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'll look her up. She is never ill at sea, and they have sent her husband off to Kamtchatka, or some such place."

"That's the very thing," said Barker. "I will talk to Claudius. Can you manage the Countess, do you think? Have you known her long?"

"Rather. Ever since she married poor Alexis."

"All right, then. You ask her." And they reached their hotel.

So these two gentlemen settled things between them. They both wanted to go to America, and they were not in a hurry, so that the prospect of a pleasant party, with all the liberty and home feeling there is on board of a yacht, was an immense attraction. Barker, of course, was amused and interested by his scheme for making Claudius and the Countess fall in love with each other, and he depended on the dark lady for his show. Claudius would not have been easily induced to leave Europe by argument or persuasion, but there was little doubt that he would follow the Countess, if she could be induced to lead. The Duke, on the other hand, thought only of making up a well-arranged party of people who wanted to make the journey in any case, and would not be on his hands after he landed. So two or three days later he called on the Countess to open the campaign. It was not altogether new ground, as they had crossed together once before. The Duke was not very good at leading the conversation up to his points, so he immediately began talking about America, in order to be sure of hitting somewhere near the mark.

"I have not been over since the autumn," he said, "and I really ought to go."

"When will you start?" asked Margaret.

"I meant to go next month. I think I will take the yacht."

"I wonder you do not always do that. It is so much pleasanter, and you feel as if you never had gone out of your own house."

"The fact is," said he, plunging, "I am going to take my sister, and I would like to have a little party. Will you not join us yourself, Countess, and Miss Skeat?"

"Really, Duke, you are very kind. But I was not thinking of going home just yet."

"It is a long time since you have been there. Not since—"

"Yes, I know," said Margaret gravely. "And perhaps that is why I hesitate to go now."

"But would it not be different if we all went together? Do you not think it would be much nicer?"

"Did you say your sister was going?"

"Oh yes, she will certainly go."

"Well," said the Countess after a moment's thought, "I will not say just yet. I need not make up my mind yet; need I? Then I will take a few days to think of it."

"I am sure you will decide to join us," said the Duke pressingly.

"Perhaps I ought to go, and it is so kind of you, really, to give me such a delightful chance." She had a presentiment that before long she would he on her way to join the yacht, though at first sight it seemed rather improbable, for, as Claudius had guessed, she had a great many engagements for visits. If any one had suggested to her that morning that she might make a trip to America, she would have said it was quite impossible. The idea of the disagreeable journey, the horror of being cast among an immense crowd of unknown travellers; or, still worse, of being thrown into the society of some chance acquaintance who would make the most of knowing her—it was all sufficient, even in the absence of other reasons, to deter her from undertaking the journey. But in the party proposed by the Duke it was all very different. He was a gentleman, besides being a peer, and he was an old friend. His sister was a kind-hearted gentlewoman of narrow views but broad humanity; and not least, the yacht was sure to be perfection, and she would be the honoured guest. She would be sorry to leave Baden for some reasons; she liked Claudius very much, and he made her feel that she was leading an intellectual life. But she had not entirely realised him yet. He was to her always the quiet student whom she had met in Heidelberg, and during the month past the feeling she entertained for him had developed more in the direction of intellectual sympathy than of personal friendship. She would not mind parting with him any more than she would mind laying down an interesting book before she had half read it. Still that was something, and the feeling had weight.

"Miss Skeat," she said, when they were alone, "you have never been in America?"

"No, dear Countess, I have never been there, and until lately I have never thought I would care to go."

"Would you like to go now?"

"Oh!" exclaimed the ancient one, "I would like it of all things!"

"I am thinking of going over next month," said Margaret, "and of course I would like you to go with me. Do you mind the sea very much?"

"Oh dear, no! I used to sail a great deal when I was a girl, and the Atlantic cannot be worse than our coast."

Miss Skeat's assent was a matter of real importance to Margaret, for the old gentlewoman was sincerely attached to her, and Margaret would have been very unwilling to turn her faithful companion adrift, even for a time, besides the minor consideration that without a companion she would not go at all. The end of it was that by dinner-time she had made up her mind to write excuses to all the people who expected her, and to accept the Duke's invitation. After all, it was not until next month, and she could finish the book she was reading with Claudius before that. She postponed writing to the Duke until the following day, in order to make a show of having considered the matter somewhat longer. But her resolution did not change, and in the morning she despatched a friendly little note to the effect that she found her engagements would permit her, etc. etc.

When Margaret told Miss Skeat that they were going in one of the finest yachts afloat, with the Duke and his sister, her companion fairly crackled with joy.



CHAPTER VI.

The Duke was away during the day, and did not receive the Countess's note until late in the evening. To tell the truth, he was very glad to find that she was going; but he felt there might be difficulties in the way; for, of course, he was bound to let her know the names of his remaining guests. She might hesitate when she heard that Claudius and Barker were to be of the party. After all, Barker was the companion whom the Duke wanted. He knew nothing about Claudius, but he had met enough men of all types of eccentricity not to be much surprised at him, and as the Doctor was evidently a gentleman, there was no objection. Therefore, as soon as the Duke knew of Margaret's determination, he sallied forth, armed with her note, to find Mr. Barker. It was late, but the American was nocturnal in his habits, and was discovered by his friend in a huge cloud of tobacco smoke, examining his nails with that deep interest which in some persons betokens thought.

