Watch and Ward: In Five Parts: Part Fourth

VII.

ON arriving at the landing-place of the European steamer Hubert found the passengers filing ashore from the tug-boat in which they had been transferred from the ship. He instructed himself, as he took his place near the gangway, to allow for change in Nora’s appearance; but even with this allowance, none of the various advancing ladies seemed to be Nora. Suddenly he found himself confronted with a fair stranger, a smile, and an outstretched hand. The smile and the offered hand of course proclaimed the young lady’s identity. Yet in spite of them, Hubert stood amazed. Verily, his allowance had been small. But the next moment, “ Now you speak,” he said, “I recognize you”; and the next he had greeted Mrs. Keith, who immediately followed her companion ; after which he ushered the two ladies, with their servant and their various feminine impedimenta, into a carriage. Mrs. Keith was to return directly to her own house, where, hospitable even amid prospective chaos, she invited Hubert to join them at dinner. He had, of course, been obliged to inform Nora off-hand of the cause of Roger’s absence, though as yet he made light of his illness. It was agreed, however, that Nora should remain with her companion until she had communicated with her guardian.

Entering Mrs. Keith’s drawing-room a couple of hours later, Hubert found the young girl on her knees before the hearth. “ I ’m rejoicing,” she said, “in the first honest fire I’ve seen since I left home.” He sat down near by, and in the glow of the firelight he noted her altered aspect. A year, somehow, had made more than a year’s difference. Hubert, in his intercourse with women, was accustomed to indulge in a sort of still, cool contemplation which, as a habit, found favor according to the sensibility of the ladies touching whom it was practised. It had been intimated to him more than once, in spite of his cloth, that just a certain turn of the head made this a license. But on this occasion his gaze was all respectful. He was lost in admiration. Yes, Nora was beautiful ! Her beauty struck him the more that, not having witnessed the stages quick and fine by which it had come to her, he beheld now as a sudden revelation the consummate result. She had left home a simple maiden of common gifts, with no greater burden of loveliness than the slender, angular, neutral grace of youth and freshness ; yet here she stood, a woman turned, perfect, mature, superb ! It was as if she had bloomed into golden ripeness in the potent sunshine of a great contentment ; as if, fed by the sources of æsthetic delight, her nature had risen calmly to its uttermost level and filled its measured space with a deep and lucid flood. A singular harmony and serenity seemed to pervade her person. Her beauty lay in no inordinate perfection of individual features, but in the deep sweet fellowship which reigned between smile and step and glance and tone. The total effect was an impression of the simplest and yet most stately loveliness. “ Pallas Athene,” said Hubert to himself, “ sprang full-armed, we are told, from the brain of Jove. What a pity ! What an untruth ! She was born in the West, a plain, fair child ; she grew through years and pinafores and all the changes of slow-coming comeliness. Then one fine day she was eighteen and she wore a black silk dress of Paris ! ” Meanwhile Pallas Athene had been asking about Roger. “ Shall I see him to-morrow, at least?” she demanded.

“ I doubt it; he ’ll not get out for a number of days.”

“ But I can easily go to him. Dearest Roger! How things never turn out as we arrange them! I had arranged this meeting of ours to perfection ! He was to dine with us here, and we were to talk, talk, talk, till midnight, and then I was to go home with him ; and there we were to stand leaning on the banisters at his room door, and talk, talk, talk till morning.”

“ And where was I to be ? ” asked Hubert.

“ I had n’t arranged for you. But I expected to see you to-morrow. Tomorrow I shall go to Roger.”

“ If the doctor allows,” said Hubert.

Nora rose to her feet. “ You don’t mean to say, Hubert, that it’s as bad as that?” She frowned a little and bent her eyes eagerly on his face. Hubert heard Mrs. Keith’s voice in the hall; in a moment their tête-à-tête would be at an end. Instead of answering her question − “ Nora,” he said, in his deepest, lowest voice, “ you ’re beautiful ! ” He caught her startled, unsatisfied glance ; then he turned and greeted Mrs. Keith. He had not pleased Nora, evidently ; it was premature. So to efface the solemnity of his speech, he repeated it aloud ; “ I tell Nora she is beautiful ! ”

“ Bah ! ” said Mrs. Keith ; “ you need n’t tell her ; she knows it.”

Nora smiled unconfusedly. “ O, say it all the same ! ”

“ Was n’t it the French ambassador, in Rome,” Mrs. Keith demanded, “ who attacked you in that fashion ? He asked to be introduced. There’s an honor! ‘Mademoiselle, vous êtes parfaitement belle.' ”

“Frenchwomen, as a rule, are not parfaitement belles,” said Nora.

Hubert was a lover of the luxuries and splendors of life. He had no immediate personal need of them; he could make his terms with narrow circumstances ; but his imagination was a born aristocrat. He liked to be reminded that certain things were,− ambassadors, ambassadorial compliments, old-world drawing-rooms, with duskily moulded ceilings. Nora’s beauty, to his vision, took a deeper color from this homage of an old starred and gartered diplomat. It was sound, it had passed the ordeal. He had little need at table to play at discreet inattention. Mrs. Keith, preoccupied with her housekeeping and the “dreadful state ” in which her freshly departed tenants had left her rooms, indulged in a tragic monologue and dispensed with responses. Nora, looking frankly at Hubert, consoled their hostess with gentle optimism ; and Hubert returned her looks, wondering. He mused upon the mystery of beauty. What sudden gift had made her fair? She was the same tender slip of girlhood who had come trembling to hear him preach a year before ; the same, yet how different! And how sufficient she had grown, withal, to her beauty! How with the added burden had come an added strength, − with the greater charm a greater force,− a force subtle, sensitive, just faintly self-suspecting. Then came the thought that all this was Roger’s, − Roger’s investment, Roger’s property ! He pitied the poor fellow, lying senseless and helpless, instead of sitting there delightedly, drawing her out and showing her off. After dinner Nora talked little, partly, as he felt, from anxiety about her friend, and partly because of that natural reserve of the altered mind when confronted with old associations. He would have been glad to believe that she was taking pensive note of his own appearance. He had made his mark in her mind a twelvemonth before. Innumerable scenes and figures had since passed over it; but his figure, Nora now discovered, had not been trampled out. Fixed there indelibly, it had grown with the growth of her imagination. She knew that she had vastly changed, and she had wondered ardently whether Hubert would have lost favor with difference. Would he suffer by contrast with people she had seen ? Would he seem graceless, colorless, common ? Little by little, as his presence defined itself, it became plain to her that the Hubert of the past had a lease of the future. As he rose to take his leave, she begged him to let her write a line to Roger, which he might carry.

“ He ’ll not be able to read it,” said Hubert.

Nora mused. “ I ’ll write it, nevertheless. You ’ll place it by his bedside, and the moment he is better he will find it at hand.”

When she had left the room, Mrs. Keith demanded tribute. “ Haven’t I done well ? Have n’t I made a charming girl of her ? ”

“ She does you vast credit,” said Hubert, with a mental reservation.

“ O, but wait awhile! You’ve not seen her yet. She’s tired and anxious about your cousin. Wait till she comes out. My dear Mr. Lawrence, she’s perfect. She lacks nothing, she has nothing too much. You must do me justice. I saw it all in the rough, and I knew just what it wanted. I wish she were my daughter: you should see great doings ! And she’s as good as gold! It’s her nature. After all, unless your nature’s right, what are you ? ” But before Hubert could reply to this little spasm of philosophy, Nora reappeared with her note.

