The Argonauts

It was the mansion of a millionaire. On the furniture and the walls of drawing-rooms, colors and gleams played as on the surface of a pearl shell. Mirrors reflected pictures, and inlaid floors shone like mirrors. Here and there dark tapestry and massive curtains seemed to decrease the effect, but only at first sight, for, in fact, they lent the whole interior a dignity which was almost churchlike. At some points everything glistened, gleamed, changed into azure, scarlet, gold, bronze, and the various tints of white peculiar to plaster-of-Paris, marble, silk, porcelain.

In that house were products of Chinese and Japanese skill; the styles of remote ages were there, and the most exquisite and elegant among modern styles, lamps, chandeliers, candlesticks, vases, ornamental art in its highest development. Withal much taste and skill was evident, a certain tact in placing things, and a keenness in disposing them, which indicated infallibly the hand and the mind of a woman who was far above mediocrity.

The furnishing of this mansion must have cost sums which to the poor would seem colossal, and very considerable even to the wealthy.

Aloysius Darvid, the owner of this mansion, had not inherited his millions; he had won them with his own iron labor, and he toiled continually to increase them. His industry, inventiveness, and energy were inexhaustible. To him business seemed to be what water is to a fish: the element which gives delight and freedom. What was his business? Great and complicated enterprises: the erection of public edifices, the purchase, sale, and exchange of values of various descriptions, exchanges in many markets and corporations. To finish all this business it was necessary to possess qualities of the most opposite character: the courage of the lion and the caution of the fox, the talons of the falcon and the elasticity of the cat. His life was passed at a gaming-table, composed of the whole surface of a gigantic State; that life was a species of continuous punting at a bank kept by blind chance rather frequently; for calculation and skill, which meant very much in his career, could not eliminate chance altogether, that power which appears independently. Hence, he must not let chance overthrow him; he might drop to the earth before its thrusts and contract a muscle, but only to parry, make an elastic spring, and seize new booty. His career was success rising and falling like a river, it was also a fever, ceaselessly bathed in cool calculation and reckoning.

As to the rest, post-wagons, railways, bells at railway stations, urging to haste, glittering snows of the distant North, mountains towering on the boundary between two parts of the world, rivers cutting through uninhabited regions, horizons marked with the gloomy lines of Siberian forests, solitary since the beginning of ages. Then, as a change: noise, glitter, throngs, the brilliancy of capitals, and in those capitals a multitude of doors, some of which open with freedom, while others are closed hermetically; before doors of the second sort the pliancy of the cat's paw is needed; this finds a hole where the broad way is impossible.

He was forced to be absent from his family for long months, sometimes for whole years, and even when living under the same roof with the members of it he was a rare guest, never a real confiding companion. For permanence, intimacy, tender feeling in relations, with even those who were nearest him, Darvid had not the time, just as he had not the time to concentrate his thoughts on any subject whatever unless it was connected with his lines, dates, and figures, or with the meshes of that net in which he enclosed his thoughts and his iron labor.

As to amusements and delights of life, they were at intervals love-affairs, flashing up on a sudden, transient, fleeting, vanishing with the smoke of the locomotive which rushed forward, at times luxuries of the table peculiar to various climates, or majestic scenery which forced itself on the eye by its grandeur and disappeared quickly, or some hours of animated card-playing; but, above all, relations with social magnates, who were on the one hand of use, and on the other an immensely great honor to his vanity. Money and significance, these were the two poles around which all Darvid's thoughts, desires, and feelings circled; or, at least, it might seem all, for who can be certain that nothing exists in a man save that which is manifest in his actions? Surely no one, not the man himself even.

After three years' absence, Darvid had returned only a few months before to his native city, and to his own house, where he was as ever a rare and inattentive guest. Pie was laboring again. In the first week, on the first day almost, he discovered a new field; he was very anxious to seize this field, and begin his Herculean efforts on it. But the seizure depended on a certain very highly placed personage to whom, up to that time, he had not been able to gain admittance.

The cat's paw had played about a number of times to open a crevice in the closed door, but in vain! He desired a confidential talk of two hours, but could not obtain it.

He turned then to a method which had given him real service frequently.

He found an individual who had the art of squeezing into all places, of winning everyone, of digging from under the earth circumstances, relations, influences. Individuals of this kind are generally dubious in character, but this concerned Darvid in no way. He considered that at the bottom of life dregs are found as surely as slime is in rivers which have golden sand. He thought of life's dregs and smiled contemptuously, but did not hesitate to handle those dregs, and see if there were golden grains in them. He called his dubious assistants hounds, for they tracked game in thickets inaccessible to the hunter. Small, almost invisible, they were still better able than he to contract muscles, creep up or spring over. He had let out such a hound a few days before to gain the desired audience, and had received no news from him thus far. This disturbed and annoyed Darvid greatly. He would rush into the new work like a lion into an arena, and spring at fresh prey.

The evening twilight came down into the series of great and small chambers. Darvid, in his study, furnished with such dignified wealth that it was almost severe in the rich lamp-light, received men who came on affairs of various descriptions: with reports, accounts, requests, proposals.

In that study everything was dark-colored, massive, grand in its proportions, of great price, but not flashy. Not the least object was showy or fantastic; nothing was visible save dignity and comfort. There were books behind the glass of a splendid bookcase, two great pictures on the wall, a desk with piles of papers, in the middle of the room a round table covered with maps, pamphlets, thick volumes; around the table, heavy, deep and low armchairs. The room was spacious with a lofty ceiling, from which hung over the round table a splendid lamp, burning brightly.

Darvid's remote prototype, the Argonaut Jason, must have had quite a different exterior when he sailed on toward Colchis to find the golden fleece. Time, which changes the methods of contest, changes the forms of its knights correspondingly. Jason trusted in the strength of his arm and his sword-blade. Darvid trusted in his brain and his nerves only. Hence, in him, brain and nerves were developed to the prejudice of muscles, creating a special power, which one had to know in order to recognize it in that slender and not lofty figure, in that face with shrunken cheeks, covered with skin which was dry, pale, and as mobile as if quivering from every breeze which carried his bark toward the shores which he longed for. On his cheeks shone narrow strips of whiskers, almost bronze-hued; the silky ends of these fell on his stiff, low collar; ruddy mustaches, short and firm, darkened his pale, thin lips, which had a smile in the changeableness of which was great expression; this smile encouraged, discouraged, attracted, repelled, believed, doubted, courted or jeered-jeered frequently. But the main seat of power in Darvid seemed to be his eyes, which rested long and attentively on that which he examined. These eyes had pupils of steel color, cold, very deep, and with a fullness of penetrating light which was often sharp, under brows which were prominent, whose ruddy lines were drawn under a high forehead, increased further by incipient baldness-a forehead which was smooth and had the polish of ivory; between the brows were numerous wrinkles, like a cloud of anxiety and care. His was a cold, reasoning face, energetic, with the stamp of thought fixed between the brows, and lines of irony which had made the mouth drawn.

A jurist, one of the most renowned in that great city, held in his hand an open volume of the Code, and was reading aloud a series of extracts from it. Darvid was standing and listening attentively, but irony increased in his smile, and, when the jurist stopped reading, he began in a low voice. This voice with its tones suppressed, as it were, through caution, was one of Darvid's peculiarities.

"Pardon me, but what you have read has no relation to the point which concerns us." Taking the book he turned over its pages for a while and began then to read from it. In reading he used glasses with horn-rims; from these the yellowish pallor of his lean face became deeper. The renowned jurist was confused and astonished.

"You are right," said he. "I was mistaken. You know law famously." How was he to avoid knowing it, since it was his weapon and safety-valve! The jurist sat down on one of the broad and low armchairs in silence, and now the architect unrolled on the table the plan of a public edifice to which the last finish was to be given during winter and before work began in spring.

Darvid listened again in silent thought, looking at the plan with his steel-colored eyes, in which at times there flashed sparks of ideas coming from the brain-ideas which, after a while, he presented to the trained architect. He spoke in a voice low and fluent; he spoke connectedly and very clearly. The architect answered with respect, and, like, the jurist who had preceded, not without a certain astonishment. Great God! this man knows everything; he moves as freely in the fields of architecture, mathematics, and law as in his own chamber! Darvid noticed the astonishment of those around him, and irony settled on his thin lips. Did those men imagine that he could begin such undertakings and be like a blind man among colors? Some begin thus but are ruined! He understood that in our time immense knowledge is the only foundation for pyramidal fortunes, and his memory alone knew the long series of nights which had passed above his head while it was sleepless in winning knowledge.

Next appeared before the table a young man, lean and slender; his dark eyes expressed genius, his clothing was threadbare, his gestures almost vulgar. This was a sculptor, young but already famous. The man had incipient consumption, which brought excessive ruddiness to his face, a glitter to his eyes, and a short, rasping cough from his breast.

He spoke of the sculptures which he was to finish for the edifices reared by the great contractor; he showed the drawings of them, and explained his ideas; he rose to enthusiasm; he spoke more loudly, and coughed at more frequent intervals. Darvid raised his head; the sensitive skin on his cheeks quivered with a delicate movement; he touched the shoulder of the artist with the tips of two white, slender fingers.

"Best," said he; "it hurts you to speak too long."

"My younger daughter coughs in just this way," remarked he to the other men present, "and it troubles me somewhat."

"Perhaps a visit to Italy," said the architect.

"Yes, I have thought of that, but the doctors note nothing dangerous so far." Then he turned to the sculptor:

"You ought to visit Italy, for its collections of art and-its climate." The artist, not pleased with this interruption, did not answer directly, but went on showing his projects and explaining them; though his short breath and the cough, which was repeated oftener, made his conversation more difficult. Thereupon Darvid straightened himself.

"I know very little of art," said he. "Not because I despise it; on the contrary, I think art a power, since the world does it homage, but because I lack time. Trouble yourself no further to exhibit plans and ideas here. I confirm them beforehand, knowing well what I do. Prince Zeno, whose good taste and intellect I admire, advised me to turn to you. At his house, moreover, I have seen works of your chisel which charmed me. Some declare that we men of finance and business represent only matter, and have no concern with Psyche (the soul). But I say that your Psyche, now in Prince Zeno's palace, produced on me the impression that I am not matter only."

Irony covered his lips, but with increased amiability he added:

"Let us fix the amount of your honorarium, permit me to take the initiative," said he, hurriedly.

In a tone of inquiry he mentioned a sum which was very considerable. The sculptor bowed, unwilling, or unable to conceal his delight and astonishment. Darvid touched him lightly on the arm, and conducted him to a great desk, one drawer of which he opened. The jurist and the architect at the round table exchanged glances.

"A protege of the prince!" whispered one.

"Cleverness! advertising!" whispered the other.

"I know from report," said Darvid, to the young artist, "that sculptors must spend considerable sums before they begin a given work. Here is an advance. Do not hesitate. Money should be at the service of talent."

The sculptor was astonished. He had imagined the millionaire as entirely different.

"Money should be at the service of talent!" repeated he.

"I hear this for the first time from a man having money! Do you really think so?" Darvid smiled, but his face clouded immediately.

"My dear sir," said he, "I would give, I think, much money if a cough like yours were not in the world."

"Because of your daughter-" began the sculptor, but Darvid had grown cold now, ceremonious, and he turned toward the round table.

At the same moment a servant announced from the door a new guest.

"Pan Arthur Kranitski."

The guest entered immediately after the servant, and passed the outgoing sculptor in the door.

This guest was a man who carried his fifth decade of years with youthful elasticity of movement, and with a pleasant, winning expression on his still handsome face. In general he seemed to be clothed with remnants of great manly beauty, from behind which, like soiled lining through rents in a once splendid robe, appeared, carefully concealed, old age, which was premature, perhaps.

A tall man with a shapely oval face, he had dark whiskers, and the black curls of his hair did not cover successfully the bald spot appearing on the back of his head; his mustache was curled upward, in the fashion of young men, above ruddy lips; he passed through the study with a youthful step, and had the express intention of greeting the master of the house in a cordial and intimate manner. But in the cold eyes of Darvid appeared flashes well-nigh threatening; he barely touched with his finger-tips the hand extended by the guest-a hand really aristocratic, white, slender, and greatly cared for.

"Pardon, pardon, dear Pan Aloysius, that I come at this hour, just the hour of thy important, immense, colossal occupations! But on receiving thy invitation I hastened."

"Yes," said Darvid, "I need to talk with you a little-will you wait a while?"

He turned toward the two men standing by the table, who when he greeted Kranitski looked at him with a curiosity impossible to conceal.

Every meeting of Darvid with that eternal guest, that offshoot of aristocratic families, roused the curiosity of people. For a good while Darvid did not know this, but at last he discovered it, and now his quick glance caught on the lips of the famous jurist a barely discernible smile, to meet which a similar smile appeared on the lips of the architect. He discoursed a few minutes more with the two men. When they turned to go he conducted them to the door; when that was closed he turned to Kranitski and said:

"Now I am at your service."

No one had ever seen service so icy cold, and having in it the shade of a restrained threat. Kranitski in view of this spent more time than was needed in placing his hat on one of the pieces of furniture, besides an expression of alarm covered his face, now bent forward, and, in the twinkle of an eye, the wrinkling of his forehead and the dropping of his cheeks, made him look ten years older. Still with grace which was unconscious, since it had passed long before into habit, he turned to Darvid.

"Thou hast written to me, dear Pan Aloysius-"

"I have called you," interrupted Darvid, "for the purpose of proposing a certain condition, and a change."

