LOUISA PALLANT

By Henry James

I

Never say you know the last words about any human heart! I was oncetreated to a revelation which startled and touched me in the nature of aperson with whom I had been acquainted--well, as I supposed--for years, whose character I had had good reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate andin regard to whom I flattered myself I had nothing more to learn. 

It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, nearly ten years ago, one beautiful night toward the end of July. I had come to the place thatday from Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly occupied inwaiting for my young nephew, the only son of my sister, who had beenentrusted to my care by a very fond mother for the summer--I wasexpected to show him Europe, only the very best of it--and was on hisway from Paris to join me. The excellent band discoursed music not tooabstruse, while the air was filled besides with the murmur of differentlanguages, the smoke of many cigars, the creak on the gravel of thegardens of strolling shoes and the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. Therewere a hundred people walking about, there were some in clusters atlittle tables and many on benches and rows of chairs, watchingthe others as if they had paid for the privilege and were ratherdisappointed. I was among these last; I sat by myself, smoking my cigarand thinking of nothing very particular while families and couplespassed and repassed me. 

I scarce know how long I had sat when I became aware of a recognitionwhich made my meditations definite. It was on my own part, and theobject of it was a lady who moved to and fro, unconscious of myobservation, with a young girl at her side. I hadn't seen her for tenyears, and what first struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. HenryPallant, but that the girl who was with her was remarkably pretty--orrather first of all that every one who passed appeared extremely toadmire. This led me also to notice the young lady myself, and hercharming face diverted my attention for some time from that of hercompanion. The latter, moreover, though it was night, wore a thin lightveil which made her features vague. The couple slowly walked andwalked, but though they were very quiet and decorous, and also very welldressed, they seemed to have no friends. Every one observed but noone addressed them; they appeared even themselves to exchange very fewwords. Moreover they bore with marked composure and as if they werethoroughly used to it the attention they excited. I am afraid itoccurred to me to take for granted that they were of an artful intentionand that if they hadn't been the elder lady would have handed theyounger over a little less to public valuation and not have sought so toconceal her own face. Perhaps this question came into my mind too easilyjust then--in view of my prospective mentorship to my nephew. If I wasto show him only the best of Europe I should have to be very carefulabout the people he should meet--especially the ladies--and therelations he should form. I suspected him of great innocence and wasuneasy about my office. Was I completely relieved and reassured whenI became aware that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that thegirl was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child--Linda grown upto charming beauty?

The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure isperhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them awhile--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I wasanxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a greatresort of the English--the London season took up its tale there towardthe first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as thatLouisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that she"cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and wouldbe likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there. Thissupposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knewthere is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated. Youwill see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar Ithought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should haverushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we hadnever really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance that--after thefirst soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put us quite rightwith each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of herheartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. Ihad forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to havemarried a girl who had in her to take back her given word and breaka fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise, as itpitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then--onthe occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each other in theeyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the wickednessof the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure. I knew by that time what she had given out--that I had driven her off bymy insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, beforeshe had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-daya ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it that she knewperfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, Ibelieve, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows itmainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the case if--letthe solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant'sfortunes; the years went by for me in my own country, whereas she ledher life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband'sdeath--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I heard ofher from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but on eachoccasion in a different place. She drifted from country to country, andif she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it could neveroccur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be called, wouldhave softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horriblyworldly" I thought immediately of the object of my early passion. Iimagined she had debts, and when I now at last made up my mind to recallmyself to her it was present to me that she might ask me to lend hermoney. More than anything else, however, at this time of day, I wassorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate as a deterrent. 

She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing aswe stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I haddropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and shehad been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting downwith her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little, the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood beforeher. She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn'timagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and extendingher hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what a delight!"If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own lineshe thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She wascordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was veryglad to see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that shegave me neither then nor later any sign of a desire to contract a loan. She had scant means--that I learned--yet seemed for the moment able topay her way. I took the empty chair and we remained in talk for an hour. After a while she made me sit at her other side, next her daughter, whomshe wished to know me--to love me--as one of their oldest friends. "Itgoes back, back, back, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant; "and of courseshe remembers you as a child. " Linda smiled all sweetly and blankly, andI saw she remembered me not a whit. When her mother threw out that theyhad often talked about me she failed to take it up, though she lookedextremely nice. Looking nice was her strong point; she was prettier eventhan her mother had been. She was such a little lady that she made meashamed of having doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of herposition in the scale of propriety. Her appearance seemed to say thatif she had no acquaintances it was because she didn't want them--becausenobody there struck her as attractive: there wasn't the slightestdifficulty about her choosing her friends. Linda Pallant, young asshe was, and fresh and fair and charming, gentle and sufficiently shy, looked somehow exclusive--as if the dust of the common world had neverbeen meant to besprinkle her. She was of thinner consistency than hermother and clearly not a young woman of professions--except in so far asshe was committed to an interest in you by her bright pure candid smile. No girl who had such a lovely way of parting her lips could pass fordesigning. 

As I sat between the pair I felt I had been taken possession of and thatfor better or worse my stay at Homburg would be intimately associatedwith theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and expressedunlimited interest in each other's history since our last meeting. Imightn't judge of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quiteoverflowed. She let me see at any rate that her life had been a gooddeal what I supposed, though the terms she employed to describe it wereless crude than those of my thought. She confessed they had drifted, she and her daughter, and were drifting still. Her narrative rambledand took a wrong turn, a false flight, or two, as I thought Lindanoted, while she sat watching the passers, in a manner that betrayed noconsciousness of their attention, without coming to her mother's aid. Once or twice Mrs. Pallant made me rather feel a cross-questioner, whichI had had no intention of being. I took it that if the girl never put ina word it was because she had perfect confidence in her parent's abilityto come out straight. It was suggested to me, I scarcely knew how, thatthis confidence between the two ladies went to a great length; thattheir union of thought, their system of reciprocal divination, wasremarkable, and that they probably seldom needed to resort to the clumsyand in some cases dangerous expedient of communicating by sound. Isuppose I made this reflexion not all at once--it was not wholly theresult of that first meeting. I was with them constantly for the nextseveral days and my impressions had time to clarify. 

I do remember, however, that it was on this first evening that Archie'sname came up. She attributed her own stay at Homburg to no refined norexalted motive--didn't put it that she was there from force of habit orbecause a high medical authority had ordered her to drink the waters;she frankly admitted the reason of her visit to have been simply thatshe didn't know where else to turn. But she appeared to assume thatmy behaviour rested on higher grounds and even that it requiredexplanation, the place being frivolous and modern--devoid of thatinterest of antiquity which I had ever made so much of. "Don't youremember--ever so long ago--that you wouldn't look at anything in Europethat wasn't a thousand years old? Well, as we advance in life I supposewe don't think that quite such a charm. " And when I mentioned that I hadarrived because the place was as good as another for awaiting my nephewshe exclaimed: "Your nephew--what nephew? He must have come up oflate. " I answered that his name was Archie Parker and that he was modernindeed; he was to attain legal manhood in a few months and was in Europefor the first time. My last news of him had been from Paris and I wasexpecting to hear further from one day to the other. His father wasdead, and though a selfish bachelor, little versed in the care ofchildren, I was considerably counted on by his mother to see that hedidn't smoke nor flirt too much, nor yet tumble off an Alp. 

Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother was my sisterCharlotte, whom she spoke of familiarly, though I knew she had scarceseen her. Then in a moment it came to her which of the Parkers Charlottehad married; she remembered the family perfectly from the old New Yorkdays--"that disgustingly rich set. " She said it was very nice having theboy come out that way to my care; to which I replied that it was verynice for the boy. She pronounced the advantage rather mine--I ought tohave had children; there was something so parental about me and I wouldhave brought them up so well. She could make an allusion like that--toall that might have been and had not been--without a gleam of guiltin her eye; and I foresaw that before I left the place I should haveconfided to her that though I detested her and was very glad we hadfallen out, yet our old relations had left me no heart for marryinganother woman. If I had remained so single and so sterile the fault wasnobody's but hers. She asked what I meant to do with my nephew--to whichI replied that it was much more a question of what he would do withme. She wished to know if he were a nice young man and had brothers andsisters and any particular profession. I assured her I had really seenlittle of him; I believed him to be six feet high and of tolerableparts. He was an only son, but there was a little sister at home, adelicate, rather blighted child, demanding all the mother's care. 

"So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant. 

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

"Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all themother has. So that being in your hands--"

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

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

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

II

I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which wasenhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices--flowers and photographsand portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old brocadeflung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again atthe Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburgfashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days thisrevived familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quiteachieving it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for meand the conditions of our life were soothing--the feeling of summer andshade and music and leisure in the German gardens and woods, where westrolled and sat and gossiped; to which may be added a vague sociablesense that among people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly notirresistible we kept quite to ourselves. We were on the footing of oldfriends who still had in regard to each other discoveries to make. Weknew each other's nature but didn't know each other's experience; sothat when Mrs. Pallant related to me what she had been "up to, " as Icalled it, for so many years, the former knowledge attached a hundredinterpretative footnotes--as if I had been editing an author whopresented difficulties--to the interesting page. There was nothing newto me in the fact that I didn't esteem her, but there was relief in myfinding that this wasn't necessary at Homburg and that I could like herin spite of it. She struck me, in the oddest way, as both improvedand degenerate; the two processes, in her nature, might have gone ontogether. She was battered and world-worn and, spiritually speaking, vulgarised; something fresh had rubbed off her--it even included thevivacity of her early desire to do the best thing for herself--andsomething rather stale had rubbed on. At the same time she betrayeda scepticism, and that was rather becoming, for it had quenched theeagerness of her prime, the mercenary principle I had so suffered from. She had grown weary and detached, and since she affected me as moreimpressed with the evil of the world than with the good, this was again; in other words her accretion of indifference, if not of cynicism, showed a softer surface than that of her old ambitions. FurthermoreI had to recognise that her devotion to her daughter was a kind ofreligion; she had done the very best possible for Linda. 

Linda was curious, Linda was interesting; I've seen girls I likedbetter--charming as this one might be--but have never seen one who forthe hour you were with her (the impression passed somehow when shewas out of sight) occupied you so completely. I can best describe theattention she provoked by saying that she struck you above all thingsas a felicitous FINAL product--after the fashion of some plant or somefruit, some waxen orchid or some perfect peach. She was clearly theresult of a process of calculation, a process patiently educative, apressure exerted, and all artfully, so that she should reach a highpoint. 

This high point had been the star of her mother's heaven--it hungbefore her so unquenchably--and had shed the only light (in default of abetter) that was to shine on the poor lady's path. It stood her insteadof every other ideal. The very most and the very best--that was what thegirl had been led on to achieve; I mean of course, since no real miraclehad been wrought, the most and the best she was capable of. She was aspretty, as graceful, as intelligent, as well-bred, as well-informed, as well-dressed, as could have been conceived for her; her music, hersinging, her German, her French, her English, her step, her tone, herglance, her manner, everything in her person and movement, from theshade and twist of her hair to the way you saw her finger-nails werepink when she raised her hand, had been carried so far that one foundone's self accepting them as the very measure of young grace. I regardedher thus as a model, yet it was a part of her perfection that she hadnone of the stiffness of a pattern. If she held the observation it wasbecause you wondered where and when she would break down; but she neverbroke down, either in her French accent or in her role of educatedangel. 

After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly his greatest resource, and all the world knows why a party of four is more convenient than aparty of three. My nephew had kept me waiting a week, with a serenityall his own; but this very coolness was a help to harmony--so long, thatis, as I didn't lose my temper with it. I didn't, for the most part, because my young man's unperturbed acceptance of the most various formsof good fortune had more than anything else the effect of amusing me. Ihad seen little of him for the last three or four years; I wondered whathis impending majority would have made of him--he didn't at all carryhimself as if the wind of his fortune were rising--and I watchedhim with a solicitude that usually ended in a joke. He was a tallfresh-coloured youth, with a candid circular countenance and a loveof cigarettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed to morestrenuous studies. He was reassuringly natural, in a supercivilised age, and I soon made up my mind that the formula of his character was in theclearing of the inward scene by his so preordained lack of imagination. If he was serene this was still further simplifying. After that I hadtime to meditate on the line that divides the serene from the inane, thesimple from the silly. He wasn't clever; the fonder theory quite defiedour cultivation, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice; but onthe other hand it struck me his want of wit might be a good defensiveweapon. It wasn't the sort of density that would let him in, butthe sort that would keep him out. By which I don't mean that he hadshortsighted suspicions, but that on the contrary imagination wouldnever be needed to save him, since she would never put him in danger. He was in short a well-grown well-washed muscular young American, whoseextreme salubrity might have made him pass for conceited. If he lookedpleased with himself it was only because he was pleased with life--aswell he might be, with the fortune that awaited the stroke of histwenty-first year--and his big healthy independent person wasan inevitable part of that. I am bound to add that he wasaccommodating--for which I was grateful. His habits were active, buthe didn't insist on my adopting them and he made numerous and generoussacrifices for my society. When I say he made them for mine I must dulyremember that mine and that of Mrs. Pallant and Linda were now verymuch the same thing. He was willing to sit and smoke for hours under thetrees or, adapting his long legs to the pace of his three companions, stroll through the nearer woods of the charming little hill-range of theTaunus to those rustic Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk undera trellis. Mrs. Pallant took a great interest in him; she made him, withhis easy uncle, a subject of discourse; she pronounced him a delightfulspecimen, as a young gentleman of his period and country. She evenasked me the sort of "figure" his fortune might really amount to, andprofessed a rage of envy when I told her what I supposed it to be. Whilewe were so occupied Archie, on his side, couldn't do less than conversewith Linda, nor to tell the truth did he betray the least inclinationfor any different exercise. They strolled away together while theirelders rested; two or three times, in the evening, when the ballroom ofthe Kursaal was lighted and dance-music played, they whirled over thesmooth floor in a waltz that stirred my memory. Whether it had thesame effect on Mrs. Pallant's I know not: she held her peace. We had oncertain occasions our moments, almost our half-hours, of unembarrassedsilence while our young companions disported themselves. But if at othertimes her enquiries and comments were numerous on this article of myingenuous charge, that might very well have passed for a courteousrecognition of the frequent admiration I expressed for Linda--anadmiration that drew from her, I noticed, but scant direct response. I was struck thus with her reserve when I spoke of her daughter--myremarks produced so little of a maternal flutter. Her detachment, herair of having no fatuous illusions and not being blinded by prejudice, seemed to me at times to savour of affectation. Either she answered mewith a vague and impatient sigh and changed the subject, or else shesaid before doing so: "Oh yes, yes, she's a very brilliant creature. She ought to be: God knows what I've done for her!" The reader will havenoted my fondness, in all cases, for the explanations of things; as anexample of which I had my theory here that she was disappointed in thegirl. Where then had her special calculation failed? As she couldn'tpossibly have wished her prettier or more pleasing, the pang must havebeen for her not having made a successful use of her gifts. Had sheexpected her to "land" a prince the day after leaving the schoolroom?There was after all plenty of time for this, with Linda buttwo-and-twenty. It didn't occur to me to wonder if the source of hermother's tepidity was that the young lady had not turned out so nice anature as she had hoped, because in the first place Linda struck meas perfectly innocent, and because in the second I wasn't paid, inthe French phrase, for supposing Louisa Pallant much concerned on thatscore. The last hypothesis I should have invoked was that of privatedespair at bad moral symptoms. And in relation to Linda's nature I hadbefore me the daily spectacle of her manner with my nephew. It was ascharming as it could be without betrayal of a desire to lead him on. Shewas as familiar as a cousin, but as a distant one--a cousin who had beenbrought up to observe degrees. She was so much cleverer than Archiethat she couldn't help laughing at him, but she didn't laugh enough toexclude variety, being well aware, no doubt, that a woman's clevernessmost shines in contrast with a man's stupidity when she pretends to takethat stupidity for her law. Linda Pallant moreover was not a chatterbox;as she knew the value of many things she knew the value of intervals. There were a good many in the conversation of these young persons;my nephew's own speech, to say nothing of his thought, abounding incomfortable lapses; so that I sometimes wondered how their associationwas kept at that pitch of continuity of which it gave the impression. It was friendly enough, evidently, when Archie sat near her--nearenough for low murmurs, had such risen to his lips--and watched her withinterested eyes and with freedom not to try too hard to make himselfagreeable. She had always something in hand--a flower in her tapestryto finish, the leaves of a magazine to cut, a button to sew on her glove(she carried a little work-bag in her pocket and was a person of thedaintiest habits), a pencil to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbookwhich she rested on her knee. When we were indoors--mainly then at hermother's modest rooms--she had always the resource of her piano, ofwhich she was of course a perfect mistress. 

