Chapter: CHAPTER XVII.

LA TERRASSE.


These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of
the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good.
They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that
turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often
opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenour of a
life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on
the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.
As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as
you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to
your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how you
are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray
with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for
patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not
_your_ hour, the waiting waters will stir; in _some_ shape, though
perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for
which it bled, the healing herald will descend, the cripple and the
blind, and the dumb, and the possessed will be led to bathe. Herald,
come quickly! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and despairing, to
see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are the "times" of Heaven:
the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision; they may
enring ages: the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered
generations; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and through
pain, passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again,
and yet again. To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first
and sole angel visitant, him easterns call Azrael!

I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at
intervals drinking cold water from the _carafe_ on my washstand, with
design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so
difficult, in came Mrs. Bretton.

"Here is an absurdity!" was her morning accost. "Not so," she added,
and dealing with me at once in her own brusque, energetic fashion--that
fashion which I used formerly to enjoy seeing applied to her son, and
by him vigorously resisted--in two minutes she consigned me captive to
the French bed.

"There you lie till afternoon," said she. "My boy left orders before he
went out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son is
master and must be obeyed. Presently you shall have breakfast."

Presently she brought that meal--brought it with her own active
hands--not leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while
I ate. Now it is not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and
esteemed acquaintance, whom we like to have near us, whom we like to
watch us, to wait on us, to approach us with the proximity of a nurse
to a patient. It is not every friend whose eye is a light in a sick
room, whose presence is there a solace: but all this was Mrs. Bretton
to me; all this she had ever been. Food or drink never pleased me so
well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the occasion
when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our
natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are
people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid,
though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others
with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live
content, as if the air about them did us good. My godmother's lively
black eye and clear brunette cheek, her warm, prompt hand, her
self-reliant mood, her decided bearing, were all beneficial to me as
the atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to call her
"the old lady;" it filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the
alacrity and power of five-and-twenty still breathed from her and
around her.

"I would bring my work here," she said, as she took from me the emptied
teacup, "and sit with you the whole day, if that overbearing John
Graham had not put his veto upon such a proceeding. 'Now, mamma,' he
said, when he went out, 'take notice, you are not to knock up your
god-daughter with gossip,' and he particularly desired me to keep close
to my own quarters, and spare you my fine company. He says, Lucy, he
thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from your look,--is that
so?"

I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that
I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on
this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details
of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which
I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region
would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! The
difference between her and me might be figured by that between the
stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of
crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the
life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old,
dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough
weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide
between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa Bretton" never
was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could
not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own
counsel, and spins no yarns.

She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to
remember me before he went out.

My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and
cheered it. Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after
the morning hours were gone by,--those hours which always bring, even
to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of tasks
waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be
employed--when this stirring time was past, and the silent descent of
afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I
then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant.

My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was no
colour about it, except that white and pale green, suggestive of foam
and deep water; the blanched cornice was adorned with shell-shaped
ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the
ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin
pincushion bore affinity to coral; even that dark, shining glass might
have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale,
subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling swell
upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a
tide retiring from a shore of the upper world--a world so high above
that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers,
could sound down in this submarine home, only like murmurs and a
lullaby.

Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light; with
her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the morning, I
made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted.

Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls
earlier than usual; his form was the first object that met my eyes as I
entered the parlour; he stood in that window-recess opposite the door,
reading the close type of a newspaper by such dull light as closing day
yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the table unlit,
and tea was not yet brought up.

As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother--who, I afterwards found, had
been out in the open air all day--lay half-reclined in her
deep-cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son seeing me, came
forward. I noticed that he trod carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he
also spoke low: his mellow voice never had any sharpness in it;
modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than
startle slumber.

"This is a quiet little chateau," he observed, after inviting me to sit
near the casement. "I don't know whether you may have noticed it in
your walks: though, indeed, from the chaussee it is not visible; just a
mile beyond the Porte de Crecy, you turn down a lane which soon becomes
an avenue, and that leads you on, through meadow and shade, to the very
door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built somewhat in the
old style of the Basse-Ville. It is rather a manoir than a chateau;
they call it 'La Terrasse,' because its front rises from a broad turfed
walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the avenue. See yonder!
The moon rises: she looks well through the tree-boles."

Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene, confined
or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery, she mounted
now above a not distant bank; even while we watched her flushed ascent,
she cleared to gold, and in very brief space, floated up stainless into
a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr. Bretton? Did it
touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no sighing mood, he
sighed in watching it: sighed to himself quietly. No need to ponder the
cause or the course of that sigh; I knew it was wakened by beauty; I
knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this, the idea pressed upon me that it
was in some sort my duty to speak the name he meditated. Of course he
was ready for the subject: I saw in his countenance a teeming plenitude
of comment, question and interest; a pressure of language and
sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense of embarrassment how to
begin. To spare him this embarrassment was my best, indeed my sole use.
I had but to utter the idol's name, and love's tender litany would flow
out. I had just found a fitting phrase, "You know that Miss Fanshawe is
gone on a tour with the Cholmondeleys," and was opening my lips to
speak to it, when he scattered my plans by introducing another theme.

"The first thing this morning," said he, putting his sentiment in his
pocket, turning from the moon, and sitting down, "I went to the Rue
Fossette, and told the cuisiniere that you were safe and in good hands.
Do you know that I actually found that she had not yet discovered your
absence from the house: she thought you safe in the great dormitory.
With what care you must have been waited on!"

"Oh! all that is very conceivable," said I. "Goton could do nothing for
me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had
rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got
tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the
school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed. I
believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, and would have
been delighted to cook me cotelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
them."

"What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?"

"Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill."

"Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?"

"I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
low-spirited."

"Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can
give nobody good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of
Hypochondria: she just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can
neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use; you should
be as little alone as possible; you should take plenty of exercise."

Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all
right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the
well-worn stamp of use.

"Miss Snowe," recommenced Dr. John--my health, nervous system included,
being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with--"is it
permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?"

I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
idea?"

"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me doubt."

"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
learn how I fell into your hands."

"Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all
day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent
symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
past an old church belonging to a community of Beguines, I saw by a
lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better informed,
as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on me to stop:
what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I alighted.

"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
is not dead.'

"My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
at Madame Beck's pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
bloodless, and nearly cold.

"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.

"He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
coupled with some things you had said--"

"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"

"Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father; it
seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should be out on
such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch
you when you quitted the church, and so to manage as not to lose sight
of you, till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man
might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding some little of
the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to learn the
locality of your home--did you impart that in your confession?"

"I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any
indication: and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will think
me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it: I suppose it
was all the fault of what you call my 'nervous system.' I cannot put
the case into words, but my days and nights were grown intolerable: a
cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling that would make its
way, rush out, or kill me--like (and this you will understand, Dr.
John) the current which passes through the heart, and which, if
aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels,
seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I
wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet or chamber, so I
went and sought them in church and confessional. As to what I said, it
was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing wrong: my life has
not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality:
all I poured out was a dreary, desperate complaint."

"Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature
is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom
widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?"

"It was not Madame Beck's fault," said I; "it is no living being's
fault, and I won't hear any one blamed."

"Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?"

"Me--Dr. John--me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I
like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me and
Fate."

"'Me' must take better care in future," said Dr. John--smiling, I
suppose, at my bad grammar.

"Change of air--change of scene; those are my prescriptions," pursued
the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
yet, Pere Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no
wiser than you choose him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue
Fossette, your fevered wanderings--there must have been high fever--"

"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night--now, don't make out
that I was delirious, for I know differently."

"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
Beguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity
of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your
succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we
procured a fiacre and brought you here. Pere Silas, old as he is, would
carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would
certainly have remained with you till suspended animation had been
restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, a hurried messenger
arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left--the last duties
were called for--the physician's last visit and the priest's last rite;
extreme unction could not be deferred. Pere Silas and myself departed
together, my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave you in
charge to Martha, leaving directions, which it seems she followed
successfully. Now, are you a Catholic?"

"Not yet," said I, with a smile. "And never let Pere Silas know where I
live, or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest
thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money
for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring
for tea."

Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up--astonished and indignant at
herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully
prepared to deny that she had slept at all--her son came gaily to the
attack.

"Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your
slumbers."

"My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I never
_do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible."

"Exactly! a seraph's gentle lapse--a fairy's dream. Mamma, under such
circumstances, you always remind me of Titania."

"That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom."

"Miss Snowe--did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a most
sprightly woman of her size and age."

"Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own
size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not
rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an
eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent--a beef-eater
tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you."

"As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am
indispensable to the old lady's happiness, Lucy. She would pine away in
green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity to
scold. It keeps her lively--it maintains the wholesome ferment of her
spirits."

The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the
fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks
atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
Bretton's life was certainly casketed in her son's bosom; her dearest
pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared
his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the new passion was
the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin's portion.
Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet her own young
idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could not
tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe's conduct
towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and coaxing, and
repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with which
she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his fine
spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him, his
subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation--_then_ Mrs. Bretton
would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or both. Well--I
thought so too.

That second evening passed as sweetly as the first--_more_ sweetly
indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old troubles were
not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented; I felt happier,
easier, more at home. That night--instead of crying myself asleep--I
went down to dreamland by a pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts.