From a thick, long book he cut out a page, on which, previously, he had written a few words in haste, and giving it to Kranitski, he said:

"Here is a bank check for a considerable sum. Your affairs, as I hear, are in a very disagreeable condition."

Kranitski's face grew radiant from delight, and became ten years younger. Taking the check presented to him he began, with a certain hesitation:

"Dear Pan Aloysius, this service, really friendly, which thou art rendering me, even without request on my part, is truly magnanimous, but be assured that the moment income from my property increases-"

Darvid interrupted him a second time.

"We know each other so long that I cannot be ignorant of what your property is, and what income you receive from it. You have no property. You own a little village, the income from which has never sufficed to satisfy even one half of your needs. In that little village you would have passed your life unknown to the great world if your mother had not been a relative of Prince Zeno, and some other coronets of nine quarterings. But since you had relationship so brilliant through your mother, high society did not suffer from the loss of your presence. I know all that relates to you, you need not try to lead me into error-I know everything."

On the last words he put an emphasis which seemed to bring

Kranitski into a profound confusion, which he could not master.

"Parole d'honneur," began he, "I do not understand such a real friendly service with such a tone."

"You will understand at once. This sum offered you is not a friendly service, but a simple commercial transaction. To begin with, I insist that for the future you cut short all relations with my son Maryan."

Kranitski stepped back a number of paces.

"With Maryan!" exclaimed he, as if not wishing to believe his own ears. "I break all relations with him! Is it possible? Why? How can that be? But you yourself-"

"That is true, I myself began this. I wished that my family, which, during my frequent absences, resided here permanently, should move in that social sphere which I considered most desirable, and I asked you to be the link between my family and that sphere-"

"I did what you desired," interrupted Kranitski in turn, and raising his head.

Darvid, looking firmly into his face, said in a low voice, slowly, but the ice of his tones seemed at moments to break from the boiling of passion confined beneath them.

"Yes, but you, sir, have demoralized my son. Of himself he would never have gone to such a degree of corruption and idleness. You drew him from study, you led him into all kinds of sport, you took him to all places of amusement, from the highest to the lowest. On returning, after three years' absence, I found Maryan withered morally. Luckily he is a child yet, twenty-three years of age, it is possible to save him. The process of salvation I begin by forbidding you to have any further relations whatever with my son."

Darvid grew terrible during his remaining words. His fingers were sinking into the table, on which he rested his hand. The cluster of wrinkles between his brows became deeper, his eyes had the flash of steel in them; he was all hatred, anger, contempt. But Kranitski, who at first listened to him as if unable to move from astonishment, boiled up also with anger.

"What do you say?" cried he. "Does not my hearing deceive me? You reproach me! Me, who during your ceaseless occupations and absences have been for many years, one may say, the only guardian of your family, and director of your son. Well! Then do you not remember our former intimacy, and this, that it was I who made you acquainted with the highest families of this city, and all this country? Do you not remember your confidential statements to me that you wished to give your daughters in marriage within those circles to which my connections might be a convenient bridge for you? Do you not remember your requests that I should introduce Maryan into the best society, and teach him the manners prevailing there? Very well! You were making your millions in peace, going after them to the ends of the earth, while I did everything that you wished, and now I meet with reproaches, which, at the very least, are expressed without delicacy-des reproches, des grossieretes-Mais ca n'a pas de nom! c'est inoui! This demands the satisfaction of honor."

His indignation was genuine and heartfelt; it brought out a deep flush on his still shapely face. A stony amazement fell on Darvid. True, true, that man spoke the truth.

He, Darvid, had used him for his purposes; he had liked the man, almost loved him; he had given him great confidence. He had not looked into his character; he had not tried to know him, though he had found time to analyze and know men who took no part in his business. But the fact in this case was, that whatever had happened, had happened with his own will. From the depth of his bosom, from out their mysterious den, came a coil of snakes, and a repulsive coldness and slime rose toward his throat, still he reared his head.

"There is much truth in what you say; still my decisive and repeated wish is that you cease to appear in my house."

Kranitski's forehead was flushed with blood, and the words were hissing on his lips when he cried:

"In view of such feelings of yours toward me, how am I to explain the service rendered just now?"

"As pay for service which you have rendered me, or my family. I pay, we are at quits, and part forever." "You are not the only power in this world!" cried Kranitski; "not your will alone can open or close the doors of this house to me."

Darvid, so pale that even his thin lips did not seem to possess a drop of blood, took from a letter-case and showed Kranitski, between two fingers, a letter in a small elegant envelope, bearing the address of Pani Malvina Darvid.

The dark flush vanished from Kranitski without a trace; he became very pale and rested his hand on the arm of the chair; his eyes opened widely. Silence lasted some seconds; between those two men with faces as pale as linen hung the terror of a discovered secret. Darvid, with a voice so stifled that it was barely audible, was the first to speak.

"How this letter came into my hands we need not explain! Simply by chance. Such chances are very common, and they have in them only this good, that at times they put an end to deceit and-villainy!"

Kranitski, still very pale except that red spots were coming out on his forehead, looked very old all at once; he advanced some steps and stood before Darvid, the round table alone was between them. With stifled voice, but fixing his black, flashing eyes boldly on Darvid's face, he said:

"Deceit! villainy! those words are said easily! Do you not know that in early youth your wife was almost my betrothed?"

Darvid's lips were covered with irony, and he said:

"You deserted her at command of your mother, when she sent you to this capital in search of the golden fleece."

"And when you went to the ends of the earth for it," answered Kranitski, "you thought proper to place me to guard the woman whom I loved formerly. You considered yourself invincible, even when separated by hundreds or thousands of miles from her-"

"Let us stop this ridiculous discussion," said Darvid.

"As for me," put in Kranitski, with animation, "I will finish it by offering you any satisfaction which you may demand. I await your seconds."

Darvid laughed loudly and sharply.

"A duel! Do you think that the world would not know the cause of it? Your former betrothed would appear in the matter. For that I should care less, though I must care, for she bears my name, but I have daughters, and I have business-"

He was silent a while, then he finished:

"A scandal might injure my business, and most assuredly would injure the future of my daughters; therefore I will neither challenge you to a duel, nor will I direct my servants to thrash you!"

A trembling shook Kranitski from head to foot, as if from the effects of a blow; he straightened himself, he became manful, and crushing in his hand the bank check which he had received, hurled that paper bullet into Darvid's face so directly that it hit him at the top of his bronze colored whiskers and fell to his feet. Then with elastic movement, and with a grace which was unconscious and uncommon, he turned toward the door and strode out. Darvid remained alone. In that spacious, lofty chamber, richly furnished, in the abundant light of a costly lamp, he remained alone. Clasping his inclined head with both hands, he squeezed it with his white, lean fingers, as with pincers. How many vexations and troubles had met him here after an absence of years! There was something greater still than even these vexations and troubles. The coil of serpents rose in his breast and crawled up to his very throat.

That was torture mixed with a feeling of unendurable disgust. But Darvid avoided high-sounding phrases, and would never think or say: torture, disgust. That was a manner of speaking for idlers and poets. He, a man of iron industry, knew only the words vexation, trouble. What is he to do now with that woman? Throw her out like a beast which, bathed in milk and honey by its owner, has bitten him to the blood? Impossible. His children, especially his daughters, his business, his position, his house-scandals are harmful in every way. So he must live on under the same roof with her; meet the sight of her face, her eyes-those eyes which on a time were for him-yes, it cannot be otherwise.

He must endure that and master himself; master himself mightily, so as not to let things reach a scene, or reproaches, or explanation. Naturally, no scenes, disputes, or explanations. For, first of all, what can they profit? Nothing save a useless expense of energy, and he needs energy so much.

Besides, the very best punishment for that woman is unbroken silence, which will raise between her and him an impenetrable wall. From words, even though they be as sharp as sword-edges, some sound may be got, some slight hope of salvation; but silence, concealing hidden knowledge of a deed, is a coffin in which, from the first hour of each day to the end of it, that woman's pride will be placed with all that in her may still be human. Contempt as silent as the grave! She will eat of his millions, seasoned with his contempt. She will array herself in his millions, interwoven with his hatred. Hatred? Oh, beyond doubt he hates her with passion, and only at times does her name move marvellously through his brain with such sounds as if they were the echo of things very dear, things lost forever and irreplaceable. Can it be? Is it possible that she did that? Malvina, once an ideal maiden, and ten years later a woman so loving that when he was going on a journey she threw herself on her knees and wept, and then besought him not to go from her! He remembers the scene perfectly.

Her hair of pale gold, dropping then in disorder to her shoulders and bosom-her magnificent hair, surrounded by which the tears flowing down her face glistened like diamonds! He raised his head, straightened himself. What stupidity! On what sentiment and exaltation is he losing time and energy! He needs them for something else. He needs to concentrate all his forces to bring his new designs to the desired culmination. Why does "that hound" not show himself and bring the answer needed? Ah, if he could only get one hour of that conversation, he would convince; he would capture; he would overcome rivals, and seize into his own sole possession new fields of industry and speculation! There are hindrances, intrigues, dangerous rivalries, he knows of them, and these oppositions it is precisely which attract him most of all. Now especially, with those vexations and troubles, victory and the new work would be as a spoonful of hashish to him, or a glass of strong, invigorating wine. He must go to the club. A game of cards, to which he devotes some night hours frequently, is not specially pleasant, but he plays with persons of high position in society, or with those who are needed in his business. He will find perhaps, also, that man for whom he has been waiting, vainly, some days.

He was extending his hand to the button of the electric bell when from behind the portieres which half hid the door opening to the interior of the mansion a thin and timid voice came; one could hardly tell whether it was the voice of a child or a young lady:

"Is it permitted to enter?"

Darvid went to the door hurriedly, saying, also hurriedly:

"It is! It is!"

At that moment, from the darkness which filled the adjoining room, into the abundant light of the study, came a maiden of fifteen years, in a bright dress; she was tall and very slender, with a small waist and narrow breast. An immense wealth of pale, golden hair seemed to bend back with its weight her small, shapely head somewhat; her oval face, with its delicate features, had the blush of spring on it; her lips were like cherries, and under the arches of her dark brows were large dark eyes. Right behind the bright dress of the girl came a small shaggy creature, a ball of ash colored silk, a little dog.

"Cara!" cried Darvid, "well, you are here, little one! How often have I asked you to come always boldly. How do you feel to-day? You have not coughed much, I think? Have you taken your daily walk? With whom did you go? With Miss Mary, or Irene? Come, come, sit here in this armchair."

He held her small hand in his and led her toward the table, which was surrounded with armchairs. In his movements there was something polished and exquisite, as it were delicacy toward a person who was very dear and not much known, pushed to the degree where it might be called gallantry. Joined with this was a feeling of delight. She was pleased and smiling, but she was blushing and embarrassed. Advancing with short steps at his side, she bent to his hand every moment and kissed it. Her act was full of a timid charm, half capricious. They both looked like persons who were greatly pleased at meeting, but who remained on a footing of ceremony with each other. He received her in his study as a queen; he seated her in an armchair, then, sitting very near, he held her hands in his. Between them, on the edge of his mistress's skirt, sat the dog with the ash-colored coat, in a posture of disquiet and uncertainty; it was evident that he was not accustomed to visit that room. Cara also, with an expression of timid happiness on her lips which were open, cast her glance with a smile on the vases and the walls, uncertain whether she was to speak, not knowing if she might say something; she bore herself very simply; her small hands rested without motion between her father's palms. At last she said, in a very low voice:

"I was so anxious to see you, father, dear; I wished so much to speak with you that I have come."

"You have done excellently, my little one. Why not come oftener?

Your coming gives me great pleasure."

While speaking he looked all the time into her face, which was almost that of a little child. She was so like her mother, that Malvina's youth was simply renewed in Cara.

But Malvina, when he made her acquaintance, was considerably older; the hair was just the same, very bright, and the eyes with dark brows and pupils, the same shape of forehead. With a deepening of the wrinkles between his brows he repeated:

"Why not come offener?"

"You are always so occupied, father," whispered she.

"What of that?" answered he hurriedly and abruptly.

"There is reproach in your voice. Are my occupations a crime? But labor is service, it is the value of a man. My children should esteem my labor more than others, since I toil for them as much, or even more, than for myself."

He did not even think of speaking to that child with a voice so abrupt, and with such a cloud on his forehead; but that cloud came to him from some place within, from a distant feeling of something which he had never looked at directly before. But he hardly knew the girl! When he went away the last time she was a child; now she was almost full grown. But she, in the twinkle of an eye, slipped from the low armchair to the carpet, and kneeling with clasped hands began to speak passionately and quickly:

"Your child is on her knees before you, father. When you were far away she revered you, did you homage, longed for you; when you are here she loves you greatly, above everything-"

Here she turned and removed from her dress the ball of ash-colored silk, which was climbing to her shoulder.

"Go away, Puffie, go away! I have no time for thee now."

She pushed away the little dog, which sat on the carpet some steps distant. Darvid felt a stream of pleasant warmth flooding into his breast from the words of his daughter; but on principle he did not like enthusiasm. In feelings and the expression of them he esteemed moderation beyond everything. He raised with both hands the girl's head, which was bending toward his knees.

"Be not excited, be not carried away. Repose is beautiful, it is indispensable; without repose no calculation can be accurate, no work complete. Your attachment makes me happy; but compose yourself, rise from your knees, sit comfortably."

She put her hands together as in prayer.

"Let me stay as I am, father, at your knee. I imagined that on your return I should be able to talk often and long with you; to ask about everything, learn everything from you."

