GEORGINA'S REASONS

By Henry James

1885

PART I. 

I. 

She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that hedid n't know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he shouldhave felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what hedid not feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charmwhich--once circumstances had made them so intimate--it was impossibleto resist or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amountedat times to a positive distress, and shot through the sense ofpleasure--morally speaking--with the acuteness of a sudden twinge ofneuralgia) that it would be better for each of them that they shouldbreak off short and never see each other again. In later years he calledthis feeling a foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when hehad been on the point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact, he never expressed it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happylove is not disposed to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon'slove was happy, in spite of grave presentiments, in spite of thesingularity of his mistress and the insufferable rudeness of herparents. She was a tall, fair girl, with a beautiful cold eye and asmile of which the perfect sweetness, proceeding from the lips, was fullof compensation; she had auburn hair of a hue that could be qualified asnothing less than gorgeous, and she seemed to move through life with astately grace, as she would have walked through an old-fashioned minuet. Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing manytypes of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York withthose of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of GoodHope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages, and being very fondof women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a position to appreciateGeorgina Gressie's fine points. She looked like a duchess, --I don't meanthat in foreign ports Benyon had associated with duchesses, --and shetook everything so seriously. That was flattering for the young man, who was only a lieutenant, detailed for duty at the Brooklyn navy-yard, without a penny in the world but his pay, with a set of plain, numerous, seafaring, God-fearing relations in New Hampshire, a considerableappearance of talent, a feverish, disguised ambition, and a slightimpediment in his speech. 

He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight andfine, and his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn. He stammered a little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals. I scarcely know how he appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in hiscivilian's garb, which was of the neatest, he had as little as possiblean aroma of winds and waves. He was neither salt nor brown, nor red, norparticularly "hearty. " He never twitched up his trousers, nor, so far asone could see, did he, with his modest, attentive manner, carry himselfas one accustomed to command. Of course, as a subaltern, he had moreto do in the way of obeying. He looked as if he followed some sedentarycalling, and was, indeed, supposed to be decidedly intellectual. Hewas a lamb with women, to whose charms he was, as I have hinted, susceptible; but with men he was different, and, I believe, as much of awolf as was necessary. He had a manner of adoring the handsome, insolentqueen of his affections (I will explain in a moment why I callher insolent); indeed, he looked up to her literally as well assentimentally; for she was the least bit the taller of the two. He hadmet her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, towhich, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over fromBrooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday, --the kind of day when thenavy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by hiscalling in Twelfth Street on New-Year's Day, --a considerable timeto wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not beentransitory. The acquaintance ripened, thanks to a zealous cultivation(on his part) of occasions which Providence, it must be confessed, placed at his disposal none too liberally; so that now Georgina tookup all his thoughts and a considerable part of his time. He was in lovewith her, beyond a doubt; but he could not flatter himself that she wasin love with him, though she appeared willing (what was so strange) toquarrel with her family about him. He did n't see how she could reallycare for him, --she seemed marked out by nature for so much greatera fortune; and he used to say to her, "Ah, you don't--there's no usetalking, you don't--really care for me at all!" To which she answered, "Really? You are very particular. It seems to me it's real enough if Ilet you touch one of my fingertips! "That was one of her ways of beinginsolent Another was simply her manner of looking at him, or atother people (when they spoke to her), with her hard, divine blueeye, --looking quietly, amusedly, with the air of considering (whollyfrom her own point of view) what they might have said, and then turningher head or her back, while, without taking the trouble to answer them, she broke into a short, liquid, irrelevant laugh. This may seem tocontradict what I said just now about her taking the young lieutenantin the navy seriously. What I mean is that she appeared to take him moreseriously than she took anything else. She said to him once, "At anyrate you have the merit of not being a shop-keeper;" and it was by thisepithet she was pleased to designate most of the young men who at thattime flourished in the best society of New York. Even if she had rathera free way of expressing general indifference, a young lady is supposedto be serious enough when she consents to marry you. For the rest, as regards a certain haughtiness that might be observed in GeoiginaGressie, my story will probably throw sufficient light upon it Sheremarked to Benyon once that it was none of his business why she likedhim, but that, to please herself, she did n't mind telling him shethought the great Napoleon, before he was celebrated, before he hadcommand of the army of Italy, must have looked something like him;and she sketched in a few words the sort of figure she imaginedthe incipient Bonaparte to have been, --short, lean, pale, poor, intellectual, and with a tremendous future under his hat Benyon askedhimself whether _he_ had a tremendous future, and what in the worldGeoigina expected of him in the coming years. He was flattered at thecomparison, he was ambitious enough not to be frightened at it, and heguessed that she perceived a certain analogy between herself and theEmpress Josephine. She would make a very good empress. That was true;Georgina was remarkably imperial. This may not at first seem to make itmore clear why she should take into her favor an aspirant who, on theface of the matter, was not original, and whose Corsica was a flat NewEngland seaport; but it afterward became plain that he owed his briefhappiness--it was very brief--to her father's opposition; her father'sand her mother's, and even her uncles' and her aunts'. In those days, in New York, the different members of a family took an interest in itsalliances, and the house of Gressie looked askance at an engagementbetween the most beautiful of its daughters and a young man who was notin a paying business. Georgina declared that they were meddlesome andvulgar, --she could sacrifice her own people, in that way, withouta scruple, --and Benyon's position improved from the moment that Mr. Gressie--ill-advised Mr. Gressie--ordered the girl to have nothing to dowith him. Georgina was imperial in this--that she wouldn't put up withan order. When, in the house in Twelfth Street, it began to be talkedabout that she had better be sent to Europe with some eligible friend, Mrs. Portico, for instance, who was always planning to go, and whowanted as a companion some young mind, fresh from manuals and extracts, to serve as a fountain of history and geography, --when this scheme forgetting Georgina out of the way began to be aired, she immediately saidto Raymond Benyon, "Oh, yes, I 'll marry you!" She said it in such anoff-hand way that, deeply as he desired her, he was almost tempted toanswer, "But, my dear, have you really thought about it?"

This little drama went on, in New York, in the ancient days, whenTwelfth Street had but lately ceased to be suburban, when the squareshad wooden palings, which were not often painted; when there werepoplars in important thoroughfares and pigs in the lateral ways; whenthe theatres were miles distant from Madison Square, and the batteredrotunda of Castle Garden echoed with expensive vocal music; when "thepark" meant the grass-plats of the city hall, and the Bloomingdaleroad was an eligible drive; when Hoboken, of a summer afternoon, was agenteel resort, and the handsomest house in town was on the cornerof the Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. This will strike the modernreader, I fear, as rather a primitive epoch; but I am not sure that thestrength of human passions is in proportion to the elongation of a city. Several of them, at any rate, the most robust and most familiar, --love, ambition, jealousy, resentment, greed, --subsisted in considerable forcein the little circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no meansfavorable was taken of Raymond Benyon's attentions to Miss Gressie. Unanimity was a family trait among these people (Georgina was anexception), especially in regard to the important concerns of life, suchas marriages and closing scenes. The Gressies hung together; theywere accustomed to do well for themselves and for each other. They dideverything well: got themselves born well (they thought it excellent tobe born a Gressie), lived well, married well, died well, and managed tobe well spoken of afterward. In deference to this last-mentioned habit, I must be careful what I say of them. They took an interest in eachother's concerns, an interest that could never be regarded as of ameddlesome nature, inasmuch as they all thought alike about all theiraffairs, and interference took the happy form of congratulation andencouragement. These affairs were invariably lucky, and, as a generalthing, no Gressie had anything to do but feel that another Gressie hadbeen almost as shrewd and decided as he himself would have been. Thegreat exception to that, as I have said, was this case of Georgina, whostruck such a false note, a note that startled them all, when she toldher father that she should like to unite herself to a young man engagedin the least paying business that any Gressie had ever heard of. Her twosisters had married into the most flourishing firms, and it was notto be thought of that--with twenty cousins growing up around her--sheshould put down the standard of success. Her mother had told her afortnight before this that she must request Mr. Benyon to cease comingto the house; for hitherto his suit had been of the most public andresolute character. He had been conveyed up town from the Brooklynferry, in the "stage, " on certain evenings, had asked for Miss Georginaat the door of the house in Twelfth Street, and had sat with her in thefront parlor if her parents happened to occupy the back, or in the backif the family had disposed itself in the front. Georgina, in her way, was a dutiful girl, and she immediately repeated her mother's admonitionto Beuyon. He was not surprised, for though he was aware that he hadnot, as yet, a great knowledge of society, he flattered himself he couldtell when--and where--a young man was not wanted. There were houses inBrooklyn where such an animal was much appreciated, and there the signswere quite different They had been discouraging--except on Georgina'spail--from the first of his calling in Twelfth Street Mr. And Mrs. Gressie used to look at each other in silence when he came in, andindulge in strange, perpendicular salutations, without any shaking ofhands. People did that at Portsmouth, N. H. , when they were glad tosee you; but in New York there was more luxuriance, and gesture had adifferent value. He had never, in Twelfth Street, been asked to "takeanything, " though the house had a delightful suggestion, a positivearoma, of sideboards, --as if there were mahogany "cellarettes" underevery table. The old people, moreover, had repeatedly expressed surpriseat the quantity of leisure that officers in the navy seemed to enjoy. The only way in which they had not made themselves offensive wasby always remaining in the other room; though at times even thisdetachment, to which he owed some delightful moments, presented itselfto Benyon as a form of disapprobation. Of course, after Mrs. Gressie'smessage, his visits were practically at an end; he would n't give thegirl up, but he would n't be beholden to her father for the opportunityto converse with her. Nothing was left for the tender couple--therewas a curious mutual mistrust in their tenderness--but to meet in thesquares, or in the topmost streets, or in the sidemost avenues, onthe afternoons of spring. It was especially during this phase of theirrelations that Georgina struck Benyon as imperial Her whole personseemed to exhale a tranquil, happy consciousness of having broken a law. She never told him how she arranged the matter at home, how she found itpossible always to keep the appointments (to meet him out of the house)that she so boldly made, in what degree she dissimulated to her parents, and how much, in regard to their continued acquaintance, the old peoplesuspected and accepted. If Mr. And Mrs. Gressie had forbidden him thehouse, it was not, apparently, because they wished her to walk with himin the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side under the blossoming lilacsin Stuyvesant Square. He didn't believe that she told lies in TwelfthStreet; he thought she was too imperial to lie; and he wondered what shesaid to her mother when, at the end of nearly a whole afternoon of vagueperegrination with her lover, this bridling, bristling matron asked herwhere she had been. Georgina was capable of simply telling the truth;and yet if she simply told the truth, it was a wonder that she had notbeen simply packed off to Europe. 

Benyon's ignorance of her pretexts is a proof that this ratheroddly-mated couple never arrived at perfect intimacy, --in spite of afact which remains to be related. He thought of this afterwards, andthought how strange it was that he had not felt more at liberty to askher what she did for him, and how she did it, and how much she sufferedfor him. She would probably not have admitted that she suffered at all, and she had no wish to pose for a martyr. Benyon remembered this, asI say, in the after years, when he tried to explain to himself certainthings which simply puzzled him; it came back to him with the vision, already faded, of shabby cross-streets, straggling toward rivers, withred sunsets, seen through a haze of dust, at the end; a vista throughwhich the figures of a young man and a girl slowly receded anddisappeared, --strolling side by side, with the relaxed pace of desultorytalk, but more closely linked as they passed into the distance, linkedby its at last appearing safe to them--in the Tenth Avenue--that theyoung lady should take his arm. They were always approaching thatinferior thoroughfare; but he could scarcely have told you, in thosedays, what else they were approaching. He had nothing in the world buthis pay, and he felt that this was rather a "mean" income to offer MissGressie. Therefore he did n't put it forward; what he offered, instead, was the expression--crude often, and almost boyishly extravagant--of adelighted admiration of her beauty, the tenderest tones of his voice, the softest assurances of his eye and the most insinuating pressure ofher hand at those moments when she consented to place it in his arm. All this was an eloquence which, if necessary, might have been condensedinto a single sentence; but those few words were scarcely needful, whenit was as plain that he expected--in general--she would marry him, as itwas indefinite that he counted upon her for living on a few hundredsa year. If she had been a different girl he might have asked her towait, --might have talked to her of the coming of better days, of hisprospective promotion, of its being wiser, perhaps, that he should leavethe navy and look about for a more lucrative career. With Georgina itwas difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste whatever fordetail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a young manis in love he discovers that; but she could not be called helpful, forshe never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so till theday she really proposed--for that was the form it took--to become hiswife without more delay. "Oh, yes, I will marry you;" these words, whichI quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to something hehad said at the moment, as the light conclusion of a report she had justmade, for the first time, of her actual situation in her father's house. 