"It's all right," said the Duke; "she will go."

"You don't mean it?" said Barker, taking his legs off the sofa and wrinkling his face.

"There you are. Note. Formal acceptance, and all the rest of it." And he handed Margaret's letter to Barker.

"Well, that is pretty smart practice," remarked the latter; "I expected you would have difficulties."

"Said she would take some days to make up her mind. She wrote this the same evening I called, I am sure. Just like a woman."

"Well, I think it's deuced lucky, anyhow," said Barker. "Did you tell her who was going?"

"I told her about my sister. I have not mentioned you or your friend yet. Of course I will do that as soon as I am sure of you both."

"Well," said Barker, "if you don't mind, perhaps you might write a note to the Doctor. He might be shy of accepting an invitation by word of mouth. Do you mind?"

"Not in the least," said the Englishman; "give me a rag of paper and a quill, and I'll do it now."

And he accordingly did it, and directed the invitation to Claudius, Phil.D., and Barker pushed it into the crack of the door leading to the apartment where the Doctor was sleeping, lest it should be forgotten.

The next morning Claudius appeared with the Duke's note in his hand.

"What does this mean?" he asked. "I hardly know him at all, and here he asks me to cross the Atlantic in his yacht. I wish you would explain."

"Keep your hair on, my young friend," replied Mr. Barker jocosely. "He has asked you and me because his party would not be complete without us."

"And who are 'the party'?"

"Oh, very small. Principally his sister, I believe. Hold on though, Miss Skeat is going."

"Miss Skeat?" Claudius anticipated some chaff from his friend, and knit his brows a little.

"Yes; Miss Skeat and the Countess; or, perhaps I should say the Countess and Miss Skeat."

"Ah!" ejaculated Claudius, "any one else?"

"Not that I know of. Will you go?"

"It is rather sudden," said the Doctor reflectively.

"You must make up your mind one way or the other, or you will spoil the Duke's arrangements."

"Barker," said Claudius seriously, "do you suppose the Countess knows who are going?"

"My dear boy," replied the other, peeling a peach which he had impaled on a fork, "it is not likely the Duke would ask a lady to go with him without telling her who the men were to be. Be calm, however; I have observed your habits, and in two hours and twenty-three minutes your mind will be at rest."

"How so?"

"It is now thirty-seven minutes past nine. Do you mean to say you have failed once for weeks past to be at the Countess's as the clock strikes twelve?"

Claudius was silent. It was quite true; he went there daily at the same hour; for, as appeared in the beginning of this tale, he was a regular man. But he reflected just now that the Countess would not be likely to speak of the party unless she knew that he was to be one. He had not accepted his invitation yet, and the Duke would certainly not take his acceptance as a foregone conclusion. Altogether it seemed probable that he would be kept in suspense. If he then accepted without being sure of the Countess, he was binding himself to leave her. Claudius had many things to learn yet.

"If I were you," said Barker, "I would write at once and say 'Yes.' Why can't you do it now?"

"Because I have not made up my mind."

"Well, a bird in the hand is the soul of business, as the good old proverb says. I have accepted for myself, anyhow; but I would be sorry to leave you on this side."

So Claudius went to the Countess as usual, and found her in her morning-room awaiting him. He bent over her hand, but as he took it he thought it was a trifle colder than usual. It might have been imagination, but he fancied her whole manner was less cordial than before. And he said to himself, "She has heard I am going, and she is annoyed, and is not glad to see me." There was a preternatural solemnity about their conversation which neither of them could break through, and in a few minutes they both looked as though they had not smiled for years.

Now Claudius was entirely mistaken. Margaret had not heard that he was going. If she had, she would have spoken frankly, as was her nature to do always, if she spoke at all. Margaret had accepted the Duke's invitation, and intended to keep her word, and she had no suspicion whatever of who the other guests might be. She foresaw that such a journey would break up her acquaintance with Claudius, and she regretted it; and especially she regretted having allowed the Doctor so much intimacy and so many visits. Not that he had taken advantage of the footing on which he was received, for any signs of such a disposition on his part would have abruptly terminated the situation; he had been the very model of courtesy from the first. But she knew enough of men to perceive that this gentle homage clothed a more sincere admiration than lay at the root of the pushing attentions of some other men she had known. Therefore she made up her mind that as there were yet three weeks before sailing, after the expiration of which she would never be likely to see Claudius again, she would let him down easily, so to speak, that there might be no over-tender recollections on his part, nor any little stings of remorse on her own. He had interested her; they had spent a couple of pleasant months; she had given him no encouragement, and he was gone without a sigh: that was the way in which Countess Margaret hoped to remember Dr. Claudius by that time next month. And so, fearing lest she might inadvertently have been the least shade too cordial, she began to be a little more severe, on this hot morning when Claudius, full of indecision, followed her out to their favourite reading-place under the trees. It was the same spot where they had sat when Barker first brought him to see her. Margaret had no particular feeling about the little nook under the trees. It was merely the most convenient place to sit and work; that was all. But to Claudius the circle of green sward represented the temple of his soul, and Margaret was to him Rune Wife and prophetess as well as divinity. In such places, and of such women, his fair-haired forefathers, bare-armed and sword-girt, had asked counsel in trouble, and song-inspiration in peace.