She coughed. Darvid took her in his arms, and, without raising her from her knees, he drew her to his breast.

"See! your cough lasts! Do you cough much? Well, do not speak, do not speak! let it pass. Does this cough pass quickly?"

It had passed. She stopped coughing, laughed. Her teeth glittered like pearls between her red lips. A gleam of delight shot through Darvid's eyes.

"It has gone already! I do not cough often, only rarely. I am perfectly well. I was very sick when I got chilled at an open window while you were away, father."

"I know, I know. Your enthusiastic little head thought of opening the window on a winter night, so as to peep out and see how the garden looked covered with snow in the moonlight."

"The trees, father, the trees!" began she, smiling and with vivacity; "not the whole garden, just the trees, which, covered with snow and frost in the moonlight, were like pillars of marble, alabaster, crystal, set with diamonds, hung with laces; and whenever the slightest breeze moved, a rain of pearls was scattered on the ground." "Great God!" exclaimed Darvid, "marbles, alabasters, laces, diamonds, pearls! But there was nothing of all this in fact! There was nothing but dry trunks, branches, snow, and hoar-frost. That is exaltation! And you see how destructive it may be! It brought you acute inflammation of the lungs, the traces of which are not gone yet."

"They are!" answered she, in passing, and then she spoke seriously. "My father, is it exaltation to worship something which is very beautiful, or to love some one greatly with all our strength? If it is-then I am given to exaltation, but without exaltation what could we live for?"

An expression of wonder, meditation, thoughtfulness filled her eyes and covered her finely cut face with a freshness like that of a wild rose. With a movement of wonder she opened her arms, and repeated:

"What do we live for?"

Darvid laughed.

"I see that your head is turned a little, but you are a child yet, and your trouble will pass."

Stroking her pale, golden hair, he continued:

"Homage, love, and like things of the sensational sort, are very nice, very beautiful, but should not occupy the first place."

Cara listened so eagerly that her mouth was open somewhat, and she became motionless as a statue.

"But what should stand in the first place, father?"

Darvid did not answer at once. What? What should stand in the first place?

"Duty," said he.

"What duty, father?"

Again he was silent a while. What duty? Yes, what kind of duty?

"Naturally the duty of labor, hard labor."

The flush on Cara's face increased; she was all curiosity, all eagerness to hear her father's words.

"Labor, for what, father, dear?"

"How? for what?"

"For what purpose? For what purpose? because no one labors for the labor itself. For what purpose?"

For what purpose? How that child pushed him to the wall with her questions! With hesitation in his voice, he answered:

"There are various purposes-"

"But you, father, for what are you working?" continued she, with eager curiosity.

He knew very well for what purpose he wished now to undertake the gigantic labor of erecting a multitude of buildings for the residence of an army, but could he explain that to this child? Meanwhile the dark eyes of the child were fastened on his face, urging him to an answer.

"What is it?" said he. "I-labor gives me considerable, sometimes immense profits."

"In money?" asked she.

"In money."

She made a motion with her head, signifying that she knew that this long time.

"But I," began she, "if I wanted to work, should not know what to work for, I should not know for what object I could work."

He laughed.

"You will not need to work; I will work for you, and instead of you." "Well, father!" exclaimed she, with a resonant laugh, "what can I do? To worship, to love, is exaltation-duty is labor, but if I may not labor, what am I to do?"

Again she opened her small hands with astonishment and inquiry; her eyes were flashing, her lips trembling.

Darvid, with marks of disagreeable feeling on his face, reached for his watch.

"I have no time," said he; "I must go to the club."

At that moment the servant announced from the antechamber, through the open door:

"Prince Zeno Skirgello."

Delight burst forth on Darvid's face. Cara sprang up from her knees, and looking around, called:

"Puff! Puff! Come, let us be off! doggy."

"Where is the prince?" asked Darvid, hurriedly. "Is he here, or in the carriage?"

"In the carriage," answered the servant.

"Beg him to come in, beg him to come in!"

In the delight which the unexpected arrival of the prince caused him at that time, he did not notice the expression of regret on Cara's face. Raising the little dog from the floor and holding him in her arms, she whispered:

"This is the third time, or the fourth-it is unknown which time it is!" Darvid sprang toward her.

"You may remain! You know the prince-"

"Oh, no, father, I flee-I am not dressed!"

Her white robe with blue dots had the shape of a wrapper, and her hair was somewhat dishevelled. With the dog on her arm she ran to the door beyond which was darkness.

"Wait!" cried Darvid, and he took one of the candles which were burning on the desk in tall candlesticks. The prince was coming up the stairs slowly. "I will light you through the dark chambers."

Saying this he walked with her to the second chamber, and when passing through that, she, while going at his side with the dog on her arm, and with her short step, which gave her tall form the charm of childhood, repeated:

"This is the fourth time, perhaps-it is unknown how many times it will be in this way!"

"What will be in this way?"

"Just when I begin to talk with you. Paf! something hinders!"

"What is to be done?" answered he, with a smile; "since your father is not a hermit, nor a small person on this world's chessboard."

They went hurriedly, and passed through the second chamber. The flame of the candle which Darvid carried cast passing flashes on the gold and polish of the walls, and the furniture. These were like tricky gnomes, appearing and vanishing in the silence, darkness, and emptiness.

Darvid thought:

"How dark it is here, and deserted!" Cara divined this thought, as it were, and said:

"Mamma and Ira are invited to dine to-day at-"

She gave the name of one of the financial potentates, and added:

"After dinner they will come to dress for the theatre."

"And thou?" inquired Darvid.

"I? I do not go into society yet, and so far the doctor forbids me to go to the theatre. I will read or talk with Miss Mary, and amuse myself with Puff."

She stroked with her palm the silky head of the little dog. Darvid halted at the door of the third chamber, and gave Cara the light, from the weight of which her slight arm bent somewhat.

"Go on alone; I must hurry to the prince."

She bent down to his hands, covered them with hurried, ardent kisses. With the flame of the candle before her rosy face, with the dog at her breast, and the pale, golden hair pushed back on her shoulders, she advanced in the darkness. Darvid returned through that darkness in the opposite direction, and when he had passed the two spacious chambers hastily, he felt in the twinkle of an eye as if from behind, from that interior, some weight had been placed on his shoulders. He looked around. There was nothing but vacancy, obscurity, and silence.

"Stupid! I must have the house lighted!" thought Darvid, and he hurried into the study, where, with movements a little too vivacious, with a fondling smile, and with repeated declarations that he felt happy, he greeted the prince, a man of middle age, of agreeable exterior, affable and pleasant in speech. When they had sat down in armchairs, the prince declared the object of his visit, which was to invite Darvid to a hunt which was to take place soon on one of his estates. Darvid accepted the invitation with expressions of pleasure, a little too prompt and hearty. But he was never so well able to measure his words and movements in presence of those high-born people as in presence of others. He felt this himself, still he had not the power to refrain. In presence of them he found himself under the influence of one of his passions, and it carried him too far. The prince spoke of the sculptor, whose gifts he esteemed highly; the young man had gone directly from Darvid to him and told of all that he had heard, and what he had experienced.

"I was really affected by your kindness toward this youthful genius, and am delighted that he found in you a patron so magnanimous."

Darvid thought that in every case his arrows always struck the mark. To that act of his he was surely indebted for this unusual visit of the prince, and the invitation. With a smile, in which honey was overflowing, he said:

"That young man seems very ill. A visit to more favorable climates might save him. I must try that he does not reject the means which I shall offer him for that purpose. I foresee resistance, but I shall do what I can to overcome it, out of regard for art, and through good-will for a young man who, besides many sympathetic traits, has this on his side, that he rejoices in the exceptional favor of Prince Zeno."

Had he been able, Darvid would have kissed himself for that phrase, he felt so well satisfied with it; especially when the prince answered with animation:

"This, in the full sense of the words, means speaking and acting beautifully! You use the gifts of fortune in a manner truly noble."

"Not fortune, prince, not fortune!" exclaimed Darvid, "but iron labor."

"Such toilers as you are the knights of the contemporary world," answered the prince, with vivacity; "the Du Guesclins and Cids of the present century."

He rose and, while pressing the hand of that Cid, fixed again in his memory the date of the hunt, which was not distant. Prince Zeno was an aristocrat of the purest blood, possessing a wide popularity which was fairly well deserved.

Darvid was radiant. While accompanying the prince to the door of the antechamber he looked as if no coil of serpents had ever crawled up in his bosom, which was now beating with delight and with pride. The prince halted still a moment at the door, as if to recall something.

"Pardon me an indiscreet question, but this interests me immensely. Is there truth in the reports which are circulating in the city, that Baron Blauendorf is to have the honor in the near future of receiving the hand of your elder daughter?"

The expression of Darvid's face changed quickly, it became sharp and severe.

"Were there any truth in the report," answered he, "I should try to destroy it together with the report."

"And you would be right, perfectly right!" exclaimed the prince.

Then he bent his lips almost to Darvid's ear and whispered:

"There is no Pactolus which such a young buck as Baron Emil would not drink up. He is a genuine devourer of fortunes. He has swallowed one already and the half of another."

He laughed and added at once, with immense affability:

"I see your son frequently-that worthy Kranitski presented him a year ago to us; I and my wife are very, very thankful. He is sympathetic, handsome, and a highly intellectual young man, who does you honor."

He went out. Darvid stood at the round table sunk in thought, with pins of irony in his smile and his eyes, with a cloud of wrinkles between his brows. That young sculptor, the favorite of Prince Zeno, with clothing almost in tatters, brought consumption on himself unhindered, till a parvenu appeared with his money-bag and rescued the pocket of the aristocrat, receiving in return a visit and an invitation to hunt. "Behold the significance of money! Almost infinite power-ha! ha! ha!"

Internal laughter bore him away, and in his brain sounded the word: "Wretchedness! Wretchedness!"

What was it specially that he called wretchedness? He was not clearly conscious himself of this, but the feeling of it penetrated him. Again he heard the prince saying "that honest Kranitski," and a wave of blood rushed to his forehead. Everything that he had forgotten a moment earlier returned to his mind; the prince's voice roared in his ears: "That honest Kranitski." He repeated a number of times to himself, in a hissing whisper, "honest! honest!" And then he said:

"Wretchedness!"

That Baron Emil, the young buck capable of gulping down many a Pactolus! And he was to possess the hand of his daughter, with a considerable part of that fortune won by iron labor. Is Irene in love with him? But the baron is a vibrio and a monkey all in one. There is need to think over this family matter, lest a misfortune might happen. He cast a glance at the door behind which was darkness, thick, silent, immovable. It resembled a window opened into a great and impenetrable secret.

"I must have the house lighted up," thought he. At this moment he heard the dull rumble of a carriage in the gateway as it entered. He pressed the button of the electric bell.

"Is that the lady who has come?"

"Yes, serene lord."

"Tell the coachman to wait. He will take me to the club."

When the servant opened the door the rustle of silk came in like the sound of wind. Two long silken robes passed over the floor of the anteroom and farther on in the darkness of the chambers, which was dispelled by the light of the lamp, borne by the servant advancing in front of them.

The glittering gnomes called forth by that light sprang along the gildings, polished walls, and furniture; ran out of the darkness, ran into it again; were lighted up and quenched on the inclined heads, drooping lids, and silent lips of the two women in rich array and gloomy.

Malvina Darvid was one of those women to whom old age is very tardy in coming, and whose beauty, modified in each season of life, never leaves them. For this last she was indebted less to the features of her face than to the immense charm of her movements, her smile, her expression, her speech. She retained yet the same pale, golden hair which she had years earlier, which she arranged high above her low forehead, calling to mind the statues of Grecian women.

In contrast with that hair, and her slightly faded but delicate complexion, shone, from under dark brows, large eyes, also dark, with a very mild, warm expression, now bright, now tempered by a deep inevitable cloud of pensiveness. In a robe covered with lace, in the glitter of a star of diamonds in the bright aureole of her hair, she greeted the numerous acquaintances who entered her box at the theatre, with the affability and freedom of a perfect society lady. She was even celebrated in that great city for the qualities which constitute so-called society personages, and which, in those who knew her past, roused a certain wonder. It was known to all that that past was very modest. Darvid in his youth, which was far less brilliant than his present, married a poor orphan, a teacher. But Malvina Darvid was of those women who need only a golden setting to sparkle like diamonds. She shone in the great world with a charm, an elegance, a power of speech which were the same as if she had been its own daughter. She was radiant with satisfaction, with serenity, often even with joyous animation, and only now and then did a slight wrinkle, with a barely discernible line furrowing her Grecian forehead, sink itself and cast on her face an expression of weariness, or the corners of her lips, still red and shapely, drop downward and make that oval, white, delicate face ten years older than it seemed to be usually. But those were only short and rare moments, after which Malvina Darvid was again entirely flooded with the brilliancy of her beautiful eyes, her splendid toilet, the sounds of her metallic voice, warm and full of sweetness. She seemed barely a few years older than her elder daughter. Sometimes guests left her box with the words:

"She is more beautiful than her daughter."

And offener still: "She is more charming and sympathetic than her daughter."

Still nature had been no stepmother to Irene Darvid; but life, though so short thus far, had stamped on her exterior a mark which, while it astonished and discouraged, repelled.

