Doctor Claudius, A True Story / Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909

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Title: Doctor Claudius, A True Story

Author: F. Marion Crawford

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Language: English

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DOCTOR CLAUDIUS

A True Story



BY F. MARION CRAWFORD

Author OF "MR. ISAACS"




London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1883




Dedicated

TO

MY DEAR FRIENDS

THE COUNTESS MARGARET AND

CLAUDIUS, PH.D.




DOCTOR CLAUDIUS.




CHAPTER I.


"I believe I am old," said the Doctor, pushing his straight-backed
wooden chair from the table, and turning from his books to look out of
his small window. "Yes, I am certainly very old," he said again, rapping
absently on the arm of the chair with the pen he held. But the fingers
that held the instrument were neither thin nor withered, and there was
no trembling in the careless motion of the hand. The flaxen hair, long
and tangled, was thick on the massive head, and the broad shoulders were
flat and square across. Whatever Dr. Claudius might say of himself, he
certainly did not look old.

And yet he said to himself that he was, and he probably knew. He said to
himself, as he had said every day for many long months, that this was
the secret of the difference he felt between his life and the life of
his companions--such companions as he had, between his thoughts and
their thoughts, between his ways and their ways. Of late the fancy had
gained a stronger hold on his imagination, excited by solitude and an
undue consumption of the midnight oil, and as he turned his face to the
evening light, an observer, had there been one, might have felt half
inclined to agree with him. His face was pale, and the high aquiline
nose looked drawn. Moreover, the tangled hair and beard contrasted
strangely with his broad, spotless collar, and his dressing-gown of
sober black. The long habit of neatness in dress survived any small
vanity of personal looks.

He rose, and throwing the pen impatiently on the table, went to the
little window and looked out. His shoulders overlapped the opening on
both sides as he thrust his yellow head out into the evening sunshine,
and Master Simpelmayer, the shoemaker down in the street, glanced up,
and seeing that the Herr Doctor was taking his evening sniff of the
Neckar breeze, laid down his awl and went to "vespers,"--a "maas" of
cool beer and a "pretzel." For the Herr Doctor was a regular man, and
always appeared at his window at the same hour, rain or shine. And when
Simpelmayer mended the well-worn shoes that came to him periodically
from across the way, he was sure that the flaxen-haired student would
not call over to know if they were finished until the sun was well down
and the day far spent. On this particular evening, however, there was no
mending in hand for the Herr Doctor, and so the crooked little shoemaker
filled himself a pipe, and twisted his apron round his waist, and
stumped leisurely down the street to the beer-shop at the corner, where
he and his fellows took their pots and their pipes, undisturbed by the
playful pranks of the students.

But the Doctor remained at his window, and neither vouchsafed look nor
greeting to Master Simpelmayer. He was not thinking of shoes or
shoemakers just then, though, to judge by his face, he was thinking very
intently of something. And well he might, for he had been reading
serious stuff. The walls of his little chamber were lined with books,
and there was a small sliding-rack on the table, presumably for those
volumes he immediately required for his work. A rare copy of _Sextus
Empiricus_, with the Greek and Latin side by side, lay open on an
inclined desk at one end, and the table was strewn with papers, on which
were roughly drawn a variety of mathematical figures, margined all
around with odd-looking equations and algebraically-expressed formulae.
Well-thumbed volumes of mathematical works in English, German, and
French, lay about, opened in various places, and there was a cracked old
plate, half full of tobacco ashes and the ends of cigarettes. The
remaining furniture of the room was simple and poor: a neat camp
bedstead, a boot-jack, and a round mirror, not more than four inches in
diameter; a tin tub and an iron washing-stand; a much battered old
"schlaeger," with the colours at the hilt all in rags, hung over the iron
stove; and that was all the room contained besides books and the
working-table and chair. It would be impossible to live more simply, and
yet everything was neat and clean, and stamped, too, with a certain
_cachet_ of individuality. There were probably hundreds of student-rooms
in the town of Heidelberg which boasted no more adornment or luxury than
this, and yet there was not one that looked like it. A student's room,
as he grows up, is a reflection of himself; it is a kind of dissolving
view, in which the one set of objects and books fades gradually away as
his opinions form themselves, and as he collects about him the works
that are really of interest to him, as distinguished from those with
which he has been obliged to occupy himself prior to taking his
academic steps. Then, as in the human frame every particle of bone and
sinew is said to change in seven years, the student one day looks about
him and recognises that hardly a book or a paper is there of all the
store over which he was busied in those months before he took his
degree, or sustained his disputation. When a man has entered on his
career, if he enters on it with a will, he soon finds that all books and
objects not essential as tools for his work creep stealthily into the
dusty corner, or to the inaccessible top shelf of the bookcase,--or if
he is very poor, to the second-hand bookshop. He cannot afford to be
hampered by any dead weight.

Now Dr. Claudius had gone through many changes of thought and habit
since he came to Heidelberg ten years ago. But he had never changed his
quarters; for he loved the garret window and the isolation from visits
and companions that he gained by his three flights of stairs. The
camp-bed in the corner was the same whereon he had lain after his first
duel, with a bag of ice on his head and his bosom friend by his side,
with a long pipe. At that very table he had drawn his first caricature
of Herr Professor Winkelnase, which had been framed and hung up in the
"Kneipe"--the drinking-hall of his corps; at the same board he had
written his thesis for his doctorate, and here again he had penned the
notes for his first lecture. Professor Winkelnase was dead; not one of
his old corps-brothers remained in Heidelberg, but still he clung to the
old room. The learned doctors with whom he drank his wine or his beer of
an evening, when he sallied forth from his solitude, wondered at his way
of living; for Dr. Claudius was not poor, as incomes go in South
Germany. He had a modest competence of his own to begin with, and his
lectures brought him in something, so that he might have had a couple of
rooms "_parterre_"--as the Germans call the _rez-de-chaussee_--and could
have been as comfortable as he pleased. But no one ever attempted to
account for Dr. Claudius at all. He was a credit to the University,
where first-rate men are scarce,--for Heidelberg is not a seat of very
great learning; and no one troubled to inquire why he did not return to
his native country when he had obtained his "Phil.D." Only, if he meant
to spend the rest of his life in Heidelberg, it was high time he married
and settled down to genuine "Philisterleben"--at least so Dr. Wiener had
said to Dr. Wurst over the second "schoppen" every night for a year
past.

But Claudius did not marry, nor did he even allow his blue eyes to rest
contemplatively on black-eyed Fraeulein Wiener, or red-cheeked Fraeulein
Wurst. He would indeed occasionally accept an invitation to drink coffee
at his colleagues' houses, but his talk was little and his manner a
placid blank. He had been wild enough ten years before, when his yellow
hair and tall straight presence were the admiration of every burgher's
daughter in the Hirschgasse or the Langestrasse; but years and study had
brought out the broad traits of his character, his uniformly quiet
manner, his habits of regularity, and a certain deliberateness of gait
and gesture which well became his towering figure and massive strength.
He was utterly independent in all his ways, without the least trace of
the arrogance that hangs about people whose independence is put on, and
constantly asserted, in order to be beforehand with the expected
opposition of their fellow-men.

Dr. Claudius was a Swede by birth and early education, and finding
himself at twenty free to go where he would, he had wandered to
Heidelberg in pursuit of the ideal student-life he had read so much of
in his Northern home. Full of talent, independent and young, he cared
little for the national enmities of Scandinavians and Germans, and, like
all foreigners who behave sensibly, he was received with open arms by
the enthusiastic students, who looked upon him as a sort of typical
Goth, the prototype of the Teutonic races. And when they found how
readily he learned to handle schlaeger and sabre, and that, like a true
son of Odin, he could drain the great horn of brown ale at a draught,
and laugh through the foam on his yellow beard, he became to them the
embodiment of the student as he should be. But there was little of all
that left now, and though the stalwart frame was stronger and tougher in
its manly proportions, and the yellow beard grown long and curly, and
the hair as thick as ever, the flush of youth was gone; and Dr. Claudius
leaned out of his high window and smelled the river breeze, and said to
himself it was not so sweet as it used to be, and that, for all he only
had thirty summers behind him, he was growing old--very old; and that
was why he did not care to spend more than half-an-hour of an evening
with Dr. Wiener and Dr. Wurst.

In truth it was an unnatural life for a man just reaching his prime, and
full of imagination and talent and love for the beautiful. But he had
fallen into the philosophical groove of study which sooner or later
seems to absorb so many gifted minds, only to lay them waste in nine
cases out of ten. A brilliant mathematician, he had taken his doctorate
without difficulty, and his thesis had even attracted some attention.
From the higher speculations of modern mathematics to the study of
philosophy is but a step, and Claudius had plunged into the vast sea of
Kant, Spinoza, and Hegel, without, perhaps, having any very definite
idea of what he was doing, until he found himself forced to go forward
or to acknowledge himself baffled and beaten. This he was not willing to
do, and so he had gone on and on, until one day, some six months ago, he
had asked himself what it all led to? why he had laboured so hard for
years over such things? whether the old free life and ready enjoyment
were not better than this midnight prowling among other people's
thoughts, which, whatever they might have been when spoken, never seemed
quite clear on paper? Or would it not be better to leave the whole thing
and go back to his Northern home? He might find plenty of adventure
there, and breathe in fresh youth and vitality in the cold bright life
of the Norwegian fisheries or of some outlying Swedish farm. And yet he
could not make up his mind to move, or to acknowledge that he had
laboured in vain. It was in vain, though, he said, as he looked out at
the flowing river. Had he gained a single advantage either for his
thoughts or his deeds by all his study of philosophy? In his weariness
he said to himself that he had not; that he had been far better able to
deal with questions of life, so long as he had only handled the exact
sciences, than he was now, through all this uncertain saturation of
foggy visions and contradictory speculations. Questions of life--but did
questions of life ever arise for him? He had reduced it all to its
simplest expression. His little store of money was safely invested, and
he drew the income four times a year. He possessed no goods or chattels
not stowed away in his garret chamber. He owed no man anything; he was
not even a regular professor, tied to his University by a fixed
engagement. In a word, he was perfectly free and untrammelled. To what
end? He worked on from force of habit; but work had long ceased to amuse
him. When had he laughed last? Probably not since his trip on foot to
the Bavarian Highlands, where he had met a witty journalist from Berlin,
with whom he had walked for a couple of days.

This evening he was more weary than usual. He almost thought he would go
away if he could think of any place to go to where life might be more
interesting. He had no relations excepting an uncle, who had emigrated
to America when Claudius was a baby, and who wrote twice a year, with
that regular determination to keep up his family ties which
characterises the true Northman. To this uncle he also wrote regularly
at stated intervals, telling of his quiet student-life. He knew that
this solitary relation was in business in New York, and he inferred from
the regular offers of assistance which came in every letter that he was
in good circumstances,--but that was all. This evening he fell to
thinking about him. The firm was "Barker and Lindstrand," he remembered.
He wondered what Mr. Barker was like. By the by it would soon be
midsummer, and he might expect the half-yearly letter at any time. Not
that it would interest him in the least when it came, but yet he liked
to feel that he was not utterly alone in the world. There was the
postman coming down the street in his leisurely, old-fashioned way,
chatting with the host at the corner and with the tinman two doors off,
and then--yes, he was stopping at Dr. Claudius's door.

The messenger looked up, and, seeing the Doctor at his window, held out
a large envelope.

"A letter for you, Herr Doctor," he cried, and his red nose gleamed in
the evening glow, strongly foreshortened to the Doctor's eye.

"Gleich," replied Claudius, and the yellow head disappeared from the
window, its owner descending to open the door.

As he mounted the dingy staircase Claudius turned the great sealed
envelope over and over in his hand, wondering what could be the
contents. It was postmarked "New York," but the hand was large and round
and flourished, not in the least like his uncle's sexagenarian
crabbedness of hieroglyphic. In the corner was the name of a firm he did
not know, and the top of the letter was covered with a long row of
stamps, for it was very thick and heavy. So he went into his room, and
sat down on the window-sill to see what Messrs. Screw and Scratch of
Pine Street, New York, could possibly want of Claudius, Phil.D. of
Heidelberg.

His curiosity soon gave way to very considerable surprise. The first
part of the letter contained the formal announcement of the sudden
decease of Gustavus Lindstrand, of the firm of Barker and Lindstrand of
New York. Claudius laid down the letter and sighed. His one relation had
not been much to him. He had no recollection even of the old gentleman's
appearance, but the regular correspondence had given him a feeling of
reliance, a sensation of not being absolutely alone. He was alone now.
Not a relation of any description in the world. Well, he would read the
remainder of the letter. He turned over the page.

"We enclose a copy of the will," the lawyer continued, "for your
inspection. You will see that Mr. Screw of our firm is appointed joint
executor with Mr. Silas B. Barker, and we await your further
instructions. In view of the large fortune you inherit," . . .

Claudius looked up suddenly and gazed blankly out of the window; then he
went on--

. . . "by the aforesaid will of your uncle, the late Mr. Gustavus
Lindstrand, it might be well if, at your convenience, you could pay a
visit to this country."

