Adder

“ Adderley continued, “he left the house, the fittings, and the stores to the officers of the Company who should be stationed there, with a sum of money yearly, provided that twice in twelve months the bugle should be blown as you have heard it, and those words called out.”
“Why did he do that?” asked Lawless, nodding towards the point.
“Why do they swing the censers at the Mass?” interjected Pierre. “Man has signs for memories, and one man seeing another’s sign will remember his own.”
“You stay because you like it—at King’s House?” asked Lawless of Adderley. ”

“ We were not in time to see Washington as a camp. On the very day of our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march towards Manassas; and almost with their first step into the Virginia mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously swollen bladder. ”

“ I have been brought up with Adrian, and I know what he is; he is vain and pompous, and every time he looks at you and me he thanks God that he was not made like that. Also he has failings and vices, and he is lazy, being too fine a gentleman to work like a common Flemish burgher, and all the rest of it. But, father, he has a good heart, and if any man outside this house were to tell me that Adrian is capable of playing the traitor and bringing his own family to the scaffold, well, I would make him swallow his words, or try to, that is all. ”

“ Adler, in utter bewilderment, pulled his fingers till the joints cracked.
"He is mad! Good Lord! he is out of his mind! Tell him he is silly, doctor—he speaks of dying.... As if we should allow him to die! You have been promised ten thousand roubles: that is not enough," feverishly continued the old man. "I will give a hundred thousand for my son, if there is the slightest danger. But mind you, I am not going to pay if he is merely silly. What is his condition?"
"It is not exactly dangerous," replied the doctor; "yet we must be careful."
"Of course! Do you hear him, Ferdinand? ”

“ I must tell it you, Addie. . . . It was during those last days, those terrible days in Paris. Eduard, my husband, was in Paris and . . . and he had been threatening me. . . . You remember, you must remember: I told you as much as that, didn't I? . . . He had come to look for me in Paris. He hated me . . . and he hated, oh, how he hated Henri! . . . Henri, my poor brother, my brother! . . . Addie, Addie, let me tell you everything! . . . Whatever people may have thought, whatever people may have said, none of it's true, it's all false! ”

“ Adèle's eyes filled with tears, and Arthur had to swallow a most uncomfortable lump that seemed to impede his utterance. Then the cousins became more sympathetic than they had ever been before in discussing their adventure and forming theory after theory about the mysterious stranger.
But Adèle was the talker, Arthur the listener, and perhaps his cousin's conversation had never before been so much to his mind.
CHAPTER III. A WOMAN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WORLD.
How tedious, false, and cold seem all things! I
Have met with much injustice in this world. ”

“ They should be written in such colors as the blushing east can give, inscribed by the pen of one of God's angels.
For young as Adèle and Arthur were, they knew what they were doing. They had passed through the hand of the Great Instructor, so terrible in His aspect, so wise, even loving, in His ways of dealing with weak humanity. In the furnace of suffering their hearts had been tried, and they knew how to value their happiness, how to prize one another. ”

“ Her self-poise never deserts her. And not then, or at any later period, did poor Madame Arles succeed in overcoming the iron resolve of Miss Johns.
The good Doctor is greatly troubled by the report of Miss Eliza. Can it be possible that Adèle has given a confidence to this strange woman that she has not given to them? Cold and harsh! Can Adèle, indeed, have said this? Has he not labored with a full heart? Has he not agonized in prayer to draw in this wandering lamb to the fold? He has seen, indeed, that the poor child has chafed much latterly, that the old serenity and gayety are gone. ”

“ And yet she was wonderfully fond of Addie, might still be very happy with him, if he would only come back to her . . . and not neglect her, over and over again, for all that crew of so-called adopted children with which he had burdened himself. . . . Oh, to get him out of it, out of that suffocating family-circle . . . and then to the Hague: her husband a young, smart doctor, she at court; and then see all the old friends again . . . and Papa and Mamma's relations . . . and perhaps leave cards on them sweetly: Baronne van der Welcke! ”