If the younger sister seemed a living portrait of her mother, the elder recalled her father, with her high forehead, thin lips, and-a thing wonderful at such a tender age-the mark of irony drawn over them. Her hair, too, like her father's, changed with fiery gleams of gold and bronze, while the pale complexion of her face, which was too long, was lighted by the frequent sharp glitter of her eyes, which, as those of her father, were not large, and had gray pupils with a cold glance, penetrating and reasoning. Her shapely form was somewhat too slender; her posture and movements too stiff and ceremonious. She passed in society for a haughty, cold, unapproachable, original, and even eccentric young lady. On the stage was presented a play which had been preceded by immense praise; in the theatre had collected all that bore the name of high and fashionable society in the city. The boxes were filled, except one, which only just before the beginning of the second act was opened with a rattle and filled with loud, free, and bold conversation. It was occupied by a number of young men of elegant dress and manners; they, as it seemed, were connected by similarity in position, habits, and pleasures. Prom the higher to the lower rows of the theatre all eyes and glasses were turned toward that box, with its princes, young nabobs, sons of ancient families, or heirs to immense fortunes. Through boxes, armchairs, galleries, passed names notorious through deeds of originality, witty sayings, astonishing excesses; names interwoven with anecdotes about money and love-passages; the substance of the love-passages could be repeated only in whispers, while the amounts of money were mentioned with eyes widely opened in amazement. Two among these young men occupied public attention beyond others that winter: Baron Emil Blauendorf, and Maryan Darvid, both of families recently, but greatly, enriched. The Blauendorf house was older by some generations, and had become widely connected; on the other hand, their fortune in possession of the present descendant was vanishing quickly; in comparison with the entirely new edifice of the Darvids, it seemed a ruin. On these two general attention was concentrated with the greatest curiosity; for during that winter and the preceding one the most numerous anecdotes touching them were in circulation among those who frequented that theatre. They were so young, and still so noted! But Baron Emil was considerably older than Maryan; he was thirty and little favored in looks. Small, weakly, with red, closely-cut hair, with features which were too small, and injured by a faded complexion, with small eyes, which, because of nearsightedness, were either covered with eyeglasses, or blinked at the light from behind yellow lids, which gave them an expression of pride and weariness. An unshapely exterior, unimposing, slight, bent, sickly. But through those small, yellowish, thin hands had passed already the fortune of the old baron, who was dead some years, and now a second fortune was passing through them-a fortune left scarcely a year before to her son by the baroness, who was famous for her idolatrous love of him. People looked, and wondered how such a great river of gold could flow through a creature so small and insignificant. With Maryan it was different. He astonished also, but he roused general sympathy. Such a child! And such a perfectly beautiful fellow at the same time! He was not twenty three years of age yet; of fine stature; his manners were elegant and pleasing; he had the head of a cherub, with bright curling locks; a noble fresh face from which gazed eyes as blue as turquoise; and wise, too wise, perhaps, in so youthful a countenance, for these eyes seemed not to confide but to jeer, or to be wearied and seeking something through the world without finding it. Women whispered into one another's ears that that lad, when in England, had joined the Salvation Army; but after he had remained a short time in its ranks, he became, in Paris, a member of the Hashish Club, and brought away the habit of using narcotics to rouse dreams in himself and unusual conditions. If the city at that moment had temporary possession of Bianca Bianetti it was thanks to that lad, who, in a remote land, had won the heart of the singer. Some insisted that he had spent fabulous sums on her; others contradicted, declaring that not Bianca, the singer, had consumed them, but Aurora, that noted Amazon of the circus, for whose favor princes of blood royal had striven in various capitals. That shapely little nabob had come, seen, and conquered; and when he had got his prize at an incredible outlay, he threw it aside and brought home Bianca. But is that all that may be told of him? He and Baron Emil are fountains of histories of this sort. The baron is considerably older, but this lad has a father. That father himself is a source of unbounded credit. Young Darvid has as many debts as there are golden curls on that cherub head of his. What will his papa say? What? Not long since that papa returned from the ends of the earth, after a long absence; will he put an end to the tricks of the boy? will he be able to do so? The white forehead of the youth has an expression of maturity, and at times of something else-namely, weariness-and in his blue eyes gleams of firmness, resolve, and contempt. He looks as if he despised the whole world then. He and the baron occupy themselves much with art and literature. They expend almost as much on art as on women and joyous suppers. They are highly cultured. The baron plays like an artist; Maryan translates poetry into various languages. In the box were a number of others resembling these two, but the others had places elsewhere in the theatre: they had come for a brief time and left the box afterward, then there remained only the baron and young Darvid. Behind their chairs sat some third man, very quietly, as if to attract the least attention possible. This was Pan Arthur Kranitski. People were accustomed to see him here and elsewhere with these two young men, and with others also, but with these two most frequently; his hair curled, freshened; his black mustache, pointed at the ends above his red lips, in the fashion of young men. But to-day he looks considerably more retiring and older than usual. With much bold conversation, with laughter which cast his head back, with movements full of grace and animation, he generally strove to equal, and did equal, those two young nabobs, whose Mentor he seemed to be, and at the same time their comrade and continual guest, as well as their gracious protector. This time he was weighed down and gloomy, with spots on his aged forehead. He was sitting in a corner of the box, turning his attention neither to the play nor the audience; and, what was more, not striving to attract the attention of anyone. But from behind the shoulders of the young men in the front of the box, his hand, as if directed by an irresistible impulse, turned the opera-glass, from moment to moment, toward Malvina Darvid. He felt that he ought not to look so persistently at that woman with the gleaming star above her forehead, so he dropped his hand to raise it again and turn it in the same direction. As if imitating Kranitski, though really he did not even think of his existence, Baron Emil was acting in the same way with reference to Irene, gazing through his opera-glass at her face, which showed indifference and even weariness. He did this with a perfect disregard for the rest of the audience, and beginning at the second act, with an insolence which might have confused or angered another woman. But Irene, indifferent for some time, raised her glass also, and turned it on the baron. With these glasses the two people brought their faces near each other; they looked each other straight in the eyes, separated themselves from the audience, and gazed from the height of their two boxes in full disregard of everything happening around them. These two opera-glasses, planted in permanent opposition, attract the attention of all; but Irene and the baron do not heed that, do not care to know anything what ever about the audience, or the love scenes and tragedy represented in that theatre. They gaze long at each other with such indifference that one might ask. Why do they do that? Perhaps because it is original, perhaps to rouse the curiosity or the censure of the audience. But, after a long time, there appeared on their faces a jeering, self-willed smile, with a tinge of friendly comradeship, mixed in the baron's case with a passing gleam of the eyes; and in Irene's a pale flush, which covered her lofty forehead for a moment and then vanished. Dropping his hand with the opera-glass the baron turned to Maryan: "Tres garconniere ta soeur!" said he. "She is bold and looks down on every thing; she is disenchanted. Une desabusee! Very interesting, and grows more and more so."

"Does she rouse a new shiver in you?" laughed Maryan.

"Yes, an entirely new shiver. That is a type of woman which is barely beginning. Twenty years old, and a perfectly distinct individuality! Twenty years old, and knows painted pots thoroughly!"

"That is a family trait with us," retorted Maryan.

"Your mother," continued the baron, "has undying beauty. Such splendid hair and eyes! But hers is another type entirely."

"A past one," put in Maryan.

"Yes, that is true, a past type, a simple one. But Panna Irene is new and intricate; yes, that is the word, intricate! We are all intricate now, full of contrasts, dissonances, and vexations."

In the theatre a thunder of applause was heard. The two young men looked at each other and laughed almost loudly.

"What are they playing?" asked the baron, indicating the stage with his head. "Ma foi! I have not heard one word."

"Well old man," said Maryan, turning to Kranitski, "what are they doing on the stage?" Kranitski dropped his hand with the opera-glass quickly and blurted out:

"What is the question, Maryan?" His eyes, which were fine yet in their prolonged lids, were glazed with a tear.

"Ho, ho! romantic, there is a tear in your eye. The subject must be affecting! Let us listen!" They began to listen, but quite differently from others. When passions exhibited on the stage quickened the beating of all hearts, or poetry, pulsating in lofty words, brightened faces with enthusiasm, Maryan and the baron laughed inattentively and with contempt; when stupidity, selfishness, or wit called out laughter, or ridicule, they were immovable in cold importance, puffed up and insolent; when the curtain came down at the end, and a deafening, prolonged thunder of applause was heard, their hands rested ostentatiously on the edge of the box. This opposition to the impressions and opinions of the audience might seem a childish wish for distinction; but one could feel besides in it, a bold throwing down of the gauntlet to common taste, and an estimate of the various elements and values in life directly in conflict with that of others.

Toward the end of the last act Kranitski entered Malvina Darvid's box, and saluting each woman silently he stood motionless. Malvina bowed toward him slightly, then a shadow came out on her face; this shadow seemed to have torn itself from an internal cloud. She frowned-a deep wrinkle appeared on her forehead, the corners of her mouth drooped somewhat, and her face, with that brilliant star in the aureole of bright hair above, had an expression of pain when seen on the drapery of the box as a background.

But that did not last long. The box was filled with an assembly of brilliant and agreeable men, one of whom, with his gray hair and bearing of an official, made a low obeisance before the wife of Darvid, and seemed to lay at her feet smiles full of homage. Hence she grew affable, pleasant, vivacious, elegant in gestures, and in the modulation of her beautiful voice, she answered politeness with politeness, requests with promises, and gave opinions in return for questions touching the piece just played.

Baron Emil meanwhile approached Irene and, indicating the excited audience with his eyes, inquired:

"How do those shouting Arcadians please you?"

Taking on her shoulders the wrap which he held for her, she answered:

"They are happy!"

"Why?"

"Because they are naive!"

"You have described the position famously!" cried he, with enthusiasm. "Only Arcadians could be so happy-"

"As to believe in those painted pots-"

"As their great-grandfathers did," added he.

"Who knows," said she, as it were, with deep thought, "whether the great-grandfathers really believed in them, or only-"

"Pretended belief! Ha! ha! ha! Beyond price! excellent! How you and I converse, do we not? This is harmony!"

"Not without dissonance."

"Yes, yes, not without vexation. But that is nothing. That even rouses-"

During this interchange of opinions, which was like the glitter of cold and sharp steel, Kranitski, in the crowd which surrounded Malvina, was able to whisper to her:

"To-morrow at eleven." Without looking at him, and with a quiver of her brows, which drooped a little, she answered:

"It is too early."

"Absolutely necessary. A catastrophe! A misfortune!" whispered he in addition.

She raised to him a glance which showed that she was tortured to her inmost soul by fear, but at the same moment Maryan gave her his arm, and said:

"To be original, to edify the Arcadians, and to give myself pleasure, I shall be to-day a virtuous son, conducting his own beautiful mamma downstairs!"

Adroit, with almost childish delight in his blue eyes, but with a sarcastic smile which seemed to have grown to his lips, which were shaded by a minute mustache, this youth led through the theatre corridor that woman not young, but whose beautiful and original head, and whose rich toilet drew all eyes to her.

"I am proud of you, dear mamma. To-day I have heard whole odes sung in your honor; even Emil declares that you are eclipsing Irene with your beauty."

She was smiling and also angry. Her dark gleaming eyes rose with love to the shapely face of her son, but, striving to be dignified, she said:

"Maryan, you know that I am displeased at hearing you talk to me in such a tone."

He laughed loudly.

"Then, my dear mamma, you should grow old as quickly as possible, put on a cap, and sit in a jacket at the fireplace. I should be filled then with timid respect, and would hurry away with all speed from such an annoying mamma!"

"But since I am not annoying you will be good and come home with us. We shall drink tea together."

"Au desespoir, chere maman! But that cannot be. The rest of this day, or night, I have promised to friends."

"Is to-day the only time promised?" asked she, with a shade of sadness.

"For the true sage to-morrow and yesterday have no existence," answered Maryan.

They were at the open door of the carriage; Maryan bent and kissed his mother's hand.

"Be not angry, mamma dear! But you are never angry. If there is anything on earth that I worship yet it is your marvellous sweetness of temper."

"It is excessive," answered Malvina. "If I only knew how to dominate-"

He interrupted her, with a laugh:

"I should avoid you in that ease; but now, all relations between us are excellent, though they are constitutional or even republican."

"I go for anarchy!" put in Baron Emil, helping Irene to a seat in the carriage.

He spoke somewhat through his nose and teeth, it was difficult to say whether by nature or habit, but that gave to his speech a character of contemptuousness and indolence.

"But of dissonances to-morrow n'est ce pas?" asked he.

"And of vexations!" concluded Irene with a smile, wherewith her hand remained on the baron's palm a few seconds longer than was necessary.

Soon after, Malvina Darvid was sitting at a small table covered with a tea service, in a study which was like the lined and gilded interior of a costly confectionery box. Massive silver artistically finished, expensive porcelain, exquisite tid-bits, enticing the eye by their ornamentation, and the taste by the odor from them, tempered, however, by the strong fragrance of hyacinths, syringa, and violets which were blooming at the window and the walls, and on largo and small tables everywhere.

The dress worn at the theatre was replaced now by a wrapper, composed of lace and material soft as down. Her posture in the low and deep armchair, the very manner even in which she arranged the folds of her robe seemed to exhale the luxury of rest; but her mind was at work, and filled her eyes with an expression of disquiet.

"'Catastrophe! Misfortune!' What could that be?" Marks of pain had begun to wind around her mouth; her hands were firmly clasped on her knees. "It may be that lost letter? A man must have a head filled with exaltation, and a character as weak as Kranitski's to write such a letter. It may be-it is even sure to be so, for during a number of days she has felt in the air a catastrophe. But if?-Well! Is that a misfortune? Oh, rather the opposite?" The supposition that the dark, grievous truth of her life might be discovered by him who would seek vengeance because of it roused no fear in her; it caused her to hope for a thing disagreeable and yet desired. Let that horrid knot in which her life was involved be untied or torn apart sometime, in any way whatever. Alone she would never have strength to untie or to cut it, she is such an eternally weak, weak, weak creature! And still anything would be better than the present condition.