Here Claudius thought it was time to look at the will itself. Unfolding
the document, which was very short, he acquainted himself with the
contents. There were a few legacies to old servants, and one or two to
persons who were probably friends. Everything else was devised and
bequeathed "to my nephew, the son of my sister, Claudius,
_privat-docent_ in the University of Heidelberg, Grand Duchy of Baden,
Germany." And it appeared that the surplus, after deducting all legacies
and debts, amounted to about one million and a half of dollars.

Claudius carefully reread the papers without betraying the smallest
emotion. He then put them back in the envelope, and opening a small iron
cash-box, which stood on a shelf of the book-case, locked up will,
letter, power of attorney, and all. Then he shook his long limbs, with a
sigh, and having rolled a thick cigarette, lighted it, and sat down in
his chair to think. The shadows were deepening, and the smoke of his
tobacco showed white against the gloom in the room. The news he had just
received would have driven some men crazy, and certainly most people
would experience some kind of vivid sensation at finding themselves
suddenly endowed with immense wealth from a quarter where they did not
even suspect it existed. Moreover, old Lindstrand's will was perfectly
unequivocal, and contained none of those ill-natured restrictions about
marrying or not marrying, or assuming the testator's name, or anything
which could put the legatee to the slightest inconvenience. But Claudius
experienced no sensation of pleasure at finding himself sole master of a
million and a half.

It was not that he was foolish enough to despise money, or even to
pretend to, as some people do. He would have felt keenly the loss of his
own little store, and would have hated to work for money instead of
working for work's sake. But he had enough, and had always had enough,
for his small wants. He loved beautiful things intensely, but he had no
desire to possess them; it was enough that he might see them, and carry
away the remembrance. He loved books, but he cared not a jot for rare
editions, so long as there were cheap ones published in Leipzic. That
old copy of _Sextus Empiricus_, on the desk there, he had bought because
he could not get an ordinary edition; and now that he had read it he did
not care to keep it. Of course it contained a great deal that was good,
but he had extracted the best of it, and meant to sell the volume to the
first bidder--not that he wanted the money, but because it was in the
way; if he allowed things to accumulate, there would be no turning round
in his little den. So he leaned back in his straight-backed chair and
wondered what in the world he should do with "all that money." He might
travel. Yes, but he preferred to travel with a view of seeing things,
rather than of reaching places. He would rather walk most of the way.
The only way in which he could possibly live up to such an income must
be by changing his entire mode of life--a house, somewhere in a great
city, horses, servants, and even a wife--Claudius laughed for the first
time in many months, a deep Homeric laugh--they would all help him to
get rid of his money. But then, a life like that--pshaw! impossible. He
was sick of it before beginning, then what would he feel after a month
of it?

The problem faced him in the dark, like an unsolved equation, staring
out black and white before his eyes, or like an unfinished game of chess
when one goes to bed after five or six hours' play. Something he must
decide, because it was his nature to decide always, before he left a
subject, on some course of thought. Meanwhile he had been so little
disturbed by the whole business that, in spite of his uncle's death, and
a million and a half of money, he was hungry and thirsty. So he struck a
match and lit his study-lamp, and found his coat and hat and stick. Then
he paused. He did not want to meet Dr. Wiener and Dr. Wurst that
evening; he would fetch himself something to eat and drink, and be
quiet. So he slung a heavy stone jug on his arm, and, turning his lamp
down to save the oil, trudged down the stairs and out into the street.
He made for the little inn at the corner, and while the fat old landlord
filled his jug with the best Markgraefler, he himself picked out a couple
of smoked sausages from the great pile on the counter, and wrapping them
up with half a dozen pretzels, transferred the package to his capacious
pocket. Then he took the jug from the innkeeper, and having paid half a
gulden for the whole supply of eatables and wine, he departed to consume
them in solitude. It was his usual supper. He had done the same thing
for ten years, off and on, whenever he was not inclined for company.

"But I suppose it is incongruous," he soliloquised, "that, being a
millionaire, I should fetch my own supper." Once more he laughed aloud
in the crowded street, for it was warm and the people were sitting in
front of their houses, Simpelmayer the shoemaker, and Blech the tinman,
and all the rest, each with his children and his pot of beer. As the
Doctor laughed, the little boys laughed too, and Blech remarked to
Simpelmayer that the Herr Doctor must have won the great prize in the
Hamburg lottery, for he had not heard him laugh like that in three
years.

"Freilich," returned the crooked shoemaker, "but he was used to laugh
loud enough ten years ago. I can remember when he first moved in there,
and his corps-fellows locked him in his room for a jest, and stood
mocking in the street. And he climbed right down the woodwork and
stepped on the signboard of the baker and jumped into the street,
laughing all the while, though they were holding in their breath for
fear he should break his neck. Ja, he was a right student; but he is
changed now--the much reading, lieber Blech, the much reading." And the
old fellow looked after Claudius as he disappeared into the dark
doorway.

The Doctor mounted his three flights with even tread, and, turning up
his light, proceeded leisurely to eat his twisted rolls and sausages.
When he had done that, he took the great stone jug in his hand, as if it
had been a wine-glass, and set it to his lips and drank a long draught.

The result of his cogitations, assisted by the soothing influence of
supper, was to be foreseen. In the first place, he reflected that the
problem was itself a myth. No one could require of him that he should
use his money unless he liked. He might let it accumulate without any
trouble to himself; and then, why should he tell any one of his
inheritance? Surely he might go on living as he was living now for an
indefinite period, and nobody would be the wiser. Besides, it would be a
novel sensation to feel that while living like a simple student he
possessed a great power, put away, as it were, on the shelf, whereby he
could, if he liked, at any moment astonish the whole country. Very
novel, indeed, and considering the importance of the question of the
disposal of his income, he could well afford to give it six months'
consideration. And he might move undisturbed about the University and
eat his supper with Dr. Wiener and Dr. Wurst without being the object of
general interest, which he would at once become if it were known that
he, a simple _privat-docent_, with his decent black coat and his
twice-mended shoes, was the richest man in the Grand Duchy of Baden.

These reflections of Dr. Claudius, strange as they must seem in the eyes
of men of the world, were only what were to be expected from a man of
his education and character. He had travelled after a fashion, it is
true, and had frequented society when he was younger; for the Heidelberg
student is a lover of the dance, and many of the wild young _burschen_
become the brilliant officers of the crack regiments of the first army
in the world. He had been in Paris and Vienna and Rome for a few weeks,
and, being of a good family in the North, had received introductions
through the diplomatic representatives of his country. His striking
personality had always attracted attention, and he might have gone
everywhere had he chosen. But he had only cared enough for society and
its life to wish to see it now and then, and he fancied that he
understood it at a glance--that it was all a sham and a glamour and
vanity of vanities. There was, of course, a potent reason for all this.
In his short peregrinations into the world of decorations and blue
ribbons and cosmopolitan uniforms he had never come across a woman that
interested him. He had a holy reverence for woman in the abstract, but
he had not met one to whom he could do homage as the type of the ideal
womanhood he worshipped. Perhaps he expected too much, or perhaps he
judged too much by small and really insignificant signs. As no man
living or dead has ever understood any woman for five minutes at a time,
he was not to be blamed. Women are very like religion--we must take them
on faith, or go without.

Moreover, Dr. Claudius had but an indifferent appreciation of the value
of money; partly because he had never cared for what it would buy, and
had therefore never examined its purchasing power, and partly because he
had never lived intimately with people who spent a great deal. He knew
nothing of business, and had never gambled, and he did not conceive that
the combination of the two could be of any interest. Compared with the
questions that had occupied his mind of late, it seemed to make no more
difference whether a man were rich or poor than whether he had light
hair or dark. And if he had seriously asked himself whether even those
great problems which had occupied the minds of the mightiest thinkers
led to any result of importance, it was not likely that he would bestow
a thought on such a trivial matter as the question of pounds, shillings,
and pence.

So, before he went to bed, he took out a sheet of paper and an
envelope--he never bought but one package of envelopes a year, when he
sent his New Year's card to the other doctors of the University--and
wrote a short letter to Messrs. Screw and Scratch of Pine Street, New
York. He acknowledged the receipt of their communication, deplored the
death of his only relation, and requested that they would look after his
money for him, as he had no use whatever for it at present. He objected,
he said, to signing a power of attorney as yet, for as there was no
hurry they might consult him by letter or telegraph as often as they
liked. When Messrs. Screw and Scratch read this epistle they opened
their eyes wide, wondering what manner of man Claudius, Phil.D., might
be. And it took them some time to find out. But Claudius put out his
light when he had signed and sealed the missive, and slept the sleep of
the strong and the just, undisturbed by the possession of a fortune or
by any more doubts as to the future.

Before receiving this letter he had thought seriously of going away. Now
that a move was almost thrust upon him, he found that he did not want to
make it. A professor he would live and die. What could be more
contemptible, he reflected, than to give up the march of thought and the
struggle for knowledge, in order to sit at ease, devising means of
getting rid of so much cash? And he straightened his great limbs along
the narrow camp-bed and was asleep in five minutes.




CHAPTER II.


When Claudius awoke at daybreak he had a strong impression that he had
been dreaming. His first action was to open his iron box and read the
will over again. That being done, he reflected that his determination to
keep his fortune a secret was a wise one, and that for the present he
would abide by it. So he went out and got a notary to attest his
signature to the letter, and posted it to Messrs. Screw and Scratch, and
returned to his books. But the weather was intensely hot, and the sun
beat down fiercely on the roof over his head, so that after two or three
hours he gave it up and sallied forth to seek coolness abroad. His steps
turned naturally upwards towards the overhanging castle where he was
sure of a breeze and plenty of shade; and as he passed the famous old
"Wirthshaus zum faulen Pelz" on the ascent, he turned in and took a
drink of the cool clear ale and a pretzel, an operation termed in
Germany the "Fruehschoppen," or "early glass," and as universal a
practice as the early tea in the tropics before the sun is up, or the
"vermouth" of the Italian before the evening meal. Having offered this
customary libation to the summer deities, the Doctor leisurely climbed
the hill and entered the precincts of the Schloss. Sure enough, there
was a breeze here among the ruins, and shade in abundance wherein to
lie and read all through the summer day, with an occasional shift of
position as the sun rose and sank in the blazing sky.

Claudius stretched himself out near the great ruined tower under a bit
of wall, and, pulling out a book, began to read. But the book did not
interest him, and before long he let it drop and fell to thinking. The
light wind stirred the broad green foliage over him, and the sun struck
fiercely down beyond the border of shade; but then, again, beyond there
were more trees and more shade. The nameless little crickets and flies
and all manner of humming things panted musically in the warm air; the
small birds chirped lazily now and then in desultory conversation, too
hot to hop or fly; and a small lizard lay along the wall dazed and
stupid in the noontide heat. The _genius loci_ was doubtless cooling
himself in the retirement of some luxurious hole among the ruins, and
the dwarf Perkeo, famous in song and toast, had the best of it that day
down in the cellar by the great tun.

But Claudius was of a tough nature, and minded neither heat nor cold;
only when a large bluebottle fly buzzed round his nose he whisked his
broad hat to drive the tormentor away, and said to himself that summer
had its drawbacks even in Germany, though there were certainly more
flies and mosquitoes and evil beasts on the wing in Sweden during the
two months' heat there. On the whole, he was pretty comfortable among
the ruins on this June day, though he ought to begin considering where
his summer foot tour was to take him this year. It might be as well,
certainly. Where could he go? There was the Black Forest, but he knew
that thoroughly; Bohemia--he had been there; Switzerland; the
Engadine--yes, he would go back to Pontresina and see what it had grown
into since he was there six years ago. It used to be a delightful place
then, as different from St. Moritz as anything could well be. Only
students and artists and an occasional sturdy English climber used to go
to Pontresina, while all Europe congregated at St. Moritz half a dozen
miles away. He would go there as he went everywhere, with a knapsack and
a thick stick and a few guldens in his pocket, and be happy, if so be
that he had any capacity for enjoyment left in him.

"It is absurd," said Claudius to himself, argumentatively. "I am barely
thirty years old, as strong as an ox, and I have just inherited more
money than I know what to do with, and I feel like an old cripple of
ninety, who has nothing left to live for. It must be morbid imagination
or liver complaint, or something."

But it was neither liver nor imagination, for it was perfectly genuine.
Tired of writing, tired of reading, of seeing, of hearing, and speaking;
and yet blessed with a constitution that bid fair to carry him through
another sixty years of life. He tried to argue about it. Was it possible
that it came of living in a foreign country with whose people he had but
a fancied sympathy? There are no folk like our own folk, after all; and
there is truly a great gulf between Scandinavians and every other kind
of people. But it seemed to Claudius that he loved the Germans and their
ways--and indeed he did; but does not everyday experience show that the
people we admire, and even love, the most are not necessarily those with
whom we are most in sympathy or with whom it is best for us to live? He
would have been better among his own Northern people; but that did not
strike him, and he determined he would go to the Engadine to-morrow or
next day.

