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to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

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to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

mantle

How many times the word 'mantle' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

contentedly

How many times the word 'contentedly' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

signposts

How many times the word 'signposts' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

dinner

How many times the word 'dinner' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

ghoul

How many times the word 'ghoul' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

meadows

How many times the word 'meadows' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

looked

How many times the word 'looked' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

sorcery

How many times the word 'sorcery' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

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How many times the word 'chew' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

be

How many times the word 'be' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

fight

How many times the word 'fight' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

fuddlecumjig

How many times the word 'fuddlecumjig' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

wits

How many times the word 'wits' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

teer

How many times the word 'teer' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

understood

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to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

as

How many times the word 'as' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

cheerful

How many times the word 'cheerful' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

jove

How many times the word 'jove' appears in the text?

to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to say; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do." "Now, you've got your diploma, Em," said Uncle Henry, with a laugh, "and I'm glad of it. This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them." "If we did, we'd leave these folks scattered," she returned, and this retort made everybody laugh good-naturedly. Just then Omby Amby found a hand with a knitting needle in it, and they decided to put Grandmother Gnit together. She proved an easier puzzle than old Larry, and when she was completed they found her a pleasant old lady who welcomed them cordially. Dorothy told her how the kangaroo had lost her mittens, and Grandmother Gnit promised to set to work at once and make the poor animal another pair. Then the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them. The Lord High Chigglewitz sat at the head of the table and Grandmother Gnit at the foot, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After dinner they went out into the yard and matched several other people together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day at Fuddlecumjig had not the Wizard suggested that they resume their journey. "But I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered," said Dorothy, undecided what to do. [Illustration] "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned old Larry. "Every day or so some of the Gillikins, or Munchkins, or Winkies come here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these pieces where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you." "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired. "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it." They now said goodbye to the queer Fuddles and got into their wagon to continue their journey. "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Aunt Em, thoughtfully, as they drove away from Fuddlecumjig, "but I really can't see what use they are, at all." "Why, they amused us all for several hours," replied the Wizard. "That is being of use to us, I'm sure." "I think they're more fun than playing solitaire or mumbletypeg," declared Uncle Henry, soberly. "For my part, I'm glad we visited the Fuddles." _How_ THE GENERAL TALKED TO THE KING CHAPTER THIRTEEN [Illustration] When General Guph returned to the cavern of the Nome King his Majesty asked: "Well, what luck? Will the Whimsies join us?" "They will," answered the General. "They will fight for us with all their strength and cunning." "Good!" exclaimed the King. "What reward did you promise them?" "Your Majesty is to use the Magic Belt to give each Whimsie a large, fine head, in place of the small one he is now obliged to wear." "I agree to that," said the King. "This is good news, Guph, and it makes me feel more certain of the conquest of Oz." "But I have other news for you," announced the General. "Good or bad?" "Good, your Majesty." "Then I will hear it," said the King, with interest. "The Growleywogs will join us." "No!" cried the astonished King. "Yes, indeed," said the General. "I have their promise." "But what reward do they demand?" inquired the King, suspiciously, for he knew how greedy the Growleywogs were. "They are to take a few of the Oz people for their slaves," replied Guph. He did not think it necessary to tell Roquat that the Growleywogs demanded twenty thousand slaves. It would be time enough for that when Oz was conquered. "A very reasonable request, I'm sure," remarked the King. "I must congratulate you, Guph, upon the wonderful success of your journey." "But that is not all," said the General, proudly. The King seemed astonished. "Speak out, sir!" he commanded. "I have seen the First and Foremost Phanfasm of the Mountain of Phantastico, and he will bring his people to assist us." "What!" cried the King. "The Phanfasms! You don't mean it, Guph!" "It is true," declared the General, proudly. The King became thoughtful, and his brows wrinkled. "I'm afraid, Guph," he said rather anxiously, "that the First and Foremost may prove as dangerous to us as to the Oz people. If he and his terrible band come down from the mountain they may take the notion to conquer the Nomes!" "Pah! That is a foolish idea," retorted Guph, irritably, but he knew in his heart that the King was right. "The First and Foremost is a particular friend of mine, and will do us no harm. Why, when I was there, he even invited me into his house." The General neglected to tell the King how he had been jerked into the hut of the First and Foremost by means of the brass hoop. So Roquat the Red looked at his General admiringly and said: "You are a wonderful Nome, Guph. I'm sorry I did not make you my General before. But what reward did the First and Foremost demand?" "Nothing at all," answered Guph. "Even the Magic Belt itself could not add to his powers of sorcery. All the Phanfasms wish is to destroy the Oz people, who are good and happy. This pleasure will amply repay them for assisting us." "When will they come?" asked Roquat, half fearfully. "When the tunnel is completed," said the General. "We are nearly half way under the desert now," announced the King; "and that is fast work, because the tunnel has to be drilled through solid rock. But after we have passed the desert it will not take us long to extend the tunnel to the walls of the Emerald City." "Well, whenever you are ready, we shall be joined by the Whimsies, the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms," said Guph; "so the conquest of Oz is assured without a doubt." Again the King seemed thoughtful. "I'm almost sorry we did not undertake the conquest alone," said he. "All of these allies are dangerous people, and they may demand more than you have promised them. It might have been better to have conquered Oz without any outside assistance." "We could not do it," said the General, positively. "Why not, Guph?" "You know very well. You have had one experience with the Oz people, and they defeated you." "That was because they rolled eggs at us," replied the King, with a shudder. "My Nomes cannot stand eggs, any more than I can myself. They are poison to all who live underground." "That is true enough," agreed Guph. "But we might have taken the Oz people by surprise, and conquered them before they had a chance to get any eggs. Our former defeat was due to the fact that the girl Dorothy had a Yellow Hen with her. I do not know what ever became of that hen, but I believe there are no hens at all in the Land of Oz, and so there could be no eggs there." "On the contrary," said Guph, "there are now hundreds of chickens in Oz, and they lay heaps of those dangerous eggs. I met a goshawk on my way home, and the bird informed me that he had lately been to Oz to capture and devour some of the young chickens. But they are protected by magic, so the hawk did not get a single one of them." [Illustration] "That is a very bad report," said the King, nervously. "Very bad, indeed. My Nomes are willing to fight, but they simply can't face hen's eggs--and I don't blame them." "They won't need to face them," replied Guph. "I'm afraid of eggs myself, and don't propose to take any chances of being poisoned by them. My plan is to send the Whimsies through the tunnel first, and then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure." "Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them." "Very well, your Majesty. Do what you will with the girls, for all I care. Now that our plans are arranged, and we have the three most powerful bands of evil spirits in the world to assist us, let us make haste to get the tunnel finished as soon as possible." "It will be ready in three days," promised the King, and hurried away to inspect the work and see that the Nomes kept busy. _How_ THE WIZARD PRACTICED SORCERY CHAPTER FOURTEEN [Illustration] "Where next?" asked the Wizard, when they had left the town of Fuddlecumjig and the Sawhorse had started back along the road. "Why, Ozma laid out this trip," replied Dorothy, "and she 'vised us to see the Rigmaroles next, and then visit the Tin Woodman." "That sounds good," said the Wizard. "But what road do we take to get to the Rigmaroles?" "I don't know, 'zactly," returned the little girl; "but it must be somewhere just southwest from here." "Then why need we go way back to the crossroads?" asked the Shaggy Man. "We might save a lot of time by branching off here." "There isn't any path," asserted Uncle Henry. "Then we'd better go back to the signposts, and make sure of our way," decided Dorothy. But after they had gone a short distance farther the Sawhorse, who had overheard their conversation, stopped and said: "Here is a path." Sure enough, a dim path seemed to branch off from the road they were on, and it led across pretty green meadows and past leafy groves, straight toward the southwest. "That looks like a good path," said Omby Amby. "Why not try it?" "All right," answered Dorothy. "I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way." No one made any objection to the plan, so the Sawhorse turned into the path, which proved to be nearly as good as the one they had taken to get to the Fuddles. At first they passed a few retired farm houses, but soon these scattered dwellings were left behind and only the meadows and the trees were before them. But they rode along in cheerful contentment, and Aunt Em got into an argument with Billina about the proper way to raise chickens. "I do not care to contradict you," said the Yellow Hen, with dignity, "but I have an idea I know more about chickens than human beings do." "Pshaw!" replied Aunt Em, "I've raised chickens for nearly forty years, Billina, and I know you've got to starve 'em to make 'em lay lots of eggs, and stuff 'em if you want good broilers." "Broilers!" exclaimed Billina, in horror. "Broil my chickens!" "Why, that's what they're for, ain't it?" asked Aunt Em, astonished. "No, Aunt, not in Oz," said Dorothy. "People do not eat chickens here. You see, Billina was the first hen that was ever seen in this country, and I brought her here myself. Everybody liked her an' respected her, so the Oz people wouldn't any more eat her chickens than they would eat Billina." "Well, I declare," gasped Aunt Em. "How about the eggs?" "Oh, if we have more eggs than we want to hatch, we allow people to eat them," said Billina. "Indeed, I am very glad the Oz folks like our eggs, for otherwise they would spoil." "This certainly is a queer country," sighed Aunt Em. "Excuse me," called the Sawhorse, "the path has ended and I'd like to know which way to go." They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen. "Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one." "Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go." "There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right." So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them. No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party. "Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence. "Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time--and so has Dorothy--and we've always been found again." "But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near." "We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time." "No one ever starved to death in Oz," declared Dorothy, positively; "but people may get pretty hungry sometimes." The Wizard said nothing, and he did not seem especially anxious. The Sawhorse was trotting along briskly, yet the forest seemed farther away than they had thought when they first saw it. So it was nearly sundown when they finally came to the trees; but now they found themselves in a most beautiful spot, the wide-spreading trees being covered with flowering vines and having soft mosses underneath them. "This will be a good place to camp," said the Wizard, as the Sawhorse stopped for further instructions. "Camp!" they all echoed. "Certainly," asserted the Wizard. "It will be dark before very long and we cannot travel through this forest at night. So let us make a camp here, and have some supper, and sleep until daylight comes again." They all looked at the little man in astonishment, and Aunt Em said, with a sniff: "A pretty camp we'll have, I must say! I suppose you intend us to sleep under the wagon." "And chew grass for our supper," added the Shaggy Man, laughing. But Dorothy seemed to have no doubts and was quite cheerful. "It's lucky we have the wonderful Wizard