Here they sat them down, she determined to do the right by him, and thinking it an easy matter; he utterly misunderstanding her. Without a smile, they set to work at their reading. They read for an hour or more, maintaining the utmost gravity, when, as luck would have it, the word "friendship" occurred in a passage of the book. Claudius paused a moment, his broad hand laid flat on the open page.

"That is one of the most interesting and one of the most singularly misunderstood words in all languages," he said.

"What word?" inquired Margaret, looking up from her work, to which she had attentively applied herself while he was reading.

"Friendship."

"Will you please define what it means?" said she.

"I can define what I myself mean by it, or rather what I think I mean by it. I can define what a dozen writers have meant by it. But I cannot tell what it really means, still less what it may ultimately come to mean."

"You will probably be best able to explain what you mean by it yourself," answered Margaret rather coldly. "Will you please begin?"

"It seems to me," Claudius began, "that the difficulty lies in the contradiction between the theory and the fact. Of course, as in all such cases, the theory loses the battle, and we are left groping for an explanation of the fact which we do not understand. Perhaps that is a little vague?" Claudius paused.

"A little vague—yes," said she.

"I will try and put it more clearly. First take the fact. No one will deny that there have occasionally in the world's history existed friendships which have stood every test and which have lasted to the very end. Such attachments have been always affairs of the heart, even between man and man. I do not think you can name an instance of a lasting friendship on a purely intellectual basis. True friendship implies the absence of envy, and the vanity of even the meanest intellect is far too great to admit of such a condition out of pure thought-sympathy."

"I do not see any contradiction, even admitting your last remark, which is cynical enough." Margaret spoke indifferently, as making a mere criticism.

"But I believe most people connect the idea of friendship, beyond ordinary liking, with intellectual sympathy. They suppose, for instance, that a man may love a woman wholly and entirely with the best kind of love, and may have at the same time a friend with whom he is in entire sympathy."

"And why not?" she asked.

"Simply because he cannot serve two masters. If he is in entire sympathy with more than one individual he must sometimes not only contradict himself, as he would rightly do for one or the other alone, but he must also contradict one in favour of the other in case they disagree. In such a case he is no longer in entire sympathy with both, and either his love or his friendship must be imperfect." Claudius looked at the Countess to see what impression he had made. She did not return his glance.

"In other words?" was her question.

"In other words," he answered in a tone of conviction, "friendship is only a substitute for love, and cannot exist beside it unless lover and friend be one and the same person. Friendship purely intellectual is a fallacy, owing to the manifest imperfections of human nature. It must, then, be an affair of the heart, whatever you may define that to be, and cannot, therefore, exist at the same time with any other affair of the heart without inevitable contradiction. How often has love separated old friends, and friendship bred discord between lovers!"

"I never heard that argument before," said Margaret, who, to tell the truth, was surprised at the result of the Doctor's discourse.

"What do you think of it?" he asked.

"I am not sure, but the point is interesting. I think you are a little vague about what an 'affair of the heart,' as you call it, really is."

"I suppose an affair of the heart to be such a situation of the feelings that the heart rules the head and the actions by the head. The prime essence of love is that it should be complete, making no reservations and allowing of no check from the reason."

"A dangerous state of things."

"Yes," said Claudius. "When the heart gets the mastery it knows neither rest nor mercy. If the heart is good the result will be good, if it is bad the result will be evil. Real love has produced incalculably great results in the lives of individuals and in the life of the world."

"I suppose so," said Margaret; "but you made out friendship to be also an 'affair of the heart,' so far as you believe in it at all. Is true friendship as uncalculating as true love? Does it make no reservations, and does it admit of no check from the reason?"

"I think, as I said, that friendship is a substitute for love, second best in its nature and second best, too, in its unselfishness."

"Many people say love is selfishness itself."

"I know," answered the Doctor, and paused as if thinking.

"Do you not want to smoke?" asked Margaret, with a tinge of irony, "it may help you to solve the difficulty."

"Thank you, no," said he, "the difficulty is solved, and it is no difficulty at all. The people who say that do not know what they are talking about, for they have never been in love themselves. Love, worth the name, is complete; and being complete, demands the whole, and is not satisfied with less than the whole any more than it is satisfied with giving less than all that it has. The selfishness lies in demanding and insisting upon having everything, while only offering rags and shreds in return; and if one may find this fault in ordinary love affairs, one may find it tenfold in ordinary friendships. Friendship may be heroic but love is godlike."

Margaret had become interested in spite of herself, though she had preserved the constrained manner she had first assumed. Now, however, as Claudius turned his flashing blue eyes to hers, she understood that she had allowed the conversation to go far enough, and she marvelled that on the very day when she was trying to be most unapproachable he should have said more to show what was next his heart than ever before. She did not know enough of exceptional natures like his to be aware that a touch of the curb is the very thing to rouse the fierce blood. True, he spoke generally, and even argumentatively, and his deep voice was calm enough, but there was a curious light in his eyes that dazzled her even in the mid-day sun, and she looked away.

"I am not sure I agree with you," she said, "but you put it very clearly. Shall we go on reading?"

