Various

“ Cecilia fell on her knees, not daring to lift her eyes to the golden pinions, the head crowned with its aureole of martyrdom; but the glorious shape raised her, the door and walls of her chamber vanished, and with a giddy rush through the dark night, which deprived her of breath, she found herself standing on a globe, a world, upheld by her guardian, as the soul stands in Guido Reni’s picture of the Capitol. ”

“ He could say things to her; when he began to talk to Cora, his words came back upon him as in an echoing hall, and smothered him with the sound of his own voice. Stella Grayland, sitting composedly, saying little, stirred him like noble music,—made him strong and fervid.
They talked of many things, the dark background of his thought giving a sombre undertone to his part. They came back to music.
“You enjoy it as much as ever?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she answered; “I think it grows constantly upon you. ”

“ He was to leave at three o’clock. After the noontide meal Ida’s mother sat with them and they talked a little about America, Frau Werner exerting herself to give a cheerful tone to the conversation, and Randall answering her questions absently and without taking his eyes off Ida, who felt herself beginning to be seized with a nervous trembling. At last Frau Werner rose and silently left the room, looking back at them as she closed the door with eyes full of tears. Then as if by a common impulse they rose and put their arms about each other’s necks, and their lips met in a long shuddering kiss. ”

“ Cecilia tossed aside her hat, placed the image on the table, and, resting her chin on her hand, gazed at it steadfastly. San Donato, with his aureole glistening, and holding his palm branch, seemed to return her scrutiny mildly—even to interpret her thought. She had never possessed a confidante other than a company of dolls, now banished as too juvenile companions. “Do you see how it will be?” she said aloud to the image. “You shall be placed in the salon, and look down on us all. Nobody will ever banish you again to a dirty little shop. ”

“ Tears of remorse for an unatonable crime gathered in his eyes. He might indeed enrich this woman, or educate her children, or pension her husband; but that would be no atonement to Ida.
And then as if to intensify that remorse by showing still more clearly the impossibility of atonement, it flashed on him that he who loved Ida was not the one to atone for an offence of which he would be incapable, which had been committed by one who despised her love. Justice was a meaningless word, and amends were never possible, nor can men ever make atonement ”

“ Denvil, amiable greetings were exchanged, and the gentlemen became deferential and courteous in manner. Buy the respect of the insolent, by all means!
All the same, two birds of prey had wheeled in heavy and sluggish flight over the valley where the grain ripened and the poppies bloomed, uttering their discordant, mocking cry.
Cecilia crouched behind the sofa, bewildered and astonished. What did they mean? She grew hot and cold, her heart throbbed violently, she clinched her little hand. Why had these wicked creatures come here to sing their dreary duet? ”

“ Lights gleamed in the windows of the houses; occasionally a great glare illuminated the whole village; the withered foliage glowed in the shaft of crimson fire; far below, the water twinkled and rippled as if reflecting a conflagration: it was the hour of casting at the foundry, when the chimney belched its volumes of smoke, and the molten iron poured forth in rivulets, like a lava torrent, in the black void of the vast building.
Up in the master’s home a single feeble ray was [Pg 173] visible in the inhabited wing. Henry Denvil had fallen asleep in his chair. ”

“ He knew the manner of man she did take seriously,—a man of action, who had done something in the world. Once she told Talboys that he was a “capital observer.” She made the remark as a compliment, but it stung him to the quick; he realized that she thought of him only as an observer. When a trifling but obstinate throat complaint brought the Bishop to Aiken, Talboys felt a great longing to win his approval. Surely, Louise, who judged all men by her father’s standard, must be influenced by her father’s favor. ”

“ Her first words were:
“Where is San Donato?”
Her family failed to understand her. Mademoiselle Durand, also tremulous and in tears, heard and hastened away to her own room. She returned with the little image.
“It is her fancy,” murmured the governess.
Cecilia indicated by a gesture that it was to be placed in her father’s hands. Mr. Denvil held it carefully, while the invalid gazed steadfastly at her saint. They waited for her next words in silence and suspense. The joy of a convalescent is seldom demonstrative. She did not speak again for an hour. ”

“ The 25th was the last day on which he could leave Bonn to catch the requisite steamer. Had it been in November, nature at least would have sympathized; it was cruel that their autumn time of separation should fall in the spring, when the sky is full of bounteous promise and the earth of blissful trust.
Love is so improvident that a parting a year away is no more feared than death, and a month’s end seems dim and distant. But a week—a week only—that even to love is short, and the beginning of the end. ”

“ As they rolled along, the Bishop talked. He spoke of death. He spoke not as a priest, but as a man, dwelling on the mystery of death, bringing up those speculations with which from the beginning men have striven to light the eternal darkness.
“I suppose it is the mystery,” said the Bishop, “which causes the unreality of death, its perpetual surprise. Now, behind my certainty of this poor woman’s death I have a lurking expectation of seeing her standing in the doorway, her old clay pipe in her mouth. I can’t help it.”
“Though she was a ‘bawn lady,’ she smoked, did she?” said Talboys. ”

“ Behold, signorina mia, the beauty of the face, the robes tinted a soft rose, with ample gold margin, the aureole and palm of martyrdom in the hand. In the great Demidoff villa of San Donato a patron saint was placed in a niche above the portal of certain suites of apartments, as guardian spirit, by the builder. That brought good luck. The Russian prince is dead, signorina, and the nephew heir cast out the saints with quantities of other valuables for sale. For this reason poor San Donato, patron of the whole place, is now perched on a shelf in a little shop at Rome. ”