CHAPTER XVIII.

WE QUARREL.


During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a
seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the
quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual,
but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his
lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender
theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my
sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for
outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw
and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced
delicately; anonymously as it were.

"Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?"

"Friend, forsooth!" thought I to myself: but it would not do to
contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment:
friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking
whom he meant?

He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.

"Ginevra--Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
through the south of France?"

"She has."

"Do you and she correspond?"

"It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
application for that privilege."

"You have seen letters of her writing?"

"Yes; several to her uncle."

"They will not be deficient in wit and _naivete_; there is so much
sparkle, and so little art in her soul?"

"She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de
Bassompierre: he who runs may read." (In fact, Ginevra's epistles to
her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal
applications for cash.)

"And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should
think?"

It was, and I said so.

"I verily believe that all she does is well done," said Dr. John; and
as I seemed in no hurry to chime in with this remark, he added "You,
who know her, could you name a point in which she is deficient?"

"She does several things very well." ("Flirtation amongst the rest,"
subjoined I, in thought.)

"When do you suppose she will return to town?" he soon inquired.

"Pardon me, Dr. John, I must explain. You honour me too much in
ascribing to me a degree of intimacy with Miss Fanshawe I have not the
felicity to enjoy. I have never been the depositary of her plans and
secrets. You will find her particular friends in another sphere than
mine: amongst the Cholmondeleys, for instance."

He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to
his own!

"Excuse her," he said; "judge her indulgently; the glitter of fashion
misleads her, but she will soon find out that these people are hollow,
and will return to you with augmented attachment and confirmed trust. I
know something of the Cholmondeleys: superficial, showy, selfish
people; depend on it, at heart Ginevra values you beyond a score of
such."

"You are very kind," I said briefly.

A disclaimer of the sentiments attributed to me burned on my lips, but
I extinguished the flame. I submitted to be looked upon as the
humiliated, cast-off, and now pining confidante of the distinguished
Miss Fanshawe: but, reader, it was a hard submission.

"Yet, you see," continued Graham, "while I comfort _you_, I cannot take
the same consolation to myself; I cannot hope she will do me justice.
De Hamal is most worthless, yet I fear he pleases her: wretched
delusion!"

My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I suppose
illness and weakness had worn it and made it brittle.

"Dr. Bretton," I broke out, "there is no delusion like your own. On all
points but one you are a man, frank, healthful, right-thinking,
clear-sighted: on this exceptional point you are but a slave. I
declare, where Miss Fanshawe is concerned, you merit no respect; nor
have you mine."

I got up, and left the room very much excited.

This little scene took place in the morning; I had to meet him again in
the evening, and then I saw I had done mischief. He was not made of
common clay, not put together out of vulgar materials; while the
outlines of his nature had been shaped with breadth and vigour, the
details embraced workmanship of almost feminine delicacy: finer, much
finer, than you could be prepared to meet with; than you could believe
inherent in him, even after years of acquaintance. Indeed, till some
over-sharp contact with his nerves had betrayed, by its effects, their
acute sensibility, this elaborate construction must be ignored; and the
more especially because the sympathetic faculty was not prominent in
him: to feel, and to seize quickly another's feelings, are separate
properties; a few constructions possess both, some neither. Dr. John
had the one in exquisite perfection; and because I have admitted that
he was not endowed with the other in equal degree, the reader will
considerately refrain from passing to an extreme, and pronouncing him
_un_sympathizing, unfeeling: on the contrary, he was a kind, generous
man. Make your need known, his hand was open. Put your grief into
words, he turned no deaf ear. Expect refinements of perception,
miracles of intuition, and realize disappointment. This night, when Dr.
John entered the room, and met the evening lamp, I saw well and at one
glance his whole mechanism.

To one who had named him "slave," and, on any point, banned him from
respect, he must now have peculiar feelings. That the epithet was well
applied, and the ban just, might be; he put forth no denial that it was
so: his mind even candidly revolved that unmanning possibility. He
sought in this accusation the cause of that ill-success which had got
so galling a hold on his mental peace: Amid the worry of a
self-condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold,
both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice,
no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's
best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the
table, which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I
handed him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank
you, Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my
ear welcomed.

For my part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my
culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do
at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage
war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and
stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr.
John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any
other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the highest place,
among the highest stars, where her lover's highest flight of fancy
chose to fix the constellation of her charms: never more be it mine to
dispute the arrangement. Long I tried to catch his eye. Again and again
that eye just met mine; but, having nothing to say, it withdrew, and I
was baffled. After tea, he sat, sad and quiet, reading a book. I wished
I could have dared to go and sit near him, but it seemed that if I
ventured to take that step, he would infallibly evince hostility and
indignation. I longed to speak out, and I dared not whisper. His mother
left the room; then, moved by insupportable regret, I just murmured the
words "Dr. Bretton."