Claudius was some time in finding his place in the open book, and then went on. Again he misunderstood her, for though he could not remember saying anything he regretted, he fancied she had brought the conversation to a somewhat abrupt close. He read on, feeling very uncomfortable, and longing for one of those explanations that are impossible between acquaintances and emotional between lovers. He felt also that if he ever spoke out and told her he loved her it would be in some such situation as the present. Margaret let her needlework drop and leaned back in the long chair, staring at a very uninteresting-looking tree on the other side of the garden. Claudius read in a steady determined tone, emphasising his sentences with care, and never once taking his eyes from the book. At last, noticing how quietly he was doing his work, Margaret looked at him, not furtively or as by stealth, but curiously and thoughtfully. He was good to look at, so strong and straight, even as he sat at ease with the book in his hand, and the quivering sunlight through the leaves played over his yellow beard and white forehead. She knew well enough now that he admired her greatly, and she hoped it would not be very hard for him when she went away. Somehow, he was still to her the professor, the student, quiet and dignified and careless of the world, as she had first known him. She could not realise Claudius as a man of wealth and power, who was as well able to indulge his fancies as the Duke himself,—perhaps more so, for the Duke's financial affairs were the gossip of Europe, and always had been since he came of age.

Meanwhile the Doctor reached the end of the chapter, and there was a pause. Neither spoke, and the silence was becoming awkward, when a servant came across the lawn announcing the Duke.

"Ask his Grace to come outside," said Margaret, and the representative of the aristocracy was striding over the green, hat in hand, a moment afterwards. Margaret put out her hand and Claudius rose. Each felt that the deus ex machina had arrived, and that the subject of the yachting excursion would be immediately broached.

"Immense luck, finding you both," remarked the Duke when he was seated.

"We have been reading. It is so pleasant here," said Margaret, to say something.

"I have come to thank you for your kind note, Countess. It is extremely good of you to go in such a party, with your taste for literature and those sort of things."

"I am sure it is I who ought to thank you, Duke. But when are we to sail?"

"About the tenth of next month, I should say. Will that be convenient?"

Margaret turned to Claudius.

"Do you think we can finish our book by the tenth, Dr. Claudius?"

"If not," broke in the Duke, "there is no reason why you should not finish it on board. We shall have lovely weather."

"Oh no!" said Margaret, "we must finish it before we start. I could not understand a word of it alone."

"Alone?" inquired the Duke. "Ah! I forgot. Thought he had told you. I have asked Dr. Claudius to give us the pleasure of his company."

"Oh, indeed!" said Margaret. "That will be very nice." She did not look as if she thought so, however. Her expression was not such as led the Duke to believe she was pleased, or Claudius to think she would like his going. To tell the truth, she was annoyed for more than one reason. She thought the Duke, although he was such an old friend, should have consulted her before making up the list of men for the party. She was annoyed with Claudius because he had not told her he was going, when he really thought she knew it, and was displeased at it. And most of all, she was momentarily disconcerted at being thus taken off her guard. Besides, the Duke must have supposed she liked Claudius very much, and he had perhaps contrived the whole excursion in order to throw them together. Her first impulse was to change her mind and not go after all.

Meanwhile Claudius was much astonished at the turn things had taken. Margaret had known nothing about the invitation to the Doctor after all, and her coldness this morning must be attributed to some other cause. But now that she did know she looked less pleased than ever. She did not want him. The Doctor was a proud man in his quiet way, and he was, moreover, in love, not indeed hopelessly as yet, for love is never wholly irrevocable until it has survived the crucial test, attainment of its object; but Claudius loved, and he knew it. Consequently his pride revolted at the idea of thrusting himself where he was not wanted, and his love forbade him to persecute the woman he worshipped. He also said to himself, "I will not go." He had not yet accepted the invitation.

"I had intended to write to you this afternoon," he said, turning to the Duke. "But since it is my good fortune to be able to thank you in person for your kind invitation, let me do so now."

"I hope you are going," said the Duke.

"I fear," answered Claudius, "that I shall be prevented from joining you, much as I would like to do so. I have by no means decided to abandon my position in Heidelberg."

Neither Margaret nor the Duke were in the least prepared for this piece of news. The Duke was taken aback at the idea that any human being could refuse such an invitation. Following on his astonishment that Margaret should not be delighted at having the Doctor on board, the intelligence that the Doctor did not want to go at all threw the poor man into the greatest perplexity. He had made a mistake somewhere, evidently; but where or how he could not tell.

"Barker," he said to himself, "is an ass. He has made me muff the whole thing." However, he did not mean to give up the fight.

"I am extremely sorry to hear you say that, Dr. Claudius," he said aloud, "and I hope you will change your mind, if I have to send you an invitation every day until we sail. You know one does not ask people on one's yacht unless one wants them very much, and we want you. It is just like asking a man to ride your favourite hunter; you would not ask him unless you meant it, for fear he would." The Duke seldom made so long a speech, and Claudius felt that the invitation was really genuine, which gave his wounded pride a pleasant little respite from its aches. He was grateful, and he said so. Margaret was silent and plied her needle, planning how she might escape the party if Claudius changed his mind and went, and how she could with decency leave herself the option of going if he remained. She did not intend to give people any farther chance of pairing her off with Claudius or any one else whom they thought she fancied, and she blamed herself for having given people even the shadow of an idea that such officious party-making would please her.