Two glittering tears rolled slowly down her cheeks; above the drooping eyelids a deep wrinkle cut a dark line across her forehead. The diamond star flashing rainbow gleams from her hair, and the flowers, which dotted the room thickly with their pale colors, gave a background of wealth to that woman's life tragedy.

With a teacup in her hand Irene stood in the opposite door and looked at her mother uneasily, keenly, with such attention that her eyelids blinked repeatedly. Far from her now were those dry and sneering smiles in conversation with the baron. But she passed through the room calmly and sat in front of her mother.

"It seems that the play of to-night did not amuse you much, mamma." She looked into the teacup so steadily that she could not see her mother's tears or expression of face. But that face grew bright on a sudden and was covered with an unrestrained smile.

"Is Cara sleeping?" inquired she.

"Of course; her room is quite silent, and so is Miss Mary's. Why do you not drink tea, mamma?"

Malvina raised the spoon slowly to her lips, and Irene began to speak calmly:

"I heard very unexpected news to-day. It seems that father has told Prince Zeno, who inquired about the matter, that he will not consent to my marriage with Baron Blauendorf."

"Why call that news unexpected?" asked Malvina, looking at her daughter.

Irene shrugged her shoulders slowly.

"I did not suppose that father would devote his precious time to things so trivial. This is unexpected and may bring trouble."

"What trouble?" inquired Malvina, with alarm.

"Father's opinions and mine may be in opposition."

"In that case your opinion will yield."

"I doubt that. I have my plans, my needs, my tastes; of these father can know nothing."

They were silent rather long; during this time Malvina raised her eyes to her daughter repeatedly, with the intent to say something, but she was unable, or at least she hesitated. At last she inquired in irresolute, almost timid, tones:

"Irene, do you love him?"

"Do I love the baron?"

These words coming from the lips of the young girl expressed immense astonishment.

"If Baron Emil should hear that question he would be the first to call it Arcadian or great-grandfatherly." And she laughed. "That is one of those things which do not exist, or which, at least, are changeable, temporary, dependent on the state of the nerves and the imagination. I have a cool imagination and calm nerves. I can do without painted pots."

As these words came slowly and coldly from the lips of her daughter, Malvina straightened herself, and her face was covered with a faint blush. She had preserved the rare, and at her age even wonderful, faculty of blushing.

"Ira!" cried she, "I hear these opinions not for the first time, and they give me such pain!"

She clasped her hands.

"Love, sympathy, when a choice is made-"

The voice broke in her throat all at once. Her eyelids drooped; her shoulders fell back on the chair; she was silent.

Irene laughed and made a gesture of despair with her hands.

"What can I do with the situation?" began she in a jesting tone. "It was not I who made this world, and cannot reconstruct it. I might like to do so, perhaps, but I cannot." Then she grew serious, and continued: "Love and sympathy may be very charming. I admit even that most assuredly they are when they exist; but usually if they exist it is for a short period, they flash up and quench-a few years, a few days, most frequently only days, and they pass-they are as if they had never been. Why illusions, when after them disenchantment must conic? They merely cause useless exertion in life, disappointment, and suffering."

Irene's words and sententious, hard tones were in marvellous contrast with the maiden-roundness of her arms, which were bare in the broad sleeves of her dressing-gown, with the fresh red of her delicate lips, and the gleam of her blue eyes.

"Besides," added she, "I feel a sympathy for the baron; a certain kind of sympathy." Malvina, after a moment's silence, asked in a low voice:

"What kind of sympathy is it?"

After a little hesitation Irene answered with a harsh, abrupt laugh:

"What kind of sympathy? A kind very common, it seems known universally. Sometimes his way of looking at me, or his pressure of the hand, moves me. But he pleases me most by his sincerity; he makes no pretence. He has never told me, like those three or four other suitors of mine, that he loves me. He has for me, as I have for him, a certain kind of sympathy; he considers me financially an excellent match, and for these two reasons he wishes to share with me his title of baron, and his relationship with certain families of counts and princes. And as I, on my part, need independence at the earliest, and my own house, so one thing for another, the exchange of services and interests is accomplished. We do not hide from each other these motives of ours, and this creates between us sincere and comrade-like relations, quite agreeable, and leading to no tirades or elegies in which there is not one bit of truth, or to any exaltation or despair which has no title to the future. This is all."

"Ira!" whispered Malvina after a long silence.

"What, mamma?"

"If I could-if I had the right-" Both were silent.

"What, mamma?"

"If I could believe in spite of-"

The gilded and artistic clock ticked among the pinks and lilies: tick-tack, tick-tack.

"What is it, mamma?"

"A cake, Ira!"

As Irene took a cake from the silver basket with her trembling hand, she cried, with glad laughter:

"At last you will eat even a cake! You have changed immensely, mamma. I cannot call you now as I once did, a little glutton, since for some time past you eat so little that it is nearly nothing."

Malvina smiled fondly at the name which on a time her daughter had given her jestingly, and Irene continued in the same tone:

"Remember, mamma, how you and I, with one small assistant in Cara, ate whole baskets of cakes, or big, big boxes of confectionery. Now that is past. I notice this long time that you eat almost nothing, and that you dress richly only because you must do so. At times, were it possible, you would put on haircloth instead of rich silks, would you not? Have I guessed rightly?"

While a faint blush covered her forehead and cheeks again,

Malvina answered:

"Rightly."

Irene grew thoughtful; without raising her eyes to her mother she inquired in a low voice:

"What is the cause of this?"

"Returning currents of life are the cause," answered Malvina after a rather long silence, and she continued, thoughtfully: "You see, my child, currents of a river when once they have passed never come back again, but currents of life come hack. My early youth was poor, as you know, calm, laborious, brightened by ideals, from which I have deviated much! That was long ago, but it happened. In life so many years pass sometimes, that events which precede those years seem a dream, but they are real and come back to us."

Irene listened to this hesitating, low conversation with drooping eyelids and forehead resting on her hand. She made no answer. Malvina, sunk in thought, was silent also.

A few minutes later the tea things vanished from the table, removed without a sound almost, and borne out by the young waiting-maid.

With eyelids still drooping, as if she were finishing an idea circling stubbornly in her head, Irene said with pensive lips:

"A haircloth!" She rose then, and, suppressing a yawn, said: "I am sleepy. Good-night, mamma, dear!" She placed a brief kiss on her mother's hand: "Shall I call Kosalia?"

"No, no! Tell her to go to sleep. I will undress myself and go to bed unattended."

"Good-night!"

Stepping quietly along the carpet Irene passed out. Malvina followed the young lady to the door with her eyes, and the moment she was alone she threw her arm over her head, turned her face upward, and repeated a number of times, audibly: "God! God!" Then she rested her elbows on the arms of the chair, covered her face with both palms, the broad sleeves of her dress fell from her arms like broken wings. Thus, altogether motionless, she dropped into an abyss of regrets, reminiscences, and fears. The night flowed on. The clock among the flowers in that study struck the first hour after midnight, then the second hour, and each time in the darkness of the drawing-rooms another clock answered in tones which were deeper and more resonant. The syringa and hyacinths gave out a still stronger odor, though the cold increased in that chamber. The frosty winter night was creeping in, even to dwellings which were carefully heated, and was filling them with darkness penetrated with cold; along Malvina's shoulders, which were bent over the arm of the chair, shivers began to pass.

In the darkness and cold a slight rustle was heard, and on the background of this darkness, in the doorway, appeared Irene. She wore a short, embroidered dress of cambric, and her fiery tresses were on her shoulders. She stood in the doorway with neck extended toward her mother, then walking in soft slippers silently she passed through the room like a shadow, and vanished beyond the opposite door. There was something ghostlike in those two women; one passed, without the slightest rustle, by the other, who was sleeping in a low chair, without making the least movement. Outside that mansion the streets of the city were entering into a deeper and longer silence.

The clock in the study struck three, in the darkness three strokes, remote and deep, answered. In the air the volatile and languid odor of syringas was overcome by the narcotic and stronger odor of hyacinths. The increasing cold flowed around them with painful contrast. In the door, beyond which she had vanished, Irene appeared again, just as silently as before. She passed through the room and placed a shawl upon her mother's shoulders. Malvina, feeling the soft stuff, woke as if from a dream.

"What is this?" exclaimed she, raising her face, the cheeks of which were gleaming in the light of the lamp; but when she saw her daughter she smiled with relief immediately.

"That is you, Ira? Why are you not asleep?"

"I cannot sleep, and I came for the book which we began to read together. It is growing cold, so I brought a shawl. Good-night."

She went aside but did not leave the room. She had no book in her hand; perhaps she was looking for it in the beautifully carved ease filled with books, for she opened the case and stood before it with arms raised toward the upper shelves, her hair lying motionless on the white cambric covering her shoulders.

Malvina was looking at her daughter, in her eyes was impatience; she was waiting for her to go.

"Is it late?" asked she.

"Very late," answered Irene, without turning her head.

"Does Cara cough to-night?"

"I have not heard her cough to-day." Malvina rose, but tottered so much that she was forced to rest her hand on the edge of the table. She seemed greatly wearied.

"Go to sleep. Good-night!" said she, passing her daughter.

Irene looked at her tottering step and followed her quickly a number of paces.

"Mamma!" cried she.

"What, Ira?"

Irene stood before her mother a moment, her lips were quivering with words which she withheld, till she bent, kissed her mother's hand gently, and said in her usual manner:

"Good-night!"

Then she stood a while longer before the open case, listening to the rustle made by her mother while going to bed, and when that had ceased she closed the case and moved quietly into the darkness behind the outer door.

At that same time a carriage thundered in the silence and passed through the gateway. Restrained movement rose in the antechamber from which one servant ran out into the dimly lighted stairway, and another rushed to the study and bedroom of the master of the mansion to increase quickly the light of the lamps there. Darvid went up the stairs quickly and with sprightliness; he threw into the hands of the servant his fur, which was costly and original, since it was brought from the distant North, and began at once to read at the round table, through an eyeglass, that which he had jotted down recently in his pocket notebook. The book was in ivory binding with a gold monogram, and a pencil with a gold case. While reading Darvid put a brief question to the servant:

"Has Pan Maryan returned?"

The answer was negative. Large and heavy wrinkles appeared between Darvid's brows, but he continued to read his notes. Almost a quarter of an hour later he wrote something more while bending over the desk, and standing. Soon in the bedchamber, furnished by the most skillful decorator of the capital, a night-lamp on the mantel of a chimney illuminated a bed adorned with rich carving; a white and lean hand stretched out on a silk coverlet, and a face also, which was like ivory, and shining with two blue sleepless eyes, keenly glittering. Darvid cast an inattentive glance through the room, over which, in the pale lamplight, two beautiful female heads seemed to hover, reflected and multiplied in mirrors standing opposite each other. This was a most beautiful work-a genuine Greuze. To win this masterpiece Darvid outbid a number of men of high standing; he triumphed and was delighted. But now his sleepless glance passed over that pearl of art inattentively. His night at the club instead of diverting and calming had bored and irritated. His honorable partner was annoying, and rude in addition. Never would he have forced himself to play with the man, had not that relation been an honor, and-what was more-had it not been needful. Women say: one must suffer to be beautiful; men need to change only the last word and say: one must suffer to be powerful. But that was beginning to be repulsive, and, above all, to be wearisome. Only when in bed did he feel that he was weary. He could not sleep. He had slept badly for some weeks-since the time of that wretched letter. At thought of that letter the serpents stirred in Darvid's breast, but he shut them down in their den by hissing: "Stupidity!" And he fell into long and uneasy thought about that man whom he had sent on weighty business, but who had not returned yet.

Perhaps chance will not favor him this time, and another hand will seize the field of action and the great profits. He knows that he has enemies and rivals who envy, who undermine him. Well, he will win also in this case, only he would like something afterward-what? He himself does not know what-perhaps rest. To go for a time to Switzerland or Italy. For what purpose? He is not over curious about art and nature, he has no time to fall in love with them. Without occupation he would be bored in all places, and besides he must finish these family questions. He must tame Maryan, and hinder Irene's marriage to the baron. He is fighting a battle with his own son and daughter. Cara is the only one with whom he has no trouble. She is mild and beautiful. Her head is turned also, but in another, a more agreeable direction. She is greatly attached to him, the dear child! She is frail. He must speak to the doctor about her. Perhaps send her to Italy. With whom? With her mother? He would never permit that. The child is his. He will go himself with Cara. But in that case what will become of his enterprise?

In the interior of the mansion were heard deep, metallic sounds.

The clock struck five.

In that same mansion, at the distant end of it, in a chamber lighted by a blue night-lamp, was heard a low, dry cough, and a frail, tall maiden, in night-clothing covered with lace, sat up in a blue and white bed.

"Miss Mary! Miss Mary!" cried she, with fear in her voice.

From the adjoining chamber came a voice of agreeable tone and somewhat drowsy:

"You are not asleep, Cara?"

"I have slept. The cough woke me, but that is well, for I had a dreadful dream. I dreamed that papa and mamma-"

She stopped suddenly, and, though no one was looking at her, she hid her delicate face in the blue coverlet. So only in a whisper did she tell the end of her dream:

"They were angry at each other-so awfully angry-Ira put her arms around mamma-Maryan went away hissing. I hung to papa, and cried so, and cried."