He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his
mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might
have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour
in one thunder-clap.

"Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: _do, do_ forgive them."

He smiled that moment I spoke. "Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you
don't respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I fear,
I am an awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where I wish
to please, it seems I don't please."

"Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the
fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me
unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply
respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of
others, what is that but an excellence?"

"Can I think too much of Ginevra?"

"_I_ believe you may; _you_ believe you can't. Let us agree to differ.
Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask."

"Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?"

"I see you do not and cannot; but just say, 'Lucy, I forgive you!' Say
that, to ease me of the heart-ache."

"Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me
a little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I feel
grateful, as to a sincere well-wisher."

"I _am_ your sincere well-wisher: you are right."

Thus our quarrel ended.

Reader, if in the course of this work, you find that my opinion of Dr.
John undergoes modification, excuse the seeming inconsistency. I give
the feeling as at the time I felt it; I describe the view of character
as it appeared when discovered.

He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that
misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my
theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed,
somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated.
An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but
very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two
lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those
few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail
frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I
think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in
discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. He seemed to know that
if he would but talk about himself, and about that in which he was most
interested, my expectation would always be answered, my wish always
satisfied. It follows, as a matter of course, that I continued to hear
much of "Ginevra."

"Ginevra!" He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of her
charms, her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain prose
knowledge of the reality, a kind of reflected glow began to settle on
her idea, even for me. Still, reader, I am free to confess, that he
often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient with him.
I had had my lesson: I had learned how severe for me was the pain of
crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. In a strange and new
sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny myself the
delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He still
seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded
about his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe's preference. The fancy
became rooted in my own mind more stubbornly than ever, that she was
only coquetting to goad him, and that, at heart, she coveted everyone
of his words and looks. Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of my
resolution to bear and hear; in the midst of the indescribable
gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he struck so on the
flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and again. I
chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience, that
in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe _must_ intend eventually
to accept him.

"Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such
assurance?"

"The best grounds."

"Now, Lucy, _do_ tell me what!"

"You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really
amazes me that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her
fidelity. To doubt, under the circumstances, is almost to insult."

"Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a
little faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an
explanation--a full explanation: I must have it."

"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man:
you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Pere
Silas ever convert _you_, you will give him abundance of alms for his
poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your
favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John--"

"Hush!" said he, "don't go on."

"Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: Ginevra has had her hands
filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have sought for
her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in devising gifts
the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as only a woman could
have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns a set of ornaments,
to purchase which your generosity must have verged on extravagance."

The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now
flushed all over the face of her admirer.

"Nonsense!" he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my
scissors. "I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour
in accepting them."

"She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour that
she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in affection,
she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the shape of some
rouleaux of gold pieces."

"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care for
my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value."

I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and
well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money's worth, and
endeavours to realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the
most frequent, and the favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years.

He pursued. "You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap
some trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even
pleasure in contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me,
she would permit the bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to
bear it away. Or, if I achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her
ivory arm, however pretty the trinket might be (and I always carefully
chose what seemed to _me_ pretty, and what of course was not
valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would hardly
cast one look on my gift."

"Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to
you?"

"No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to
seem to forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like
quiet and easy oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build
on acceptance of his presents as a favourable symptom? For my part,
were I to offer her all I have, and she to take it, such is her
incapacity to be swayed by sordid considerations, I should not venture
to believe the transaction advanced me one step."

"Dr. John," I began, "Love is blind;" but just then a blue subtle ray
sped sideways from Dr. John's eye: it reminded me of old days, it
reminded me of his picture: it half led me to think that part, at
least, of his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's _naivete_ was
assumed; it led me dubiously to conjecture that perhaps, in spite of
his passion for her beauty, his appreciation of her foibles might
possibly be less mistaken, more clear-sighted, than from his general
language was presumable. After all it might be only a chance look, or
at best the token of a merely momentary impression. Chance or
intentional real or imaginary, it closed the conversation.





CHAPTER XIX.

THE CLEOPATRA.


My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of
the vacation. Mrs. Bretton's kind management procured me this respite.
Her son having one day delivered the dictum that "Lucy was not yet
strong enough to go back to that den of a pensionnat," she at once
drove over to the Rue Fossette, had an interview with the directress,
and procured the indulgence, on the plea of prolonged rest and change
being necessary to perfect recovery. Hereupon, however, followed an
attention I could very well have dispensed with, viz--a polite call
from Madame Beck.