"I am afraid I shall have to see less of you, " she had begun by saying. "They watch me so much. "

"It is very little already, " he answered. "What is once or twice aweek?"

"That's easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don't knowwhat I go through. "

"Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?" Benyonasked. 

"No, of course not. Don't you know us enough to know how we behave? Noscenes, --that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself, andI never will--that's one comfort for you, for the future, if you want toknow. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I were oneof the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they scarcelysay anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try anddecide what is to be done. It's my belief that father has written to thepeople in Washington--what do you call it! the Department--to have youmoved away from Brooklyn, --to have you sent to sea. "

"I guess that won't do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they don'twant me at sea. "

"Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose totake me, " Geoigina said. 

"How can they take you, if you won't go? And if you should go, what goodwould it do, if you were only to find me here when you came back, justthe same as you left me?"

"Oh, well!" said Georgina, with her lovely smile, "of course they thinkthat absence would cure me of--cure me of--" And she paused, with acertain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what. 

"Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it, " the young manmurmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm. 

"Of my absurd infatuation!"

"And would it, dearest?"

"Yes, very likely. But I don't mean to try. I sha'n't go to Europe, --notwhen I don't want to. But it's better I should see less of you, --eventhat I should appear--a little--to give you up. "

"A little? What do you call a little?"

Georgina said nothing, for a moment. "Well, that, for instance, youshould n't hold my hand quite so tight!" And she disengaged thisconscious member from the pressure of his arm. 

"What good will that do?" Benyon asked, "It will make them think it 's all over, --that we have agreed to part. "

"And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?"

They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumberingslowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face toher lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last:"Nothing will help us; I don't think we are very happy, " she answered, while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about herbeautiful lips. 

"I don't understand how you see things. I thought you were going to sayyou would marry me!" Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though thedray had passed. 

"Oh, yes, I will marry you!" And she moved away, across the street. Thatwas the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristicof her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they weresomewhere else, --he hardly knew where the proper place would be, --sothat he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separatedthat day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be verypoor, reminding her how great a change she would find it She answeredthat she should n't mind, and presently she said that if this was allthat prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The nexttime he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to hissurprise, it was now her conviction that she had better not leave herfather's house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; butthey would wait awhile to let their union be known. 

"What good will it do us, then?" Raymond Benyon asked. 

Georgina colored. "Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you!"

Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he couldnot see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. Whenhe asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should givethem the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parentswould probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly, after six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposedthat she had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not; but hehad already perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He hadbelieved her capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure ofdefiance was absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, itappeared that she was not especially anxious to defy, --she was disposedrather to manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of awaiting game. 

"Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man, "Georgina said. "I shall know much better than you the right moment forsaying, 'Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we havealready done it!'"

That might very well be, but Benyon did n't quite understand, and he wasawkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh thatthere was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply thatthe loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into hisarms. When he said to her, "There is one thing I hate in this plan ofyours, --that, for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father shouldsupport my wife, "--when he made this homely remark, with a little flushof sincerity in his face, she gave him a specimen of that unanswerablelaugh of hers, and declared that it would serve Mr. Gressie right forbeing so barbarous and so horrid. It was Benyon's view that from themoment she disobeyed her father, she ought to cease to avail herselfof his protection; but I am bound to add that he was not particularlysurprised at finding this a kind of honor in which her femininenature was little versed. To make her his wife first--at the earliestmoment--whenever she would, and trust to fortune, and the new influencehe should have, to give him, as soon thereafter as possible, completepossession of her, --this rather promptly presented itself to the youngman as the course most worthy of a person of spirit. He would be onlya pedant who would take nothing because he could not get everything atonce. They wandered further than usual this afternoon, and the dusk wasthick by the time he brought her back to her father's door. It was nothis habit to como so near it, but to-day they had so much to talk aboutthat he actually stood with her for ten minutes at the foot of thesteps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it rest there whileshe said, --by way of a remark that should sum up all their reasons andreconcile their differences, --

"There's one great thing it will do, you know; it will make me safe. "

"Safe from what?"

"From marrying any one else. "

"Ah, my girl, if you were to do that--!" Benyon exclaimed; but he didn't mention the other branch of the contingency. Instead of this, helooked up at the blind face of the house--there were only dim lights intwo or three windows, and no apparent eyes--and up and down the emptystreet, vague in the friendly twilight; after which he drew GeorginaGressie to his breast and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Yes, decidedly, he felt, they had better be married. She had run quickly upthe steps, and while she stood there, with her hand on the bell, shealmost hissed at him, under her breath, "Go away, go away; Amanda'scoming!" Amanda was the parlor-maid, and it was in those terms that theTwelfth Street Juliet dismissed her Brooklyn Romeo. As he wandered backinto the Fifth Avenue, where the evening air was conscious of a vernalfragrance from the shrubs in the little precinct of the pretty Gothicchurch ornamenting that charming part of the street, he was too absorbedin the impression of the delightful contact from which the girl hadviolently released herself to reflect that the great reason she hadmentioned a moment before was a reason for their marrying, of course, but not in the least a reason for their not making it public. But, as Isaid in the opening lines of this chapter, if he did not understand hismistress's motives at the end, he cannot be expected to have understoodthem at the beginning. 

II. 

Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe;but she had not yet--I mean a year after the incident I have justrelated--put her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course, were required; it was necessary that her companion should be of the sexwhich sinks most naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals, and pauses most frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebratedviews. She was a widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all ofwhom were in Wall Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed paceat which she expected to take her foreign tour. They were all in a stateof tension. They went through life standing. She was a short, broad, high-colored woman, with a loud voice, and superabundant black hair, arranged in a way peculiar to herself, --with so many combs and bandsthat it had the appearance of a national coiffure. There was animpression in New York, about 1845, that the style was Danish; some onehad said something about having seen it in Schleswig-Holstein. 

Mrs. Portico had a bold, humorous, slightly flamboyant look; people whosaw her for the first time received an impression that her late husbandhad married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of amenageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her insome way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that shemight have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however, even if you were not sufficiently initiated to know--as all theGrossies, for instance, knew so well--that her origin, so far frombeing enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might haveboasted of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, she didn'tboast of anything; she was a genial, easy, comical, irreverent person, with a large charity, a democratic, fraternizing turn of mind, and acontempt for many worldly standards, which she expressed not in theleast in general axioms (for she had a mortal horror of philosophy), butin violent ejaculations on particular occasions. She had not a grain ofmoral timidity, and she fronted a delicate social problem as sturdily asshe would have barred the way of a gentleman she might have met in hervestibule with the plate-chest The only thing which prevented her beinga bore in orthodox circles was that she was incapable of discussion. Shenever lost her temper, but she lost her vocabulary, and ended quietlyby praying that Heaven would give her an opportunity to _show_ what shebelieved. 

She was an old friend of Mr. And Mrs. Gressie, who esteemed her for theantiquity of her lineage and the frequency of her subscriptions, and towhom she rendered the service of making them feel liberal, --likepeople too sure of their own position to be frightened. She was theirindulgence, their dissipation, their point of contact with dangerousheresies; so long as they continued to see her they could not be accusedof being narrow-minded, --a matter as to which they were perhaps vaguelyconscious of the necessity of taking their precautions. Mrs. Porticonever asked herself whether she liked the Gressies; she had nodisposition for morbid analysis, she accepted transmitted associations, and she found, somehow, that her acquaintance with these people helpedher to relieve herself. She was always making scenes in theirdrawing-room, scenes half indignant, half jocose, like all hermanifestations, to which it must be confessed that they adaptedthemselves beautifully. They never "met" her in the language ofcontroversy; but always collected to watch her, with smiles andcomfortable platitudes, as if they envied her superior richness oftemperament She took an interest in Georgina, who seemed to herdifferent from the others, with suggestions about her of being likelynot to marry so unrefreshingly as her sisters had done, and of a high, bold standard of duty. Her sisters had married from duty, but Mrs. Portico would rather have chopped off one of her large, plump hands thanbehave herself so well as that She had, in her daughterless condition, acertain ideal of a girl that should be beautiful and romantic, withlustrous eyes, and a little persecuted, so that she, Mrs. Portico, mightget her out of her troubles. She looked to Georgina, to a considerabledegree, to gratify her in this way; but she had really never understoodGeoigina at all She ought to have been shrewd, but she lacked thisrefinement, and she never understood anything until after manydisappointments and vexations. It was difficult to startle her, but shewas much startled by a communication that this young lady made her onefine spring morning. With her florid appearance and her speculativemind, she was probably the most innocent woman in New York. 

Georgina came very early, --earlier even than visits were paid in NewYork thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking herstraight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great troubleand must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect nosymptom of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful as the Aprilday itself; she held up her head and smiled, with a sort of familiarbravado, looking like a young woman who would naturally be on good termswith fortune. It was not in the least in the tone of a person making aconfession or relating a misadventure that she presently said: "Well, you must know, to begin with--of course, it will surprise you--that I 'mmarried. "

"Married, Georgina Grossie!" Mrs. Portico repeated in her most resonanttones. 

Georgina got up, walked with her majestic step across the room, andclosed the door. Then she stood there, her back pressed against themahogany panels, indicating only by the distance she had placed betweenherself and her hostess the consciousness of an irregular position. "Iam not Georgina Gressie! I am Georgina Benyon, --and it has become plain, within a short time, that the natural consequence will take place. "

Mrs. Portico was altogether bewildered. "The natural consequence?" sheexclaimed, staring. 

"Of one's being married, of course, --I suppose you know what that is. Noone must know anything about it. I want you to take me to Europe. "

Mrs. Portico now slowly rose from her place, and approached her visitor, looking at her from head to foot as she did so, as if to challenge thetruth of her remarkable announcement. She rested her hands on Georgina'sshoulders a moment, gazing into her blooming face, and then she drew hercloser and kissed her. In this way the girl was conducted back to thesofa, where, in a conversation of extreme intimacy, she opened Mrs. Portico's eyes wider than they had ever been opened before. She wasRaymond Benyon's wife; they had been married a year, but no one knewanything about it. She had kept it from every one, and she meant to goon keeping it. The ceremony had taken place in a little Episcopal churchat Harlem, one Sunday afternoon, after the service. There was no one inthat dusty suburb who knew them; the clergyman, vexed at being detained, and wanting to go home to tea, had made no trouble; he tied the knotbefore they could turn round. It was ridiculous how easy it had been. Raymond had told him frankly that it must all be under the rose, as theyoung lady's family disapproved of what she was doing. But she was oflegal age, and perfectly free; he could see that for himself. The parsonhad given a grunt as he looked at her over his spectacles. It was notvery complimentary; it seemed to say that she was indeed no chicken. Ofcourse she looked old for a girl; but she was not a girl now, was she?Raymond had certified his own identity as an officer in the UnitedStates Navy (he had papers, besides his uniform, which he wore), andintroduced the clergyman to a friend he had brought with him, who wasalso in the navy, a venerable paymaster. It was he who gave Georginaaway, as it were; he was an old, old man, a regular grandmother, andperfectly safe. He had been married three times himself. After theceremony she went back to her father's; but she saw Mr. Benyon the nextday. After that, she saw him--for a little while--pretty often. Hewas always begging her to come to him altogether; she must do him thatjustice. But she wouldn't--she wouldn't now--perhaps she would n'tever. She had her reasons, which seemed to her very good, but were verydifficult to explain. She would tell Mrs. Portico in plenty of time whatthey were. But that was not the question now, whether they were good orbad; the question was for her to get away from the country for severalmonths, --far away from any one who had ever known her. She would liketo go to some little place in Spain or Italy, where she should be out ofthe world until everything was over. 

Mrs. Portico's heart gave a jump as this serene, handsome, familiargirl, sitting there with a hand in hers, and pouring forth thisextraordinary tale, spoke of everything being over. There was a glossycoldness in it, an unnatural lightness, which suggested--poor Mrs. Portico scarcely knew what. If Georgina was to become a mother, itwas to be supposed she was to remain a mother. She said there was abeautiful place in Italy--Genoa--of which Raymond had often spoken--andwhere he had been more than once, --he admired it so much; could n'tthey go there and be quiet for a little while? She was asking a greatfavor, --that she knew very well; but if Mrs. Portico would n't take her, she would find some one who would. They had talked of such a journeyso often; and, certainly, if Mrs. Portico had been willing before, sheought to be much more willing now. The girl declared that she must dosomething, --go somewhere, --keep, in one way or another, her situationunperceived. There was no use talking to her about telling, --she wouldrather die than tell. No doubt it seemed strange, but she knew what shewas about. No one had guessed anything yet, --she had succeeded perfectlyin doing what she wished, --and her father and mother believed--as Mrs. Portico had believed, --had n't she?--that, any time the last year, Raymond Beuyon was less to her than he had been before. Well, so he was;yes, he was. He had gone away--he was off, Heaven knew where--in thePacific; she was alone, and now she would remain alone. The familybelieved it was all over, --with his going back to his ship, and otherthings, and they were right: for it _was_ over, or it would be soon. 

Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;_she_ had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame. Ifthe good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more, she would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georginawith dilated eyes, --her visitor was so much the calmer of the two, --andexclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and wipedher forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things she didn'tunderstand; that they should all have been so deceived, that they shouldhave thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they flattered themselvesshe was discouraged, or had grown tired of him), when she was reallyonly making it impossible she should belong to any one else. And withthis, her inconsequence, her capriciousness, her absence of motive, theway she contradicted herself, her apparent belief that she could hush upsuch a situation forever! There was nothing shameful in having marriedpoor Mr. Benyon, even in a little church at Harlem, and being given awayby a paymaster. It was much more shameful to be in such a state withoutbeing prepared to make the proper explanations. And she must haveseen very little of her husband; she must have given him up--so faras meeting him went--almost as soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs. Gressie herself told Mrs. Portico (in the preceding October, it musthave been) that there now would be no need of sending Georgina away, inasmuch as the affair with the little navy man--a project in every wayso unsuitable--had quite blown over?

"After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less, "Georgina explained; but her explanation only appeared to make themystery more dense. 

"I don't see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!"

"We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up. Ofcourse we were really more intimate, --I saw him differently, " Georginasaid, smiling. 

"I should think so! I can't for the life of me see why you were n'tdiscovered. "

"All I can say is we weren't No doubt it's remarkable. We managed verywell, --that is, I managed, --he did n't want to manage at all. And then, father and mother are incredibly stupid!"

Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole, that she had n't a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a fewmore details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered fromBrooklyn to Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhapsknew, there was another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary pressof work, requiring more oversight He had remained there several months, during which he had written to her urgently to come to him, and duringwhich, as well, he had received notice that he was to rejoin his ship alittle later. Before doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a few weeksto wind up his work there, and then she had seen him--well, prettyoften. That was the best time of all the year that had elapsed sincetheir marriage. It was a wonder at home that nothing had then beenguessed; because she had really been reckless, and Benyon had even triedto force on a disclosure. But they _were_ stupid, that was very certain. He had besought her again and again to put an end to their falseposition, but she did n't want it any more than she had wanted itbefore. They had rather a bad parting; in fact, for a pair of lovers, itwas a very queer parting indeed. He did n't know, now, the thing she hadcome to tell Mrs. Portico. She had not written to him. He was on a verylong cruise. It might be two years before he returned to the UnitedStates. "I don't care how long he stays away, " Georgina said, verysimply. 

"You haven't mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don't remember, "Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh. 

"Oh, yes; I loved him!"

"And you have got over that?"

Georgina hesitated a moment. "Why, no, Mrs. Portico, of course Ihaven't; Raymond's a splendid fellow. "

"Then why don't you live with him? You don't explain that. "

"What would be the use when he's always away? How can one live with aman that spends half his life in the South Seas? If he was n't inthe navy it would be different; but to go through everything, --I meaneverything that making our marriage known would bring upon me, --thescolding and the exposure and the ridicule, the scenes at home, --to gothrough it all, just for the idea, and yet be alone here, just as Iwas before, without my husband after all, --with none of the good ofhim, "--and here Georgina looked at her hostess as if with thecertitude that such an enumeration of inconveniences would touch hereffectually, --"really, Mrs. Portico, I am bound to say I don't thinkthat would be worth while; I haven't the courage for it. "

"I never thought you were a coward, " said Mrs. Portico. 

"Well, I am not, --if you will give me time. I am very patient. "

"I never thought that, either. "

"Marrying changes one, " said Georgina, still smiling. 

"It certainly seems to have had a very peculiar effect upon you. Whydon't you make him leave the navy, and arrange your life comfortably, like every one else?"

"I would n't for the world interfere with his prospects--with hispromotion. That is sure to come for him, and to come quickly, he hassuch talents. He is devoted to his profession; it would ruin him toleave it. "

"My dear young woman, you are a wonderful creature!" Mrs. Porticoexclaimed, looking at her companion as if she had been in a glass case. 

"So poor Raymond says, " Georgina answered, smiling more than ever. 

"Certainly, I should have been very sorry to marry a navy man; but if Ihad married him, I should stick to him, in the face of all the scoldingsin the universe!"

"I don't know what your parents may have been; I know what mine are, ", Georgina replied, with some dignity. "When he's a captain, we shall comeout of hiding. "

"And what shall you do meanwhile? What will you do with your children?Where will you hide them? What will you do with this one?"

Georgina rested her eyes on her lap for a minute; then, raising them, she met those of Mrs. Portico. "Somewhere in Europe, " she said, in hersweet tone. 

"Georgina Gressie, you 're a monster!" the elder lady cried. 

"I know what I am about, and you will help me, " the girl went on. 

"I will go and tell your father and mother the whole story, --that's whatI will do!"

"I am not in the least afraid of that, not in the least. You will helpme, --I assure you that you will. "

"Do you mean I will support the child?"

Georgina broke into a laugh. "I do believe you would, if I were to askyou! But I won't go so far as that; I have something of my own. All Iwant you to do is to be with me. "

"At Genoa, --yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is sofond of the place. That's all very well; but how will he like his infantbeing deposited there?"

"He won't like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth, " saidGeorgina, gently. 

"Much obliged; it's a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power, then, to make you behave properly. _He_ can publish your marriage if youwon't; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child. "

"Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will neverbreak a promise; he will go through fire first. "

"And what have you got him to promise?'

"Never to insist on a disclosure against my will; never to claim meopenly as his wife till I think it is time; never to let any one knowwhat has passed between us if I choose to keep it still a secret--tokeep it for years--to keep it forever. Never to do anything in thematter himself, but to leave it to me. For this he has given me hissolemn word of honor. And I know what that means!"

Mrs. Portico, on the sofa, fairly bounded. 

"You _do_ know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as morefantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such animbecile vow. What good can it do him?"

"What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At thetime he took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It wasa condition I exacted just at the very last, before the marriage tookplace. There was nothing at that moment he would have refused me;there was nothing I could n't have made him do. He was in love to thatdegree--but I don't want to boast, " said Georgina, with quiet grandeur. "He wanted--he wanted--" she added; but then she paused. 

"He does n't seem to have wanted much!" Mrs. Portico cried, in a tonewhich made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached thestreet. 

Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: "Oh, my dear, if I ever dotell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!"

"You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted thesanction--of the affair at the church--because he saw that I would neverdo without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and, to hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge. "

"You have got it pat enough, " said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. "Idon't know what you mean by sanctions, or what _you_ wanted of 'em!"

Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful headwhich, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yetperceptibly abated of its elevation. "Would you have liked me to--to notmarry?"

Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwontedknowledge, --it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her favoritecupboard, --faced her young friend for a moment. Then her conflictingsentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question, uttered, --forMrs. Portico, --with much solemnity: "Georgina Gressie, were you reallyin love with him?"

The question suddenly dissipated the girl's strange, studied, wilfulcoldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion, --a passion that, for the moment, was predominantly anger, "Why else, in Heaven's name, should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married him?What under the sun had I to gain?"

A certain quiver in Georgina's voice, a light in her eye which seemed toMrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words, caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anythingshe had yet said. She took the girl's hand and emitted indefinite, admonitory sounds. "Help me, my dear old friend, help me, " Georginacontinued, in a low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico sawthat the tears were in her eyes. 

"You 're a queer mixture, my child, " she exclaimed. "Go straight home toyour own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help. "

"You are kinder than my mother. You must n't judge her by yourself. "

"What can she do to you? How can she hurt you? We are not living inpagan times, " said Mrs. Portico, who was seldom so historical "Besides, you have no reason to speak of your mother--to think of her, even--so!She would have liked you to marry a man of some property; but she hasalways been a good mother to you. "

At this rebuke Georgina suddenly kindled again; she was, indeed, as Mrs. Portico had said, a queer mixture. Conscious, evidently, that she couldnot satisfactorily justify her present stiffness, she wheeled round upona grievance which absolved her from self-defence. "Why, then, did hemake that promise, if he loved me? No man who really loved me would havemade it, --and no man that was a man, as I understand being a man! Hemight have seen that I only did it to test him, --to see if he wanted totake advantage of being left free himself. It is a proof that he doesn't love me, --not as he ought to have done; and in such a case as that awoman is n't bound to make sacrifices!"

Mrs. Portico was not a person of a nimble intellect; her mind movedvigorously, but heavily; yet she sometimes made happy guesses. She sawthat Georgia's emotions were partly real and partly fictitious; that, as regards this last matter, especially, she was trying to "get up" aresentment, in order to excuse herself. The pretext was absurd, and thegood lady was struck with its being heartless on the part of her youngvisitor to reproach poor Benyon with a concession on which she hadinsisted, and which could only be a proof of his devotion, inasmuch ashe left her free while he bound himself. Altogether, Mrs. Portico wasshocked and dismayed at such a want of simplicity in the behavior of ayoung person whom she had hitherto believed to be as candid as she waselegant, and her appreciation of this discovery expressed itself in theuncompromising remark: "You strike me as a very bad girl, my dear; youstrike me as a very bad girl!"

PART II. 

III. 

It will doubtless seem to the reader very singular that, in spite ofthis reflection, which appeared to sum up her judgment of the matter, Mrs. Portico should, in the course of a very few days, have consented toeverything that Georgina asked of her. I have thought it well to narrateat length the first conversation that took place between them, but Ishall not trace further the details of the girl's hard pleading, orthe steps by which--in the face of a hundred robust and salutaryconvictions--the loud, kind, sharp, simple, sceptical, credulous womantook under her protection a damsel whose obstinacy she could not speakof without getting red with anger. It was the simple fact of Georgina'spersonal condition that moved her; this young lady's greatest eloquencewas the seriousness of her predicament She might be bad, and she had asplendid, careless, insolent, fair-faced way of admitting it, which atmoments, incoherently, inconsistently, and irresistibly, resolved theharsh confession into tears of weakness; but Mrs. Portico had known herfrom her rosiest years, and when Georgina declared that she could n't gohome, that she wished to be with her and not with her mother, that shecould n't expose herself, --how could she?--and that she must remain withher and her only till the day they should sail, the poor lady was forcedto make that day a reality. She was overmastered, she was cajoled, she was, to a certain extent, fascinated. She had to accept Georgina'srigidity (she had none of her own to oppose to it; she was only violent, she was not continuous), and once she did this, it was plain, after all, that to take her young friend to Europe was to help her, and to leaveher alone was not to help her. Georgina literally frightened Mrs. Portico into compliance. She was evidently capable of strange things ifthrown upon her own devices. 

So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was reallyat last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her thatif she did n't look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and thatshe had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on herfeet, to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at thisannouncement, for though the danger was over, it was a great generaladvantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at theprospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr. Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn't seem likely thatMrs. Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had takenit into her head to favor their love affair, she would have doneit frankly, and Georgina would have been married by this time. Herarrangements were made as quickly as her decision had been--or ratherhad appeared--slow; for this concerned those agile young men down town. Georgina was perpetually at her house; it was understood in TwelfthStreet that she was talking over her future travels with her kindfriend. Talk there was, of course to a considerable degree; but after itwas settled they should start nothing more was said about the motiveof the journey. Nothing was said, that is, till the night before theysailed; then a few words passed between them. Georgina had alreadytaken leave of her relations in Twelfth Street, and was to sleep atMrs. Portico's in order to go down to the ship at an early hour. Thetwo ladies were sitting together in the firelight, silent, with theconsciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one suddenly remarked toher companion that she seemed to be taking a great deal upon herself inassuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn't force her hand. _He_ mightchoose to acknowledge his child, if she didn't; there were promisesand promises, and many people would consider they had been let off whencircumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr. Benyonmore than she thought. 

"I know what I am about, " Georgina answered. "There is only one promise, for him. I don't know what you mean by circumstances being altered. "

"Everything seems to me to be changed, " poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather tragically. 

"Well, he is n't, and he never will! I am sure of him, --as sure as thatI sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n't knownhe was a man of his word?"