The next morning Mrs. Keith went to call officially upon her mother-inlaw ; and Nora, left alone and thinking much of Roger’s condition, conceived an intense desire to see him. He had never been so dear to her as now, and no one’s right to be with him was equal to hers. She dressed hastily and repaired to the little dwelling they were to have so cosily occupied. She was admitted by her old friend Lucinda, who, between trouble and wonder, found a thousand things to say. Nora’s beauty had never received warmer tribute than the affectionate marvellings of this old woman who had known her early plainness so well. She led her into the drawing-room, opened the windows and turned her about in the light, patted her braided tresses, and rejoiced with motherly unction in her tallness and straightness and elegance. Of Roger she spoke with tearful eyes. "It would be for him to see you, my dear,” she said ; “ he’d not be disappointed. You ’re better than his brightest dreams. O, I know all about it! He used to talk to me evenings, after you were in bed. ‘Lucinda, do you think she’s pretty? Lucinda, do you think she s plain ? Lucinda, do you dress her warm ? Lucinda, have you changed her shoes ? And mind, Lucinda, take good care of her hair; it’s the only thing we’re sure of!’ Yes, my dear, you ’ve me to thank for these big braids. Would he feel sure of you now, poor man ? You must keep yourself in cotton - wool till he recovers. You ’re like a picture ; you ought to be enclosed in a gilt frame and stand against the wall.” Lucinda begged, however, that Nora would not insist upon seeing him ; and her great reluctance betraying his evil case, Nora consented to wait. Her own slight experience could avail nothing. “ He’s flighty, said Lucinda, “and I ’m afraid he would n’t recognize you. If he should n’t, it would do you no good ; and if he should, it would do him none ; it would increase his fever. He’s bad, my dear, he ’s bad ; but leave him to me ! I nursed him as a baby ; I nursed him as a boy; I 'll nurse him as a man grown. I’ve seen him worse than this, with the scarlet fever at college, when his poor mother was dying at home. Baby, boy, and man, he’s always had the patience of a saint. I ’ll keep him for you, Miss Nora, now I’ve seen you ! I should n’t dare to meet him in heaven, if I were to let him miss you ! ”

When Lucinda had returned to her bedside duties, Nora wandered about the house with a soundless tread, taking melancholy note of the preparations Roger had made for her return. His choice, his taste, his ingenuity, were everywhere visible. The best beloved of her possessions from the old house in the country had been transferred hither and placed in such kindly half-lights as would temper justice with mercy; others had been replaced at a great cost Nora went into the drawing-room, where the blinds were closed and the chairs and sofas shrouded in brown linen, and sat sadly revolving possibilities. How, with Roger’s death, loneliness again would close about her; how he was her world, her strength, her fate ! He had made her life ; she needed him still to watch his work. She seemed to apprehend, as by a sudden supernatural light, the strong essence of his affection, his wisdom, his alertness, his masterly zeal. In the perfect stillness of the house she could almost hear his tread on the stairs, hear his voice utter her name with that tender adjustment of tone which conveyed a benediction in a commonplace. Her heart rose to her throat ; she felt a passionate desire to scream. She buried her head in a cushion to stifle the sound ; her silent tears fell upon the silk. Suddenly she heard a step in the hall ; she had only time to brush them away before Hubert Lawrence came in. He greeted her with surprise. “ I came, to bring your note,” he said; “ I did n’t expect to find you.”

“Where can I better be?” she asked, with intensity. “ I can do nothing here, but I should look ill elsewhere. Give me back my note, please. It does n’t say half I feel.” He returned it and stood watching her while she tore it in bits and threw it into the empty fireplace. “ I have been wandering over the house,” she added. “ Everything tells me of poor Roger.” She felt an indefinable need of protesting of her affection for him. “ I never knew till now,” she said, “how much I loved him. I’m sure you don’t know him, Hubert ; not as I do. I don’t believe any one does. People always speak of him with a little air of amusement. Even Mrs. Keith is witty at his expense. But I know him ; I grew to know him in thinking of him while I was away. There’s more of him than the world knows or than the world would ever know, if it was left to his modesty and the world’s stupidity !" Hubert made her a little bow, for her eloquence. “ But I mean to put an end to his modesty. I mean to say, ‘ Come, Roger, hold up your head and speak out your mind and do yourself common justice.’ I ’ve seen people without a quarter of his goodness who had twenty times his assurance and his success. I shall turn the tables! People shall have no favor from me, unless they recognize Roger. If they want me, they must take him too. They tell me I’m a beauty, and I can do what I please. We shall see. The first thing I shall do will be to tip off their hats to the best man in the world.”

“ I admire your spirit,” said Hubert. “ Dr. Johnson liked a good hater; I like a good lover. On the whole, it’s more rarely found. But are n't you the least bit Quixotic, with your terrible good-faith ? No one denies that Roger is the best of the best of the best! But do what you please, Nora, you can’t make pure virtue entertaining. I, as a minister, you know, have often regretted this dreadful Siamese twinship that exists between goodness and dulness. I have my own little Quixotisms. I’ve tried to cut them in two ; I’ve dressed them in the most opposite colors ; I’ve called them by different names ; I’ve boldly denied the connection. But it’s no use ; there ’s a fatal family likeness ! Of course you ’re fond of Roger. So am I, so is every one in his heart of hearts. But what are we to do about it ? The kindest thing is to leave him alone. His virtues are of the fireside. You describe him perfectly when you say that everything in the house here sings his praise − already, before he ’s been here ten days! The chairs are all straight, the pictures are admirably hung, the locks are oiled, the winter fuel is stocked, the bills are paid ! Look at the tidies pinned on the chairs. I ’ll warrant you he pinned them with his own hands. Such is Roger! Such virtues, in a household, are priceless. He ought never to marry ; his wife would die for want of occupation. What society cares for in a man is not his household virtues, but his worldly ones. It wants to see things by the large end of the telescope, not by the small. ‘ Be as good as you please,’ says society, ‘ but unless you ’re interesting, I 'll none of you ! ’ ”

“ Interesting!” cried Nora, with a rosy flush. “ I’ve seen some very interesting people who have bored me to death. But if people don 't care for Roger, it’s their own loss ! ” Pausing a moment she fixed Hubert with the searching candor of her gaze. “You’re unjust,” she said.

This charge was pleasant to the young man’s soul ; he would not, for the world, have summarily rebutted it. “ Explain, dear cousin,” he said, smiling kindly. “ Wherein am I unjust ? ”

It was the first time he had called her cousin ; the word made a sweet confusion in her thoughts. But looking at him still while she collected them, “ You don’t care to know ! ” she cried. “ Not when you smile so ! You ’re laughing at me, at Roger, at every one ! ” Clever men had ere this been called dreadfully satirical before by pretty women ; but never, surely, with just that imperious naïveté. She spoke with a kind of joy in her frankness ; the sense of intimacy with the young man had effaced the sense of difference.

“ The scoffing fiend ! That’s a pretty character to give a clergyman ! ” said Hubert.

“ Are you, at heart, a clergyman ? I’ve been wondering.”

“ You’ve heard me preach.”

“ Yes, a year ago, when I was a silly little girl. I want to hear you again.”

“ Nay, I ’ve gained my crown, I propose to keep it. I’d rather not be found out. Besides, I’m not preaching now ; I’m resting. Some people think me a clergyman, Nora,” he said, lowering his voice with a hint of mock humility. “ But do you know you 're formidable, with your fierce friendships and your divine suspicions ? If you doubt of me, well and good. Let me walk like a Homeric god in a cloud; without my cloud, I should be sadly ungodlike. Eh ! for that matter, I doubt of myself, on all but one point, − my sincere regard for Roger. I love him, I admire him, I envy him. I 'd give the world to be able to exchange my restless imagination for his silent, sturdy usefulness. I feel as if I were toiling in the sun, and he were sitting under green trees resting from an effort which he has never needed to make. Well, virtue I suppose is welcome to the shade. It’s cool, but it’s dreadfully obscure ! People are free to find out the best and the worst of me! Here I stand, with all my imperfections on my head, tricked out with a white cravat, baptized with a reverend, (heaven save the mark!) equipped with platform and pulpit and text and audience, − erected into a mouthpiece of the spiritual aspirations of mankind. Well, I confess our sins ; that’s good humble-minded work. And I must say, in justice, that when once I don my white cravat (I insist on the cravat, I can do nothing without it) and mount into the pulpit, a certain gift comes to me. They call it eloquence ; I suppose it is. I don’t know what it’s worth, but they seem to like it.”