The Doctor, having made up his mind, shifted his position and sat up,
pulling a pipe from his pocket, which he proceeded to fill and to light.
The flame of the match was white and transparent in the mid-day glare,
and the smoke hung lazily about as he puffed at the ungainly instrument
of enjoyment.

Before he had half finished his pipe he heard footsteps on the path. He
looked up idly and saw a lady--_two_ ladies--coming leisurely towards
him. Beyond the fact that it was an unusual hour for strangers to visit
the Schloss--and they evidently were strangers--there was nothing
unusual in the apparition; and Claudius merely rose to his feet and
moved slowly on, not from any desire to get out of the way, but merely
because he was too well bred to remain seated by the path while a lady
passed, and having risen, he could not very well stand still. So he
moved on till he stood by the broken tower, and seeing that by climbing
down he could reach a more secure resting-place, with the advantage of a
view, he let himself drop easily on to a projecting ledge of masonry and
resumed his pipe with philosophic indifference. Before long he heard
voices above him, or more properly a voice, for one of the parties
confined her conversation strictly to yea and nay, while the other spoke
enthusiastically, and almost as if soliloquising, about the scene.

It was a deep-strung voice, that would have been masculine if it had
been the least harsh; but it was not--it was only strong and large and
smooth, a woman's voice with the gift of resonance that lends interest
where there might otherwise seem to be none. There is a certain kind of
voice in woman that seems to vibrate in a way especially its own.
Whether it be that under certain conditions of the vocal organs
harmonic sounds are produced as they may be upon a stringed instrument
or upon an organ pipe; or whether, again, the secret lies deeper,
depending on the subtile folding and unfolding of new-shaped waves of
sound to which our ordinary ears are not used--who can tell? And yet
there are voices that from the first produce upon us a strange
impression unlike anything else in the world. Not that we necessarily
become interested in the possessor of the voice, who may remain for ever
utterly indifferent to us, for the magic lies in the tone merely, which
seems to have a power of perpetuating itself and rebounding among the
echoes of our recollections. Barely, very rarely, singers possess it,
and even though their powers be limited there comes a strange thrill
into their singing which fixes it indelibly on the memory.

Such a voice it was that Claudius heard as he lay on his ledge of
masonry some ten feet below, and listened to the poetic flow of the
strange lady's thoughts on Heidelberg and the scene at her feet. He did
not move, for he was sure she had not seen him; and he supposed she
would go away in a few minutes. He was destined to be seen, however. She
stopped talking, and was apparently lost in thought; but in a moment
there was a small cry.

"O mon Dieu!" and a dainty lace-covered parasol fell over the edge, and,
striking the platform where Claudius was lying, went straight to the
bottom of the ruin, some twenty feet farther.

"What a nuisance," said the thrilling voice from above, "I can never get
it back now; and there are no gardeners or people about."

"Permit me, Madam," said Claudius, stepping as far out as he dared, and
looking up to catch a glimpse of a beautiful woman in black and white
staring down at the unlucky parasol in a rather helpless fashion. "Do
not be disturbed, Madam; I will get it for you in a moment." And he
began to descend.

The fair unknown protested--Monsieur must not trouble himself; Monsieur
would certainly break his neck--_enfin_, it was very obliging on the
part of Monsieur to risk himself in such a terrible gulf, etc. etc. But
"Monsieur," when once he had caught sight of those dark eyes, climbed
steadily down to the bottom, and had reached the lost parasol before the
string of polite protestations had ceased. The ascent was quickly
accomplished, and he stood at the summit, hat in hand, to return the
object of his search to its rightful owner. There was not a trace of
embarrassment on his face; and he looked the foreign lady boldly in the
eyes as he bowed. She could not express her thanks sufficiently, and
would probably have wished to continue expressing them for some time
longer to the handsome and herculean young man, who had apparently
started out of space to her assistance; but when Claudius had taken a
good look he simply answered--

"Il n'y a pas de quoi, Madame," and bowing low walked off. Perhaps the
least contraction of curiosity was in his eyes; and he would have liked
to know who the lady was who had the crown and the large M carved in the
ivory of her parasol stick. But, after all, he came to the conclusion
that he did not care, and so went strolling down the path, wondering
where he could hide himself if visitors were to infest the Schloss at
this time of year, and in the hottest hours of the day.

"I will leave here to-morrow," he said, "and see if I cannot be more
comfortable in Pontresina." He reached another part of the Schloss, and
sitting down resumed his pipe, which seemed destined to interruptions.

The lady of the parasol had made an impression on Dr. Claudius, for all
his apparent indifference. It was rarely, indeed, nowadays that he
looked at a woman at all; and to-day he had not only looked, but he
owned to himself, now it was past, that he would like to look again. If
he had had any principle in avoiding women during the last few years, he
would not have admitted now that he would like to see her again--just
for one moment. But he had no principle in the matter. It was choice,
and there it ended; and whenever he should take it into his head to
associate with the fair sex again, he would consider it a sign that his
youth had returned, and he would yield without the smallest struggle.
But in this ease--"Pshaw!" thought the humble _privat-docent_, "she is
some great lady, I suppose. How should I make her acquaintance? Oh! I
forgot--I am a millionaire to-day; I have only to ask and it shall be
opened." He smiled to himself, and, with the returning sense of the
power to do what he pleased, the little undefined longing for another
glimpse of the fair stranger subsided for a time.

Then he regretted it. He was sorry it was gone; for while it had been
there he had felt a something telling him he was not old after all, but
only very young--so young that he had never been in love. As a
consequence of his wishing his little rag of sentiment back again, it
came; but artificially this time, and as if expecting to be criticised.
He would contemplate for a space the fair picture that had the power to
rouse his weary soul, even for an instant, from the sea of indifference
in which it was plunged.

Claudius lay back in the grass and crossed one leg over the other. Then
he tried to recall the features of the woman who had begun to occupy his
thoughts. She was certainly very beautiful. He could remember one or two
points. Her skin was olive-tinted and dark about the eyes, and the eyes
themselves were like soft burning amber, and her hair was very black.
That was all he could recollect of her--saving her voice. Ah yes! he had
seen beautiful women enough, even in his quiet life, but he had never
heard anything exactly like this woman's tones. There are some sounds
one never forgets. For instance, the glorious cry of the trumpeter swans
in Iceland when they pass in full flight overhead in the early morning;
or the sweet musical ring of the fresh black ice on the river as it
clangs again to sweep of the steel skate. Claudius tried to compare the
sound of that voice to something he had heard, but with little success.

Southern and Eastern born races fall in love at first sight in a way
that the soberer Northener cannot understand. A face in a crowd, a
glance, a droop of the lashes, and all is said. The seed of passion is
sown and will grow in a day to all destroying proportions. But the
Northern heart is a very different affair. It will play with its
affections as a cat plays with a mouse; only the difference is, that the
mouse grows larger and more formidable, like the one in the story of the
Eastern sage, which successively changed its shape until it became a
tiger, and the wise man was driven to take precautions for his own
safety. There is never the least doubt in the mind of an Italian or an
Oriental when he is in love; but an Englishman will associate with a
woman for ten years, and one day will wake up to the fact that he loves
her, and has loved her probably for some time past. And then his whole
manner changes immediately, and he is apt to make himself very
disagreeable unless indeed the lady loves him--and women are rarely in
doubt in their inmost hearts as to whether they love or not.

The heart of the cold northern-born man is a strange puzzle. It can only
be compared in its first awakening to a very backward spring. In the
first place, the previous absence of anything like love has bred a rough
and somewhat coarse scepticism about the existence of passion at all.
Young Boreas scoffs at the mere mention of a serious affection, and
turns up his nose at a love-match. He thinks young women no end of fun;
his vanity makes him fancy himself the heartless hero of many an
adventure, and if, as frequently happens, he is but an imperfect
gentleman, he will not scruple to devise, imagine, and recount (to his
bosom friend, of course, in strictest secrecy) some hairbreadth escape
from an irate husband or an avenging father, where he has nearly lost
his life, he says, in the pursuit of some woman, generally a lady of
spotless reputation whom he barely knows. But put him in her society for
an hour, with every opportunity of pressing his suit, and the veriest
lambkin could not be more harmless. He has not yet tasted blood, though
he will often smack his lips and talk as if he had.

It is generally chance that makes him fall in love the first time. He is
thrown together with his fate--tall or short, dark or fair, it makes no
difference--in some country house or on some journey. For a long time
her society only amuses him and helps to pass the hours, for Boreas is
easily bored and finds time a terrible adversary. Gradually he
understands that she is a necessity to his comfort, and there is nothing
he will not do to secure her on every possible opportunity for himself.
Then perhaps he allows to himself that he really does care a little, and
he loses some of his incrustation of vanity. He feels less sure of
himself, and his companions observe that he ceases to talk of his
alleged good fortunes. Very, very slowly his real heart wakes up, and
whatever is manly and serious and gentle in his nature comes
unconsciously to the surface. Henceforth he knows he loves, and because
his love has been slow to develop itself it is not necessarily sluggish
or deficient when once it is come. But Englishmen are rarely heroic
lovers except in their novels. There is generally a little bypath of
caution, a postern gate of mercantile foresight, by which they can slip
quietly out at the right moment and forget all about the whole thing.

Claudius was not an Englishman, but a Scandinavian, and he differed from
the imaginary young man described above in that he had a great broad
reverence of woman and for woman's love. But it was all a theory, of
which the practice to him was as yet unknown. He had soon wearied of the
class of women he had met in his student-life--chiefly the daughters of
respectable Heidelberg Philistines, of various degrees of south Teutonic
prettiness; and the beautiful women of the world, of whom he had caught
a glimpse in his travels had never seemed real enough to him to be in
any way approached. He never had realised that his own personality,
combined with his faultless manners, would have soon made him a
favourite in what is called society, had he chosen to court it.

After all, it was very vague this passing fancy for the dark-eyed woman
of the Schloss. Perhaps Dr. Claudius watched his symptoms too narrowly,
and was overmuch pleased at finding that something could still rouse a
youthful thrill in him, after the sensation of old age that had of late
oppressed him. A man, he said to himself, is not old so long as he can
love--and be loved--well, so long as he can love, say, and let the rest
take care of itself. And by and by the sun went westering down the hill,
and he shook himself out of his dreams, and pocketed his book and turned
homeward. His day, he thought, had not amounted to much after all, and
he would spend the evening in sober study, and not dream any more until
bedtime. But he would be sociable this evening and eat his supper--now
he thought about it, it would be dinner and supper combined--in the
company of his colleagues at their favourite haunt. And he would go
to-morrow, he would certainly go to the Engadine.

But to-morrow came, and the Herr Doctor looked out of his window as
usual, and he did not go to Pontresina or anywhere else, nor the next
day, nor the day after. Only up to the Schloss every day through the hot
week, with his book and his pipe, and there he would lie and read and
smoke, and say to himself, "To-morrow I will certainly go." There was
something almost pathetic in Claudius, thus day after day revisiting the
scene where he had experienced a momentary sensation of youth and
vitality, where he had discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he was
still alive and full of strength and sanguine hope, when he thought
himself so old. And lying among the ruins he called up the scene again
and again, and the strange woman gradually got possession of his mind,
as a cunning enchantress might, and she moulded his thoughts about her
till they clung to her and burned. He did not seriously think to meet
her again in the Schloss, if he thought of it at all, for he knew of
course that she must have been a bird of passage, only pausing an
instant on that hot day to visit some scene long familiar to her memory.
And of course, like a true philosophical student, he did not attempt to
explain to himself his own conduct, nor to catalogue the reasons for and
against a daily visit to the old castle.

So the week passed, and another after it, and one day, late in the
afternoon, Claudius descended the hill and went up as usual to his
chamber above the river, to spend an hour indoors before going to
supper. It was a beautiful evening, and he left his door partly open on
to the landing that the breeze might blow through the room as he sat by
the window. A book was in his hand before he had sat many moments, from
sheer force of habit; but he did not read. The sounds of the street rose
pleasantly to his ear as the little boys and girls played together
across each other's doorsteps. To tell the truth, it all seemed very far
off, much farther than three flights of steps from the little crowd
below to the solitary nest of learning aloft where he sat; and Dr.
Claudius was, in his thoughts, incalculably far away from the
shoemaker's Hans and the tinman's Gretel and their eight-year-old
flirtation. Claudius was flirting with his fancies, and drawing pretty
pictures in the smoke, with dark eyes and masses of black hair; and then
he moved uneasily, and came back to his threadbare proposition that he
was old, and that it was absurd that he should be.

"Ah! what would I not give to enjoy it all--to feel I could wish one
moment to remain!" He sighed and leaned back in the straight-backed
chair. The door creaked slightly, he thought it was the evening wind. It
creaked again; he turned his head, and his gaze remained riveted on the
opening. A beautiful pair of dark eyes were fixed on him, deep and
searching, and on meeting his, a great silky black head was pushed
forward into the room, and a magnificent black hound stalked slowly
across the floor and laid his head on the Doctor's knee with a look of
evident inquiry.