with us," she said; "because he can do 'most anything he wants to." "Oh, yes; I forgot we had a Wizard," said Uncle Henry, looking at the little man curiously. "I didn't," chirped Billina, contentedly. The Wizard smiled and climbed out of the wagon, and all the others followed him. "In order to camp," said he, "the first thing we need is tents. Will some one please lend me a handkerchief?" The Shaggy Man offered him one, and Aunt Em another. He took them both and laid them carefully upon the grass near to the edge of the forest. Then he laid his own handkerchief down, too, and standing a little back from them he waved his left hand toward the handkerchiefs and said: "Tents of canvas, white as snow, Let me see how fast you grow!" Then, lo and behold! the handkerchiefs became tiny tents, and as the travelers looked at them the tents grew bigger and bigger until in a few minutes each one was large enough to contain the entire party. "This," said the Wizard, pointing to the first tent, "is for the accommodation of the ladies. Dorothy, you and your Aunt may step inside and take off your things." Every one ran to look inside the tent, and they saw two pretty white beds, all ready for Dorothy and Aunt Em, and a silver roost for Billina. Rugs were spread upon the grassy floor and some camp chairs and a table completed the furniture. "Well, well, well! This beats anything I ever saw or heard of!" exclaimed Aunt Em, and she glanced at the Wizard almost fearfully, as if he might be dangerous because of his great powers. "Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy. "It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time." "You've done it now!" declared Dorothy. "These tents are just wonderful!" "But come and see the men's tent," said the Wizard. So they went to the second tent, which had shaggy edges because it had been made from the Shaggy Man's handkerchief, and found that completely furnished also. It contained four neat beds for Uncle Henry, Omby Amby, the Shaggy Man and the Wizard. Also there was a soft rug for Toto to lie upon. "The third tent," explained the Wizard, "is our dining room and kitchen." They visited that next, and found a table and dishes in the dining tent, with plenty of those things necessary to use in cooking. The Wizard carried out a big kettle and set it swinging on a crossbar before the tent. While he was doing this Omby Amby and the Shaggy Man brought a supply of twigs from the forest and then they built a fire underneath the kettle. "Now, Dorothy," said the Wizard, smiling, "I expect you to cook our supper." "But there is nothing in the kettle," she cried. "Are you sure?" inquired the Wizard. "I didn't see anything put in, and I'm almost sure it was empty when you brought it out," she replied. "Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry, "you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it doesn't boil over." Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy: "I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air." [Illustration] "Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either." "Your hen has very bad manners, Dorothy," said Aunt Em, looking somewhat disdainfully at Billina. "It seems too bad she ever learned how to talk." There might have been another unpleasant quarrel between Aunt Em and Billina had not the men returned just then with their pails filled with clear, sparkling water. The Wizard told Dorothy that she was a good cook and he believed their supper was ready. So Uncle Henry lifted the kettle from the fire and poured its contents into a big platter which the Wizard held for him. The platter was fairly heaped with a fine stew, smoking hot, with many kinds of vegetables and dumplings and a rich, delicious gravy. The Wizard triumphantly placed the platter upon the table in the dining tent and then they all sat down in camp chairs to the feast. There were several other dishes on the table, all carefully covered, and when the time came to remove these covers they found bread and butter, cakes, cheese, pickles and fruits--including some of the luscious strawberries of Oz. No one ventured to ask a question as to how these things came there. They contented themselves by eating heartily the good things provided, and Toto and Billina had their full share, you may be sure. After the meal was over Aunt Em whispered to Dorothy: "That may have been magic food, my dear, and for that reason perhaps it won't be very nourishing; but I'm willing to say it tasted as good as anything I ever et." Then she added, in a louder tone: "Who's going to do the dishes?" "No one, madam," answered the Wizard. "The dishes have 'done' themselves." "La sakes!" ejaculated the good lady, holding up her hands in amazement. For, sure enough, when she looked at the dishes they had a moment before left upon the table, she found them all washed and dried and piled up into neat stacks. [Illustration] _How_ DOROTHY HAPPENED TO GET LOST CHAPTER FIFTEEN [Illustration] It was a beautiful evening, so they drew their camp chairs in a circle before one of the tents and began to tell stories to amuse themselves and pass away the time before they went to bed. Pretty soon a zebra was seen coming out of the forest, and he trotted straight up to them and said politely: "Good evening, people." The zebra was a sleek little animal and had a slender head, a stubby mane and a paint-brush tail--very like a donkey's. His neatly shaped white body was covered with regular bars of dark brown, and his hoofs were delicate as those of a deer. "Good evening, friend Zebra," said Omby Amby, in reply to the creature's greeting. "Can we do anything for you?" "Yes," answered the zebra. "I should like you to settle a dispute that has long been a bother to me, as to whether there is more water or land in the world." "Who are you disputing with?" asked the Wizard. "With a soft-shell crab," said the zebra. "He lives in a pool where I go to drink every day, and he is a very impertinent crab, I assure you. I have told him many times that the land is much greater in extent than the water, but he will not be convinced. Even this very evening, when I told him he was an insignificant creature who lived in a small pool, he asserted that the water was greater and more important than the land. So, seeing your camp, I decided to ask you to settle the dispute for once and all, that I may not be further annoyed by this ignorant crab." When they had listened to this explanation Dorothy inquired: "Where is the soft-shell crab?" "Not far away," replied the zebra. "If you will agree to judge between us I will run and get him." "Run along, then," said the little girl. So the animal pranced into the forest and soon came trotting back to them. When he drew near they found a soft-shell crab clinging fast to the stiff hair of the zebra's head, where it held on by one claw. "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the people I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it." "There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice. "That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia--and so has Uncle Henry." "For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries." "And I," said the Wizard, "have been to Europe and Ireland." "So you see," continued the zebra, addressing the crab, "here are people of real consequence, who know what they are talking about." "Then they know there's more water in the world than there is land," asserted the crab, in a shrill, petulant voice. "They know you are wrong to make such an absurd statement, and they will probably think you are a lobster instead of a crab," retorted the animal. At this taunt the crab reached out its other claw and seized the zebra's ear, and the creature gave a cry of pain and began prancing up and down, trying to shake off the crab, which clung fast. "Stop pinching!" cried the zebra. "You promised not to pinch if I would carry you here!" "And you promised to treat me respectfully," said the crab, letting go the ear. "Well, haven't I?" demanded the zebra. "No; you called me a lobster," said the crab. "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the zebra, "please pardon my poor friend, because he is ignorant and stupid, and does not understand. Also the pinch of his claw is very annoying. So pray tell him that the world contains more land than water, and when he has heard your judgment I will carry him back and dump him into his pool, where I hope he will be more modest in the future." "But we cannot tell him that," said Dorothy, gravely, "because it would not be true." "What!" exclaimed the zebra, in astonishment; "do I hear you aright?" "The soft-shell crab is correct," declared the Wizard. "There is considerably more water than there is land in the world." "Impossible!" protested the zebra. "Why, I can run for days upon the land, and find but little water." "Did you ever see an ocean?" asked Dorothy. "Never," admitted the zebra. "There is no such thing as an ocean in the Land of Oz." "Well, there are several oceans in the world," said Dorothy, "and people sail in ships upon these oceans for weeks and weeks, and never see a bit of land at all. And the joggerfys will tell you that all the oceans put together are bigger than all the land put together." At this the crab began laughing in queer chuckles that reminded Dorothy of the way Billina sometimes cackled. "_Now_ will you give up, Mr. Zebra?" it cried, jeeringly; "now will you give up?" The zebra seemed much humbled. "Of course I cannot read geographys," he said. "You could take one of the Wizard's School Pills," suggested Billina, "and that would make you learned and wise without studying." The crab began laughing again, which so provoked the zebra that he tried to shake the little creature off. This resulted in more ear-pinching, and finally Dorothy told them that if they could not behave they must go back to the forest. "I'm sorry I asked you to decide this question," said the zebra, crossly. "So long as neither of us could prove we were right we quite enjoyed the dispute; but now I can never drink at that pool again without the soft-shell crab laughing at me. So I must find another drinking place." "Do! Do, you ignoramus!" shouted the crab, as loudly as his little voice would carry. "Rile some other pool with your clumsy hoofs, and let your betters alone after this!" Then the zebra trotted back to the forest, bearing the crab with him, and disappeared amid the gloom of the trees. And as it was now getting dark the travelers said good night to one another and went to bed. [Illustration] Dorothy awoke just as the light was beginning to get strong next morning, and not caring to sleep any later she quietly got out of bed, dressed herself, and left the tent where Aunt Em was yet peacefully slumbering. Outside she noticed Billina busily pecking around to secure bugs or other food for breakfast, but none of the men in the other tent seemed awake. So the little girl decided to take a walk in the woods and try to discover some path or road that they might follow when they again started upon their journey. She had reached the edge of the forest when the Yellow Hen came fluttering along and asked where she was going. "Just to take a walk, Billina; and maybe I'll find some path," said Dorothy. "Then I'll go along," decided Billina, and scarcely had she spoken when Toto ran up and joined them. Toto and the Yellow Hen had become quite friendly by this time, although at first they did not get along well together. Billina had been rather suspicious of dogs, and Toto had had an idea that it was every dog's duty to chase a hen on sight. But Dorothy had talked to them and scolded them for not being agreeable to one another until they grew better acquainted and became friends. I won't say they loved each other dearly, but at least they had stopped quarreling and now managed to get on together very well. The day was growing lighter every minute and driving the black shadows out of the forest; so Dorothy found it very pleasant walking under the trees. She went some distance in one direction, but not finding a path, presently turned in a different direction. There was no path here, either, although she advanced quite a way into the forest, winding here and there among the trees and peering through the bushes in an endeavor to find some beaten track. "I think we'd better go back," suggested the Yellow Hen, after a time. "The people will all be up by this time and breakfast will be ready." "Very

aunt

How many times the word 'aunt' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

priscilla

How many times the word 'priscilla' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

saying

How many times the word 'saying' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

house

How many times the word 'house' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

might

How many times the word 'might' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

call

How many times the word 'call' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

resolutely

How many times the word 'resolutely' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

velvets

How many times the word 'velvets' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

dear

How many times the word 'dear' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

home

How many times the word 'home' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

impassive

How many times the word 'impassive' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

day

How many times the word 'day' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

year

How many times the word 'year' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

towered

How many times the word 'towered' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

our

How many times the word 'our' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

remembering

How many times the word 'remembering' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

fellow

How many times the word 'fellow' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

palaces

How many times the word 'palaces' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

years

How many times the word 'years' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

incriminating

How many times the word 'incriminating' appears in the text?