That lady--one fine day--actually came out in a fiacre as far as the
chateau. I suppose she had resolved within herself to see what manner
of place Dr. John inhabited. Apparently, the pleasant site and neat
interior surpassed her expectations; she eulogized all she saw,
pronounced the blue salon "une piece magnifique," profusely
congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, "tellement dignes,
aimables, et respectables," turned also a neat compliment in my favour,
and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost buoyancy,
opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all sparkling
with felicitations and protestations about his "chateau,"--"madame sa
mere, la digne chatelaine:" also his looks; which, indeed, were very
flourishing, and at the moment additionally embellished by the
good-natured but amused smile with which he always listened to Madame's
fluent and florid French. In short, Madame shone in her very best phase
that day, and came in and went out quite a living catherine-wheel of
compliments, delight, and affability. Half purposely, and half to ask
some question about school-business, I followed her to the carriage,
and looked in after she was seated and the door closed. In that brief
fraction of time what a change had been wrought! An instant ago, all
sparkles and jests, she now sat sterner than a judge and graver than a
sage. Strange little woman!

I went back and teased Dr. John about Madame's devotion to him. How he
laughed! What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine
speeches, and repeated them, imitating her voluble delivery! He had an
acute sense of humour, and was the finest company in the world--when he
could forget Miss Fanshawe.

       *       *       *       *       *

To "sit in sunshine calm and sweet" is said to be excellent for weak
people; it gives them vital force. When little Georgette Beck was
recovering from her illness, I used to take her in my arms and walk
with her in the garden by the hour together, beneath a certain wall
hung with grapes, which the Southern sun was ripening: that sun
cherished her little pale frame quite as effectually as it mellowed and
swelled the clustering fruit.

There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose
influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for
the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of these
choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton's and his mother's. They
liked to communicate happiness, as some like to occasion misery: they
did it instinctively; without fuss, and apparently with little
consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose spontaneously in their
minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some little plan was
proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully occupied as was
Dr. John's time, he still made it in his way to accompany us in each
brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed his engagements; they
were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed them in an order which
left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw him hard-worked, yet
seldom over-driven, and never irritated, confused, or oppressed. What
he did was accomplished with the ease and grace of all-sufficing
strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of high and unbroken
energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one happy fortnight, more
of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants, than I had seen in the
whole eight months of my previous residence. He took me to places of
interest in the town, of whose names I had not before so much as heard;
with willingness and spirit he communicates much noteworthy
information. He never seemed to think it a trouble to talk to me, and,
I am sure, it was never a task to me to listen. It was not his way to
treat subjects coldly and vaguely; he rarely generalized, never prosed.
He seemed to like nice details almost as much as I liked them myself:
he seemed observant of character: and not superficially observant,
either. These points gave the quality of interest to his discourse; and
the fact of his speaking direct from his own resources, and not
borrowing or stealing from books--here a dry fact, and there a trite
phrase, and elsewhere a hackneyed opinion--ensured a freshness, as
welcome as it was rare. Before my eyes, too, his disposition seemed to
unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh day: to rise in new and nobler
dawn.

His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a
better and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville--the
poor and crowded quarter of the city--that his errands there were as
much those of the philanthropist as the physician. I understood
presently that cheerfully, habitually, and in single-minded
unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds--he was
achieving, amongst a very wretched population, a world of active good.
The lower orders liked him well; his poor, patients in the hospitals
welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm.

But stop--I must not, from the faithful narrator, degenerate into the
partial eulogist. Well, full well, do I know that Dr. John was not
perfect, anymore than I am perfect. Human fallibility leavened him
throughout: there was no hour, and scarcely a moment of the time I
spent with him that in act or speech, or look, he did not betray
something that was not of a god. A god could not have the cruel vanity
of Dr. John, nor his sometime levity. No immortal could have resembled
him in his occasional temporary oblivion of all but the present--in his
passing passion for that present; shown not coarsely, by devoting it to
material indulgence, but selfishly, by extracting from it whatever it
could yield of nutriment to his masculine self-love: his delight was to
feed that ravenous sentiment, without thought of the price of
provender, or care for the cost of keeping it sleek and high-pampered.

The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two
views which have been given of Graham Bretton--the public and
private--the out-door and the in-door view. In the first, the public,
he is shown oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his
energies, as earnest in their exercise. In the second, the fireside
picture, there is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he
is; pleasure in homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in
receiving the same. Both portraits are correct.

It was hardly possible to oblige Dr. John quietly and in secret. When
you thought that the fabrication of some trifle dedicated to his use
had been achieved unnoticed, and that, like other men, he would use it
when placed ready for his use, and never ask whence it came, he amazed
you by a smilingly-uttered observation or two, proving that his eye had
been on the work from commencement to close: that he had noted the
design, traced its progress, and marked its completion. It pleased him
to be thus served, and he let his pleasure beam in his eye and play
about his mouth.