“ Now that his mother had come to fetch him from the room where he sat reading, he came in with her, evidently nervous about the coming talk with Addie. But Addie said:
"I ought really to be going out, Aunt. . . . Alex, can you go with me part of the way? Then we can talk things over as we walk. The roads are too wet for cycling."
Addie's eyes and voice set Adeline's mind at ease, as though he were telling her that it would be all right at the Merchants' School. ”

“ To him it all comes natural. He is sacrificing himself now for me: he does not care for the Hague or for his practice here, whereas I could never live at Driebergen again. . . . And, even if I could feel more or less at home among you all . . . even then, even then Addie would oppress me! . . . Do you understand? Oh, you are crying! Of course you are angry with me: you see your son above everything. That is easily understood; and I . . . I still have enough love left for Addie to understand it, to understand it all. ”

“ This was rather too much for Adèle. With every respect for her cousin and fiancé, he was still too young, in her estimation, to be capable of exciting indignation in the breast of any woman. She laughed merrily: "I like your vanity, sir. As if any one could be insulted with you! You would have to pin on a false moustache, draw your hat over your brows to hide those ingenuous-looking eyes of yours, and button an enormous rough great coat up to your chin, before any one—any stranger, I mean—could imagine you even grown up. Why I look ages older than you!" ”

“ But if the thought of poor Adèle took one shape more than another, as she returned that day from a visit to her sweet friend Rose, it was this: "How drearily unfortunate I am!" And here a little burst of childish laughter breaks on her ear. Adèle, turning to the sound, sees that poor outcast woman who had been the last and most constant attendant upon Madame Arles coming down the street, with her little boy frolicking beside her. Obeying an impulse she was in no mood to resist, she turns back to the gate to greet them; she caresses the boy ”

“ He—Addie—does everything . . . does every blessed thing for the children. . . . Oh, Brauws, it's as if a son of my own had run away . . . run away in a fit of madness! . . . Addie has gone to Rotterdam. It was Addie's idea, Rotterdam. But Guy can just as well have gone to Antwerp, to Le Havre, to God knows where! . . . He hadn't much money with him. . . . What will he do, what were his plans? . . ."
The sunny summer day passed gloomily: just a telegram from Addie, "Coming to-morrow," without any further explanation. Constance had found the strength to go to Adeline in her room ”

“ In Adèle's excitement she rose to a sitting posture on the sofa and her cheeks flamed suddenly into an angry crimson. "You may say what you like; I know that Margaret Grey is good and true, and it's too bad to believe in nobody."
Her excitement rather alarmed good Mrs. Churchill. "Adèle! Adèle!" she said, "do, like a good child, make an effort to be reasonable. The next thing will be brain fever if you excite yourself in this way. Silly little goose! try and [Pg 122] believe that your mother knows more of the world than you do. Some of these days you will be wiser." ”

“ He is as unhappy himself as he makes his Servants: He is constantly watching us, and we differ no more in Pleasure and Liberty than as a Gaoler and a Prisoner. He lays Traps for Faults, and no sooner makes a Discovery, but falls into such Language, as I am more ashamed of for coming from him, than for being directed to me. This, Sir, is a short Sketch of a Master I have served upwards of nine Years; and tho' I have never wronged him, I confess my Despair of pleasing him has very much abated my Endeavour to do it. ”

“ Adair, on her side, asked for no explanations. She was naturally, behind her pale and placid countenance, a woman of a tortuous and intriguing mind. She preferred to look through a keyhole even when she could walk straight in at the door; and knowledge which could be gained by a little manœuvring was always more desirable and precious in her eyes than any information which a simple question would elicit. ”

“ Along the street she passes, even under the windows of the parsonage, with her hand still locked in that of the outlawed boy; and she wonders if in broad day the same courage would be meted to her? They only part when within sight of the broad glow of light from the Elderkin windows; and here Adèle, taking out her purse, counts out the half of her money and places it in the hands of the boy. ”