"You have chosen him well, my dear, " said Mrs. Portico, who by this timewas reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence. 

"Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will beperfectly splendid. " Then suddenly, "Perfectly splendid, --that's why Icared for him!" she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion. 

This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; butshe had given up trying to understand anything that the girl mightsay or do. She understood less and less, after they had disembarked inEngland and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of allwhen, in the middle of the winter, the event came off with which, inimagination, she had tried to familiarize herself, but which, when itoccurred, seemed to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It tookplace at Genoa, for Georgina had made up her mind that there would bemore privacy in a big town than in a little; and she wrote to Americathat both Mrs. Portico and she had fallen in love with the place andwould spend two or three months there. At that time people in the UnitedStates knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractionsof foreign cities, and it was not thought surprising that absentNew Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might findapartments, according to Georgina's report, in a palace painted infresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it willbe seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs. Portico's long stay atGenoa. In such a palace--where the travellers hired twenty gilded roomsfor the most insignificant sum--a remarkably fine boy came into theworld. Nothing could have been more successful and comfortable thanthis transaction. Mrs. Portico was almost appalled at the facility andfelicity of it. She was by this time in a pretty bad way, and--whathad never happened to her before in her life--she suffered from chronicdepression of spirits. She hated to have to lie, and now she was lyingall the time. Everything she wrote home, everything that had been saidor done in connection with their stay in Genoa, was a lie. The waythey remained indoors to avoid meeting chance compatriots was a lie. Compatriots, in Genoa, at that period, were very rare; but nothing couldexceed the businesslike completeness of Georgina's precautions. Hernerves, her self-possession, her apparent want of feeling, excited onMrs. Portico's part a kind of gloomy suspense; a morbid anxiety to seehow far her companion would go took possession of the excellent woman, who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on disagreeable things. 

Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power todissimulate the origin of her child. The record of its birth was madeunder a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by aCatholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light bythe doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarouscreature, who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar smilesand coarse tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon's son. She nursed him for a fortnight under the mother's eye, and she was thensent back to her village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coinknotted into a corner of her rude pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie hadgiven his daughter a liberal letter of credit on a London banker, andshe was able, for the present, to make abundant provision for the littleone. She called Mrs. Portico's attention to the fact that she spent noneof her money on futilities; she kept it all for her small pensionerin the Genoese hills. Mrs. Portico beheld these strange doings with astupefaction that occasionally broke into passionate protest; then sherelapsed into a brooding sense of having now been an accomplice so farthat she must be an accomplice to the end. The two ladies went down toRome--Georgina was in wonderful trim--to finish the season, andhere Mrs. Portico became convinced that she intended to abandon heroffspring. She had not driven into the country to see the nurslingbefore leaving Genoa, --she had said that she could n't bear to see it insuch a place and among such people. Mrs. Portico, it must be added, had felt the force of this plea, --felt it as regards a plan of her own, given up after being hotly entertained for a few hours, of devoting aday, by herself, to a visit to the big contadina. It seemed to her thatif she should see the child in the sordid hands to which Georgina hadconsigned it she would become still more of a participant than she wasalready. This young woman's blooming hardness, after they got to Borne, acted upon her like a kind of Medusa-mask. She had seen a horriblething, she had been mixed up with it, and her motherly heart hadreceived a mortal chill. It became more clear to her every day that, though Georgina would continue to send the infant money in considerablequantities, she had dispossessed herself of it forever. Together withthis induction a fixed idea settled in her mind, --the project of takingthe baby herself, of making him her own, of arranging that matter withthe father. The countenance she had given Georgina up to this point wasan effective pledge that she would not expose her; but she could adoptthe child without exposing her; she could say that he was a lovelybaby--he was lovely, fortunately--whom she had picked up in a poorvillage in Italy, --a village that had been devastated by brigands. Shewould pretend--she could pretend; oh, yes, of course, she could pretend!Everything was imposture now, and she could go on to lie as she hadbegun. The falsity of the whole business sickened her; it made her soyellow that she scarcely knew herself in her glass. None the less, torescue the child, even if she had to become falser still, would be insome measure an atonement for the treachery to which she had alreadylent herself. She began to hate Georgina, who had drawn her into such anatrocious current, and if it had not been for two considerations shewould have insisted on their separating. One was the deference she owedto Mr. And Mrs. Gressie, who had reposed such a trust in her; the otherwas that she must keep hold of the mother till she had got possession ofthe infant Meanwhile, in this forced communion, her aversion to hercompanion increased; Georgina came to appear to her a creature of brass, of iron; she was exceedingly afraid of her, and it seemed to her now awonder of wonders that she should ever have trusted her enough to comeso far. Georgina showed no consciousness of the change in Mrs. Portico, though there was, indeed, at present, not even a pretence of confidencebetween the two. Miss Gressie--that was another lie, to which Mrs. Portico had to lend herself--was bent on enjoying Europe, and wasespecially delighted with Rome. She certainly had the courage of herundertaking, and she confessed to Mrs. Portico that she had left RaymondBenyon, and meant to continue to leave him, in ignorance of what hadtaken place at Genoa. There was a certain confidence, it must be said, in that. He was now in Chinese waters, and she probably should not seehim for years. 

Mrs. Portico took counsel with herself, and the result of her cogitationwas, that she wrote to Mr. Benyon that a charming little boy hadbeen born to him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italianpeasants, but that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico, would bring him up much better than that. She knew not how to addressher letter, and Georgina, even if _she_ should know, which was doubtful, would never tell her; so she sent the missive to the care of theSecretary of the Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that itmight immediately be forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico's last effort inthis strange business of Georgina's. I relate rather a complicatedfact in a very few words when I say that the poor lady's anxieties, indignations, repentances, preyed upon her until they fairly broke herdown. Various persons whom she knew in Borne notified her that the airof the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable to her, and she had madeup her mind to return to her native land, when she found that, in herdepressed condition, malarial fever had laid its hand upon her. She wasunable to move, and the matter was settled for her in the course of anillness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said that she was notobstinate, and the resistance that she made on the present occasionwas not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever made itsappearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during whichGeorgina's attentions to her patient and protectress had beenunremitting. There were other Americans in Rome who, after thissad event, extended to the bereaved young lady every comfort andhospitality. She had no lack of opportunities for returning under aproper escort to New York. She selected, you may be sure, the best, andre-entered her father's house, where she took to plain dressing; for shesent all her pocket-money, with the utmost secrecy, to the little boy inthe Genoese hills. 

IV. 

"Why should he come if he doesn't like you? He is under no obligation, and he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at atime, and why should he be so pleasant?"

"Do you think he is very pleasant?" Kate Theory asked, turning away herface from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see howlittle the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with theinquiry. 

This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, fromthe delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, "KateTheory, don't be affected!"

"Perhaps it's for you he comes. I don't see why he should n't; you arefar more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. Howcan he help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You cantalk to him of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, ofthe statues and bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poordarling! but which you know more about than he does, than any one does. What was it you began on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floodsabout Magna Gręcia. And then--and then--" But with this Kate Theorypaused; she felt it would n't do to speak the words that had risen toher lips. That her sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicateand refined as an angel, --she had been on the point of saying somethingof that sort But Mildred's beauty and delicacy were the fairness ofmortal disease, and to praise her for her refinement was simply tointimate that she had the tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she hadchecked herself, the younger girl--she was younger only by a yearor two--simply kissed her tenderly, and settled the knot of the lacehandkerchief that was tied over her head. Mildred knew what she hadbeen going to say, --knew why she had stopped. Mildred knew everything, without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salonof their own, at the _pension_, which she had made so pretty by simplylying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius, and telling Kate how to arrange and rearrange everything. Since itbegan to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of yearsaltogether in warm climates, the lot of the two sisters had been cast inthe ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe. Their little sitting-roomwas sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never happy till it wasrearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of course, the firstday, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas, chairs, till everycombination had been tried, and the invalid thought at last that therewas a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own, and her ideaswere not always the same as her sister's; but she did whatever Mildredliked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the doormat on thedining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have obeyed withouta murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been folded up and putaway, like garments out of season, in drawers and trunks, with camphorand lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for southern wear, however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New England, wherepoor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since this event, had lived for her companion, and it was almost an inconvenience for herto think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon. It was as if shehad shut up her house and was not in a position to entertain. So long asMildred should live, her own life was suspended; if there should beany time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again; but for thepresent, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only call downfrom one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it really inthese terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If Mildred saidit was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself such a duty;for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must therefore beright She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the excavations atPompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Gręcia. She always had someinstructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she had strengthenough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was about theonly strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been remarkablysoft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to give upher little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a singleenormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so dense. None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue ofthe bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have lookedpainted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of thewaves. Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crestof the volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-visionof Capri, on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there, and wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Nowthat Percival was married, --he was their only brother, and from one dayto the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, asyet a complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she hadwritten them during her wedding tour, --now that Percival was to be quitetaken up, poor Kate's situation would be much more grave. Mildred feltthat she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen hersister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with thepair; but even if Agnes should prove--well, more satisfactory than herletters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate, --this living as a mereappendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being amaiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate's first resources had noteven been tried. 

Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well, --wondered in what bookMildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She admiredhim, she thought, but he didn't seem a man that would fall in love withone like that She could see that he was on his guard; he would n't throwhimself away. He thought too much of himself, or at any rate he tooktoo good care of himself, --in the manner of a man to whom something hadhappened which had given him a lesson. Of course what had happened wasthat his heart was buried somewhere, --in some woman's grave; he hadloved some beautiful girl, --much more beautiful, Kate was sure, thanshe, who thought herself small and dark, --and the maiden had died, andhis capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory, --that wasthe only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever, humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred hadsaid to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was foranything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn't know anothersoul in Naples), she would have felt that this was simply the kind ofthing--usually so idiotic--that people always thought it necessary tosay. It was very easy for him to come; he had the big ship's boat, withnothing else to do; and what could be more delightful than to be rowedacross the bay, under a bright awning, by four brown sailors with"Louisiana" in blue letters on their immaculate white shirts, and in giltletters on their fluttering hat ribbons? The boat came to the steps ofthe garden of the _pension_, where the orange-trees hung over and madevague yellow balls shine back out of the water. Kate Theory knew allabout that, for Captain Benyon had persuaded her to take a turn in theboat, and if they had only had another lady to go with them, he couldhave conveyed her to the ship, and shown her all over it It lookedbeautiful, just a little way off, with the American flag hanging loosein the Italian air. They would have another lady when Agnes shouldarrive; then Percival would remain with Mildred while they took thisexcursion. Mildred had stayed alone the day she went in the boat;she had insisted on it, and, of course it was really Mildred who hadpersuaded her; though now that Kate came to think of it, Captain Benyonhad, in his quiet, waiting way--he turned out to be waiting long afteryou thought he had let a thing pass--said a good deal about the pleasureit would give him. Of course, everything would give pleasure to a manwho was so bored. He was keeping the "Louisiana" at Naples, week afterweek, simply because these were the commodore's orders. There was nowork to be done there, and his time was on his hands; but of course thecommodore, who had gone to Constantinople with the two other ships, hadto be obeyed to the letter, however mysterious his motives. It made nodifference that he was a fantastic, grumbling, arbitrary old commodore;only a good while afterwards it occurred to Kate Theory that, for areserved, correct man, Captain Benyon had given her a considerableproof of confidence, in speaking to her in these terms of his superiorofficer. If he looked at all hot when he arrived at the _pension_, she offered him a glass of cold "orangeade. " Mildred thought this anunpleasant drink, --she called it messy; but Kate adored it, and CaptainBenyon always accepted it. 

The day I speak of, to change the subject, she called her sister'sattention to the extraordinary sharpness of a zigzagging cloud-shadow, on the tinted slope of Vesuvius; but Mildred only remarked in answerthat she wished her sister would many the captain. It was in thisfamiliar way that constant meditation led Miss Theory to speak of him;it shows how constantly she thought of him, for, in general, no one wasmore ceremonious than she, and the failure of her health had not causedher to relax any form that it was possible to keep up. There was a kindof slim erectness, even in the way she lay on her sofa; and she alwaysreceived the doctor as if he were calling for the first time. 

"I had better wait till he asks me, " Kate Theory said. "Dear Milly, ifI were to do some of the things you wish me to do, I should shock youvery much. "

"I wish he would marry you, then. You know there is very little time, ifI wish to see it. "

"You will never see it, Mildred. I don't see why you should take so forgranted that I would accept him. "

"You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He isprobably not enormously rich. I don't know what is the pay of a captainin the navy--"

"It's a relief to find there is something you don't know, " Kate Theorybroke in. 

