I

noted in it new lines of fatigue, almost of age. At last I stopped in

front of her and--since she looked so sad--asked if she had been having

bad news.

"The only bad news was when I learned--through your nephew's note to

Linda--that you were coming to us."

"Ah then he wrote?"

"Certainly he wrote."

"You take it all harder than I do," I returned as I sat down beside her.

And then I added, smiling: "Have you written to his mother?"

Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. "Take care, take care,

or you'll have been more brutal than you'll afterwards like," she said

with an air of patience before the inevitable.

"Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew when

Linda wrote."

She had an hesitation. "Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn't have

done anything else. I let it go because I didn't know what course was

best. I'm afraid to oppose her to her face."

"Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl?"

"That girl? Much you know about her! It didn't follow you'd come. I

didn't take that for granted."

"I'm like you," I said--"I too am afraid of my nephew. I don't venture

to oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do--once he wished

it--was to come with him."

"I see. Well, there are grounds, after all, on which I'm glad," she

rather inscrutably added.

"Oh I was conscientious about that! But I've no authority; I can neither

drive him nor stay him--I can use no force," I explained. "Look at the

way he's pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me."

"You could tell him she's a bad hard girl--one who'd poison any good

man's life!" my companion broke out with a passion that startled me.

At first I could only gape. "Dear lady, what do you mean?"

She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and so

remained a minute; then she continued a little differently, though as if

she hadn't heard my question: "I hoped you were too disgusted with us--

after the way we left you planted."

"It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda

hadn't written. That patched it up," I gaily professed. But my gaiety

was thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Do

you really mean that she won't do?" I added.

She made no direct answer; she only said after a little that it didn't

matter whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weeks

later, since it was destined to come at the first chance, the favouring

moment. Linda had marked my young man--and when Linda had marked a

thing!

"Bless my soul--how very grim--" But I didn't understand. "Do you mean

she's in love with him?"

"It's enough if she makes him think so--though even that isn't

essential."

Still I was at sea. "If she makes him think so? Dear old friend, what's

your idea? I've observed her, I've watched her, and when all's said what

has she done? She has been civil and pleasant to him, but it would have

been much more marked if she hadn't. She has really shown him, with her

youth and her natural charm, nothing more than common friendliness. Her

note was nothing; he let me see it."

"I don't think you've heard every word she has said to him," Mrs.

Pallant returned with an emphasis that still struck me as perverse.

"No more have you, I take it!" I promptly cried. She evidently meant

more than she said; but if this excited my curiosity it also moved, in a

different connexion, my indulgence.

"No, but I know my own daughter. She's a most remarkable young woman."

"You've an extraordinary tone about her," I declared "such a tone as I

think I've never before heard on a mother's lips. I've had the same

impression from you--that of a disposition to 'give her away,' but never

yet so strong."

At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there looking down at me. "You

make my reparation--my expiation--difficult!" And leaving me still more

astonished she moved along the terrace.

I overtook her presently and repeated her words. "Your reparation--your

expiation? What on earth are you talking about?"

"You know perfectly what I mean--it's too magnanimous of you to pretend

you don't."

"Well, at any rate," I said, "I don't see what good it does me, or what

it makes up to me for, that you should abuse your daughter."

"Oh I don't care; I shall save him!" she cried as we went, and with an

extravagance, as I felt, of sincerity. At the same moment two ladies,

apparently English, came toward us--scattered groups had been sitting

there and the inmates of the hotel were moving to and fro--and I

observed the immediate charming transition, the fruit of such years of

social practice, by which, as they greeted us, her tension and her

impatience dropped to recognition and pleasure. They stopped to speak to

her and she enquired with sweet propriety as to the "continued

improvement" of their sister. I strolled on and she presently rejoined

me; after which she had a peremptory note. "Come away from this--come

down into the garden." We descended to that blander scene, strolled

through it and paused on the border of the lake.

V

The charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemn

expression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. In

the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. I

looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, remarked that from

such an excursion as that, on such a lake and at such an hour, a young

man and a young woman of common sensibility could only come back doubly

pledged to each other.

To this observation Mrs. Pallant's answer was, superficially at least,

irrelevant; she said after a pause: "With you, my dear man, one has

certainly to dot one's 'i's.' Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tell

you at Homburg, that we're miserably poor?"