to the conclusion that he and Miss Darcy would not suit. But even if by some dispensation of Providence she had not married anyone else in the course of a year, how could the situation be sufficiently elucidated to set William free ever to address her again? During the three months that had elapsed since the Pemberley ball his simple and straightforward nature had wrestled with the most difficult problem he had ever been called upon to face. The great events of his life--the various steps in his career, his sister's marriage, his father's death, and the providing for the family, had all come in the natural order of things, and for him the right line of conduct, as of feeling, had been at the same time the obvious one. And so he had supposed it would be when it came to affairs of the heart. If a man fell in love, he would try to win the affection of the woman he had chosen, and ask her to marry him; and if she did not care for him enough, he must either give it up, or wait awhile before making another effort. But to be refused, because another woman happened to have fallen in love with him! William had accepted his dismissal at the time in sheer bewilderment; but the more he thought it over, the more inadequate the reason seemed for separating him and Georgiana. She had not absolutely said that it was impossible to care for him; she had only refused to listen to him or talk of it, which was only natural if she thought him in honour bound to Kitty; but William's conscience was perfectly clear towards Kitty, and he tormented himself incessantly with the thought of all that he might have done towards gaining Georgiana's affection, during the weeks that they were together, had it not been for this wretched misunderstanding. She had taken it all as intended for Kitty; why had they not seen the truth? Kitty might have seen, everyone might have seen, everyone was deserving of blame, except Georgiana. One moment William was marvelling that anyone could have misunderstood what to him was the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and the next had dropped back with despair into the thought: "She might have cared, if she had only known. And now she will not even have forgiven me for making Miss Kitty unhappy, and I have no chance of setting that right." "It is just like a ship that has run aground on a sandbank in the fog," mused William. "You can't do anything until it has cleared--at least, I can't. If she had refused me out and out, I would have gone down to Winchester and had another good try--a fellow who has only three months on shore to every nine at sea deserves that, I think--but I can't face her again as long as I can imagine her saying to herself, 'What about my poor Kitty?' Oh, what a blind fool I was, and how I wasted those ten days!" He was so deep in thought that in crossing a side street he almost ran into a gentleman who was going towards Portman Square. Recognition followed on the mutual apologies, and Mr. Knightley exclaimed: "Why, William! I am glad to see you again--if it can be called seeing in this atmosphere; I thought you were gone." "No, sir, but I sail to-morrow from Portsmouth: the _Medusa,_ you know. They altered our destination at the last minute." "And what is it to be?" "Nova Scotia first, sir; we are taking out a draft to increase the garrison there." "Lucky fellow that you are; you will have seen the whole world in a year or two. I'm afraid it sounds like a long absence this time, but you never mind that, do you?" "Well, sir--" William hesitated, then looked up with a frank smile--"it won't be any good, but for once in a way I wish I could get to a home station for a bit." Mr. Knightley waited, but perceiving that he was not to hear any more, said kindly: "Unless you are in a great hurry, come in and say good-bye to Mrs. Knightley; she would be sorry to miss you, especially as you are so near." William readily turned back, for apart from the kindness of the Knightleys, their house had a special attraction for him; and when a few minutes later they entered the drawing-room, his thoughts flew back to the moment when he had first seen Georgiana: she had been standing by that very chair, that velvet screen had been the background to the lovely figure in the white ball-dress. It was necessary to put such thoughts as these resolutely away, and give his attention to Mrs. Knightley, whom they found alone, reading some letters which had just arrived by the country post. She greeted William cordially, without any surprise at seeing him still in England; it was always a little difficult for Emma to realize that people had important affairs of their own; and that they should have had any existence apart from that which she had chosen to imagine for them constituted the surprise. Therefore she looked earnestly and inquiringly at William as he sat down, and made so long a pause that he began to wonder what he was expected to say, until Mr. Knightley came in from the hall, where he had been ordering the servant to bring in lamps, and explained the circumstances of William's call. It was then Emma's turn to be astonished: "Going to sea again, Captain Price? That is indeed a sad thing; I thought you were going to settle in England for a time; your friends have seen nothing of you." "There's no such thing as settling in England for a sailor, Mrs. Knightley," returned William, trying to speak cheerily; "at least, not at twenty-four. And I have been home for a long time now; the North Sea cruise this winter counts for nothing, you know." "The North Sea!" repeated Emma, still more overwhelmed. "I thought you were with your mother, or in Derbyshire." "Oh, no," replied William, in as indifferent a tone as he could. "I have not been to Derbyshire since the middle of November. We were at Copenhagen for three weeks, the rest of the time moving about, and I have just come from spending a week at Mansfield." Emma was then almost speechless with disappointment. Mr. Knightley, regretful, but amused, drew his chair up to the fire and began asking about William's plans, which were to leave London on the following morning by the twelve o'clock coach, thus allowing ample time to reach Portsmouth and bestow himself and his baggage on board before the ship sailed at seven in the evening. Mr. Knightley inquired what would happen if he arrived too late, but William could hardly picture the consequences of such a breach of discipline. He had never known it to happen; he supposed the culprit would be court-martialled, and probably degraded three years; he imagined that no circumstances could possibly be allowed to extenuate so grievous a crime. Mr. Knightley suggested that a breakdown of the coach or other conveyance might cause inevitable delay, and William's answer to this was that one took the risk of these things in putting off one's return to the very last day of one's leave; some accident, of course, might occur, but in general, those officers who were not obliged to be on board earlier spent every moment of their leave of absence on shore. "I probably should have gone back yesterday, however," he added, "but the mother of a friend of mine, Cooper, who is on board the _Queen Charlotte_ at Southampton, is very ill in London, and he cannot come to see her, so he asked me to call at the house and bring him the latest reports. I was returning from there when I met you this evening. I intended going earlier in the day, but I am glad now that I was prevented from doing so." "Emma, my dear," said Mr. Knightley, "you are not appreciating our friend's pretty speeches." Emma started, smiled, then tried to rouse herself and say something to William in the nature of cordial good wishes for his voyage, and in moving her chair, the letters she had been reading fell from her knee to the floor. William, as he picked them up, reflected that probably something in their contents was occupying Mrs. Knightley's mind; and he was beginning to think about making his adieux, when Mr. Knightley continued, speaking to his wife: "Have you any interesting news there, as a parting gift for a traveler?" "No, I think not," replied Emma. "This is from Mrs. Weston, but there is nothing but Highbury gossip in it, which Captain Price would not--and this other one I have not read; I thought it was Harriet's writing. No!" holding it up to a candle, "it is not, after all. It is--well--I can hardly--it looks like--in fact, I believe it is from Kitty Bennet." "Indeed!" said Mr. Knightley, and added, after a momentary pause: "We have not heard anything of her for a great while." Emma could not help glancing towards William Price, but her glance told her nothing, for he sat perfectly passive, looking at no one, with perhaps a trifle deeper tinge of colour in his cheeks. The pause threatened to grow embarrassing, so she began to open the letter, hurriedly saying: "Miss Bennet seems still to be in Derbyshire. I should have thought she would have returned home before this." "You stayed at Pemberley, did you not, William, as well as at Mr. Bingley's?" inquired Mr. Knightley. "Yes," said William. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were so kind as to invite me there with the rest, for their ball. What a beautiful place it is! Even at that time of year one was struck with it." "And you have not seen any of them since, I conclude, as you have been abroad," proceeded Mr. Knightley. William was replying in the negative, when stopped by an exclamation from Mrs. Knightley, who was reading the letter with every sign of astonishment. "George!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? You will never guess! It is perfectly amazing! I can hardly believe it myself. Well--!" as she turned over a page, "if she had not told me herself, I could never--was there ever anything so unexpected?" "We shall know better when you have told us what this astounding news is, my dear," said her husband. "Has Miss Bennett become engaged to be married, by any chance?" "How could you have guessed it?" exclaimed Mrs. Knightley, dropping the letter to gaze at him. "It is the very last thing I should have thought of. Oh, Captain Price!" remembering her visitor in some confusion. "But I am sure you might know it, as she does not say it is private." "The reason I guessed it," said Mr. Knightley, smiling, "is because no other intelligence causes quite the same amount of excitement, as you must admit, Emma. May we hear some more particulars, now that we have got over the first shock?" Mr. Knightley was talking partly in order to spare his young friend, thinking it just possible that the news of Kitty's engagement might not be very welcome to the young man. William, however, was leaning forward with an expression of eager interest, and Mrs. Knightley, looking at her letter, went on: "She is engaged to a Mr. James Morland, the rector of the parish in which Mr. and Mrs. Bingley live. He is quite young--only appointed last year--she met him first when she went down there in June--perfectly charming--the most agreeable man she has ever met--does not disapprove of dancing--Mr. Bingley and her sister so delighted--a lovely old house--so near to dear Jane--exquisitely happy--she is going home directly, and hopes to come to town and see me." William could contain himself no longer. He sprang up, looked at the clock, took a few quick steps through the room, then, coming back, he abruptly asked: "Is this really true, Mrs. Knightley?" "Quite true, Captain Price, I am afraid--at least, I mean there can be no doubt of it; in fact, they are going to be married in June, she says. I assure you, I had not the slightest suspicion. I have only heard the gentleman's name once or twice, no more. It is so odd, so inexplicable--" Mr. Knightley could not forbear smiling at his wife's perplexity, for he perceived that for some reason or other William was in no need of commiseration, and, indeed, could hardly wait for Mrs. Knightley to finish. Holding out his hand, he said: "Pray give Miss Bennet my congratulations, and a thousand good wishes for her happiness. I fear I must not stay longer now, so will say good-bye, Mrs. Knightley, with many thanks for all your kindness--I am indeed grateful for all you have done for me." "But Captain Price, you are not going already?" exclaimed Emma, now completely bewildered. "Do not, I beg, let me drive you away, we will not talk about anything disagreeable. We were just going to have dinner; it is late to-night on account of Mr. Knightley's having had to go out, and I hoped you would have stayed to dine with us." Mr. Knightley seconded the invitation, but William unhesitatingly declined. "You are very good, but I must not delay so long. It is only six, and I think I can catch the eight o'clock coach, if I hurry, as my things are nearly packed." "The eight o'clock coach?" repeated Mr. Knightley, helping his guest into his coat when it became evident that he was determined to go. "I thought you said you were not returning until to-morrow morning." "Yes, I did, but I find now that I shall have to go to Winchester; I shall just have time; it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened." "It is not very fortunate for us," said Emma. "But you surely will not attempt to get to Winchester to-night?" "No, but I shall get as far as Guilford, in all probability. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley, I am shockingly ill-mannered; what must you be thinking of me? Do overlook it just this once; nothing but the most urgent affairs would carry me away from here so much sooner than I had intended." His smile and winning manner were irresistible, and Emma was obliged to let him go, saying she would expect to hear all about the urgent affairs some day. William seemed to get to the front door in two strides, and was fumbling with the lock before his host could reach him, with offers of refreshment, which he would not stay to accept. Mr. Knightley shook hands with him, saying kindly: "Well, William, I am sorry you had to run away, especially as we shall not see you for so long. Besides, it is really too cruel, after having whetted our curiosity by this mysterious change of plan." "Oh, sir, I know it is too bad--if I only had a little more time--but it is the sailing to-morrow that is the very mischief--if you knew, you would understand that my only chance is to go now, as quickly as I can. I will write and tell you how I get on. Please make my apologies to Mrs. Knightley." "The only thing Mrs. Knightley will not forgive is your having no dinner to-night. Yes, indeed, we shall look forward to hearing. Good-bye, and good luck be with you." The good luck had begun already, William thought, as he plunged into the streets, which no longer appeared dark and foggy, since the aspect of the whole world had changed to him in the last few minutes. Was it not the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune which had led him to meet Mr. Knightley that evening? He had not intended to call, for he had believed them to be at their house in the country, and he would have heard nothing, and would have passed through Winchester the next day, within a mile of Georgiana, without knowing that he was free! A day later--the horror of it was almost too great to contemplate--would have been too late, too late to speak or write, even if anyone had troubled to send him the information. Mrs. Knightley herself had not suspected that Miss Bennet's engagement was a matter of such stupendous importance to him. William did not trouble to think of what she had suspected, his only idea being to make his way to Georgiana with all speed. He must see her before he sailed--that was the pressing necessity; everything else would right itself. What if he did not find her? If she were ill, or out of the house, or gone home again? Every kind of apprehension sprang up in his mind, to be reasoned away or fought down by vigorous action. His impatience was so great that he hardly knew how he got through the journey, beginning with the hasty drive to the coach office, the finding there was a seat still vacant, booking it, and tramping about till the time of starting; the innumerable frets and delays along the road; the arrival at Guilford, the bespeaking of a post-chaise, and descending before daylight the next morning to claim it; the hurried breakfast at Farnham, and the last interminable twenty miles, until the moment when he drove down the long hill into Winchester and heard the Cathedral clock striking eleven. Leaving his portmanteaux at the "George," he walked straight to the Wentworths' house, which he knew well from previous visits, and was shown into a room where Captain and Mrs. Wentworth sat together. His early appearance created some surprise and excessive pleasure; they were totally unsuspicious of its real cause, and concluded only that he had reconsidered his refusal. His eager inquiry as to whether Miss Darcy were still with them, and whether he could see her, aroused a momentary fear that he had brought bad news for her, but it speedily became evident that he was on quite a different errand. "Oho, William, you sly fellow, so it is Miss Darcy you are come to see?" exclaimed Captain Wentworth. "Well, we congratulate you upon your good sense, do we not, Anne? But why in the world did you not come down weeks ago, when you had the chance?" William avoided answering this, and as his friends still did not understand the urgency of the case, he was obliged again to go through the particulars of the _Medusa_, and Portsmouth, and seven o'clock. Now, indeed, were the precious moments not to be wasted; Anne left the room, but returned directly, saying: "Captain Price, I am very sorry, but I find Miss Darcy has gone out. She talked of wishing to do some errands in the town, but I did not know she had already started. What is to be done?" William was quite clear that there was only one thing to be done, namely, to go in search of Miss Darcy, and asked which shops she was likely to have visited. Mrs. Wentworth named one or two, and called after him as he was hurrying away, to suggest that if he was not successful in finding her in either, it was possible she might, as the day was so fine, have gone to finish her walk in the grounds of Wolvesey Palace, a favourite spot of hers for a stroll. Armed with information William was gone on the instant. It was fortunate that he had obtained it, for his inquiries in the High Street were fruitless, and he thereupon retraced his steps under the archway and past the Cathedral, turned along College Street, and finally found himself in the old Palace gardens, where, seated with a book among a quiet part of the ruins, he presently came upon Georgiana. She did not see him until he was close at hand, when she sprang up, scarce able to believe her eyes, and the colour deepening in her cheeks; and William forgetting all the lengthy explanations he had intended to make, darted towards her, impulsively exclaiming: "Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I came back--I could not help it--everything is all right--you will let me speak now--am I too late? Have I the least chance--any chance at all?" Georgiana unconsciously yielded her hand to his, but shrank back a little as she faltered: "But--but Kitty?" Breathless from haste, and full of anxiety as to his reception, William hardly knew whether he had been intelligible, but there was something in Georgiana's look which showed him, even while she hesitated, that he was understood--even more--welcomed. Her very question was an answer to him, and that he quickly disposed of it, and yet in a manner entirely satisfactory to her, could not be doubted, making thereby the glorious discovery that his cause was won, when he had been almost ready to despair of achieving anything in the short time at his command. It seemed at first impossible that it could be true, but the surprise of receiving a good fortune beyond one's deserts is one to which it is easy to grow accustomed. The fact of Kitty's engagement, once realized, could be put aside as something delightful to be thought over at leisure; but for the present moment there were only two people in the world, and those two could give themselves up, unchecked by any sense of guilt or responsibility, to the exquisite happiness of love acknowledged and returned. Perfect confidence might now exist between them; William might repeat, and far more eloquently, all that he had said in the picture gallery at Pemberley; and Georgiana might now venture to confess the feelings which in that interview had awakened to life. To her, indeed, it was easier to listen than to talk, for after her long self-repression, the relief, the wonderful change, were almost overwhelming; her heart had been too deeply stirred, and her habitual shyness was not soon to be overcome. But William's joy in the fruition of his hopes, so infinitely more complete than any he had dared to hope for, and his gratitude to herself, had to be put into words in his own frank and eager way, touched now with the earnest gravity befitting so great an occasion. It was one of those beautiful mornings which sometimes occur in the ungenial early months of the year, as a reminder that spring is actually on its way. By noon, the pale sunshine had some warmth, and the lovers paced to and fro, or sat in the sheltered corner which had seen their meeting, while a soft breeze rustled in the ivy and the murmuring of the stream could be heard just beyond the old wall. Georgiana lifted a face of delight to the blue sky, and watched the rooks busy in the elm trees near, while occasionally other sounds came to them, unnoticed at the time, but being woven into the picture which their memories would always hold of that hour, voices, gay with youth and spirits, of the college boys as they passed in and out of their gateway, and the slow sweet chimes from the tower of the Cathedral. Georgiana knew something of William's plans, but to learn that their parting must take place almost immediately was indeed a blow, until consoling reflections came, and they reminded each other of what a trial of faith and patience his departure in other circumstances would have meant. Of course, it would have made no real difference; neither would admit the possibility of its having caused any change in their feelings, but there was comfort in knowing that now theirs was an attachment which separations could only strengthen, and in the light of which misunderstandings could no longer exist. Both lamented William's being unable to see Mr. and Mrs. Darcy before he sailed, but Georgiana anticipated no opposition on their part, and this thought gave perhaps the crowning touch to a felicity so intense that she could hardly believe it to be hers. Captain and Mrs. Wentworth's warmth of kindness was to be expected, in view of their affection for both the young people. William stayed with them until four o'clock, which gave time for many plans to be made, and the more important letters to be written, and when at last he said his farewells he buoyed himself and Georgiana up with the promise that it should be no more than six months before he returned to claim her. When he had actually gone, she went to her room, feeling in need of solitude to compose her mind after a day of such wonders. It was impossible that she should not let fall a few tears at the thought of William's going every moment farther and farther from her when they had only just begun to realize the delight, the security of their new relation to each other, but they were not the bitter tears of hopelessness that she had so often shed in the last few months. Whatever the period of his absence, it would be long, and the lot of the one left behind, inactive, would be the hardest; but Georgiana was willing to wait in thankfulness and quiet trust for whatever the future might bring. That there might be anxieties and alarms, she knew, but the heart which had once and for all been given to William Price was strong in courage as in tenderness, and the remembrance of the vows they had exchanged had glorified her life. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy came to Winchester shortly afterwards, to take her home. Her news, while explaining many things, had been a considerable surprise to them, and Darcy deemed it necessary to make further inquiries about the young man, who, it appeared, now desired to be even more closely connected with his family than had at first been thought. Though regretting, for his sister's sake, the profession of the man she had chosen, he could not withhold his approval when she had convinced him how completely her happiness was bound up in the affair; and, indeed, he could hear nothing on any side but what was in Captain Price's favour, so while Lady Catherine, who had made a show of objection, was appeased by the substantial fortune and the relationship with the Bertrams, Darcy and Elizabeth found contentment in their knowledge of his character and position. All went as delightfully as Georgiana could have wished. Darcy, who had been inclined to regret Mr. Bertram's dismissal when he first heard of it, became so entirely reconciled to the idea of his cousin as a substitute, that Georgiana never heard a word of the dreaded scolding; and Captain Wentworth promised that all his own, and his brother-in-law, Admiral Croft's, interest should be used towards hastening William's promotion and shortening his absence, for he declared it would be impossible to do too much for a lady who, in spite of early prejudices, was venturing to trust so far in the fidelity of sailors as actually to be going to marry one of them. Georgiana had many questions to ask about Kitty's engagement, and from what Elizabeth told her of the particulars given by Jane, she was able to piece the story together for herself. Morland had sincerely tried to forget Kitty, but her return to Desborough, more bewitching than ever, had shown him how vain had been his efforts. And when the intimacy between the Rectory and the Park had been renewed under his sister's auspices, what wonder if Kitty's feelings towards him changed somewhat with the changed circumstances? If, touched by his continued devotion, and a little piqued by the want of appreciation in another quarter, she had allowed him to see that a second attempt would not be treated like the first? Georgiana rejoiced to think that Kitty had the power of consoling herself, and that she was at that moment adoring Mr. Morland as whole-heartedly as she had ever adored Mr. Price. The two girls exchanged letters of congratulations, but it was no longer possible to write with quite the same openness as of old, though Georgiana's good wishes lacked nothing of affectionate sincerity. Kitty declared herself too busy with the preparation of her wedding clothes to send a long letter, and perhaps also a small feeling of resentment lingered in her mind, and prompted the remark: "I thought you must have been in love with him all the time, though you would not admit it." She had, however, nothing to envy Georgiana, for had she not achieved the distinction of being the first of the three brides? The ceremony at the parish church near Longbourn was fixed for Midsummer, and was attended by a number of relatives and friends; while the Darcys soon after had the pleasure of witnessing the marriage of Mary Crawford and Colonel Fitzwilliam, which took place in London in the following month. The latter couple settled in town, but also possessed themselves of a small hunting lodge in Leicestershire, whence the road to Pemberley and back was frequently traversed, though it is to be hoped with less haste and agitation than by two persons who made the journey on a certain melancholy day in January. It was long before William learned the true history of his cousin's second visit to Pemberley, but Georgiana could afford to smile at the recollection of it, when, some three months after the announcement of her engagement, the families of Darcy and Bingley received the wedding cards of Mr. Thomas Bertram and Miss Isabella Thorpe. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends an New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