In fact her eyes were then filled with tears from the dream. But she stretched in the bed, and, with her head on the pillows, thought, till she called again:

"Miss Mary! Are you sleeping?"

"No, dear; do you wish anything?"

Cara began in a loud voice:

"I wish immensely, immensely, Miss Mary, to go with you to England, to your father and mother. Oh, how I should like to be in that parsonage a while, where your sisters teach poor children and nurse the sick, and your mother makes tea at the grate for your father when he comes home after services. Oh, Mary, if you and I could go to that place! It is so pleasant there." In the blue light and in the silence her thin voice recalled the twittering of a lark.

"We will go there sometime, dear. Your parents will permit, and we will go. But sleep now."

"Very well, I will sleep. Good-night, Miss Mary-my dear, good

Miss Mary."

She lay some minutes quietly thinking, till she sat up again in bed coughing. When the cough had passed, she called in a low voice:

"Miss Mary! Miss Mary!"

There was no answer.

"She is sleeping," whispered Cara, and after a while she looked around, and, in a lower voice, called:

"Puffie! Puffie!"

At this call the little dog sprang from a neighboring chair, and in the twinkle of an eye was on the bed.

Cara stroked the silken coat of the dog, and bending toward him whispered:

"Puffie! Puffie! dear, little dog! lie here, sleep for thyself!"

She put him on her breast almost at her chin; with her hand on his coat, and with the whisper: "Puffie! good Puffie!" she fell asleep.

Then was heard the sound of a drozhky, coming quickly, with uproar in front of the house, and again there was an end to voices and movement. Two men ascended the stairway, one much older than the other, with a carefully brushed, but somewhat worn hat, in a fashionable but somewhat worn fur. He spoke in a low voice:

"Yes, yes! c'est quelque chose d'inoui! he commanded me to break off all relations with you, and to stop visiting his house."

"A thousand and one nights! Why is it? What is it for?" exclaimed the other.

Suddenly he stopped part way on the stairs, and asked with a half jeering, half pitying look at his companion:

"If he should find out?"

Kranitski turned his face away.

"My Maryan-with you-of that-"

"Painted pots!" laughed Maryan. "Do you take me for my great-grandfather? Well, has he found it out?"

With red spots on his cheeks and forehead Kranitski blinked affirmatively.

"Sapristi!" imprecated Maryan, and immediately he laughed again. "And why? for what reason? Did he also believe in painted pots? I thought him modern."

"Alas!" sighed Kranitski.

They advanced in silence, passed the first story of the house.

Maryan's bachelor chambers were on the second story.

"My dear old man, I am sorry for you, enormously sorry," began young Darvid again. "I have grown so accustomed to you. You will have to suffer, and poor mamma, too. Where did he get all this? A man of such sense! I thought that his head was better ventilated-"

He could not finish, for Kranitski threw himself on his neck at the very door of his apartments. He wept. Drying his eyes with his perfumed cambric handkerchief, he said:

"My Maryan, I shall not survive this blow! I love you all so much-you are-for me-as a younger brother-"

He tried to kiss him, but Maryan broke away from his embrace, and his tears, the moisture of which he felt on his face, with discomfort.

"But it is absurd!" exclaimed he. "Are we to break our relations because they displease someone? Are we slaves? Laugh at that, my dear. Come to me as before, but pass the night now with me, for it would be difficult for you to go home at this hour."

He touched the button of the electric bell, and when the door opened at once, he said to his companion on the threshold:

"Bianca sings that aria from the 'Cavalier' gloriously, does she not? La, la, la--"

He tried to give the music, but his voice failed. So he disappeared behind the closing door, humming the aria of the splendid singer which he had just heard at supper.

Below, two clocks, one after the other, sounded out six. Through the great windows light began to enter from the snow-covered streets. That seemed the gradual and slow drawing aside of a dark curtain, from behind which came out with increasing distinctness, furniture, pictures, mirrors, candlesticks, vases, rugs, plushes, velvets, polish, gilt, mosaics, ivory, porcelain. Until all standing forth in the full light of that winter morning began like a pearl shell to interchange various colors and lustres, and to drop from the walls and ceilings reflections of gold on the shining floor.

Kranitski ascended a carpeted stairway, which was adorned with lamps and statues. His fur coat with a costly collar was over worn somewhat; his hat was shining; his step free, and there was a cheerful smile under his mustaches, which were turned up at the ends carefully. The stairway was almost a street. People were passing up and down on it, and whenever you met them and caught their eyes you noted freedom, self-confidence, elegance; you saw the eleventh commandment of God, which Moses, only through some inconceivable forgetfulness, neglected to add to the Decalogue.

Entering the antechamber he threw the servant his fur, from which issued the odor of excellent perfumes. From the pocket of his coat peeped the edge of a handkerchief. He arranged before a mirror his hair, thick yet above his forehead, but showing from behind a small, circular, bald spot. Hat in hand, and with a springy, self-confident tread, he entered the drawing-room. Only two red spots above his brow interrupted the whiteness of his forehead, which was slightly wrinkled; his eyes, usually gleaming or affable, were mist-covered.

In a door, opposite that by which Kranitski entered, stood Irene, under a crimson drapery of curtains, with an open book in her hand. Kranitski, with that light-swaying of the body, with which elegants are accustomed to approach ladies, approached Irene and, bending easily before her, kissed her hand.

"May one enter?" inquired he, indicating with his eyes the door of an adjoining; chamber.

"I beg you to enter, mamma is in her study."

The inclination of head, and sound of Irene's voice, contained only that measure of cordiality which was absolutely demanded by politeness, but that was her way always and with every one. Cold radiated from her, and such indifference that it was sometimes a contemptuous disregard for people and things. But when Kranitski, hat in hand, passed two drawing-rooms she followed him with her glance, in which, besides disquiet, there was a kindly feeling, and more, perhaps, a feeling of pity. She was accustomed from childhood to see him; he was gentle, as ready as a slave to render service, as ready as a friend to oblige; he noted the wants not only of the lady of the house, but of each of her children. He had the subdued manner and pliancy of people who do not feel that they merit what they have, and are ever trembling lest they lose it. He had, besides, the gift of reading beautifully in various languages. For a number of years Irene could not remember pleasanter evenings than those which, free from society demands, she had passed in her mother's study when Kranitski was present. Sometimes Cara and her governess took part in these domestic gatherings; sometimes, also, though more and more rarely, they were enlivened by the presence of Maryan, who, in the intervals of reading, chaffed with his sister and mother, and argued with Kranitski about various tendencies in taste and literature. Most frequently, however, Cara was occupied with lessons, and Maryan by society, and only she and Malvina, with artistic work in hand, listened in silence and thoughtfully to that resonant, manly voice, which rendered masterpieces of thought and poetry with perfect appreciation and feeling. During such evenings Irene was seized at moments by a dream of certain grand solitudes, pure, surrounded by cordial warmth, remote from the uproar of streets, the rustle of silks, the noise of vain words, whose emptiness and falsehood she had measured; but straightway she said to herself: "Painted pots, ideals! these have no existence!" and she made a gesture, as if driving from above her head a beautiful butterfly, feeling convinced that that butterfly was merely a phantom. To-day, from minute observation, the conjecture rose in her that something uncommon had happened, and that something more must happen, also; she was colder and more formal than ever, with a burning spark of fear in the depth of her blue, clear eyes. Her dress was of cloth, closely fitting, somewhat masculine in the cut of the waist, and on the top of her head was a Japanese knot of fiery hair, pierced by a pin with steel lustres. In her hand was an open book, and she walked along slowly through the two spacious drawing-rooms. She did not raise her eyes from the book, though she did not turn a page in it. At one door she turned immediately, at the other, which was closed, she stopped for a few seconds when she caught the sound of conversation, carried on beyond the door, in low voices, by two people. She did not wish to hear that conversation. Oh, she did not! How long ago was it since she had striven to be deaf as well as blind, and frequently so deal that no glance of the eye, no movement of the face might betray that she had sight or hearing. But now, as often as a louder sound struck her ears from beyond the closed door she stood immovable, and her eyelids quivered like leaves stirred by wind. For a long time it had seemed to her that something terrible might happen in that house some day, something to which she would not be able to remain deaf and blind. Might it not happen just that day? With slow, even step along the gleaming floor, between purple, azure, and various shades of white, which filled the drawing-rooms, she walked, in her closely-fitting dress, from one door to the other, her eyes fixed on the book, her manner colder, more formal than ever, her delicate motionless face, above which the long pin threw out metallic gleams. Suddenly an outburst of silver laughter was heard at another door. Till that moment two female voices had been heard, speaking English, beyond this door, now thrown open with a rattle. Golden strips of light, cast in by the winter sun, were lying on the purple and white of the drawing-room. Into this drawing-room rushed a strange pair; a maiden of fifteen, in a bright dress, golden-haired, rosy, and tall, bent low; she held by the forepaws a little ash-colored dog, and with him went waltzing around the furniture of the room, humming as she moved the fashionable: La, la, la! La, la, la! A pair of small feet, in elegant slippers, and a pair of shaggy, beast paws, whirled over the gleaming inlaid floor, around long chairs, tables, columns holding vases; swiftly, swiftly did she go till she met Irene at the door of the next drawing room. Cara raised the little dog from the floor, straightened herself, her eyes met the strange glance of her sister. Irene blinked repeatedly, as if some disagreeable light had struck her eyes.

"Always so gladsome, Cara!"

"I?" cried the girl. "Oh, so! Puffie made me laugh-and-the sun shines so nicely. The day is beautiful, isn't it, Ira? Have you noticed how diamond sparks glitter on the snow? The trees are all covered with frost. Let us go with Miss Mary for a walk. I will take Puffie, but I will cover him with that blanket which I finished embroidering yesterday. Is mamma well?"

"Why do you ask about mamma?"

"Because, when I gave her 'good-morning,' I thought that she was ill, she was so pale-pale. I asked her, but she said: 'Oh, it is nothing, I am well.' Still it seems to me-"

"Let nothing seem to you!" Irene interrupted her almost angrily. "The surmises of children like you have no sense in them most of the time. Where are you going?"

"To father."

She pointed with her eyes to her mother's rooms.

"Is that-that man there?"

It was not to be discovered why she spoke in lowered tones, but

Irene's voice sounded almost harsh when she inquired:

"What man?"

"Pan Kranitski."

Now Cara's red, small lips, in the twinkle of an eye, formed a crooked line in spite of her; then, bending toward her sister, she said, almost in a whisper:

"Tell me, Ira, but tell the truth. Do you like that man-Kranitski?" Irene laughed aloud, freely, almost as she had never laughed.

"Ridiculous! Ah, what an amusing baby you are! Why should I not like him? He is our old and good acquaintance." And returning to her usual formality, she added: "Besides, you know that I do not like anyone very much."

"Not me?" asked Cara, fondly touching with her red lips the pale cheeks of her sister.

"You? A little! But go away. You hinder my reading."

"I will go. Come Puffie-come!" And with the dog on her arm she went off, but she stopped at the door, and turning to Irene, she bent forward a little, and said, in a low voice: "But I do not like him-I do not know why this is. First I liked him, but for some time I cannot endure him-I do not know myself why."

At the last words she turned away, capriciously, and went on.

"She does not know! does not know!" whispered Irene over her book. "That is why she dances with the dog. What happiness in Arcadian life!"

The little one, going on, began to hum again, but near the door of her father's study she grew silent and stopped. The sound of a number of men's voices in conversation reached her. She dropped her hand, and whispered:

"Father has visitors! What shall we do now, Puffie? How shall we go in there?"

After a moment's thought and hesitation she stepped in very quietly under the drapery of the portiere, and in the twinkle of an eye was sitting on a small, low stool which stood behind a tall case of shelves filled with books, which, placed near the door, formed with two walls a narrow, triangular space. That was an excellent corner, a real asylum which she could reach unobserved, and which she had selected for herself earlier. The books on the shelves hid her perfectly, but left small cracks through which she could see everyone. Whenever there were guests with her father she entered directly from the door, with one silent little step she pushed in, waited longer than the guests, and when they were gone she could talk with her father.

At the round table, which was covered with books, maps, and pamphlets, in broad armchairs were sitting, hat in hand, men of various statures and ages. They had not come on business, but to make calls of longer or shorter duration. Some were giving place to others, who came unceasingly, or rather flowed in as wave follows wave. Some went, others came. The pressing of hands, bows more or less profound, polite and choice phrases, conversation, interrupted and begun again, conversation touching important and serious questions of European politics, local questions of the higher order, and problems of society, especially financial and economic.

Darvid's voice, low but metallic, filled the study, it was heard by all with an attention almost religious; in general, Darvid seemed to ride over that ever-changing throng of men, by his word, by his gestures, by his eyes, with their cold and penetrating gleam, from behind the glasses of his binocle. He was radiant with a certain kind of power, which made him what he was, and the world yielded to the charm of this power, for it created wealth, that object of most universal and passionate desire. He himself felt all its might at that moment. When at the door of the study were heard, announced by the servant, names famous because they were ancient, others known for high office, or for the reputation which science and mental gifts confer, he experienced a feeling like that which a cat must feel when stroked along the back. He felt the hand of fate stroking him, and the delight caused by this became very pleasing. He was eloquent, he was gleaming with self-confidence, judgment, and ease of utterance. Not the least pride was to be observed in him, only the gleam of glory issuing from his smooth forehead, and the mysterious sensation of apotheosis, which pushed an invisible pedestal under the man, and made him seem loftier than he was in reality.