"Isn't 'miserably' rather too much--living as you are at an expensive

hotel?"

Well, she promptly met this. "They take us en pension, for ever so

little a day. I've been knocking about Europe long enough to learn all

sorts of horrid arts. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we've spent half

our life in them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped never

to put her foot into one again. She feels that when she comes to such a

place as this she ought, if things were decently right, to find a villa

of her own."

"Then her companion there's perfectly competent to give her one. Don't

think I've the least desire to push them into each other's arms--I only

ask to wash my hands of them. But I should like to know why you want, as

you said just now, to save him. When you speak as if your daughter were

a monster I take it you're not serious."

She was facing me in the rich short twilight, and to describe herself as

immeasurably more serious perhaps than she had ever been in her life she

had only to look at me without protestation. "It's Linda's standard. God

knows I myself could get on! She's ambitious, luxurious, determined to

have what she wants--more 'on the make' than any one I've ever seen. Of

course it's open to you to tell me it's my own fault, that I was so

before her and have made her so. But does that make me like it any

better?"

"Dear Mrs. Pallant, you're wonderful, you're terrible," I could only

stammer, lost in the desert of my thoughts.

"Oh yes, you've made up your mind about me; you see me in a certain way

and don't like the trouble of changing. Votre siege est fait. But you'll

HAVE to change--if you've any generosity!" Her eyes shone in the summer

dusk and the beauty of her youth came back to her.

"Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation?" I demanded. "I

don't see what you ever did to Archie."

"It's enough that he belongs to you. But it isn't for you I do it--it's

for myself," she strangely went on.

"Doubtless you've your own reasons--which I can't penetrate. But can't

you sacrifice something else? Must you sacrifice your only child?"

"My only child's my punishment, my only child's my stigma!" she cried in

her exaltation.

"It seems to me rather that you're hers."

"Hers? What does SHE know of such things?--what can she ever feel? She's

cased in steel; she has a heart of marble. It's true--it's true," said

Louisa Pallant. "She appals me!"

I laid my hand on my poor friend's; I uttered, with the intention of

checking and soothing her, the first incoherent words that came into my

head and I drew her toward a bench a few steps away. She dropped upon

it; I placed myself near her and besought her to consider well what she

said. She owed me nothing and I wished no one injured, no one denounced

or exposed for my sake.

"For your sake? Oh I'm not thinking of you!" she answered; and indeed

the next moment I thought my words rather fatuous. "It's a satisfaction

to my own conscience--for I HAVE one, little as you may think I've a

right to speak of it. I've been punished by my sin itself. I've been

hideously worldly, I've thought only of that, and I've taught her to be

so--to do the same. That's the only instruction I've ever given her, and

she has learned the lesson so well that now I see it stamped there in

all her nature, on all her spirit and on all her form, I'm horrified at

my work. For years we've lived that way; we've thought of nothing else.

She has profited so well by my beautiful influence that she has gone far

beyond the great original. I say I'm horrified," Mrs. Pallant dreadfully

wound up, "because she's horrible."

"My poor extravagant friend," I pleaded, "isn't it still more so to hear

a mother say such things?"

"Why so, if they're abominably true? Besides, I don't care what I say if

I save him."

I could only gape again at this least expected of all my adventures. "Do

you expect me then to repeat to him--?"

"Not in the least," she broke in; "I'll do it myself." At this I uttered

some strong inarticulate protest, but she went on with the grimmest

simplicity: "I was very glad at first, but it would have been better if

we hadn't met."

"I don't agree to that, for you interest me," I rather ruefully

professed, "immensely."

"I don't care if I do--so I interest HIM."

"You must reflect then that your denunciation can only strike me as, for

all its violence, vague and unconvincing. Never had a girl less the

appearance of bearing such charges out. You know how I've admired her."