These pursuits supported her, they helped her to an assurance undersuch narrow inspection--I ended by rebuking Archie for it; I told him hestared the poor girl out of countenance--and she sought further reliefin smiling all over the place. When my young man's eyes shone at herthose of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to the trees andclouds and other surrounding objects, including her mother and me. Sometimes she broke into a sudden embarrassed happy pointless laugh. When she wandered off with him she looked back at us in a manner thatpromised it wasn't for long and that she was with us still in spirit. If I liked her I had therefore my good reason: it was many a day since apretty girl had had the air of taking me so much into account. Sometimeswhen they were so far away as not to disturb us she read aloud a littleto Mr. Archie. I don't know where she got her books--I never providedthem, and certainly he didn't. He was no reader and I fear he oftendozed. 

III

I remember the first time--it was at the end of about ten days ofthis--that Mrs. Pallant remarked to me: "My dear friend, you're quiteAMAZING! You behave for all the world as if you were perfectly ready toaccept certain consequences. " She nodded in the direction of our youngcompanions, but I nevertheless put her at the pains of sayingwhat consequences she meant. "What consequences? Why the very sameconsequences that ensued when you and I first became acquainted. "

I hesitated, but then, looking her in the eyes, said: "Do you mean she'dthrow him over?"

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

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

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

"Then your warning comes too late, " I significantly smiled. "But why doyou call it a harm?"

"Haven't you any sense of the rigour of your office?" she asked. "Isthat what his mother has sent him out to you for: that you shall findhim the first wife you can pick up, that you shall let him put his headinto the noose the day after his arrival?"

"Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind! I know moreover thathis mother doesn't want him to marry young. She holds it the worst ofmistakes, she feels that at that age a man never really chooses. Hedoesn't choose till he has lived a while, till he has looked about andcompared. "

"And what do you think then yourself?"

"I should like to say I regard the fact of falling in love, at whateverage, as in itself an act of selection. But my being as I am at this timeof day would contradict me too much. "

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

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

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

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

"If I were his mother I know what I should think. I can put myself inher place--I'm not narrow-minded. I know perfectly well how she mustregard such a question. "

"And don't you know, " I returned, "that in America that's not thoughtimportant--the way the mother regards it?"

Mrs. Pallant had a pause--as if I mystified or vexed her. "Well, we'renot in America. We happen to be here. "

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

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

"You ARE warning me, " I cried, "but I hardly know of what! It seemsto me my responsibility would begin only at the moment your daughterherself should seem in danger. "

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

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

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

"I don't know--I should be very sorry to act on a false alarm. I'm verywell here; I like the place and the life and your society. Besides, itdoesn't strike me that--on her side--there's any real symptom. "

She looked at me with an air I had never seen in her face, and if Ihad puzzled her she repaid me in kind. "You're very annoying. You don'tdeserve what I'd fain do for you. "

What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took upthe subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we shouldassume that a girl like Linda--brilliant enough to make one of thegreatest--would fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. MightI enquire if her mother had won a confession from her, if she hadstammered out her secret? Mrs. Pallant made me, on this, the pointthat they had no need to tell each other such things--they hadn't livedtogether twenty years in such intimacy for nothing. To which I returnedthat I had guessed as much, but that there might be an exception fora great occasion like the present. If Linda had shown nothing it was asign that for HER the occasion wasn't great; and I mentioned that Archiehad spoken to me of the young lady only to remark casually and ratherpatronisingly, after his first encounter with her, that she was aregular little flower. (The little flower was nearly three years olderthan himself. ) Apart from this he hadn't alluded to her and had takenup no allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me again--for which Iwas prepared--that I was quite too primitive; after which she said: "Weneedn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, but I happen to know--howI obtained my knowledge isn't important--that the moment Mr. Parkershould propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. Surely it's adetail worth mentioning to you. "

I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him. I'll look into the matter tonight. "

"Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finerview. "Remove him quickly--that's the only thing. "

I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed toosummary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds;and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish tochange my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, withmy middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. SoI temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as ason-in-law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman. "

"My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with anassurance that struck me. 

The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly!But it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU. "

I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when shespoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw. We've been here a month--it will have served our purpose. "

"Mercy on us, that will be a bore!" I protested; and for the rest ofthe evening, till we separated--our conversation had taken place afterdinner at the Kursaal--she said little, preserving a subdued and almostinjured air. This somehow didn't appeal to me, since it was absurd thatLouisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put me in the wrong. Ifever a woman had been in the wrong herself--! I had even no need to gointo that. Archie and I, at all events, usually attended the ladies backto their own door--they lived in a street of minor accommodation at acertain distance from the Rooms--where we parted for the night late, on the big cobblestones, in the little sleeping German town, underthe closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy interiors, our cheerfulEnglish partings resounded. On this occasion indeed they ratherlanguished; the question that had come up for me with Mrs. Pallantappeared--and by no intention of mine--to have brushed the young couplewith its chill. Archie and Linda too struck me as conscious and dumb. 