Nora sat speechless, with expanded eyes, hardly knowing whether his humility or his audacity became him best; flattered, above all, by what she deemed the recklessness of his confidence. She had removed her hat, which she held in her hand, gently curling its great black feather. Few things in a woman could be fairer than her free uncovered brow, illumined with her gentle wonder. The moment, for Hubert, was critical. He knew that a young girl’s heart stood trembling on the verge of his influence ; he felt, without fatuity, that a glance might beckon her forward, a word might fix her there. Should he speak his word ? This mystic precinct was haunted with the rustling ghosts of women who had ventured within and found no rest. But as the innermost meaning of Nora’s beauty grew vivid before him, it seemed to him that she, at least, might purge it of its sinister memories and dedicate it to peace. He knew in his conscience that to such as Nora he was no dispenser of peace ; but as he looked at her she seemed to him as an angel knocking at his gates. He could n’t turn her away. Let her come, at her risk ! For angels there is a special providence. “ Don’t think me worse than I am,” he said, “but don’t think me better ! I shall love Roger well until I begin to fancy that you love him too well. Then − it’s absurd perhaps, but I feel it will be so − I shall be jealous.”

The words were lightly uttered, but his eyes and voice gave them value. Nora colored and rose ; she went to the mirror and put on her hat. Then turning round with a laugh which, to one in the secret, might have seemed to sound the coming-of-age of her maiden’s fancy, “If you mean to be jealous,” she said, “ now’s your time ! I love Roger now with all my heart. I can’t do more ! ” She remained but a moment longer.

Her friend’s illness baffled the doctors ; a sceptic would have said it obeyed them. For a fortnight it went from bad to worse. Nora remained constantly at home, and played but a passive part to the little social drama enacted in Mrs. Keith’s drawing-room. This lady had already cleared her stage and rung up her curtain. To the temporary indisposition of her jeune première she resigned herself with that serene good grace which she had always at command and which was so subtle an intermixture of kindness and shrewdness that it would have taken a wiser head than Nora’s to apportion them. She valued the young girl for her social uses ; but she spared her at this trying hour just as an impressario, with an eye to the whole season, spares a prima donna who is threatened with bronchitis. Between these two there was little natural sympathy, but in place of it a wondrous adjustment of caresses and civilities ; little confidence, but innumerable confidences. They had quietly judged each other and each sat serenely encamped in her estimate as in a high strategical position. Nevertheless I would have trusted neither one’s account of the other. Nora, for perfect fairness, had too much to learn and Mrs. Keith too much to unlearn. With her companion, however, she had unlearned much of that circumspect jealousy with which, in the interest of her remnant of youth and beauty, she taxed her commerce with most of the fashionable sisterhood. She strove to repair her one notable grievance against fate by treating Nora as a daughter. She mused with real maternal ardor upon the young girl’s matrimonial possibilities, and among them upon that design of which Roger had dropped her a hint of old. He held to his purpose of course ; if he had fancied Nora then, he could but fancy her now.

But were his purpose and his fancy to be viewed with undiminished complacency ? What might have been great prospects for Nora as a plain, homeless child, were small prospects for a young lady gifted with beauty which, with time, would bring the world to her feet. Roger would be the best of husbands ; but in Mrs. Keith’s philosophy, a very good husband might stand for a very indifferent marriage. She herself had married a fool, but she had married well. Her easy, opulent widowhood was there to show it. To call things by their names, would Nora, in marrying Roger, marry money ? Mrs. Keith was at loss to appraise the worldly goods of her rejected suitor. At the time of his suit she had the matter at her fingers’ ends; but she suspected that since then he had been lining his pockets. He puzzled her; he had a way of seeming neither rich nor poor. When he spent largely, he had the air of one straining a point ; yet when he abstained, it seemed rather from taste than necessity. She had been surprised more than once, while abroad, by his copious remittances to Nora. The point was worth looking up. The reader will agree with me that her conclusion warranted her friend either a fool or a hero ; for she graciously assumed that if, financially, Roger should be found wanting, she could easily prevail upon him to give the pas to a possible trio of Messrs. So-and-So, millionnaires to a man. Never was better evidence that Roger passed for a good fellow. In any event, however, Mrs. Keith had no favor to spare for Hubert and his marked and increasing “ attentions.” She had determined to beware of a false alarm ; but meanwhile she was vigilant. Hubert presented himself daily with a report of his cousin’s condition,−a report most minute and exhaustive, seemingly, as a couple of hours were needed to make it. Nora, moreover, went frequently to her friend’s house, wandered about aimlessly, and talked with Lucinda ; and here Hubert was sure to be found, or to find her, engaged in a similar errand. Roger’s malady had defined itself as virulent typhus fever ; strength and reason were at the lowest ebb. Of course on these occasions Hubert walked home with the young girl ; and as the autumn weather made walking delightful, they chose the longest way. They might have been seen at this period perambulating in deep discourse certain outlying regions, the connection of which with the main line of travel between Mrs. Keith’s abode and Roger’s was not immediately obvious. Apart from her prudent fears, Mrs. Keith had a scantier kindness for Hubert than for most comely men. She fancied of him that he meant nothing, − nothing at least but the pleasure of the hour ; and the want of a certain masterly intention was of all shortcomings the one she most deprecated in a clever man. “ What is he, when you come to the point?” she impatiently demanded of a friend to whom she had imparted her fears. “ He’s neither fish nor flesh, neither a priest nor a layman. I like a clergyman to bring with him a little odor of sanctity,−something that rests you, after common talk. Nothing is so pleasant, near the fire, at the sober end of one’s drawing-room. If he does n’t fill a certain place, he’s in the way. The Reverend Hubert is sprawling everywhere at once. His manners are neither of this world nor, I hope, of the next. Last night he let me bring him a cup of tea and sat lounging in his chair while I put it in his hand. O, he knows what he’s about. He’s pretentious, with all his nonchalance. He finds Bible texts rather meagre fare for week-days ; so he consoles himself with his pretty parishioners. To be one, you needn’t go to his church. Is Nora, after all I’ve done for her, going to rush into one of these random American engagements ? I ’d rather she married Mr. Jenks the carpenter, outright.”

But in spite of Mrs. Keith’s sinister previsions, these young persons played their game in their own way, with larger moves, even, and heavier stakes, than their shrewd hostess suspected. As Nora, for the present, declined all invitations, Mrs. Keith in the evening frequently went out alone and left her perforce in the drawing-room to entertain Hubert at her ease. Roger’s illness furnished a grave undercurrent to their talk and gave it a tone of hazardous melancholy. Nora’s young life had known no such hours as these. She hardly knew, perhaps, just what made them what they were. She hardly wished to know ; she shrank from staying the even lapse of destiny with a question. The scenes of the past year had gathered into the background like a huge distant landscape, glowing with color and swarming with life ; she seemed to stand with her friend in the double shadow of a passing cloud and a rustling tree, looking off and away into the mighty picture, caressing its fine outlines and lingering where the haze of regret lay purple in its hollows, − while he whispered the romance of hill and dale and town and stream. Never, she fondly fancied, had a young couple conversed with less of narrow exclusion ; they took all history, all culture, into their confidence ; the radiant light of an immense horizon seemed to shine between them. Nora had felt deliciously satisfied; she seemed to live equally in every need of her being, in soul and sense, in heart and mind. As for Hubert, he knew nothing, for the time, save that the angel was within his gates and must be treated to angelic fare, He had for the time the conscience, or the no-conscience, of a man who is feasting on the slopes of Elysium. He thought no evil, he designed no harm ; the hard face of destiny was twisted into a smile. If only, for Hubert’s sake, this had been an irresponsible world, without penalties to pay, without turnings to the longest lanes ! If the peaches and plums in the garden of pleasure had no cheeks but ripe ones, and if, when we have eaten the fruit, we had n’t to dispose of the stones ! Nora’s charm of charms was a cool maidenly reserve which Hubert both longed and feared to make an end of. While it soothed his conscience it irritated his ambition. He wished to know in what depth of water he stood ; but no telltale ripple in this tropic calm availed to register the tide. Was he drifting in mid-ocean, or was he cruising idly among the sandy shallows ? I regret to say, that as the days elapsed Hubert found his rest troubled by this folded rose-leaf of doubt; for he was not used to being baffled by feminine riddles. He determined to pluck out the heart of the mystery.

One evening, at Mrs. Keith’s urgent request, Nora had prepared to go to the opera, as the season was to last but a week. Mrs. Keith was to dine with some friends and go thither in their company ; one of the ladies was to call for Nora after dinner, and they were to join the party at the theatre. In the afternoon came a young German lady, a pianist of merit who had her way to make, a niece of Nora’s regular professor, with whom Nora had an engagement to practise duets twice a week. It so happened that, owing to a violent rain, Miss Lilienthal had been unable to depart after their playing ; whereupon Nora had kept her to dinner, and the two, over their sweetbread, had sworn an eternal friendship. After dinner Nora went up to dress for the opera, and, on descending, found Hubert sitting by the fire deep in German discourse with the musical stranger. “ I was afraid you’d be going,” said Hubert; “ I saw Don Giovanni on the placards. Well, lots of pleasure ! Let me stay here awhile and polish up my German with mademoiselle. It’s great fun. And when the rain’s over, Fraülein, perhaps you ’ll not mind my walking home with you.”