"You know nothing about her! _I_ do, you see, for she's the work of my

hand!" And Mrs. Pallant laughed for bitterness. "I've watched her for

years, and little by little, for the last two or three, it has come over

me. There's not a tender spot in her whole composition. To arrive at a

brilliant social position, if it were necessary, she would see me drown

in this lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there and see it

--she would push me in--and never feel a pang. That's my young lady!" Her

lucidity chilled me to the soul--it seemed to shine so flawless. "To

climb up to the top and be splendid and envied there," she went on--"to

do that at any cost or by any meanness and cruelty is the only thing she

has a heart for. She'd lie for it, she'd steal for it, she'd kill for

it!" My companion brought out these words with a cold confidence that

had evidently behind it some occult past process of growth. I watched

her pale face and glowing eyes; she held me breathless and frowning, but

her strange vindictive, or at least retributive, passion irresistibly

imposed itself. I found myself at last believing her, pitying her more

than I pitied the subject of her dreadful analysis. It was as if she had

held her tongue for longer than she could bear, suffering more and more

the importunity of the truth. It relieved her thus to drag that to the

light, and still she kept up the high and most unholy sacrifice. "God in

his mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that he

has let me see it in my daughter. It's myself he has let me see--myself

as I was for years. But she's worse--she IS, I assure you; she's worse

than I intended or dreamed." Her hands were clasped tightly together in

her lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked up

at the southern stars as if THEY would understand.

"Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me?" I finally asked. "Have

you ever put before her this terrible arraignment?"

"Put it before her? How can I put it before her when all she would have

to say would be: 'You, YOU, you base one, who made me--?'"

"Then why do you want to play her a trick?"

"I'm not bound to tell you, and you wouldn't see my point if I did. I

should play that boy a far worse one if I were to stay my hand."

Oh I had my view of this. "If he loves her he won't believe a word you

say."

"Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty."

"And shall you say to him," I asked, "simply what you've said to me?"

"Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that will

perhaps helpfully affect him. Only," she added with her proud decision,

"I must lose no time."

"If you're so bent on gaining time," I said, "why did you let her go out

in the boat with him?"

"Let her? how could I prevent it?"

"But she asked your permission."

"Ah that," she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!"

It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing.

"Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed.

"I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them

bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for what

I've made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself

married to her."

"There's not much danger of there being any such person," I wailed, "at

the rate you go on."

"I beg your pardon--there's a perfect possibility," said my companion.

"She'll marry--she'll marry 'well.' She'll marry a title as well as a

fortune.

"It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title," I attempted the grimace of

suggesting.

She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm acting

a part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can any

one TELL," asked Louisa Pallant--"with people like us?"

Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand on

her arm, holding her a while, and we looked at each other through the

dusk. "You couldn't do more if he were my son."

"Oh if he had been your son he'd have kept out of it! I like him for

himself. He's simple and sane and honest--he needs affection."

"He would have quite the most remarkable of mothers-in-law!" I

commented.

Mrs. Pallant gave a small dry laugh--she wasn't joking. We lingered by

the lake while I thought over what she had said to me and while she

herself apparently thought. I confess that even close at her side and

under the strong impression of her sincerity, her indifference to the

conventional graces, my imagination, my constitutional scepticism began

to range. Queer ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on HER side and

not on the girl's, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman at poor

Linda's expense? Was she determined, in spite of the young lady's

preference, to keep her daughter for a grander personage than a young

American whose dollars were not numerous enough--numerous as they were--

to make up for his want of high relationships, and had she invented at

once the boldest and the subtlest of games in order to keep the case in

her hands? If she was prepared really to address herself to Archie she

would have to go very far to overcome the mistrust he would be sure to

feel at a proceeding superficially so sinister? Was she prepared to go

far enough? The answer to these doubts was simply the way I had been

touched--it came back to me the next moment--when she used the words

"people like us." Their effect was to wring my heart. She seemed to

kneel in the dust, and I felt in a manner ashamed that I had let her

sink to it. She said to me at last that I must wait no longer, I must go

away before the young people came back. They were staying long, too

long; all the more reason then she should deal with my nephew that

night. I must drive back to Stresa, or if I liked I could go on foot: it

wasn't far--for an active man. She disposed of me freely, she was so

full of her purpose; and after we had quitted the garden and returned to

the terrace above she seemed almost to push me to leave her--I felt her

fine consecrated hands fairly quiver on my shoulders. I was ready to do

as she prescribed; she affected me painfully, she had given me a "turn,"

and I wanted to get away from her. But before I went I asked her why

Linda should regard my young man as such a parti; it didn't square after

all with her account of the girl's fierce ambitions. By that account

these favours to one so graceless were a woeful waste of time.

"Oh she has worked it all out; she has regarded the question in every

light," said Mrs. Pallant. "If she has made up her mind it's because she

sees what she can do."

"Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?"

My friend's wonderful face pitied my simplicity. "Lord! for what do you

take us? We don't talk things over to-day. We know each other's point of

view and only have to act. We observe the highest proprieties of speech.

We never for a moment name anything ugly--we only just go at it. We can

take definitions, which are awkward things, for granted."

"But in this case," I nevertheless urged, "the poor thing can't possibly

be aware of your point of view."

"No," she conceded--"that's because I haven't played fair. Of course she

couldn't expect I'd cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. But

it was open to her to do the same."

"What do you mean by the same?"

"She might have fallen in love with a poor man. Then I should have been

'done.'"

"A rich one's better; he can do more," I replied with conviction.

At this she appeared to have, in the oddest way, a momentary revulsion.

"So you'd have reason to know if you had led the life that we have!

Never to have had really enough--I mean to do just the few simple things

we've wanted; never to have had the sinews of war, I suppose you'd call

them, the funds for a campaign; to have felt every day and every hour

the hard eternal pinch and found the question of dollars and cents--and

so horridly few of them--mixed up with every experience, with every

impulse: that DOES make one mercenary, does make money seem a good

beyond all others; which it's quite natural it should! And it's why

Linda's of the opinion that a fortune's always a fortune. She knows all

about that of your nephew, how it's invested, how it may be expected to

increase, exactly on what sort of footing it would enable her to live.

She has decided that it's enough, and enough is as good as a feast. She

thinks she could lead him by the nose, and I dare say she could. She'll

of course make him live in these countries; she hasn't the slightest

intention of casting her pearls--but basta!" said my friend. "I think

she has views upon London, because in England he can hunt and shoot, and

that will make him leave her more or less to herself."

"I don't know about his leaving her to herself, but it strikes me that

he would like the rest of that matter very much," I returned. "That's

not at all a bad programme even from Archie's point of view."

"It's no use thinking of princes," she pursued as if she hadn't heard

me. "They're most of them more in want of money even than we. Therefore

'greatness' is out of the question--we really recognised that at an

early stage. Your nephew's exactly the sort of young man we've always

built upon--if he wasn't, so impossibly, your nephew. From head to foot

he was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter when

she recognised him on the spot! One's enough of a prince to-day when

one's the right American: such a wonderful price is set on one's not

being the wrong! It does as well as anything and it's a great

simplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see." She had

come with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa and

we stood there in the sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, bidding her

good-night, I couldn't but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, poor

Linda!"

"Oh she'll live to do better," said Mrs. Pallant.

"How can she do better--since you've described all she finds Archie as

perfection?"

She knew quite what she meant. "Ah better for HIM!"

I still had her hand--I still sought her eyes. "How came it you could

throw me over--such a woman as you?"

"Well, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over how could I do this for

you?" On which, disengaging herself, she turned quickly away.

VI

I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her

question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and the

real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the

colour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa--a walk of half an

hour--in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in which

she had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have made

sitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me up

after I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was useless

to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie had not

reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensed

with. I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possible

mischances. Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake,

that is of his continued absence from Baveno--Mrs. Pallant would already

have dispatched me a messenger. It was foolish moreover to suppose

anything could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno by

water to rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and more

than sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had

unlimited confidence in his power to take care of himself in a much

tighter place. I went to my room at last; his own was at some distance,

the people of the hotel not having been able--it was the height of the

autumn season--to make us contiguous. Before I went to bed I had

occasion to ring for a servant, and I then learned by a chance enquiry

that my nephew had returned an hour before and had gone straight to his

own quarters. I hadn't supposed he could come in without my seeing him--

I was wandering about the saloons and terraces--and it had not occurred

to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now--I was so

anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for evidently

he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity, and I

slept even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking our

encounter--for if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have looked

for me in my room--was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him

would really have come off. What had she said to him? What strong

measures had she taken? That almost morbid resolution I still seemed to

hear the ring of pointed to conceivable extremities that I shrank from

considering. She had spoken of these things while we parted there as

something she would do for me; but I had made the mental comment in

walking away from her that she hadn't done it yet. It wouldn't truly be

done till Archie had truly backed out. Perhaps it was done by this time;

his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. That was what I thought of most

of the night. I spent a considerable part of it at my window, looking

out to the couchant Alps. HAD he thought better of it?--was he making up

his mind to think better of it? There was a strange contradiction in the

matter; there were in fact more contradictions than ever. I had taken

from Louisa what she told me of Linda, and yet that other idea made me

ashamed of my nephew. I was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss of

a great chance, if loss it was to be; and yet I hoped her mother's grand

treachery--I didn't know what to call it--had been at least, to her

lover, thoroughgoing. It would need strong action in that lady to

justify his retreat. For him too I was sorry--if she had made on him the

impression she desired. Once or twice I was on the point of getting into

my dressing-gown and going forth to condole with him. I was sure he too

had jumped up from his bed and was looking out of his window at the

everlasting hills.