Claudius was fond of animals, and caressed the friendly beast, wondering
to whom he might belong, and speculating whether the appearance of the
dog heralded the approach of a visitor. But the dog was not one of those
that he knew by sight in the streets of Heidelberg--one of those superb
favourites of the students who are as well known as the professors
themselves to every inhabitant of a university town in Germany. And the
Doctor stroked the beautiful head and listened for steps upon the
stairs. Before long he heard an ominous stumbling, as of some one
unfamiliar with the dark and narrow way, and in a moment more a young
man stood in the doorway, dazzled by the flood of the evening sunshine
that faced him.

"Mr. Claudius live here?" interrogated the stranger in a high and
metallic, but gentlemanly voice.

"I am Dr. Claudius," said the tenant of the old chair, rising politely.
"Pray be seated, sir," and he offered his one seat to his visitor, who
advanced into the middle of the room.

He was a young man, dressed in the extreme of the English fashion. He
was probably excessively thin, to judge by his face and neck and hands,
but he was made up admirably. He removed his hat and showed a forehead
of mediocre proportions, over which his dark hair was conscientiously
parted in the middle. Though not in appearance robust, he wore a
moustache that would not have disgraced a Cossack, his eyes were small,
gray, and near together, and his complexion was bad. His feet were
minute, and his hands bony.

He took the offered chair, and Claudius sat down upon the bed, which was
by no means so far removed in the little room as to make conversation at
that distance difficult.

"Dr. Claudius?" the stranger repeated, and the Doctor nodded gravely.
"Dr. Claudius, the nephew of the late Mr. Gustavus Lindstrand of New
York?"

"The same, sir. May I inquire to what good fortune I am indebted--"

"Oh! of course," interrupted the other, "I am Mr. Barker--Silas B.
Barker junior of New York, and my father was your uncle's partner."

"Indeed," said Claudius, rising and coming forward, "then we must shake
hands again," and his face wore a pleasant expression. He thought
nothing of first impressions, and was prepared to offer a hearty welcome
to any friend of his uncle, even of the most unprepossessing type. Mr.
Barker was not exactly unprepossessing; he was certainly not handsome,
but there was a look of action about him that was not unpleasing.
Claudius felt at once, however, that the American belonged to a type of
humanity of which he knew nothing as yet. But they shook hands
cordially, and the Doctor resumed his seat.

"And is it long since you received the news, Professor?" inquired Mr.
Barker, with the ready Transatlantic use of titles.

"I heard of my uncle's death about three weeks ago--rather less."

"Ah yes! And the news about the will--did you hear that?"

"Certainly," said the Doctor; "I received the intelligence
simultaneously."

"Well," said the American, "do you propose to continue living here?"

Claudius looked at his visitor. He was as yet unfamiliar with New World
curiosity, and thought the question a rather strange one. However, he
reflected that Mr. Barker's father might have some moral claim to know
what his old partner's heir meant to do with his money; so he answered
the question categorically.

"I was, as perhaps you may imagine, greatly surprised at the
intelligence that I had inherited a great fortune. But you will hardly
understand, with your tastes,"--the Doctor glanced at Mr. Barker's
faultless costume,--"that such abundant and unexpected wealth may not be
to me a wholly unalloyed blessing." Claudius proceeded to explain how
little he cared for the things that his money might bring him, and
announced his intention of continuing his present mode of life some time
longer. Mr. Silas B. Barker junior of New York opened his small eyes
wider and wider, as his host set forth his views.

"I should think you would be bored to death!" he said simply.

"_Ennui_, in the ordinary sense, does not exist for a man whose life is
devoted to study. What corresponds to it is a very different thing. I
sometimes feel oppressed with a sense of profound dissatisfaction with
what I am doing--"

"I should think so," remarked Mr. Barker. Then, checking himself, he
added, "I beg your pardon, don't misunderstand me. I can hardly conceive
of leading such a life as yours. I could never be a professor."

Claudius judged the statement to be strictly true. Mr. Barker did not
look like a professor in the least. However, the Doctor wanted to be
civil.

"Have you just arrived? Have you seen our sights?"

"Came last night from Baden-Baden. I have been here before. You had
better come around to my hotel, and take dinner with me. But first we
will drive somewhere and get cool."

Claudius put on his best coat and combed his hair, apologising to Mr.
Barker for the informality. Mr. Barker watched him, and thought he would
make a sensation in New York.

"We might go up to the castle," said the American, when they were seated
in the carriage. So to the castle they went, and, leaving their carriage
at the entrance, strolled slowly through the grounds till they reached
the broken tower.

"If they had used dynamite," said Mr. Barker, "they would have sent the
whole thing flying across the river."

"It would have been less picturesque afterwards," said Claudius.

"It would have been more effective at the time."

Claudius was thinking of the dark woman and her parasol, and how he had
climbed down there a few weeks before. To show to himself that he did
not care, he told his companion the incident as graphically as he could.
His description of the lady was so graphic that Mr. Barker screwed up
his eyes and put out his jaw, so that two great lines circled on his
sallow face from just above the nostril, under his heavy moustache to
his chin.

"I could almost fancy I had seen her somewhere," said he.

"Where?" asked Claudius eagerly.

"I thought he would give himself away," was the American's terse inward
reflection; but he answered coolly--

"I don't know, I am sure. Very likely I am mistaken. It was pretty
romantic though. Ask me to the wedding, Professor."

"What wedding?"

"Why, when you marry the fascinating creature with the parasol."

Claudius looked at Mr. Barker with some astonishment.

"Do you generally manage things so quickly in your country?"

"Oh, I was only joking," returned the American. "But, of course, you can
marry anybody you like, and why not the dark lady? On the whole, though,
if I were you, I would like to astonish the natives before I left. Now,
you might buy the castle here and turn it into a hotel."

"Horrible!" ejaculated Claudius.

"No worse than making a hotel of Switzerland, which is an older and more
interesting monument than the castle of Heidelberg."

"Epigrammatic, but fallacious, Mr. Barker."

"Epigrams and proverbs are generally that."

"I think," said Claudius, "that proverbs are only fallacious when they
are carelessly applied."

"Very likely. Life is too short to waste time over weapons that will
only go off in some singular and old-fashioned way. When I start out to
do any shooting, I want to hit."

So they went to dinner. Claudius found himself becoming gayer in the
society of his new acquaintance than he had been for some time past. He
could not have said whether he liked him or thought him interesting, but
he had a strong impression that there was something somewhere, he could
not tell what, which Mr. Barker understood thoroughly, and in which he
might show to great advantage. He felt that however superficial and
unartistic the American might be, he was nevertheless no fool. There was
something keen and sharp-edged about him that proclaimed a character
capable of influencing men, and accustomed to deal boldly and daringly
with life.

They dined as well as could be expected in a country which is not
gastronomic, and Mr. Barker produced a rare brand of cigars, without
which, he informed his guest, he never travelled. They were fat brown
Havanas, and Claudius enjoyed them.

"Let us go to Baden-Baden," said Barker, sucking at his weed, which
protruded from his immense moustache like a gun under the raised
port-hole of an old-fashioned man-of-war.

"If I were seeking innocent recreation from my labours, that is not
exactly the spot I would choose to disport myself in," replied Claudius.
"The scenery is good, but the people are detestable."

"I agree with you; but it is a nice place for all that. You can always
gamble to pass the time."

"I never play games of chance, and there is no play in Baden now."

"Principle or taste, Professor?"

"I suppose I must allow that it is principle. I used to play a little
when I was a student; but I do not believe in leaving anything to
fortune. I would not do it in anything else."

"Well, I suppose you are right; but you miss a great deal of healthy
excitement. You have never known the joys of being short of a thousand
N.P. or Wabash on a rising market."

"I fear I do not understand the illustration, Mr. Barker."

"No? Well, it is not to be wondered at. Perhaps if you ever come to New
York you will take an interest in the stock market."

"Ah--you were referring to stocks? Yes, I have read a little about your
methods of business, but that kind of study is not much in my line. Why
do you say Baden, though, instead of some quiet place?"

"I suppose I like a crowd. Besides, there are some people I know there.
But I want you to go with me, and if you would rather not go to
Baden-Baden, we can go somewhere else. I really think we ought to become
better acquainted, and I may prevail on you to go with me to New York."

Claudius was silent, and he blew a great cloud of smoke. What sort of a
travelling companion would Mr. Barker be for him? Could there be a
greater contrast to his own nature? And yet he felt that he would like
to observe Mr. Barker. He felt drawn to him without knowing why, and he
had a presentiment that the American would drag him out of his quiet
life into a very different existence. Mr. Barker, on the other hand,
possessed the showman's instinct. He had found a creature who, he was
sure, had the elements of a tremendous lion about town; and having found
him, he meant to capture him and exhibit him in society, and take to
himself ever after the credit of having unearthed the handsome, rich,
and talented Dr. Claudius from a garret in Heidelberg. What a story that
would be to tell next year, when Claudius, clothed and clipped, should
be marrying the girl of the season, or tooling his coach down the
Newport avenue, or doing any of the other fashionable and merry things
that Americans love to do in spring and summer!

So Mr. Barker insisted on driving Claudius back to his lodging, though
it was only five minutes' walk, and exacted a promise that the Doctor
should take him on the morrow to a real German breakfast at the Fauler
Pelz, and that they would "start off somewhere" in the afternoon.

Claudius said he had enjoyed a very pleasant evening, and went up to his
room, where he read an elaborate article on the vortex theory by
Professor Helmholtz, with which, having dipped into transcendental
geometry, he was inclined to find fault; and then he went calmly to bed.




CHAPTER III.


Claudius told his old landlord--his _philister_, as he would have called
him--that he was going away on his customary foot tour for a month or
so. He packed a book and a few things in his knapsack and joined Mr.
Barker. To Claudius in his simplicity there was nothing incongruous in
his travelling as a plain student in the company of the
exquisitely-arrayed New Yorker, and the latter was far too much a man of
the world to care what his companion wore. He intended that the Doctor
should be introduced to the affectionate skill of a London tailor before
he was much older, and he registered a vow that the long yellow hair
should be cut. But these details were the result of his showman's
intuition; personally, he would as readily have travelled with Claudius
had he affected the costume of a shoeblack. He knew that the man was
very rich, and he respected his eccentricity for the present. To
accomplish the transformation of exterior which he contemplated, from
the professional and semi-cynic garb to the splendour of a swell of the
period, Mr. Barker counted on some more potent influence than his own.
The only point on which his mind was made up was that Claudius must
accompany him to America and create a great sensation.

"I wonder if we shall meet her," remarked Mr. Barker reflectively, when
they were seated in the train.

"Whom?" asked Claudius, who did not intend to understand his companion's
chaff.

But Mr. Barker had shot his arrow, and started cleverly as he answered--

"Did I say anything? I must have been talking to myself."

Claudius was not so sure. However, the hint had produced its effect,
falling, as it did, into the vague current of his thoughts and giving
them direction. He began to wonder whether there was any likelihood of
his meeting the woman of whom he had thought so much, and before long he
found himself constructing a conversation, supposed to take place on
their first encounter, overleaping such trifles as probability, the
question of an introduction, and other formalities with the ready
agility of a mind accustomed to speculation.

"The scenery is fine, is it not?" remarked Claudius tritely as they
neared Baden.

"Oh yes, for Europe. We manage our landscapes better in America."

"How so?"

"Swivels. You can turn the rocks around and see the other side."

Claudius laughed a little, but Barker did not smile. He was apparently
occupied in inventing a patent transformation landscape on wheels. In
reality, he was thinking out a _menu_ for dinner whereby he might feed
his friend without starving himself. For Mr. Barker was particular about
his meals, and accustomed to fare sumptuously every day, whereas he had
observed that the Doctor was fond of sausages and decayed cabbage. But
he knew such depraved tastes could not long withstand the blandishments
and caressing hypersensualism of Delmonico, if he ever got the Doctor so
far.

Having successfully accomplished the business of dining, Mr. Barker
promised to return in an hour, and sallied out to find the British
aristocracy, whom he knew. The British aristocracy was taking his coffee
in solitude at the principal _cafe_, and hailed Mr. Barker's advent with
considerable interest, for they had tastes in common.

"How are you, Duke?"

"Pretty fit, thanks. Where have you been?"

"Oh, all over. I was just looking for you."

"Yes?" said the aristocracy interrogatively.

"Yes. I want you to introduce me to somebody you know."

"Pleasure. Who?"

"She has black eyes and dark hair, very dark complexion, middling
height, fine figure; carries an ivory-handled parasol with a big M and a
crown." Mr. Barker paused for a look of intelligence on the Englishman's
face.

"Sure she's here?" inquired the latter.

"I won't swear. She was seen in Heidelberg, admiring views and dropping
her parasol about, something like three weeks ago."

"Oh! ah, yes. Come on." And the British aristocracy settled the rose in
his button-hole and led the way. He moved strongly with long steps, but
Mr. Barker walked delicately like Agag.