As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew I passed my hand into hisarm and put to him, by no roundabout approach, the question of whetherhe were in serious peril of love. 

"I don't know, I don't know--really, uncle, I don't know!" was, however, all the satisfaction I could extract from the youth, who hadn't thesmallest vein of introspection. He mightn't know, but before we reachedthe inn--we had a few more words on the subject--it seemed to me that_I_ did. His mind wasn't formed to accommodate at one time many subjectsof thought, but Linda Pallant certainly constituted for the moment itsprincipal furniture. She pervaded his consciousness, she solicitedhis curiosity, she associated herself, in a manner as yet informal andundefined, with his future. I could see that she held, that she beguiledhim as no one had ever done. I didn't betray to him, however, thatperception, and I spent my night a prey to the consciousness that, afterall, it had been none of my business to provide him with the sense ofbeing captivated. To put him in relation with a young enchantress wasthe last thing his mother had expected of me or that I had expected ofmyself. Moreover it was quite my opinion that he himself was too youngto be a judge of enchantresses. Mrs. Pallant was right and I had givenhigh proof of levity in regarding her, with her beautiful daughter, asa "resource. " There were other resources--one of which WOULD be mostdecidedly to clear out. What did I know after all about the girl exceptthat I rejoiced to have escaped from marrying her mother? That mother, it was true, was a singular person, and it was strange her conscienceshould have begun to fidget in advance of my own. It was strange sheshould so soon have felt Archie's peril, and even stranger that sheshould have then wished to "save" him. The ways of women were infinitelysubtle, and it was no novelty to me that one never knew where they wouldturn up. As I haven't hesitated in this report to expose the irritableside of my own nature I shall confess that I even wondered if my oldfriend's solicitude hadn't been a deeper artifice. Wasn't it possibly aplan of her own for making sure of my young man--though I didn't quitesee the logic of it? If she regarded him, which she might in view of hislarge fortune, as a great catch, mightn't she have arranged this littlecomedy, in their personal interest, with the girl?

That possibility at any rate only made it a happier thought that Ishould win my companion to some curiosity about other places. There weremany of course much more worth his attention than Homburg. In the courseof the morning--it was after our early luncheon--I walked round to Mrs. Pallant's to let her know I was ready to take action; but even while Iwent I again felt the unlikelihood of the part attributed by my fearsand by the mother's own, so far as they had been roused, to Linda. Certainly if she was such a girl as these fears represented her shewould fly at higher game. It was with an eye to high game, Mrs. Pallanthad frankly admitted to me, that she had been trained, and such aneducation, to say nothing of such a performer, justified a hope ofgreater returns. A young American, the fruit of scant "modelling, " whocould give her nothing but pocket-money, was a very moderate prize, and if she had been prepared to marry for ambition--there was no suchhardness in her face or tone, but then there never is--her mark wouldbe inevitably a "personage" quelconque. I was received at my friend'slodging with the announcement that she had left Homburg with herdaughter half an hour before. The good woman who had entertained thepair professed to know nothing of their movements beyond the fact thatthey had gone to Frankfort, where, however, it was her belief that theydidn't intend to remain. They were evidently travelling beyond. Sudden, their decision to move? Oh yes, the matter of a moment. They must havespent the night in packing, they had so many things and such prettyones; and their poor maid, all the morning, had scarce had time toswallow her coffee. But they clearly were ladies accustomed to come andgo. It didn't matter--with such rooms as hers she never wanted: therewas a new family coming in at three. 

IV

This piece of strategy left me staring and made me, I must confess, quite furious. My only consolation was that Archie, when I told him, looked as blank as myself, and that the trick touched him more nearly, for I was not now in love with Louisa. We agreed that we required anexplanation and we pretended to expect one the next day in the shape ofa letter satisfactory even to the point of being apologetic. When I say"we" pretended I mean that I did, for my suspicion that he knew what hadbeen on foot--through an arrangement with Linda--lasted only a moment. If his resentment was less than my own his surprise was equally great. I had been willing to bolt, but I felt slighted by the ease with whichMrs. Pallant had shown she could part with us. Archie professed nosense of a grievance, because in the first place he was shy about it andbecause in the second it was evidently not definite to him that he hadbeen encouraged--equipped as he was, I think, with no very particularidea of what constituted encouragement. He was fresh from the wonderfulcountry in which there may between the ingenuous young be so littlequestion of "intentions. " He was but dimly conscious of his own andcould by no means have told me whether he had been challenged or beenjilted. I didn't want to exasperate him, but when at the end of threedays more we were still without news of our late companions I observedthat it was very simple:--they must have been just hiding from us; theythought us dangerous; they wished to avoid entanglements. They had foundus too attentive and wished not to raise false hopes. He appeared toaccept this explanation and even had the air--so at least I inferredfrom his asking me no questions--of judging the matter might be delicatefor myself. The poor youth was altogether much mystified, and I smiledat the image in his mind of Mrs. Pallant fleeing from his uncle'simportunities. We decided to leave Homburg, but if we didn't pursue ourfugitives it wasn't simply that we were ignorant of where they were. Icould have found that out with a little trouble, but I was deterred bythe reflexion that this would be Louisa's reasoning. She was a dreadfulhumbug and her departure had been a provocation--I fear it was in thatstupid conviction that I made out a little independent itinerary withArchie. I even believed we should learn where they were quite soonenough, and that our patience--even my young man's--would be longer thantheirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of triumph when threeweeks later--we happened to be at Interlaken--he reported to me that hehad received a note from Miss Pallant. The form of this confidence washis enquiring if there were particular reasons why we should longerdelay our projected visit to the Italian lakes. Mightn't the fear of thehot weather, which was moreover at that season our native temperature, cease to operate, the middle of September having arrived? I answeredthat we would start on the morrow if he liked, and then, pleasedapparently that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his littlesecret. He showed me his letter, which was a graceful naturaldocument--it covered with a few flowing strokes but a single page ofnote-paper--not at all compromising to the young lady. If, however, itwas almost the apology I had looked for--save that this should have comefrom the mother--it was not ostensibly in the least an invitation. Itmentioned casually--the mention was mainly in the words at the headof her paper--that they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno; but itconsisted mainly of the expression of a regret that they had had soabruptly to leave Homburg. Linda failed to say under what necessity theyhad found themselves; she only hoped we hadn't judged them too harshlyand would accept "this hasty line" as a substitute for the omittedgood-bye. She also hoped our days were passing pleasantly and with thesame lovely weather that prevailed south of the Alps; and she remainedvery sincerely and with the kindest remembrances--!

The note contained no message from her mother, and it was open to me tosuppose, as I should prefer, either that Mrs. Pallant hadn't known shewas writing or that they wished to make us think she hadn't known. Theletter might pass as a common civility of the girl's to a person withwhom she had been on easy terms. It was, however, for something morethan this that my nephew took it; so at least I gathered from thetouching candour of his determination to go to Baveno. I judged it idleto drag him another way; he had money in his own pocket and was quitecapable of giving me the slip. Yet--such are the sweet incongruities ofyouth--when I asked him to what tune he had been thinking of Linda sincethey left us in the lurch he replied: "Oh I haven't been thinking atall! Why should I?" This fib was accompanied by an exorbitant blush. Since he was to obey his young woman's signal I must equally make outwhere it would take him, and one splendid morning we started over theSimplon in a post-chaise. 