But the Fraülein was gazing in mute envy at Nora, standing before her in festal array. “ She can take the carriage,” said Nora, "when we have used it.” And then reading the burden of that wistful regard − “ Have you never heard Don Giovanni ? ”

“Often!” said the other, with a poignant smile.

Nora reflected a moment, then drew off her gloves. “You shall go, you shall take my place. I ’ll stay at home. Your dress will do ; you shall wear my shawl. Let me put this flower in your hair, and here are my gloves and my fan. So ! You ’re charming. My gloves are large, − never mind. The others will be delighted to have you ; come to-morrow and tell me all about it.” Nora’s friend, in her carriage, was already at the door. The gentle Fraülein, half shrinking, half eager, suffered herself to be hurried down to the carriage. On the doorstep she turned and kissed her hostess with a fervent “ Du allerliebste ! ” Hubert wondered whether Nora’s purpose had been to please her friend or to please herself. Was it that she preferred his society to Mozart’s music? He knew that she had a passion for Mozart. “ You’ve lost the opera,” he said, when she reappeared ; “ but let us have an opera of our own. Play something; play Mozart.” So she played Mozart for more than an hour; and I doubt whether, among the singers who filled the theatre with their melody, the great master found that evening a truer interpreter than the young girl playing in the lamplit parlor to the man she loved. She played herself tired. “You ought to be extremely grateful,” she said, as she struck the last chord ; “ I have never played so well.”

Later they came to speak of a novel which lay on the table, and which Nora had been reading. “It’s very silly,” she said, “ but I go on with it in spite of myself. I 'm afraid I 'm too easily pleased ; no novel is so silly I can’t read it. I recommend you this, by the way. The hero is a young clergyman endowed with every grace, who falls in love with a fair Papist. She is wedded to her faith, and though she loves the young man after a fashion, she loves her religion better. To win his suit be comes near going over to Rome ; but he pulls up short and determines the mountain shall come to Mahomet. He sets bravely to work, converts the young lady, baptizes her with his own hands one week, and marries her the next.”

“ Heaven preserve us ! what a hotchpotch ! ” cried Hubert. “ Is that what they are doing nowadays ? I very seldom read a novel, but when I glance into one, I’m sure to find some such stuff as that ! Nothing irritates me so as the flatness of people’s imagination. Common life − I don’t say it’s a vision of bliss, but it’s better than that! Their stories are like the underside of a carpet, − nothing but the stringy grain of the tissue − a muddle of figures without shape and flowers without color. When I read a novel my imagination starts off at a gallop and leaves the narrator hidden in a cloud of dust; I have to come jogging twenty miles back to the dénouement. Your clergyman here with his Romish sweetheart must be a very pretty fellow. Why didn’t he marry her first and convert her afterwards ? Is n’t a clergyman after all, before all, a man ? I mean to write a novel about a priest who falls in love with a pretty Mahometan and swears by Allah to win her.”

“Ah Hubert!” cried Nora, “would you like a clergyman to love a pretty Mahometan better than the truth ? ”

“ The truth ? A pretty Mahometan may be the truth. If you can get it in the concrete, after shivering all your days in the cold abstract, it’s worth a bit of a compromise. Nora, Nora ! ” he went on, stretching himself back on the sofa and flinging one arm over his head, “ I stand up for passion ! If a thing can take the shape of passion, that’s a fact in its favor. The greater passion is the better cause. If my love wrestles with my faith, as the angel with Jacob, and if my love stands uppermost, I ’ll admit it’s a fair game. Faith is faith, under a hundred forms ! Upon my word, I should like to prove it, in my own person. What a fraction of my personality is this clerical title! How little it expresses ; how little it covers ! On Sundays, in the pulpit, I stand up and talk to five hundred people. Does each of them, think you, appropriate his five hundredth share of my discourse ? I can imagine talking to one person and saying five hundred times as much, even though she were a pretty Mahometan or a prepossessing idolatress ! I can imagine being five thousand miles away from this blessed Boston, − in Turkish trousers, if you please, with a turban on my head and a chibouque in my mouth, with a great blue ball of Eastern sky staring in through the round window, high up ; all in divine insouciance of the fact that Boston was abusing, or, worse still, forgetting me ! That Eastern sky is part of the mise en scène of the New Testament,−it has seen greater miracles ! But, my dear Nora,” he added, suddenly, “ don’t let me muddle your convictions.” And he left his sofa and came and leaned against the mantel-shelf. “ This is between ourselves ; I talk to you as I would to no one else. Understand me and forgive me ! There are times when I must speak out and make my bow to the possible, the ideal! I must protest against the vulgar assumption of people who don’t see beyond their noses; that people who do, you and I, for instance, are living up to the top of our capacity, that we are contented, satisfied, balanced. I promise you I ’m not satisfied, not I ! I’ve room for more. I only half live ; I ’m like a purse filled at one end with small coin and empty at the other. Perhaps the other will never know the golden rattle ! The Lord’s will be done ! I can say that with the best of them. But I shall never pretend that I ’ve known happiness, that I’ve known life. On the contrary, I shall maintain I’m a failure ! I had the wit to see, but I lacked the courage to do − and yet I’ve been called reckless, irreverent, audacious. My dear Nora, I’m the veriest coward on earth ; pity me if you don’t despise me. There are men born to imagine things, others born to do them. Evidently, I’m one of the first. But I do imagine them, I assure you ! ”

Nora listened to this flow of sweet unreason without staying her hand in the work, which, as she perceived the drift of his talk, she had rapidly caught up, but with a beating heart and a sense of rising tears. It was a ravishing medley of mystery and pathos and frankness. It was the agony of a restless soul, leaping in passionate rupture from the sickening circle of routine. Of old, she had thought of Hubert’s mind as immutably placid and fixed ; it gave her the notion of lucid depth and soundless volume. But of late, with greater nearness, she had seen the ripples on its surface and heard it beating its banks. This was not the first time ; but the waves had never yet broken so high ; she had never felt their salt spray on her cheeks. He had rent for her sake the seamless veil of the temple and shown her its gorgeous gloom. Before her, she discerned the image of the genius loci, the tutelar deity, with a dying lamp smoking at its feet and a fissure in its golden side. The rich atmosphere confused and enchanted her. The pavement under her feet seemed to vibrate with the mournful music of a retreating choir. She went on with her work, mechanically taking her stitches. She felt Hubert’s intense blue eyes ; the little blue flower in her tapestry grew under her quick needle. A great door had been opened between their hearts ; she passed through it. “ What is it you imagine,” she asked, with intense curiosity ; “ what is it you dream of doing ? ”

“I dream,” he said, “of breaking a law for your sake ! ”

The answer frightened her ; it savored of the disorder of passion. What had she to do with broken laws ? She trembled and rolled up her work. “ I dream,” she said, trying to smile, “of the romance of keeping laws, I expect to get a deal of pleasure out of it yet.” And she left her chair. For an instant Hubert was confused. Was this the last struggle which precedes submission or the mere prudence of indifference ? Nora’s eyes were on the clock. It rang out eleven. “ To begin with, " she said, “let me keep the law of ‘ early to bed.’ Good night ! ”

Hubert wondered ; he hardly knew whether he was rebuked or challenged. “ You ’ll at least shake hands,” he said, reproachfully.

A deeper consciousness had somehow been opened in her common consciousness, and she had meant in self-defence to omit this ceremony. “ Good night,” she repeated, letting him take her hand. Hubert gazed at her a moment and raised it to his lips. She blushed and rapidly withdrew it. “ There ! ” cried Hubert. “ I’ve broken a law ! ”

“Much good may it do you!” she answered, and went her way. He stood for a moment, waiting, and fancying, rather fatuously, that she might come back. Then, as he took up his hat, he wondered whether she too was not a bit of a coquette.