Claudius rose to go. The position was not tenable any longer, and it was his only course. The Countess bade him good morning with more cordiality than she had displayed as yet; for, in spite of her annoyance, she would have been sorry to wound his feelings. The change of tone at first gave Claudius a thrill of pleasure, which gave way to an increased sense of mortification as he reflected that she was probably only showing that she was glad to be rid of him—a clumsy, manlike thought, which his reason would soon get the better of. So he departed.

There was silence for some minutes after he had gone, for Margaret and the Englishman were old friends, and there was no immediate necessity for making conversation. At last he spoke with a certain amount of embarrassment.

"I ought to have told you before that I had asked those two men."

"Who is the other?" she inquired without looking up.

"Why, Barker, his friend."

"Oh, of course! But it would have been simpler to have told me. It made it rather awkward, for of course Dr. Claudius thought I knew he was asked and wondered why I did not speak of it. Don't you see?" she raised her eyes as she put the question.

"It was idiotic of me, and I am very sorry. Please forgive me."

"As he is not going, it does not make any difference, of course, and so I forgive you."

Considering that Barker had suggested the party, that it was Barker whom the Duke especially wanted to amuse him on the trip, that Barker had proposed Margaret and Claudius, and that, finally, the whole affair was a horrid mess, the Duke did not see what he could have done. But he knew it was good form to be penitent whenever it seemed to be expected, and he liked Margaret well enough to hope that she would go. He did not care very much for the society of women at any time. He was more or less married when he was at home, which was never for long together, and when he was away he preferred the untrammelled conversational delights of a foreign green-room to the twaddle of the embassies or to the mingled snobbery and philistinism produced by the modern fusion of the almighty dollar and the ancienne noblesse.

And so he was in trouble just now, and his one idea was to submit to everything the Countess might say, and then to go and "give it" to Mr. Barker for producing so much complication. But Margaret had nothing more to say about the party, and launched out into a discussion of the voyage. She introduced a cautious "if" in most of her sentences. "If I go I would like to see Madeira," and "if we join you, you must take care of Miss Skeat, and give her the best cabin," etc. etc. The Duke wisely abstained from pressing his cause, or asking why she qualified her plans. At last he got away, after promising to do every conceivable and inconceivable thing which she should now or at any future time evolve from the depths of her inventive feminine consciousness.

"By the way, Duke," she called after him, as he went over the, lawn, "may I take old Vladimir if I go?"

"If you go," he answered, moving back a step or two, "you may bring all the Imperial Guards if you choose, and I will provide transports for those that the yacht won't hold."

"Thanks; that is all," she said laughing, and the stalwart peer vanished through the house. The moment he was gone Margaret dropped her work and lay back in her long chair to think. The heavy lids half closed over her dark eyes, and the fingers of her right hand slowly turned round and round the ring she wore upon her left. Miss Skeat was upstairs reading Lord Byron's Corsair in anticipation of the voyage. Margaret did not know this, or the thought of the angular and well-bred Scotchwoman bounding over the glad waters of the dark blue sea would have made her smile. As it was, she looked serious.

"I am sorry," she thought to herself. "It was nice of him to say he would not go."

Meanwhile the strong-legged nobleman footed it merrily towards Barker's hotel. It was a good two miles, and the Duke's ruddy face shone again under the August sun. But the race characteristic was strong in him, and he liked to make himself unnecessarily hot; moreover he was really fond of Barker, and now he was going to pitch into him, as he said to himself, so it was indispensable to keep the steam up. He found his friend as usual the picture of dried-up coolness, so to say. Mr. Barker never seemed to be warm, but he never seemed to feel cold either, and at this moment, as he sat in a half-lighted room, clad in a variety of delicate gray tints, with a collar that looked like fresh-baked biscuit ware, and a pile of New York papers and letters beside him, he was refreshing to the eye.

"Upon my word, Barker, you always look cool," said the Duke, as he sat himself down in an arm-chair, and passed his handkerchief round his wrists. "I would like to know how you do it."

"To begin with, I do not rush madly about in the sun in the middle of the day. That may have something to do with it."

The Duke sneezed loudly, from the mingled dust and sunshine he had been inhaling.

"And then I don't come into a cold room and catch cold, like you. Here I sit in seclusion and fan myself with the pages of my newspapers as I turn them over."

"You have got us all into the deuce of a mess with your confounded coolness," said the Duke after a pause, during which he had in vain searched all his pockets for his cigar-case. Barker had watched him, and pushed an open box of Havanas across the table. But the Duke was determined to be sulky, and took no notice of the attention. The circular wrinkle slowly furrowed its way round Barker's mouth, and his under jaw pushed forward. It always amused him to see sanguine people angry. They looked so uncomfortable, and "gave themselves away" so recklessly.

"If you won't smoke, have some beer," he suggested. But his Grace fumed the redder.

"I don't understand how a man of your intelligence, Barker, can go and put people into such awkward positions," he said. "I think it is perfectly idiotic."

"Write me down an ass, by all means," said Barker calmly; "but please explain what you mean. I told you not to buy in the Green Swash Mine, and now I suppose you have gone and done it, because I said it might possibly be active some day."

"I have been to see the Countess this morning," said the Duke, beating the dust from his thick walking-boot with his cane.

"Ah!" said Barker, without any show of interest. "Was she at home?"

"I should think so," said the Duke. "Very much at home, and Dr. Claudius was there too."