But I am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast he

showed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources that

later experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterly

resource of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we think

that too simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with an

effect much less baffling. My young man looked not in the least as if he

had lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what

he had done after my premature departure--I explained this by saying I

had been tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wanted

to go to bed--he replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about the

place; I like it better than this one. We had an awfully jolly time on

the water. _I_ wasn't in the least fagged." I didn't worry him with

questions; it struck me as gross to try to probe his secret. The only

indication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should go

over again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted he

would be glad to come too. Then he let fall that he'd stop at Stresa--he

had paid them such a tremendous visit; also that he had arrears of

letters. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of his

visits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consisted

entirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he soothed my

anxiety so little that it was really this yearning that carried me back

to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it he

stood watching me from the porch of the hotel with his hands in his

pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the poor youth's

face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even,

to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observed

him, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better come with

me" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my call. I

said to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it wouldn't

take much to bring him back.

The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in a

summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at large

had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on the

lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the Borromean

Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in the summer-

house, but she was there alone. On finding this the case I stopped

short, rather awkwardly--I might have been, from the way I suddenly

felt, an unmasked hypocrite, a proved conspirator against her security

and honour. But there was no embarrassment in lovely Linda; she looked

up with a cry of pleasure from the book she was reading and held out her

hand with engaging frankness. I felt again as if I had no right to that

favour, which I pretended not to have noticed. This gave no chill,

however, to her pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestry off the

bench so that I might sit down; she praised the place as a delightful

shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, kinder; she made her

mother's awful talk about her a hideous dream. She told me her mother

was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to write a letter. One

couldn't write out there, though it was so nice in other respects: the

table refused to stand firm. They too then had pretexts of letters

between them--I judged this a token that the situation was tense. It

was the only one nevertheless that Linda gave: like Archie she was young

enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us always together,

yet she made no comment on my having come over without him. I waited in

vain for her to speak of this--it would only be natural; her omission

couldn't but have a sense. At last I remarked that my nephew was very

unsociable that morning; I had expected him to join me, but he hadn't

seemed to see the attraction.

"I'm very glad. You can tell him that if you like," said Linda Pallant.

I wondered at her. "If I tell him he'll come at once."

"Then don't tell him; I don't want him to come. He stayed too long last

night," she went on, "and kept me out on the water till I don't know

what o'clock. That sort of thing isn't done here, you know, and every

one was shocked when we came back--or rather, you see, when we didn't! I

begged him to bring me in, but he wouldn't. When we did return--I almost

had to take the oars myself--I felt as if every one had been sitting up

to time us, to stare at us. It was awfully awkward."

These words much impressed me; and as I have treated the reader to most

of the reflexions--some of them perhaps rather morbid--in which I

indulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother, I may as well

complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whether Linda--

candid and accomplished maiden--entertained the graceful thought of

strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove he had

"compromised" her. "Ah no doubt that was the reason he had a bad

conscience last evening!" I made answer. "When he came back to Stresa he

sneaked off to his room; he wouldn't look me in the face."

But my young lady was not to be ruffled. "Mamma was so vexed that she

took him apart and gave him a scolding. And to punish ME she sent me

straight to bed. She has very old-fashioned ideas--haven't you, mamma?"

she added, looking over my head at Mrs. Pallant, who had just come in

behind me.