This would have been all very well, if he had not added to such kindly
and unobtrusive evidence a certain wilfulness in discharging what he
called debts. When his mother worked for him, he paid her by showering
about her his bright animal spirits, with even more affluence than his
gay, taunting, teasing, loving wont. If Lucy Snowe were discovered to
have put her hand to such work, he planned, in recompence, some
pleasant recreation.

I often felt amazed at his perfect knowledge of Villette; a knowledge
not merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its
galleries, salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object
worth seeing, of every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or science,
he seemed to possess the "Open! Sesame." I never had a head for
science, but an ignorant, blind, fond instinct inclined me to art. I
liked to visit the picture-galleries, and I dearly liked to be left
there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy forbade me to see much
or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was necessary to
maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half an hour would
knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical lassitude and entire
mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well-reared child, much less the
educated adult, who could not put me to shame, by the sustained
intelligence of its demeanour under the ordeal of a conversable,
sociable visitation of pictures, historical sights or buildings, or any
lions of public interest. Dr. Bretton was a cicerone after my own
heart; he would take me betimes, ere the galleries were filled, leave
me there for two or three hours, and call for me when his own
engagements were discharged. Meantime, I was happy; happy, not always
in admiring, but in examining, questioning, and forming conclusions. In
the commencement of these visits, there was some misunderstanding and
consequent struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted
approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the
latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then
self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet
its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't
praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue
resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I
might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded eventually
that I might, and so sank supine into a luxury of calm before
ninety-nine out of a hundred of the exhibited frames.

It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce as
an original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to
myself, standing before certain _chef-d'oeuvres_ bearing great names,
"These are not a whit like nature. Nature's daylight never had that
colour: never was made so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it is
laid out there, under a sky of indigo: and that indigo is not ether;
and those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees." Several very
well executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no means
the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. Many scores of
marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of sketches,
excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in the
handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry whimsically
applied. And yet there were fragments of truth here and there which
satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered the vision.
Nature's power here broke through in a mountain snow-storm; and there
her glory in a sunny southern day. An expression in this portrait
proved clear insight into character; a face in that historical
painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly reminded you that
genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they grew dear as
friends.

One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a
certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set
up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before
it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of
worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed themselves off their feet,
might be fain to complete the business sitting: this picture, I say,
seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.

It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life.
I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable
for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from
fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very
much butcher's meat--to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and
liquids--must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that
wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a
couch: why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round
her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two
plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been
standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to
lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent
garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of
abundance of material--seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of
drapery--she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the
wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and
pans--perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets--were rolled here and
there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst
them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered
the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalogue, I
found that this notable production bore the name "Cleopatra."

Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought
I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking that
while some of the details--as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were very
prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of claptrap;
the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill. Scarcely
noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it did not matter to me) I
retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a view to studying
this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I soon
tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of some
exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-fruit,
mossy woodnests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen through
clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse and
preposterous canvas.

Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a
face bent to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was.

"Que faites-vous ici?" said a voice.

"Mais, Monsieur, je m'amuse."

"Vous vous amusez! et a quoi, s'il vous plait? Mais d'abord, faites-moi
le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l'autre cote."

I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned from
Rome, and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant of
insubordination now, than before this added distinction laurelled his
temples.

"Permit me to conduct you to your party," said he, as we crossed the
room.

"I have no party."

"You are not alone?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Did you come here unaccompanied?"

"No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here."

"Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?"

"No; only Dr. Bretton."

"And he told you to look at _that_ picture?"

"By no means; I found it out for myself."

M. Paul's hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have
bristled on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a
certain pleasure in keeping cool, and working him up.

"Astounding insular audacity!" cried the Professor. "Singulieres femmes
que ces Anglaises!"

"What is the matter, Monsieur?"

"Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the
self-possession of a garcon, and look at _that_ picture?"

"It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
look at it."

"Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone."

"If, however, I have no society--no _party_, as you say? And then, what
does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody meddles with
me."

"Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous la--la!"--setting down a chair with
emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
specially dreary "cadres."

"Mais, Monsieur?"

"Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez
pas--entendez-vous?--jusqu'a ce qu'on vienne vous chercher, ou que je
vous donne la permission."

"Quel triste coin!" cried I, "et quelles laids tableaux!"