Nora wondered on her own side whether this scene had not been the least bit a pièce de circonstance. For a day love and doubt fared in company. Lucinda’s mournful discourse on the morrow was not of a nature to restore her calmness. “ Last night,” said Roger’s nurse, “he was very bad. He woke out of his lethargy, but oh, on the other side of sense ! He talked all night about you. If he murmurs a word, it ’s always your name. He asked a dozen times if you had arrived, and forgot as often as I told him − he, dear man, who used to remember to a collar what he’d put into the wash ! He kept wondering whether anything had happened to you. Late in the evening, when the carriages began to pass, he cried out over each that it was you, and what would you think of him for not coming to meet you ? ‘ Don’t tell her how bad I am,’ he says ; ‘ I must have been in bed two or three days, haven’t I, Lucinda? Say I ’ll be out to-morrow ; that I’ve only a little cold ; that she’s not to mind it, Hubert will do everything for her.’ And then when, at midnight, the wind began to blow, he declared it was a storm, that your ship was on the coast. God keep you safe ! Then he asked if you were changed and grown ; were you pretty, were you tall, would he know you ? And he took the handglass and looked at himself and wondered if you would know him. He cried out that he was ugly, he was horrible, you’d hate him. He bade me bring him his razors and let him shave ; and when I would n’t, he began to rage and call me names, and then he broke down and cried like a child.” Hearing these things, Nora prayed almost angrily for Roger’s recovery, − that he might live to see her more cunningly and lovingly his debtor. She wished to do something, she hardly knew what, not only to prove, but forever to commemorate, her devotion. Her fancy moulded with dim prevision the monumental image of some pious sacrifice. You would have marvelled to see, meanwhile, the easy breathing of her conscience. To serve Roger, to please Roger, she would give up her dream of Hubert. But best of all, if the dement skies should suffer that Hubert and she, one in all things else, should be one in his affection, one in his service !

For a couple of days she saw nothing of Hubert. On the third there came excellent news of Roger, who had taken a marked turn for the better, and was out of the woods. She had declined, for the evening, a certain most seductive invitation ; but on the receipt of these tidings she revoked her refusal. Coming down to the drawingroom with Mrs. Keith, dressed and shawled, she found Hubert in waiting, with a face which uttered bad news. Roger’s improvement had been momentary, a relapse had followed, and he was worse than ever. She tossed off her shawl with an energy not unnoted by her duenna. “ Of course I can't go,” she said. “It’s neither possible nor proper.” Mrs. Keith would have given the camellia out of her chignon that this thing should not have happened in just this way; but she submitted with a good grace − for a duenna. Hubert went down with her to her carriage. At the foot of the stairs she stopped, and while gathering up her skirts, “ Mr. Lawrence,” she demanded, “are you going to remain here ? ”

“A little while,” said Hubert, with his imperturbable smile.

“A very little while, I hope.” She had been wondering whether admonition would serve as a check or a stimulus. “ I need hardly to tell you that the young lady up stairs is not a person to be trifled with.”

“ I hardly know what you mean,” said Hubert. “Am I a person to trifle ? ”

“ Is it serious, then ? ”

Hubert hesitated a moment. She perceived a sudden watchful quiver in his eye, like a sword turned edge outward. She unsheathed one of her own steely beams, and for the tenth of a second there was a dainty crossing of blades. “ I admire Miss Lambert,” cried Hubert, “with all my heart.”

“True admiration,” said Mrs. Keith, “is one half respect and the other half self-denial.”

Hubert laughed, ever so politely. “ I ’ll put that in a sermon,” he said.

“ O, I have a sermon to preach you,” she answered. “ Take your hat and go.”

He made her a little bow,“ I ’ll go up and get my hat.” Mrs. Keith, catching his eye as he closed the carriage door, wished to heaven that she had held her tongue. “ I’ve done him injustice,” she murmured as she went. “ I’ve fancied him light, but I see he’s vicious.” Hubert, however, kept his promise in so far as that he did take up his hat. Having held it a moment, he put it down. He had reckoned without his hostess ! Nora was seated by the fire, with her bare arms folded, with a downcast brow. Dressed in pale corncolor, her white throat confined by a band of blue velvet, sewn with a dozen pearls, she was not a subject for summary farewells. Meeting her eyes, he saw they were filled with tears. " You must n’t take this thing too hard,” he said.

For a moment she said nothing; then she bent her face into her hands and her tears flowed. “ O poor, poor Roger! ” she cried.

Hubert watched her weeping in her ball-dress those primitive tears. “ I’ve not given him up,” he said at last. “But suppose I had − ” She raised her head and looked at him. "O,”he cried, “I should have a hundred things to say. Both as a minister and as a man, I should preach resignation. In this crisis, let me speak my mind. Roger is part of your childhood ; your childhood’s at an end. Possibly, with it, he too is to go ! At all events you ’re not to feel that in losing him you lose everything. I protest! As you sit here, he belongs to your past. Ask yourself what part he may play in your future. Believe me, you ’ll have to settle it, you ’ll have to choose. Here, in any case, your life begins. Your tears are for the dead past ; this is the future, with its living needs. Roger’s fate is only one of them.”

She rose, with her tears replaced by a passionate gravity. “ Ah, you don’t know what you say ! ” she cried. “ Talk of my future if you like, but not of my past ! No one can speak of it, no one knows it! Such as you see me here, bedecked and bedizened, I ’m a penniless, homeless, friendless creature ! But for Roger, I might be in the streets ! Do you think I’ve forgotten it, that I ever can ? There are things that color one’s life, memories that last forever. I ’ve my share ! What am I to settle, between whom am I to choose? My love for Roger’s no choice, it’s part and parcel of my being ! ”

She seemed to shine, as she spoke, with a virginal faithfulness which commanded his own sincerity. Hubert was inspired. He forgot everything but that she was lovely. “ I wish to heaven,” he cried, “ that you had never ceased to be penniless and friendless ! I wish Roger had left you alone and not smothered you beneath this monstrous burden of gratitude ! Give him back his gifts ! Take all I have ! In the streets ? In the streets I should have found you, as lovely in your poverty as you ’re now in your finery, and a thousand times more free ! ” He seized her hand and met her eyes with the frankness of passion. Pain and pleasure, at once, possessed Nora’s heart. It was as if joy, bursting in, had trampled certain tender flowers which bloomed on the threshold. But Hubert had cried, “ I love you ! I love you ! ” and joy had taken up the words. She was unable to speak audibly ; but in an instant she was spared the effort. The servant hastily came in with a note superscribed with her name. She motioned to Hubert to open it. He read it aloud. “ Mr. Lawrence is sinking. You had better come. I send my carriage.” Nora’s voice came to her with a cry,—“ He ’s dying, he’s dying ! ”

In a minute’s time she found herself wrapped in her shawl and seated with Hubert in the doctor’s coupé. A few moments more and the doctor received them at the door of Roger’s room. They passed in and Nora went straight to the bed. Hubert stood an instant and saw her drop on her knees at the pillow. She flung back her shawl with vehemence, as if to release her hands ; he was unable to see where she placed them. He went on into the adjoining chamber, of which the door stood open. The room was dark, the other lit by a night-lamp. He stood listening awhile, but heard nothing; then he began to walk slowly to and fro, past the doorway. He could see nothing but the shining train of Nora’s dress lying on the carpet beyond the angle of the bed. He wanted terribly to see more, but he feared to see too much. At moments he fancied he heard whispers. This lasted some time ; then the doctor came in, with what seemed to him an odd, unprofessional smile. “ The young lady knows a few remedies not taught in the schools,” he whispered.

“ He has recognized her. He ’s good for to-night, at least. Half an hour ago he had no pulse at all, but this has started it. I ’ll come back in an hour.” After he had gone Lucinda came, selfcommissioned, and shut the door in Hubert’s face. He stood a moment, with an unreasoned sense of insult and defeat. Then he walked straight out of the house. But the next morning, after breakfast, a more generous sentiment moved him to return. The doctor was just coming away. “ It was a Daniel come to judgment! ” the doctor declared. “ I verily believe she saved him. He ’ll be sitting up in a fortnight ! ” Hubert learned that, having achieved her miracle, Nora had returned to Mrs. Keith’s. What arts she had used he was left to imagine. He had still a sore feeling of having just missed a crowning joy ; but there might yet be time to grasp it. He felt, too, an urgent need of catching a glimpse of the after-glow of Nora’s mystical effluence. He repaired to Mrs. Keith’s, hoping to find the young girl alone. But the elder lady, as luck would have it, was established in the drawingroom, and she made haste to inform him that Nora, fatigued by her “ watching,” had not yet left her room. But if Hubert was sombre, Mrs. Keith was radiant. Now was her chance to preach her promised sermon ; she had just come into possession of facts which furnished a capital text.