gates

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to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

told

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to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

captain

How many times the word 'captain' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

catching

How many times the word 'catching' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

razzias

How many times the word 'razzias' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

under

How many times the word 'under' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

taciturn

How many times the word 'taciturn' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

thirst

How many times the word 'thirst' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

sir

How many times the word 'sir' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

sentiment

How many times the word 'sentiment' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

door

How many times the word 'door' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

heart

How many times the word 'heart' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

suitable

How many times the word 'suitable' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

find

How many times the word 'find' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

knows

How many times the word 'knows' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

bowing

How many times the word 'bowing' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

help

How many times the word 'help' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

nobody

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to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

mitouflet

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to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

vienna

How many times the word 'vienna' appears in the text?

to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. "Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon as you can!" She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, she exclaimed: "Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a little!" Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the job. His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the veteran with a smile. "Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. "I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. "In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." "By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these crutches!" "And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him a Marshal." "Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. "Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from the roar of cannon." This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the _Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her brother-in-law. In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she made her marriage more certain. "Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's best ear. Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to her he would never be deaf. "He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an Adeline! Poor Adeline!" "If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for three years." "I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." "The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart." "Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I will drive to Neuilly if necessary." "How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had dreamed of. "My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, "pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. "Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his private room and following the messenger who led the way. "He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied the man, "for his face is set at stormy." Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at the door of the Prince's private study. The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings when they expressed strong feelings. Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. "Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease of manner. The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. "He knows everything!" said he to himself. "Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his deep, hollow tones. "It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering _razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." "You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." "But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" "When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see you dishonored." Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his cheeks; his eyes flamed. "Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went straight up to the Prince. "Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old friend! But we can do nothing." "Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. "Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know what your brother is?" "My brother?" asked the deaf man. "Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. "You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your baton as I throw mine! I am ready." The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: "Are you a man?" "You will see that I am." "Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst misfortune that can befall you." The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay uppermost:-- "To his Excellency the President of the Council. "_Private and Confidential_. "ALGIERS. "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as you will see by the accompanying documents. "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the papers sent to me. "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence the storekeeper in default? "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the difficulty for the moment. "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and myself--should happen to leak out." At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a glance, held it out to Hector:-- "FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to live. "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand francs. Good-bye. "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom I can trust, I believe. "JOHANN FISCHER." "I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg with pathetic pride. "Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. "How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. "Two hundred thousand francs." "My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged the public treasury of a single sou." "What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take care to be forgotten." The Minister rang. "Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" "Yes, monseigneur." "Show him in!" "You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." "Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le Baron." "What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off to Algiers." "But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening.--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." "Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your transfer within two hours. Go!" "I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. That would not satisfy me at all." And he left the room. "What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: "In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I shall die of it!" he said in his ear. "What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much moved. "I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" "He has his pension." "It is pledged!" "The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. "What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise details with which in French offices everything is written down at full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" "Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his sister-in-law. "Depend on me!" said the Minister. "Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his brother. The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the peculator--and he said to himself: "That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely essential in the battle-field. Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, the following paragraphs:-- "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic stroke in the War Minister's private room. "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon in 1815. "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, will be sentenced in default. "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director." "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals." Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: "The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. "Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) "You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military salute. Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of pistols. "What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. "He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make restitution! "I

somewhere

How many times the word 'somewhere' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

hear

How many times the word 'hear' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

resounded

How many times the word 'resounded' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

hand

How many times the word 'hand' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

purpose

How many times the word 'purpose' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

lad

How many times the word 'lad' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

mercy

How many times the word 'mercy' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

support

How many times the word 'support' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

handsome

How many times the word 'handsome' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

desire

How many times the word 'desire' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

now

How many times the word 'now' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

however

How many times the word 'however' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

gave

How many times the word 'gave' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

very

How many times the word 'very' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

expressed

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together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

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together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

mates

How many times the word 'mates' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

recovery

How many times the word 'recovery' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

inside

How many times the word 'inside' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

insolence

How many times the word 'insolence' appears in the text?