"Oh! so you are jealous of Claudius, are you?" The ducal wrath rose.

"Barker, you are insufferably ridiculous."

"Duke, you had much better go to bed," returned his friend.

"Look here, Barker—"

"Do not waste your vitality in that way," said the American. "I wish I had half of it. It quite pains me to see you. Now I will put the whole thing clearly before you as I suppose it happened, and you shall tell me if it is my fault or not, and whether, after all, it is such a very serious matter. Countess Margaret did not know that Claudius was going, and did not speak of the trip. Claudius thought she was angry, and when you arrived and let the cat out of the bag the Countess thought you were trying to amuse yourself by surprising her, and she was angry too. Then they both made common cause and would have nothing more to do with you, and told you to go to the devil, and at this moment they are planning to remain here for the next forty or fifty years, and are sending off a joint telegram to Professor Immanuel Spencer, or whatever his name is, to hurry up and get some more books ready for them to read. I am glad you have not bought Green Swash, though, really." There was a pause, and the Duke glared savagely at the cigar-box.

"Is your serene highness satisfied that I know all about it?" asked Barker at last.

"No, I am not. And I am not serene. She says she will go, and Claudius says he won't. And it is entirely your fault."

"It is not of any importance what he says, or whether it is my fault or not. If you had bestirred yourself to go and see her at eleven before Claudius arrived it would not have happened. But he will go all the same; never fear. And the Countess will persuade him too, without our doing anything in the matter."

"You would not have thought so if you had seen the way she received the news that he was invited," grumbled the Duke.

"If you associated more with women you would understand them better," replied the other.

"I dare say." The Englishman was cooler, and at last made up his mind to take one of Mr. Barker's cigars. When he had lit it, he looked across at his friend. "How do you expect to manage it?" he inquired.

"If you will write a simple little note to the Countess, and say you are sorry there should have been any misunderstanding, and if you and I leave those two to themselves for ten days, even if she invites us to dinner, they will manage it between them, depend upon it. They are in love, you know perfectly well."

"I suppose they are," said the Duke, as if he did not understand that kind of thing. "I think I will have some curacao and potass;" and he rang the bell.

"That's not half a bad idea," he said when he was refreshed. "I begin to think you are not so idiotic as I supposed."

"Waal," said Barker, suddenly affecting the accents of his native shore, "I ain't much on the drivel this journey anyhow." The Duke laughed; he always laughed at Americanisms.

"I guess so," said the Duke, trying ineffectually to mimic his friend. Then he went on in his natural voice, "I have an idea."

"Keep it," said Barker; "they are scarce."

"No; seriously. If we must leave them alone, why—why should we not go down and look at the yacht?"

"Not bad at all. As you say, we might go round and see how she looks. Where is she?"

"Nice."

So the one went down and the other went round, but they went together, and saw the yacht, and ran over to Monte Carlo, and had a good taste of the dear old green-table, now that they could not have it in Baden any longer. And they enjoyed the trip, and were temperate and well dressed and cynical, after their kind. But Claudius stayed where he was.



CHAPTER VII.

The daily reading proceeded as usual after Barker's departure, but neither Margaret nor Claudius mentioned the subject of the voyage. Margaret was friendly, and sometimes seemed on the point of relapsing into her old manner, but she always checked herself. What the precise change was it would be hard to say. Claudius knew it was very easy to feel the difference, but impossible to define it. As the days passed, he knew also that his life had ceased to be his own; and, with the chivalrous wholeness of purpose that was his nature, he took his soul and laid it at her feet, for better for worse, to do with as she would. But he knew the hour was not come yet wherein he should speak; and so he served her in silence, content to feel the tree of life growing within him, which should one day overshadow them both with its sheltering branches. His service was none the less whole and devoted because it had not yet been accepted.

One evening, nearly a week after they had been left to themselves, Claudius was sitting over his solitary dinner in the casino restaurant when a note was brought to him, a large square envelope of rough paper, and he knew the handwriting. He hesitated to open it, and, glancing round the brilliantly-lighted restaurant, involuntarily wondered if any man at all those tables were that moment in such suspense as he. He thought it was probably an intimation that she was going away, and that he was wanted no longer. Then, for the first time in many days, he thought of his money. "And if she does," he said half aloud, "shall I not follow? Shall not gold command everything save her heart, and can I not win that for myself?" And he took courage and quietly opened the note.

"MY DEAR DR. CLAUDIUS—As the time is approaching, will you not do me a favour? I want you to make a list of books to read on the voyage—that is, if I may count on your kindness as an expounder. If not, please tell me of some good novels.

"Sincerely yours,"

and her full name signed at the end. The hot blood turned his white forehead red as Claudius finished reading. He could not believe his eyes, and the room swam for a moment; for he was very much in love, this big Swede. Then he grew pale again and quite calm, and read the note over. Novels indeed! What did he know about novels? He would ask her plainly if she wanted his company on the yacht or no. He would say, "Shall I come? or shall I stay behind?" Claudius had much to learn from Mr. Barker before he was competent to deal with women. But then Claudius would have scorned the very expression "to deal" with them; theirs to command, his to obey—there was to be no question of dealing. Only in his simple heart he would like to know in so many words what the commands were; and that is sometimes a little hard, for women like to be half understood before they speak, and the grosser intellect of man seldom more than half understands them after they have spoken.