"But when I am gone, " her sister went on calmly, "when I am gone therewill be plenty for both of you. "

The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then sheexclaimed, "Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don't see why youshould be dreadful!"

"You know that since we have been leading this life we have seen noone we liked better, " said Milly. When she spoke of the life they wereleading--there was always a soft resignation of regret and contempt inthe allusion--she meant the southern winters, the foreign climates, the vain experiments, the lonely waitings, the wasted hours, theinterminable rains, the bad food, the pottering, humbugging doctors, the damp _pensions_, the chance encounters, the fitful apparitions, offellow-travellers. 

"Why should n't you speak for yourself alone? I am glad _you_ like him, Mildred. "

"If you don't like him, why do you give him orangeade?"

At this inquiry Kate began to laugh, and her sister continued, --

"Of course you are glad I like him, my dear. If I did n't like him, andyou did, it would n't be satisfactory at all. I can imagine nothing moremiserable; I should n't die in any sort of comfort. "

Kate Theory usually checked this sort of allusion--she was always toolate--with a kiss; but on this occasion she added that it was a longtime since Mildred had tormented her so much as she had done to-day. "You will make me hate him, " she added. 

"Well, that proves you don't already, " Milly rejoined; and it happenedthat almost at this moment they saw, in the golden afternoon, CaptainBenyon's boat approaching the steps at the end of the garden. He camethat day, and he came two days later, and he came yet once again afteran interval equally brief, before Percival Theory arrived, with Mrs. Percival, from Borne. He seemed anxious to crowd into these few days, ashe would have said, a good deal of intercourse with the two remarkablynice girls--or nice women, he hardly knew which to call them--whom inthe course of a long, idle, rather tedious detention at Naples, he haddiscovered in the lovely suburb of Posilippo. It was the American consulwho had put him into relation with them; the sisters had had to sign, inthe consul's presence, some law-papers, transmitted to them by the manof business who looked after their little property in America, and thekindly functionary, taking advantage of the pretext (Captain Benyonhappened to come into the consulate as he was starting, indulgently, towait upon the ladies) to bring together "two parties" who, as he said, ought to appreciate each other, proposed to his fellow-officer in theservice of the United States that he should go with him as witnessof the little ceremony. He might, of course, take his clerk, but thecaptain would do much better; and he represented to Benyon that the MissTheorys (singular name, wa' n't it?) suffered--he was sure--from a lackof society; also that one of them was very sick, that they werereal pleasant and extraordinarily refined, and that the sight of acompatriot, literally draped, as it were, in the national banner, would cheer them up more than most anything, and give them a sense ofprotection. They had talked to the consul about Benyon's ship, whichthey could see from their windows, in the distance, at its anchorage. They were the only American ladies then at Naples, --the only residents, at least, --and the captain would n't be doing the polite thing unless hewent to pay them his respects. Benyon felt afresh how little it was inhis line to call upon strange women; he was not in the habit of huntingup female acquaintance, or of looking out for the soft emotions whichthe sex only can inspire. He had his reasons for this abstention, andhe seldom relaxed it; but the consul appealed to him on rather stronggrounds; and he suffered himself to be persuaded. He was far fromregretting, during the first weeks at least, an act which was distinctlyinconsistent with his great rule, --that of never exposing himself to thechance of seriously caring for an unmarried woman. He had been obligedto make this rule, and had adhered to it with some success. He wasfond of women, but he was forced to restrict himself to superficialsentiments. There was no use tumbling into situations from which theonly possible issue was a retreat The step he had taken with regard topoor Miss Theory and her delightful little sister was an exception onwhich at first he could only congratulate himself. That had been a happyidea of the ruminating old consul; it made Captain Benyon forgivehim his hat, his boots, his shirtfront, --a costume which might beconsidered representative, and the effect of which was to make theobserver turn with rapture to a half-naked lazzarone. On either side theacquaintance had helped the time to pass, and the hours he spent atthe little _pension_ at Posilippo left a sweet--and by no meansinnutritive--taste behind. 

As the weeks went by his exception had grown to look a good deal likea rule; but he was able to remind himself that the path of retreat wasalways open to him. Moreover, if he should fall in love with the youngergirl there would be no great harm, for Kate Theory was in love only withher sister, and it would matter very little to her whether he advancedor retreated. She was very attractive, or rather very attracting. Small, pale, attentive without rigidity, full of pretty curves and quickmovements, she looked as if the habit of watching and serving hadtaken complete possession of her, and was literally a little sister ofcharity. Her thick black hair was pushed behind her ears, as if to helpher to listen, and her clear brown eyes had the smile of a persontoo full of tact to cany a dull face to a sickbed. She spoke in anencouraging voice, and had soothing and unselfish habits. She was verypretty, --producing a cheerful effect of contrasted black and white, anddressed herself daintily, so that Mildred might have something agreeableto look at Benyon very soon perceived that there was a fund of goodservice in her. Her sister had it all now; but poor Miss Theory wasfading fast, and then what would become of this precious little force?The answer to such a question that seemed most to the point wasthat it was none of his business. He was not sick, --at least notphysically, --and he was not looking out for a nurse. Such a companionmight be a luxury, but was not, as yet, a necessity: The welcome of thetwo ladies, at first, had been simple, and he scarcely knew what to callit but sweet; a bright, gentle friendliness remained the tone of theirgreeting. They evidently liked him to come, --they liked to see his bigtransatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts of exile. The factof Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch--in his successivevisits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why should he?)the pleasant American habit of using the lady's personal name--madetheir intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if hishostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been--as theconsul would have said--of the same party. Knocking about the salt partsof the globe, with a few feet square on a rolling frigate for his onlyhome, the pretty, flower-decked sitting-room of the quiet Americansisters became, more than anything he had hitherto known, his interior. He had dreamed once of having an interior, but the dream had vanished inlurid smoke, and no such vision had come to him again. He had a feelingthat the end of this was drawing nigh; he was sure that the advent ofthe strange brother, whose wife was certain to be disagreeable, wouldmake a difference. That is why, as I have said, he came as often aspossible the last week, after he had learned the day on which PercivalTheory would arrive. The limits of the exception had been reached. 

He had been new to the young ladies at Posilippo, and there was noreason why they should say to each other that he was a very differentman from the ingenuous youth who, ten years before, used to wanderwith Georgina Gressie down vistas of plank fences brushed over with theadvertisements of quack medicines. It was natural he should be, and we, who know him, would have found that he had traversed the whole scale ofalteration. There was nothing ingenuous in him now; he had the look ofexperience, of having been seasoned and hardened by the years. 

His face, his complexion, were the same; still smooth-shaven and slim, he always passed, at first, for a man scarcely out of his twenties. Buthis expression was old, and his talk was older still, --the talk of onewho had seen much of the world (as indeed he had, to-day), and judgedmost things for himself, with a humorous scepticism which, whateverconcessions it might make, superficially, for the sake of not offending(for instance) two remarkably nice American women, of the kind that hadkept most of their illusions, left you with the conviction that thenext minute it would go quickly back to its own standpoint There was acurious contradiction in him; he struck you as serious, and yet he couldnot be said to take things seriously. This was what made Kate Theoryfeel so sure that he had lost the object of his affections; and shesaid to herself that it must have been under circumstances of peculiarsadness, for that was, after all, a frequent accident, and was notusually thought, in itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic. This reflection, it may be added, was, on the young lady's part, justthe least bit acrimonious. Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sensein which he might have shocked an innocent mind; he kept his cynicismto himself, and was a very clever, courteous, attentive gentleman. If hewas melancholy, you knew it chiefly by his jokes, for they were usuallyat his own expense; and if he was indifferent, it was all the moreto his credit that he should have exerted himself to entertain hiscountrywomen. 

The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, hefound Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window. Kate had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for thereception of the travellers, who required accommodation more spaciousthan the villa at Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms)could offer them; and the sick girl had taken advantage of her absenceand of the pretext afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transferherself, for the first time in six months, to an arm-chair. She waspractising, as she said, for the long carriage-journey to the north, where, in a quiet corner they knew of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summerwas to be spent. Eaymond Benyon remarked to her that she had evidentlyturned the corner and was going to get well, and this gave her a chanceto say various things that were on her mind. She had many things on hermind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged and restless, and yet so resignedand patient as she was; with a clear, quick spirit, in the most perfecthealth, ever reaching forward, to the end of its tense little chain, from her wasted and suffering body; and, in the course of the perfectsummer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated by the success of hereffort to get up, and by her comfortable opportunity, she took herfriendly visitor into the confidence of most of her anxieties. She toldhim, very promptly and positively, that she was not going to get wellat all, that she had probably not more than ten months yet to live, andthat he would oblige her very much by not forcing her to waste any morebreath in contradicting him on that point. Of course she could n't talkmuch; therefore, she wished to say to him only things that he wouldnot hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her presentsecret--Katie's and hers--the secret of their fearing so much that theyshould n't like Percival's wife, who was not from Boston, but from NewYork. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from what theyhad heard of her set--this subject had been explored by theircorrespondents--they were rather nervous, nervous to the point of notbeing in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would bringPercival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that wasjust what they had heard about Agnes's circle--that the stamp of moneywas on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very newand very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the twoMiss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was agreat secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law hadhitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school inNew York, and yet (and this was the greatest secret of all) she wroteto them that she had performed a part of the journey through France in_diligance!_

Of course, they would see the next day; Miss Mildred was sure she shouldknow in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never havetold him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon mustpromise never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thoughtalways that they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should bea dreadful disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yetKate was just the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after sheherself had gone. Their brother had been everything to them, but nowit would all be different Of course it was not to be expected that heshould have remained a bachelor for their sake; she only wished he hadwaited till she was dead and Kate was married One of these events, it was true, was much less sure than the other; Kate might nevermarry, --much as she wished she would! She was quite morbidly unselfish, and did n't think she had a right to have anything of her own--not evena husband. Miss Mildred talked a good while about Kate, and it neveroccurred to her that she might bore Captain Benyon. She did n't, inpoint of fact; he had none of the trouble of wondering why this poor, sick, worried lady was trying to push her sister down his throat Theirpeculiar situation made everything natural, and the tone she took withhim now seemed only what their pleasant relation for the last threemonths led up to. Moreover, he had an excellent reason for not beingbored: the fact, namely, that after all, with regard to her sister, Miss Mildred appeared to him to keep back more than she uttered. Shedidn't tell him the great thing, --she had nothing to say as to what thatcharming girl thought of Eaymond Benyon. The effect of their interview, indeed, was to make him shrink from knowing, and he felt that the rightthing for him would be to get back into his boat, which was waiting atthe garden steps, before Kate Theory should return from Naples. It cameover him, as he sat there, that he was far too interested in knowingwhat this young lady thought of him. She might think what she pleased;it could make no difference to him. The best opinion in the world--if itlooked out at him from her tender eyes--would not make him a whit morefree or more happy. Women of that sort were not for him, women whom onecould not see familiarly without falling in love with them, and whom itwas no use to fall in love with unless one was ready to marry them. Thelight of the summer afternoon, and of Miss Mildred's pure spirit, seemedsuddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw that he was in danger, andhe had long since made up his mind that from this particular perilit was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He took leave of hishostess before her sister reappeared, and had the courage even to say toher that he would not come back often after that; they would be so muchoccupied by their brother and his wife! As he moved across the glassybay, to the rhythm of the oars, he wished either that the sisters wouldleave Naples or that his confounded commodore would send for him. 

When Kate returned from her errand, ten minutes later, Milly told herof the captain's visit, and added that she had never seen anything sosudden as the way he left her. "He would n't wait for you, my dear, and he said he thought it more than likely that he should never see usagain. It is as if he thought you were going to die too!"

"Is his ship called away?" Kate Theory asked. 

"He did n't tell me so; he said we should be so busy with Percival andAgnes. "

"He has got tired of us, --that's all. There's nothing wonderful in that;I knew he would. "

Mildred said nothing for a moment; she was watching her sister, who wasvery attentively arranging some flowers. "Yes, of course, we are verydull, and he is like everybody else. "

"I thought you thought he was so wonderful, " said Kate, "and so fond ofus. "

"So he is; I am surer of that than ever. That's why he went away soabruptly. "

Kate looked at her sister now. "I don't understand. "

"Neither do I, darling. But you will, one of these days. "

"How if he never comes back?"