"By the by, Barker, she is a countrywoman of yours. She married a
Russian, and her name is Margaret."

"Was it a happy marriage?" asked the American, taking his cigar from his
mouth.

"Exceedingly. Husband killed at Plevna. Left her lots of tin."

They reached their destination. The Countess was at home. The Countess
was enchanted to make the acquaintance of Monsieur, and on learning that
he was an American and a compatriot, was delighted to see him. They
conversed pleasantly. In the course of twenty minutes the aristocracy
discovered he had an engagement and departed, but Mr. Barker remained.
It was rather stretching his advantage, but he did not lack confidence.

"So you, too, Countess, have been in Heidelberg this summer?"

"About three weeks ago. I am very fond of the old place."

"Lovely, indeed," said Barker. "The castle, the old tower half blown
away in that slovenly war--"

"Oh, such a funny thing happened to me there," exclaimed the Countess
Margaret, innocently falling into the trap. "I was standing just at the
edge with Miss Skeat--she is my companion, you know--and I dropped my
parasol, and it fell rattling to the bottom, and suddenly there started,
apparently out of space--"

"A German professor, seven or eight feet high, who bounded after the
sunshade, and bounded back and bowed and left you to your astonishment.
Is not that what you were going to say, Countess?"

"I believe you are a medium," said the Countess, looking at Barker in
astonishment. "But perhaps you only guessed it. Can you tell me what he
was like, this German professor?"

"Certainly. He had long yellow hair, and a beard like Rip van Winkle's,
and large white hands; and he was altogether one of the most striking
individuals you ever saw."

"It is evident that you know him, Mr. Barker, and that he has told you
the story. Though how you should have known it was I--"

"Guess-work and my friend's description."

"But how do you come to be intimate with German professors, Mr. Barker?
Are you learned, and that sort of thing?"

"He was a German professor once. He is now an eccentricity without a
purpose. Worth millions, and living in a Heidelberg garret, wishing he
were poor again."

"What an interesting creature! Tell me more, please."

Barker told as much of Claudius's history as he knew.

"Too delightful!" ejaculated the Countess Margaret, looking out of the
window rather pensively.

"Countess," said the American, "if I had enjoyed the advantage of your
acquaintance even twenty-four hours I would venture to ask leave to
present my friend to you. As it is--" Mr. Barker paused.

"As it is I will grant you the permission unasked," said the Countess
quietly, still looking out of the window. "I am enough of an American
still to know that your name is a guarantee for any one you introduce."

"You are very kind," said Mr. Barker modestly. Indeed the name of Barker
had long been honourably known in connection with New York enterprise.
The Barkers were not Dutch, it is true, but they had the next highest
title to consideration in that their progenitor had dwelt in Salem,
Massachusetts.

"Bring him in the morning," said the Countess, after a moment's thought.

"About two?"

"Oh no! At eleven or so. I am a very early person. I get up at the
screech of dawn."

"Permit me to thank you on behalf of my friend as well as for myself,"
said Mr. Barker, bending low over the dark lady's hand as he took his
departure.

"So glad to have seen you. It is pleasant to meet a civilised countryman
in these days."

"It can be nothing to the pleasure of meeting a charming countrywoman,"
replied Mr. Barker, and he glided from the room.

The dark lady stood for a moment looking at the door through which her
visitor had departed. It was almost nine o'clock by this time, and she
rang for lights, subsiding into a low chair while the servant brought
them. The candles flickered in the light breeze that fanned fitfully
through the room, and, finding it difficult to read, the Countess sent
for Miss Skeat.

"What a tiny little world it is!" said Margaret, by way of opening the
conversation.

Miss Skeat sat down by the table. She was thin and yellow, and her bones
were on the outside. She wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and was well
dressed, in plain black, with a single white ruffle about her long and
sinewy neck. She was hideous, but she had a certain touch of dignified
elegance, and her face looked trustworthy and not unkind.

"Apropos of anything especial?" asked she, seeing that the Countess
expected her to say something.

"Do you remember when I dropped my parasol at Heidelberg?"

"Perfectly," replied Miss Skeat.

"And the man who picked it up, and who looked like Niemann in
_Lohengrin_?"

"Yes, and who must have been a professor. I remember very well."

"A friend of mine brought a friend of his to see me this afternoon, and
the man himself is coming to-morrow."

"What is his name?" asked the lady-companion.

"I am sure I don't know, but Mr. Barker says he is very eccentric. He is
very rich, and yet he lives in a garret in Heidelberg and wishes he were
poor."

"Are you quite sure he is in his right mind, dear Countess?"

Margaret looked kindly at Miss Skeat. Poor lady! she had been rich once,
and had not lived in a garret. Money to her meant freedom and
independence. Not that she was unhappy with Margaret, who was always
thoughtful and considerate, and valued her companion as a friend; but
she would rather have lived with Margaret feeling it was a matter of
choice and not of necessity, for she came of good Scottish blood, and
was very proud.

"Oh yes!" answered the younger lady; "he is very learned and
philosophical, and I am sure you will like him. If he is at all
civilised we will have him to dinner."

"By all means," said Miss Skeat with alacrity. She liked intelligent
society, and the Countess had of late indulged in a rather prolonged fit
of solitude. Miss Skeat took the last novel--one of Tourgueneff's--from
the table and, armed with a paper-cutter, began to read to her
ladyship.

It was late when Mr. Barker found Claudius scribbling equations on a
sheet of the hotel letter-paper. The Doctor looked up pleasantly at his
friend. He could almost fancy he had missed his society a little; but
the sensation was too novel a one to be believed genuine.

"Did you find your friends?" he inquired.

"Yes, by some good luck. It is apt to be the other people one finds, as
a rule."

"Cynicism is not appropriate to your character, Mr. Barker."

"No. I hate cynical men. It is generally affectation, and it is always
nonsense. But I think the wrong people have a way of turning up at the
wrong moment." After a pause, during which Mr. Barker lighted a cigar
and extended his thin legs and trim little feet on a chair in front of
him, he continued:

"Professor, have you a very strong and rooted dislike to the society of
women?"

Assailed by this point-blank question, the Doctor put his bit of paper
inside his book, and drumming on the table with his pencil, considered a
moment. Mr. Barker puffed at his cigar with great regularity.

"No," said Claudius at last, "certainly not. To woman man owes his life,
and to woman he ought to owe his happiness. Without woman civilisation
would be impossible, and society would fall to pieces."

"Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Barker.

"I worship woman in the abstract and in the concrete. I reverence her
mission, and I honour the gifts of Heaven which fit her to fulfil it."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Barker.

"I think there is nothing made in creation that can be compared with
woman, not even man. I am enthusiastic, of course, you will say, but I
believe that homage and devotion to woman is the first duty of man,
after homage and devotion to the Supreme Being whom all different races
unite in describing as God."

"That will do, thank you," said Mr. Barker, "I am quite satisfied of
your adoration, and I will not ask her name."

"She has no name, and she has all names," continued Claudius seriously.
"She is an ideal."

"Yes, my feeble intelligence grasps that she cannot be anything else.
But I did not want a confession of faith. I only asked if you disliked
ladies' society, because I was going to propose to introduce you to some
friends of mine here."

"Oh!" said Claudius, and he leaned back in his chair and stared at the
lamp. Barker was silent.

The Doctor was puzzled. He thought it would be very rude of him to
refuse Mr. Barker's offer. On the other hand, in spite of his
protestations of devotion to the sex, he knew that the exalted opinion
he held of woman in general had gained upon him of late years, since he
had associated less with them. It was with him a beautiful theory, the
outcome of a knightly nature thrown back on itself, but as yet not fixed
or clearly defined by any intimate knowledge of woman's character, still
less by any profound personal experience of love. Courtesy was uppermost
as he answered.

"Really," he said at last, "if you are very desirous of presenting me to
your friends, of course I--"

"Oh, only if it is agreeable to you, of course. If it it is in any way
the reverse--" protested the polite Mr. Barker.

"Not that--not exactly disagreeable. Only it is some time since I have
enjoyed the advantage of an hour's conversation with ladies; and
besides, since it comes to that, I am here as a pedestrian, and I do not
present a very civilised appearance."

"Don't let that disturb you. Since you consent," went on Mr. Barker,
briskly taking everything for granted, "I may tell you that the lady in
question has expressed a wish to have you presented, and that I could
not do less than promise to bring you if possible. As for your personal
appearance, it is not of the least consequence. Perhaps, if you don't
mind a great deal, you might have your hair cut. Don't be offended,
Professor, but nothing produces an appearance of being dressed so
infallibly as a neatly-trimmed head."

"Oh, certainly, if you think it best, I will have my hair cut. It will
soon grow again."

Mr. Barker smiled under the lambrikin of his moustache. "Yes," thought
he, "but it sha'n't."

"Then," he said aloud, "we will go about eleven."

Claudius sat wondering who the lady could be who wanted to have him
presented. But he was afraid to ask; Barker would immediately suppose he
imagined it to be the dark lady. However, his thoughts took it as a
certainty that it must be she, and went on building castles in the air
and conversations in the clouds. Barker watched him and probably guessed
what he was thinking of; but he did not want to spoil the surprise he
had arranged, and fearing lest Claudius might ask some awkward question,
he went to bed, leaving the Doctor to his cogitations.

In the morning he lay in wait for his friend, who had gone off for an
early walk in the woods. He expected that a renewal of the attack would
be necessary before the sacrifice of the yellow locks could be
accomplished, and he stood on the steps of the hotel, clad in the most
exquisite of grays, tapering down to the most brilliant of boots. He had
a white rose in his buttonhole, and his great black dog was lying at his
feet, having for a wonder found his master, for the beast was given to
roaming, or to the plebeian society of Barker's servant. The American's
careful attire contrasted rather oddly with his sallow face, and with
the bony hand that rested against the column. He was a young man, but he
looked any age that morning. Before long his eye twinkled and he changed
his position expectantly, for he saw the tall figure of Claudius
striding up the street, a head and shoulders above the strolling crowd;
and, wonderful to relate, the hair was gone, the long beard was
carefully clipped and trimmed, and the Doctor wore a new gray hat!

"If he will black his boots and put a rose in his coat, he will do. What
a tearing swell he will be when he is dressed," thought Mr. Barker, as
he looked at his friend.

"You see I have followed your advice," said Claudius, holding out his
hand.

"Always do that, and you will yet taste greatness," said the other
cheerfully. "You look like a crown prince like that. Perfectly immense."

"I suppose I am rather big," said Claudius apologetically, not catching
the American idiom. Mr. Barker, however, did not explain himself, for he
was thinking of other things.

"We will go very soon. Excuse the liberty, Professor, but you might have
your boots blacked. There is a little cad down the backstairs who does
it."

"Of course," answered Claudius, and disappeared within. A small man who
was coming out paused and turned to look after him, putting up his
eyeglass. Then he took off his hat to Mr. Barker.

"Pardon, Monsieur," he began, "if I take the liberty of making an
inquiry, but could you inform me of the name of that gentleman, whose
appearance fills me with astonishment, and whose vast dimensions obscure
the landscape of Baden?"

Mr. Barker looked at the small man for a moment very gravely.

"Yes," said he pensively, "his royal highness _is_ a large man
certainly." And while his interlocutor was recovering enough to
formulate another question, Mr. Barker moved gently away to a
flowerstand.

When Claudius returned his friend was waiting for him, and himself
pinned a large and expensive rose in the Doctor's buttonhole. Mr. Barker
surveyed his work--the clipped head, the new hat, the shiny boots and
the rose--with a satisfied air, such as Mr. Barnum may have worn when he
landed Jumbo on the New York pier. Then he called a cab, and they drove
away.




CHAPTER IV.


The summer breath of the roses blew sweetly in through the long windows
of the Countess's morning-room from the little garden outside as Barker
and Claudius entered. There was an air of inhabited luxury which was
evidently congenial to the American, for he rubbed his hands softly
together and touched one or two objects caressingly while waiting for
the lady of the house. Claudius glanced at the table and took up a book,
with that singular student habit that is never lost. It was a volume of
English verse, and in a moment he was reading, just as he stood, with
his hat caught between the fingers that held the book, oblivious of
countesses and visits and formalities. There was a rustle and a step on
the garden walk, and both men turned towards the open glass door.
Claudius almost dropped the vellum-covered poet, and was very
perceptibly startled as he recognised the lady of his Heidelberg
adventure--the woman who had got, as by magic, a hold over his thoughts,
so that he dreamed of her and wondered about her, sleeping and waking.

Dark-eyed Countess Margaret, all clad in pure white, the smallest of
lace fichus just dropped over her heavy hair, moved smoothly up the
steps and into the room.

"Good morning, Mr. Barker, I am so glad you have come," said she,
graciously extending her hand in the cordial Transatlantic fashion.

"Permit me to present my friend, Professor Claudius," said Barker.
Claudius bowed very low. The plunge was over, and he recovered his
outward calm, whatever he might feel.