I represented to him successfully that it would be in much better tastefor us to alight at Stresa, which as every one knows is a resortof tourists, also on the shore of the major lake, at about a mile'sdistance from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we should have toinhabit the same hotel as our friends, and this might be awkward in viewof a strained relation with them. Nothing would be easier than to go andcome between the two points, especially by the water, which would giveArchie a chance for unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at thevision of a pair of oars; he pretended to take my plea for discretionvery seriously, and I could see that he had at once begun to calculateopportunities for navigation with Linda. Our post-chaise--I had insistedon easy stages and we were three days on the way--deposited us at Stresatoward the middle of the afternoon, and it was within an amazingly shorttime that I found myself in a small boat with my nephew, who pulled usover to Baveno with vigorous strokes. I remember the sweetness of thewhole impression. I had had it before, but to my companion it was new, and he thought it as pretty as the opera: the enchanting beauty of theplace and, hour, the stillness of the air and water, with the romanticfantastic Borromean Islands set as great jewels in a crystal globe. Wedisembarked at the steps by the garden-foot of the hotel, and somehowit seemed a perfectly natural part of the lovely situation that I shouldimmediately become conscious of Mrs. Pallant and her daughter seated onthe terrace and quietly watching us. They had the air of expectation, which I think we had counted on. I hadn't even asked Archie if he hadanswered Linda's note; this was between themselves and in the way ofsupervision I had done enough in coming with him. 

There is no doubt our present address, all round, lacked a little theeasiest grace--or at least Louisa's and mine did. I felt too much theappeal of her exhibition to notice closely the style of encounter of theyoung people. I couldn't get it out of my head, as I have sufficientlyindicated, that Mrs. Pallant was playing a game, and I'm afraid she sawin my face that this suspicion had been the motive of my journey. I hadcome there to find her out. The knowledge of my purpose couldn't helpher to make me very welcome, and that's why I speak of our meetingconstrainedly. We observed none the less all the forms, and theadmirable scene left us plenty to talk about. I made no reference beforeLinda to the retreat from Homburg. This young woman looked even prettierthan she had done on the eve of that manoeuvre and gave no sign of anawkward consciousness. She again so struck me as a charming clever girlthat I was freshly puzzled to know why we should get--or should havegot--into a tangle about her. People had to want to complicate asituation to do it on so simple a pretext as that Linda was in every waybeautiful. This was the clear fact: so why shouldn't the presumptionsbe in favour of every result of it? One of the effects of that cause, on the spot, was that at the end of a very short time Archie proposed toher to take a turn with him in his boat, which awaited us at the foot ofthe steps. She looked at her mother with a smiling "May I, mamma?" andMrs. Pallant answered "Certainly, darling, if you're not afraid. " Atthis--I scarcely knew why--I sought the relief of laughter: it must haveaffected me as comic that the girl's general competence should sufferthe imputation of that particular flaw. She gave me a quick slightlysharp look as she turned away with my nephew; it appeared to challengeme a little--"Pray what's the matter with YOU?" It was the firstexpression of the kind I had ever seen in her face. Mrs. Pallant'sattention, on the other hand, rather strayed from me; after we had beenleft there together she sat silent, not heeding me, looking at the lakeand mountains--at the snowy crests crowned with the flush of evening. She seemed not even to follow our young companions as they got intotheir boat and pushed off. For some minutes I respected her mood; Iwalked slowly up and down the terrace and lighted a cigar, as she hadalways permitted me to do at Homburg. I found in her, it was true, rather a new air of weariness; her fine cold well-bred face was pale;I noted in it new lines of fatigue, almost of age. At last I stopped infront of her and--since she looked so sad--asked if she had been havingbad news. 

"The only bad news was when I learned--through your nephew's note toLinda--that you were coming to us. "

"Ah then he wrote?"

"Certainly he wrote. "

"You take it all harder than I do, " I returned as I sat down beside her. And then I added, smiling: "Have you written to his mother?"

Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. "Take care, take care, or you'll have been more brutal than you'll afterwards like, " she saidwith an air of patience before the inevitable. 

"Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew whenLinda wrote. "

She had an hesitation. "Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn't havedone anything else. I let it go because I didn't know what course wasbest. I'm afraid to oppose her to her face. "

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

"That girl? Much you know about her! It didn't follow you'd come. Ididn't take that for granted. "

"I'm like you, " I said--"I too am afraid of my nephew. I don't ventureto oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do--once he wishedit--was to come with him. "

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

"Oh I was conscientious about that! But I've no authority; I can neitherdrive him nor stay him--I can use no force, " I explained. "Look at theway he's pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me. "

"You could tell him she's a bad hard girl--one who'd poison any goodman's life!" my companion broke out with a passion that startled me. 

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

She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and soremained a minute; then she continued a little differently, though asif she hadn't heard my question: "I hoped you were too disgusted withus--after the way we left you planted. "

"It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Lindahadn't written. That patched it up, " I gaily professed. But my gaietywas thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Doyou really mean that she won't do?" I added. 

She made no direct answer; she only said after a little that it didn'tmatter whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weekslater, since it was destined to come at the first chance, the favouringmoment. Linda had marked my young man--and when Linda had marked athing!

"Bless my soul--how very grim--" But I didn't understand. "Do you meanshe's in love with him?"

"It's enough if she makes him think so--though even that isn'tessential. "

Still I was at sea. "If she makes him think so? Dear old friend, what'syour idea? I've observed her, I've watched her, and when all's said whathas she done? She has been civil and pleasant to him, but it would havebeen much more marked if she hadn't. She has really shown him, with heryouth and her natural charm, nothing more than common friendliness. Hernote was nothing; he let me see it. "

"I don't think you've heard every word she has said to him, " Mrs. Pallant returned with an emphasis that still struck me as perverse. 

"No more have you, I take it!" I promptly cried. She evidently meantmore than she said; but if this excited my curiosity it also moved, in adifferent connexion, my indulgence. 

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

"You've an extraordinary tone about her, " I declared "such a tone asI think I've never before heard on a mother's lips. I've had the sameimpression from you--that of a disposition to 'give her away, ' but neveryet so strong. "

At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there looking down at me. "Youmake my reparation--my expiation--difficult!" And leaving me still moreastonished she moved along the terrace. 

I overtook her presently and repeated her words. "Your reparation--yourexpiation? What on earth are you talking about?"

"You know perfectly what I mean--it's too magnanimous of you to pretendyou don't. "

"Well, at any rate, " I said, "I don't see what good it does me, or whatit makes up to me for, that you should abuse your daughter. "

"Oh I don't care; I shall save him!" she cried as we went, and with anextravagance, as I felt, of sincerity. At the same moment two ladies, apparently English, came toward us--scattered groups had been sittingthere and the inmates of the hotel were moving to and fro--and Iobserved the immediate charming transition, the fruit of such yearsof social practice, by which, as they greeted us, her tension and herimpatience dropped to recognition and pleasure. They stopped to speakto her and she enquired with sweet propriety as to the "continuedimprovement" of their sister. I strolled on and she presently rejoinedme; after which she had a peremptory note. "Come away from this--comedown into the garden. " We descended to that blander scene, strolledthrough it and paused on the border of the lake. 