At a certain moment a number of men entered, they seemed almost sunk in humility, and at the same time filled with solemnity. That was a delegation from a well-known philanthropic society in the city; they had come to Darvid with a request to take part in their work by a money contribution and by personal assistance. He began by the gift of a considerable sum, but refused personal assistance. He had not the time, he said, but even had he time, he was opposed in principle to all philanthropic activity. "Philanthropy gives a beautiful witness touching those who engage in it, but it cannot prevent the misfortunes which torture the race; nay, it strengthens them needlessly, and offers premiums to sloth and incompetence. Only exertion of all forces in untiring and iron labor can save mankind from the cancer of poverty which tortures it. Were there no help behind any man's shoulders, no hands would drop down unoccupied; each man would exercise his own strength, and misery would vanish from this earth of ours."

Among those present, a guarded and immensely polite opposition rose, however.

"The weak, the cripples, lonely old men and children?"

"Philanthropy," answered Darvid, "cannot stop the existence of these social castaways, it merely continues and establishes them."

"But they have hungry stomachs, sad souls and hearts-like our own."

"What is to be done," inquired Darvid, with outspread palms which indicated regret. "There must be victors and vanquished in the world, and the sooner the latter are swept from existence the better for them and for mankind."

A look of displeasure was evident on the faces of some, but they were silent, the oldest man rose, and smiling most agreeably, ended the argument:

"But if philanthropy had many patrons like you its activity would correct the injustice of fate very frequently."

"Let us not call fate unjust," retorted Darvid with a smile, "because it favors strength and crushes incompetence. On the contrary its action is beneficent, for it strengthens all that is worthy of life, and destroys that which is useless."

"It has been just to you, and in this case we all owe it gratitude," concluded the oldest man in the delegation, ending the dispute hurriedly. Holding, meanwhile, Darvid's hand in his two palms he shook it with a cordial pressure, and his gray head, and face, furrowed with wrinkles, were bent in a profound obeisance. For those whom his honest heart pitied he carried a gift so considerable that, in spite of words which were not to his mind, the homage and gratitude which he gave came from perfect sincerity.

At last Darvid's study was deserted, and on his lips was fixed a smile which resembled a pricking pin. Why had he poured out such a great handful of money for an object which to him was indifferent, the need of which he did not recognize? Why? Habit, relations, public opinion, expressed orally, and by the printed word. A comedy! Misery! He frowned, the wrinkles between his brows were growing, when he heard a slight rustle behind. He looked around, and exclaimed:

"Cara! How did you come in? Ah! you were sitting in the corner behind the books! Only a reed such as you are could squeeze in through that cranny! What is your wish, my little daughter?"

He smiled at his daughter, though his glance turned to the clock standing in the corner of the room. But Cara, with seriousness on her rosy face, stretched out to him the little dog, which had just wakened and was still sleepy.

"First of all, I beg father to stroke Puffie-Puffie is pretty, and he is good, stroke him just once, father."

Darvid drew his palm a number of times, absent-mindedly, over the back of the dog.

"I have stroked him. But now if you have nothing else to say-"

"I have no time!" added she, finishing her father's sentence. She laughed, and dropping Puff on the armchair, she caught her father in both her arms:

"I will not let you go!" cried she; "father must give me a quarter of an hour, ten minutes, eight minutes, five minutes, I will speak quickly, quickly. 'If I have nothing more to say.' I have piles of things to say! I was sitting in the corner looking and listening, and I don't understand, father, why so many men come to you. When one looks at it all from a corner, it is so funny! They come in and bow-"

Here she ran to the door and began with motions and gestures to enact that of which she was talking. Puff sprang after his mistress, and, stopping in the middle of the room, did not take his eyes from her.

"They come in, they bow, they press your hand, father, they sit down, they listen."

She sat on the chair in the posture of a man, and gave her delicate features an expression of profound attention. Puff fixed his eyes on her and began to bark.

"Or in this way." She changed her expression from attention to gaping. Next she sprang up from the chair. Puff sprang up, too, and caught the end of her skirt in his little teeth. "They rise, they bow again, they all say the same things: I have the honor! I shall have the honor! I wish to have the honor!"

She bowed man-fashion, knocking her heels together, and then pushing apart her little, slippered feet, and Puff tugged at the edge of her dress, sprang away, barked repeatedly, and seized her dress in his teeth again.

"Puffie, don't hinder me! Puffie, go away! Some go out, others come. Again: 'I have the honor! I wish to have the honor!' Puffie, go away! They press your hand, father. Oh, I have tired myself!"

Her breath had become hurried from quick motions and rapid speaking, a bright flush covered her face, she coughed and coughed again, she seized her father's arms.

"Do not run away, father! I have much to tell you. I will talk quickly."

Darvid had been standing in the middle of the room, and following her quick movements with his eyes, at first with an indulgent, and then with a more gladsome smile. That child was beaming with exuberant life, with wit also, which had the power to penetrate things and people; a most delicate sensitiveness, which made her an instrument of many strings, and these never ceased quivering. She reminded him marvellously of Malvina in her youth. When she began to cough he caught her, and said:

"Do not hurry so; do not speak so much; talk less; sit down here."

"I have no time, father, to talk slowly-I cannot sit down-for you will run away that moment. I must hold you and hurry. I want you to tell me why so many men come to you, and why you go to their houses. Do you love them? Do they love you? Is it agreeable and pleasant for you in their company? What do they want? What comes of these visits, pleasantness or profit? And whose profit, theirs or yours? or the profit of someone else, perhaps? What is all this for? Do not these visits remind you of the theatre? Though I have never been in the theatre. Here, as in the theatre, every man plays some part, pretends, puts on a face, does he not? Why does he do so? Do you like this, father? I beg you to tell, but only tell me everything, everything; for father, I want you to be my master, my light-you are so wise, so respected, so great!"

"Enthusiasm put sparks into her dark eyeballs which were turned up to her father's face. Darvid stroked her pale, golden hair.

"My dear child," said he, "my little one!" After a while he added: "Are you a wild girl from Australia or Africa to ask me such questions? You have seen visits from childhood. Have you not seen your mother receiving many visitors, also?"

"Yes, yes, father; but mamma amuses herself with them, and is taking Ira into society. But what are visits to you? Are you amusing yourself, also?"

"How amuse?" laughed Darvid, "they annoy me oftenest of all, though an odd time they give me pleasure."

"What pleasure?"

"You do not understand this yet. Relations, position in the world, significance."

"What do you want of significance, father; why do you wish for a high position in society? What profit does significance give? Does it give happiness? See, father, I know one little history-Miss Mary's father, an English clergyman, has a parish in a poor, far-away corner, where there are no people of significance, and no rich men, but there are many poor and ignorant people there; and he has significance only among those poor people-that is, he has no significance whatever, still he is so happy, and all those people are so happy. They love one another, and live together. It is so warm and bright in that pastor's house, there, among the old trees. Miss Mary came away from there to get a little money for her youngest sister, whom she loves dearly. She lives pleasantly here, but she yearns for her family, and has told me so much of them; and some time, father, I will beg you to let me go with Miss Mary to England, to that poor country parish, and see that great, warm, bright happiness which exists in it."

Tears glittered like diamonds in her gleaming eyes, and Darvid, with his arm around her slender waist, stood silent, in deep meditation. That child, by her questions, had let his thoughts down, as if by a string, to the bottom of things, at which he had never looked before-he had had no time. He might tell her that high significance in the world tickles vanity, flatters pride, helps, frequently, to carry business to a profitable conclusion-that is to pecuniary profit. He might confess to himself, also, that that English clergyman, in his quiet parsonage, under his ancient trees, seemed to him a very happy man all at once in that moment. After a while, he said:

"It must be so. Happiness and unhappiness are one thing for poor people, and another for the rich."

He looked at the clock.

"But now-"

"Now, I have no time!" laughed Cara. "No, no, father, two minutes more, a minute more-I will ask about something else."

"You will ask more!" exclaimed he, with such a laugh as he had hardly ever given.

"Yes, yes-something even more important than the last. I am troubled about it-it pains me so-"

She changed from foot to foot, and embraced her father with all her strength, as if fearing that he might run away.

"Did father mean really to say that one should not uphold the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the sad, nor comfort them; that it is only necessary to leave them so that they may die as soon as possible? When father said that I felt sick in some way. Mamma and Ira this long time support two old men, so gray and nice, whom Miss Mary and I visit often. Do mamma and Ira do badly? Should we let them die as soon as possible from hunger? Brrr! it is terrible! Does father think so really, or did he only say what he did to get rid of those gentlemen the more quickly? Father you are good, the best, a dear, golden father. Do you really believe what you said, or was it to get rid of those men? I beg you to answer me, I beg you!"

This time her eyes were fixed on his face, with a gleam which was almost feverish, and again he stood in silence, filled with astonishment. Why could his mouth not open to tell that girl his profoundest conviction?

With all the wrinkles between his brows, he said, without a smile:

"I said that to get rid of them; I wished to be rid of those gentlemen as quickly as possible." The soles of Cara's feet struck the floor time after time with delight.

"Yes, yes! I was sure of that! My best, dearest father-"

Stroking her hair, he added:

"We must be kind. Be kind always. Keep the life in gray-haired, nice old men. You will never lack money for that."

She kissed his hands; suddenly her glance fell on her father's desk, and she cried:

"Puffie! Puffie! where have you climbed to? There you are, you have crawled on to the desk and done so much mischief!" The ash-colored little dog was on the great desk of the celebrated financier, on the top of a huge pile of papers; he was sitting with his nose against a window pane, growling at crows that were flying past and cawing. In that study, which was so dignified as to be almost solemn, Cara's laughter was heard in silver tones:

"Look, father, how angry he is! He is angry at the crows! Oh, how he sticks his little nose up when one of them flies past. Do you see, father?"

"I see, I see! Never has such a dignified assistant been in charge of my desk. Oh, you little one!"

He put his arm around her and pressed her to his bosom, briefly, but heartily. Through his head passed at that moment the recollection of something unimportant which he had seen on a time: a golden sun-ray, which, flashing from behind clouds, had torn them apart, and disclosed a strip of clear azure beyond. He saw this through a window of a railroad car, mechanically, as we see things to which we are indifferent. Now he remembered it.

"The carriage is ready!" called the servant from the anteroom.

"You are a little giddy-head," said Darvid, looking at the clock.

"I should have left the house a quarter of an hour ago."

She ran to bring his hat, and gave it with a low bow. Stooping quickly she raised a glove which he had dropped.

"Don't forget to leave Puffie here to keep my papers in order!"

With this jest on his lips he went to the antechamber, but, while putting on his fur and descending the stairway, he thought of the auction, where he was to buy a house sold for debt-an excellent investment.

"Is Pan Maryan at home?" asked Darvid of the Swiss at the street door.

The Swiss learned from servants that the young master was sleeping yet.

"What a miserable method of life! I must put a curb on this wild buck immediately. Well, lack of time, a chronic lack of time!"

"Quickly! as quickly as possible!" called he to the driver, while entering the carriage.

He had left the house too late, his daughter had broken in on him with her twittering and fondling-but she is a ray of sunlight!

Cara removed Puff from her father's papers, and, putting him on her breast, almost under her chin, as usual, passed through the drawing-rooms hurriedly. She was late for her lessons with Miss Mary. In one of the drawing-rooms she passed Irene. The slow promenade of the tall and formal young lady, with an open book in her hand, continued yet. Cara, while passing, and without stopping, said, with evident gladsomeness:

"But I talked long with father to-day, long."

"You have done that trick!" answered Irene, indifferently.

Cara stopped as if fixed to the floor. In the careless voice of her sister she heard irony; she seemed ready for conflict; her brows contracted suddenly; her eyes were full of sparks. But Irene, absorbed in reading, was already a good number of steps away. After a few seconds, Cara vanished behind the door of her own room and Miss Mary's.

Irene's features, rather meagre and elongated, continued motionless; her paleness increased their formality. But as time passed, weariness settled the more deeply on her drooping eyelids. Whenever she passed a window of the drawing-rooms, the pin in her hair east quick, sharp gleams in the sunlight.

At last the door of Malvina's room opened and out came Kranitski, quite different from what he had been at his arrival. His shoulders were bent; his head drooping; on his cheeks were red spots; his forehead was greatly wrinkled. He looked as though he had been weeping a moment before. Even his mustaches were hanging in woefulness over his carefully shaven chin. Irene stopped, and with the book in her two hands, which she had dropped, gazed at the man approaching her. He hastened his step, took her hand, and said in a low voice and hurriedly:

"I am the most wretched of beings! I was not worthy of such great happiness as-as-your mother's friendship, so I lose it. Je suis fini, completement et cruellement fini. I take farewell of you, Panna Irene-so many years! so many years! I loved you all so greatly, so heartily. Some people call me a romantic old dreamer. I am. I suffer. Je souffre horriblement. I wish you every happiness. Perhaps, we may never meet again. Perhaps, I shall go to the country. I take farewell of you. So many, so many years! O Dieu!" His eyelids were red; he was bent more than ever as he passed out. On Irene's face great alarm appeared.

"It is true, then. It is true!" whispered she. Springing forward like a bird she passed through the drawing-room, quickly and silently. Invisible wings bore her toward the closed door of her mother's room; when entering, her manner was calm and distinguished, as usual, but her eyes, in which there was anxious concern, beheld the form of a woman lying in a deep armchair, her face covered with her hands. Malvina was weeping in silence; her sobs gave out no sound, they merely shook her shoulders at regular intervals. These shoulders were drooping forward, and it seemed as though an unseen weight were crushing them to the earth and would crush them down through it.