"Mr. Barker flatters me, Madam," he said quietly. "I am not a professor,
but only a private lecturer."

"I am too far removed from anything learned to make such distinctions,"
said the Countess. "But since good fortune has brought you into the
circle of my ignorance, let me renew my thanks for the service you did
me in Heidelberg the other day."

Claudius bowed and murmured something inaudible.

"Or had you not realised that I was the heroine of the parasol at the
broken tower?" asked Margaret smiling, as she seated herself in a low
chair and motioned to her guests to follow her example. Barker selected
a comfortable seat, and arranged the cushion to suit him before he
subsided into repose, but the Doctor laid hands on a stern and
solid-looking piece of carving, and sat upright facing the Countess.

"Pardon me," said he, "I had. But it is always startling to realise a
dream." The Countess looked at Claudius rather inquiringly; perhaps she
had not expected he was the sort of man to begin an acquaintance by
making compliments. However, she said nothing, and he continued, "Do you
not always find it so?"

"The bearded hermit is no duffer," thought Mr. Barker. "He will say
grace over the whole barrel of pork."

"Ah! I have few dreams," replied the Countess, "and when I do have any,
I never realise them. I am a very matter-of-fact person."

"What matters the fact when you are the person, Madam?" retorted
Claudius, fencing for a discussion of some kind.

"Immense," thought Mr. Barker, changing one leg over the other and
becoming interested.

"Does that mean anything, or is it only a pretty paradox?" asked the
lady, observing that Claudius had thrown himself boldly into a crucial
position. Upon his answer would probably depend her opinion of him as
being either intelligent or _banal_ It is an easy matter to frame
paradoxical questions implying a compliment, but it is no light task to
be obliged to answer them oneself. Claudius was not thinking of
producing an effect, for the fascination of the dark woman was upon him,
and the low, strange voice bewitched him, so he said what came
uppermost.

"Yes," said he, "there are persons whose lives may indeed be matters of
fact to themselves--who shall say?--but who are always dreams in the
lives of others."

"Charming," laughed the Countess, "do you always talk like that,
Professor Claudius?"

"I have always thought," Mr. Barker remarked in his high-set voice,
"that I would like to be the dream of somebody's life. But somehow
things have gone against me."

The other two laughed. He did not strike one as the sort of individual
who would haunt the love-sick dreams of a confiding heart.

"I would rather it were the other way," said Claudius thoughtfully.

"And I," rejoined the American, "would drink perdition to the
unattainable."

"Either I do not agree with you, Mr. Barker," said the Countess, "or
else I believe nothing is unattainable."

"I implore you to be kind, and believe the latter," he answered
courteously.

"Come, I will show you my garden," said Margaret rising. "It is
pleasanter in the open air." She led the way out through the glass door,
the men walking on her right and left.

"I am very fond of my garden," she said, "and I take great care of it
when I am here." She stopped and pulled two or three dead leaves off a
rosebush to illustrate her profession of industry.

"And do you generally live here?" asked Claudius, who was as yet in
complete ignorance of the Countess's name, title, nationality, and mode
of life, for Mr. Barker had, for some occult reason, left him in the
dark.

Perhaps the Countess guessed as much, for she briefly imparted a good
deal of information.

"When Count Alexis, my husband, was alive, we lived a great deal in
Russia. But I am an American like Mr. Barker, and I occasionally make a
trip to my native country. However, I love this place in summer, and I
always try to be here. That is my friend, Miss Skeat, who lives with
me."

Miss Skeat was stranded under a tree with a newspaper and several books.
Her polished cheekbones and knuckles glimmered yellow in the shade. By
her side was a long cane chair, in which lay a white silk wrap and a bit
of needlework, tumbled together as the Countess had left them when she
went in to receive her visitors. Miss Skeat rose as the party
approached. The Countess introduced the two men, who bowed low, and they
all sat down, Mr. Barker on the bench by the ancient virgin, and
Claudius on the grass at Margaret's feet. It was noonday, but there was
a light breeze through, the flowers and grasses. The conversation soon
fell into pairs as they sat.

"I should not have said, at first sight, that you were a very
imaginative person, Dr. Claudius," said the Countess.

"I have been dreaming for years," he answered. "I am a mathematician,
and of late I have become a philosopher in a small way, as far as that
is possible from reading the subject. There are no two branches of
learning that require more imagination than mathematics and philosophy."

"Philosophy, perhaps," she replied, "but mathematics--I thought that was
an exact science, where everything was known, and there was no room for
dreaming."

"I suppose that is the general impression. But do you think it requires
no imagination to conceive a new application of knowledge, to invent new
methods where old ones are inadequate, to lay out a route through the
unknown land beyond the regions of the known?"

"Ordinary people, like me, associate mathematics with measurement and
figures and angles."

"Yes," said Claudius, "but it is the same as though you confused
religion with its practical results. If the religion is true at all, it
would be just as true if man did not exist, and if it consequently had
no application to life."

"I understand the truth of that, though we might differ about the word.
So you have been dreaming for years--and what were your dreams like?"
The Countess looked down earnestly at Claudius, who in his turn looked
at her with a little smile. She thought he was different from other men,
and he was wondering how much of his dreams he might tell her.

"Of all sorts," he answered, still looking up into her face. "Bitter and
sweet. I have dreamed of the glory of life and of mind-power, of the
accomplishment of the greatest good to the greatest number; I have
believed the extension of science possible 'beyond the bounds of all
imaginable experience' into the realms of the occult and hidden; I have
wandered with Hermes by the banks of the Nile, with Gautama along the
mud-flats of the Ganges. I have disgusted myself with the writings of
those who would reduce all history and religion to solar myths, and I
have striven to fathom the meaning of those whose thoughts are profound
and their hearts noble, but their speech halting. I have dreamed many
things, Countess, and the worst is that I have lived to weary of my
dreams, and to say that all things are vanity--all save one," he added
with hesitation. There was a momentary pause.

"Of course," Mr. Barker was saying to Miss Skeat, with a fascinating
smile, "I have the greatest admiration for Scotch heroism. John Grahame
of Claver-house. Who can read Macaulay's account--"

"Ah," interrupted the old gentlewoman, "if you knew how I feel about
these odious calumnies!"

"I quite understand that," said Barker sympathetically. He had
discovered Miss Skeat's especial enthusiasm.

Margaret turned again to the Doctor.

"And may I ask, without indiscretion, what the one dream may be that you
have refused to relegate among the vanities?"

"Woman," answered Claudius, and was silent.

The Countess thought the Doctor spoke ironically, and she laughed aloud,
half amused and half annoyed. "I am in earnest," said Claudius,
plucking a blade of grass and twisting it round his finger.

"Truly?" asked she.

"Foi de gentilhomme!" he answered.

"But Mr. Barker told me you lived like a hermit."

"That is the reason it has been a dream," said he.

"You have not told me what the dream was like. What beautiful things
have you fancied about us?"

"I have dreamed of woman's mission, and of woman's love. I have fancied
that woman and woman's love represented the ruling spirit, as man and
man's brain represent the moving agent, in the world. I have drawn
pictures of an age in which real chivalry of word and thought and deed
might be the only law necessary to control men's actions. Not the scenic
and theatrical chivalry of the middle age, ready at any moment to break
out into epidemic crime, but a true reverence and understanding of
woman's supreme right to honour and consideration; an age wherein it
should be no longer coarsely said that love is but an episode in the
brutal life of man, while to woman it is life itself. I have dreamed
that the eternal womanhood of the universe beckoned me to follow."

The Countess could not take her eyes off Claudius. She had never met a
man like him; at least she had never met a man who plunged into this
kind of talk after half an hour's acquaintance. There was a thrill of
feeling in her smooth deep voice when she answered: "If all men thought
as you think, the world would be a very different place."

"It would he a better place in more ways than one," he replied.

"And yet you yourself call it a dream," said Margaret, musing.

"It is only you, Countess, who say that dreams are never realised."

"And do you expect to realise yours?"

"Yes--I do." He looked at her with his bold blue eyes, and she thought
they sparkled.

"Tell me," she asked, "are you going to preach a crusade for the
liberation of our sex? Do you mean to bring about the great change in
the social relations of the world? Is it you who will build up the
pedestal which we are to mount and from which we shall survey countless
ranks of adoring men?"

"Do you not see, as you look down on me from your throne, from this
chair, that I have begun already?" answered Claudius, smiling, and
making a pretence of folding his hands.

"No," said the Countess, overlooking his last speech; "if you had any
convictions about it, as you pretend to have, you would begin at once
and revolutionise the world in six months. What is the use of dreaming?
It is not dreamers who make history."

"No, it is more often women. But tell me, Countess, do you approve of my
crusade? Am I not right? Have I your sanction?"

Margaret was silent. Mr. Barker's voice was heard again, holding forth
to Miss Skeat.

"In all ages," he said, with an air of conviction, "the aristocracy of a
country have been in reality the leaders of its thought and science and
enlightenment. Perhaps the form of aristocracy most worthy of admiration
is that time-honoured institution of pre-eminent families, the Scottish
clan, the Hebrew tribe--"

Claudius overheard and opened his eyes. It seemed to him that Barker was
talking nonsense. Margaret smiled, for she knew her companion well, and
understood in a moment that the American had discovered her hobby, and
was either seeking to win her good graces, or endeavouring to amuse
himself by inducing her to air her views. But Claudius returned to the
charge.

"What is it to be, Countess?" he asked. "Am I to take up arms and sail
out and conquer the universe, and bring it bound to your feet to do you
homage; or shall I go back to my turret chamber in Heidelberg?"

"Your simile seems to me to be appropriate," said Margaret. "I am sure
your forefathers must have been Vikings."

"They were," replied Claudius, "for I am a Scandinavian. Shall I go out
and plunder the world for your benefit? Shall I make your universality,
your general expression, woman, sovereign over my general expression,
man?"

"Considering who is to be the gainer," she answered, laughing, "I cannot
well withhold my consent. When will you begin?"

"Now."

"And how?"

"How should I begin," said he, a smile on his face, and the light
dancing in his eyes, "except by making myself the first convert?"

Margaret was used enough to pretty speeches, in earnest and in jest, but
she thought she had never heard any one turn them more readily than the
yellow-bearded student.

"And Mr. Barker," she asked, "will you convert him?"

"Can you look at him at this moment, Countess, and say you really think
he needs it?"

She glanced at the pair on the bench, and laughed again, in the air,
for it was apparent that Mr. Barker had made a complete conquest of Miss
Skeat. He had led the conversation about tribes to the ancient practices
of the North American Indians, and was detailing their customs with
marvellous fluency. A scientific hearer might have detected some
startling inaccuracies, but Miss Skeat listened with rapt attention.
Who, indeed, should know more about Indians than a born American who had
travelled in the West?

The Countess turned the conversation to other subjects, and talked
intelligently about books. She evidently read a great deal, or rather
she allowed Miss Skeat to read to her, and her memory was good. Claudius
was not behind in sober criticism of current literature, though his
reading had been chiefly of a tougher kind. Time flew by quickly, and
when the two men rose to go their visit had lasted two hours.

"You will report the progress of your conquest?" said the Countess to
Claudius as she gave him her hand, which he stooped to kiss in the good
old German fashion.

"Whenever you will permit me, Countess," he said.

"I am always at home in the middle of the day. And you too, Mr. Barker,
do not wait to be asked before you come again. You are absolutely the
only civilised American I know here."

"Don't say that, Countess. There is the Duke, who came with me
yesterday."

"But he is English."

"But he is also American. He owns mines and prairies, and he emigrates
semi-annually. They all do now. You know rats leave a sinking ship, and
they are going to have a commune in England."

"Oh, Mr. Barker, how can you!" exclaimed Miss Skeat.

"But I am only joking, of course," said he, and pacified her. So they
parted.

Mr. Barker and Claudius stood on the front door-step, and the former lit
a cigar while the carriage drove up.

"Doctor," said he, "I consider you the most remarkable man of my
acquaintance."

"Why?" asked Claudius as he got into the carriage.

"Well, for several reasons. Chiefly because though you have lived in a
'three pair back' for years, and never seen so much as a woman's ear, by
your own account, you nevertheless act as if you had never been out of a
drawing-room during your life. You are the least shy man I ever saw."

"Shy?" exclaimed Claudius, "what a funny idea! Why should I be shy?"

"No reason in the world, I suppose, after all. But it is very odd." And
Mr. Barker ruminated, rolling his cigar in his mouth. "Besides," he
added, after a long pause, "you have made a conquest."

"Nonsense. Now, you have some right to flatter yourself on that score."

"Miss Skeat?" said Mr. Barker. "Sit still, my heart!"

They drove along in silence for some time. At last Mr. Barker began
again,--

"Well, Professor, what are you going to do about it?"

"About what?"

"Why, about the conquest. Shall you go there again?"