And "laids," indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in the
catalogue "La vie d'une femme." They were painted rather in a
remarkable style--flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented a
"Jeune Fille," coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand, her
dress very prim, her eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up--the image of
a most villanous little precocious she-hypocrite. The second, a
"Mariee," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her
chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and
showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The
third, a "Jeune Mere," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy
baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve,"
being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the
twain studiously surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a
corner of some Pere la Chaise. All these four "Anges" were grim and
grey as burglars, and cold and vapid as ghosts. What women to live
with! insincere, ill-humoured, bloodless, brainless nonentities! As bad
in their way as the indolent gipsy-giantess, the Cleopatra, in hers.

It was impossible to keep one's attention long confined to these
master-pieces, and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the
gallery.

A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the
Lioness, from whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this
crowd were ladies, but M. Paul afterwards told me, these were "des
dames," and it was quite proper for them to contemplate what no
"demoiselle" ought to glance at. I assured him plainly I could not
agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; whereupon,
with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also, in
the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A more
despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor's chair. I
noticed, by the way, that he looked at the picture himself quite at his
ease, and for a very long while: he did not, however, neglect to glance
from time to time my way, in order, I suppose, to make sure that I was
obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By-and-by, he again accosted
me.

"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."

"Yes, but I was now quite well."

"Where had I spent the vacation?"

"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."

"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"

"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the cretin) "was with me."

He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played
rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he
never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least
advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict
between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her
repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his
temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too
apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On
the other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his
forbearance and compassion--such a claim as it was not in his nature to
deny; hence resulted almost daily drawn battles between impatience and
disgust on the one hand, pity and a sense of justice on the other; in
which, to his credit be it said, it was very seldom that the former
feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul showed a phase of
character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, his
aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding
both in check by no means mitigated an observer's sense of their
vehemence. With such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often
excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike; yet it was an error to fear
him: nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an
apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing soothed him like
confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these sentiments,
however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his
nature was of an order rarely comprehended.

"How did you get on with Marie Broc?" he asked, after some minutes'
silence.

"Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!"

"You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps, charity.
Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister of Mercy."

[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and
self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of
his soul.]

"I don't know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when
her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief."

"Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full
of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?"

"Could Monsieur do it himself?"

"Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our coarse,
fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such duties."

"I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but
she made mouths at me instead of speaking."

"You think you did great things?"

"No; but as great as I _could_ do."

"Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell sick."

"Not with that, Monsieur; I had a nervous fever: my mind was ill."

"Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic
mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it
merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of
Cleopatra."

It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of
the little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had
no present disposition to begin.

"Cleopatra!" I repeated, quietly. "Monsieur, too, has been looking at
Cleopatra; what does he think of her?"

"Cela ne vaut rien," he responded. "Une femme superbe--une taille
d'imperatrice, des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne
voudrais ni pour femme, ni pour fille, ni pour soeur. Aussi vous ne
jeterez plus un seul coup d'oeil de sa cote."

"But I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been
talking: I can see her quite well from this corner."

"Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman's life."

"Excuse me, M. Paul; they are too hideous: but if you admire them,
allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation."

"Mademoiselle," he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended
for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. "You
nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk
calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe, if
some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you would
issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire."

"Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?"

"How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognising an
acquaintance amongst that group of jeunes gens?"

"I think so--Yes, I see there a person I know."

In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any
other than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished, highly
polished little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty! What
womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of his
optics! with what admiration he gazed upon the Cleopatra! and then, how
engagingly he tittered and whispered a friend at his elbow! Oh, the man
of sense! Oh, the refined gentleman of superior taste and tact! I
observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived that he was
exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So much
was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character
by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the
interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his
scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present
abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I
again looked round, he was gone.

My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and dissimilar
figure, well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well as the port
lent each its distinction. This way came Dr. John, in visage, in shape,
in hue, as unlike the dark, acerb, and caustic little professor, as the
fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the sloe in the wild thicket;
as the high-couraged but tractable Arabian is unlike the rude and
stubborn "sheltie." He was looking for me, but had not yet explored the
corner where the schoolmaster had just put me. I remained quiet; yet
another minute I would watch.

He approached de Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a pleasure
in looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the Cleopatra. I
doubt if it were to his taste: he did not simper like the little Count;
his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without demonstration he
stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I saw now that he
was waiting, and, rising, I joined him.

We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant to
take such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say
about either pictures or books; because without pretending to be a
connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be
fresh: very often it was also just and pithy. It was pleasant also to
tell him some things he did not know--he listened so kindly, so
teachably; unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his bright handsome
head, to gather a woman's rather obscure and stammering explanation,
should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he communicated
information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence that left all
his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of his giving, no
fact of his narrating, did I ever forget.

As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra
(after making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent
me to the right about, and taking him to see the sweet series of
pictures recommended to my attention.)