“ I suppose you ’ll call me a meddling busybody,” she said. “ I confess I seem to myself a model of forbearance. Be so good as to tell me in three words whether you are in love with Nora.”

Taken thus abruptly to task, Hubert, after a moment’s trepidation, kept his balance. He measured the situation at a glance, and pronounced it bad. But if heroic urbanity would save it, he would be urbane. “It’s hardly a question to answer in two words.” he answered, with an ingenuous smile. “ I wish you could tell me ! ”

“ Really,” said Mrs. Keith, “ it seems to me that by this time you might know. Tell me at least whether you are prepared to marry her ? ”

Hubert hesitated just an instant. “ Of course not − so long as I’m not sure I'm in love with her ! ”

“ And pray when will you make up your mind ? And what ’s to become of poor Nora meanwhile ? ”

“ Why, Mrs. Keith, if Nora can wait, surely you can.” The urbanity need not be all on his side.

“ Nora can wait ? That’s easily said. Is a young girl a thing to be tried like a horse, to be taken up and dropped again ? O Mr. Lawrence, if I had ever doubted of the selfishness of men ! What this matter has been for you, you know best yourself; but I can tell you that for Nora it has been serious ! ” At these words Hubert passed his hand nervously through his hair and walked to the window. “ The fop ! ” said Mrs. Keith, sotto voce. “ His vanity is tickled, on the very verge of exposure. If you are not consciously, passionately in love, you have no business here,” she proceeded. “ Retire, quietly, expeditiously, humbly. Leave Nora to me. I ’ll heal her bruises. They shall have been wholesome ones.”

Hubert felt that these peremptory accents implied a menace ; and that the lady spoke by book. His vanity rankled, but discretion drew a long breath. For a fortnight it had been shut up in a closet. He thanked the Lord they had no witnesses ; with Mrs. Keith, for once, he could afford to sing small. He remained silent for a moment, with his brow bent in meditation. Then turning suddenly, he took the bull by the horns. “ Mrs. Keith,” he said, “you’ve done me a service. I thank you sincerely. I have gone further than I meant; I admit it. I’m selfish, I ’m vain, I’m anything you please. My only excuse is Nora’s loveliness. It had beguiled me ; I had forgotten that this is a life of hard logic.” And he bravely took up his hat.

Mrs. Keith was primed for a “scene” ; she was annoyed at missing it, and her easy triumph led her on. She thought, too, of the young girl up stairs, combing out her golden hair, and dreaming less of the logic than the poetry of life. She had dragged a heavy gun to the front ; she determined to fire her shot. So much virtue had never inspired her with so little respect. She played a moment with the bow on her morning-dress. “ Let me thank you for your great humility,” she said. “ Do you know I was going to be afraid of you, so that I had intrenched myself behind a great big preposterous fact ? I met last evening Mrs. Chatterlon of New York. You know she’s a great talker, but she talks to the point. She mentioned your engagement to a certain young lady, a dark-eyed person − need I repeat the name?” Nay, it was as well she should n’t ! Hubert stood before her, flushing crimson, with his blue eyes flashing cold wrath. He remained silent a moment, shaking a scornful finger at her. “For shame, madam,” he cried. “ That’s shocking taste ! You might have been generous; it seems to me I deserve it.” And with a summary bow he departed.

Mrs. Keith repented of this extra touch of zeal ; the more so as she found that, practically, Nora was to be the victim of the young man’s displeasure. For four days he gave no sign; Nora was left to explain his absence as she might. Even Roger’s amendment failed to console her. At last, as the two ladies were sitting at lunch, his card was brought in, superscribed P. P. C. Nora read it in silence, and for a moment rested her eyes on her companion with a piteous look which seemed to cry, “ It’s you I’ve to thank for this ! ” A torrent of remonstrances rose to Nora’s lips, but they were sealed by the reflection that, though her friend might have provoked Hubert’s desertion, its desperate abruptness pointed to some deeper cause. She pretended to occupy herself with her plate ; but her self-control was rapidly ebbing. She silently rose and retreated to her own room, leaving Mrs. Keith moralizing over her muttonchop, upon the miseries of young ladyhood and the immeasurable egotism of the man who had rather produce a cruel effect than none at all. The various emotions to which Nora had been recently exposed proved too much for her strength ; for a week after this she was seriously ill. On the day she left her room she received a short note from Hubert.

“ NEW YORK.

“DEAR FRIEND : You have, I suppose, been expecting to hear from me ; but I have not written, because I am unable to write as I wish and unwilling to write as − other people would wish ! I left Boston suddenly, but not unadvisedly. I shall for the present be occupied here. The last month I spent there will remain one of the best memories of my life. But it was time it should end ! Remember me a little − what do I say ? − forget me ! Farewell. I received this morning from the doctor the best accounts of Roger.”

Nora handled this letter somewhat as one may imagine a pious maiden of the antique world to have treated a messenger from the Delphic oracle. It was obscure, it was even sinister; but deep in its sacred dimness there seemed to glow a fiery particle of truth. She locked it up in her dressing-case and wondered and waited. Shortly after came a missive of a different cast. It was from her cousin, George Fenton, and also dated New York.

“ DEAR NORA : You have left me to find out your return in the papers. I saw your name a month ago in the steamer’s list. But I hope the fine people and things you have been seeing have n’t driven me quite out of your heart, and that you have a corner left for your poor old cousin and his scrawls. I received your answer to my letter of last February ; after which I immediately wrote again, but in vain ! Perhaps you never got my letter; I could scarcely decipher your Italian address. Excuse my want of learning ! Your photograph is a joy forever. Are you really as good looking as that? It taxes even the credulity of one who knows how pretty you used to be; how good you must be still. When I last wrote I told you of my having taken stock in an enterprise for working over refuse iron, − dreadful trade ! What do you care for refuse iron ? It’s awfully dirty and not fit to be talked of to a fine lady like you. Still, if you have any odd bits, − old keys, old nails, − the smallest contributions thankfully received ! We think there’s money in it ; if there is n’t, I ’m afloat again ; but again I suppose I shall drift ashore. If this fails, I think of going to Texas. I wish hugely I might see you before the bloom of my youth is sicklied o’er by an atmosphere of iron-rust. Get Mr. Lawrence to bring you to New York for a week. I suppose it would n't do for me to call on you in the light of day; but I might take service as a waiter at your hotel, and express my sentiments in strong tea and soft mutton-chops. Does he still loathe me, Mr. Lawrence ? Poor man, tell him to take it easy; I sha’n’t trouble him again. Are you ever lonely in the midst of your grandeur ? Do you ever feel that, after all, these people are not of your blood and bone ? I should like you to quarrel with them, to know a day’s friendlessness or a day’s freedom, so that you might remember that here in New York, in a dusty iron-yard, there is a poor devil who is yours without question, without condition, and till death ! ”

VIII.