"Very likely." Claudius was annoyed at his companion's tone of voice. He
would have scoffed at the idea that he loved the Countess at first
sight; but she nevertheless represented his ideal to him, and he could
not bear to hear Mr. Barker's chaffing remarks. Of course Barker had
taken him to the house, and had a right to ask if Claudius had found the
visit interesting. But Claudius was determined to check any kind of
levity from the first. He did not like it about women on any terms, but
in connection with the Countess Margaret it was positively unbearable.
So he answered curtly enough to show Mr. Barker he objected to it. The
latter readily understood and drew his own inferences.

A different conversation ensued in the Countess's garden when the
visitors were gone.

"Well, Miss Skeat," said Margaret, "what do you think of my new
acquaintances?"

"I think Mr. Barker is the most agreeable American I ever met," said
Miss Skeat. "He has very sound views about social questions, and his
information on the subject of American Indians is perfectly
extraordinary."

"And the Doctor? what do you think of him?"

"He dresses very oddly," said the lady companion; "but his manners seem
everything that could be desired, and he has aristocratic hands."

"I did not notice his dress much. But he is very handsome. He looks like
a Scandinavian hero. You know I was sure I should meet him again that
day in Heidelberg."

"I suppose he really is very good-looking," assented Miss Skeat.

"Shall we have them to dinner some day? I think we might; very quietly,
you know."

"I would certainly advise it, dear Countess. You really ought to begin
and see people in some way besides allowing them to call on you. I
think this solitude is affecting your spirits."

"Oh no; I am very happy--at least, as happy as I can be. But we will
have them to dinner. When shall it be?"

"To-morrow is too soon. Say Thursday, since you ask me," said Miss
Skeat.

"Very well. Shall we read a little?" And Tourgueneff was put into
requisition.

It was late in the afternoon when the Countess's phaeton, black horses,
black liveries, and black cushions, swept round a corner of the drive.
Claudius and Barker, in a hired carriage, passed her, coming from the
opposite direction. The four people bowed to each other--the ladies
graciously, the men with courteous alacrity. Each of the four was
interested in the others, and each of the four felt that they would all
be thrown together in the immediate future. There was a feeling among
them that they had known each other a long time, though they were but
acquaintances of to-day and yesterday.

"I have seldom seen anything more complete than that turn-out," said Mr.
Barker. "The impression of mourning is perfect; it could not have been
better if it had been planned by a New York undertaker."

"Are New York undertakers such great artists?" asked Claudius.

"Yes; people get buried more profusely there. But don't you think it is
remarkably fine?"

"Yes. I suppose you are trying to make me say that the Countess is a
beautiful woman," answered Claudius, who was beginning to understand
Barker. "If that is what you want, I yield at once. I think she is the
most beautiful woman I ever saw."

"Ah!--don't you think perhaps that Miss Skeat acts as an admirable
foil?"

"Such beauty as that requires no foil. The whole world is a foil to
her."

"Wait till you come to America. I will show you her match in Newport."

"I doubt it. What is Newport?"

"Newport is the principal watering-place of our magnificent country. It
is Baden, Homburg, Bigorre, and Biarritz rolled into one. It is a
terrestrial paradise, a land of four-in-hands and houris and
surf-bathing and nectar and ambrosia. I could not begin to give you an
idea of it; wait till you get there."

"A society place, I suppose, then?" said Claudius, not in the least
moved by the enthusiastic description.

"A society place before all things. But you may have plenty of solitude
if you like."

"I hardly think I should care much for Newport," said Claudius.

"Well, I like it very much. My father has a place there, to which I take
the liberty of inviting you for the season, whenever you make up your
mind to enjoy yourself."

"You are very good, I am sure; and if, as you say, I ever go to America,
which seems in your opinion paramount to enjoying myself, I will take
advantage of your kind invitation."

"Really, I hope you will. Shall we go and dine?"




CHAPTER V.


On the following day Claudius and Mr. Barker received each a note. These
communications were in square, rough envelopes, and directed in a large
feminine handwriting. The contents intimated that the Countess Margaret
would be glad to see them at dinner at half-past seven on Thursday.

"That is to-morrow," said Mr. Barker pensively.

Claudius, who was generally the calmest of the calm, made a remark in
German to the effect that he fervently desired a thousand million
bushels of thunder-weather to fly away with him that very instant.

"Did you say anything, Professor?" inquired Mr. Barker blandly.

"I did. I swore," answered Claudius. "I have half a mind to swear
again."

"Do it. Profanity is the safety-valve of great minds. Swear loudly, and
put your whole mind to it."

Claudius strode to the window of their sitting-room and looked out.

"It is extremely awkward, upon my word," he said.

"What is awkward, Professor? The invitation?"

"Yes--very."

"Why, pray? I should think you would be very much pleased."

"Exactly--I should be: but there is a drawback."

"Of what nature? Anything I can do?"

"Not exactly. I cannot wear one of your coats."

"Oh! is that it?" said Mr. Barker; and a pleasant little thrill of
triumph manifested itself, as he pushed out his jaw and exhibited his
circular wrinkle. "Of course--how stupid of me! You are here as a
pedestrian, and you have no evening dress. Well, the sooner we go and
see a tailor the better, in that case. I will ring for a carriage." He
did so, remarking internally that he had scored one in putting the
Doctor into a position which forced him to dress like a Christian.

"Do you never walk?" asked Claudius, putting a handful of cigarettes
into his pocket.

"No," said the American, "I never walk. If man were intended by an
all-wise Providence to do much walking he would have four legs."

The tailor promised upon his faith as a gentleman to make Claudius
presentable by the following evening. Baden tailors are used to
providing clothes at short notice; and the man kept his word.

Pending the event, Barker remarked to Claudius that it was a pity they
might not call again before the dinner. Claudius said in some countries
he thought it would be the proper thing; but that in Germany Barker was
undoubtedly right--it would not do at all.

"Customs vary so much in society," said Barker; "now in America we have
such a pretty habit."

"What is that?"

"Sending flowers--we send them to ladies on the smallest provocation."

"But is not the Countess an American?" asked Claudius.

"Yes, certainly. Old Southern family settled north."

"In that case," said Claudius, "the provocation is sufficient. Let us
send flowers immediately." And he took his hat from the table.

Thought Mr. Barker, "My show Doctor is going it;" but he translated his
thoughts into English.

"I think that is a good idea. I will send for a carriage."

"It is only a step," said Claudius, "we had much better walk."

"Well, anything to oblige you."

Claudius had good taste in such things, and the flowers he sent were
just enough to form a beautiful _ensemble_, without producing an
impression of lavish extravagance. As Mr. Barker had said, the sending
of flowers is a "pretty habit,"--a graceful and gentle fashion most
peculiar to America. There is no country where the custom is carried to
the same extent; there is no other country where on certain occasions it
is requested, by advertisement in the newspapers, "that no flowers be
sent." Countess Margaret was charmed, and though Miss Skeat, who loved
roses and lilies, poor thing, offered to arrange them and put them in
water, the dark lady would not let her touch them. She was jealous of
their beauty.

The time seemed long to Claudius, though he went in the meanwhile with
Barker and the British aristocracy to certain races. He rather liked the
racing, though he would not bet. The Duke lost some money, and Barker
won a few hundred francs from a Russian acquaintance. The Duke drank
curacao and potass water, and Mr. Barker drank champagne, while Claudius
smoked innumerable cigarettes. There were a great many bright dresses,
there was a great deal of shouting, and the congregation of the
horse-cads was gathered together.

"It does not look much like Newmarket, does it?" said the Duke.

"More like the Paris Exposition, without the exposition," said Barker.

"Do you have much racing in America?" asked Claudius.

"Just one or two," answered Barker, "generally on wheels."

"Wheels?"

"Yes. Trotting. Ag'd nags in sulkies. See how fast they can go a mile,"
explained the Duke. "Lots of shekels on it too, very often."

At last the evening came, and Claudius appeared in Barker's room arrayed
in full evening-dress. As Barker had predicted to himself, the result
was surprising. Claudius was far beyond the ordinary stature of men, and
the close-fitting costume showed off his athletic figure, while the
pale, aquiline features, with the yellow heard that looked gold at
night, contrasted in their refinement with the massive proportions of
his frame, in a way that is rarely seen save in the races of the far
north or the far south.

The Countess received them graciously, and Miss Skeat was animated. The
flowers that Claudius had sent the day before were conspicuously placed
on a table in the drawing-room. Mr. Barker, of course, took in the
Countess, and Miss Skeat put her arm in that of Claudius, inwardly
wondering how she could have overlooked the fact that he was so
excessively handsome. They sat at a round table on which were flowers,
and a large block of ice in a crystal dish.

"Do you understand Russian soups?" asked Margaret of Claudius, as she
deposited a spoonful of a wonderful looking _pate_ in the middle of her
_consomme_.

"Alas" said the Doctor, "I am no gastronome. At least my friend Mr.
Barker tells me so, but I have great powers of adaptation. I shall
follow your example, and shall doubtless fare sumptuously."

"Do not fear," said she, "you shall not have any more strange and
Cossack things to eat. I like some Russian things, but they are so
tremendous, that unless you have them first you cannot have them at
all."

"I think it is rather a good plan," said Barker, "to begin with
something characteristic. It settles the plan of action in one's mind,
and helps the memory."

"Do you mean in things in general, or only in dinner?" asked the
Countess.

"Oh, things in general, of course. I always generalise. In conversation,
for instance. Take the traditional English stage father. He always
devotes himself to everlasting perdition before he begins a
sentence,--and then you know what to expect."

"On the principle of knowing the worst--I understand," said Margaret.

"As long as people understand each other," Claudius put in, "it is
always better to plunge _in medias res_ from the first."

"Yes, Dr. Claudius, you understand that very well;" and Margaret turned
towards him as she spoke.

"The Doctor understands many things," said Barker in parenthesis.

"You have not yet reported the progress of the crusade," continued the
Countess, "I must know all about it at once."

"I have been plotting and planning in the spirit, while my body has been
frequenting the frivolities of this over-masculine world," answered the
Doctor. At this point Miss Skeat attacked Mr. Barker about the North
American Indians, and the conversation paired off, as it will under such
circumstances.

Claudius was in good spirits and talked wittily, half in jest, one would
have thought, but really in earnest, about what was uppermost in his
mind, and what he intended should be uppermost in the world. It was a
singular conversation, in the course of which he sometimes spoke very
seriously; but the Countess did not allow herself the luxury of being
serious, though it was an effort to her to laugh at the enthusiasm of
his language, for he had a strong vitality, and something of the gift
which carries people away. But Margaret had an impression that Claudius
was making love, and had chosen this attractive ground upon which to
open his campaign. She could not wholly believe him different from other
men--at least she would not believe so soon--and her instinct told her
that the fair-haired student admired her greatly.

Claudius, for his part, wondered at himself, when he found a moment to
reflect on what he had been saying. He tried to remember whether any of
these thoughts had been formulated in his mind a month ago. He was,
indeed, conscious that his high reverence for women in the abstract had
been growing in him for years, but he had had no idea how strong his
belief had grown in this reverence as an element in social affairs.
Doubtless the Doctor had often questioned why it was that women had so
little weight in the scale, why they did so little of all they might do,
and he had read something of their doings across the ocean. But it had
all been vague, thick, and foggy, whereas now it was all sharp and
clean-edged. He had made the first step out of his dreams in that he
had thought its realisation possible, and none but dreamers know how
great and wide that step is. The first faint dawning, "It may be true,
after all," is as different from the remote, listless view of the
shadowy thought incapable of materialisation, as a landscape picture
seen by candle-light is different from the glorious reality of the scene
it represents. Therefore, when Claudius felt the awakening touch, and
saw his ideal before him, urging him, by her very existence which made
it possible, to begin the fight, he felt the blood run quickly in his
veins, and his blue eyes flashed again, and the words came flowing
easily and surely from his lips. But he wondered at his own eloquence,
not seeing yet that the divine spark had kindled his genius into a broad
flame, and not half understanding what he felt.

It is late in the day to apostrophise love. It has been done too much by
people who persuade themselves that they love because they say they do,
and because it seems such a fine thing. Poets and cynics, and good men
and bad, have had their will of the poor little god, and he has grown so
shy and retiring that he would rather not be addressed, or described, or
photographed in type, for the benefit of the profane. He is chary of
using pointed shafts, and most of his target practice is done with heavy
round-tipped arrows that leave an ugly black bruise where they strike,
but do not draw the generous blood. He lurks in out-of-the-way places
and mopes, and he rarely springs out suddenly on unwary youth and maid,
as he used to in the good old days before Darwin and La Rochefoucauld
destroyed the beauty of the body and the beauty of the soul,--or man's
belief in them, which is nearly the same. Has not the one taught us to
see the animal in the angel, and the other to detect the devil in the
saint? And yet we talk of our loves as angels and our departed parents
as saints, in a gentle, commonplace fashion, as we talk of our articles
of faith. The only moderns who apostrophise love with any genuine
success are those who smack their lips sensuously at his flesh and
blood, because they are too blind to see the lovely soul that is
enshrined therein, and they have too little wit to understand that soul
and body are one.