V

The charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemnexpression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. In the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. I looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, remarked that fromsuch an excursion as that, on such a lake and at such an hour, a youngman and a young woman of common sensibility could only come back doublypledged to each other. 

To this observation Mrs. Pallant's answer was, superficially at least, irrelevant; she said after a pause: "With you, my dear man, one hascertainly to dot one's 'i's. ' Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tellyou at Homburg, that we're miserably poor?"

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

Well, she promptly met this. "They take us en pension, for ever solittle a day. I've been knocking about Europe long enough to learn allsorts of horrid arts. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we've spent halfour life in them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped neverto put her foot into one again. She feels that when she comes to such aplace as this she ought, if things were decently right, to find a villaof her own. "

"Then her companion there's perfectly competent to give her one. Don'tthink I've the least desire to push them into each other's arms--I onlyask to wash my hands of them. But I should like to know why you want, asyou said just now, to save him. When you speak as if your daughter werea monster I take it you're not serious. "

She was facing me in the rich short twilight, and to describe herself asimmeasurably more serious perhaps than she had ever been in her life shehad only to look at me without protestation. "It's Linda's standard. Godknows I myself could get on! She's ambitious, luxurious, determined tohave what she wants--more 'on the make' than any one I've ever seen. Of course it's open to you to tell me it's my own fault, that I wasso before her and have made her so. But does that make me like it anybetter?"

"Dear Mrs. Pallant, you're wonderful, you're terrible, " I could onlystammer, lost in the desert of my thoughts. 

"Oh yes, you've made up your mind about me; you see me in a certain wayand don't like the trouble of changing. Votre siege est fait. But you'llHAVE to change--if you've any generosity!" Her eyes shone in the summerdusk and the beauty of her youth came back to her. 

"Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation?" I demanded. "Idon't see what you ever did to Archie. "

"It's enough that he belongs to you. But it isn't for you I do it--it'sfor myself, " she strangely went on. 

"Doubtless you've your own reasons--which I can't penetrate. But can'tyou sacrifice something else? Must you sacrifice your only child?"

"My only child's my punishment, my only child's my stigma!" she cried inher exaltation. 

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

"Hers? What does SHE know of such things?--what can she ever feel? She'scased in steel; she has a heart of marble. It's true--it's true, " saidLouisa Pallant. "She appals me!"

I laid my hand on my poor friend's; I uttered, with the intention ofchecking and soothing her, the first incoherent words that came into myhead and I drew her toward a bench a few steps away. She dropped uponit; I placed myself near her and besought her to consider well what shesaid. She owed me nothing and I wished no one injured, no one denouncedor exposed for my sake. 

"For your sake? Oh I'm not thinking of you!" she answered; and indeedthe next moment I thought my words rather fatuous. "It's a satisfactionto my own conscience--for I HAVE one, little as you may think I've aright to speak of it. I've been punished by my sin itself. I've beenhideously worldly, I've thought only of that, and I've taught her to beso--to do the same. That's the only instruction I've ever given her, andshe has learned the lesson so well that now I see it stamped there inall her nature, on all her spirit and on all her form, I'm horrified atmy work. For years we've lived that way; we've thought of nothing else. She has profited so well by my beautiful influence that she has gone farbeyond the great original. I say I'm horrified, " Mrs. Pallant dreadfullywound up, "because she's horrible. "

"My poor extravagant friend, " I pleaded, "isn't it still more so to heara mother say such things?"

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

I could only gape again at this least expected of all my adventures. "Doyou expect me then to repeat to him--?"

"Not in the least, " she broke in; "I'll do it myself. " At this I utteredsome strong inarticulate protest, but she went on with the grimmestsimplicity: "I was very glad at first, but it would have been better ifwe hadn't met. "

"I don't agree to that, for you interest me, " I rather ruefullyprofessed, "immensely. "

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

"You must reflect then that your denunciation can only strike me as, for all its violence, vague and unconvincing. Never had a girl less theappearance of bearing such charges out. You know how I've admired her. "

"You know nothing about her! _I_ do, you see, for she's the work of myhand!" And Mrs. Pallant laughed for bitterness. "I've watched her foryears, and little by little, for the last two or three, it has come overme. There's not a tender spot in her whole composition. To arrive at abrilliant social position, if it were necessary, she would see me drownin this lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there and seeit--she would push me in--and never feel a pang. That's my young lady!"Her lucidity chilled me to the soul--it seemed to shine so flawless. "Toclimb up to the top and be splendid and envied there, " she went on--"todo that at any cost or by any meanness and cruelty is the only thing shehas a heart for. She'd lie for it, she'd steal for it, she'd kill forit!" My companion brought out these words with a cold confidence thathad evidently behind it some occult past process of growth. I watchedher pale face and glowing eyes; she held me breathless and frowning, buther strange vindictive, or at least retributive, passion irresistiblyimposed itself. I found myself at last believing her, pitying her morethan I pitied the subject of her dreadful analysis. It was as if she hadheld her tongue for longer than she could bear, suffering more and morethe importunity of the truth. It relieved her thus to drag that to thelight, and still she kept up the high and most unholy sacrifice. "Godin his mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that hehas let me see it in my daughter. It's myself he has let me see--myselfas I was for years. But she's worse--she IS, I assure you; she's worsethan I intended or dreamed. " Her hands were clasped tightly together inher lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked upat the southern stars as if THEY would understand. 

"Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me?" I finally asked. "Haveyou ever put before her this terrible arraignment?"

"Put it before her? How can I put it before her when all she would haveto say would be: 'You, YOU, you base one, who made me--?'"

"Then why do you want to play her a trick?"

"I'm not bound to tell you, and you wouldn't see my point if I did. Ishould play that boy a far worse one if I were to stay my hand. "

Oh I had my view of this. "If he loves her he won't believe a word yousay. "

"Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty. "

"And shall you say to him, " I asked, "simply what you've said to me?"

"Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that willperhaps helpfully affect him. Only, " she added with her proud decision, "I must lose no time. "

"If you're so bent on gaining time, " I said, "why did you let her go outin the boat with him?"

"Let her? how could I prevent it?"

"But she asked your permission. "

"Ah that, " she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!"

It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing. "Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed. 

"I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of thembad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for whatI've made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himselfmarried to her. "

"There's not much danger of there being any such person, " I wailed, "atthe rate you go on. "

"I beg your pardon--there's a perfect possibility, " said my companion. "She'll marry--she'll marry 'well. ' She'll marry a title as well as afortune. 

"It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title, " I attempted the grimace ofsuggesting. 

She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm actinga part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can anyone TELL, " asked Louisa Pallant--"with people like us?"

Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my handon her arm, holding her a while, and we looked at each other through thedusk. "You couldn't do more if he were my son. "

"Oh if he had been your son he'd have kept out of it! I like him forhimself. He's simple and sane and honest--he needs affection. "

"He would have quite the most remarkable of mothers-in-law!" Icommented. 