"Oh, he will--after a while--when I am gone. Then he will explain; that, at least, is clear to me. "

"My poor precious, as if I cared!" Kate Theory exclaimed, smiling as shedistributed her flowers. She carried them to the window, to place themnear her sister, and here she paused a moment, her eye caught by anobject, far out in the bay, with which she was not unfamiliar. Mildrednoticed its momentary look, and followed its direction. 

"It's the captain's gig going back to the ship, " Milly said. "It's sostill one can almost hear the oars. "

Kate Theory turned away, with a sudden, strange violence, a movement andexclamation which, the very next minute, as she became conscious of whatshe had said, --and, still more, of what she felt--smote her ownheart (as it flushed her face) with surprise, and with the force of arevelation: "I wish it would sink him to the bottom of the sea!"

Her sister stared, then caught her by the dress, as she passed from her, drawing her back with a weak hand. "Oh, my dearest, my poorest!" And shepulled Kate down and down toward her, so that the girl had nothing forit but to sink on her knees and bury her face in Mildred's lap. If thatingenious invalid did not know everything now, she knew a great deal. 

PART III. 

V. 

Mrs. Percival proved very pretty. It is more gracious to begin with thisdeclaration, instead of saying that, in the first place, she proved verysilly. It took a long day to arrive at the end of her silliness, and thetwo ladies at Posilippo, even after a week had passed, suspected thatthey had only skirted its edges. Kate Theory had not spent half an hourin her company before she gave a little private sigh of relief; she feltthat a situation which had promised to be embarrassing was now quiteclear, was even of a primitive simplicity. She would spend with hersister-in-law, in the coming time, one week in the year; that was allthat was mortally possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactlywhat she was, for in that way the question settled itself. It would havebeen much more tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; thenshe would have had to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing againstanother. She was pretty and silly, as distinctly as an orange is yellowand round; and Kate Theory would as soon have thought of looking to herto give interest to the future as she would have thought of looking toan orange to impart solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percivaltravelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of makingacquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purposeof buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to herstore of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood, in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had acollection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked overexhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversationbore mainly upon the manner in which she intended to dispose of theseaccumulations. She was constantly changing about, among each other, thepersons to whom they were respectively to be offered. At Borne one ofthe first things she said to her husband after entering the Coliseum hadbeen: "I guess I will give the ivory work-box to Bessie and the Romanpearls to Aunt Harriet!" She was always hanging over the travellers'book at the hotel; she had it brought up to her, with a cup ofchocolate, as soon as she arrived. She searched its pages for themagical name of New York, and she indulged in infinite conjecture as towho the people were--the name was sometimes only a partial cue--who hadinscribed it there. What she most missed in Europe, and what she mostenjoyed, were the New Yorkers; when she met them she talked about thepeople in their native city who had "moved" and the streets they hadmoved to. "Oh, yes, the Drapers are going up town, to Twenty-fourthStreet, and the Vanderdeckens are going to be in Twenty-third Street, right back of them. My uncle, Henry Piatt, thinks of building roundthere. " Mrs. Percival Theory was capable of repeating statements likethese thirty times over, --of lingering on them for hours. She talkedlargely of herself, of her uncles and aunts, of her clothes--past, present, and future. These articles, in especial, filled her horizon;she considered them with a complacency which might have led you tosuppose that she had invented the custom of draping the human form. Hermain point of contact with Naples was the purchase of coral; and all thewhile she was there the word "set"--she used it as if every one wouldunderstand--fell with its little, flat, common sound upon the ears ofher sisters-in-law, who had no sets of anything. She cared little forpictures and mountains; Alps and Apennines were not productive ofNew Yorkers, and it was difficult to take an interest in Madonnas whoflourished at periods when, apparently, there were no fashions, or, atany rate, no trimmings. 

I speak here not only of the impression she made upon her husband'sanxious sisters, but of the judgment passed on her (he went so faras that, though it was not obvious how it mattered to him) by RaymondBenyon. And this brings me at a jump (I confess it's a very small one)to the fact that he did, after all, go back to Posilippo. He stayed awayfor nine days, and at the end of this time Percival Theory called uponhim, to thank him for the civility he had shown his kinswomen. He wentto this gentleman's hotel, to return his visit, and there he found MissKate, in her brother's sitting-room. She had come in by appointment fromthe villa, and was going with the others to seek the royal palace, whichshe had not yet had an opportunity to inspect It was proposed (not byKate), and presently arranged, that Captain Benyon should go withthem, and he accordingly walked over marble floors for half an hour, exchanging conscious commonplaces with the woman he loved. Forthis truth had rounded itself during those nine days of absence; hediscovered that there was nothing particularly sweet in his life whenonce Kate Theory had been excluded from it He had stayed away to keephimself from falling in love with her; but this expedient was in itselfilluminating, for he perceived that, according to the vulgar adage, hewas locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. As hepaced the deck of his ship and looked toward Posilippo, his tendernesscrystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a sentiment that knew itselfforbidden and was angry at the knowledge, now danced upon the fuel ofhis good resolutions. The latter, it must be said, resisted, declinedto be consumed. He determined that he would see Kate Theory again, fora time, just sufficient to bid her good-by, and to add a littleexplanation. He thought of his explanation very lovingly, but it maynot strike the reader as a happy inspiration. To part from her dryly, abruptly, without an allusion to what he might have said if everythinghad been different, --that would be wisdom, of course, that would bevirtue, that would be the line of a practical man, of a man who kepthimself well in hand. But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded, --itwould be virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himselfthat he had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted himirresistibly, since the larger--that of happy love--was denied him; theluxury of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident--oh, not at all--that they should never meet again. She might easily think itwas, and thinking it was would doubtless do her no harm. But this wouldn't give him his pleasure, --the Platonic satisfaction of expressing toher at the same time his belief that they might have made each otherhappy, and the necessity of his renunciation. That, probably, wouldn'thurt her either, for she had given him no proof whatever that she caredfor him. The nearest approach to it was the way she walked beside himnow, sweet and silent, without the least reference to his not havingbeen back to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds weredrawn, to keep out the light and noise, and the little party wanderedthrough the high saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam ofgilding and satin made reflections in the rich dimness. Here and therethe cicerone, in slippers, with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open ashutter to show off a picture on a tapestry. He strolled in front withPercival Theory and his wife, while this lady, drooping silently fromher husband's arm as they passed, felt the stuff of the curtains andthe sofas. When he caught her in these experiments, the cicerone, inexpressive deprecation, clasped his hands and lifted his eyebrows;whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband, "Oh, bother his oldking!" It was not striking to Captain Benyon why Percival Theory hadmarried the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less interesting than hissisters, --a smooth, cool, correct young man, who frequently took outa pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a letter. Hesometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and hemissed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the mostunlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a veryspecial type. 

"Is it settled when you leave Naples?" Benyon asked of Kate Theory. 

"I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; hehas lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can liedown. He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall traveltogether. "

"I wish to Heaven I were going with you?" Captain Benyon said. He hadgiven her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; shemerely remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn't take hisship over the Apennines. "Yes, there is always my ship, " he went on. "Iam afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you. "

They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions hadpassed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and hisfellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers ofglass, which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strongouter light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from thedecorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for themoment by Benyon's having struck a note more serious than any that hadhitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, drapedin white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster ofcrystal pendants seemed to shine again. 

"You are master of your ship. Can't you sail it as you like?" KateTheory asked, with a smile. 

"I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free. I am a slave. I am a victim. "

She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly madeher put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certainsituations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to makeher understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to sayit. "You are not happy, " she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in akind of wonderment at this reality. 

The gentle touch of the words--it was as if her hand had stroked hischeek--seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. "No, I am nothappy, because I am not free. If I were--if I were, I would give up myship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can't explain; thatis part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it, --that ifcertain things were different, if everything was different, I might tellyou that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps someday it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile, Ihave no right of any kind. I don't want to trouble you, and I don't askof you--anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don't makeyou understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather abrute, --perhaps even a humbug. Don't think of it now, --don't try tounderstand. But some day, in the future, remember what I have said toyou, and how we stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps itwill give you a little pleasure. "

Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in amoment she turned away her eyes. "I am very sorry for you, " she said, gravely. 

"Then you do understand enough?"

"I shall think of what you have said, in the future. "

Benyon's lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which heinstantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and asad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall, he said: "It won't hurt any one, your remembering this!"

"I don't know whom you mean. " And the girl, abruptly, began to walk tothe end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, andthey proceeded together in silence till they overtook their companions. 

There were several pictures in the neighboring room, and Percival Theoryand his wife had stopped to look at one of them, of which the ciceroneannounced the title and the authorship as Benyon came up. It was amodern portrait of a Bourbon princess, a woman young, fair, handsome, covered with jewels. Mrs. Percival appeared to be more struck with itthan with anything the palace had yet offered to her sight, while hersister-in-law walked to the window, which the custodian had opened, tolook out into the garden. Benyon noticed this; he was conscious thathe had given the girl something to reflect upon, and his ears burned alittle as he stood beside Mrs. Percival and looked up, mechanically, atthe royal lady. He already repented a little of what he had said, for, after all, what was the use? And he hoped the others wouldn't observethat he had been making love. 

"Gracious, Percival! Do you see who she looks like?" Mrs. Theory said toher husband. 

"She looks like a woman who has run up a big bill at Tiffany's, " thisgentleman answered. 

"She looks like my sister-in-law; the eyes, the mouth, the way thehair's done, --the whole thing. "

"Which do you mean? You have got about a dozen. "

"Why, Georgina, of course, --Georgina Roy. She's awfully like. "

"Do you call _her_ your sister-in-law?" Percival Theory asked. "You mustwant very much to claim her. "

"Well, she's handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name, then. Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law's secondwife?" Mrs. Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stoodstaring at the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; thensight, and hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopledwith thrilling recognitions. The Bourbon princess--the eyes, the mouth, the way the hair was done; these things took on an identity, and thegaze of the painted face seemed to fasten itself to his own. But who inthe world was Georgina Roy, and what was this talk about sisters-in-law?He turned to the little lady at his side a countenance unexpectedlypuzzled by the problem she had airily presented to him. 

"Your brother-in-law's second wife? That's rather complicated. "

"Well, of course, he need n't have married again?" said Mrs. Percival, with a small sigh. 

"Whom did he marry?" asked Benyon, staring. 

Percival Theory had turned away. "Oh, if you are going into herrelationships!" he murmured, and joined his sister at the brilliantwindow, through which, from the distance, the many-voiced uproar ofNaples came in. 

"He married first my sister Dora, and she died five years ago. Then hemarried _her_, " and Mrs. Percival nodded at the princess. 

Benyon's eyes went back to the portrait; he could see what she meant--itstared out at him. "Her? Georgina?"

"Georgina Gressie. Gracious, do you know her?"

It was very distinct--that answer of Mrs. Percival's, and the questionthat followed it as well. But he had the resource of the picture; hecould look at it, seem to take it very seriously, though it danced upand down before him. He felt that he was turning red, then he felt thathe was turning pale. "The brazen impudence!" That was the way hecould speak to himself now of the woman he had once loved, and whom heafterwards hated, till this had died out, too. Then the wonder of it waslost in the quickly growing sense that it would make a differencefor him, --a great difference. Exactly what, he didn't see yet; only adifference that swelled and swelled as he thought of it, and caught up, in its expansion, the girl who stood behind him so quietly, looking intothe Italian garden. 

The custodian drew Mrs. Percival away to show her another princess, before Benyon answered her last inquiry. This gave him time to recoverfrom his first impulse, which had been to answer it with a negative;he saw in a moment that an admission of his acquaintance with Mrs. Roy(Mrs. Roy!--it was prodigious!) was necessarily helping him to learnmore. Besides, it needn't be compromising. Very likely Mrs. Percivalwould hear one day that he had once wanted to marry her. So, when hejoined his companions a minute later he remarked that he had known MissGressie years before, and had even admired her considerably, but hadlost sight of her entirely in later days. She had been a great beauty, and it was a wonder that she had not married earlier. Five years ago, was it? No, it was only two. He had been going to say that in so long atime it would have been singular he should not have heard of it. He hadbeen away from New York for ages; but one always heard of marriages anddeaths. This was a proof, though two years was rather long. He led Mrs. Percival insidiously into a further room, in advance of the others, to whom the cicerone returned. She was delighted to talk about her"connections, " and she supplied him with every detail He could trusthimself now; his self-possession was complete, or, so far as it waswanting, the fault was that of a sudden gayety which he could not, onthe spot, have accounted for. Of course it was not very flattering tothem--Mrs. Percivals own people--that poor Dora's husband should haveconsoled himself; but men always did it (talk of widows!) and hehad chosen a girl who was--well, very fine-looking, and the sort ofsuccessor to Dora that they needn't be ashamed of. She had been awfullyadmired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long to marry. She had had some affair as a girl, --an engagement to an officer in thearmy, --and the man had jilted her, or they had quarrelled, or somethingor other. She was almost an old maid, --well, she was thirty, or verynearly, --but she had done something good now. She was handsomer thanever, and tremendously stylish. William Roy had one of the biggestincomes in the city, and he was quite affectionate. He had beenintensely fond of Dora--he often spoke of her still, at least to herown relations; and her portrait, the last time Mrs. Percival was in hishouse (it was at a party, after his marriage to Miss Gressie), was stillin the front parlor. . Perhaps by this time he had had it moved to theback; but she was sure he would keep it somewhere, anyway. Poor Dorahad had no children; but Georgina was making that all right, --she hada beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite apleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps _he_ was theofficer--she never thought of that? He was sure he had never jilted her?And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be different frommost men. 