"Pooh!" said he. "My mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some
French fops, yonder, designating her as 'le type du voluptueux;' if so,
I can only say, 'le voluptueux' is little to my liking. Compare that
mulatto with Ginevra!"

 Chapter XVII's title, "La Terrasse" , is the name of Dr. John's and Mrs. Bretton's small country chateau. The circumstances of Lucy's rescue are told in this chapter. After her collapse on the steps of a large building in the Basse-Ville , Pere Silas, Lucy's confessor, finds her. The kind old priest sees Dr. John riding past on his way home. Pere Silas flags him down, and he and Dr. John get Lucy into a coach and take her off to La Terrasse. Lucy is grateful to be rescued, especially by Dr. John. During this time Lucy struggles with her own envy of other, more fortunate people, and her anger at God for putting so much difficulty in her life. She has a monologue at the beginning of the chapter in which she tries to adopt a stoic philosophy that would enable her to accept any suffering that God sends her way. She also talks of how people on earth are equals yet unable to judge each other--that should be left to God. This is particularly interesting from Lucy, because she is such a sharp and often accurate judge of others' characters. Lucy makes a prayer for relief of her suffering, even referring to Azrael, the angel of death. Lucy and Dr. John become friendlier with each other, and the talk naturally turns to Ginevra. Lucy sees that Dr. John's affection for Ginevra is undiminished. Lucy thinks that, if Mrs. Bretton were to know how Ginevra was using Dr. John's affections , Mrs. Bretton would condemn that young lady. Dr. John also puts forward the idea that Lucy's illness is psychosomatic, caused by her depression. Dr. John's prescription is that Lucy should travel for six months in order to calm her over-excited nerves. That Lucy has not the wherewithal to leave her job and travel for half a year is never brought up. Though he is solicitous and kind, Dr. John's diagnoses are more patronizing than helpful. Never once has he inquired into the true nature of her distress or indicated that her illness is anything other brought on by her own depression. Lucy and John are at odds in Chapter XVIII, "We Quarrel." During a talk about Dr. John's rival, Count De Hamal, Lucy becomes exasperated with Dr. John's inability to see Ginevra's own trivial and fickle character and that she definitely prefers Count De Hamal to himself. This causes Lucy, in a fit of pique, to tell him that "there is no delusion like your own"--and that Ginevra Fanshawe does not respect him, nor does Lucy Snowe. This causes a rift between them for some time, which causes them to have a courteous silence. Finally, after tea, while Dr. John reads a book quietly and sadly, Lucy asks for forgiveness for her hasty words. He admits that if she doesn't respect him, it is because he doesn't deserve respect. Lucy retracts her statement and vows respect for him. She says that he thinks far too much of Ginevra, but she will let him believe what he likes. They discuss Dr. John's practice of giving Ginevra costly ornaments, which Lucy criticizes roundly. While Dr. John professes to believe that Ginevra accepts them out of a disinterested, entirely naive, and childish good nature, Lucy, of course, knows better. At the end of their conversation Lucy fancies there may have been an ironic gleam in Dr. John's eye, implying that he is not so completely fooled by Ginevra as his words indicate. "The Cleopatra" in Chapter XIX refers to a painting. During her additional two-week stay, arranged with Madame Beck by Mrs. Bretton, Lucy often frequents the art galleries and museums in town, studying painting and discovering her likes and dislikes. One day she wanders the gallery alone. In the gallery she is approached by M. Paul Emanuel. M. Paul disapproves of the picture Lucy is looking at, a large nude depicting Cleopatra. He steers her away from the painting, admonishing her that young unmarried ladies shouldn't look at such things. He sets her down in front of a series of paintings depicting the "Ages of Woman," showing traditional phases of a Catholic woman's life --which is painted in an appallingly bad fashion. Lucy looks at them for a time and then endeavors to gaze around the gallery while standing in her designated corner. M. Paul, staring at the painting of Cleopatra, keeps an eye on Lucy to make sure she stays in her place. M. Paul and Lucy speak again, and he chides her not only for becoming ill, but for not enjoying or relishing the care of Marie Broc, the handicapped child. Lucy gently counters, asking him if he would be able to cheerfully care for Marie. He avoids the question by saying that worthy women are able to nurse people far better than the self-indulgent male. Lucy does not get angry with him, and she is less than impressed with his verbal antics. Across the room Lucy spies M. De Hamal, the suitor of Ginevra. She watches him for some minutes, and during that time she is separated from M. Paul. She is repulsed by the sleek dandy character of the Count, and she then sees, to her mind, a much better man entering the gallery--Dr. John. She makes a frankly ethnocentric comparison between the tall and fair Dr. John on the one hand, and the smaller, darker men M. Paul and the Count De Hamal on the other.