“ As it disappeared up the avenue towards the house I heard a faint bubble of laughter in my ear. I turned in surprise.
“Why, Peace,” I said, “what is the joke?”
“There is no joke, Mr. Phillips,” he answered. “It was fate that laughed, not I.”
There were moments when, to a man of ordinary curiosity, Inspector Addington Peace was extremely irritating. ”

“ Ah! then you are further advanced than I thought; but really, Adèle, you have been brought up so simply I wonder sometimes if you know at all what it means to have a lover. I was very different with my first lover, a cousin too, though we didn't marry after all. A very good thing; he was poor and idle: I should have been a wretched woman. Now, Arthur is well off, and not at all extravagant; no strong tastes either; just the kind of man whom a woman can mould to her will; but then she must know how, and I fear, Adèle, you are a sad baby in these matters. ”

“ And, when he thought of his father and always saw him lying, in a pool of blood, with his mother's body flung across the corpse in all the terror of despair, then at the same time he would think of Addie and reflect that life, no doubt, would not be gay but that nevertheless it need not always hark back out of black spectral dread to his youth . . . because Addie spoke of being strong and becoming a man gradually. . . . And Guy had gone, had evaded just that beneficial, strengthening influence of Addie! . . . No, Alex also could not understand it ”

“ No girl likes to look "absolutely plain," and although Adèle loudly disclaimed any sort of regard for what would or would not suit her style, she made an effort, and that evening Arthur, who came back, pale and exhausted, from the parting scene at the station, and who looked to Adèle for sympathy, was rather hurt with what he was pleased to term her frivolity. Young men are so selfish!
Mrs. Churchill saw the little by-play—Adèle's forced gayety, Arthur's sentimental-looking eyes following her inquiringly, and somewhat reproachfully, round the room. ”

“ By this time, he was nearly twenty; and it was so late for him to go to the Merchants' School at Amsterdam that Addie had decided first to obtain all the details for himself and therefore had gone to Amsterdam, to see the head-master. . . . That was why, this morning, Adeline came to talk to Addie, a little nervously, rather frightened of what he might say, because he had been exceedingly dissatisfied about Alex, discouraged, not knowing what to do with him next. . . . He would like to have a talk with Alex, he said ”

“ Adèle laughed: "Not exactly. I lost my faith in them a few years ago; indeed, by the bye, I never believed in them. My fairies were always pretty and good. This storm makes me think of wicked people more than wicked spirits. There! look! That yellow, sinister-looking flash brought before me as distinctly as if I had seen him at the moment the face of Margaret Grey's tormentor, the tall dark man who smiled in at the window so insolently. ”

“ But her calmness had reassured Arthur.
"You are right, Adèle," he answered gravely—and for the moment, with the unreasoning impulse of womanhood, she hated him for his quick acquiescence—"we were both too young; we had seen too little of the world; and even now I scarcely know how we ought to act. Our engagement has been announced; then my aunt—"
Adèle smiled faintly: "It will be best to say nothing to mamma at present, nor to anybody; we can surely be what we have been to one another—brother and sister; we have never been more—we could not wish to be less." ”

“ Another of Ferdinand's friends joined in the conversation.
"What do you have to throw in the Adlers' teeth?"
"Not much; only that the father is a sweater and the son a loafer, and that between the two they do more harm than good."
Public opinion seemed to be summed up in these words from a man of personal courage. Adler's friends were silent, the other guests embarrassed, and the more sensitive took their hats to leave the room. At that moment the door was flung wide open and Ferdinand hurried in, accompanied by one of his friends. ”

“ Why, Jack Everard, will you always speak to Pauline as if your windpipe were padded with cotton-wool; it can't make her love you, and it is so exasperating when you want to hear—"
"'No, no, I would not, were I fifty times a prince, be a pensioner on the dead. I honor birth and ancestry when they are regarded as the incentives to exertion, not the title-deeds to sloth!'"
"'Not the title-deeds to sloth!'" repeats Addie, leaning forward eagerly to catch the falling cadence of his voice as it approaches a period. ”