A note requires an answer, and Claudius made the usual number of failures. When one has a great deal more to say than one has any right to say, and when at the same time one is expected to say particularly little, it is very hard to write a good note. All sorts of ideas creep in and express themselves automatically. A misplaced plural for a singular, a superlative adjective where the vaguer comparative belongs; the vast and immeasurable waste of weary years that may lie between "dear" and "dearest," the gulf placed between "sincerely yours, John Smith," and "yours, J.S.," and "your J.," until the blessed state is reached wherein the signature is omitted altogether, and every word bears the sign-manual of the one woman or one man who really exists for you. What a registering thermometer of intimacy exists in notes, from the icy zero of first acquaintance to the raging throb of boiling blood-heat! So Claudius, after many trials, arrived at the requisite pitch of absolute severity, and began his note, "My dear Countess Margaret," and signed it, "very obediently yours," which said just what was literally true; and he stated that he would immediately proceed to carry out the Countess's commands, and make a list in which nothing should be wanting that could contribute to her amusement.

When he went to see her on the following day he was a little surprised at her manner, which inclined more to the severe coldness of that memorable day of difficulties than to the unbending he had expected from her note. Of course he had no reason to be disappointed, and he showed his inexperience. She was compensating her conscience for the concession she had made in intimating that he might go. It was indeed a concession, but to what superior power she had yielded it behoves not inquisitive man to ask. Perhaps she thought Claudius would enjoy the trip very much, and said to herself she had no right to make him give it up.

They read together for some time, and at last Claudius asked her, in connection with a point which arose, whether she would like to read a German book that he thought good.

"Very much," said she. "By the by, I am glad you have been able to arrange to go with us. I thought your engagements were going to prevent you."

Claudius looked at her, trying to read her thoughts, in which he failed. He might have been satisfied, but he was not. There was a short silence, and then he closed the book over his hand and spoke.

"Countess, do you wish me to go or not?"

Margaret raised her dark eyebrows. He had never seen her do that before. But then he had never said anything so clumsy before in his whole life, and he knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth, and his face was white in sunshine. She looked at him suddenly, a slight smile on her lips, and her eyes just the least contracted, as if she were going to say something sarcastic. But his face was so pitifully pale. She saw how his hand trembled. A great wave of womanly compassion welled up in her soul, and the smile faded and softened away as she said one word.

"Yes." It came from the heart, and she could not help it if it sounded kindly.

"Then I will go," said Claudius, hardly knowing what he said, for the blood came quickly back to his face.

"Of course you will, I could have told you that ever so long ago," chirped a little bullfinch in the tree overhead.

A couple of weeks or more after the events last chronicled, the steam yacht Streak was two days out on the Atlantic, with a goodly party on board. There were three ladies—the Duke's sister, the Countess, and Miss Skeat, the latter looking very nautical in blue serge, which sat tightly over her, like the canvas cover sewn round a bicycle when it is sent by rail. Of men there were also three—to wit, the owner of the yacht, Mr. Barker, and Dr. Claudius.

The sea has many kinds of fish. Some swim on their sides, some swim straight, some come up to take a sniff of air, and some stay below. It is just the same with people who go to sea. Take half a dozen individuals who are all more or less used to the water, and they will behave in half a dozen different ways. One will become encrusted to the deck like a barnacle, another will sit in the cabin playing cards; a third will spend his time spinning yarns with the ship's company, and a fourth will rush madly up and down the deck from morning till night in the pursuit of an appetite which shall leave no feat of marine digestion untried or unaccomplished. Are they not all stamped on the memory of them that go down to the sea in yachts? The little card-box and the scoring-book of the players, the deck chair and rugs of the inveterate reader, the hurried tread and irascible eye of the carnivorous passenger, and the everlasting pipe of the ocean talker, who feels time before him and the world at his feet wherein to spin yarns—has any one not seen them?

Now, the elements on board of the Streak were sufficiently diverse to form a successful party, and by the time they were two days out on the long swell, with a gentle breeze just filling the trysails, and everything stowed, they had each fallen into the groove of sea life that was natural to him or to her. There were Barker and the Duke in the pretty smoking-room forward with the windows open and a pack of cards between them. Every now and then they stopped to chat a little, or the Duke would go out and look at the course, and make his rounds to see that every one was all right and nobody sea-sick. But Barker rarely moved, save to turn his chair and cross one leg over the other, whereby he might the more easily contemplate his little patent leather shoes and stroke his bony hands over his silk-clad ankles; for Mr. Barker considered sea-dressing, as he called it, a piece of affectation, and arrayed himself on board ship precisely as he did on land. The Duke, on the other hand, like most Englishmen when they get a chance, revelled in what he considered ease; that is to say, no two of his garments matched or appeared to have been made in the same century; he wore a flannel shirt, and was inclined to go about barefoot when the ladies were not on deck, and he adorned his ducal forehead with a red worsted cap, price one shilling.

Margaret, as was to be expected, was the deck member, with her curiously-wrought chair and her furs and her portable bookcase; while Miss Skeat, who looked tall and finny, and sported a labyrinthine tartan, was generally to be seen entangled in the weather-shrouds near by. As for the Duke's sister, Lady Victoria, she was plain, but healthy, and made regular circuits of the steamer, stopping every now and then to watch the green swirl of the foam by the side, and to take long draughts of salt air into her robust lungs. But of all the party there was not one on whom the change from the dry land to the leaping water produced more palpable results than on Claudius. He affected nothing nautical in dress or speech, but when the Duke saw him come on deck the first morning out, there was something about his appearance that made the yachtsman say to Barker—

"That man has been to sea, I am positive. I am glad I asked him."