He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoonwith Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think himwanting in that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctivelymasculine virtue. An hour before, he had taken an eternal farewellof her, and now he was alluding to future meetings, to future visits, proposing that, with her sister-in-law, she should appoint an early dayfor coming to see the "Louisiana. " She had supposed she understood him, but it would appear now that she had not understood him at all. Hismanner had changed, too. More and more off his guard, Raymond Benyonwas not aware how much more hopeful an expression it gave him, hisirresistible sense that somehow or other this extraordinary proceedingof his wife's would set him free. Kate Theory felt rather weary andmystified, --all the more for knowing that henceforth Captain Benyon'svariations would be the most important thing in life for her. 

This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck thatnight, --lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in whichthe stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began toshow. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, hewas agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself thatit made a difference, --an immense difference; but the pink light haddeepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversityconsisted. By that time he saw it clearly, --it consisted in Georgina'sbeing in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He laughed as hesat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she had done. Ithad occurred to him more than once that she would do it, --he believedher capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a freshness ofcomicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income, of hisbeing "quite affectionate, " of his blooming son and heir, of his havingfound such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered whetherGeorgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband living, but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she, afterall? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had thoughthe knew her, in so many years, --that he had nothing more to learn abouther; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity. Of courseit was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it soonerit was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his longcruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must hatehim to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing toput her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathingwas at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest ofwrongs, --she had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in thisdegree a woman whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not havethought possible in his innocent younger years. But he would not havethought it possible then that a woman should be such a cold-bloodeddevil as she had been. His love had perished in his rage, --his blinding, impotent rage at finding that he had been duped, and measuring hisimpotence. When he learned, years before, from Mrs. Portico, what shehad done with her baby, of whose entrance into life she herself hadgiven him no intimation, he felt that he was face to face with a fullrevelation of her nature. Before that it had puzzled him; it had amazedhim; his relations with her were bewildering, stupefying. But when, after obtaining, with difficulty and delay, a leave of absence fromGovernment, and betaking himself to Italy to look for the child andassume possession of it, he had encountered absolute failure anddefeat, --then the case presented itself to him more simply. He perceivedthat he had mated himself with a creature who just happened to bea monster, a human exception altogether. That was what he could n'tpardon--her conduct about the child; never, never, never! To him shemight have done what she chose, --dropped him, pushed him out intoeternal cold, with his hands fast tied, --and he would have acceptedit, excused her almost, admitted that it had been his business to mindbetter what he was about. But she had tortured him through the poorlittle irrecoverable son whom he had never seen, through the heartand the vitals that she had not herself, and that he had to have, poorwretch, for both of them!

All his efforts for years had been to forget these horrible months, andhe had cut himself off from them so that they seemed at times to belongto the life of another person. But to-night he lived them over again;he retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he hadpassed, from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, whenit came over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, toelude all her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she hadreserved herself--in the strange vow she extracted from him--anopen door for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such aninspiration (in the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith ithad ever been) struck him as a proof of her essential depravity. What hehad tried to forget came back to him: the child that was not his childproduced for him when he fell upon that squalid nest of peasants inthe Genoese country; and then the confessions, retractations, contradictions, lies, terrors, threats, and general bottomless, bafflingbaseness of every one in the place. The child was gone; that had beenthe only definite thing. The woman who had taken it to nurse had adozen different stories, --her husband had as many, --and every one in thevillage had a hundred more. Georgina had been sending money, --she hadmanaged, apparently, to send a good deal, --and the whole country seemedto have been living on it and making merry. At one moment the babyhad died and received a most expensive burial; at another he had beenintrusted (for more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman'scousin in another village. According to a version, which for a day ortwo Benyon had inclined to think the least false, he had been taken bythe cousin (for his beauty's sake) to Genoa (when she went for the firsttime in her life to the town to see her daughter in service there), andhad been confided for a few hours to a third woman, who was to keep himwhile the cousin walked about the streets, but who, having no child ofher own, took such a fancy to him that she refused to give him up, anda few days later left the place (she was a Pisana) never to be heardof more. The cousin had forgotten her name, --it had happened six monthsbefore. Benyon spent a year looking up and down Italy for his child, and inspecting hundreds of swaddled infants, impenetrable candidates forrecognition. Of course he could only get further and further from realknowledge, and his search was arrested by the conviction that it wasmaking him mad. He set his teeth and made up his mind (or tried to) thatthe baby had died in the hands of its nurse. This was, after all, muchthe likeliest supposition, and the woman had maintained it, in the hopeof being rewarded for her candor, quite as often as she had asseveratedthat it was still, somewhere, alive, in the hope of being remuneratedfor her good news. It may be imagined with what sentiments toward hiswife Benyon had emerged from this episode. To-night his memory wentfurther back, --back to the beginning and to the days when he had hadto ask himself, with all the crudity of his first surprise, what in thename of wantonness she had wished to do with him. The answer tothis speculation was so old, --it had dropped so ont of the line ofrecurrence, --that it was now almost new again. Moreover, it was onlyapproximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend suchconduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found herselfon a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom. She didhim the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, and she did herselfthe honor of thinking that their intimacy--however brief--must have acertain consecration. She felt that, with him, after his promise (hewould have made any promise to lead her on), she was secure, --secureas she had proved to be, secure as she must think herself now. Thatsecurity had helped her to ask herself, after the first flush of passionwas over, and her native, her twice-inherited worldliness had bad timeto open its eyes again, why she should keep faith with a man whosedeficiencies (as a husband before the world--another affair) had beenso scientifically exposed to her by her parents. So she had simplydetermined not to keep faith; and her determination, at least, she didkeep. 

By the time Benyon turned in he had satisfied himself, as I say, that Georgina was now in his power; and this seemed to him such animprovement in his situation that he allowed himself (for the next tendays) a license which made Kate Theory almost as happy as it made hersister, though she pretended to understand it far less. Mildred sank toher rest, or rose to fuller comprehensions, within the year, in the Isleof Wight, and Captain Benyon, who had never written so many letters assince they left Naples, sailed westward about the same time as the sweetsurvivor. For the "Louisiana" at last was ordered home. 

VI. 

Certainly, I will see you if you come, and you may appoint any day orhour you like. I should have seen you with pleasure any time these lastyears. Why should we not be friends, as we used to be? Perhaps we shallbe yet. I say "perhaps" only, on purpose, --because your note is rathervague about your state of mind. Don't come with any idea about making menervous or uncomfortable. I am not nervous by nature, thank Heaven, and I won't--I positively won't (do you hear, dear Captain Benyon?)--beuncomfortable. I have been so (it served me right) for years and years;but I am very happy now. To remain so is the very definite intention of, yours ever, Georgina Roy. 

This was the answer Benyon received to a short letter that he despatchedto Mrs. Roy after his return to America. It was not till he had beenthere some weeks that he wrote to her. He had been occupied in variousways: he had had to look after his ship; he had had to report atWashington; he had spent a fortnight with his mother at Portsmouth, N. H. ; and he had paid a visit to Kate Theory in Boston. She herself waspaying visits, she was staying with various relatives and friends. Shehad more color--it was very delicately rosy--than she had had of old, inspite of her black dress; and the effect of looking at him seemed to himto make her eyes grow still prettier. Though sisterless now, she was notwithout duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hardon her unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her asjust the person to do certain things. Every one thought she could doeverything, because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to theblind, and, more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people'schildren while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions. 

She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother's, butbeyond this she didn't know what she should do. Benyon felt it to beawkward that he should not be able, just now, to tell her; and thishad much to do with his coming to the point, for he accused himself ofhaving rather hung fire. Coming to the point, for Benyon, meant writinga note to Mrs. Roy (as he must call her), in which he asked whether shewould see him if he should present himself. The missive was short; itcontained, in addition to what I have noted, little more than the remarkthat he had something of importance to say to her. Her reply, which wehave just read, was prompt. Benyon designated an hour, and the nextday rang the doorbell of her big modern house, whose polished windowsseemed to shine defiance at him. 

As he stood on the steps, looking up and down the straight vista of theFifth Avenue, he perceived that he was trembling a little, that _he_was nervous, if she was not. He was ashamed of his agitation, and headdressed himself a very stern reprimand. Afterwards he saw that whathad made him nervous was not any doubt of the goodness of his cause, but his revived sense (as he drew near her) of his wife's hardness, --hercapacity for insolence. He might only break himself against that, andthe prospect made him feel helpless. She kept him waiting for a longtime after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down herdrawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered withblue satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as acertainty that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, toweary him; she was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It neveroccurred to him that in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too, might be in a tremor, and if any one in their secret bad suggested thatshe was afraid to meet him, he would have laughed at this idea. Thiswas of bad omen for the success of his errand; for it showed that herecognized the ground of her presumption, --his having the superstitionof old promises. By the time she appeared, he was flushed, --very angry. She closed the door behind her, and stood there looking at him, with thewidth of the room between them. 

The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strangefact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificentperson should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity ofher beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tressesundimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a momentthat she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dressherself to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this shehad delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For somemoments they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearlyten years, and they met now as adversaries. No two persons couldpossibly be more interested in taking each other's measure. It scarcelybelonged to Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity;and after a moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive abroadside, she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling. He wondered why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. Hisimpressions followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse, and now he saw, in addition to what he had already perceived, that shewas waiting to take her cue, --she had determined on no definite line. There was nothing definite about her but her courage; the rest woulddepend upon him. As for her courage, it seemed to glow in the beautywhich grew greater as she came nearer, with her eyes on his and herfixed smile; to be expressed in the very perfume that accompanied hersteps. By this time he had got still a further impression, and it wasthe strangest of all. She was ready for anything, she was capable ofanything, she wished to surprise him with her beauty, to remind him thatit belonged, after all, at the bottom of everything, to him. She wasready to bribe him, if bribing should be necessary. She had carried onan intrigue before she was twenty; it would be more, rather than less, easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this and more was in hercold, living eyes, as in the prolonged silence they engaged themselveswith his; but I must not dwell upon it, for reasons extraneous to theremarkable fact She was a truly amazing creature. 

"Raymond!" she said, in a low voice, a voice which might representeither a vague greeting or an appeal. 

He took no heed of the exclamation, but asked her why she haddeliberately kept him waiting, --as if she had not made a fool enough ofhim already. She could n't suppose it was for his pleasure he had comeinto the house. 

She hesitated a moment, --still with her smile. "I must tell you I havea son, --the dearest little boy. His nurse happened to be engaged for themoment, and I had to watch him. I am more devoted to him than you mightsuppose. "

He fell back from her a few steps. "I wonder if you are insane, " hemurmured. 

"To allude to my child? Why do you ask me such questions then? I tellyou the simple truth. I take every care of this one. I am older andwiser. The other one was a complete mistake; he had no right to exist. "

"Why didn't you kill him then with your own hands, instead of thattorture?"

"Why did n't I kill myself? That question would be more to the point Youare looking wonderfully well, " she broke off in another tone; "had n'twe better sit down?"

"I did n't come here for the advantage of conversation, " Benyonanswered. And he was going on, but she interrupted him--

"You came to say something dreadful, very likely; though I hoped youwould see it was better not But just tell me this before you begin. Areyou successful, are you happy? It has been so provoking, not knowingmore about you. "

There was something in the manner in which this was said that caused himto break into a loud laugh; whereupon she added, --

"Your laugh is just what it used to be. How it comes back to me! You_have_ improved in appearance, " she went on. 

She had seated herself, though he remained standing; and she leaned backin a low, deep chair, looking up at him, with her arms folded. He stoodnear her and over her, as it were, dropping his baffled eyes on her, with his hand resting on the corner of the chimney-piece. "Has it neveroccurred to you that I may deem myself absolved from the promise madeyou before I married you?"