Irene hurried, silently; brought a vial from the adjoining bedchamber, poured some liquid on her palm, and touched her mother's forehead and temples with it, delicately. Malvina raised her face, which was deeply agitated by an expression of dread. At that instant one might have thought the woman feared her daughter. But Irene, in her usual calm voice, said:

"Insomnia always harms you, mamma. Again you have that horrible neuralgia!"

"Yes, I feel a little ill," answered Malvina in a weak voice.

She rose, and tried to smile at Irene, but her pale lips merely quivered, and her eyelids drooped; they were swollen from weeping. With a step which she strove to make firm and steady she went toward her bedroom.

Irene followed some steps behind.

"Mamma?"

"What, my child?"

Irene's lips opened and closed repeatedly; it seemed as though some cry would come from them, but she only said in low tones:

"A little wine or bouillon might be brought?"

Malvina shook her head, advanced some steps, looked around:

"Ira!"

The daughter stood before her mother, but now Malvina in her turn was speechless. She inclined her forehead, which covered slowly with a blush; at last she inquired in a low voice:

"Is your father at home?"

"I heard him drive away some moments ago."

"On his return, should he wish to see me, say that I am waiting for him."

"Very well, mamma."

In the door she turned again:

"Should someone else come-I cannot-"

Irene halted a number of steps from her mother in the formal posture of a society young lady, and said:

"Be at rest, mamma; I shall not go a step away, and I shall not let anyone interrupt you. Not even father if you wish-perhaps to-morrow would be better?"

"Oh, no, no!" cried Malvina, with sudden animation. "On the contrary, as soon as possible-beg your father to come, and let me know at the earliest."

"Very well, mamma."

Malvina closed the bedroom door, advanced a few steps, and fell on her knees at her richly covered bed. Amid furniture, finished in yellow damask, on a downy bed, covered with cambric and lace, she raised her clasped hands, and said, in whispers broken with sobs:

"O God! O God! O God!"

She was of those weak beings who to live need heartfelt love as much as air, and who are infected by this love without power of resisting it. To such a love had she yielded once in the chill and emptiness of rich drawing rooms. That was a happening of long ago; she was the weaker at that time because she was caught by a breeze from the spring of her life, passed in the company of that man who was casting himself at her feet then. In that moment of yielding a pebble had dropped on her, the weight of which increased with the course of years and the growth of her children. She had not thought for an instant that she was the heroine of a drama. On the contrary, she repeated, with a face always blushing from shame: "Weak! weak! weak!" and, from a time rather remote, it was joined with another word, "Guilty." She was weak, still to-day she had found strength at last to cut one of those knots in which her life had been involved so repulsively. Oh, that the other might be torn apart quickly; then she could go far from the world into lone obscurity, an abyss occupied only by her endless penitence. In her head a plan had matured. She wished to speak with Darvid as soon as possible, and she doubted not that in the near future he would agree with her. Her daughters? Well, was it not better that such a mother should leave them, vanish from their eyes?

Irene pushed to the window a small table, on which were painting materials; she took her place at the table, and with fixed attention in her eyes began to outline a cluster of beautiful flowers. They were chrysanthemums, and seemed to be opening their snowy and fiery petals to mystic kisses. Deep silence reigned in the mansion, and only after a certain time had passed did the sound of glasses and porcelain come from a remote apartment, and at the door of the study a servant appeared, announcing that lunch was served. Irene raised her head from her work:

"Tell Panna Caroline and Miss Mary that mamma and I will not come to the table."

She added a command to bring two cups of bouillon and some rusks. A while later she stood with a cup in her hand at her mother's door.

"May I come in?"

She held her ear to the door; there was no answer. Her lids blinked anxiously; she repeated the question, adding:

"Mamma, I beg-"

"Come in, Ira!"

Covered with silken materials Malvina was like a glittering wave on the bed. Irene entered with the bouillon and the rusks, then slipped through the room quietly and let down the shades. A mild half-gloom filled the chamber.

"This is better. Light when one has the headache is hurtful." She went to the bed. "You cannot sleep in these tight boots, try as you like, and without some hours of sleep the neuralgia will not leave you."

Before these words were finished, her slender hands had changed the tight boots for roomy and soft ones. She bent down, and with a touch of her fingers unfastened a number of hooks at her mother's breast.

"Now, it will be well!" Irene dropped her arms on her dress and smiled a little. Despite her fashionable robe and fantastic hairdressing there was in her at that moment something of the sister of charity, she seemed painstaking and cautious.

"And now, mamma, be a little glutton," added she with a smile; "you will drink the bouillon and eat the rusk; I will go to paint my chrysanthemums."

She was at the door when she heard the call:

"Ira!"

"What, mamma?"

Two arms stretched toward her, and surrounded her neck; and lips, so feverish that they burnt, covered her forehead and face with kisses. Irene in return pressed her lips to her mother's forehead and hand, but for a few seconds only, then she withdrew from the embrace with a gentle movement, moved away somewhat, and said:

"Be not excited, for that may increase the neuralgia."

At the door she turned again:

"Should anything be needed, just whisper; you know what delicate hearing I have; I shall hear. I shall be painting in your study. Those chrysanthemums are beautiful, and I have a new idea about them which interests me greatly."

In the tempered winter light from the window, in that study full of gilding, artistic trifles, syringas, and hyacinths, Irene sat at the table with painting utensils, sunk in thought and idle. From beneath her brows, which had each the outline of a delicate little flame, her fixed eyes turned toward the past. She had in mind a time when she was ten years old, and was fitting a new dress on her doll with immense interest. At first she did not turn attention to her parents' conversation in the next chamber, but afterward, when the dress was fitted to the doll as if melted around it, she raised her head, and through the open door began to look and listen. Her father, with a jesting smile, was sitting in an armchair; her mother, in a white gown, was standing before him, with such an expression in her eyes as if she were praying for salvation.

"Aloysius!" said she, "have we not enough? Is there nothing in the world except property and profits-this golden idol?"

"I beg you to consider that there is something else," interrupted he, with a slight hiss of irony; "this luxury which surrounds you and becomes you so well."

Then she seated herself opposite him, and, bending forward, spoke somewhat quickly, disconnectedly:

"Do we live with each other? We do not by any means. We only see each other. There is nothing in common between us. You are swallowed up by business, I by society. I have taken a fancy, it is true, for amusement, but in the depth of my heart I am often very gloomy. I feel lonely. My early life, as you know, was modest, poor, toilsome, and often it calls to me reproachfully. You do not know of this, for we have no time to exchange ideas. I am of those women who need to feel guardianship, to have near them an ear which might listen to their hearts, and a mind which would direct their conscience. I am weak. I am full of dread. I fear that in view of your frequent, almost continual absence, I shall not be able to rear the children properly. I only know how to love them, I would give my life for them, but I am weak. I beg you not to leave me and them so frequently; that is, almost continuously-rather let this luxury decrease-I shall be glad, even, for the decrease will bring us nearer together. I beg you!"

She seized his hands, and it seemed as though she kissed them; but it was certain that the pale, golden wave of her dishevelled hair fell on them. Irene, though she was only ten years old then, felt pity for her mother, and waited with intense curiosity for her father's answer.

"What do you wish in particular?" asked he. "I listen, I listen, still I do not know exactly what the question is. Is it this, that I should stop work, which I love and which succeeds with me? You must be in a waking dream. Those are ideas from another society, mere childish fancies."

Here Irene's thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of Cara.

"Ira, is mamma sick, since she did not come to luncheon?"

"Mamma has neuralgia often; you know that well." Cara turned to the door of her mother's bedroom, but Irene stopped her.

"Do not go; she may be sleeping." The girl approached her sister:

"It seems to me-" she whispered and stopped.

"What seems to you a second time?"

"That there is something going on in this house-"

Irene frowned.

"What an imagination you have! You are ever imagining something uncommon. Now all these uncommon things are painted pots, or illusions. Life rolls on always in a common, prosaic movement. Stop making painted pots, and go out to walk with Puff and Miss Mary."

Cara listened attentively, but with an incredulous expression of eyes, which were fixed on her sister's face.

"Very well, I will go to walk, but what you have said is not true, Ira. It is not painted pots that mamma is suffering and sick, that father goes out to dine for a whole week, and does not come to her at all; even that-man, going out to-day, began to cry in the antechamber-I saw him by chance-he wanted to say something to me, but I ran away-"

Irene shrugged her shoulders.

"You will be a poetess, perhaps, you exaggerate everything so terribly. Mamma is not troubled, she only has neuralgia. Father does not dine with us because he has so many invitations, and Pan Kranitski struck his nose against something which you, in poetic imagination, took for crying. Men never cry, and sensible girls, instead of filling their heads with painted pots, go to walk while good weather lasts and the sun shines. The doctor tells you to walk every day, not in the evening, but about this hour."

"I am going, I am going! You drive me away!"

She went on a number of steps, and turned again toward her aster:

"Father is angry at Maryan-I see that very clearly. Everything in this house is, somehow, so strange."

She went out, but Irene clasped her hands, and for some seconds squeezed them with all her might, and thought:

"That child will soon look at life just as I have been looking at it for some time past. It is necessary to foresee, absolutely necessary!" She returned to her reminiscences. Her mother said to her father:

"Our fortune is now considerable."

"In that direction," answered her father, "it never can be too great, nor even sufficient."

Then, playing with her beautiful hair, he asked:

"But do you believe that I love you?"

After some hesitation she answered:

"No. I have lost that faith, I lost it some time ago."

Later there were many other words, some of which Irene remembered:

"The very best guardianship in this world," said her father, "is wealth. Whoso has that will never lack mind, even; since, in ease of need, he can buy mind from other men.

"In the training of our children you will expend all that is requisite. You will rear for me our daughters to be grand ladies; will you not? Educate them so that when mature they may feel as much at home in the highest social circles as in their own father's household. As to you, amuse yourself, make connections, dress, be brilliant. The more you elevate the name which you bear, by beauty, wit, knowledge of life, the more service will you render me in return for the services which I render you. Besides, if you have any difficulty with the house, with teachers, with social relations, you have that honest Kranitski, who will serve you with great good will. I am very much pleased with that acquaintance. Just such a man did I need. He has extensive and very good connections; he is perfectly well-bred, obliging, polite. Foreseeing that he might be very useful to us, I became familiar with him. It is true that he has borrowed money a number of times of me, but he has rendered a number of services. Pay in return for value, that is the best method."

He walked up and down through the room repeatedly; on his forehead, in his look, in his movements, he had an expression of perfect confidence in himself, his rights, and his reason. Suddenly, turning toward the door of remoter rooms, he cried with delight:

"Speak of the wolf, and he is before you! I greet you, dear sir."

With these words he extended his hand to the guest who was entering. This was Kranitski, at that time in his highest manly beauty; petted, and a favorite in the best social circles because of it, and for other reasons also.

He gave a hearty greeting of Darvid, who met him with delight, and then he stood before Malvina in such a posture, and with such an expression on his face, as if he desired only one thing on earth, to be able to drop on his knees before her.

That conversation and scene remained fixed in Irene's memory. She drew from it formerly, extensive conclusions, then she ceased altogether to recall it; now she thought again of it, forgetting her painted chrysanthemums, which, on the blue satin, seemed to gaze at her, having as subtle and enigmatical a look as she herself had.

A servant at the door announced: "Baron Emil Blauendorf!"

"Not at ho-" began she at once; but, halting, instructed the servant to ask him to wait. At her mother's desk she wrote on a narrow card of Bristol-board, in English:

"Mamma is ill with neuralgia; I am nursing her, and cannot see you to-day. I regret this, for the talk about dissonances began to be interesting. Bring me the continuation of it to-morrow!"

She gave this card, in an envelope addressed to the baron, to a servant, and sat down again to her chrysanthemums, this time with a smile both malicious and gladsome. With his appearance in that house, though unseen by her, Baron Emil had lent form in her head to a certain whimsical idea. She knew that it was whimsical, but just for that reason it pleased her, and must also please the baron. She began quickly, almost with enthusiasm, to paint dark outlines of imps among the flowers. She disposed them so that they seemed to separate the flowers and keep them apart from one another. Some imps were climbing up, others were slipping down; they peeped out from behind petals, climbed along stems, but all were malicious, distorted, capricious, and pushed the tops of the flowers apart in such fashion that they did not let the half-bending petals meet in kisses. Painting quickly, Irene laughed. She imagined Baron Emil saying at sight of this work: "C'est du nouveau! It is not a painted pot! it is an individual thought. There is a new quiver there. It bites."

The expressions "painted pots," "Arcadians," "it bites," "new quivers," "rheumatism of thought," and many more she had from him. And she was not the only one who borrowed. These expressions had spread in a rather largo circle of people who despised everything existing, and were seeking everything which was new and astonishing. Baron Emil was cultured, had read much. He read frequently Nietsche's "Zarathustra," and spoke of the coming "race," the super-humans. He spoke somewhat through his nose and through his teeth.

The superhuman is he who is able to will absolutely and unconditionally.

When Irene thought that perhaps she would soon become the baron's wife, and leave that house, her brows contracted and her jeering smile vanished. Oh, she would not let him escape her! She had an absolute condition to put before the baron; he would accept it most assuredly, through deference to the amount of her dower. Energy glittered in her blue eyes. She turned her face toward the door of her mother's room with so quick a movement that the metallic pin in her hair cast a gleam of sharp steel above her head.

"One must know how to will," whispered she.