Roger’s convalescence went bravely on. One morning as he lay coquetting deliciously with returning sense, he became aware that a woman was sitting at his window in the sun. She seemed to be reading. He fancied vaguely that she was Lucinda; but at last it occurred to him that Lucinda was not addicted to literature, and that Lucinda’s tresses, catching the light, were not of a kind to take on the likeness of a queenly crown. She was no vision ; his visions had been dark and troubled ; and this image was radiant and fixed. He half closed his eyes and watched her lazily through the lids. There came to him, out of his boyish past, a vague, delightful echo of the “ Arabian Nights.” The room was gilded by the autumn sunshine into the semblance of an enamelled harem court; he himself seemed a languid Persian, lounging on musky cushions ; the fair woman at the window a Scheherazade, a Badoura. He closed his eyes completely and gave a little groan, to see if she would move. When he opened them, she had moved ; she stood near his bed, looking at him. For a moment his puzzled gaze still told him nothing but that she was fictitiously fair. She smiled and smiled, and, after a little, as he only stared confusedly, she blushed, not like Badoura or Scheherazade, but like Nora. Her frequent presence after this became the great fact in his convalescence. The thought of her beauty filled the long empty hours during which he was forbidden to do anything but grow strong. Sometimes he wondered whether his impression of it was only part of the universal optimism of a man with a raging appetite. Then he would question Lucinda, who would shake her head and chuckle with elderly archness. “ Wait till you ’re on your feet, sir, and judge for yourself,” she would say. “ Go and call on her at Mrs. Keith’s, and then tell me what you think.” He grew well with a beating heart; he would have stayed his recovery for the very dread of facing his happiness. He muffled his pulse in a kind ot brooding gravity which puzzled the young girl, who began to wonder whether his illness had left a flaw in his temper. Toward the last, Roger began to blush for his lingering aroma of medicine, and to wish to make a better appearance. He made a point, for some days, of refusing to see her, − always with a loving message, of course, conveyed through Lucinda. Meanwhile, he was shaved, anointed, and costumed. Finally, on a Sunday, he discarded his dressinggown and sat up clothed and in his right mind. The effort, of course, gave him a huge appetite, and he dealt vigorous justice upon his luncheon. He had just finished, and his little table was still in position near his arm-chair, when Nora made her appearance. She had been to church, and on leaving church had taken a long walk. She wore one of those dark rich toilets of early winter, so becoming to fair beauties ; but her face lacked freshness; she was pale and tired. On Roger’s remarking it, she said the service had given her a headache ; as a remedy, she had marched off briskly at haphazard, missed her way and wandered hither and thither. But here she was, safe and sound and hungry. She petitioned for a share in certain eleemosynary dainties, − that heavy crop of forbidden fruit, which blooms in convalescence, − which she had perceived wasting their sweetness in the dining-room. Hereupon she took off her bonnet and was bountifully served at Roger’s table. She ate largely and hungrily, jesting at her appetite and getting back her color. Roger leaned back in his chair, watching her, carving her partridge, offering her this and that; in a word, falling in love. It happened as naturally, as he had never allowed for it. The flower of her beauty had bloomed in a night, that of his passion in a day. When at last she laid down her fork, and, sinking back in her chair, folded her hands on her arms and sat facing him with a friendly, pointless, satisfied smile, and then raising her goblet, threw back her head and showed her white throat and glanced at him over the brim, while he noted her plump ringless hand, with the little finger curled out, he felt that he was in health again. She strolled about the room, idly touching the instruments on his dressing-table and the odds and ends on his chimneypiece. Her dress, which she had released from the loops and festoons then in fashion, trailed rustling on the carpet, and lent her a sumptuous, ladyish air which seemed to give a price to this domiciliary visit. “ Everywhere, everywhere, a little dust,” she said. “ I see it ’s more than time I should be back here. I have been waiting for you to invite me; but as you don’t seem inclined, I invite myself.”

Roger said nothing for a moment. Then with a blush : “ I don’t mean to invite you ; I don’t want you.”

Nora stared. “ Don’t want me ? Par exemple ! ”

“ I want you as a visitor, but not as a−” And he fumbled for his word.

“ As a ‘regular boarder ’ ? ” she took it gayly. “ You turn me out of doors ? ”

“No; I don’t take you in−yet awhile. My dear child, I have a reason.”

Nora wondered, still smiling. “ I might consider this very unkind,” she said, “ if I had n’t the patience of an angel. Could you favor me with a hint of your reason ? ”

“Not now,” he answered. “Never fear,” he cried, with a laugh. “When it comes, it will be all-sufficient! ” But he imparted it, a couple of days after, to Mrs. Keith, who came late in the afternoon to present her compliments on his recovery. She displayed an almost sisterly graciousness, enhanced by a lingering spice of coquetry ; but somehow, as she talked, he felt as if she were an old woman and he still a young man. It seemed a sort of hearsay that they should ever have been mistress and lover. “Nora will have told you,” he said, “of my wishing you to kindly keep her awhile. I can give you no better proof of my regard, for the fact is, my dear friend, I ’m in love with her.”

“ Come ! ” she cried. “ This is interesting.”

“ I wish her to accept me freely, as she would accept any other man. For that purpose I must cease to be, in all personal matters, her guardian.”

“ She must herself forget her wardship, if there is to be any sentimentalizing between you, − all but forget it, at least. Let me speak frankly,” she went on. Whereupon Roger frowned a bit, for he had known her frankness to be somewhat incisive. “ It’s all very well that you should be in love with her. You ’re not the first. Don’t be frightened ; your chance is fair. The needful point is that she should be just the least bit in love with you.”

He shook his head with melancholy modesty. “ I don’t expect that. She loves me a little, I hope; but I say nothing to her imagination. Circumstances are fatally against it. If she falls in love, it will be with a man as unlike me as possible. Nevertheless, I do hope she may, without pain, learn to think of me as a husband. I hope,” he cried, with appealing eyes, “that she may see a certain rough propriety in it. After all, who can make her such a husband as I ? I’m neither handsome, nor clever, nor accomplished, nor known. She might choose from a dozen men who are. Pretty lovers doubtless they’d make ; but, my friend, it ’s the husband the husband, that counts ! ” And he beat his clenched hand on his knee. “ Do they know her, have they watched her, as I have done ? What are their months to my years, their vows to my acts ? Mrs. Keith!” − and he grasped her hand as if to call her to witness, − “ I undertake to make her happy. I know what you can say,−that a woman’s happiness is worth nothing unless imagination lends a hand. Well, even as a lover, perhaps I’m not a hopeless case ! And then, I confess, other things being equal, I ’d rather Nora should n’t marry a poor man.”

Mrs. Keith spoke, on this hint. “ You ’re a rich one then ? ”

Roger folded up his pocket-handkerchief and patted it out on his knee, with pregnant hesitation. “ Yes, I’m rich,− I may call it so. I’m rich ! ” he repeated with unction. “ I can say it at last.” He paused a moment, and then, with admirable bonhomie : “ I was not altogether a pauper when you refused me. Since then, for the last six years, I have been saving and sparing and counting. My purpose has sharpened my wits, and fortune, too, has favored me. I’ve speculated a little, I’ve handled stock and turned this and that about, and now I can offer my wife a very pretty fortune. It’s been going on very quietly ; people don’t know it ; but Nora, if she cares to, shall show ’em!” Mrs. Keith colored and mused; she was lost in a tardy afterthought. “It seems odd to be talking to you this way,” Roger went on, exhilarated by this résumé of his career. “ Do you remember that letter of mine from P−?”

I did n’t tear it up in a rage,” she answered. “ I came across it the other day.”

“It was rather odd, my writing it, you know,” Roger confessed. “ But in my sudden desire to register a vow, I needed a friend. I turned to you as my best friend.” Mrs. Keith acknowledged the honor with a little bow. Had she made a mistake of old ? She very soon decided that Nora should not repeat it. Her hand-shake, as she left her friend, was generous ; it seemed to assure him that he might count upon her.

When, soon after, he made his appearance in her drawing-room, she gave him many a hint as to how to play his cards. But he irritated her by his slowness ; he was too circumspect by half. It was only in the evening that he took a hand in the game. During the day, he left Nora to her own affairs, and was in general neither more nor less attentive than if he had been some susceptible stranger. To spectators his present relation with the young girl was somewhat puzzling ; though Mrs. Keith, “by no ambiguous giving out,” had diffused a sympathetic expectancy. Roger wondered again and again whether Nora had guessed his meaning. He observed in her at times, in talk, he fancied, a forced nervous levity which seemed born of a need to conjure away the phantom of sentiment. And of this hostile need, of course, he hereupon strove to trace the lineage. He talked with her little, as yet, and never interfered in her talk with others ; but he watched her devotedly from corners, and caught her words through the hum of voices, at a distance, while she exchanged soft nothings with the rank and file of her admirers. He was lost in incredulity of his good fortune ; he rubbed his eyes. O heavenly favor of fate ! Sometimes, as she stood before him, he caught her looking at him with heavy eyes and uncertain lips, as if she were on the verge of some passionate confidence. Adding this to that, Roger found himself rudely confronted with the suspicion that she was in love. Search as he could, however, he was unable to find his man. It was no one there present ; they were all alike wasting their shot ; the enemy had stolen a march and was hidden in the very heart of the citadel. He appealed distractedly to Mrs. Keith. “ Lovesick, − lovesick is the word,” he groaned. “ I've read of it all my days in the poets, but here it is in the flesh. Poor girl, poor girl ! She plays her part well ; she’s wound up tight ; but the spring will snap and the watch run down. D−n the man ! I’d rather he had her than sit and see this.” He saw that his friend had bad news. “ Tell me everything,” he said ; “ don’t spare me.”