together--even for three minutes, I would, I sincerely considered, have come round. But I was to have performed this revolution on nothing less, as I now went on to explain to her. "Of course if you've got new evidence I shall be delighted to hear it; and of course I can't help wondering whether the possession of it and the desire to overwhelm me with it aren't, together, the one thing you've been nursing till now." Oh, how intensely she didn't like such a tone! If she hadn't looked so handsome I would say she made a wry face over it, though I didn't even yet see where her dislike would make her come out. Before she came out, in fact, she waited as if it were a question of dashing her head at a wall. Then, at last, she charged. "It's nonsense. I've nothing to tell you. I feel there's nothing in it and I've given it up." I almost gaped--by which I mean that I looked as if I did--for surprise. "You agree that it's not she----?" Then, as she again waited, "It's _you_ who've come round?" I insisted. "To your doubt of its being May? Yes--I've come round." "Ah, pardon me," I returned; "what I expressed this morning was, if I remember rightly, not at all a 'doubt,' but a positive, intimate conviction that was inconsistent with _any_ doubt. I was emphatic--purely and simply--that I didn't see it." She looked, however, as if she caught me in a weakness here. "Then why did you say to me that if you should reconsider----" "You should handsomely have it from me, and my grounds? Why, as I've just reminded you, as a form of courtesy to you--magnanimously to help you, as it were, to feel as comfortable as I conceived you naturally would desire to feel in your own conviction. Only for that. And now," I smiled, "I'm to understand from you that, in spite of that immense allowance, you _haven't_, all this while, felt comfortable?" She gave, on this, in a wonderful, beautiful way, a slow, simplifying headshake. "Mrs. Server isn't in it!" The only way then to take it from her was that her concession was a prelude to something still better; and when I had given her time to see this dawn upon me I had my eagerness and I jumped into the breathless. "You've made out then who _is_?" "Oh, I don't make out, you know," she laughed, "so much as you! _She_ isn't," she simply repeated. I looked at it, on my inspiration, quite ruefully--almost as if I now wished, after all, she were. "Ah, but, do you know? it really strikes me you make out marvels. You made out this morning quite what I couldn't. I hadn't put together anything so extraordinary as that--in the total absence of everything--it _should_ have been our friend." Mrs. Briss appeared, on her side, to take in the intention of this. "What do you mean by the total absence? When I made my mistake," she declared as if in the interest of her dignity, "I didn't think everything absent." "I see," I admitted. "I see," I thoughtfully repeated. "And do you, then, think everything now?" "I had my honest impression of the moment," she pursued as if she had not heard me. "There were appearances that, as it at the time struck me, fitted." "Precisely"--and I recalled for her the one she had made most of. "There was in especial the appearance that she was at a particular moment using Brissenden to show whom she was not using. You felt _then_," I ventured to observe, "the force of that." I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. This imminence of my assent, justified by my horror of her huge egotism, but justified by nothing else and precipitating everything, seemed as marked for these few seconds as if we each had our eyes on it. But I sat so tight that the danger passed, leaving my silence to do what it could for my manners. She proceeded meanwhile to add a very handsome account of her own. "You should do me the justice to recognise how little I need have spoken another word to you, and how little, also, this amiable explanation to you is in the interest of one's natural pride. It seems to me I've come to you here altogether in the interest of _yours_. You talk about humble pie, but I think that, upon my word--with all I've said to you--it's I who have had to eat it. The magnanimity you speak of," she continued with all her grandeur--"I really don't see, either, whose it is but mine. I don't see what account of anything I'm in any way obliged to give." I granted it quickly and without reserve. "You're not obliged to give any--you're quite right: you do it only because you're such a large, splendid creature. I quite feel that, beside you"--I did, at least, treat myself to the amusement of saying--"I move in a tiny circle. Still, I won't have it"--I could also, again, keep it up--"that our occasion has nothing for you but the taste of abasement. You gulp your mouthful down, but hasn't it been served on gold plate? You've had a magnificent day--a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" And I wound up on a complete recovery of my good-humour. "No, no. I thank you--thank you immensely. But I don't pity you. You can afford to lose." I wanted her perplexity--the proper sharp dose of it--to result both from her knowing and her not knowing sufficiently what I meant; and when I in fact saw how perplexed she could be and how little, again, she could enjoy it, I felt anew my private wonder at her having cared and dared to meet me. Where _was_ enjoyment, for her, where the insolence of success, if the breath of irony could chill them? Why, since she was bold, should she be susceptible, and how, since she was susceptible, could she be bold? I scarce know what, at this moment, determined the divination; but everything, the distinct and the dim alike, had cleared up the next instant at the touch of the real truth. The certitude of the source of my present opportunity had rolled over me before we exchanged another word. The source was simply Gilbert Long, and she was there because he had directed it. This connection hooked itself, like a sudden picture and with a click that fairly resounded through our empty rooms, into the array of the other connections, to the immense enrichment, as it was easy to feel, of the occasion, and to the immense confirmation of the very idea that, in the course of the evening, I had come near dismissing from my mind as too fantastic even for the rest of the company it should enjoy there. What I now was sure of flashed back, at any rate, every syllable of sense I could have desired into the suggestion I had, after the music, caught from the juxtaposition of these two. Thus solidified, this conviction, it spread and spread to a distance greater than I could just then traverse under Mrs. Briss's eyes, but which, exactly for that reason perhaps, quickened my pride in the kingdom of thought I had won. I was really not to have felt more, in the whole business, than I felt at this moment that by my own right hand I had gained the kingdom. Long and she were together, and I was alone thus in face of them, but there was none the less not a single flower of the garden that my woven wreath should lack. I must have looked queer to my friend as I grinned to myself over this vow; but my relish of the way I was keeping things together made me perhaps for the instant unduly rash. I cautioned myself, however, fortunately, before it could leave her--scared a little, all the same, even with Long behind her--an advantage to take, and, in infinitely less time than I have needed to tell it, I had achieved my flight into luminous ether and, alighting gracefully on my feet, reported myself at my post. I had in other words taken in both the full prodigy of the _entente_ between Mrs. Server's lover and poor Briss's wife, and the finer strength it gave the last-named as the representative of their interest. I may add too that I had even taken time fairly not to decide which of these two branches of my vision--that of the terms of their intercourse, or that of their need of it--was likely to prove, in delectable retrospect, the more exquisite. All this, I admit, was a good deal to have come and gone while my privilege trembled, in its very essence, in the scale. Mrs. Briss had but a back to turn, and everything was over. She had, in strictness, already uttered what saved her honour, and her revenge on impertinence might easily be her withdrawing with one of her sweeps. I couldn't certainly in that case hurry after her without spilling my cards. As my accumulations of lucidity, however, were now such as to defy all leakage, I promptly recognised the facilities involved in a superficial sacrifice; and with one more glance at the beautiful fact that she knew the strength of Long's hand, I again went steadily and straight. She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her. I knew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh. "I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully. It _is_ awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you. Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill. You defended your cause. Oh," I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad. Only--what shall I say?--_you_ weren't bad, and one had to fight. And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment. "It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that." After which I had my illumination. "I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!" She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me. "To 'work'?" I immediately explained. "Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted. There we are then," I cheerfully went on. "Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match. I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted. "Who, then, _has_?" She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank. "Who then has what?" "Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog. "You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand. "Done what we spent the morning wondering at. Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs. Server, _is_ the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?" I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me. It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone. "I'm afraid I know nothing." I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance. "But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake. You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it." She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst. "Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake." "That's all then I invite you--_a_ mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you. I'm not accusing you of having made fifty. You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him." She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her. But she saw the next moment a better way. It all came back to her, but from so very far off. "The change, do you mean, in poor Mr. Long?" "Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's." "Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that. My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else. It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change. I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance." "I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it _with_ you. Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need. It will give us, if we retrace the steps of it, everything, everything!" Mrs. Briss considered. "I don't quite see, do I? why, at this hour of the night, we should begin to retrace steps." "Simply because it's the hour of the night you've happened, in your generosity and your discretion, to choose. I'm struck, I confess," I declared with a still sharper conviction, "with the wonderful charm of it for our purpose." "And, pray, what do you call with such solemnity," she inquired, "our purpose?" I had fairly recovered at last--so far from being solemn--an appropriate gaiety. "I can only, with positiveness, answer for mine! That has remained all day the same--to get at the truth: not, that is, to relax my grasp of that tip of the tail of it which you so helped me this morning to fasten to. If you've ceased to _care_ to help me," I pursued, "that's a difference indeed. But why," I candidly, pleadingly asked, "_should_ you cease to care?" It was more and more of a comfort to feel her imprisoned in her inability really to explain her being there. To show herself as she was explained it only so far as she could express that; which was just the freedom she could least take. "What on earth is between us, anyhow," I insisted, "but our confounded interest? That's only quickened, for me, don't you see? by the charming way you've come round; and I don't see how it can logically be anything less than quickened for yourself. We're like the messengers and heralds in the tale of Cinderella, and I protest, I assure you, against any sacrifice of our d no ment. We've still the glass shoe to fit." I took pleasure at the moment in my metaphor; but this was not the case, I soon enough perceived, with my companion. "How can I tell, please," she demanded, "what you consider you're talking about?" I smiled; it was so quite the question Ford Obert, in the smoking-room, had begun by putting me. I hadn't to take time to remind myself how I had dealt with _him_. "And you knew," I sighed, "so beautifully, you glowed over it so, this morning!" She continued to give me, in every way, her disconnection from this morning, so that I had only to proceed: "You've not availed yourself of this occasion to pretend to me that poor Mr. Long, as you call him, is, after all, the same limited person----" "That he always was, and that you, yesterday, so suddenly discovered him to have ceased to be?"