"Very often, of course. But I have instantly dismissed the idea. How canyou be 'absolved'? One promises, or one doesn't. I attach no meaningto that, and neither do you. " And she glanced down to the front of herdress. 

Benyon listened, but he went on as if he had not heard her. "What I cameto say to you is this: that I should like your consent to my bringing asuit for divorce against you. "

"A suit for divorce? I never thought of that. "

"So that I may marry another woman. I can easily obtain a divorce on theground of your desertion. "

She stared a moment, then her smile solidified, as it were, and shelooked grave; but he could see that her gravity, with her liftedeyebrows, was partly assumed. "Ah, you want to marry another woman!" sheexclaimed, slowly, thoughtfully. He said nothing, and she went on: "Whydon't you do as I have done?"

"Because I don't want my children to be--"

Before he could say the words she sprang up, checking him with a cry. "Don't say it; it is n't necessary! Of course I know what you mean; butthey won't be if no one knows it. "

"I should object to knowing it myself; it's enough for me to know it ofyours. "

"Of course I have been prepared for your saying that"

"I should hope so!" Benyon exclaimed. "You may be a bigamist if itsuits you, but to me the idea is not attractive. I wish to marry--" and, hesitating a moment, with his slight stammer, he repeated, "I wish tomarry--"

"Marry, then, and have done with it!" cried Mrs. Roy. 

He could already see that he should be able to extract no consent fromher; he felt rather sick. "It's extraordinary to me that you should n'tbe more afraid of being found out, " he said after a moment's reflection. "There are two or three possible accidents. "

"How do you know how much afraid I am? I have thought of every accident, in dreadful nights. How do you know what my life is, or what it has beenall these miserable years?"

"You look wasted and worn, certainly. "

"Ah, don't compliment me!" Georgina exclaimed. "If I had never knownyou--if I had not been through all this--I believe I should have beenhandsome. When did you hear of my marriage? Where were you at the time?"

"At Naples, more than six months ago, by a mere chance. "

"How strange that it should have taken you so long! Is the lady aNeapolitan? They don't mind what they do over there. "

"I have no information to give you beyond what I just said, " Benyonrejoined. "My life does n't in the least regard you. "

"Ah, but it does from the moment I refuse to let you divorce me. "

"You refuse?" Benyon said softly. 

"Don't look at me that way! You have n't advanced so rapidly as I usedto think you would; you haven't distinguished yourself so much, " shewent on, irrelevantly. 

"I shall be promoted commodore one of these days, " Benyon answered. "You don't know much about it, for my advancement has already been veryexceptionally rapid. " He blushed as soon as the words were out of hismouth. She gave a light laugh on seeing it; but he took up his hat andadded: "Think over a day or two what I have proposed to you. Think ofthe temper in which I ask it. "

"The temper?" she stared. "Pray, what have you to do with temper?" Andas he made no reply, smoothing his hat with his glove, she went on:"Years ago, as much as you please I you had a good right, I don't deny, and you raved, in your letters, to your heart's content That's whyI would n't see you; I did n't wish to take it full in the face. Butthat's all over now, time is a healer, you have cooled off, and by yourown admission you have consoled yourself. Why do you talk to me abouttemper! What in the world have I done to you, but let you alone?"

"What do you call this business?" Benyon asked, with his eye flashingall over the room. 

"Ah, excuse me, that doesn't touch you, --it's my affair. I leave youyour liberty, and I can live as I like. If I choose to live in this way, it may be queer (I admit it is, awfully), but you have nothing to sayto it. If I am willing to take the risk, you may be. If I am willing toplay such an infernal trick upon a confiding gentleman (I will put it asstrongly as you possibly could), I don't see what you have to say to itexcept that you are tremendously glad such a woman as that is n't knownto be your wife!" She had been cool and deliberate up to this time; butwith these words her latent agitation broke out "Do you think I havebeen happy? Do you think I have enjoyed existence? Do you see mefreezing up into a stark old maid?"

"I wonder you stood out so long!" said Benyon. 

"I wonder I did. They were bad years. "

"I have no doubt they were!"

"You could do as you pleased, " Georgina went on. "You roamed about theworld; you formed charming relations. I am delighted to hear it fromyour own lips. Think of my going back to my father's house--that familyvault--and living there, year after year, as Miss Gressie! If youremember my father and mother--they are round in Twelfth Street, justthe same--you must admit that I paid for my folly!"

"I have never understood you; I don't understand you now, " said Benyon. 

She looked at him a moment. "I adored you. "

"I could damn you with a word!" he went on. 

The moment he had spoken she grasped his arm and held up her other hand, as if she were listening to a sound outside the room. She had evidentlyhad an inspiration, and she carried it into instant effect She sweptaway to the door, flung it open, and passed into the hall, whence hervoice came back to Benyon as she addressed a person who was apparentlyher husband. She had heard him enter the house at his habitual hour, after his long morning at business; the closing of the door of thevestibule had struck her ear. The parlor was on a level with the hall, and she greeted him without impediment. She asked him to come in and beintroduced to Captain Benyon, and he responded with due solemnity. Shereturned in advance of him, her eyes fixed upon Benyon and lightedwith defiance, her whole face saying to him, vividly: "Here is youropportunity; I give it to you with my own hands. Break your promise andbetray me if you dare! You say you can damn me with a word: speak theword and let us see!"

Benyon's heart beat faster, as he felt that it was indeed a chance; buthalf his emotion came from the spectacle--magnificent in its way--of herunparalleled impudence. A sense of all that he had escaped in nothaving had to live with her rolled over him like a wave, while he lookedstrangely at Mr. Roy, to whom this privilege had been vouchsafed. He sawin a moment his successor had a constitution that would carry it. Mr. Roy suggested squareness and solidity; he was a broadbased, comfortable, polished man, with a surface in which the rank tendrilsof irritation would not easily obtain a foothold. He had a broad, blank face, a capacious mouth, and a small, light eye, to which, ashe entered, he was engaged in adjusting a double gold-rimmed glass. He approached Benyon with a prudent, civil, punctual air, as if hehabitually met a good many gentlemen in the course of business, andthough, naturally, this was not that sort of occasion he was not a manto waste time in preliminaries. Benyon had immediately the impressionof having seen him--or his equivalent--a thousand times before. He wasmiddle-aged, fresh-colored, whiskered, prosperous, indefinite. Georginaintroduced them to each other. She spoke of Benyon as an old friend whomshe had known long before she had known Mr. Roy, who had been very kindto her years ago, when she was a girl. 

"He's in the navy. He has just come back from a long cruise. "

Mr. Hoy shook hands, --Benyon gave him his before he knew it, --said hewas very happy, smiled, looked at Benyon from head to foot, then atGeorgina, then round the room, then back at Benyon again, --at Benyon, who stood there, without sound or movement, with a dilated eye, and apulse quickened to a degree of which Mr. Roy could have little idea. Georgina made some remark about their sitting down, but William Royreplied that he had n't time for that, --if Captain Benyon would excusehim. He should have to go straight into the library, and write a note tosend back to his office, where, as he just remembered, he had neglectedto give, in leaving the place, an important direction. 

"You can wait a moment, surely, " Georgina said. "Captain Benyon wants somuch to see you. "

"Oh, yes, my dear; I can wait a minute, and I can come back. "

Benyon saw, accordingly, that he was waiting, and that Georgina waswaiting too. Each was waiting for him to say something, though they werewaiting for different things. Mr. Roy put his hands behind him, balanced himself on his toes, hoped that Captain Benyon had enjoyedhis cruise, --though he should n't care much for the navy himself, --andevidently wondered at the stolidity of his wife's visitor. Benyon knewhe was speaking, for he indulged in two or three more observations, after which he stopped. But his meaning was not present to our hero. This personage was conscious of only one thing, of his own momentarypower, --of everything that hung on his lips; all the rest swam beforehim; there was vagueness in his ears and eyes. Mr. Roy stopped, as Isay, and there was a pause, which seemed to Benyon of tremendous length. He knew, while it lasted, that Georgina was as conscious as himself thathe felt his opportunity, that he held it there in his hand, weighing itnoiselessly in the palm, and that she braved and scorned, or, rather, that she enjoyed, the danger. He asked himself whether he should be ableto speak if he were to try, and then he knew that he should not, thatthe words would stick in his throat, that he should make sounds thatwould dishonor his cause. There was no real choice or decision, then, onBenyon's part; his silence was after all the same old silence, the fruitof other hours and places, the stillness to which Georgina listened, while he felt her eager eyes fairly eat into his face, so that hischeeks burned with the touch of them. The moments stood before him intheir turn; each one was distinct. "Ah, well, " said Mr. Roy, "perhaps Iinterrupt, --I 'll just dash off my note" Benyon knew that he was ratherbewildered, that he was making a pretext, that he was leaving the room;knew presently that Georgina again stood before him alone. 

"You are exactly the man I thought you!" she announced, as joyously asif she had won a bet. 

"You are the most horrible woman I can imagine. Good God! if I _had_ hadto live with you!" That is what he said to her in answer. 

Even at this she never flushed; she continued to smile in triumph. "Headores me--but what's that to you? Of course you have all the future, "she went on; "but I know you as if I had made you!"

Benyon reflected a moment "If he adores you, you are all right. Ifour divorce is pronounced, you will be free, and then he can marry youproperly, which he would like ever so much better. "

"It's too touching to hear you reason about it. Fancy me telling such ahideous story--about myself--me--_me_!" And she touched her breasts withher white fingers. 

Benyon gave her a look that was charged with all the sickness of hishelpless rage. "You--_you_!" he repeated, as he turned away from her andpassed through the door which Mr. Roy had left open. 

She followed him into the hall, she was close behind him; he movedbefore her as she pressed. "There was one more reason, " she said. "Iwould n't be forbidden. It was my hideous pride. That's what prevents menow. "

"I don't care what it is, " Benyon answered, wearily, with his hand onthe knob of the door. 

She laid hers on his shoulder; he stood there an instant feeling it, wishing that her loathsome touch gave him the right to strike her to theearth, --to strike her so that she should never rise again. 

"How clever you are, and intelligent always, --as you used to be; tofeel so perfectly and know so well, without more scenes, that it'shopeless--my ever consenting! If I have, with you, the shame of havingmade you promise, let me at least have the profit!"

His back had been turned to her, but at this he glanced round. "To hearyou talk of shame--!"

"You don't know what I have gone through; but, of course, I don't askany pity from you. Only I should like to say something kind to youbefore we part I admire you, esteem you: I don't many people! Who willever tell her, if you don't? How will she ever know, then? She will beas safe as I am. You know what that is, " said Georgina, smiling. 

He had opened the door while she spoke, apparently not heeding her, thinking only of getting away from her forever. In reality he heardevery word she said, and felt to his marrow the lowered, suggestivetone in which she made him that last recommendation. Outside, on thesteps--she stood there in the doorway--he gave her his last look. "Ionly hope you will die. I shall pray for that!" And he descended intothe street and took his way. 

It was after this that his real temptation came. Not the temptation toreturn betrayal for betrayal; that passed away even in a few days, for he simply knew that he couldn't break his promise, that it imposeditself on him as stubbornly as the color of his eyes or the stammer ofhis lips; it had gone forth into the world to live for itself, and wasfar beyond his reach or his authority. But the temptation to go throughthe form of a marriage with Kate Theory, to let her suppose that he wasas free as herself, and that their children, if they should have any, would, before the law, have a right to exist, --this attractive idea heldhim fast for many weeks, and caused him to pass some haggard nights anddays. It was perfectly possible she might learn his secret, and that, as no one could either suspect it or have an interest in bringing it tolight, they both might live and die in security and honor. This visionfascinated him; it was, I say, a real temptation. He thought of othersolutions, --of telling her that he was married (without telling herto whom), and inducing her to overlook such an accident, and contentherself with a ceremony in which the world would see no flaw. But afterall the contortions of his spirit it remained as clear to him as beforethat dishonor was in everything but renunciation. So, at last, herenounced. He took two steps which attested ths act to himself. Headdressed an urgent request to the Secretary of the Navy that he might, with as little delay as possible, be despatched on another long voyage;and he returned to Boston to tell Kate Theory that they must wait. Hecould explain so little that, say what he would, he was aware that hecould not make his conduct seem natural, and he saw that the girlonly trusted him, --that she never understood. She trusted withoutunderstanding, and she agreed to wait. When the writer of these pageslast heard of the pair they were waiting still.