Mr. Barker, who seemed to have the faculty of carrying on one
conversation and listening to another at the same time, struck in when
Claudius paused.

"The Professor, Countess," he began, "is one of those rare individuals
who indulge in the most unbounded enthusiasm. At the present time I
think, with all deference to his superior erudition, that he is running
into a dead wall. We have seen something of the 'woman's rights'
question in America. Let us take him over there and show him what it all
means."

"My friend," answered Claudius, "you are one of those hardened sceptics
for whom nothing can be hoped save a deathbed repentance. When you are
mortally hit and have the alternative of marriage or death set before
you in an adequately lively manner, you will, of course, elect to marry.
Then your wife, if you get your deserts, will rule you with a rod of
iron, and you will find, to your cost, that the woman who has got you
has rights, whether you like it or not, and that she can use them."

"Dollars and cents," said Barker grimly, "that is all."

"No, it is not all," retorted Claudius. "A wise Providence has provided
women in the world who can make it very uncomfortable for sinners like
you, and if you do not reform and begin a regular course of worship, I
hope that one of them will get you."

"Thanks. And if I repent and make a pilgrimage on my knees to every
woman I know, what fate do you predict? what countless blessings are in
store for me?"

The Countess was amused at the little skirmish, though she knew that
Claudius was right. Barker, with all his extreme politeness and his
pleasant speeches, had none of the knightly element in his character.

"You never can appreciate the 'countless blessings' until you are
converted to woman-worship, my friend," said Claudius, evading the
question. "But," he added, "perhaps the Countess might describe them to
you."

But Margaret meant to do nothing of the kind. She did not want to
continue the general conversation on the topic which seemed especially
Claudius's own, particularly as Mr. Barker seemed inclined to laugh at
the Doctor's enthusiasm. So she changed the subject, and began asking
the American questions about the races on the previous day.

"Of course," she said, "I do not go anywhere now."

The dinner passed off very pleasantly. Miss Skeat was instructed in the
Knickerbocker and Boston peerage, so to speak, by the intelligent Mr.
Barker, who did not fail, however, to hint at the superiority of
Debrett, who does not hesitate to tell, and boldly to print in black and
white, those distinctions of rank which he considers necessary to the
salvation of society; whereas the enterprising compilers of the "Boston
Blue Book" and the "New York List" only divide society up into streets,
mapping it out into so many square feet and so much frontage of dukes,
marquesses, generals, and "people we don't know." Miss Skeat listened
to the disquisition on the rights of birth with rapt attention, and the
yellow candle-light played pleasantly on her old corners, and her
ancient heart fluttered sympathetically. Margaret, on the other side,
made Claudius talk about his youth, and took infinite pleasure in
listening to his tales of the fresh Northern life he had led as a boy.
The Doctor had the faculty of speech and told his stories with a certain
vigour that savoured of the sea.

"I hope you will both come and see me," said the Countess, as the two
men took their departure; but as she spoke she looked at Barker.

Half an hour later they sat in their sitting-room at the hotel, and
Barker sipped a little champagne while Claudius smoked cigarettes, as
usual. As usual, also, they were talking. It was natural that two
individuals endowed with the faculty of expressing their thoughts, and
holding views for the most part diametrically opposed, should have a
good deal to say to each other. The one knew a great deal, and the other
had seen a great deal; both were given to looking at life rather
seriously than the reverse. Barker never deceived himself for a moment
about the reality of things, and spent much of his time in the practical
adaptation of means to ends he had in view; he was superficial in his
knowledge, but profound in his actions. Claudius was an intellectual
seeker after an outward and visible expression of an inward and
spiritual truth which he felt must exist, though he knew he might spend
a lifetime in the preliminary steps towards its attainment. Just now
they were talking of marriage.

"It is detestable," said Claudius, "to think how mercenary the marriage
contract is, in all civilised and uncivilised countries. It ought not
to be so--it is wrong from the very beginning."

"Yes, it is wrong of course," answered Barker, who was always ready to
admit the existence and even the beauty of an ideal, though he never
took the ideal into consideration for a moment in his doings. "Of course
it is wrong; but it cannot be helped. It crops up everywhere, as the
question of dollars and cents will in every kind of business; and I
believe it is better to be done with it at first. Now you have to pay a
Frenchman cash down before he will marry your daughter."

"I know," said Claudius, "and I loathe the idea."

"I respect your loathing, but there it is, and it has the great
advantage that it is all over, and there is no more talk about it. Now
the trouble in our country is that people marry for love, and when they
get through loving they have got to live, and then somebody must pay the
bills. Supposing the son of one rich father marries the daughter of
another rich father; by the time they have got rid of the novelty of the
thing the bills begin to come in, and they spend the remainder of their
amiable lives in trying to shove the expense off on to each other. With
an old-fashioned marriage contract to tie them up, that would not
happen, because the wife is bound to provide so many clothes, and the
husband has to give her just so much to eat, and there is an end of it.
See?"

"No, I do not see," returned Claudius. "If they really loved each
other--"

"Get out!" interrupted Barker, merrily. "If you mean to take the
immutability of the human affections as a basis of argument, I have
done."

"There your cynicism comes in," said the other, "and denies you the
pleasure and profit of contemplating an ideal, and of following it up
to its full development."

"Is it cynical to see things as they are instead of as they might be in
an imaginary world?"

"Provided you really see them as they are--no," said Claudius. "But if
you begin with an idea that things, as they are, are not very good, you
will very soon be judging them by your own inherent standard of badness,
and you will produce a bad ideal as I produce a good one, farther still
from the truth, and extremely depressing to contemplate."

"Why?" retorted Barker; "why should it be depressing to look at
everything as it is, or to try to? Why should my naturally gay
disposition suffer on making the discovery that the millennium is not
begun yet? The world may be bad, but it is a merry little place while it
lasts."

"You are a hopeless case," said Claudius, laughing; "if you had a
conscience and some little feeling for humanity, you would feel
uncomfortable in a bad world."

"Exactly. I am moderately comfortable because I know that I am just like
everybody else. I would rather, I am sure."

"I am not sure that you are," said Claudius thoughtfully.

"Oh! not as you imagine everybody else, certainly. Medieval persons who
have a hankering after tournaments and crawl about worshipping women."

"I do not deny the softer impeachment," answered the Doctor, "but I
hardly think I crawl much."

"No, but the people you imagine do--the male population of this merry
globe, as you represent it to the Countess."

"I think Countess Margaret understands me very well."

"Yes," said Barker, "she understands you very well." He did not
emphasise the remark, and his voice was high and monotonous; but the
repetition was so forcible that Claudius looked at his companion rather
curiously, and was silent. Barker was examining the cork of his little
pint bottle of champagne--"just one square drink," as he would have
expressed it--and his face was a blank.

"Don't you think, Professor," he said at last, "that with your views
about the rights of women you might make some interesting studies in
America?"

"Decidedly."

"You might write a book."

"I might," said Claudius.

"You and the Countess might write a book together."

"Are you joking?"

"No. What I have heard you saying to each other this evening and the
other day when we called would make a very interesting book, though I
disagree with you both from beginning to end. It would sell, though."

"It seems to me you rather take things for granted when you infer that
the Countess would be willing to undertake anything of the kind."

Barker looked at the Doctor steadily, and smiled.

"Do you really think so? Do you imagine that if you would do the work
she would have any objection whatever to giving you the benefit of her
views and experience?"

"In other words," Claudius said, "you are referring to the possibility
of a journey to America, in the company of the charming woman to whom
you have introduced me."

"You are improving, Professor; that is exactly what I mean. Let us
adjourn from the bowers of Baden to the wind-swept cliffs of Newport--we
can be there before the season is over. But I forgot, you thought you
would not like Newport."

"I am not sure," said Claudius. "Do you think the Countess would go?"

"If you will call there assiduously, and explain to her the glorious
future that awaits your joint literary enterprise, I believe she might
be induced."

Claudius went to bed that night with his head full of this new idea,
just as Mr. Barker had intended. He dreamed he was writing with the
Countess, and travelling with her and talking to her; and he woke up
with the determination that the thing should be done if it were
possible. Why not? She often made a trip to her native country, as she
herself had told him, and why should she not make another? For aught he
knew, she might be thinking of it even now.

Then he had a reaction of despondency. He knew nothing of her ties or of
her way of life. A woman in her position probably made engagements long
beforehand, and mapped out her year among her friends. She would have
promised a week here and a month there in visits all over Europe, and
the idea that she would give up her plans and consent, at the instance
of a two days' acquaintance, to go to America was preposterous. Then
again, he said to himself, as he came back from his morning walk in the
woods, there was nothing like trying. He would call as soon as it was
decent after the dinner, and he would call again.

Mr. Barker was a man in whom a considerable experience of men
supplemented a considerable natural astuteness. He was not always right
in the judgments he formed of people and their aims, but he was more
often right than wrong. His way of dealing with men was calculated on
the majority, and he knew that there are no complete exceptions to be
found in the world's characters. But his standard was necessarily
somewhat low, and he lacked the sympathetic element which enables one
high nature to understand another better than it understands its
inferiors. Barker would know how to deal with the people he met;
Claudius could understand a hero if he ever met one, but he bore himself
toward ordinary people by fixed rules of his own, not caring or
attempting to comprehend the principles on which they acted.

If any one had asked the Doctor if he loved the Countess, he would have
answered that he certainly did not. That she was the most beautiful
woman in the world, that she represented to him his highest ideal, and
that he was certain she came up to that ideal, although he knew her so
little, for he felt sure of that. But love, the Doctor thought, was
quite a different affair. What he felt for Margaret bore no resemblance
to what he had been used to call love. Besides, he would have said, did
ever a man fall in love at such short notice? Only in books. But as no
one asked him the question, he did not ask it of himself, but only went
on thinking a great deal of her, and recalling all she said. He was in
an unknown region, but he was happy and he asked no questions.
Nevertheless his nature comprehended hers, and when he began to go often
to the beautiful little villa, he knew perfectly well that Barker was
mistaken, and that the dark Countess would think twice and three times
before she would be persuaded to go to America, or to write a book, or
to do anything in the world for Claudius, except like him and show him
that he was welcome. She would have changed the subject had Claudius
proposed to her to do any of the things he seemed to think she was ready
to do, and Claudius knew it instinctively. He was bold with women, but
he never transgressed, and his manner allowed him to say many things
that would have sounded oddly enough in Mr. Barker's mouth. He impressed
women with a sense of confidence that he might be trusted to honour them
and respect them under any circumstances.

The Countess was accustomed to have men at her feet, but she had never
treated a man unjustly, and if they had sometimes lost their heads it
was not her fault. She was a loyal woman, and had loved her husband as
much as most good wives, though with an honest determination to love him
better; for she was young when they married, and she thought her love
stronger than it really was. She had mourned him sincerely, but the
wound had healed, and being a brave woman, with no morbid sensitiveness
of herself, she had contemplated the possibility of marrying again,
without, however, connecting the idea with any individual. She had liked
Claudius from the first, and there had been something semi-romantic
about their meeting in the Schloss at Heidelberg. On nearer acquaintance
she liked him better, though she knew that he admired her, and by the
time a fortnight had passed Claudius had become an institution. They
read together and they walked together, and once she took him with her
in the black phaeton, whereupon Barker remarked that it was "an immense
thing on wheels."

Mr. Barker, seeing that his companion was safe for the present, left
Baden for a time and lighted on his friend the Duke at Como, where the
latter had discovered some attractive metal. The Duke remarked that Como
would be a very decent place if the scenery wasn't so confoundedly bad.
"I could beat it on my own place in the west," he added.

The British aristocracy liked Mr. Barker, because he was always
inventing original ways of passing the time, and because, though he was
so rich, he never talked about money except in a vague way as "lots of
shekels," or "piles of tin." So they said they would go back to Baden
together, which they did, and as they had talked a good deal about
Claudius, they called on the Countess the same afternoon, and there,
sure enough, was the Swede, sitting by the Countess's side in the
garden, and expounding the works of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Barker and the
Duke remained half an hour, and Claudius would have gone with them, but
Margaret insisted upon finishing the chapter, so he stayed behind.

"He's a gone 'coon, Duke," remarked Barker, beginning to smoke as soon
as he was in the Victoria.

"I should say he was pretty hard hit, myself. I guess nothing better
could have happened." The Duke, in virtue of his possessions in America,
affected to "guess" a little now and then when none of those horrid
people were about.

"Come on, Duke," said Barker, "let us go home, and take them with us."

"I could not go just now. Next month. Autumn, you know. Glories of the
forest and those sort of things."

"Think they would go?"

"Don't know," said the Duke. "Take them over in the yacht, if they
like."

"All right. We can play poker while they bay the moon."

"Hold on, though; she won't go without some other woman, you know. It
would be in all the papers."

"She has a lady-companion," said Barker.

"That won't do for respectability."

"It is rather awkward, then." There was silence for a few moments.

"Stop a bit," said the Duke suddenly. "It just strikes me. I have got a
sister somewhere. I'