--for with this she had waked up. But she was still thinking how she could turn it. "You see too much." "Oh, I know I do--ever so much too much. And much as I see, I express only half of it--so you may judge!" I laughed. "But what will you have? I see what I see, and this morning, for a good bit, you did me the honour to do the same. I returned, also, the compliment, didn't I? by seeing something of what _you_ saw. We put it, the whole thing, together, and we shook the bottle hard. I'm to take from you, after this," I wound up, "that what it contains is a perfectly colourless fluid?" I paused for a reply, but it was not to come so happily as from Obert. "You talk too much!" said Mrs. Briss. I met it with amazement. "Why, whom have I told?" I looked at her so hard with it that her colour began to rise, which made me promptly feel that she wouldn't press that point. "I mean you're carried away--you're abused by a fine fancy: so that, with your art of putting things, one doesn't know where one is--nor, if you'll allow me to say so, do I quite think _you_ always do. Of course I don't deny you're awfully clever. But you build up," she brought out with a regret so indulgent and a reluctance so marked that she for some seconds fairly held the blow--"you build up houses of cards." I had been impatient to learn what, and, frankly, I was disappointed. This broke from me, after an instant, doubtless, with a bitterness not to be mistaken. "Long _isn't_ what he seems?" "Seems to whom?" she asked sturdily. "Well, call it--for simplicity--to _me_. For you see"--and I spoke as to show _what_ it was to see--"it all stands or falls by that." The explanation presently appeared a little to have softened her. If it all stood or fell only by _that_, it stood or fell by something that, for her comfort, might be not so unsuccessfully disposed of. She exhaled, with the swell of her fine person, a comparative blandness--seemed to play with the idea of a smile. She had, in short, her own explanation. "The trouble with you is that you over-estimate the penetration of others. How can it approach your own?" "Well, yours had for a while, I should say, distinct moments of keeping up with it. Nothing is more possible," I went on, "than that I do talk too much; but I've done so--about the question in dispute between us--only to _you_. I haven't, as I conceived we were absolutely not to do, mentioned it to anyone else, nor given anyone a glimpse of our difference. If you've not understood yourself as pledged to the same reserve, and have consequently," I went on, "appealed to the light of other wisdom, it shows at least that, in spite of my intellectual pace, you must more or less have followed me. What am I _not_, in fine, to think of your intelligence," I asked, "if, deciding for a resort to headquarters, you've put the question to Long himself?" "The question?" She was straight out to sea again. "Of the identity of the lady." She slowly, at this, headed about. "To Long himself?" XIII I had felt I could risk such directness only by making it extravagant--by suggesting it as barely imaginable that she could so have played our game; and during the instant for which I had now pulled her up I could judge I had been right. It was an instant that settled everything, for I saw her, with intensity, with gallantry too, surprised but not really embarrassed, recognise that of course she must simply lie. I had been justified by making it so possible for her to lie. "It would have been a short cut," I said, "and even more strikingly perhaps--to do it justice--a bold deed. But it would have been, in strictness, a departure--wouldn't it?--from our so distinguished little compact. Yet while I look at you," I went on, "I wonder. Bold deeds are, after all, quite in your line; and I'm not sure I don't rather want not to have missed so much possible comedy. 'I have it for you from Mr. Long himself that, every appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, his stupidity is unimpaired'--isn't that, for the beauty of it, after all, what you've veraciously to give me?" We stood face to face a moment, and I laughed out. "The beauty of it would be great!" I had given her time; I had seen her safely to shore. It was quite what I had meant to do, but she now took still better advantage than I had expected of her opportunity. She not only scrambled up the bank, she recovered breath and turned round. "Do you imagine he would have told me?" It was magnificent, but I felt she was still to better it should I give her a new chance. "Who the lady really is? Well, hardly; and that's why, as you so acutely see, the question of your having risked such a step has occurred to me only as a jest. Fancy indeed"--I piled it up--"your saying to him: 'We're all noticing that you're so much less of an idiot than you used to be, and we've different views of the miracle'!" I had been going on, but I was checked without a word from her. Her look alone did it, for, though it was a look that partly spoiled her lie, it--by that very fact--sufficed to my confidence. "I've not spoken to a creature." It was beautifully said, but I felt again the abysses that the mere saying of it covered, and the sense of these wonderful things was not a little, no doubt, in my immediate cheer. "Ah, then, we're all right!" I could have rubbed my hands over it. "I mean, however," I quickly added, "only as far as that. I don't at all feel comfortable about your new theory itself, which puts me so wretchedly in the wrong." "Rather!" said Mrs. Briss almost gaily. "Wretchedly indeed in the wrong!" "Yet only--equally of course," I returned after a brief brooding, "if I come within a conceivability of accepting it. Are you conscious that, in default of Long's own word--equivocal as that word would be--you press it upon me without the least other guarantee?" "And pray," she asked, "what guarantee had _you_?" "For the theory with which we started? Why, our recognised fact. The change in the man. You may say," I pursued, "that I was the first to speak for him; but being the first didn't, in your view, constitute a weakness when it came to your speaking yourself for Mrs. Server. By which I mean," I added, "speaking against her." She remembered, but not for my benefit. "Well, you then asked me _my_ warrant. And as regards Mr. Long and your speaking against _him_----" "Do you describe what I say as 'against' him?" I immediately broke in. It took her but an instant. "Surely--to have made him out horrid." I could only want to fix it. "'Horrid'----?" "Why, having such secrets." She was roundly ready now. "Sacrificing poor May." "But _you_, dear lady, sacrificed poor May! It didn't strike you as horrid _then_." "Well, that was only," she maintained, "because you talked me over." I let her see the full process of my taking--or not taking--this in. "And who is it then that--if, as you say, you've spoken to no one--has, as I may call it, talked you under?" She completed, on the spot, her statement of a moment before. "Not a creature has spoken to me." I felt somehow the wish to make her say it in as many ways as possible--I seemed so to enjoy her saying it. This helped me to make my tone approve and encourage. "You've communicated so little with anyone!" I didn't even make it a question. It was scarce yet, however, quite good enough. "So little? I've not communicated the least mite." "Precisely. But don't think me impertinent for having for a moment wondered. What I should say to you if you had, you know, would be that you just accused me." "Accused you?" "Of talking too much." It came back to her dim. "Are we accusing each other?" Her tone seemed suddenly to put us nearer together than we had ever been at all. "Dear no," I laughed--"not each other; only with each other's help, a few of our good friends." "A few?" She handsomely demurred. "But one or two at the best." "Or at the worst!"--I continued to laugh. "And not even those, it after all appears, very much!" She didn't like my laughter, but she was now grandly indulgent. "Well, I accuse no one." I was silent a little; then I concurred. "It's doubtless your best line; and I really quite feel, at all events, that when you mentioned a while since that I talk too much you only meant too much to _you_." "Yes--I wasn't imputing to you the same direct appeal. I didn't suppose," she explained, "that--to match your own supposition of _me_--you had resorted to May herself." "You didn't suppose I had asked her?" The point was positively that she didn't; yet it made us look at each other almost as hard as if she did. "No, of course you couldn't have supposed anything so cruel--all the more that, as you knew, I had not admitted the possibility." She accepted my assent; but, oddly enough, with a sudden qualification that showed her as still sharply disposed to make use of any loose scrap of her embarrassed acuteness. "Of course, at the same time, you yourself saw that your not admitting the possibility would have taken the edge from your cruelty. It's not the innocent," she suggestively remarked, "that we fear to frighten." "Oh," I returned, "I fear, mostly, I think, to frighten _any_ one. I'm not particularly brave. I haven't, at all events, in spite of my certitude, interrogated Mrs. Server, and I give you my word of honour that I've not had any denial from her to prop up my doubt. It still stands on its own feet, and it was its own battle that, when I came here at your summons, it was prepared to fight. Let me accordingly remind you," I pursued, "in connection with that, of the one sense in which you were, as you a moment ago said, talked over by me. I persuaded you apparently that Long's metamorphosis was not the work of Lady John. I persuaded you of nothing else." She looked down a little, as if again at a trap. "You persuaded me that it was the work of somebody." Then she held up her head. "It came to the same thing." If I had credit then for my trap it at least might serve. "The same thing as what?" "Why, as claiming that it _was_ she." "Poor May--'claiming'? When I insisted it wasn't!" Mrs. Brissenden flushed. "You didn't insist it wasn't anybody!" "Why should I when I didn't believe so? I've left you in no doubt," I indulgently smiled, "of my beliefs. It was somebody--and it still is." She looked about at the top of the room. "The mistake's now yours." I watched her an instant. "Can you tell me then what one does to recover from such mistakes?" "One thinks a little." "Ah, the more I've thought the deeper I've sunk! And that seemed to me the case with you this morning," I added, "the more _you_ thought." "Well, then," she frankly declared, "I must have stopped thinking!" It was a phenomenon, I sufficiently showed, that thought only could meet. "Could you tell me then at what point?" She had to think even to do that. "At what point?" "What in particular determined, I mean, your arrest? You surely didn't--launched as you were--stop short all of yourself." She fronted me, after all, still so bravely that I believed her for an instant not to be, on this article, without an answer she could produce. The unexpected therefore broke for me when she fairly produced none. "I confess I don't make out," she simply said, "while you seem so little pleased that I agree with you." I threw back, in despair, both head and hands. "But, you poor, dear thing, you don't in the _least_ agree with me! You flatly contradict