Mrs. Pallant gave a small dry laugh--she wasn't joking. We lingeredby the lake while I thought over what she had said to me and while sheherself apparently thought. I confess that even close at her side andunder the strong impression of her sincerity, her indifference to theconventional graces, my imagination, my constitutional scepticism beganto range. Queer ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on HER side andnot on the girl's, and was she posturing as a magnanimous woman atpoor Linda's expense? Was she determined, in spite of the young lady'spreference, to keep her daughter for a grander personage than a youngAmerican whose dollars were not numerous enough--numerous as theywere--to make up for his want of high relationships, and had sheinvented at once the boldest and the subtlest of games in order to keepthe case in her hands? If she was prepared really to address herself toArchie she would have to go very far to overcome the mistrust he wouldbe sure to feel at a proceeding superficially so sinister? Was sheprepared to go far enough? The answer to these doubts was simply the wayI had been touched--it came back to me the next moment--when she usedthe words "people like us. " Their effect was to wring my heart. Sheseemed to kneel in the dust, and I felt in a manner ashamed that I hadlet her sink to it. She said to me at last that I must wait no longer, Imust go away before the young people came back. They were staying long, too long; all the more reason then she should deal with my nephew thatnight. I must drive back to Stresa, or if I liked I could go on foot:it wasn't far--for an active man. She disposed of me freely, she was sofull of her purpose; and after we had quitted the garden and returned tothe terrace above she seemed almost to push me to leave her--I felt herfine consecrated hands fairly quiver on my shoulders. I was ready to doas she prescribed; she affected me painfully, she had given me a "turn, "and I wanted to get away from her. But before I went I asked her whyLinda should regard my young man as such a parti; it didn't square afterall with her account of the girl's fierce ambitions. By that accountthese favours to one so graceless were a woeful waste of time. 

"Oh she has worked it all out; she has regarded the question in everylight, " said Mrs. Pallant. "If she has made up her mind it's because shesees what she can do. "

"Do you mean that she has talked it over with you?"

My friend's wonderful face pitied my simplicity. "Lord! for what do youtake us? We don't talk things over to-day. We know each other's point ofview and only have to act. We observe the highest proprieties of speech. We never for a moment name anything ugly--we only just go at it. We cantake definitions, which are awkward things, for granted. "

"But in this case, " I nevertheless urged, "the poor thing can't possiblybe aware of your point of view. "

"No, " she conceded--"that's because I haven't played fair. Of course shecouldn't expect I'd cheat. There ought to be honour among thieves. Butit was open to her to do the same. "

"What do you mean by the same?"

"She might have fallen in love with a poor man. Then I should have been'done. '"

"A rich one's better; he can do more, " I replied with conviction. 

At this she appeared to have, in the oddest way, a momentary revulsion. "So you'd have reason to know if you had led the life that we have!Never to have had really enough--I mean to do just the few simple thingswe've wanted; never to have had the sinews of war, I suppose you'd callthem, the funds for a campaign; to have felt every day and every hourthe hard eternal pinch and found the question of dollars and cents--andso horridly few of them--mixed up with every experience, with everyimpulse: that DOES make one mercenary, does make money seem a goodbeyond all others; which it's quite natural it should! And it's whyLinda's of the opinion that a fortune's always a fortune. She knows allabout that of your nephew, how it's invested, how it may be expected toincrease, exactly on what sort of footing it would enable her to live. She has decided that it's enough, and enough is as good as a feast. Shethinks she could lead him by the nose, and I dare say she could. She'llof course make him live in these countries; she hasn't the slightestintention of casting her pearls--but basta!" said my friend. "I thinkshe has views upon London, because in England he can hunt and shoot, andthat will make him leave her more or less to herself. "

"I don't know about his leaving her to herself, but it strikes me thathe would like the rest of that matter very much, " I returned. "That'snot at all a bad programme even from Archie's point of view. "

"It's no use thinking of princes, " she pursued as if she hadn't heardme. "They're most of them more in want of money even than we. Therefore'greatness' is out of the question--we really recognised that at anearly stage. Your nephew's exactly the sort of young man we've alwaysbuilt upon--if he wasn't, so impossibly, your nephew. From head to foothe was made on purpose. Dear Linda was her mother's own daughter whenshe recognised him on the spot! One's enough of a prince to-day whenone's the right American: such a wonderful price is set on one'snot being the wrong! It does as well as anything and it's a greatsimplification. If you don't believe me go to London and see. " She hadcome with me out to the road. I had said I would walk back to Stresa andwe stood there in the sweet dark warmth. As I took her hand, biddingher good-night, I couldn't but exhale a compassion. "Poor Linda, poorLinda!"

"Oh she'll live to do better, " said Mrs. Pallant. 

"How can she do better--since you've described all she finds Archie asperfection?"

She knew quite what she meant. "Ah better for HIM!"

I still had her hand--I still sought her eyes. "How came it you couldthrow me over--such a woman as you?"

"Well, my friend, if I hadn't thrown you over how could I do this foryou?" On which, disengaging herself, she turned quickly away. 

VI

I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of herquestion, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial andthe real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of thecolour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa--a walk of half anhour--in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in whichshe had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have madesitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me upafter I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was uselessto go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie hadnot reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensedwith. I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possiblemischances. Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake, that is of his continued absence from Baveno--Mrs. Pallant would alreadyhave dispatched me a messenger. It was foolish moreover to supposeanything could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno bywater to rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and morethan sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I hadunlimited confidence in his power to take care of himself in a muchtighter place. I went to my room at last; his own was at some distance, the people of the hotel not having been able--it was the height ofthe autumn season--to make us contiguous. Before I went to bed I hadoccasion to ring for a servant, and I then learned by a chance enquirythat my nephew had returned an hour before and had gone straight tohis own quarters. I hadn't supposed he could come in without my seeinghim--I was wandering about the saloons and terraces--and it had notoccurred to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now--Iwas so anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, forevidently he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity, and I slept even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking ourencounter--for if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have lookedfor me in my room--was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with himwould really have come off. What had she said to him? What strongmeasures had she taken? That almost morbid resolution I still seemed tohear the ring of pointed to conceivable extremities that I shrank fromconsidering. She had spoken of these things while we parted there assomething she would do for me; but I had made the mental comment inwalking away from her that she hadn't done it yet. It wouldn't truly bedone till Archie had truly backed out. Perhaps it was done by this time;his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. That was what I thought of mostof the night. I spent a considerable part of it at my window, lookingout to the couchant Alps. HAD he thought better of it?--was he making uphis mind to think better of it? There was a strange contradiction in thematter; there were in fact more contradictions than ever. I had takenfrom Louisa what she told me of Linda, and yet that other idea made meashamed of my nephew. I was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss ofa great chance, if loss it was to be; and yet I hoped her mother's grandtreachery--I didn't know what to call it--had been at least, to herlover, thoroughgoing. It would need strong action in that lady tojustify his retreat. For him too I was sorry--if she had made on him theimpression she desired. Once or twice I was on the point of getting intomy dressing-gown and going forth to condole with him. I was sure hetoo had jumped up from his bed and was looking out of his window at theeverlasting hills. 

But I am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast heshowed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources thatlater experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterlyresource of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we thinkthat too simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with aneffect much less baffling. My young man looked not in the least as if hehad lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him whathe had done after my premature departure--I explained this by saying Ihad been tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wantedto go to bed--he replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about theplace; I like it better than this one. We had an awfully jolly timeon the water. _I_ wasn't in the least fagged. " I didn't worry him withquestions; it struck me as gross to try to probe his secret. The onlyindication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should goover again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted hewould be glad to come too. Then he let fall that he'd stop at Stresa--hehad paid them such a tremendous visit; also that he had arrears ofletters. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of hisvisits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consistedentirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he soothed myanxiety so little that it was really this yearning that carried me backto Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it hestood watching me from the porch of the hotel with his hands in hispockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the poor youth'sface the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even, to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observedhim, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better come withme" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my call. Isaid to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it wouldn'ttake much to bring him back. 