I forget how her mother met Linda's appeal; Louisa stood there with two

letters, sealed and addressed, in her hand. She greeted me gaily and

then asked her daughter if she were possessed of postage-stamps. Linda

consulted a well-worn little pocket-book and confessed herself

destitute; whereupon her mother gave her the letters with the request

that she would go into the hotel, buy the proper stamps at the office,

carefully affix them and put the letters into the box. She was to pay

for the stamps, not have them put on the bill--a preference for which

Mrs. Pallant gave reasons. I had bought some at Stresa that morning and

was on the point of offering them when, apparently having guessed my

intention, the elder lady silenced me with a look. Linda announced

without reserve that she hadn't money and Louisa then fumbled for a

franc. When she had found and bestowed it the girl kissed her before

going off with the letters.

"Darling mother, you haven't any too many of them, have you?" she

murmured; and she gave me, sidelong, as she left us, the prettiest half-

comical, half-pitiful smile.

"She's amazing--she's amazing," said Mrs. Pallant as we looked at each

other.

"Does she know what you've done?"

"She knows I've done something and she's making up her mind what it is.

She'll satisfy herself in the course of the next twenty-four hours--if

your nephew doesn't come back. I think I can promise you he won't."

"And won't she ask you?"

"Never!"

"Shan't you tell her? Can you sit down together in this summer-house,

this divine day, with such a dreadful thing as that between you?"

My question found my friend quite ready. "Don't you remember what I told

you about our relations--that everything was implied between us and

nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in common--our perpetual

worldliness, our always looking out for chances--are not the sort of

thing that can be uttered conveniently between persons who like to keep

up forms, as we both do: so that, always, if we've understood each other

it has been enough. We shall understand each other now, as we've always

done, and nothing will be changed. There has always been something

between us that couldn't be talked about."

"Certainly, she's amazing--she's amazing," I repeated; "but so are you."

And then I asked her what she had said to my boy.

She seemed surprised. "Hasn't he told you?"

"No, and he never will."

"I'm glad of that," she answered simply.

"But I'm not sure he won't come back. He didn't this morning, but he had

already half a mind to."

"That's your imagination," my companion said with her fine authority.

"If you knew what I told him you'd be sure."

"And you won't let me know?"

"Never, dear friend."

"And did he believe you?"

"Time will show--but I think so."

"And how did you make it plausible to him that you should take so

unnatural a course?"

For a moment she said nothing, only looking at me. Then at last: "I told

him the truth."

"The truth?"

"Take him away--take him away!" she broke out. "That's why I got rid of

Linda, to tell you you mustn't stay--you must leave Stresa to-morrow.

This time it's you who must do it. I can't fly from you again--it costs

too much!" And she smiled strangely.

"Don't be afraid; don't be afraid. We'll break camp again to-morrow--ah

me! But I want to go myself," I added. I took her hand in farewell, but

spoke again while I held it. "The way you put it, about Linda, was very

bad?"

"It was horrible."

I turned away--I felt indeed that I couldn't stay. She kept me from

going to the hotel, as I might meet Linda coming back, which I was far

from wishing to do, and showed me another way into the road. Then she

turned round to meet her daughter and spend the rest of the morning

there with her, spend it before the bright blue lake and the snowy

crests of the Alps. When I reached Stresa again I found my young man had

gone off to Milan--to see the cathedral, the servant said--leaving a

message for me to the effect that, as he shouldn't be back for a day or

two, though there were numerous trains, he had taken a few clothes. The

next day I received telegram-notice that he had determined to go on to

Venice and begged I would forward the rest of his luggage. "Please don't

come after me," this missive added; "I want to be alone; I shall do no

harm." That sounded pathetic to me, in the light of what I knew, and I

was glad to leave him to his own devices. He proceeded to Venice and I

re-crossed the Alps. For several weeks after this I expected to discover

that he had rejoined Mrs. Pallant; but when we met that November in

Paris I saw he had nothing to hide from me save indeed the secret of

what our extraordinary friend had said to him. This he concealed from me

then and has concealed ever since. He returned to America before

Christmas--when I felt the crisis over. I've never again seen the

wronger of my youth. About a year after our more recent adventure her

daughter Linda married, in London, a young Englishman the heir to a

large fortune, a fortune acquired by his father in some prosaic but

flourishing industry. Mrs. Gimingham's admired photographs--such is

Linda's present name--may be obtained from the principal stationers. I

am convinced her mother was sincere. My nephew has not even yet changed

his state, my sister at last thinks it high time. I put before her as

soon as I next saw her the incidents here recorded, and--such is the

inconsequence of women--nothing can exceed her reprobation of Louisa

Pallant.