also

How many times the word 'also' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

abruptly

How many times the word 'abruptly' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

grown

How many times the word 'grown' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

beside

How many times the word 'beside' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

lies

How many times the word 'lies' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

this

How many times the word 'this' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

live

How many times the word 'live' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

great

How many times the word 'great' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

mine

How many times the word 'mine' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

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took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

table

How many times the word 'table' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

stronger

How many times the word 'stronger' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

prose

How many times the word 'prose' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

pay

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took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

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took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

whole

How many times the word 'whole' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

however

How many times the word 'however' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

ate

How many times the word 'ate' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

taste

How many times the word 'taste' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

group

How many times the word 'group' appears in the text?

took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de Mauves required he should bequeath her husband no reason to suppose he had, as it were, taken a low hint; but now that he had deferred to that scruple he found himself thinking more and more ardently of his friend. It was a poor expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on the forsaken boulevard, but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising himself to take the next train. A dozen trains started, however, and he was still in Paris. This inward ache was more than he had bargained for, and as he looked at the shop-windows he wondered if it represented a "passion." He had never been fond of the word and had grown up with much mistrust of what it stood for. He had hoped that when he should fall "really" in love he should do it with an excellent conscience, with plenty of confidence and joy, doubtless, but no strange soreness, no pangs nor regrets. Here was a sentiment concocted of pity and anger as well as of admiration, and bristling with scruples and doubts and fears. He had come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others, but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling was so interesting a figure as the lonely lady of Saint-Germain? His restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Summer had fairly begun and the drive beside the lake was empty, but there were various loungers on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an appetite, and he went into the establishment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as he admired the smart little tables disposed in the open air, how much better (than anywhere else) they ordered this matter in France. "Will monsieur dine in the garden or in the salon?" the waiter blandly asked. Longmore chose the garden and, observing that a great cluster of June roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners was served him on the whitest of linen and in the most shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table was near a window and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady seated just within the window, which was open, face to face apparently with a companion who was concealed by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent with good manners. After a while he even began to wonder who she was and finally to suspect that she was one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners to look at as often as you like. Our young man too, if he had been so disposed, would have been the more free to give her all his attention that her own was fixed upon the person facing her. She was what the French call a belle brune, and though Longmore, who had rather a conservative taste in such matters, was but half-charmed by her bold outlines and even braver complexion, he couldn't help admiring her expression of basking contentment. She was evidently very happy, and her happiness gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad idle smile and interrupting him fitfully, while she crunched her bonbons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad, which appeared to have the effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she doubtless would have called betises. They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her. As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his companion. That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the essence of his longing he would have said that he wished her to remember that in a world coloured grey to her vision by the sense of her mistake there was one vividly honest man. She might certainly have remembered it, however, without his coming back to remind her; and it is not to be denied that as he waited for the morrow he longed immensely for the sound of her voice. He waited the next day till his usual hour of calling--the late afternoon; but he learned at the door that the mistress of the house was not at home. The servant offered the information that she was walking a little way in the forest. Longmore went through the garden and out of the small door into the lane, and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared she stopped a moment, as if to turn aside; then recognising him she slowly advanced and had presently taken the hand he held out. "Nothing has happened," she said with her beautiful eyes on him. "You're not ill?" "Nothing except that when I got to Paris I found how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." She neither smiled nor looked flattered; it seemed indeed to Longmore that she took his reappearance with no pleasure. But he was uncertain, for he immediately noted that in his absence the whole character of her face had changed. It showed him something momentous had happened. It was no longer self-contained melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and agitation which had lately struggled with the passionate love of peace ruling her before all things else, and forced her to know that deep experience is never peaceful. She was pale and had evidently been shedding tears. He felt his heart beat hard--he seemed now to touch her secret. She continued to look at him with a clouded brow, as if his return had surrounded her with complications too great to be disguised by a colourless welcome. For some moments, as he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke; then abruptly, "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, "why you've come back." He inclined himself to her, almost pulling up again, with an air that startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. "Because I've learned the real answer to the question I asked you the other day. You're not happy--you're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be happy, you know, when you're as little so as I make you out. I don't care for anything so long as I only feel helpless and sore about you. I found during those dreary days in Paris that the thing in life I most care for is this daily privilege of seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I admire you; it's an insult to you to treat you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. But such a friendship as I waked up to there"--and he tossed his head toward the distant city--"is a potent force, I assure you. When forces are stupidly stifled they explode. However," he went on, "if you had told me every trouble in your heart it would have mattered little; I couldn't say more than I--that if that in life from which you've hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." She had begun to make marks in the earth with the point of her parasol, but she stopped and listened to him in perfect immobility--immobility save for the appearance by the time he had stopped speaking of a flush in her guarded clearness. Such as it was it told Longmore she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the happiest moment of his life. She raised her eyes at last, and they uttered a plea for non-insistence that unspeakably touched him. "Thank you--thank you!" she said calmly enough; but the next moment her own emotion baffled this pretence, a convulsion shook her for ten seconds and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid of her; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and a stronger will than his own; but her half-dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her heart and convinced him she was weak enough to be grateful. "Excuse me," she said; "I'm too nervous to listen to you. I believe I could have dealt with an enemy to-day, but I can't bear up under a friend." "You're killing yourself with stoicism--that's what is the matter with you!" he cried. "Listen to a friend for his own sake if not for yours. I've never presumed to offer you an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." She looked about her as under the constraint of this appeal, but it promised him a reluctant attention. Noting, however, by the wayside the fallen log on which they had rested a few evenings before, she went and sat down on it with a resigned grace while the young man, silent before her and watching her, took from her the mute assurance that if she was charitable now he must at least be very wise. "Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he said as he sat down beside her, "which gave me an intense impression of your loneliness. You're truth itself, and there's no truth about you. You believe in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world in which they're daily belied. I ask myself with vain rage how you ever came into such a world, and why the perversity of fate never let me know you before." She waited a little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. I believe I once supposed all the prose to be in America, which was very foolish. What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, when I was an ignorant girl fatally addicted to falling in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin to tell you now. Sometimes when I remember certain impulses, certain illusions of those days they take away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of view hasn't led me into troubles greater than any I've now to lament. I had a conviction which you'd probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and it lies behind me now, far off, a vague deceptive form melting in the light of experience. It has faded, but it hasn't vanished. Some feelings, I'm sure, die only with ourselves; some illusions are as much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion--that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. Life is all of a piece then and there's no shame in being miserably human. As for my loneliness, it doesn't greatly matter; it is the fault in part of my obstinacy. There have been times when I've been frantically distressed and, to tell you the truth, wretchedly homesick, because my maid--a jewel of a maid--lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister--living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." She had begun to speak slowly, with reserve and effort; but she went on quickly and as if talk were at last a relief. "My marriage introduced me to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance. At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise." "A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your whole life." "It's the life of many people," she made prompt answer--"of most people of quiet tastes, and it's certainly better than acute distress. One's at a loss theoretically to defend compromises; but if I found a poor creature who had managed to arrive at one I should think myself not urgently called to expose its weak side." But she had no sooner uttered these words than she laughed all amicably, as if to mitigate their too personal application. "Heaven forbid one should do that unless one has something better to offer," Longmore returned. "And yet I'm haunted by the dream of a life in which you should have found no compromises, for they're a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness and rectitude. As I see it you should have found happiness serene, profound, complete; a femme de chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day; a society possibly rather provincial, but--in spite of your poor opinion of mankind--a good deal of solid virtue; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added after a moment--"a husband of your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who would have loved you well." She rose to her feet, shaking her head. "You're very kind to go to the expense of such dazzling visions for me. Visions are vain things; we must make the best of the reality we happen to be in for." "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality YOU 'happen to be in for' has, if I'm not in error, very recently taken a shape that keenly tests your philosophy." She seemed on the point of replying that his sympathy was too zealous; but a couple of impatient tears in his eyes proved it founded on a devotion of which she mightn't make light. "Ah philosophy?" she echoed. "I HAVE none. Thank heaven," she cried with vehemence, "I have none! I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I've nothing on earth but a conscience--it's a good time to tell you so--nothing but a dogged obstinate clinging conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you one yourself for which you can say as much? I don't speak in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience may prevent me from doing anything very base it will effectually prevent me also from doing anything very fine." "I'm delighted to hear it," her friend returned with high emphasis--"that proves we're made for each other. It's very certain I too shall never cut a great romantic figure. And yet I've fancied that in my case the unaccommodating organ we speak of might be blinded and gagged a while, in a really good cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with the same appealing irony, "is it absolutely beyond being 'squared'?" But she made no concession to his tone. "Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered gravely; "that's the only blasphemy I know." She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment he heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path which crossed their own at a short distance from where they stood. "It's M. de Mauves," she said at once; with which she moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she knew without seeing, had overtaken her by the time her husband came into view. A solitary walk in the forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant cigar and had thrust his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat with the air of a man thinking at his ease. He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and her companion, and his surprise had for Longmore even the pitch of impertinence. He glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed the young man's own look sharply a single instant and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. "I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de Mauves, "that I might congratulate you on the return of monsieur." "You should at once have known it," she immediately answered, "if I had expected such a pleasure." She had turned very pale, and Longmore felt this to be a first meeting after some commotion. "My return was unexpected to myself," he said to her husband. "I came back last night." M. de Mauves seemed to express such satisfaction as could consort with a limited interest. "It's needless for me to make you welcome. Madame de Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with another bow he continued his walk. She pursued her homeward course with her friend, neither of them pretending much not to consent to appear silent. The Count's few moments with them had both chilled Longmore and angered him, casting a shadow across a prospect which had somehow, just before, begun to open and almost to brighten. He watched his companion narrowly as they went, and wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her husband's presence had checked her disposition to talk, though nothing betrayed she had recognised his making a point at her expense. Yet if matters were none the less plainly at a crisis between them he could but wonder vainly what it was on her part that prevented some practical protest or some rupture. What did she suspect?--how much did she know? To what was she resigned?--how much had she forgiven? How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or with suspicion, that intense consideration she had just now all but assured him she entertained? "She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of the heart, "and with her to love once is to commit herself for ever. Her clever husband thinks her too prim. What would a stupid poet call it?" He relapsed with aching impotence into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed their signifying that where ambition was so vain the next best thing to it was the very ardour of hopelessness. She found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion too Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as her sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large assured attack that fairly intimidated him. He was doubtless not as reassured as he ought to have been at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his want of resource during their last interview, and a suspicion of her being prepared to approach him on another line completed his distress. "So you've returned from Brussels by way of the forest?" she archly asked. "I've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way--by the train." Madame Clairin was infinitely struck. "I've never known a person at all to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." "That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, vexed at his lack of superior form and determined not to be abashed. "Ah what have I to do with it?" Madame Clairin brightly wailed. "I'm the dullest thing here. They've not had, other gentlemen, your success with my sister-in-law." "It would have been very easy to have it. Madame de Mauves is kindness itself." She swung open her great fan. "To her own countrymen!" Longmore remained silent; he hated the tone of this conversation. The speaker looked at him a little and then took in their hostess, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving up another epigram, which the charming creature received with a droop of the head and eyes that strayed through the window. "Don't pretend to tell me," Madame Clairin suddenly exhaled, "that you're not in love with that pretty woman." "Allons donc!" cried Longmore in the most inspired French he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute and took a hasty farewell. VI He allowed several days to pass without going back; it was of a sublime suitability to appear to regard his friend's frankness during their last interview as a general invitation. The sacrifice cost him a great effort, for hopeless passions are exactly not the most patient; and he had moreover a constant fear that if, as he believed, deep within the circle round which he could only hover, the hour of supreme explanations had come, the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, and the something divine in this lady's composition would sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and the essence of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she liked; but he felt as if he should turn away into a world out of which most of the joy had departed if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in his interest in her than might be repaid by mere current social coin. When at last he went back he found to his vexation that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's officious hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, through the open windows, was flooded with such a confusion of odours and bird-notes as might warrant the hope that Madame de Mauves would renew with him for an hour or two the exploration of the forest. Her sister-in-law, however, whose hair was not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. At the same moment the servant returned with his mistress's regrets; she begged to be excused, she was indisposed and unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew just how disappointed he looked and just what Madame Clairin thought of it, and this consciousness determined in him an attitude of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently what she desired. She wished to throw him off his balance and, if she was not mistaken, knew exactly how. "Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, "and be polite for once. You were not at all polite the other day when I asked you that friendly question about the state of your heart." "I HAVE no heart--to talk about," he returned with as little grace. "As well say you've none at all. I advise you to cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it. That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask idle questions. For a couple of months now that you've been coming and going among us it seems to me you've had very few to answer of any sort." "I've certainly been very well treated," he still dryly allowed. His companion waited ever so little to bring out: "Have you never felt disposed to ask any?" Her look, her tone, were so charged with insidious meanings as to make him feel that even to understand her would savour of dishonest complicity. "What is it you have to tell me?" he cried with a flushed frown. Her own colour rose at the question. It's rather hard, when you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as something worse than a vulgar gossip. "I might tell you, monsieur," she returned, "that you've as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you lived--what are your ideas? A stupid one of my own--possibly!--has been to call your attention to a fact that it takes some delicacy to touch upon. You've noticed, I suppose, that my sister-in-law isn't the happiest woman in the world." "Oh!"--Longmore made short work of it. She seemed to measure his intelligence a little uncertainly. "You've formed, I suppose," she nevertheless continued, "your conception of the grounds of her discontent?" "It hasn't required much forming. The grounds--or at least a specimen or two of them--have simply stared me in the face." Madame Clairin considered a moment with her eyes on him. "Yes--ces choses-la se voient. My brother, in a single word, has the deplorable habit of falling in love with other women. I don't

know

How many times the word 'know' appears in the text?