"All those Swedes are amphibious," replied Barker; "they take to the water like ducks. But I don't believe he has smelled salt water for a dozen years."

"They are the best sailors, at all events," said the Duke. "I have lots of them among the men. Captain a Swede too. Let me introduce you." They were standing on the bridge. "Captain Sturleson, my friend Mr. Barker." And so in turn the captain was made known to every one on board; for he was an institution with the Duke, and had sailed his Grace's yachts ever since there had been any to sail, which meant for about twenty years. To tell the truth, if it were not for those beastly logarithms, the Duke was no mean sailing-master himself, and he knew a seaman when he saw one; hence his remark about Claudius. The Doctor knew every inch of the yacht and every face in the ship's company by the second day, and it amused the Countess to hear his occasional snatches of the clean-cut Northern tongue that sounded like English, but was yet so different.

Obedient to her instructions, he had provided books of all sorts for the voyage, and they began to read together, foolishly imagining that, with the whole day at their disposal, they would do as much work as when they only met for an hour or two daily to accomplish a set purpose. The result of their unbounded freedom was that conversation took the place of reading. Hitherto Margaret had confined Claudius closely to the matter in hand, some instinct warning her that such an intimacy as had existed during his daily visits could only continue on the footing of severe industry she had established from the first. But the sight of the open deck, the other people constantly moving to and fro, the proper aspect of the lady-companion, just out of earshot, and altogether the appearance of publicity which the sea-life lent to their tete-a-tete hours, brought, as a necessary consequence, a certain unbending. It always seemed such an easy matter to call some third party into the conversation if it should grow too confidential. And so, insensibly, Claudius and Margaret wandered into discussions about the feelings, about love, hate, and friendship, and went deep into those topics which so often end in practical experiment. Claudius had lived little and thought much; Margaret had seen a great deal of the world, and being gifted with fine intuitions and tact, she had reasoned very little about what she saw, understanding, as she did, the why and wherefore of most actions by the pure light of feminine genius. The Doctor theorised, and it interested his companion to find facts she remembered suddenly brought directly under a neat generalisation; and before long she found herself trying to remember facts to fit his theories, a mode of going in double harness which is apt to lead to remarkable but fallacious results. In the intervals of theorising Claudius indulged in small experiments. But Barker and the Duke played poker.

Of course the three men saw a good deal of each other—in the early morning before the ladies came on deck, and late at night when they sat together in the smoking-room. In these daily meetings the Duke and Claudius had become better acquainted, and the latter, who was reticent, but perfectly simple, in speaking of himself, had more than once alluded to his peculiar position and to the unexpected change of fortune that had befallen him. One evening they were grouped as usual around the square table in the brightly-lighted little room that Barker and the Duke affected most. The fourfold beat of the screw crushed the water quickly and sent its peculiar vibration through the vessel as she sped along in the quiet night. The Duke was extended on a transom, and Claudius on the one opposite, while Barker tipped himself about on his chair at the end of the table. The Duke was talkative, in a disjointed, monosyllabic fashion.

"Yes. I know. No end of a queer sensation, lots of money. Same thing happened to me when I came of age."

"Not exactly the same thing," said Claudius; "you knew you were going to have it."

"No," put in Barker. "Having money and being likely to have it are about the same as far as spending it goes. Particularly in England."

"I believe the whole thing is a fraud," said the Duke in a tone of profound reflection. "Never had a cent before I came of age. Seems to me I never had any since."

"Spent it all in water-melon and fire-crackers, celebrating your twenty-first birthday, I suppose," suggested Barker.

"Spent it some way, at all events," replied the Duke. "Now, here," he continued, addressing Barker, "is a man who actually has it, who never expected to have it, who has got it in hard cash, and in the only way in which it is worth having—by somebody else's work. Query—what will Claudius do with his millions?" Exhausted by this effort of speech, the Duke puffed his tobacco in silence, waiting for an answer. Claudius laughed, but said nothing.

"I know of one thing he will do with his money. He will get married," said Barker.

"For God's sake, Claudius," said the Duke, looking serious, "don't do that."

"I don't think I will," said Claudius.

"I know better," retorted Barker, "I am quite sure I shall do it myself some day, and so will you. Do you think if I am caught, you are going to escape?"

The Duke thought that if Barker knew the Duchess, he might yet save himself.

"You are no chicken, Barker, and perhaps you are right. If they catch you they can catch anybody," he said aloud.

"Well, I used to say the mamma was not born who could secure me. But I am getting old, and my nerves are shaken, and a secret presentiment tells me I shall be bagged before long, and delivered over to the tormentors."

"I pity you if you are," said the Duke. "No more poker, and very little tobacco then."

"Not as bad as that. You are as much married as most men, but it does not interfere with the innocent delights of your leisure hours, that I can see."

"Ah, well—you see—I am pretty lucky. The Duchess is a domestic type of angel. Likes children and bric-a-brac and poultry, and all those things. Takes no end of trouble about the place."