“You’ve noticed it at last,” she answered. “ I was afraid you would. Well! he’s not far to seek. Think it over; can’t you guess ? My dear Mr. Lawrence, you ’re celestially simple. Your cousin Hubert is not.”

“ Hubert ! ” Roger echoed, staring. A spasm passed over his face ; his eyes flashed. At last he hung his head. “ Good heavens ! Have I done it all for Hubert?”

“Not if I can help it!” cried Mrs. Keith, with force. “She mayn’t marry you ; but at the worst, she sha’ n’t marry him ! ”

Roger laid his hand on her arm; first heavily, then gently. “ Dear friend, she must be happy, at any cost. If she loves Hubert, she must marry him. I ’ll settle an income ! ”

Mrs. Keith gave his knuckles a great rap with her fan. “ You ’ll settle a fiddlestick! You’ll keep your money and you’ll have Miss Nora. Leave it to me ! If you have no regard for your rights, at least I have.”

“ Rights ? what rights have I ? I might have let her alone. I need n’t have settled down on her in her helpless childhood. O, Hubert’s a happy man ! Does he know it ? You must write to him. I can’t! ”

Mrs. Keith burst into a ringing laugh. “ Know it ? You ’re amazing ! Had n’t I better telegraph ? ”

Roger stared and frowned. “ Does he suspect it then ? ”

Mrs. Keith rolled up her eyes. “ Come,” she said, “ we must begin at the beginning. When you speak of your cousin, you open up a gulf. There ’s not much in it, it’s true ; but it’s a gulf. Your cousin is a knave, − neither more nor less. Allow me ; I know what I say. He knew, of course, of your plans for Nora ? ” Roger nodded. “Of course he did! He took his chance, therefore, while you were well out of the way. He lost no time, and if Nora is in love with him, he can tell you why. He knew that he could n’t marry her, that he should n’t, that he wouldn’t. But he made love to her, to pass the time. Happily, it passed soon. I had of course to be cautious ; but as soon as I saw how things were going, I spoke, and spoke to the point. Though he’s a knave, he’s no fool ; that was all he needed. He made his excuses, such as they were! I shall know in future what to think of him.”

Roger shook his head mournfully. “I’m afraid it’s not to be so easily settled. As you say, Hubert ’s a gulf. I never sounded it. The fact remains, they love each other. It’s hard, but it’s fatal.”

Mrs. Keith lost patience. “ Don’t try the heroic ; you ’ll break down,” she cried. “You’re the best of men, but I ’ll warrant you no saint. To begin with, Hubert doesn’t love her. He loves no one but himself! Nora must find her happiness where women as good have found it before this, in a sound, sensible marriage. She can’t marry Hubert; he’s engaged to another person. Yes, I have the facts ; a young girl in New York with whom he has been off and on for a couple of years, but who holds him to his bargain. I wish her joy of it! He’s not to be pitied ; she’s not Nora, but she’s a nice girl, and she’s to have money. So good-by to Hubert! As for you, cut the knot! She’s a bit sentimental just now ; but one sentiment, at that age, is as good as another ! And, my dear man, the girl has a conscience, it’s to be hoped ; give her a chance to show it. A word to the wise ! ”

Thus exhorted, Roger determined to act. The next day was a Sunday. While the ladies were at church he took up his position in their drawing-room. Nora came in alone ; Mrs. Keith had made a pretext for ascending to her own room, where she waited, breathing stout prayers. “ I’m glad to find you,” Nora said. “ I have been wanting particularly to speak to you. Is n’t my probation over ? Can’t I now come back ? ”

“ It’s about that,” he answered, “ that I came to talk to you. The probation, Nora, has been mine. Has it lasted long enough ! Do you love me yet ? Come back to me, come back to me as my wife.”

She looked at him, as he spoke, with a clear, unfrightened gaze, and, with his last words, broke frankly into a laugh. But as his own face was intensely grave, a gradual blush arrested her laugh. “Your wife, Roger?” she asked gently.

“ My wife. I offer you my hand. Dear Nora, is it so incredible ? ”

To his uttermost meaning, somehow, her ear was still closed, as if she fancied he was half joking. “ Is that the only condition on which we can live together ? ”

“ The only one − for me ! ”

She looked at him, still sounding his eyes with her own. But his passion, merciful still, retreated before her frank doubt. “ Ah,” she said, smiling, “ what a pity I have grown up ! ”

“ Well,” he said, “since you ’re grown we must make the best of it. Think of it, Nora, think of it. I’m not so old, you know. I was young when we begun. You know me so well; you’d be safe. It would simplify matters vastly; it’s at least to think of,” he went on, pleading for very tenderness, in this pitiful minor key. “ I know it must seem odd ; but I make you the offer ! ”

Nora was painfully startled. In this strange new character of a lover she seemed to see him eclipsed as a friend, now when, in the trouble of her love, she turned longingly to friendship. She was silent awhile, with her embarrassment. “ Dear Roger,” she answered, at last, “let me love you in the old, old way. Why need we change ? Nothing is so good, so safe as that. I thank you from my heart for your offer. You ’ve given me too much already. Marry any woman you please, and I ’ll be her serving-maid.”

He had no heart to meet her eyes ; he had wrought his own fate. Mechanically, he took up his hat and turned away, without speaking. She looked at him an instant, uncertain, and then, loath to part with him so abruptly, she laid her arm round his neck. “You don’t think me unkind?” she said. “ I ’ll do anything for you on earth ”− “ but that,” was unspoken, yet Roger heard it. The dream of years was shattered ; he felt sick ; he was dumb. “ You forgive me ? ” she went on. “ O Roger, Roger ! ” and, with a strange inconsequence of lovingness, she dropped her head on his shoulder. He held her for a moment as close as he had held his hope, and then released her as suddenly as he had parted with it. Before she knew it, he was gone.

Nora drew a long breath. It had all come and gone so fast that she was bewildered. It had been what she had heard called a “chance.” Suppose she had grasped at it ? She felt a kind of relief in the thought that she had been wise. That she had been cruel, she never suspected. She watched Roger, from the window, cross the street and take his way up the sunny slope. Two ladies passed him, friends as Nora saw; but he made no bow. Suddenly Nora’s reflections deepened and the scene became portentous. If she had been wrong, she had been horribly wrong. She hardly dared to think of it. She ascended to her own room, to counsel with familiar privacy. In the hall, as she passed, she found Mrs. Keith at her open door. This lady put her arm round her waist, led her into the chamber toward the light. “ Something has happened,” she said, looking at her curiously.

“Yes, I ’ve had an offer. From Roger.”

“Well, well?” Mrs. Keith was puzzled by her face.

“ Is n’t he good ? To think he should have thought it necessary! It was soon settled.”

“ Settled, dearest ? How ? ”

“ Why − why − ” And Nora began to smile the more resolutely, as her imagination had taken alarm. “ I declined.”

Mrs. Keith released her with a gesture almost of repulsion. “ Declined ? Unhappy girl ! ” The words were charged with a sort of righteous indignation so unusual to the speaker, that Nora’s conscience took the hint.

She turned very pale. “ What have I done ? ” she asked, appealingly.

“ Done, my dear ? You’ve done a blind, cruel act ! Look here.” And Mrs. Keith having hastily ransacked a drawer, turned about with an open letter. “ Read that and repent.”

Nora took the letter; it was old and crumpled, the ink faded. She glanced at the date, − that of her first schoolyear. In a moment she had read to the closing sentence. “ It will be my own fault if I have n’t a perfect wife.” In a moment more its heavy meaning overwhelmed her; its vital spark flashed back over the interval of years. She seemed to see Roger’s bent, stunned head in the street. Mrs. Keith was frightened at her work. Nora dropped the letter and stood staring, openmouthed, pale as death, with her poor young face blank with horror.

H. James Jr.