“ If Cora had had the guidance of some strong, wise hand to set her right at the start, and lead her along the arduous beginning of some such path, until her feet found their strength and the growing joy of walking, and her eyes learned the delight of the ever-widening and brightening prospect!—the thought of what might have been filled him with strong regret and pity. ”

“ Fleshy people, overcome by agitation, are rather disagreeable objects. Randall stood looking at her with a singular expression of aversion on his listless face. But after panting a few times the woman recovered her vivacity and began to ply him vigorously with exclamations and questions, beaming the while with delighted interest. He answered her like a school-boy, too destitute of presence of mind to do otherwise than to yield passively to her impulse. But he made no inquiries whatever of her, and did not distantly allude to the reason of his presence in Germany. ”

“ He had directed the money of Henry Denvil into those channels of expenditure which would benefit himself by skilful advice. The Nile voyage would set the world wholly at defiance.
Stout, good-natured Countess di Moccoli also appeared at the diplomatic reception that evening, and we may rest assured no mention was made of a young girl having been run over at the Pincio in the gilded salons where both moved. One does not mention illness and death in gilded salons, amid the ripple of music and laughter. One frequents these resorts to forget, if possible, such grim and ghastly realities. ”

“ Where then was Ida’s? She had disappeared utterly out of the universe. She had been transformed, destroyed, swallowed up in this woman, a living sepulchre, more cruel than the grave, for it devoured the soul as well as the body. Pah! this prating about immortality was absurd, convicted of meaninglessness before a tragedy like this; for what was an immortality worth that was given to her last decrepit phase of life, after all its beauty and strength and loveliness had passed soulless away? To be aught but a [Pg 65] mockery immortality must be as manifold as the manifold phases of life. ”

“ Louise observed.
“I agree with Miss Louise,” said Talboys. “You see, Demming is a cracker.”
“Ah! the cracker has his virtues,” observed the Bishop; “not the cardinal New England virtues of thrift and cleanliness and energy; but he has his own. He is as hospitable as an Arab, brave, faithful, and honest, and full of generosity and kindness.”
“All the same, he isn’t half civilized,” said Talboys, “and as ignorant morally as any being you can pick up. He doesn’t steal or lie much, I grant you, but he smashes all the other commandments to flinders. ”

“ The few people in the car were climbing out of the windows as best they might. A pair of grimy arms reached down to Demming, and he heard the brakeman’s voice (he knew Jim Herndon, the brakeman, well) shouting profanely for the “next.”
“Whar’s the Bishop?” said Demming.
“Reckon he’s out,” answered Jim. “Mought as well come yo’self! H——! you’ve broke yo’ leg!”
“Pull away, jes’ the same. I don’ wanter stay yere an’ roast!”
The brakeman pulled him through the window. Demming shut his teeth hard; only the fear of death could have made him bear the agony every motion gave him. ”

“ The note implored her, in the most flowery Italian, to consent to the Nile voyage, as the Countess di Moccoli would also go in that case. Mrs. Denvil laughed her carefully acquired little laugh of studied indifference, and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was not too old to be admired, although her daughter was fifteen. The dream of Alfredo, Count Martellini, was to make a Nile voyage in her company. People would talk, of course. People always talk scandal about somebody. The pretty woman, with her insatiable vanity, was already drifting on a rapid current from which there was no escape. ”

“ Eyes were watching him from a window of that same hotel, however—keen eyes, given to studying the world for their own ends, and which now observed the figure and gait of Henry Denvil as he passed with a certain speculative interest. These eyes belonged to a woman, plain, no longer young, her sole attractions a soft voice and pleasing manner; and a small, meagre man, wiry as a grasshopper, with gray hair, a yellow skin, large nose, and a peevish mouth. ”

“ As Loramer lifted his eyes the door opened and Lawrence came in. Cora uttered a low cry and reached for the paper, but Lawrence’s look frightened her so that she fell back into her chair. He kept his eyes upon her, but went toward Loramer and reached out a cigar-case which he brought in his hand.
“Here’s your cigar-case,” he said. “You’d better take it back.”
Loramer swore at the case, and flung it into the fire.
“Look here!” he cried. “Read that.” He thrust it before his face. “Go on! Do you see? She was his wife when she married you. You’re a free man!” ”

“ Charles Randall that day left Bonn, Germany, to catch the steamer home to America, and Ida Werner was left with a mountain of grief on her gentle bosom, which must be melted away drop by drop, in tears, before she could breathe freely again.
A year before, Randall, hunting for apartments, his last term at the university just begun, had seen the announcement, “Zimmer zu vermiethen,” in the hall below the flat where the Werners lived. Ida answered his ring, for her father was still at his government office, and her mother had gone out to the market to buy the supper. ”

“ He went back through the years, and gathered all the forgotten tenderness and trust between them. He felt again the purifying stimulus of his thought of her, and perceived how it had fostered all of him that was brave and of good report. Whether or not he had deceived himself; whether she were truly the girl he had seen or not, the fact remained that he owed her, or his thought of her, a great deal. What was truth? Are there not as many worlds as eyes that see them? Are we sure there is any world outside the eye? Does not truth consist in standing by what one’s eyes report? ”

“ February 13th.—I have been out several times this week, and twice have met Miss Courtland. Her uncle never goes out, and Mrs. Delancey chaperons her. She always seems glad to see me, and certainly has the most charming manners. Never mind the fact of my being a whited sepulchre. Let me enjoy the goods the gods have sent me. That confounded Morton! he is always at Miss Courtland’s elbow, and when he succeeds in engaging her to dance before I do, he looks at me with his insolent smile. ”