The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in asummer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at largehad an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed onthe lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to theBorromean Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was inthe summer-house, but she was there alone. On finding this the caseI stopped short, rather awkwardly--I might have been, from the way Isuddenly felt, an unmasked hypocrite, a proved conspirator against hersecurity and honour. But there was no embarrassment in lovely Linda; shelooked up with a cry of pleasure from the book she was reading and heldout her hand with engaging frankness. I felt again as if I had no rightto that favour, which I pretended not to have noticed. This gave nochill, however, to her pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestryoff the bench so that I might sit down; she praised the place as adelightful shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, kinder; shemade her mother's awful talk about her a hideous dream. She told meher mother was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to writea letter. One couldn't write out there, though it was so nice in otherrespects: the table refused to stand firm. They too then had pretextsof letters between them--I judged this a token that the situation wastense. It was the only one nevertheless that Linda gave: like Archie shewas young enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us alwaystogether, yet she made no comment on my having come over without him. Iwaited in vain for her to speak of this--it would only be natural; heromission couldn't but have a sense. At last I remarked that my nephewwas very unsociable that morning; I had expected him to join me, but hehadn't seemed to see the attraction. 

"I'm very glad. You can tell him that if you like, " said Linda Pallant. 

I wondered at her. "If I tell him he'll come at once. "

"Then don't tell him; I don't want him to come. He stayed too long lastnight, " she went on, "and kept me out on the water till I don't knowwhat o'clock. That sort of thing isn't done here, you know, and everyone was shocked when we came back--or rather, you see, when we didn't! Ibegged him to bring me in, but he wouldn't. When we did return--I almosthad to take the oars myself--I felt as if every one had been sitting upto time us, to stare at us. It was awfully awkward. "

These words much impressed me; and as I have treated the reader tomost of the reflexions--some of them perhaps rather morbid--in which Iindulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother, I may aswell complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whetherLinda--candid and accomplished maiden--entertained the graceful thoughtof strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove he had"compromised" her. "Ah no doubt that was the reason he had a badconscience last evening!" I made answer. "When he came back to Stresa hesneaked off to his room; he wouldn't look me in the face. "

But my young lady was not to be ruffled. "Mamma was so vexed that shetook him apart and gave him a scolding. And to punish ME she sent mestraight to bed. She has very old-fashioned ideas--haven't you, mamma?"she added, looking over my head at Mrs. Pallant, who had just come inbehind me. 

I forget how her mother met Linda's appeal; Louisa stood there with twoletters, sealed and addressed, in her hand. She greeted me gaily andthen asked her daughter if she were possessed of postage-stamps. Linda consulted a well-worn little pocket-book and confessed herselfdestitute; whereupon her mother gave her the letters with the requestthat she would go into the hotel, buy the proper stamps at the office, carefully affix them and put the letters into the box. She was to payfor the stamps, not have them put on the bill--a preference for whichMrs. Pallant gave reasons. I had bought some at Stresa that morning andwas on the point of offering them when, apparently having guessed myintention, the elder lady silenced me with a look. Linda announcedwithout reserve that she hadn't money and Louisa then fumbled for afranc. When she had found and bestowed it the girl kissed her beforegoing off with the letters. 

"Darling mother, you haven't any too many of them, have you?" shemurmured; and she gave me, sidelong, as she left us, the prettiesthalf-comical, half-pitiful smile. 

"She's amazing--she's amazing, " said Mrs. Pallant as we looked at eachother. 

"Does she know what you've done?"

"She knows I've done something and she's making up her mind what it is. She'll satisfy herself in the course of the next twenty-four hours--ifyour nephew doesn't come back. I think I can promise you he won't. "

"And won't she ask you?"

"Never!"

"Shan't you tell her? Can you sit down together in this summer-house, this divine day, with such a dreadful thing as that between you?"

My question found my friend quite ready. "Don't you remember what Itold you about our relations--that everything was implied between usand nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in common--our perpetualworldliness, our always looking out for chances--are not the sort ofthing that can be uttered conveniently between persons who like to keepup forms, as we both do: so that, always, if we've understood each otherit has been enough. We shall understand each other now, as we've alwaysdone, and nothing will be changed. There has always been somethingbetween us that couldn't be talked about. "

"Certainly, she's amazing--she's amazing, " I repeated; "but so are you. "And then I asked her what she had said to my boy. 

She seemed surprised. "Hasn't he told you?"

"No, and he never will. "

"I'm glad of that, " she answered simply. 

"But I'm not sure he won't come back. He didn't this morning, but he hadalready half a mind to. "

"That's your imagination, " my companion said with her fine authority. "If you knew what I told him you'd be sure. "

"And you won't let me know?"

"Never, dear friend. "

"And did he believe you?"

"Time will show--but I think so. "

"And how did you make it plausible to him that you should take sounnatural a course?"

For a moment she said nothing, only looking at me. Then at last: "I toldhim the truth. "

"The truth?"

"Take him away--take him away!" she broke out. "That's why I got rid ofLinda, to tell you you mustn't stay--you must leave Stresa to-morrow. This time it's you who must do it. I can't fly from you again--it coststoo much!" And she smiled strangely. 

"Don't be afraid; don't be afraid. We'll break camp again to-morrow--ahme! But I want to go myself, " I added. I took her hand in farewell, butspoke again while I held it. "The way you put it, about Linda, was verybad?"

"It was horrible. "

I turned away--I felt indeed that I couldn't stay. She kept me fromgoing to the hotel, as I might meet Linda coming back, which I was farfrom wishing to do, and showed me another way into the road. Then sheturned round to meet her daughter and spend the rest of the morningthere with her, spend it before the bright blue lake and the snowycrests of the Alps. When I reached Stresa again I found my young manhad gone off to Milan--to see the cathedral, the servant said--leaving amessage for me to the effect that, as he shouldn't be back for a day ortwo, though there were numerous trains, he had taken a few clothes. Thenext day I received telegram-notice that he had determined to go on toVenice and begged I would forward the rest of his luggage. "Please don'tcome after me, " this missive added; "I want to be alone; I shall do noharm. " That sounded pathetic to me, in the light of what I knew, and Iwas glad to leave him to his own devices. He proceeded to Venice and Ire-crossed the Alps. For several weeks after this I expected to discoverthat he had rejoined Mrs. Pallant; but when we met that November inParis I saw he had nothing to hide from me save indeed the secret ofwhat our extraordinary friend had said to him. This he concealed fromme then and has concealed ever since. He returned to America beforeChristmas--when I felt the crisis over. I've never again seen thewronger of my youth. About a year after our more recent adventure herdaughter Linda married, in London, a young Englishman the heir to alarge fortune, a fortune acquired by his father in some prosaic butflourishing industry. Mrs. Gimingham's admired photographs--such isLinda's present name--may be obtained from the principal stationers. Iam convinced her mother was sincere. My nephew has not even yet changedhis state, my sister at last thinks it high time. I put before her assoon as I next saw her the incidents here recorded, and--such is theinconsequence of women--nothing can exceed her reprobation of LouisaPallant.